Friday was one of those days, when the least expected happens. What I mean is that all afternoon and into the evening I was able to talk to a lot of people in the program. Nothing I had planned. It just happened. Totally unexpected.
Again it was one of those days where it was a two way street. They might have thought I had something to offer them, but I’m not sure I did. I listened and responded, sometimes sharing my stuff back to them, giving them the opportunity to return the “favor”. Whatever. It reminded me of those moments I have from time to time, where I have to wonder. Who me? Why would someone think I have anything to offer?
I say that because I have been in the program long enough to have realized that the longer I’m sober the less I seem to know. I often have this feeling that I still have so much to learn. Perhaps that’s a good thing for me. It keeps me from ever feeling superior. May not be apparent to others, but it sure is to me.
One of the things I do know is the reason I say a two way street. It’s because I never know if I have ever helped anyone. Never clear to me anyway. But in the end I feel I’m the one, who is being helped. I end up grateful for all that I have been given. It’s the opportunity I have been exposed to. A chance to practice what I have learned in here to help another alcoholic.
I have never forgotten what I learned from my first sponsor. He was one, who always took me out on Twelfth Step calls so frequently, just thinking about it almost makes my head spin. And the one day he sent me on one of these calls on my own for the first time, it really stunned me. He told me to take a man, who had less time than I had. I didn’t have all that time myself. Maybe a year and I still didn’t really know what the message was. But I did and after an hour the man we called on kicked us out of his hospital room.
When I went back to my sponsor, I asked him why he had done this. After all nothing seemed to have come from that call. He said to me that what he wanted to happen to me was this. He said that what he hoped for was that I would win the argument with me. Never forgot that because I believe, when he said that, that is exactly what happened. My mind was more open.
Maybe that still happens and I’m just not aware of it. Whatever it is, I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given in this way of life. I’m so grateful for my old sponsor and all those old timers, who helped me learn what I needed to stay sober, and gave me their examples. And the people I have known these days, who help to remind me what it is I need to know to stay sober and be able to live this way of life. And, yes, my Higher Power, to whom I owe so much. After all I didn’t earn this way of life. It was a pure and free gift.