'SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY - A PRICE HAD TO BE PAID'...
...IT MEANT DESTRUCTION OF SELF CENTEREDNESS. I MUST TURN TO THE FATHER OF LIGHT WHO PRESIDES OVER US ALL.
-Alcoholics Anonymous, p14
Oddly enough, the greatest and most valuable lessons I’ve learned in Alcoholics Anonymous have not been at Big Book workshops or in advanced sponsorship, though all those things are valuable. No, the greatest and most valuable lessons I’ve learned in AA were in emergency-room type meetings or as they like to say out here in LA – First Step Clubs.
Admittedly, I personally had a real problem with these types of clubs for years, both in Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan where I got sober, then on the Jersey Shore, then when I was marooned in Long Beach for what seem the longest year of my life.
However, in retrospect, using the 20/20 hindsight glasses that have yet to fail me in AA, I see the value and utility of such places as the 4019 club I denigrated for so long. In this club and places like it newcomers learn perhaps the most valuable less an alcoholic can learn, in my humble view – that we are not alone. Whether you come and share your name and your story with us and ‘join the tribe’, or even if you choose to sit in the back row and go it alone as long as you can stand it, you are never alone truly alone - both your God (whether you want him or not) - and your neigbhor (whether you want it or not) - have your back.
Tragically, these rooms are also filled with either non or borderline alcoholics who for reasons passing all understanding stick around – for years – telling real alcoholics not to work a program of action. Lucky for me my sponsor has me out of the judgment seat and back in the beginner’s seat – where I need to be. So no, I somberly attend the 4019 club with my Big Book and sit and give as much support as I can be simply being there for the next guy – as somebody was for me. Am I happy there? Not especially – the foul language and embarrassing stories are saddening from me, an alcoholic who wants more, but I honestly believe – truly believe – that all these kids are God’s kids, and God’s grace falls even on everybody.
Besides, who am I to judge?
Whenever and wherever I lapse back into judgment and intolerance I take out my little pink highlighter I bought just for the phase of my development and highlight just the sections of the book which remind me that an attitude of intolerance helps nobody and that my ‘…very life as an ex-alcoholic depends on my constant thought of others and how I may meet their needs’.
As Our Book says, faith has to work in us and through us 24 hours a day – so I am very grateful for good sponsorship, and I am very grateful that I belong to a program that doesn’t cast its member out for acting like an ungrateful lout, as I have so often at the 4019 club. There is hope for me – there is hope for them – there is hope for all of us in AA, as long as we realize that God can move mountains, but we have to bring the shovel. Or, as in my sad case, a Big Book, and an attitude of patience, kindliness, tolerance and love.
For years I 'knew' what was wrong with AA. Today, I realize that the only thing wrong with AA is - me. What a truly alcoholic situation - for the alcholic is always the last to know there is a probelm; which is why the word 'denial' is not an AA word, it is an Alanon word. To deny something, you have to realzie it first; not one alcholic in 1,000,000 realized they have a problem until they are beaten into a pulp. Even when they are confronted with the evidence, which in my case was 52 lost jobs and a box in Owls Head park, they are ALWAYS the last to know. The same for being an assh*le - he is always the last to know.
I was a jerk to these people at the 4019 club - now it is my time to simply listen and love them. And stay out - way out - of the judgement business, for I am most underqualified.
God bless us all, every one.
COG, 1st Cl.
Admittedly, I personally had a real problem with these types of clubs for years, both in Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan where I got sober, then on the Jersey Shore, then when I was marooned in Long Beach for what seem the longest year of my life.
However, in retrospect, using the 20/20 hindsight glasses that have yet to fail me in AA, I see the value and utility of such places as the 4019 club I denigrated for so long. In this club and places like it newcomers learn perhaps the most valuable less an alcoholic can learn, in my humble view – that we are not alone. Whether you come and share your name and your story with us and ‘join the tribe’, or even if you choose to sit in the back row and go it alone as long as you can stand it, you are never alone truly alone - both your God (whether you want him or not) - and your neigbhor (whether you want it or not) - have your back.
Tragically, these rooms are also filled with either non or borderline alcoholics who for reasons passing all understanding stick around – for years – telling real alcoholics not to work a program of action. Lucky for me my sponsor has me out of the judgment seat and back in the beginner’s seat – where I need to be. So no, I somberly attend the 4019 club with my Big Book and sit and give as much support as I can be simply being there for the next guy – as somebody was for me. Am I happy there? Not especially – the foul language and embarrassing stories are saddening from me, an alcoholic who wants more, but I honestly believe – truly believe – that all these kids are God’s kids, and God’s grace falls even on everybody.
Besides, who am I to judge?
Whenever and wherever I lapse back into judgment and intolerance I take out my little pink highlighter I bought just for the phase of my development and highlight just the sections of the book which remind me that an attitude of intolerance helps nobody and that my ‘…very life as an ex-alcoholic depends on my constant thought of others and how I may meet their needs’.
As Our Book says, faith has to work in us and through us 24 hours a day – so I am very grateful for good sponsorship, and I am very grateful that I belong to a program that doesn’t cast its member out for acting like an ungrateful lout, as I have so often at the 4019 club. There is hope for me – there is hope for them – there is hope for all of us in AA, as long as we realize that God can move mountains, but we have to bring the shovel. Or, as in my sad case, a Big Book, and an attitude of patience, kindliness, tolerance and love.
For years I 'knew' what was wrong with AA. Today, I realize that the only thing wrong with AA is - me. What a truly alcoholic situation - for the alcholic is always the last to know there is a probelm; which is why the word 'denial' is not an AA word, it is an Alanon word. To deny something, you have to realzie it first; not one alcholic in 1,000,000 realized they have a problem until they are beaten into a pulp. Even when they are confronted with the evidence, which in my case was 52 lost jobs and a box in Owls Head park, they are ALWAYS the last to know. The same for being an assh*le - he is always the last to know.
I was a jerk to these people at the 4019 club - now it is my time to simply listen and love them. And stay out - way out - of the judgement business, for I am most underqualified.
God bless us all, every one.
COG, 1st Cl.
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Welcome as a witness to a fools journey out of the darkness. I welcome all tidings - you are all my teachers on this path toward a meaningful and purposeful sobriety.
COG, 1st Cl.