[Sheryl85]

I want to thank all of you that wrote to me last week and gave me words of encouragement and expressed your feelings so eloquently to let me know you felt I was a valued member here. I truly do appreciate that. It went a long way to remind me that even when I feel I am not making a constructive contribution, perhaps I am not looking in the right place or at the real picture.

I did take the opportunity to re-examine my purpose for being here and I had to remember that serving my vanity and ego should never enter into it. I am supposed to be of maximum service to my fellow man (and woman) and learn to practice humility. I have to admit that I wasn’t being too humble. It was with that realization that the words of my late friend, Bill A., once again echoed in my mind to remind me, “…It’s none of your business what other people think about you. What is your business is what you think about other people and what you think about yourself.”

I am a member of Alcoholic Anonymous. It is my sincere hope that I will be a good representative of AA as well as a good member until I die. But until then I will practice the principles of this program to the best of my ability, one day at a time. This program was forged on the anvil of the lives of the first one hundred alcoholics who helped found it. I, personally, have watched it work for hundreds more in my twenty plus years. I will try to always remember what the primary purpose of AA is and that I am to share my experience, strength with others in the hope that by doing so I will retain all the things that were freely given to me by this program. That is, after all, all that I can do and I never have to apologize for that.

So, with that being said, I hope that anything that I may say in the future will be taken with the spirit it is intended. Hopefully I will remember that the motto for AA is love and tolerance and will act accordingly. For those of you who are suffering today, may God bless you and grant you peace. (For those of you who do not ascribe to the spiritual aspect of things, just take it that I am sending my best wishes for you as well and leave it at that.)

In loving service,

Sheryl J.