The Place Called "I Know"

Patty A. shares her spiritual journey of recovery.

There is a place beyond “I Believe.” It is a place called “I Know.”

You can get to “I Believe” through the experience of others. You go to meetings, for coffee, to church basements. You listen to stories, you identify, you trust and so you believe.

But that place beyond “I Believe”, that place called “I Know”, can only come from within. It is a result of your own experience, of living on the edge, on the threshold. It is a place where you can taste your own death.

“I Know” is the “inside job” that I kept hearing about. “I know” is beyond sobriety. It is a place where you are finally attached, at the hip, at the head, at the heart, to God. It is a place of quiet, a place of peace, a place of comfort, a place of safety. But now, instead of having the covers over your head, you feel all of this in the light of day with everything whirling around you.

I know –
•That there is NOTHING that I cannot handle today, as long as I stay connected with God. I have faced my greatest fear; I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and I am here to say that you can survive it.
•I know that there is nothing worth drinking over.
•I know that there is nothing that a drink cannot make worse.
•I know that if you hold onto this program and to your Higher Power, you can pass over the threshold into the place of peace.
•I know that what doesn’t kill you WILL make you stronger.
•I know that my priorities are, in this order: my connection with God, my sobriety, and my relationships with those around me.
•I know that people are not gods, or even demigods. They are human and they will fail you.
•I know that God will never fail you. Even in the times of greatest pain, He is holding you and loving you. What you feel is Him carefully chiseling down the walls that are keeping you from Him.
•I know that God will not “render you white as snow unless you fully cooperate with Him.”
•I know that it is unhealthy for me to judge myself by what I perceive others think of me.
•I know that if I lay my head on my pillow tonight without alcohol in my body, it’s been a pretty good day.
•I know that I know longer “need to know.” Knowledge will not save me, trust in God will.

I wonder if there is a place beyond “I Know”? Is it the place called “I Am”?