I had a reminder recently of all that I have to be grateful for. I was reminded that, since I have joined AA and began working the Program to the best of my ability, I now have choices. Looking back, I don’t think that I had choices before the Program showed me that there was a better way to feel. The way of sobriety. SOBRIETY is a lot more than just not picking up that drink or drug. Sobriety is feeling truly Happy, Joyous, and Free almost every moment of my life since I was introduced to this amazing program.
When I first entered, I heard How it Works read before almost every AA meeting that I attended. The 2nd paragraph jumped out and grabbed me by the throat almost from the very first time that I heard it. The part that says “If you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it,” then COD. I wanted what I was seeing and hearing from the other members of AA regularly. Wanted to feel it bad! I knew that I was willing to go to any lengths to get it, whatever these lengths consisted of. I only knew that I didn’t feel good about myself at all.
Where I was raised, it would cost me whatever I had in my pockets to just come down off of my porch. If I told Recob that I had a dime, he told me it would cost a dime to come down. If I said a nickel, and gave him a nickel and continued on up to the corner store and got an ice cream cone with a hidden nickel, I would take a thumping when I came out. My mother could never understand why I was elated when he was killed in a motorcycle accident. Fear dogged me and I learned that alcohol would numb the fearful feelings for a short time and I dove head first into drinking. Even though I blacked out most times that I drank. I didn’t drink for the taste. I drank for the effect. To feel better!
There were many different types of friends growing up. Some just like me and many just waiting until they got older to go to prison. My first job when I got out of the Army was as a bouncer at a red neck joint in Muskegon. I supplemented it with foundry work in the daytime. The bar is where I met my first wife. We went through, not a 16 year marriage, but a 16 year divorce waiting to happen. All of this is to say that I have never been out of place with almost anyone, no matter who they were or what they did.
Recently, while working at the St. Andrews Soup Kitchen in the East side of Flint, I heard that we lost another regular patron of our services. She was not a so-called “nice” person. She was a person who made her living, or I probably should say existence, by turning tricks as a street walker on the streets of East Side Flint. A drug addict who finally robbed her dealer and was paid back, along with another, with a severe beating. Word is that one died and the other was close. Was she one who I would invite over for dinner? No, but she was someone’s daughter or sister. She was one who I tried to get to smile and give a little peace when she came in bearing the “scars of the trade.”
I hear these stories with too much regularity. The 1st thought is along the lines of “Thank you God for guiding me to and keeping me on track with Alcoholics Anonymous. There for your grace go I!” There was someone who attended our Zoom AA meetings here for a while who told someone that I was really intense. I plead guilty as charged. I learned a long time ago that I can’t take myself seriously. And I don’t. I do take my AA Program as serious as a heart attack. Why? Because “There but for the grace of God go I!”
It took what it took in order for me to finally be able to listen and learn what AA has to offer. The Program introduced me to God and a spirituality that, although I always had, didn’t know it. Or more probably denied it. Don’t be afraid of living. Don’t be afraid to feel! Be happy with the fact that you can now truly live and enjoy life. If you didn’t drink or drug today, you now have choices, maybe for the first time. If you choose to share your new found wealth of knowledge of self with others who are “in the same boat,” you are on your way to true Happiness, Joy, and Freedom. Do you choose to be miserable or do you choose to be Happy, Joyous, and Free? The choice is yours and nobody else’s. Choose wisely! God bless you!
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