An old timer used to use a word I had never heard of before he said it. He used to say that AA was ephemeral. He never defined the word, but what he used to say was that it was not lasting. Actually the word means “lasting a day”. We’re told we have but a daily reprieve and the program teaches us to live a day at a time. But, the way he used it was to try to illustrate his experience.
This man was a world traveler. His problem was the world he traveled to. He worked for the USDA (Dept. of Agriculture) and his work was to go to remote places and advise third world countries on how to replace poppies with other crops. There was no AA where he went. He’d be gone weeks at a time. He said, when he did get back to meetings, it was like his first meeting all over again. He had forgotten the language of AA. And, AA does have a language.
What he was trying to say to us was that AA fades very quickly. If we choose to separate ourselves from the program, we can lose it in a very short time. We need to keep it fresh in our minds or we can become alienated very quickly.
I was thinking about this word this past week. I don’t know why, but I thought I would go to the dictionary and look it up. I guess I was thinking about this old timer and what he had said. It’s something to think about.
I was also reminded of him, because of a story related to me by an old friend. She wrote and told me about a meeting she attended the other night down in DC. The story was about one of the countries this man used to travel to, Afghanistan. She said the meeting was on the third step. She a man spoke, who said he was in that country once before and was going back there that very night. He was in Special Forces. He told how on his last trip over there that he was attached to a squad of ten men. One night he and another soldier in his force made arrangements to meet on top of a mountain to talk about this very step. He said when he got to the spot these two were joined by two others, one of whom was the head of his unit. And there they sat talking about the third step. Imagine. I’m sure the old timer would have liked to have had the same opportunity.
AA is ephemeral. We need to stay in touch.