We have to give it away in order to keep it. What a paradox. We come into this program and struggle at the beginning to get what others have. They have sobriety and a happy and contented way of living without having to pick up a drink to get it. Finally, when we begin to get what we desire, that way of life we saw in others, they tell us to begin to give it away. How crazy that must sound to others unfamiliar with this way of life.
I came out of the meeting today and ran into two people, who came over to me, one at a time, and practically demanded that I give it to them. I’m always baffled when people do this, but I listened and then talked to them. I don’t know if they heard me or even absorbed anything. I do know that I did. I heard what they were saying and I heard what I said to them. I know that I was getting the message of AA just by trying to give it to them.
A long time ago my sponsor told me that if I tried to keep what I had gained in here to myself that my life would wither up and die within. He told me that sobriety was like a stream running through a meadow. The water stays fresh, as long as it is flowing. But dam it up, stop the flow, and the water turns into a stagnant pond covered with algae and it turns rancid over time.
Sobriety is a gift to me, freely given by those who went before me. It’s really not mine. It’s ours. When I talk about “my program”, it’s a falsehood. I don’t have a program. We have a program. It’s my ego, which wants to claim it as my own. It’s a program of sharing with one another. A give and take, which goes on and on from one generation of alcoholics to another. If we withhold this precious gift from one another AA will dry up and die.
Anyway, I love this way of life and I have learned from so many wiser than myself what it is that I must do, if I want it to continue. After all this time, it still amazes me how this “giving away” fills me up. Many years ago, I was told to go on a twelfth step call and I resisted. A friend of mine came over to pick me up and I told them I didn’t want to go. I remember the look on their face and they told me in no uncertain terms to get in the car. I did. When we got there I started to argue and was told to get out of the car. I did. It was only when we entered the apartment and I saw the person that everything changed. And the two of us gave it away again.
I often can forget what it is that gives so much energy to this program. What it is that gives life to us and others. It’s the love of this program and others. One alcoholic to another. The “man on the bed”. It’s gratitude in action. It’s the culmination of the spiritual awakening. It’s really, I believe, our conscience contact with God.
Anyway, this is what I was thinking today.