When I heard that phrase last night, “all of us”, it gave me a lot of comfort. What was said, during the Red Sox/Yankees game, was that the captain of the Red Sox had a motto for the team: no man is more important than all of us. It was not a one man game; there are no stars, everyone is part of the whole.
I sometimes forget that. It kind of reminds me of that first tradition. About AAs unity. The fact that we have to surrender our egos and pride for the good of AA as a whole. There are no stars. We’re all the same.
This second tradition reinforces this idea. There are no leaders. No one person governs us.
When I first came to the College Park group, we were all one group. Everyone from the newest to the oldest met in one room. But one day a man advanced the suggestion that we should separate the newest into a beginner’s group. The group conscience voted on it and a begginer’s group was established. Tom shook his head at this, because he felt that at each meeting the older members should be exposed to the newcomer and vice versa. And then he said, that the group had made a decision and that his thoughts and feelings had to submit to the will of the group. He said he’d get over it. Not me, I thought. But Tom told me otherwise.
It’s hard for myself and a lot of others to become the “we”. All of us together. Self centeredness was the norm in my life, when I first came in…and for a long time after. It was all about me. That made it difficult in attending meetings. At first I had to, because the group was there for people like me to learn and get on a firm footing with the idea of recovery. The group was offering me a solution to what was wrong with me…alcohol. I was desperate not to go back to drinking. After all, it had darn near killed me. I needed the group to do for me, what I couldn’t do for myself. I couldn’t stop on my own.
But, as time went on and my grasp of the program progressed, complacency began to set in. I was on a roll. Things were getting better, there were no big deals anymore. Life was good. This took a long time to get there. It was a gradual and subtle thing. After years of attending meetings regularly, I became more self confident and self reliant. I was in charge. The Captain of my soul. Me was back full force and we was fast fading. Meetings, the group, was becoming less important. I began to stay away on a regular basis…until the “all of us” began to call and got me back.
Self forgetting is difficult. In the BB it warns us we are headed for trouble if we rest on our laurels. It tells us that this is a spiritual program of action. I was beginning to get out of action; spiritually. But the twelfth step is that action step, which can help me get out of myself and forget my own self importance. For the good of another, for someone else’s welfare, I can at least, momentarily, forget about me. Not just in assisting another alcoholic to achieve sobriety, trying anyway, but in all the other areas of my life. Particularly in my homelife.
It’s difficult to step back and try to realize what difficulties others are having in striving to live their lives. Coming to some understanding what makes them tick. How the phases of life each one has to go through causes so much trauma as each invidual goes through the process of living. I have to come to realize that I’m not there to change or counsel anyone. I can’t. I’m powerless by myself. I simply need to change myself.
That’s where the group, all of us, is so powerful. If I go there to be reminded that I am just one in a whole bunch of people, who are like me, I can reinforce and learn this very potent message. And from that I can bring all us home with me. I can bring the One, Who really governs all of us into my life “outside” of the program. I can make my family life, like the man said, all of us. Not all of the time. I frequently have difficulties. But, it gets better, as do I. And this helps me in my not taking a drink one day at a time. That’s what it’s all about.