[Pernell Johnson]

Don; My sponsor taught me about love. About getting involved in service. We've talked and done inventories ever since. He taught me it was about cleaning up our stuff and changing the way we've been. God has created a miracle, so, "Don't mess up the miracle." He helped me to discern what's valid from invalid. He gave me direction other than "share with the group" when someone's not around to share with. I tell my sponsees, "Your hand doesn't need to be up at every meeting unless you have a problem." Now I know how to work a program.

Marge; The first thing is God is the answer to just staying physically sober, not that God's not the answer to everything, but once I released any control of the drinking or using and allowed that to reside with my Higher Power, I had marvelous freedom to work the rest of the steps and start unloading what was in the way of loving for me. Without that first process, I wou expended a lot of energy fighting off alcohol and staying sober; I don't think that's necessary at all. I had a lot of emotional work to do, and I simply could not have gone through these processes, or today go through those processes on different levels, while fighting off alcohol and drugs with my other hand. This doesn't work that way.

The other ting I was told that made this absolutely the highest calling in my life at this time was that I can be involved. I always thought I had a purpose, but I had no clue what that was. There were some things that were told to me that made staying sober , and helping other alcoholics to achieve sobriety was absolutely the most marvelous thing I was meant to do. I was told the drinking part of alcoholism was neither bad nor good, it was a state of being other than recovery, and the whole point was to move into recovery. But I hear a lot of people in AA justifying being in the recovery experience by having to constantly reaffirm that their drinking experience was bad. If it was bad, we would not have done it. Alcoholics are a lot of things, but we are not stupid. If it wasn't working for us or if we had an indication that it was all over, most of us got sober, but as long as there was a glimmer of hope, we kept using that remedy, that solution.

Recovery is a state of being; sobriety is a state of being; it's ongoing and not static---it's ever unfolding. To become immersed in the program from the very beginning, it's the most important thing I can do. Tris talked about the difference between having a map (which is having the steps in writing) and being in the territory (which means incorporating those steps internally and immersing yourself in that process, instead of standing outside of the process) as being the most important thing you can do. I believe that was true for me. I see it being true for the people I sponsor. The preciousness of the ability to love, which comes out of discarding whatever is in the way of that, has been stressed to me over and over and over again. I thin it is because I didn't know that's what I was looking for when I came here. I was looking for loving and the ability to love and had no idea that's what I was seeking. That has been made clear to me through sponsors over and over and over again, either verbally or by loving me or providing me with a nonjudgemental pool in which to do my work. I've realized that what I'm here for. Tris used to say that alcoholism is actually the cure for what is reporting to be the disease.