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Through the Red Door Blog

In the early days of the Church, when the front door of the parish was painted red it was said to signify sanctuary – that the ground beyond these doors was holy, and anyone who entered through them was safe from harm.

In the lives of many recovering people, it is through these same red doors that sanctuary is found on a daily basis. Initially that sanctuary may not have started in the rooms with high vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows, but in the basements and back rooms of churches where 12-step meetings are held.

This blog was created for recovering people to share the experiences they found walking through those doors of safety, refuge and peace.

 
To submit a entry to the blog, please click here for the details or contact us at info@episcopalrecovery.org.

  • 12/18/2024 7:51 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    The flow of alcohol, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ:

    Remembering Christmas

    “Cum’on”, be honest...as a practicing alcoholic, you probably saw Christmas as “God sent” in more ways than one.

    The former alcoholic in me remembers those December Christmas days of office parties, Saturday and Sunday neighborhood afternoon/evening open houses, endless wine and cheese at charitable fund raisers, and gifting fine wine and liquor.

    Honestly, it seemed the excess of alcohol was the norm. But January often brought shame for my December high-jinks. And often late in my drinking days, this started my paying attention to thoughts of ...  “maaaybe” ... ah’tending ... an AA meeting! ... But then again ... maybe not.  Ohhh, those recollections.

    I ask myself, honestly, did my December binge morph into the devil’s debt the payment for which was called in January?

    I recall that my “last binged-based Christmas” was just that. My shame and anxiousness, festered and grew and ate at me until the early days of the Easter Season when I finally surrendered and went to my first AA meeting at “East One.”

    But yes! Many AA meetings after that first one, I still have no doubt I need to recall those December days. They contaminated my life and accelerated my slide down to my deepest alcoholic days. I absolutely do not wish to return to those days. I do not wish to recall the details; shadowy generalities are adequate, thank you. But I must keep just a tiny bit of those days as reminders of the alcoholic depths I had fallen into.

    Christ taught us this. We are sinners and always will be. He tells us of how to live our lives by following His path. We admitted we needed His love to provide a new way of life. We work at it in our meditations with Him.

    And AA calls us to reach for Bill and Dr. Bob, the Twelve Steps, and the hands of people who have learned to walk the paths of sobriety seeking that “next right thing” in their own lives. 

    Referring to our “days of alcoholic rage” is not a comment about going back out but an observation that I need to recall these Christmas alcoholic days and get to a meeting to erase the memory.

    I recall one personal episode. T’was Christmas Day in Denver where my son lives. Cold, windy and a stormy snow. Waiting for dinner, Christmas presents opened, noon, quiet, tired of TV and the yakking talking heads and football color talkers. I wasn’t thinking about “going back out” but there was a shadow of those Christmas mad houses. I was not interested in playing “chicken” with that shadow.

    I asked my son, “Is there an AA Clubhouse in Denver, and where is it?” It was an easy distance, we headed out, the only car on the road. The Clubhouse was as usual a grand old house someone had left to serve as Denver’s central AA gathering place.

    Jammed with people. All laughing and exchanging stories. A typical AA pre-meeting gathering. Then the meeting itself, the same words of every AA meeting were exchanged, words heard at any AA meeting in the world.

    What would Christ have said? ... you know well what He would have said...He was there with us talking with each of us and like us, enjoying the feelings of our unity.   

    What a marvelous time to feel the presence of Christ, Bill W, and Dr. Bob. a presence wherever we are.

    That day, a cold snowy afternoon, that Christmas Day in Denver many years ago, that’s where I was.

    Jim A St X Noon, Cincinnati.  

  • 12/11/2024 7:08 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    My very first AA meeting was in western MA. I had gone to visit my sister who was in recovery, and she took me. It was a women’s meeting. I cried the whole hour.

    When I returned to Seattle, I was maybe a week sober. My life was a mess. My marriage would end after that first year sober. My young daughter would go back and forth to her parents’ houses.

    But this isn’t about all that—This is about Holly.

    I found a women’s meeting close to my house after visiting my sister. It was a Friday 5:30 meeting. I don’t remember what the name of it was. It was in a church room. When I walked into it there were maybe 10 women. I listened and was shocked to hear the crazy things these women had done while drinking—and they were laughing! Soon I was too. I realized I hadn’t laughed like that in at least a year.

