Moving from Personal Ambition to True Ambition with the Twelve Steps

While I was still only thinking of myself, I could fool myself that I was in recovery

Years before I finally got sober from all addictions, an old man in another Twelve Step fellowship gave me a painted rock. He made them for many people in the group. They all had a quote from the literature on them. Mine was from Page 125 of the Alcoholics Anonymous book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: "True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God.” 

At the time, I had no idea why he chose this message for me. I had been studying for a long time. I didn't think I had big career ambitions. I was able to put on a good show of recovery (and even fool myself) as I was no longer binge-eating, attended regular meetings, was active in service and the other things I saw the other sober members doing. But I was still using exercise to control my weight. I had not surrendered my eating, let alone turned my will and my life over to the care of God.

The secret side of me that I usually hid from everyone were my grandiose fantasies. In a weak moment, I once told a friend that I wanted to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (at the time I was mainly writing self-centred diary entries). 

Eventually I finished studying and got an entry-level job. I worked hard but regularly cried in meetings with my boss because I couldn't cope with things not going how I thought they should or people not liking me. 

Compulsive exercise led to the collapse of my physical and mental health

After less than two years of working, my physical and mental health collapsed and I could not work at all for several months. Eventually, I surrendered and finally became honest with myself, God and another person about my obsessive exercising and the problem was removed through practicing the Twelve Steps. I was free. I stopped going to any lengths to exercise and no longer felt anxious if I hadn’t exercised for a day or a week or a month. 

At first I didn’t think I would be able to return to my career, but I was working for a kind woman who allowed me to return very part-time and gradually build up my hours. The first two years of sobriety were very difficult as I still had the obsession and very dark thinking, which I had a lot of time on my hands to listen to. I was still full of inferiority and even refused a small promotion because I was scared to increase the expectations on me. But with God’s help, I began to lose my fear and became a useful member of the team. 

Surrender, either voluntary or through pain, is the path to becoming useful to others

As with most areas of recovery, becoming right-sized in terms of ambition is gradually, almost imperceptibly getting better. Sometimes my surrenders are voluntary and occur when I get down on my knees and ask for help with a particular thing. The involuntary surrenders come when something is so painful I fall to my knees and ask God to take it away. As with any change, it takes a while for my thinking to catch up.

A couple of years ago I was going through a painful period of worry and uncertainty about my work. One day I knelt down beside the dishwasher and asked God to use me and my abilities for the very best. An answer came, “You already are.” I knew that voice was referring to service, where I am able to put my talents to the best use, because it’s not about me. When I can bring this spirit into my work, letting go of the results, I experience the same peace and joy. This still doesn’t happen often, but it’s getting better.

As to my secret ambition to be a writer, that’s getting better too. When I was six years old, my teacher Mrs Higgins would let me sit on the bench along the outside of the schoolroom in the sun and write stories. I would write for what seemed like hours, completely contented. She used to type up my stories, bind them into little books using old wallpaper as the cover, then I drew the pictures. Now I can sometimes enjoy sitting in the sun, just like that little girl, writing stories with no thought as to the outcome. 

Recently an opportunity came up to apply for a role that would have looked great on my CV and would have paid substantially more. I thought I had a good chance, and the person recruiting for the role encouraged me to apply. I decided not to for a range of reasons, and most of them weren't about me. I thought about the common welfare and the impact on my current workplace, my boss, my family and my recovery. It's humbling to admit that I probably wouldn't have got the job anyway as some very experienced people applied. The thing that matters to me is that I can see my attitudes shifting, attitudes that have chained me to self-centredness.  True ambition is not what I thought it was. Through surrender I am learning to serve others rather than myself.