Through the Red Door Blog

I was thinking the other day about how I came to attend my first AA meeting. What was on my mind? What did I expect? But the fact is that this was my very first AA Meeting, ever.

The meeting was on Tuesday at 8 PM in the basement of my neighborhood’s primary Bank.

Was I getting serious about this “alcoholic thing?” Who was I kidding and did I just get up and go?

I’d heard the president of this Bank had permitted this basement to be used on Tuesday for an AA meeting because his wife had found relief there from her own alcoholism. As the first AA meeting in town, it was thereafter named as “East One”.

The basement’s walls were painted bright yellow. The corner was furnished with a small table with its coffee pot, cups, and necessary gear. An open half empty OREO cookie box was on the table. A single one-person bathroom was conveniently right where it should be.  The walls were empty, with no decorations of any kind. No surprise but the room was cluttered with a load of sturdy folding metal chairs.  

The walk downstairs to the basement was narrow and steep, with fortunately, a handrail.

Usually, especially early in my attendance, I’d usually find a chair just before the meeting started that was located on the edge of the attendees, naturally near the door.

At first and for a period of time, I didn’t like the meeting one bit. I saw no real reason. Yes, I drank, sometimes too much, a lot of friends did likewise. Wait’ll they learn of this! I looked around and a couple folks were familiar, but I was ignored. I was an educated guy and for me to end up with a bunch of drunks I didn’t know from Adam, in a basement exacerbated by plenty of nasty cigarette smoke … everything about it just wasn’t “my cup of tea.”

For a while I didn’t attend every week, but as time passed, I finally started “working the program.” I felt I was a regular attendee, sorta. Around this time, we were talking a lot of this “prayer and god” stuff. What’s that got to do with all this drinking talk?

Sometimes there was talk and reference of stuff which seemed to have little to do with how much I drank. For example, there was lots of talk of something called “steps” – took me awhile to really understood where that came from and what it was. One time my sponsor recorded the list of my lack of politeness and acts of personal embarrassment to friends and others. My sponsor told me to go and “make amends to all of them.

But I didn’t come to East One to deal with my social behavior. And I sure didn’t come to AA’s version of a church “Sunday School” for I’d already run into enough of that at my own church.

But wait, with a bit of time and effort on my part, ultimately, I found help was available, “good help,” help very familiar with the negative impact of the disease of alcoholism. I was told repeatedly that the AA Program worked if I worked it. I think I was starting to understand that.

For some reason, once a bit of time had passed, this stuck with me, it hit me, why, I’m not certain. I’d just come back from vacation with difficulties with the family. I was “glad to be back.”

Perhaps this had something to do with it for the chairperson started a “game” of drawing names from an old baseball cap, giving a person 5 minutes to speak to this AA group, if your name was drawn. What was I going to say, no idea what I would say.

At some point I got a sponsor, I guess because he’d called me, maybe I called him. Whatever. He said I hadn’t “really accepted that I was a practicing alcoholic.” I didn’t understand but with time I learned and believed AA offered me a way out of it all. I was told repeatedly that it was up to me, not this Bank basement, nor my sponsor.

After a period of attendance, a period of working with the Steps, an admission of the reality of an actual member of East One, I learned the importance of “carrying the message” to others.

I had spent years drinking and developing a practicing alcoholic’s life. How could this Bank’s yellow basement room successfully rid one’s life of “drink patterns?”  I’ve accepted that over time for this Yellow Room would show me.

But I guess the best I can say now is,

“Stay tuned, come back to learn more. It works if I work it, but what does that mean? I’ll let you know.

…  See ya”

Jim A, East One, Cincinnati

Today, October 14, 2026, is my birthday. I am eighty years of age. I have been active in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous for forty-seven of those years. Both those statements are miracles on their own. I am semi-retired and, since my partner is full time employed (a teacher) I have the day to myself in the “home office.” The good thing about this is that I don’t have to be worried about “Being fair minded and tolerant (respectful)’ which is “a goal toward which I must work daily.” *

On Monday, I shared at my clergy AA meeting that I don’t have to be concerned about being “fair minded and tolerant” until I go to a meeting, or the grocery store, or any place where there are humans just like me. When that happens, it brings out the good and the not -so-good of me and then I have to “…ask God, as I understand Him [Her] to help me be loving and tolerant [respectful] to my loved ones and those with whom I am in close contact.”