    At the end of the meeting, a woman came up to me and welcomed me. She told me it would be ok. Somehow, she shared that she had two years sober and I was in awe! I couldn’t imagine that could be me if I stuck with AA. She told me some of the women go out for dinner after the meeting and she invited me, but I said I couldn’t because my daughter would have to be with me, and I didn’t have anyone to babysit her.

    “My daughter can babysit her. You could come to my place; they could meet and then we will go to the meeting together”. So, I did. My daughter loved Katharine. I got to go to a meeting and then have dinner with women in recovery! I did this for the whole of my first year of sobriety. My AA angel—Holly. She gave me the most wonderful one-year anniversary party!

    We went to meetings in Seattle for more than 15 years and then Holly moved. My daughter grew up and didn’t need babysitting. Holly and I still had many adventures. We gardened together when I visited when we could and helped each other stay sober. I had a great sponsor, but Holly was my AA best friend.

    Two weeks ago, her daughter contacted me that Holly had died. She had a stroke and died 4 days later. I don’t think we had spoken for maybe a year. I would see pictures on Facebook, but we hadn’t visited in a few years.

    At my meeting this week here in Green Valley, AZ, we read the first half of the 12th step. Holly carried the message to me. Over and over again she cheered me on and when she died, she still had 2 more years than me—36 years!

    So, if you think that your being in recovery hasn’t really helped since you never went on a Bill Wilson type 12 step call, think again. Each meeting is a chance to welcome someone and help them

    Thank you, Holly.

    ...

  • 12/05/2024 8:25 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Last month things got dark. I thought of drinking. I didn't have a plan to drink but the thought alone was a warning sign. I remembered the tools given to me in the early days of recovery. I reached out to a friend who was with me in those early days; we went to daily meetings and sat in coffee shops helping each other stay sober one more day. I called her up. I told her I would attend a meeting and once done I would call her again (bookend, I remember them calling it).

    I have nearly 14 years of sobriety, but in the last six years or so I have not been attending meetings. I moved to a small town, I was worried about my anonymity at meetings, life was busy. There were many reasons and no good excuses. Despite the long absence, as soon as the meeting started, I felt comfortable: the message had not changed. I was humbled when I realized that my turn to thoughts of drinking was based on feelings of resentment. Anger and resentment had surfaced as my life was taking a turn I had not planned. Early on in the rooms I heard that resentment is the number one reason people in recovery pick up a drink again. Now I was living proof that resentment has the power to make the drink seem possible again.

    Then Psalm 124 appeared in my daily scripture readings: “Then would have the waters have engulfed us, the torrent gone over us; over our head would have swept the raging waters.” Yes, I thought, that imagery feels very real. I need to keep my Higher Power and AA close to my side so as to keep the waters of anger, resentment, and darkness from sweeping me away.

    The antidote to resentment is gratitude. I was reminded of this when I returned to meetings. How much gratitude can be felt in the meetings! Gratitude for being alive, for being sober, and living a life beyond what we dreamed of when we walked through the doors. I am reminded every Sunday when I exclaim: Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise. I have been given breath for one more day. And I take that breath sober. I used to start my day every morning thanking God for my sobriety. I am going to start doing that again.

    Susanne E

  • 11/27/2024 7:28 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    “Had I not been blessed with wise and loving advisers; I might have cracked up long ago…Many of my dearest A.A. friends have stood with me in exactly this same relation. Oftentimes they could help where others could not, simply because they were A.A.’s.”*

    Bill was quite open with the fact that he needed help, socially, medically, mentally and spiritually. He acknowledges that “A doctor saved me once from death by alcoholism.” “a psychiatrist, later on helped me save my sanity…from a clergyman I acquired the truthful principles by which we AA’s now try to live.”

    Bill has set a good example for all of us. I look back at my path to A.A. and see that I was confronted early in the disease process. I ignored it but never forgot it. At eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning, I was confronted and told “Seamus, you’re an alcoholic.” I told the individual “You should know, you’re one yourself.” He was, but he was also active in recovery.

    For just over four years, I ran my own program doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons and was anything but happy. I went to therapists who were not in the program and, while they meant well, they missed—or it seemed to me later on—my conning them, my lies, justifications, excuses.

    Then I went to a therapist who was “one of us.” Oops. She did not let me away with my con game and accepted no excuses. I had to be honest with myself, her, and everyone else. It’s not easy to be honest when you’ve hid behind a wall of lies and excuses. But, as scripture tells us, “The truth will set you free” (even if it is a pain in the derriere and heart).

