The good times and the bad times. We’ve all had them and we’ve all got them. What do we do with them? We simply go back and apply the principles of this program to our lives and stick with our primary purpose. That’s our job and that’s what we do through the good times as well as the bad times.
I remember reading about the record of the men in the program, who had to go off to World War II. Bill wrote of them that they did as well or better than the one’s who stayed home. That always impressed me. Imagine. Being without personal contact with people in the program and not being able to go to meetings. No phone calls. Being in harms way and still staying sober and depending on their Higher Power and able to come back and go to meetings again.
I had a great sponsor, who always passed along to me a message, which kept me on track. He always passed along Bill W’s. question, when I would get embroiled with “issues”. A group of men went to Bill W. one day and asked why some of the old timers weren’t going to meetings anymore. Bill simply asked them, “What’s your concern?” My sponsor asked me the same thing many times. “What’s your concern?” What was my concern? The same as it always was; the work the program and to stay sober one day at a time.
I never knew this kind of stuff, when I was still “out there”. I was always embroiled in something or another. Never minding my own business and getting caught up in fear and anger. Always resentful and full of self pity. Selfish and self centered to the max. Always burned to a crisp and going to get even. Until I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired and sought and found another way of life. This way of life. Free of alcohol and on the beam. Happy to be finally able to mind my own business and to know what my business really was. Being able to live in the present and not the past or the future. Understanding what it meant to live a day at a time and no more. Having a faith and a dependence on a God of my understanding. Being able to stop and think of others and to help them if I could and if not to send up a prayer on their behalf. Being able to leave others in the hands of their Maker and to keep my hands off of them.
This is true freedom. This is what carries all of us through the good times and the bad. John Milton once wrote “They also serve, who only stand and wait.” Good advice, when I’m prompted to give advice. Doesn’t mean I won’t, but still something to think about.a
Just something on my mind.
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