It’s interesting, at least to me, that one of the longest coasting events in this country is in Akron, Ohio. Home of so many memories of the early days of AA. The Soap Box Derby. The idea of this event is to get on a big long hill and ride thse vehicles as long and as far as you can with nothing to depend upon for the run but momentum of the little car itself. By the time it gets to the bottom it runs out of steam and just stops. The idea is to get a quick start and freewheel all the way down. By the time it gets to level ground it hopefully will have enough speed to carry it over the finish line.
I was thinking about this today in conjunciton with our lives in AA. My life anyway. How many times I’ve rested on my laurels and just coasted in this program. The question is, would I have enough momentum to carry me across the finish line?
When I moved from Maryland to Syracuse, NY, I had twenty-two years in this program. What I discovered, on arriving here, is that for a few years, before the move, I had been coasting. I was unaware of this at the time. But, in a new environment and having to establish myself in meetings which were a strange and new experience, I became aware of so many defects within, I knew that I was going to have to start all over again. I became aware that previously all I had been doing was attending meetings and just not drinking. I could talk the talk, but I wasn’t confident I was walking the walk.
It wasn’t long before I found myself delving back into the BB and the 12&12, asking myself questions and beginning to rework the steps back into my life. But now I am rethinking what it is we’re supposed to be doing to maintain and earn our sobriety. I recently read an article from the Grapevine, which was entitled “I’ve Done the Steps…Now What?”* In it the author, suggests that we ought to think about working and reworking these steps on a regular basis. That there are no endings in AA only new beginnings.
My sponsor and many of the old timers believed that it wasn’t enough to not drink and go to meetings. The idea that something would rub off, which would bring about permanent sobriety, was countered by them when they said that the only thing that would rub off was rigor mortis. I know that’s true, because I’ve witnessed that over the years.
Anyway, I’ve talked to others about this article and another by this man titled “It Works for Me”**, which reinforces these propositions, and have resolved like them to pursue the regular working of these twelve steps, instead of just reading and studying them and talking about them at meetings. In other words to cease coasting.
I was thinking about this today.
*Grapevine March 1973 reprinted November 1998
**Grapevine September 2007