It never ceases to amaze me the number of times I get in my car, take a deep breath, slowly back out, and make myself believe I am going to be positive to and about everyone I meet. That may last as far as the main gate of the complex in which I live. “All those stupid people. They don’t know how to drive. Why don’t they….” And then I have to bite my tongue and remind myself that I was like one of them the day before.

The thing is this, I don’t say anything to them. I wave to them and, if the window is open, I wish them a good day. They have no idea what I am thinking and what I’d love to do. As was said about me to my mother by those who really did not know me in childhood, “Annie, you’ve got such a good boy.” Little did they know I was required – although that was never said directly to me – to be that ‘good boy’ for the sake of my mother’s good name. 

I can’t count the number of times I told my students, “watch your mouth.” When I began to get sober in the Fellowship, I had to tell myself, “watch your mouth” as I was not the kindest person in the neighborhood. I could and did say hurtful things to people I should have been grateful for in my life. The problem was that there were times when my “Irish temper” had a very short fuse. It was worse when I had a long fuse which finally exploded and the one who got hurt was not the one with whom I was angry.

“Prayer, meditation, and inventories are the key to sound thinking and positive action for me” * Prayer – lifting my mind and heart to God - and meditation helped me with my inventories. Bit by bit, my “Irish temper” was dampened (not put out), and I learned to say “watch your mouth” to myself. More often than not I found myself asking “Do I really need to say anything?” And when I do this, my blood pressure is normal, my breathing is normal, my tongue is secure, and I can laugh.

Once I became sober and began to experience the fruit of the program, the fellowship, and the Promises, it was the “one-liners” that kept tripping me up and steadying me on my spiritual journey. “Does it have to be said? Does it have to be said now? Does it have to be said by me?” One day at a time. I am the hand of A.A. God doesn’t cause it, god will get you through it. I am responsible. I am a good person who makes mistakes. Watch your language. Live the program, work the steps. Pray only for the knowledge of god’s will for us and the power to carry that out. God could and would if He [She] were sought. Talk the talk and walk the walk. Let go and let god. God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Suit up and show up. Keep coming back.

After forty-seven years of working the steps and living the program to the best of my ability and with the help of my Higher Power, I am, thankfully, far from perfect. My Irish temper lies sleeping. Things I shouldn’t say to others, I say to myself. Thanks be to God for the program and the fellowship.

*Daily Reflections: October 12. 294.

Séamus D.
Séamus D. is a semi-retired episcopal priest in the Diocese of Louisiana.

Recently I was back in Seattle visiting family and friends. I found myself going to places that had been and were still very important to me and my recovery. I’m calling them shrines because they hold the spirit of God and my recovery in them even to this day.

St. Paul’s Church, Ballard neighborhood, Seattle: I went to my first meeting at this church – a woman’s meeting. I heard women laughing about the most terrible things they had done while drunk. I ended up laughing too and then realized I hadn’t laughed that wonderful way for a long time. The women became life-long friends and held me through that first year and for many years after that.

Greenlake, Seattle: The lake has a 2-mile walking path around it.  I think I have walked it with recovery friends hundreds of times since I got sober. I particularly remember telling my first sponsor that I wanted the 7 years she had and she told me – great – do what we do in AA and in 7 years you will have 7 years. She also told me that biologically we humans have a completely new set of cells in our body EVERY 7 years! I try to remember that then I say, “this too shall pass” about something troubling me.

Seattle Kingdome: At 6 months of sobriety, I went to the opening ceremony of the 1990 AA/Alanon International Convention. I was scared to ask a few women if I could go with them. I felt safe in that huge crowd of over 60,000 people because I was pretty sure they were safe. I found myself saying out loud as the parade of countries started – “I am doing this! There is all this support for me!”. The Kingdom isn’t there anymore, but I see it in my mind’s eye whenever I think about that day and when I pass by where it was.

Stops Along the WAY: I spent 9 months traveling the US. I remember St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bisbee, AZ. I went to Easter service there and then to the luncheon and a meeting as well. Many Episcopal Churches have labyrinths outside and I walked them in Galveston TX, Sedona, AZ and in South Carolina. Now I walk one in my hometown of Green Valley, AZ.

