Listening to one man talk today, I came home and opened the BB and went to the back of the book. What I was thinking about was the word “association”. In other words the effect of the fellowship on its members. How profound an effect this association with others like ourselves has on each and everyone of us. How almost every meeting has an unconscious spiritual awakening I think in most of us.
This man, who has become a close acquaintance over the year he has been in the program, told how he recently awoke one morning and all thought of alcohol and any desire to drink had left him. He talked about working the 12 Steps and listening and learning from others, attending meetings and the change he had experienced, as a result.
Later he and I talked and came to the conclusion that this is what a spiritual awakening is all about. That complete change in ourselves and the restoration to sanity, as far as the drink is concerned. The position of neutrality, the absence of thinking about a drink.
I remember my sponsor talking about this one day. He told me of the many men and women he had known, who were openly rebellious one day and then the next day found that upon awakening they had surrendered completely and changed in their personalities. That was my own experience and have come to know it to be true in others. I remember one remarkable example. A man, who had come to AA and was openly belligerent about the program and used all kinds of explicatives in his speech, one day showed up and had become kind and gentle and open. It startled everyone in the room, who had known him. He was that way for the rest of his life. A good and helpful sober friend to all of us.
While reading the back of the BB, I read the opinion of several physicians and was struck by one comment by a psychiatrist. He said that even among those, who had returned to his hospital for treatment, “we observe a profound change in personality. You would hardly recognize them.” Kind of an echo of Dr. Silkworth in the Doctor’s Opinion, when he talked about the man, whom he had once treated. He said he knew his case history, but didn’t recognize the man sitting in front of him. He had changed that much. It was that story that gave me so much hope in the beginning, that I too could change.
Isn’t that funny. We were talking about change today and the pain it causes so many of us and our resistance to it. Yet there I was in the beginning, looking forward to change. Maybe because I knew if I didn’t change I was condemned to an alcoholic death.
When I finished renewing my acquaintance to the Appendix II, I was reminded of a couple of warnings in this process. Intolerance and belligerent denial can defeat us and that we need willingness, honesty, and an open mind. These, we are told, are the essentials of recovery. They are indispensable.
Anway, like I said, it takes everything the program has to offer to bring about a spiritual awakening. But how easy it is made for us by our association with others in this program.