The word response means to answer. The word responsibility means to have the ability to answer. Now, why would I be thinking of that today?
That thought takes me back a long way. It brings back a memory of my early days in this program. I remember we were at a meeting in my old home group. The room was packed. We used to sit at tables, arranged in an oblong fashion running from one end ot the room to the other, with chairs along the walls in back of those sitting at the tables. The leader and the old timers sat at one end and the newer members at the other end. I was seated at the other end facing the leader.
The reason I was thinking about this was that when I came in I knew everything. I had an answer for everything. I considered myself as an intelligent person capable of talking on any subject. After all, I was well educated and knew a lot about a lot of things. Just give me a subject and I would talk about it. Anyway on the night in question we were talking about the steps. I can’t remember which one, it doesn’t matter. I was called upon and began to speak about the step in question. I was going along and beginning to warm up as I spoke. Then it happened. A voice from down at the end of the room interuppted me.
“Hey you! Have you worked the steps?” I can remember how startled I was. He stopped me. I had no answer to this because I didn’t think I needed to have worked the steps to talk about them. After all, I knew everything. And if I knew everything, what need was there for me to have read or even studied the steps, let alone work them? “Well, if you haven’t,” the man went on, “then shut up. Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth. You know how to drink, but you don’t know how to stay sober. Maybe if you keep quiet and open your ears you might learn something from those who do.”
I can remember how angry I got. I could feel the blood rushing to my head. I was hot and wanted to either leave or go down and smack the man. I was humiliated and embarrassed in front of this crowd. But then something happened. Something came into my mind at that moment that kept me in the seat and allowed me to sit quietly in spite of how I felt. It was a thought. I don’t know where it came from, but I know it changed my life. The thought was something like this:
this is good for you, accept it.
I realize now how irresponsible I had been. It’s one thing to know something and another to assume that I knew something. I had been shooting from the hip all my life. I had an answer for everything, especially when I was drinking.
Now I was sober for the first time and someone told me what I had needed to hear all along. I didn’t know everything. If I wanted to know, I was going to have to learn. I was going to have to study the subjects to talk about them. I was going to have to put them into practice. I was going to have to learn to listen. Wow! Now that was new for me.
What I needed was humility. I lacked that and had to be humiliated to learn that. My pride and arrogance had blocked me for so many years that it took a shot like that; a slap in the face to get my attention. As time went on I was to realize that the man who had spoken up had given me a gift. I have never forgotten it.
Anyway, I was thinking about this today and thinking about gratitutde for those old timers, who took responsibility for helping a drunk like me to get sober.