Someone was talking the other day about their personal problem at work. Overall it had nothing to do with staying sober. I think he was seeking advice and that fell short as far as others at the meeting. Like my sponsor and those old timers always told me, to keep my personal problems out of meetings.
What they told me really helped me more than I could have ever hoped for. I mean I was going through a lot of rough stuff back then. Yet I got through it all. Wasn’t easy, but then when I was willing to talk to others outside the meetings I found that I got the guidance and the support I needed. Sometimes I was literally walked through whatever it was at the time.
A really great lesson for me that I can’t stay sober by myself. My life has changed so much since I came into this program. One of those changes, as I began to become open and willing to try to live a different kind of life, came from the Second Step. Putting my resistance aside and getting an open mind and willingness to come to believe in a Power greater than myself. My Higher Power.
That of course led to something which still stuns me, when I think about it. The friendships which began to develop in my life, as I began to learn about what I had failed to do most of my life before. I began to learn about loving others and allowing others to become open with me. Through the years in here I have come to have friendships which are still there today. My being willing to have a dependency on others as they do with me. Hard to describe even today after all these years.
It was one thing to develop a faith in my higher power and quite another to have faith in others I had come to know in here. To have hope in my Higher Power and to have hope in those around me. And to never lose any of this, when they seem unable to meet my expectations. In fact I have learned not to have expectations of them nor them in me. We just are what we are. Alcoholics with a disease of a lifetime, with all the accompanying problems of this illness. And to have the love and affection to accept others as they are. I never ever had this before I came here. I do now and have for a long time.
Going back to the thought of what others should expect of what meetings are about. I learned that we are there to help the sick and suffering alcoholic, who is not always the new person. Could very well be an old timer, who is going through their problems. The point is that none of us in the rooms are doctors there to practice medicine, nor psychiatrists or counselors practicing therapy, nor ministers, priests, or rabbis. I learned that I’m just another drunk, who has gotten sober, who has practiced this program and is able to share his experience, strength, and hope with another alcoholic like himself.
I know I’m not an accountant, a marriage counselor, attorney, or any other professional, which someone might need. That’s what the Yellow Pages and sources outside the rooms may be able to direct anyone of us in need to. What I am is a chronic alcoholic, who is there to listen with an open mind and heart to what I need to hear about in order to stay sober. I am there because I can often forget what it is I need to know in order to continue to get better and stay sober.
I often laugh with others when we see a recovering alcoholic who wants to talk about their problems in a relationship. We laugh because of all the people in this world who have had he worst possible relationships with others are alcoholics like ourselves. There are people outside these meetings who make their living helping people who are suffering from this kind of dilemma.
Why am I thinking about all of this? Because every once in a while I need to stop and remind myself why I am here and to settle my expectations down into reality. I’m here for one thing and that is to practice these principles in all of my affairs. To be responsible for my sobriety and helping others to achieve the same thing. I’m here to put these Steps into my life, as best I can, on a daily basis. I am here to turn my will and my life over to the God of my understanding each and everyday. And I can do this one day at a time by going to a meeting with alcoholics like myself, who are trying to do the same thing. For all of that I am grateful.