This morning I was thinking about a man in this program, who is quite the professional. He is often quiet and reserved. Never talks much. Not very open.
I know what he does and it is a job which involves him in some very public things. I can understand his attitude in public. But that’s his job out there. Not in here.
It made me think about what I was told, when I came in. Leave your brain and your affairs at the door. Come in and listen and learn. Took me a while to learn to separate myself from the affairs of the world and to adjust myself to what goes on in the world of getting sober and staying sober.
In here I was to learn what it meant to share my experience, strength, and hope. The solution to my disease of alcoholism. To listen to others, who were doing the same. This was done in the context of the Twelve Steps, the BB, and the 12&12. Just as important I was to hear why the Twelve Traditions were so important to, not only the group, but AA as a whole.
I learned that my life “out there” had no place “in here”. But that what I learned in here I was to take out there. And what I was to bring out there was going to change my life and how I lived it out there. I also learned that what I had learned out there had no value in here. But all my problems out there would eventually be solved by what I was learning in here.
As I have progressed in growing along spiritual lines, I have come to learn the truth of all of this. Gradually I began to experience what life was all about. Something I had no idea of before I came here. I was to learn to stop making mountains out of molehills. To end the life of conflict I had grown so accustomed to in my active alcoholism. To begin to live life on a mature and adult level for the first time. To begin to learn how to control my emotions and not allow my feelings to run my life.
All this took time. But it has been worth it. I value this life I have today. When I go in the rooms I know that I have a safe haven to learn again and again what it is like to live in peace and serenity. I can take what I learn and apply it to my life out there. To me it means what it is to be sober and live a sober life.
I am so grateful to my sponsor and those old timers, who, without hesitation, spoke so plainly and directly to me, when they told me to leave my brains at the door and everything else I had lived and learned out there. They showed me how to live and stay sober.