When I arrived in the town that I grew up in, I went to many meetings. Most were in Church basements. The parish I grew up in was Our Lady of Perpetual Help. What surprise it was to find out that the AA meeting in my childhood church was more that 40 years old! It was a weird and wonderful time to attend meetings there while I was visiting my sister.

Part of the trip I housesat for a friend on Maui. There I went to meetings on the beach with rainbows overhead. I also did a 5^th Step at The Place of Refuge on the Big Island. This historic sanctuary was where law breakers and defeated warriors could find absolution and protection. It was that for me.

Sacred Place now: When I told friends I was moving to AZ after 43 years in Seattle they wondered how I would do and how I would make friends? They were not in recovery. I told them of the sacred places that had supported me throughout my sobriety and how AA would help me find those places AND people wherever I went. I walked into my now Home Group – Sober Sisters – on the first Monday after I arrived. I was greeted and hugged and offered friendship and support. We sit at long table in a beautiful library in a Lutheran Church.

I only have to close my eyes, and I can be in that room or any other of the sacred spaces I have been to in sobriety. The crowds of witnesses in those places number in the thousands and I know I can continue to grow and live in sobriety another day!

Take a moment and let yourself connect with your sacred shrines of recovery – it will make your day and bring a smile to your face.

Libbie S

After shopping one afternoon, I came home to find my husband, then boyfriend, in the garden. He looked visibly shaken.

“I’ve been waiting for you to get home. Can we go inside and talk?”

As we scrubbed our hands under the kitchen faucet, he began explaining that the man who played an integral part in getting him to treatment was in kidney failure. Immediately, I hurt for him.

“So, I’m thinking…”

Grabbing a tea towel, I began nodding before he finished his sentence.

“Yes, absolutely, you should go see him and have some quality time,” I said, while drying my hands. “I’ll take care of everything here.”

“Actually, I wanted to sit down with you and talk about whether I should consider donating a kidney.”

Absolutely not. Is he insane?

 In less than two seconds, I had myself heartbroken, alone, and my boyfriend dead on the operating table. Two more seconds and I began searching for the right words to shut this thing down. I went from being the sweet and understanding girlfriend to a woman losing her ever loving mind. “What if one of your kids needs a kidney? I thought we were doing this life together.”

I guess he doesn’t love me as much as he says he does.

What about me? What if I need a kidney? I marched back outside and started pulling unruly vines wrapped around pine trees in our backyard. That’s fine. I don’t need him. I’ll just be alone. Better to find out where I stand now. Sweating and thirsty I went back inside to get some water.

Alone in the kitchen, I asked myself why I’d reacted that way? “You’re afraid.” Your scared of losing him.”

It was true. I’d flown straight into fear-driven thinking, frightened of losing this beautiful person, and the love and security he brought to my life.

My husband’s kidney (which he still has) isn’t the only one of his organs to shed light on my   character defects. During our years together, he’s moved between having diverticulosis (the presence of little pouches in the colon) and diverticulitis (when one or more of those pouches becomes inflamed). The prescription for avoiding flare-ups is to eat intentionally and adhere to a high fiber, high-quality diet. Veering off this regimen and overindulging often has consequences.

Unfortunately, last week he had a flare-up. Fortunately, we know how to treat it.

He describes the initial symptoms as an irritation—a hybrid of internal pressure and stretching. The symptoms go from bad to worse very quickly and it becomes extremely painful and often debilitating, leaving him bed-ridden for days. The course of action is to get on a clear liquid diet for about a week, treating the inflammation by not feeding it. When symptom free, he often reverts to eating whatever he wants, acting as though he doesn’t have this illness.

My spiritual illness is similar. My character defects are there, dormant just waiting to flare up and cause not only me, but everyone around me, irritation and pain. In my arrogance, I can lose sight that spiritual disciplines and principles are what allow me to keep my symptoms arrested and have emotional sobriety. I get flare-ups. Thankfully, I know how to treat them. I cannot afford to delude myself into thinking that following my spiritual diet yesterday means I’m good today.

The subtle signals I get also happen in my abdomen—my belly barometer, I call it. When I’m disturbed. When there’s an irritation. When my defects are inflamed, a shift in perspective is always prescribed to avoid debilitating consequences. I ask God to perform spiritual surgery, knowing that my character defects keep me separated from others, thus separated from God. When I’m separated from God, I’m cutoff from the vital power that provides me soundness of mind, the ability to be useful, and the tools to live happy, joyous and free.

