Today, well, maybe everyday, I think about why I go to meetings. For that matter, why anyone goes to meetings.
The benefit I get for myself is that meetings help me to stay sober. Or they should help me. But, like the BB said, we are people, who ordinarily would not get together. Then what is it that gets us together? Alcohol.
The realization on the part of an alcoholic like myself is that I simply cannot stay sober by myself. I came here originally, because I wanted to stop drinking. I came here and found the solution to my problem with alcohol. I was told that the solution was spiritual and that if I would do what the people who went before me did, I could get sober and stay sober. And I did and I have stayed sober.
Part of that solution was in the meetings, where I was introduced to the 12 Steps. They had meetings on those very Steps. One by one. Over and over the Steps were explained from reading the BB and from the experiences of those, who had practiced these Steps and put them into their lives. Alcoholics like myself could listen to their experience, strength, and hope. Moreover, we could witness the results in their lives. Men and women, who had found a solution.
But one thing that I found was apparent and became more and more clear, as time went on, that we, I mean me, were not cured. That no matter how long I stayed sober, my alcoholism was still with me. Even though I had lost the desire and the thought of a drink, that the possibility still remained that I very well could go back to drinking alcoholically again. That my sobriety was dependent on my remaining faithful to the practice of the AA principles, the 12 Steps, and the 12 Traditions. That I had but a daily reprieve from my alcoholism, and it was dependent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition.
That’s exactly why I go to meetings. To be reminded of what it is that keeps me sober. I also go to get reminded of what happens to people, who forget to practice this program on a daily basis. How? I get to hear about and see people, who have lost touch and gone back out and drank again.
If the meetings are not about alcohol, why go there? If they are not about the solution, how can anyone benefit? If they are not about how this program works, what are they about?
That’s why the 12 Traditions are in place for drunks like myself. They are a prescription to how this program should work for all of us. They tell an alcoholic, like myself, what it is I should be doing in the meetings. The 1st Tradition tells me that this is a We program. That it’s not about me, but Us. That I have to have the humility to put my agendas aside for the good of the whole. It’s about singleness of purpose. Why We are here. And it proposes that if AA was not here, what would happen to a drunk like myself, who depends on these meetings.
Then, in the 5th Tradition it tells us, me, what the group is supposed to do. The subject of meetings is to be about the alcoholic, who still suffers. Not just the newcomer, but the long time sober alcoholic, who for whatever reason has forgotten what this program is about. It’s not about his “problems” or “issues”, it’s about staying sober and the solution to our problem with alcohol.
The name Alcoholics Anonymous tells me that this is a program for alcoholics. It’s about alcohol. That’s exactly why I come here. If I find that I have problems I need to solve, other than alcoholism, there are places and people I can contact outside of this program. That’s exactly what the BB tells me. Priests, ministers, rabbis, and a host of others, including therapists, counselors, physicians, psychiatrists, attorneys, accountants, marriage counselors, and more. There are also other books available to me about a host of subjects and “issues”, if I care to seek them out, as the BB recommends I do.