I received an email from a friend of mine, who is going through tough times. He’s in hard financial straits and feels like things are going to hell in a handbasket. How well I remember how it was with me early on in the program…and maybe even later. I thought the same way.
There’s nothing more threatening to our sobriety than discouragement, as a result of negtative projection, especially when we’re fairly new to the program. I remember how frustating it was for me and how much it deafened my ears to what my sponsor and others were trying to say to me. If I didn’t hear people who agreed with the way I was thinking then I got angry and turned them off.
I guess that’s because what they were saying didn’t make much sense to me at the time. I would tell them what I was thinking and they would respond by encouraging me to go to meetings, to pray, to talk to another alcoholic, and don’t drink. What kind of an answer was that? I wanted them to talk to me and tell me what a tough time I was having and to tell me a practical way out or to say there was no hope for me. What I couldn’t see was that wasn’t what AA was about.
I remember that I was drowing in debt, I had horrible fears of the IRS, I had troubles at home with my wife and kids, I had trouble at work, with high anxiety about my bosses and fellow workers. I recall one of the executives meeting me in the lobby one morning and calling me to one side. He scared me to death with what he said. He said he knew that I had stopped drinking a week or so before and he wanted me to know how relieved the whole staff was that I had done that. He said that for a long time the whole outfit was scared to death of me, as to what I might do. He said they were afraid I might some day blow the building up. High praise indeed. That sure didn’t relieve me at all. I felt my job was in more jeapordy than before. Just another nail in my projected coffin.
One thing came through loud and clear. That was my acceptance in this program from my fellow alcoholics. They always welcomed me with open arms and listened to me despite my anxieties and my fears…even my anger and resentments. They kept telling me to come back and to keep coming back. How many bartenders and drunks had kept telling me to go away and never come back. I seemed to be the proverbial leper wherever I went, except in this program, where every alcoholic was welcomed regardless of what was wrong with them. And when I told them what that executive had said to me that morning, instead of consoling me and telling me what a terrible tragedy that was, they went in complete hysterics and laughed and laughed until I got laughing myself.
I came through those hard times and early days and even years and didn’t drink. I eventually learned how to hang in and not quit. I learned to depend on prayer and how to talk to another alcoholic almost everyday. And then the solution came to me. The solution to all my problems. It wasn’t that others weren’t interested in my paticular problems, but they had a better way, which was the answer to all my problems. They began to help me to work these steps into my life and that made all the difference.
Whenever I need a yardstick to give me an idea of where I am in this program, all I need to do is to look back at where I came from and where I am today. I can see how those early days were turned around and it makes me wonder why I was so fearful and worried about those particular things. They seem like nothing today, but then they seemed to be so overwhelming. I achieved freedom from all that stuff and found a happiness I can’t describe. Now, that makes me grateful.