The only thing constant in life is change and the most difficult thing in life for an alcoholic /addict is change. How do we reconcile these two diametrically opposed truths? As with all of life’s paradoxes the answer lies in the Big Book.

My first sponsor would always talk about how what he once thought to be a bad thing often turned out to be a good thing. He would share in his story about how he had fallen off the roof of a four story building in Boston. He was in a drunken stupor, passed out and when he awoke he saw blue lights and thought the police were chasing him. He ran off the roof. He woke up in Boston City Hospital paralyzed and having the D.T.’s. He thought that this was a very bad thing. But it was there that he met Mary, a woman working in the hospital who was in the program. She made a habit of leaving cigarettes and the AA pamphlet “Is AA For You?” at the bedside of  homeless alcoholics. This was the beginning of a new and rewarding life for Tommy, a skid row bum. This was a real good thing.

Later in his sobriety he was devastated by a job loss. At the time it seemed like the worst thing that had happened in his sobriety. This job loss led to a life long period of self employment that allowed him to be independent and free to work with people in the program. Blessings from God.

How often do job losses, illness, the ending of relationships and other losses seem like the worst thing that ever happened? In the moment fear makes this seem so. We never know what God has in store for us. Our alcoholic/addict minds project the worst. As Mark Twain said, “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which have actually happened.”

When we accept the fact that God is our source and that all things happen according to His plan we can begin to reconcile the changes in our lives with our tendency to abhor change.

The Big Book tells us; “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place or thing or situation–some fact of my life–unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Until  I could accept my alcoholism I could not stay sober; unless I accept completely, on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I  need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.”

So we find that the best way to deal with the inevitability of change and our aversion to it is to change ourselves. The new paradox becomes that in order to deal with change we have to change. We do this by working with others, working the twelve steps, and improving our conscious contact with our higher power.