Every once in a while, it’s a real treat to talk to a suffering alcoholic. Not from drinking, but from the difficulties we all go through from time to time, as we walk this path on the road in sobriety.
I’m not making light of this. I’m only thinking that it is a wonderful thing to have someone else take me back to where I once was myself. As this person described what they were going through, I knew exactly what they were suffering from.
I think that is one of the gifts this program gives all of us. The potential to identify with one another. The actual experience of what is called the “We” of this program. Together, I am told, we can do for one another what no one else can. Only one alcoholic talking to another, so that together we can stay sober.
I was reminded, as we talked, of another alcoholic I had a conversation with many years ago. A man, who was 12th stepped by Bill W. in an institution for the criminally insane. That occasion freed the man from his confinement. Anyway, he was telling me of his vision of AA. He said it was like a big school with only one classroom. That in that room were all the members. Some were in kindergarten and others as far along as college. Everyone in the room was helping one another to progress along. Some takers and some givers. There was no graduating from this school. Only just progressing. Everyone staying sober together. Everyone a part of the We.
Anyway, as we talked this memory came back. I hadn’t thought of it in a while, but I was grateful for that moment with this big, gruff, and rough old timer. He was a great help to me in my getting sober and staying sober. He often gave me insights, not only how this program works, but into myself. His unorthodox methods of 12th Stepping were legendary in the area in which we lived. He was called Big Danny by all who knew him.
I was thinking of both these people tonight and of my experience today and the memory of experiences so long ago. I am grateful to both for what I have been given