One of the reminders for someone like me is to see a person “coming back” at a meeting. That’s because it always takes me back to how it was when I came here. Why I came and why I stayed. Interesting for me, because it allows me to go over why I am here in the first place. I’m here to stay sober. I never ever want to drink alcohol again.
Today there was this person, who just came out of “rehab”. And the one next to her went through what they went through trying to stay sober and couldn’t. So they described all the facilities they went through and finally got sober. Always interesting to me.
When I came to this program there were no rehabs. No medical help for the practicing alcoholic. Just the way it was back then. In fact I had no idea what an alcoholic was. No idea that there was a program like AA. I just couldn’t stop drinking. That’s what drove me to the edge. I was in total despair and was going to commit suicide because I just couldn’t go on drinking anymore. Fortunately for me a friend of mine gave me information about a group, who turned out to be AA, where men and women didn’t drink and they stayed sober. That was what I needed. Hope.
So, when I came to this program I was more than just ready to stop drinking. Like the 12&12 tells us in the First Step how important pain, a bottom, is for people like us. We’re probably not going to stop drinking until pain drives us in through these doors to listen as only the dying can listen. That was me.
I’m so grateful there were no facilities like what they were talking about today. I’ve heard over and over again how others get in the habit of going in and out of these places and go back to drinking again. Just my thinking. I’m just looking at how it was for me back then.
I just look at how this fellowship worked for me back then. It was just what I needed. I needed to have those who knew how to cut my ego down to size. To get me to stop not listening and turning me over to doing things differently. Showing me by their words and examples how to stay sober a day at a time. Changed my whole way of thinking and living.
Perhaps the key to all of this was this spiritual way of life in here. In fact I always go back to what Dr. Jung said to the young man in the chapter in the BB There Is A Solution. Here was an alcoholic who couldn’t stop drinking and was begging for help. Jung told him that there was no help except if he was willing to seek a spiritual experience. The young man agreed and said that he was already religious. And Jung replied that wasn’t enough. The man went out and got sober and never drank again. He joined the Oxford Group because there was no AA then.
And the truth is that, without this knowledge, and filled with desperation, when I had gotten that hope back then, before I came here, I prayed like I had never prayed before. It worked. I don’t know how. It just did. I never wanted alcohol again and that’s when I came through these doors and learned how to begin to live this way of life.
As I sat there listening to others and watching this person coming back, all I could do was to hope that somehow what happened to me and so many others would happen to them. Pain I’m told is the touchstone to spiritual growth. Was for me, I know. Took me a long time in here to learn that, even though I had had that experience. Talk about being immature, insecure, and oversensitive, my sponsor’s thoughts about me. All this supported by an over sized ego.
Anyway it made me grateful, as I know it did others, that we had the experiences we had, which brought us here and changed our whole lives. Not just this program, but the introduction to this spiritual way of life. My Higher Power, who has done for me what I could never do for myself. And all this a day at a time. Thanks to the God of my understanding and the people in here who have helped me from the beginning.