I was made to go back to my early days in sobriety today, when a member brought up a question. He wanted to know why it was that some men he knew, who were coming to meetings, went back out and drank again. He asked about “cunning, baffling, and powerful”, what it meant. He said that the actions of these men set up a distrust within himself of alcoholics in this program.
I said to myself, having gone down the same road, early on, that lack of trust was what I brought into this program with me. I had much of the same feelings. I hung out with men probably just like the ones he was hanging around with. My sponsor pointed out to me that who these men were what he called the “losers”. People not ready to commit themselves to this program. Still willing to gamble their lives with that next drink.
That’s when he pulled me away from these people and told me to stick with the “winners”. The men and women, who had worked this program and were examples of sobriety and sober living. People, who were willing to go to any lengths to stay sober and depended on the program and the people in it and their individual beliefs in something other than themselves. They were dedicated to living a spiritual way of life.
When I stopped to think about this, I remembered that was the beginning of learning trust. I went back to the BB and read the beginning pages of the chapter There Is A Solution, where it spells out the how and why of this program and the people in it. The cement which binds us, as it is put, having survived a common peril. The common solution, this program offers each and every one of us.
Stick with the winners. I still do. I’ve had such a great experience with men and women, who would normally not have mixed, as the book puts it, but who, because they survived what alcohol had done to them, had found a fellowship in this program. The book tells me that they found a friendliness and understanding which is indescribably wonderful. And that’s what I also found in coming here and mixing with those who wanted to get sober, just like I did.
I learned to listen and learn, just as they had. I learned from them how to take the action necessary to have a spiritual awakening, which changed me from a negative, destructive alcoholic into someone different, who doesn’t want to drink, who has stopped fighting everyone and everything, and willing to practice these principles I have learned in all of my affairs. Willing to help another alcoholic to get sober.
When I began to trust the “winners”, I received the best thing that ever happened in my life. What a great way to live. And I’m grateful for every day I’ve been sober.