'WHAT AT FIRST SEEMED A FLIMSY REED...
HAS PROVED TO BE THE LOVING AND POWERFUL HAND OF GOD'...
..."a new life has been given us or, if you prefer,"a design for living" that really works.
"We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.
-Alcoholics Anonymous, p 28
Funny how hindsight always proves to be 20/20. When I arrived in LA nearly 16 months ago, all my scorecards read zero in ways I cannot even begin to decribe; words cannot describe the bitter morass of self pity I felt, as it says in out book; the proverbial quicksand stretched around me in all directions...let's see:
- The job sucked
- Long Beach sucked
- Los Angeles sucked
- My gym sucked
- My apartment sucked
- Every AA group I attended - sucked
- California sucked
- The people I worked with sucked
- Calfornia cops sucked
- The bread sucked
...anybody beginning to see a pattern here? Now, almost a year and a half after arriving (and if it's so horrible why am I still here? I know, I know...), I can tell you that the common denominatior is - you guessed it - me. As fuzzy as the lollipop I was handed was, the truth is I've got a LOT of stuff to work out and work on, and with the help of God, AA and some really good friends, I've come a long way. True, there is still quite a bit of work ahead of me, but like the saying goes:
"I may not be the man I want to be, but thank God I am not the man I used to be".
Hope springs eternal; there is life after death in AA, and there is hope for all of us. This is why I consider the Big Book to be the most democratic of all books ever written: it'll hit you wherever you are; one day sober on a park bench or 16 years sober on Park Avenue. I've been to both, and at the end of the day, alcohoism is alcholism and suffering is suffering, and I am so glad that God never let me down.
My friend Dan B. always tells me: "The Will of God Won't Take You Where the Grace of God Can't Keep You". That's Goddamn Right.
I miss New York City. I miss my sponsor. I miss my friends, I miss my school. But I need to be here, in Los Angeles, amid the muck and mire of this helpless and hopeless Botox Babylon and stay the course; seek right living, and happiness will be my reward.
May God bless us, every one.
-COG, 1st Cl.
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Right back at you, IFOB!
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