Jaime Hrobar

When I moved to Arizona, I wanted to learn everything about Monsoons! I am a bit of a weather nerd – probably more from my character defect of wanting to control things that I can’t possibly control! Weather is NOT controllable.

In May of each year, my town has a Monsoon Madness presentation. We have so many folk who retire here from all over the US and the town wants to educate people about the monsoon season (June 1 – September 30). When we have rain here it is most often very heavy and because we are in the desert, flash flooding is a given. Teaching people about NOT driving into standing water saves lives. Lightning can be strong and start desert fires easily. We learn “TURN AROUND, DON’T DROWN.”

I look forward to Monsoon! Tropical winds from the gulf of Mexico meet the very hot temps of southern AZ and by 2-3 pm most days, the thunder clouds build and we watch for rain. Often, I can see rain and lighting and thunder just a few miles away as the desert is flat, but then it doesn’t move to my house. They can get .50 inches in a few minutes, I get none! I want the rain! The average rainfall here is only 13 inches and most of it comes during the summer. To grow anything – I need rain!

When the storms hit my house – it is exciting and frightening. Thunder and lightning can go on for what seems like hours. The wind goes up to 30+ miles per hour and the rain pours.

So why tell you about monsoon in AZ? Well, for me it’s a bit like my sobriety and my spiritual life.

Life in sobriety can be calm often. There are some ups and downs. Sometimes for me there are seasons upheaval, pain and confusion – these are the Monsoon times. Sometimes I see the problems or events coming that can shake my serenity – often with a phone call to my sponsor and an extra meeting, the storm moves away from me. I can often see what might shake me, but I can also watch it pass by.

Then there are the times when the storms in my life can not be stopped. Meetings, phone calls, prayer, and surrender get me through. I look for the blessings in it. Monsoon brings wildflowers and growth to the desert, blooms that only come when the storms come. It also breaks our 100+ heat in the summer for a day or two and saves me money on air conditioning. The lightening can be spectacular to watch.

I don’t think I will ever like the hard times that come in the way I like the monsoons, but I do love knowing that the storms in the sky and in my life, ALWAYS pass with the help of God and recovery.

Libbie S.

 

On September 28, I will turn 70.

Even writing those words feels a little strange. Seventy sounds like an age that once belonged to other people. And yet, here I am, grateful, a little amazed, and increasingly aware that the way I got here is the same way I have learned to live most of my life: one day at a time.

In July, I celebrated 37 years of sobriety and recovery. I have now been a sober person for more than half my life.

There was a time when I could not imagine 37 days sober, never mind 37 years! Recovery taught me not to try to get too far ahead of myself. I didn’t have to stay sober for the rest of my life. I only had to stay sober today. Tomorrow would have its own grace and promise.

That lesson has become about much more than not drinking.

One day at a time has become a way of understanding faith, aging, ministry, relationships, loss, joy…and God. Jesus told his friends not to worry about tomorrow. Recovery told me much the same thing. Both have invited me to trust that the grace I need will be there when I need it.

Over these 37 years, I have been given the gifts of experience, strength, and hope. Experience has taught me that life will not always unfold as I expect. Strength has often arrived through other people when I had very little of my own. And hope has come from trusting the promises of the program….not perfection, progress…a day at a time.

My Christian faith and my recovery have become inseparable. Both ask me to surrender the illusion that I am in control. Both call me into community. Both offer forgiveness and the possibility of beginning again. And both remind me that grace is not something I earn.

So, as I turn 70, I find myself less interested in counting the years ahead.

I have today.

Today I can be grateful. Today I can make amends where they are needed. Today I can love the people God has placed in my life. Today I can be useful. Today I can trust.

Seventy years of life. Thirty-seven years of recovery.

And still, wonderfully, just one day at a time.

Peace, Sandi (CT)

Bill W. wrote, “See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others.” Reading that sentence outside of the context in which it is written, one could imagine a born-again Christian saying it while pointing an accusing finger at the person to whom they are speaking.

Bill W. was no born-again-Christian. He was an atheist who, at the lowest point in his life had a spiritual awakening when his hospital room lit up and he commented something to the effect “so this is the god of the Christians” and, seemingly, from there he turned his will and his life over to the care of God as he understood God.

How did a Wall Street broker, an atheist and a first class drunk become such a spiritual writer, such a spiritual person? I’ve been fascinated by him this many a year as I turn the pages of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS and continue to discover that “more will be revealed.”

