One of the things I think I miss at meetings most of the time is why we are here. What I have come to understand over time is that the group is there to carry the message that we have a way to get sober from alcohol to each and every person, who has a desire to stop drinking and is suffering. Of course I often think that the suffering alcoholic can be a person with time in here who is suffering and hasn’t shared with his sponsor or another alcoholic like himself.
Once again today I was given a demonstration of what my sponsor told me a long time ago, when I came here. That was that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I only thought I did. And I got to witness this at the meeting, when the subject was about someone stealing from the person they knew. In other words relationships.
One of the last things alcoholics have less knowledge about are relationships. We have opinions of course. Despite the failures and mistakes in our old relationships there are those who want to give advice. Opinions and advice. I don’t think we’re there to practice psychiatry. We’re not there to act as counselors or any other form of professional practices.
I remember my sponsor and some of those old timers helping to find myself and how to relate to others and who I should be hanging around with. All this outside the meeting rooms. I sure had learned that I wasn’t equipped with enough knowledge and I needed guidance from those who had time in here and experience. I followed their directions and they kept me from getting entangled where I didn’t need to be.
What I got from the meetings back then was learning how to stay sober a day at a time by practicing the principles of this program in here. One of those was how to avoid anger and resentments. I knew from what I was witnessing how desperately I needed to learn just that. My first sponsor demonstrated what resentments can do to someone like me. He went out and drank on a resentment, got drunk, and died. I didn’t want to go there, as the BB pointed out. I had to learn how to stay sober one day at a time and deal with those things which were wrong with me.
I learned from my sponsor how to begin to live a spiritual way of life through the Second Step. I also learned how to put the Third Step into action. Sitting in meetings and listening I came to learn how this program works in our lives. Over time I began to change. Didn’t happen overnight. It took time for me to dump things in my way and begin grow along spiritual lines and to change.
Going to meetings, following the guidance I was given by my sponsor, observing the example of those in the fellowship around me, listening, listening, reading and following the literature in this program, I began to become a “new” person. I don’t want to go backwards. I never want to drink again and I need to hear and be reminded of what it is I need to do a day at a time.
Anyway, when I got home, I got a chance to sit down and go over the primary purpose of this program. To get sober from alcohol and to practice these principles in all of our affairs. I couldn’t help but go back and look at that Fifth Tradition and what it is the group needs to do. I know and understand what it is that I need. I know that I’m grateful for my Higher Power and all which I have received in here, helping me to stay sober. I also need to acknowledge what my old sponsor and those old timers did to help me along the way. And of course all those in the fellowship, who have helped me to look at myself and do what I needed to do, and then to turn around and give away what was so freely given to me. All this a day at a time.