Sandy B. presents an interesting proposition. It’s about a man in recovery, who doesn’t like some of the Steps and so avoids doing them. He tells himself that by doing them they will cut out some of the “fun” things he likes to do. What he says is that, when he is near the end of his life, that’s when he will do them.
I remember when he said that. Today at the meeting that thought and that story came back. That was because of something someone said about an old timer bringing up the subject of the solution. He said that the old timer needed to stay silent and let the new people, hardly sober, bring up any topic they wanted to. I guess he was saying that no new person needed to pay attention to something like a solution to their problem with alcohol.
I thought back to when I was new. I was told that I needed to listen to the solution. I was told that I knew how to drink, but I had no idea how to stay sober. So listening and learning how to stay sober was to be top on my priority list. In the 12&12, when Bill was talking about the 6th Step, he tells us that to delay could be fatal.
He tells us that not doing the 5th Step could very well get us drunk again. Why would we not want to listen to what will save our very lives?
Going back to what Sandy B. said, I thought about a book by the author Graham Greene. It told the story of a young man, who had been raised in a way of life, which required Confession. This young man was a criminal and had killed as part of his “profession”. He always told himself, that, if he was near death that he would make a perfect act of contrition and that would absolve him of all he had done. He almost does get killed and remembers after he recovers that the thought of a perfect act of contrition didn’t even occur to him. So he once again resolves that he would do it, if he ever again faced death. In the end of the book he is killed. The question is, did he or didn’t he?
I know for me that I desperately need the solution, if I want to stay sober. Those old timers and my sponsor knew what they were doing. They showed me how to get sober. They showed me the BB and the directions how to do this. I am so grateful that they had the courage to tell me what I needed to do. There was no pussy footing around with them. Like they said, when I was new, I needed to keep my mouth shut. I had nothing to offer them. But they had a whole new way of life to offer me. Life itself. Sobriety and beyond.
Anyway, this is what I was thinking, as I sit here and meditate on the solution.