    All of that opened a door for me in meetings. I did not want to let people know that, when I was active as a priest, I was a black-out drinker and didn’t remember much of what I was told when I began to make amends. But this program demands rigorous honesty and so I began a new way of living—being honest with myself, and others.

    No one said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” “You should have known better; you were a priest.” “How could you have done that with all your education.” What I got was a hug and told “keep coming back.”

    There is a quality of life in A.A. that is different from any other group of people. We have to be honest if we are going to live—not just survive. As the program tells us; “We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

    That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that god is doing for us what we could not for ourselves.”(1)

    I did not want to be in A.A. but, I wanted what you had and only AA people could offer me what I wanted. It was by invitation. “If you want what we have then…” Yes. I wanted what you had; the freedom to be and become who we were meant to be. I wanted the peace of mind that comes from living in the Slow lane; the joy of knowing I can make mistakes and it’s not the end of the world. I wanted the spirituality that helped me find a Higher Power and let me work through my negative religious beliefs and find a God of my understanding.

    Only people active in A.A. understand the danger of “a bad day.” I was received as a priest into the Episcopal church. One Sunday, as I stood at the back of the church, a man came up and said, “Father, can you help me. I feel like I’m going to drink.” To his surprise, I gave him a hug, told him I am a friend of Bill’s, that he was in the right place and directed him to a noon meeting. I could never have done that without being active in the Fellowship. Today, and every day, I am grateful for the Fellowship and the program that lets me Live.

    Grapevine Aug 1961. [As Bill Sees it. 303]
    1)     Alcoholics Anonymous. 96.

    Séamus D
    Séamus is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Louisiana


  • 11/23/2024 8:32 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Quitting drinking with God's help was a transformative journey that reshaped my life. For years, alcohol had a firm grip on me. What started as casual social drinking slowly turned into a dependency that affected my health, relationships, and spiritual well-being. Despite trying to quit on my own, I always seemed to fall back into old habits. It was clear I needed something more, and that’s when I turned to God.

    I began to pray earnestly, asking God for the strength to overcome my addiction. I knew that on my own, I didn’t have the willpower to break free, but I believed that with His guidance, I could find the strength I lacked. In my prayers, I asked for clarity, peace, and a new path forward. I also sought out scripture that spoke to God’s power to heal and restore, which gave me the hope I desperately needed. Verses like Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," became a cornerstone of my faith as I faced the daily struggle of resisting temptation.

    As I leaned more into my relationship with God, I started to see the change. I found comfort in knowing that I wasn’t alone in my battle. God provided me with the peace and strength I needed to resist the urge to drink. I also sought support from my church community, which became an essential source of encouragement and accountability. Gradually, the cravings diminished, and I began to experience a sense of freedom I had never known before.

    Through God’s help, I not only quit drinking but also gained a renewed sense of purpose and peace. My faith grew stronger, and my life took on new meaning. With God by my side, I realized that no challenge is too great to overcome.

  • 11/13/2024 8:31 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    I learned how to needlepoint when I was ten or eleven years old.  My mother and my grandmother needlepointed, and I wanted to be close to them, so they taught me. Somewhere, I still have that first project. It is a picture of a little girl walking with a fishing pole over her shoulder. Even then, I was no fussy girly girl.

    Years went by before I again picked up needlework. I did crewel and cross stich and some knitting.  During graduate school, the professor understood, I would do my needlework during class as I found that I listened and retained the lecture better when I did.  I have since found out there is a scientific reason for this. I tried to do the needlework in meetings at work, but I never could convince my supervisor that it would be ok.

    When I got sober and started my journey of recovery from alcohol and co-dependency, I was often uncomfortable at meetings.  I attended meeting regularly and was told to “keep coming back” and “one day at a time.”  I remembered my needlework and how I enjoyed it and started a project one night early in recovery at a meeting I regularly attended. The needlepoint I chose would become a rug.  There were five sections, and it would take me years to complete it.  I often thought – “why did I start this?  It will take forever!”  Each time I looked at a blank canvas I was overwhelmed with doubt and frustration at the work it was going to take.

    I started one of the panels in the ICU of a hospital where my dearest friend’s husband was.  He had had a brain injury after a motorcycle accident and was in a coma. All his and his spouse’s friends took turns sitting with him during the first few weeks as he started to wake up and struggle to understand what happened to him.  I remember thinking I will always remember the fear and the happiness that I could be there for them when I look at that part of my rug.

