I was reminded today of what this program is about. It’s about alcoholism and staying sober. And over the years of its existence many people like myself have gotten sober, stayed sober, and helped others like themselves to get sober. And all of this because it has been able to remain the same as it was near the beginning.
Thank these people, who helped form this program for doing what it was that changed it from a form, which could have done something, which had destroyed other programs like itself. For instance the Washingtonians in the Eighteen Hundreds. And what was done? This program formed what was titled Traditions. And what that did was help each and every alcoholic in this program to do what was exactly necessary to maintain its existence by unifying, building itself on a spiritual basis, focusing on one disease, which was the cause of its being, And helping itself to grow and continue to exist.
Every time I have often spoken I go back to how I and so many others got here. And that always takes me to that old poet, Robert Frost, in his poem The Road Less Traveled. I mean I look around at all the alcoholics in existence, how many millions, probably, who are in our population, and how few are in this program compared to those out there. And I always go back to the poem, which he wrote, telling about the two roads, one of which was well traveled by everyone, and the other, which went the same way, but had been abandoned. He takes that road, and at the end of the poem, he says he took the one less traveled and it made all the difference.
That’s the way it was for me. I took the one not everyone was going down and recovering from the illness, the disease of alcoholism, which was killing all those who never went down this road. Always makes me grateful I was given this road by a grace I’m not going into. All I know is that this program was given life and then organized back in the 1930’s and is still in existence, because it is almost the same as it was back then. The Traditions, which were voted on and accepted by all those old timers.
On and off over the years there are those who want to change this program. And often, when they get a group in their hands, that group collapses. Just as the Washingtonians did, when they got involved in things which had not much to do with in staying sober. We had a group in our area, which went through this and brought about a statement about being a closed meeting. That statement is not just up here, it’s read at meetings elsewhere around the country. I have had members write and tell me what they are doing. The First Tradition on Unity of purpose. About alcoholism.
Anyway, I stopped to think about his today. I’m so grateful that I have been given this opportunity to stay sober a day at a time. Makes me so grateful.