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Sunday, October 3, 2021

 Made A Decision

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                                   The Hand of AA 

Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have - the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.

The above quote in our Big Book chapter about The Family Afterward is perhaps the motivator for AA's mission statement. It was first heard by our members at the 1965 AA International Convention in Toronto, Canada, and 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.” 

Have you taken that to heart? 

Has it become part of your AA experience?

 Do you step up to help your home group, your friends in recovery, and the suffering newcomer? 

If not, you are not only ignoring a key and important part of your continuing recovery - you are missing the best thing AA has to offer apart from your sobriety.

In 1990 our World Service Office put it this way:

When I talk with a newcomer to A.A., my past looks me straight in the face. I see the pain in those hopeful eyes, I extend my hand, and then the miracle happens: I become healed. My problems vanish as I reach out to his trembling soul.

Powerful - even poetic - words, but the experience of helping an alcoholic out of the sea of suffering and safely onto dry land, IS powerful.  It is the stuff of miracles. 

It is why we are sober and it's the foundation for our own continuing recovery. 

It is the ultimate God Job, the one our Higher Power has assigned us.

In my early recovery I felt inadequate for doing 12-step work, but I did it anyway. I wasn't given a choice. There were very few sober women in my community at that time, so whenever a call came in from a woman alcoholic I was taken along with a more seasoned male AA member to let her know her problem had a solution.

I wasn't grateful for those opportunities then, but I am today. They gave me an up-close-and-personal view of  the late-stage horrors of our disease. They taught me compassion. They gave me an education on how a 12-step call should be handled. They bolstered my shaky courage. And they kept me sober. 

One woman called me a few days after we had visited her. At her request I returned to talk with her alone (an AA 12-step no-no). She told me she didn't want to attend meetings, but instead - radiating her agonizing alcoholic loneliness - she wanted to pay me to come over every evening and keep her company! 

I told her I couldn't accept her offer, but that I'd be there to take her to a meeting that very night.

When I picked her up later she was very, very drunk. But I, in my desire to fix her (all eagerness without experience), practically forced her into my car. 

Once at the AA clubhouse she did her best to turn the meeting itself into a shambles, but more seasoned AA members took her aside to another room for a quiet talk. 

And they then took her home after the meeting. 

I suspect my enthusiasm was perhaps then seen as a liability, but no one actually said so. I was only told (reminded!) it was best to not go on 12-step calls alone in future.

 I my early recovery I probably did some good every now and then by learning to at least try to help others. But, perhaps more importantly, I eventually learned where any talents I might actually have could best be used for helping others. 

I've never really had any talent for doing 12-step work with drunks who haven't yet taken the First Step, but that's OK. Many others do. 

I've always done better working with members who already want what AA has to offer.

We all have 12-step gifts:  

Some of us are great sponsors. Others are terrific at making a newcomer in a meeting feel at ease. 

Many of us have the energy to start and keep a new meeting going. 

I've known members who always contact members they haven't seen in a while, just to let them know they are needed and missed. 

Others are organization-minded and take on the home group burdens of secretary, treasurer, GSO - or making sure the coffee, tea and biscuits are ready-and-waiting at in-person meetings. 

These abilities for service work, and many more, are what keep AA dynamic and able to continue meeting its primary purpose  - to help other alcoholics get, and stay, sober. 

Our reward for applying our abilities inside our program is, first and foremost, a strengthened ability to stay sober ourselves. 

The second, and perhaps greater reward, is to see those around us become the people their Higher Power intended them to be all along.

But, just as when we make our personal 9th step amends, it doesn't matter how the other person receives it. 

What matters is that we've done our part to clean up our side of the street. 

The same is true when we've reached the hand of AA to a newcomer who then doesn't stay sober. 

We've offered, they've  refused. Not our fault. 

(Our job then becomes to warmly welcome them back if they are eventually able to return.)

I think we are all just Godbits - pieces of a larger spiritual body - so the people I meet are as close to my hanging out with God as I get to experience here on earth. 

Since we're all in various stages of our own spiritual growth, this applies even to those people I find hard to like. 

They are after all - like me - a work in progress. 

At the end of our lives we don't get to take any material thing with us. It won't matter then what our bank balance looks like or how lush our homes are. 

But every spiritual book I've ever read assures me that on our final journey we get to take along those things we have given away.

If we have helped others, that goes into our suitcase. If we have given time and money for the good of AA and others, we can pack that, too, right there beside the good deeds we've done (and not told anyone about). 

Your gifts, your story, and your recovery are unique.  AA needs what you - and you only - have to offer. 

When you reach your hand out to help another alcoholic you are doing the work of - and for - your Higher Power.

“The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few."

Keep reaching ... YOU are the hand of AA.