Isn’t it funny, when you think about how we all got here? What’s funny about it is, when you listen at meetings, as people describe their first moments in making a decision to stop drinking. They sound so similar.
I used to think that I had rather a unique ending to my drinking. Especially how desperate I was in those closing moments. The prayer I threw up to God at that moment, willing to do anything to be freed from the bondage of alcohol. Then one day I stopped and listened to what others were saying. It was the same prayer coming out of their mouths. It made me laugh. How could I have been so self centered? We’re all the same. Of course we are, what made me think otherwise?
I was thinking about this today, because I need, we need, to remember those last moments of our drinking careers. Those moments are one of the most important in our lives. Why? Because it was a life saving moment. A life changing moment. In truth, it was our first spiritual awakening.
No matter how horrible the circumstances might have been, it was in actuality one of the most wonderful. It led us into a wholly new life, where we were offered the chance to experience a way of living far outside our knowledge of life as we knew it before. A life in the spirit, which would put us on the path of hope, faith, and a love far beyond anything we could imagine. A way to true freedom, not just from alcohol itself, but from the constraints of the past.
I can’t ever afford to forget that. The risk of forgetting could very well forecast the next drink in my life. And for me that means a certain alcoholic death. It would mean for me that I could well be on the path to losing consciousness of the meaning of the First Step and what powerlessness over alcohol is all about. But, before that, I would slip away from my dependency on a Higher Power. I would probably lose the concept of identifying with others like myself. In short order, I would most likely let gratitude slip away. Finally, I would step back into the insanity of alcoholic thinking…and then drinking.
I was thinking of how grateful I am for meetings and the people in them, who keep reminding me of what I sometimes so carelessly forget. Not just in the meeting proper, but afterward, when I receive the priviledge of talking and listening to others, just like myself. I need to thank the God of my understanding and the members for being there and doing for me what I often can’t do for myself.