A Good Look

I had been sober for just over two weeks. It was the Thursday Step meeting at my home group, and the topic was Step Ten. Patrice, a woman who had been sober for many years, shared that Step Ten was one of her favorite Steps because the principle of the Step—personal responsibility for one’s actions—was one that could be put into practice at any time in a person’s journey of sobriety. We don’t need to be sober for a certain number of years, or even to have completed the first nine Steps, in order to be accountable for our thoughts, choices, words and behavior. That can start on the very first day of our sobriety. Hearing that in my 16th continuous day without a drink, I decided to give it a try. When I asked my sponsor about it, he said, “It couldn’t hurt.”