    My life these days is hard. My older sister is needing more and more help as her abilities and memory at affected. I am her power of attorney, and I live on the other side of the country from her. It is very hard. A dear friend, who was once long ago a boyfriend died this week, rather suddenly. We had just emailed at Easter. Everything about the election ground me down.

    My rug that took 9 years of meetings to finish is on the floor of my bedroom. What I am learning repeatedly each time I enter the room and see the rug is: every beginning, every challenge, every obstacle seems to be ‘too much’ at the beginning. This is life on life’s terms. But I still go to a meetings, talk with my sponsor, live with what is, stitch by stitch. Like my needlepoint rug, it only got completed – one stitch at a time – so too with life and recovery.  One stitch, one moment, one day at a time.


    Libbie S., Sober Sisters, Mondays 3PM


  • 11/06/2024 7:19 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    The dust jacket of the “Circus Cover Edition” of the formally titled book “Alcoholics Anonymous” is a very bright red and yellow, centered with a bright red dot on top of an equally bright yellow paper background with a series of yellow and black, white and red stripes. The book itself is enclosed in a very bright red heavy cardboard binding. It’s printed on “the same bulky paper” used in 1939 when published by the Works Publishing Company formed by Bill and Dr. Bob. The cover notes in an apologetic way that the book can be ordered for “free examination” for $3.50 but says the buyer should include “a few extra cents [so that if he or she is] not satisfied the book will be helpful, the money including postage will be refunded.” At 2 inches thick and at a weight of 2.20 pounds, its nickname rightly became “The Big Book”. Thirty million copies of that Big Book have been sold and the Library of Congress has labeled it as one of 88 books which “shaped America.”

    The title page of the Circus Cover Edition told us what this large book is all about:

           “The Story of How More than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism

    Just a cute story with a happy ending? Certainly, but what else does all this mean to me? Well, it sure tells the story about a bunch of recovering drunks who believed they had found a way out of the darkness of their alcoholism and maybe for the first time in their lives had found the ability to hold a job, to be happily married, and enjoy relationships with their kids.

    For me, to put it in the simplest of ideas, it’s one of those “reminder-books” —one which tells me a lot and demands constant referral and use, not unlike the Bible. In AA’s Big Book, we read and study the stories written by those early recovery pioneers, stories we review at meetings, looking for similarity to our own lives, and how their words in 1939 might guide us as we walk their paths today.

    Back when the book was published, AA, its very self, was stymied by society’s stigma on alcoholics. But these recovering alcoholics knew this disease was a far greater illness of society than exhibited by those found on South State or Madison in Chicago or on that “skid row” street in your hometown.  This bright red and yellow Big Book was the start of ridding society of the curse of stigma, and today, “stigma” is seen as nonsensical.

    But another important question: what does the Circus Book Edition ask of me? Surely, it’ a tool for use at meetings to identify topics for discussion of how we can work the Steps for ourselves in our own program. Just as importantly, it shows the way for us to live life in a way which guides us to travel the road to the next right thing, not only in the Program but in the way we live life itself. Isn’t this what Christ and the New Testament writings of the Disciples, Peter and Paul and the others called us to undertake? Is not this Big Book, this Circus Book, similar in its callings?

    Never had an organized reasonable path been suggested as a way out of our drunken dungeons. The Big Book was a frank discussion of that path, its wondering, the dangers we encounter.

    How Bill and Dr. Bob picked the Circus Book’s cover escapes me ... it appears at first glance to be a bright colorful and heavy children’s book. Maybe that was their intention—to carry the message that they’d found that the Program itself outlines—a simple program for complicated people who were acting like children.

    So does the “cuteness” of the “Circus Book” merely cause a chuckle, you bet it does—but then it says to me,

    “Get out of your chair and get to that meeting at Noon, offer a comment or two which helped you in your own walk, listen to others and learn from them, and always speak to a newbie and walk this path of recovery with them, just as was first spelled out so well in the “Circus Book” of 1939."

    JRA, ST X Noon, Cincinnati


  • 10/30/2024 7:01 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    When we were young in recovery we looked to the old-timers with awe. “She’s got 35 years” He’s got 40 years.” We’d listen when they spoke.

    We knew that all that time meant something. We knew it meant they had been through a lot and they still did not use or drink. We knew they had faced all kinds of hard things and had learned a lot about recovery and spirituality and personal growth.

    But as much as we admired the old-timers, we didn’t always ask them to be our sponsors—we needed people closer in age to us and we needed people closer to our life stage: other people who were dating or having kids or building careers or making a new life after divorce.