One cannot help but smile while reading A VISION FOR YOU  in which he tells the beginnings of AA and the first few characters who “found something new in life. Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary. It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves to others.”

It has been almost a quarter of a century since I last sat beside an active drunk, vomiting, cursing, drooling, and telling him “You’re in the right place. You’re going to be all right.” The majority of our new members – like I did – walk in wide-eyed from having spent three to four weeks in the comfort of a treatment program and have been medically detoxed with little to no pain. I watched others come to grips with step one as they fought to stay away from the only solution they knew for years. At times I was jealous that I did not get to suffer more and accept the program earlier. But then I know, God’s ways are not my ways, and I wouldn’t be in the fellowship had not god kicked me in the rearend.

 “See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others” No one had to go to church. No one had to believe in God, in a God. We just came to believe that a Power, greater than ourselves, could, if we let it, give us the peace of mind we attempted to squeeze out of a bottle of alcohol as it numbed our mind.

To find “Him” we had to look deep within ourselves, myself. I had to open my mind and heart to the reality that I was a rather closed-minded, opinionated, prejudiced, person. To find “Him” I had to clear up the wreckage caused by my so-called friends – Johnny Walker and others. What fascinated me was that once I took the risk of looking inside, a door opened that let me see my past and present situations and I did not want to go back to the past. That was a dark and destructive time in my life and now I could see it. Initially, I did not think I’d ever laugh at some of the stupidity of the past.          As Bill wrote, “Many a man, yet dazed from his hospital experience… succumbed to that gay crowd inside, who laughed at their own misfortunes and understood his.”

“Abandon yourself to God as you understand God.” I believed in God. I prayed to God. I worshipped god. But never had I abandoned myself to God. Submit. Surrender. How foreign? And yet, without being asked, I had surrendered my will and my life to Jack Daniels and friends. It was time to get real. “Clear the wreckage of the past Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Give freely of what you find and join us.”

I did and for many years now I have been grateful on a daily basis for the peace and serenity I have experienced, the sober friends I have made, and the joy of shared laughter over cups of coffee.

Keep it Simple. Don’t drink today. Keep coming back. Read the Big Book. Talk to your sponsor. Be the hand of AA to those who ask for help. And remember the One who was and is the source of your freedom.

Séamus D.
Séamus D is a semi-retired priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana

12-step Eucharist, 17A, September 2, 2026 Burning Bush, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock

Frederick Buechner calls this story of the burning bush one of the greatest moments in Old Testament history. In fact, he believes it is the key moment. Moses is a stranger and exile in Midian on the east bank of the Gulf of Aqabah. He flees there from Egypt after murdering an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave. We often forget that several of the founders of our religion are murderers. It is interesting how the people we meet in scripture are failures and sinners whom God redeems for great work. Moses settles down and tends his father-in-law’s sheep in the wilderness near the slopes of Mt. Horeb. Then the moment happens. A bush bursts into flame. It blazes up. The heat ripples the air. Leaf and stem become fire, crackling and leaping, as if the air around it were also on fire. But though the bush burns, it does not burn up because it is a miraculous fire. It is a fire that Moses cannot explain any more than we can.

Then, out of the fiery moment, a voice flames up, and of all the conceivable things it might say, its first words are a name. “Moses,” it says. “Moses.” God says it twice, and at the sound of his own name, Moses is caught, just as we would be. We are so much our own names that at the sound of them we cannot help but stop and listen. The voice that calls us by name knows us by name and has something to say to us. So Moses, the stranger and exile, stands there with the muck of the sheep on his shoes, guilty as sin of a man’s murder, and listens and answers.

“Here am I,” he says, waiting for God only knows what will happen next; maybe a lightning bolt will strike and set him on fire like the bush. But what happens next is that the voice from the fire speaks and says, “Take off your shoes. The place where you are standing is holy ground.”¹

Each of us knows about a burning bush. In many ways, it brought us here to this 12-Step Eucharist. It is that voice that calls us by name. It is that moment of clarity that calls us by name to stop and realize we are standing on holy ground because God is speaking to us. We may hear this voice as silence or a whisper, but if we keep living with our lives as the center of the universe, the voice grows louder and louder, until it may become a flaming bush. This has been my experience with the Hound of Heaven. This suggests that Moses may not have previously been a good listener!

