This 'being willing to go to any lengths'
Is super misunderstood
It's not
- Take what your sponsor says
- Water it down
- Remove the bits you don't like
- Alter some other bits so they're more to your liking
- Perform the tasks perfunctionarily
- Take your own sweet time
- Blame circumstances
- Then, when someone calls you out, say 'Whaaaaaat?!?'
It's rather
- Take what your sponsor says
- Do it now
- Do it to the absolute best of your ability
- Schedule your life around your programme ...
- ... not the other way round
- Deploy all of your resourcefulness
- All of your ingenuity
- Every bit of spare energy ... and some
Practically, it means:
- Get up early
- Do the stepwork straight away
- Report in with your sponsor straight away
- Engage promptly and fully in recovery-related communications
- Read and respond to the text now ... not later ... not tomorrow
- Go to meetings every spare moment ... dial in and listen in when exercising, cooking, pottering, etc. as well as sitting down with the screen on and participating fully at least once a day
- Listen to AA (or other A) tapes when you're not at a meeting
- Take notes
- Learn prayers off by heart
- And say them a lot, especially when upset or distraught
- Read a load of recovery and spiritual literature for fun
- Take every single problem and apply the programme to it
- Just trust what's on offer
- If it doesn't work, you've lost some effort: big deal
- (Although it won't not work if you do it sincerely)
- If you really disagree with your sponsor, get one you do agree with
- Don't resist, defend, justify, attack, argue, wheedle, or whine
- Tell the truth now: it's quicker
- Be amongst the most active people in recovery that you know
- Sit at the front of the bus not the back
- Want to be on the inside and know all the tricks and secrets
- Be enthusiastic
- If you can't be enthusiastic: act, speak, and think enthusiastic
- Internalise what is instructed and apply it to everything in your life