    We used the principles of the program—we prayed for God’s will. We surrendered. And, just like the odds in anyone’s life, some of us got the book contracts or the VP titles or the babies. And some did not. We celebrated, and we grieved.

    So, it turned out that as much as we whispered our admiration for the old-timers in our meetings, we also didn’t look too closely.

    What we missed by not looking closely was the grief, the physical pain, the family losses, and death moving closer. Maybe we knew they had a child that died but the comments in meetings just sounded so wise, still. And we heard that “so and so” had a bad diagnosis or was in the hospital, and maybe we even visited but we missed the fine points.

    “How do you get to be an old-timer?” the old joke asks. “Don’t drink and don’t die.” And we laugh. But behind closed doors, and in small living rooms where everyone is over 65, the story changes. The physical stuff is hard, death is not a theory, and we have to face things that platitudes cannot remedy.

    Then as it happens, we got older too. We had the career disappointments, and the divorces. The small crises and the huge, shocking ones. If we had kids it turned out that they pleased us, or they didn’t. The baby we prayed for 30 years ago is a drug addict or a too busy parent. They married someone who likes us or who doesn’t.

    We lose our jobs—the ones we liked and the ones we hated, and we are shocked that can happen to someone in recovery. Life happens to us the way it happens to the rest of the world. What we have is recovery and maybe a little bit more sanity than some others and some great habits and a community or people who speak our language.

    But the divorces hurt, and the wrinkles shock, and the scary diagnoses come slowly and then quickly. Time keeps passing. We sponsor young people, but our recovery friends are aging too.

    It’s not a question of staying sober or abstinent. That habit is pretty solid. And over this many years your lifestyle runs itself. You don’t buy wine, and no one offers it. You are not in bars or parties with drugs. Maybe the grown kids are a problem if they bring their substances home post-divorce. You need to tell your recovery friends about that. 

    And something else happens with those friendships: They get farther apart. As the illnesses and disabilities get more serious, our friends start to move away: they go to special living places or to the town where their kids live. Oh, we promise to call and visit, and we do, but then it’s harder for us too. And the gap grows.

    We go to meetings and we speak when asked. Our stories are still admired. But we don’t raise our hands as often. We may be a little bored with ourselves.

    We are the old-timers, but we are not fixed. No one is, after all.

    It doesn’t matter who you used to be. Who are you today? What does your commitment to recovery look like now? How do you sustain it? And how will you move toward the end of your life?

    Diane C
    Albany, New York

  • 10/23/2024 7:03 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Recently I’ve been rereading THE WORLD’S WISDOM*and this sentence stood out to me: “Death…does not mean passing away and extinction of life, but returning home to the divine world…[it]  is a passage into a new existence, the transition to a new and true life.” Reflecting on this I realized that this is what happened in the process of working and learning to live the Twelve Step program.

    My addiction was killing me. In my active addiction I had become a walking dead person. If I were going to live, then I had to die. As Jesus said, “Unless the grain of wheat, falling to the ground dies, itself remains alone.” The seed has to die in order to become alive.

    I did not know I was dying, and I did not want to die. Admitting I was powerless over alcohol sounded so stupid. I could stop anytime I wanted to, and I did periodically. Coming to grips with the true meaning of powerlessness was not easy. It was simply this: I had no idea which drink I picked up would get me drunk.

    When I finally admitted I was powerless and that my life had become unmanageable, then the beginning of new life began. My life was unmanageable, I was dead to all the values which I said I held important. Now it was time to “return to the divine world.”

    It was a strange concept that I had to “come to believe” in something I thought I believed in already. I believed there is a God. For me there were two gods; the God I talked about to others – loving, kind, merciful – and the one I feared was going to send me to hell. Now I could come to believe in an undefined Power Greater than Myself that could restore me to sanity. I had to admit that my thinking was not reasonable when it came to all that I was addicted to. Sanity, peace of mind, it was a long time since I had experienced that.       

    Believing in a Power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity was “the transition to a new and true life.” It was no longer “I” that was doing anything, but rather I was guided by this power I would, again, call God.

    I chose to ‘turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood god”. How often had I trusted people to give me directions, to answer a question honestly, to repair my car. Now, this power that had restored life to millions of addicts, was the Power to which I would turn over my will and my life – just for today, one day at a time.