We return to the rooms where we found recovery and to this place tonight to remember the warmth of that burning bush and to remember that we were not the first to see and hear God’s voice. And Moses, of course, was not the first either. This is the God of love who will do almost anything to care for us, to let us know how much we are loved, and to offer resurrection from the many things that harm us in this life, and offer an even closer walk with that love divine in the world to come. 

1Frederick Buechner, “Hope,” in Secrets in the Dark, pp. 73-81.

A clergy friend recently asked me to write something about consciousness for a class he was leading. Later that day, I was in a recovery meeting where the focus was on Step 2 – “Came to believe that a Power Greater that ourselves could restore us to sanity.” It occurred to me as I listened to my companions, that my own recovery journey has taught me something about consciousness. I think many of us begin mired in self-consciousness – focused on ourselves, our needs, our fears, our wounds, and our attempts to manage or control the world around us. I know that place well. Recovery, and my journey of faith, have gradually opened me to something larger: a “God”-consciousness. Through that opening, I have come to trust more deeply in a Presence greater than myself, a Love that holds me, and a Grace I don’t have to manufacture. And the beauty of it all, I believe, is that the more conscious we become of God, the less consumed we are with ourselves and the more able we are to truly see the essence of God’s Spirit in the people around us. An “Other”-consciousness begins to emerge, not out of obligation, but out of connection, compassion, and love. Perhaps this is the true core of the lessons both recovery and faith offer to us: that the spiritual journey is really in how the Spirit moves us from self-consciousness, into God-consciousness, and then outward into a deeper consciousness of one another. Perhaps, in the end, these are not three separate kinds of consciousness at all, but one expanding awareness that God is present in me, in you, and in the life we share.

People in recovery from alcohol, drugs and other addictions often talk about the moment they realized there might be a way out of their old lifestyle and addiction. They call it a moment of clarity. Many were desperate. Some knew this was not the path they would never choose, but there they were.

Do you remember your Moment of Clarity? I do. Many of my friends in recovery do. Just ask someone in the program, “What was your moment of clarity, when you knew, really knew”.

It’s like asking someone (depending on their age) where they were when the Twin Towers fell or Martin Luther King or JFK or Bobby Kennedy were assassinated or when they experienced watching the first person walking on the moon. Instantly, the memory is front and center of their mind and they can tell you in great detail EXACTLY what they remembered and how they felt and how it changed their lives – forever!

This was mine:

My counselor asked me to see a friend of hers for an alcohol assessment. My issues were not alcohol, I thought. I didn't drink and drive, I never "had too many” (although I did at a party a few weeks before and had actually thrown up – something I had never done, not even in college). I didn't consume alcohol during my pregnancy. I went to see the woman just to prove to my counselor that I didn't have a problem with alcohol.

Randy said she would meet with me three times and then give me her assessment. Towards the end of the first session, she announced that she did not need to see me two more times.

Vindication! I thought. See, I'm not an alcoholic; I don't have a problem!

But what she said next stunned me. "You are heading down a very dangerous road. You're drinking rather than dealing with your feelings. It appears that chemically speaking, you still have a choice about drinking. You might keep that choice for some time but because of all you have told me about your family's history of alcoholism and alcohol abuse, especially your mother, I am greatly concerned for you. It is my opinion that if you continue to drink, the disease of alcoholism will take over, you will lose your choice, and your body will make you drink even if you don't want to. It may not happen tomorrow, you may have perhaps four more drinks, or four years, or even forty years, but it will happen.”

“Imagine playing Russian Roulette, she said – There is a bullet in one of the chambers. You have been spinning the chamber and pulling the trigger, each time so far you missed the bullet. But there is a bullet in the gun and it will come up.

"My advice to you is to stop now while you still have the choice. You may think that you will know which drink in the future will be the one to create complete chemical dependency.” Then she asked me: “do you think you are clever enough to figure out which drink it will be? But you need to know this: Just before you take that drink, the sky will not open up, and God will not make an announcement alerting you that 'This is the drink'."

When a newcomer comes to a meeting, I listen carefully to hear their Moment of Clarity, and I am grateful for mine. When I am down or scared and wondering if sobriety is worth it – I remember my moment.

The topic of ‘Your Moment of Clarity” is a great topic for a meeting.

What was you moment of clarity?

Libbie S.