One of the great things about going to meetings is that I can be reminded of so many things I seem to forget. One of them is to be reminded of what’s wrong with me. My alcoholism.
Since I’ve come to this program, I have been literally free of thinking about a drink. So amazing to not have to do what was holding me captive for so many years. That obsessive thought about a drink. It used to plague me twenty-four hours a day. And then, after that first prayer, in which I surrendered, I woke up the next day and it was gone.
However, the one thing I need to be reminded of is that I’m still not bulletproof. I’m still and alcoholic and the drink is just an arms length away. What the BB tells me, that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. I need to remember this as long as I live.
I need to hear that alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful. That I still am powerless over alcohol. I have but a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition.
Not going to meetings is going to deprive me of this reminder. No one I know outside of this program has ever said, “Ned, you’re an alcoholic. Don’t ever forget that.”
I’ll take that back. That happened many years ago, when my boss and a woman, who worked for me, both non alcoholics, stepped up to me and warned me point blank that I was playing with fire and to remember I was an alcoholic. But, never before and never since.
There I was in a meeting today and I heard the message I needed to hear. It also reminded me that a spiritual experience doesn’t necessarily appear as one. It can be so commonplace that it comes as a reminder.
To say the least, I am grateful for these meetings I attend. Grateful to my higher power and the people, who carry the message to an alcoholic like myself.