Today’s “subject” made me stop and ask myself this question, “Why am I here?”
I’ve missed meetings for the past two weeks with an illness I’ve been undergoing and was glad to get back today. Nice to see a lot of old friends in there. And then the leader asked if someone had a subject? They did. They wanted to talk about a death of a friend.
As so often happens, I find that the alcoholic mind gets pulled into advice and opinions. We were launched into a wake. In my mind the word “therapy” came up.
When it came my turn I told them I had faced death of others, family and friends in the program, over and over again. But that’s not why I came here. I came here to get sober. That’s why I come to meetings. I need to be reminded of this. I’m an alcoholic. I have an incurable disease. I will have it until the day I die. I don’t want to ever drink again and have alcohol be the cause of my death.
The literature talks about alcohol and it’s relation to death and the need to do all we can to practice this program, if we want to stay sober and live a wholesome and happy life. Free from the threat of that next drink. And all of that depends on our putting these Steps into practice. And, having surrendered and accepted this program, like everyone else, I was introduced to a spiritual way of life. And that changed everything.
That line in the BB that the spiritual life is not a theory; we have to live it, describes everything to me. So, when I said I have been with others and their deaths, that’s what was going on. Reaching out in the spirit of what I have been given by my Higher Power and the example of my sponsor and those old timers was what brought all of this about. But I know as much as that has helped me, it’s not why I’m here. My being sober and staying sober is.
Back then service work in this area of our lives was never discussed in meetings. Staying sober was. There was time before and after the meeting, if we needed to discuss our reaching out and assisting others.
And, as I thought about this today I was reminded that none of us are therapists. And none of us are here to practice therapy. The BB reminds us that there are those people outside of the group.
Just thinking about sobriety and why I’m here.