OKaysez

 

Note: Today marks blog number 100.

I am pretty busy right now with house renovation and garden projects, along with writing two other books and - in future (possibly) - a podcast. 

So beginning next Sunday I will again post Blog Number one and the rest of them in numerical order on every Sunday following.

I hope you will enjoy reading the blogs again from the beginning. They contain what I know about staying sober. It is my hope they will in some small way encourage you to do the same. 

Made A Decision

(100)

                          PASS IT ON

A.A. is more than a set of principles; it is a society of alcoholics in action. We must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither and those who haven't been given the truth may die. 

   Book: As Bill Sees It

We stay sober by giving our sobriety away to others. I was taught that in the early days of my recovery and I have done my best to "carry the message," one way or another, ever since. I was made afraid not to, because the old timers who were around when I got sober were very hard core about it. 

At that time AA's Responsibility Pledge was read at almost every meeting. It was the topic of many meetings, too. 

A good long-term-sobriety friend of mine recently told me he always gets a lump in his throat today whenever he hears it.

Me, too.

Here it is: 

I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there.

And for that: I am responsible.

Because there were so few women sober in my AA community in 1981 I was dragged along on every 12-step call involving a woman who reached out to AA. I'd get a call from a sober male member and be told to be ready at such and such a time so we could go talk in person to the woman who had called the AA hotline. 

I hated it, too, but no other options were given.

And now, all these years later, I'm grateful for those 12-step opportunities I was given. I got to see "our" disease in its latter stages up close and personal and I've never forgotten the heartbreak of it. Late stage alcoholics experience a fear, loneliness, self-loathing and bewilderment no one should have to suffer. 

The "hand of AA" can pull alcoholics out of that nightmare. We are obligated to reach out to them, just as those in AA reached out to us when we got here. They certainly did for me!

I, like so many newcomers, was a right royal pain in the ass when I arrived in AA. Angry, opinionated, stubborn, self-centred and arrogant were just a few of the adjectives then applicable to me. Group members and my sponsor put up with all of it, guiding me up the steps onto the pathway to a joyful sober life - and hanging onto me so I'd stay on it. 

I am grateful beyond words for each and every one of them.

And I try always to remember their patience with me when I lashed out at them.

As I did. A lot!

I was told to just "keep coming back," and then was given more service work to do so that I had to!

Bill W said: Honesty with ourselves and others gets us sober, but it is tolerance that keeps us that way. 

Our AA literature tells us over and over that we MUST give away our sobriety to the still suffering alcoholic to stay sober ourselves. Absolutely nothing can relieve our depression and self-centeredness as effectively as reaching out to another alcoholic. We help them and, in so doing, help ourselves. 

Doubt it? Try it!

Meetings are not eight hour sessions. Most of them are just one hour long. We can sit through an hour even when we're tired, or feeling unwellish, because our presence there is enough to encourage others. We don't even have to talk.

We go to our meetings whether we "feel" like going or not. We go to help the people in those meetings and, in so doing, we help ourselves. 

It's not all about us! Our first step in AA doesn't say "I" - it says "WE." 

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol!  

AA is a program for all of us. It takes a team effort to keep us all sober. All the prayer and meditation in the world will not help us unless they are accompanied by action.

Mary Z, my first sponsor, sponsored me into many service opportunities, including sponsoring others. She told me that once I had gone through all 12 steps with her I was better qualified to sponsor a newcomer than she was, because my memory of the nightmare drinking they were escaping was fresher than hers. 

 

So I sponsored others very early in my own recovery and some of those women are still sober today. I made mistakes of course, some sponsees drank again, some took advantage of me, I got frustrated, I worried, I felt inadequate, but I did it.

And I'm glad I did it, because - with practice - I got better at it. We all do. We learn by doing-the-doing, not by thinking! 

All of us have something to offer AA. Finding where our talents can best be used is part of our recovery. We don't do everything. Nor do we let ourselves cop resentments and burn out. But we do what we can, where we can, and we encourage others to do the same. 

Service work includes everything from unlocking the meeting room door to cleaning up afterwards. We chair, share, and hold office. In Zoom meetings we open early, greet arrivals and shut it down afterwards.

We hold positions outside of our home group, too, like hot-line phone service where we make ourselves available to answer queries on AA recovery.

Our home group can carry the message into treatment centers or prisons.

We can leave AA brochures and other AA information in places like our doctor's office, the local coffee shop, or in a neighbor's mailbox.

Active members of AA help others get to meetings, call and check on people, send emails offering AA messages, and in general take time to encourage one another. 

Doing all the above helps us to stay sober while we ourselves are learning to become better people. 

Sober living is an adventure which, compared to our grim and lonely drinking years, offers us friendship, excitement, joy and purpose.

Our Big Book describes it like this:

Life will take on a new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends - this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.

Not being active in AA puts our sobriety at risk. 

As Mel B., a member in the states, said:  Recovering from alcoholism is like getting a gunshot wound. You can recover from it, but it does NOT make you bulletproof.

We're never bulletproof, but we can armour ourselves by extending the hand of AA where needed. Service work is not hard duty, it is the doorway to happiness.

Recovery allows us the opportunity to gain spiritual understanding at our own sober pace. The learning is never over. Every sober day is brand new and there's no need to rush our One Day at a Time journey. 

Or, as I like to call it - SLOW-briety.