Recovery

Chairing a discussion meeting for May. Think I’ll pick the following for tonight, always seems to be the same people getting involved and doing service. Not sure if we attract enough people to service at the moment. Although I don’t remember being a volunteer for most the service positions I’ve been lucky to be trusted with, one arm seemed to be up my back, although it always proved result in me getting far  more out of the service I did than the effort it took to do it.

We have shown how we got out from under. You say, “Yes, I’m willing. But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see? I know I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute?”

Yes, there is a substitute and it is vastly more than that. It is a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. There you will find release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship, and so will you.

“How is that to come about?” you ask. “Where am I to find these people?”

You are going to meet these new friends in your own community. Near you, alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in a sinking ship. If you live in a large place, there are hundreds. High and low, rich and poor, these are future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

It may seem incredible that these men are to become happy, respected, and useful once more. How can they rise out of such misery, bad repute and hopelessness? The practical answer is that since these things have happened among us, they can happen with you. Should you wish them above all else, and be willing to make use of our experience, we are sure they will come. The age of miracles is till with us. Our own recovery proves that!
Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

We have been speaking to you of serious, sometimes tragic things. We have been dealing with alcohol in its worst aspect. But we aren’t a glum lot. If newcomers could see no joy or fun in our existence, they wouldn’t want it. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. We try not to indulge in cynicism over the state of the nations, nor do we carry the world’s troubles on our shoulders. When we see a man sinking into the mire that is alcoholism, we give him first aid and place what we have at his disposal. For his sake, we do recount and almost relive the horrors of our past. But those of us who have tried to shoulder the entire burden and trouble of others find we are soon overcome by them.

So we think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we bust into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past. But why shouldn’t we laugh? We have recovered, and have been given the power to help others.

Everybody know that those in bad health, and those who seldom play, do not laugh much. So let each family play together or separately as much as their circumstances warrant. We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. We cannot subscribe to the belief that his life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us. But it is clear that we made our own misery. God didn’t do it. Avoid then, the deliberate manufacture of misery, but if trouble comes, cheerfully capitalize it as an opportunity to demonstrate His omnipotence.

Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

Helen Keller
US blind & deaf educator (1880 – 1968)

Admiral Lord Nelson School.

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”
— Marcel Proust

One great thing about being in AA is, like the British Queen, we get two Birthdays a year.

This Birthday Boy had loads of cards, a lovely dinner cooked for him and a trip to the Cinema. Even got free lunch at Pizza restaurant at work (unrelated to my birthday but a very nice coincidence)

Pic is screen shot of the rather lovely “Friend of Bill” Ipod app, which I would recommend to anyone for its sobriety calculator and “Coffee Time” quick AA quotes for those small moments of quiet in a busy day.