“The next question they asked was, ‘You can quit twenty-four hours, can’t you?’ I said, ‘Sure, yes, anybody can do that, for twenty-four hours.’ They said, ‘That’s what we’re talking about. Just twenty-four hours at a time.’ That sure did take a load off of my mind. Every time I’d start thinking about drinking, I would think of the long, dry years ahead without having a drink; but this idea of twenty-four hours, that it was up to me from then on, was a lot of help.” (Page 188, Big Book)
Day 1 (and maybe a few days or weeks after that) is usually characterised by onslaught. Thoughts return constantly to the addiction (or adjacent activities, locations, situations, mementos, reminders).
My job is to take the day an hour at a time: more than that is too much.
I ask God for something else to do during that hour.
I will require patience, resilience, and willpower, so I ask for them to the extent that they are lacking.
God takes my small patience, resilience, and willpower and uses them as the mortar of the wall He erects to block the addiction-related thoughts from converting into action.
I can stay stopped, but God won’t keep me safe without my full cooperation.
If I’m not committed, I will slip through the stones of the defensive wall.
If I slip, it’s because I’m not committed; there is a problem with the ingredients in the mortar, and I have to go back to the original decision, because that’s where the defect lies.