    “Returning home to the divine world” included cleaning up the wreckage of my life through steps four and five, eight, nine and ten. And so began a new way of living, being responsible, helping others, making amends immediately (almost). This was new and at the same time a wonderful way of living. No more lies, stories, blaming others. This was the freedom to be who I was born to be and become. But I was not there yet.

    Steps eleven and twelve were the important final building blocks. Seeking to improve my conscious contact with God through Prayer and meditation – talking and listening to God – was something I once did and then let it slide away and my EGO [Easing God Out] took over. Now I was returning to something I understood and seeing it as for the first time.

    Finally, “praying only for knowledge of God’s will for me.” Not determining what I needed to do for me, for the world that waited for me. No. Praying only for knowledge of God’s will for me and asking God to entrust in me the power to do what God wanted me to do. Once again, I am powerless, I need help. God help me.

    As I began to come alive, I experienced what the Fellowship taught; that I would experience a new freedom and a new happiness, I had no regrets for the past as I would be able to use my past experiences to help others; the feeling of uselessness and self-pity gave way to the concept of “I am responsible” and a willingness to reach out to others in need. I was no longer focused on what “I want what I want when I want it” but rather on the needs of others. Fear of people, finances, faded into the background as my new divine life opened up for me. It was then I realized that “my outlook on life had changed. [I realized] that God was doing for me what I could not do for myself.”

    Séamus D.                                                                                                                   Seamus is an active retired Episcopal priest in New Orleans/

    *THE WORLD’S WISDOM. Phillip Novak.351

  • 10/16/2024 7:28 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    ...perhaps it was in a church basement. Todayall over townAA meetings are opening in all manner of places. The Days of Stigma, epitomized by basement AA meetings, are gone and in more ways than one, the Fellowship has moved “upstairs.”

    You probably didn’t know a soul at your first meeting, not one person. Some probably appeared a bit shell-shocked. By the way, recall how you looked that first day!

    Of course, everyone seemed to know the workings of AA meetings-opening with the Serenity Prayer, a reading of material from something calledas you came to know itthe “Big Book,” then the passing of the basket.

    Then out of the blue, the chair asks if anyone is attending their first AA meeting, “Please stand so we can say hello.” Shazam... are you kidding me, you screamed to yourself. Did your face reflect that shock and fear?

    You didn’t expect this and racing through your mind was this thought: ‘Am I going to have to stand in a room of people and admit I’m an alcoholic?’

    You stand up, but before you can even say your name, everyone claps, smiles, and turn to the last row where you decided to hide sit, some asking your name, others shaking your hand, others, “Welcome, come back! Need a ride?”

    Then someone was asked to address the group. She said she was going to tell us what it was like, in her words, “drinking like a skid-row drunk,” what happened, and what she’s learned working the Program. Right off, her story went to her worst days, nights, her torments. It seemed to trace your own path. She told of her fears and sorrows. It became more real to you. You knew she was telling the truth. She spoke of finding the Program, her early days of working the Steps.

    But then she said in hindsight, “It was all a lark to get ready for my court appearance.. She said she went back out after a month or two, maybe it was longer.  She said she quickly returned to her old drunken path, and really tumbled this time. You could tell she was hurting. Her voice broke, tears were beginning... you knew she wasn’t making this up and you felt her pain, her shame, you wanted to reach for and hold her.

    Suddenly, it was as quiet as that church meeting room ever gets. She stood there, barely in control of herself, shaking... then she said,

    “I’ll never forget, I came back, ashamed, afraid, crushed as a human can be... but you welcomed me! You cried with me. Some of you said, ‘I’d followed a similar path’... no questions or suspicious looks, just a ‘glad you’re back. Keep coming back!’”

    Her story struck you hard as can be, twisted your stomach, but at the same time grabbing your heart. Maybe she was speaking to you, but to you alone?

    Those early AA meetingsyes, they often were hard for there was so much to learn, and to learn to have the courage to implement what you had learned. But you finally realized the wonderful news was that these new ways were the start of your new life, one of rebuilding and re-learning how to live without harming yourself and others. You saw the need to carry that message of hope to others. Perhaps most importantly, you learned to seek a spiritual basis for living your life.

    Scary first meeting? You bet, but for me, it’s important to recall those days, down and dirty in that dungeon, and how our Higher Power and the Program themselves walked into that dungeon and helped us seize that moment and twist it and surrender drink and accept the Program’s ways. You found the joy of finding a Power greater than yourself and move forward as a Recovering Alcoholic!

    Jim A St X Noon, Cincinnati   


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