In the Book of Genesis, Joseph is in Egypt and has been placed in charge of the coming famine. The Pharaoh tells the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”

When I was in treatment (a century ago), I can still remember the counselor tell the group – and me in particular – “get a sponsor and do what he tells you.” Baloney. Anyone can stay sober. Why do you need a sponsor? I don’t particularly like being told what to do. Now, I don’t have an authority problem. Ahem!

When I told the director I wanted to go to treatment, he phoned the Adult Unit and then told me to go down the street and admit myself. I went home and showed up at the treatment center some four hours later.

I can look back at a history of being told what to do and then either doing the opposite or “doing it my way.”  Throughout high school, the rules I kept were those that showed me in a good light. All others I bent or broke – and for some reason, perhaps because of my charm or arrogance or both – I got away with it. And that was long before I took a drink of alcohol or any mood-altering drug.

The arrival of alcohol in my system only solidified my knowledge that I did not need to be told what to do by anyone. Like the child learning to ride the bicycle, I insisted, “I can do it myself.”

I did it my way and spent five weeks in a four-week treatment program. Anyone else might have been asked to leave, but I was also an employee of the hospital that owned the treatment program.

After treatment I was assigned to an Aftercare program in which I thrived on telling the counselor just how good a job I was doing in the program. I was working the steps (my way); I was going to more meetings than anyone in the group – just so I could look good. And yes, I had not one but two sponsors. Well, sort of. You see, there were these two guys who took me under their wing and kept me on the straight and narrow till I finished that year in Aftercare.

I did what they told me to do. I read the Big Book and memorized lines I could then quote at a meeting. I went to meetings two and three times a day and talked so that others could learn from me. Oh yes, I was brilliant!! I did what I was told to do but for all the wrong reasons.

After almost five years of a dry drunk, I had my spiritual awakening. The threat of the possibility of losing everything due to bankruptcy clarified one thing for me – I had something that could not be taken away from me – sobriety. At least I thought I was sober. At any rate, at this point I did not want to go back to drinking. I has smoked in order to fit in; I drank in order to fit-in. God only knows what else I did in order to ‘fit in” But I belonged in A.A. I did not fully understand that, but I belonged there. I didn’t fit in. I belonged.

Talk to God, to your Higher Power, and do what He (She) tells you to do. Do the next right thing.  Something had changed in me. I was listening for the first time in my life. I learned to live the program and not just work the steps. Rigorous honesty brought me face to face with myself, my character defects, all of me, warts and all, and I learned to love who I am.

Without being consciously aware of it initially, I was learning to do what I was told to do. The program works if you work (live) it. And that work/life involves doing what the winners told me to do. They told me what to do by word and example, and more often than not, it was their example that spoke the loudest to me. I listened to what I saw and what I saw was what I wanted in life – sobriety, peace of mind, happiness, freedom from fear, freedom from regret, shame and guilt. These were people who were at peace with themselves, at one (atone) because of Amends making, and that was what I wanted.

“Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”  “Joseph” was, for me, those who took me under their wing; those who told me what to do by word and example; my Greater Power/God, and for all of them I am grateful.

Séamus D.

Greater New Orleans, LA