The group today at the meeting was focused on a man “coming back”. One man said that maybe the man wasn’t coming back, because he had never really been there before. He said he had been around AA, but never in AA. Another pointed out that “frothy emotional appeal” rarely worked to penetrate the alcoholic’s consciousness. That was the Doctor’s Opinion in the BB.
I thought about this when I got home and wondered about this man. I know what it took for me to surrender and come into the program. It took a hard bottom. A lot of physical, mental, and emotional pain. Maybe even spiritual pain to force me to let go of the drink and get sober. To get me willing to follow directions and give up my old way of thinking and to change.
I was sitting here thinking about this, when I picked up the 12&12. I glanced through it and stopped, when I read something from the 2nd Step, which caught my attention. It talked about the alcoholic’s wanting something for nothing.
What Bill W. was talking about was our need for a higher power. God. The spiritual solution to our being powerless over alcohol. The only answer I’ve come to know, as the BB and my sponsor and all those old timers presented to me.
He talked about emotionalism. God seems to have failed the alcoholic, asking for help. His pleas seem to go unnoticed and he drinks again. Bill says it’s not the quantity of the alcoholic’s faith, but the quality. He says that he only thinks he has humility, when he really doesn’t. The alcoholic has a blind spot. That he says is because he hasn’t truly cleaned house or worked the rest of the Steps.
I’m reminded once again about what my sponsor said to me. That in just attending meetings nothing is going to rub off. Going to meetings is not the answer. It is only part of the answer. That’s where the help is. It takes a willingness and an open mind to begin the necessary change. We need the 12 Steps in our lives, if we are going to get sober and stay sober.
One old timer told the man today that, if he went back out again and died, he would be sorry, but that he, the old timer, was still going to be sober. Which reminded me of what I heard from a friend last night. He said he had just attended a funeral of a man, who, while he was drunk, had broken into a home. He was shot to death by the owner. It also brought to mind many of the alcoholics I have known, who died, as the result of their drinking. That’s where I was headed, when I came in.
I knew that there was nothing I could say, which could help turn this man’s mind around. Only what Bill was talking about in that passage in the 2nd Step could do that. Though we may come to meetings with a desire to stop drinking, this is not a disease where desire alone will save us. Something for nothing is not possible.