Two men showed up today for their first meeting. We often get people coming back, but new people? That’s often an infrequent moment for our group.
What struck me today was that the meeting was actually packed with alcoholics. Most of whom I didn’t know. But it was a meeting of alcoholics, who were willing to tell how it was with them, what happened, what it’s like now for them. A reminder for me what it was like, when I first came in.
I don’t know how this meeting affected them, but it took me back. I know that for me it was a message of hope. Those alcoholic men and women back then did the same for me as was done today. They told their stories and I definitely listened. I knew what they were saying, though I knew nothing about the program, was true. When they described their drinking experiences I knew it was true. Many of them sounded just like me. I identified.
But it was when they told what got them in here and how they had changed, that I got hope. Hope that I could be just like them. Sober and living a sober life. I wanted that desperately. They had the power not to drink and I was ready for that.
Sitting where I was today, I could not see those men. And while the meeting was going on, I wondered, if they had hit a bottom like I had. Despair and desperation. Knowing, even at that time, when I did not know what the 1st Step was, that I was completely powerless over alcohol. I had surrendered before I entered the doors. That my life was unmanageable? No one asked me that, but if they had I would have had to say absolutely.
Who is going to do what needs to be done unless they know, consciously or unconsciously, that if they don’t they’re going to die. That’s what the 1st Step in the 12&12 talks about. I knew it back then, because that was part of what got me in here. I had almost killed myself because I knew I couldn’t go on. I wanted to end it. My life. That’s what alcohol had done to me.
I didn’t get a chance to say anything today, but, if I had I would have talked about how deadly alcohol is for the alcoholic. Exactly what the Steps says in that book of ours. And it was that that made me want what was in here. We either want it or we don’t. Which is it? And, if we don’t, there’s always the barroom next door to us.
I’ve never forgotten what was read to me that first night. An old timer reading the Jan. 6 page out of the 24 Hour a Day book. That my decision to stop drinking was the most important decision I had ever made. Could I ever afford to forget it, even for a minute? And, I really never have.
I can only hope one of them might grab on to what we have in here. The answer. The solution. Maybe both of them. I’m powerless. I may never see them again, but who knows? Like I said, I can only hope that they will find what we all found.