Firestorm I remember when the meetings I went to were full of A-holes, I was a royal mess, the only reason I went to those meetings and had a sponsor was because when I was in detox I had made a commitment to go to at least 90 meetings in 90 days and get a sponsor!
My sponsor told me to do all kinds of crap I did not want to do! I kind of liked him, but all this BS he was telling me to do made no darn sense!!! How the heck was calling people every day going to keep me sober? How was praying to nothing going to keep me sober? How was simply not taking that first drink going to keep me sober?
And all of those jerks with 2 years to 30 years sober telling me to do this and do that!!! Who the hell were they?
Funny thing, but the longer I stayed sober, the fewer A-holes there were going to meetings.
All of the stuff my sponsor was telling me to do suddenly became him sharing with me what he had done to stay sober, he was simply suggesting things and things he suggested I do started to make sense.
His suggestion of calling people every day saved my butt after I had been sober about 2 months, instead of drinking I called some one and I did not drink.
The praying to nothing actually started to pay off and I found myself believing that I was praying to something.
The simply not taking that first drink started to make perfect sense, how could I get drunk if I never took that first drink?
All of those jerks with years of sobriety dissappeared and were replaced with people who looked just like them, but instead of telling me what to do, they started to tell me what they had done to stay sober and live life on lifes terms.... that and some of them actually started to become my friends.
What I ask myself today is did all those people change................ or did I change? Was I looking at the world through a different pair of glasses?
Firestorm I found that when I am really POed with some one or something if I just sit down quietly and think about what is really happening honestly, things are quite different then what they first appear to be.
Yes you will have people with more sobriety then you tell you to do things, but are all of them really telling you to do something or are they suggesting that maybe what they did will work for you as well?
I was an angry miserable SOB in early sobriety, but with time I started to change. I had gotten to this one meeting early and was sitting on a pew all by myself and started to have this funny feeling, I had felt this feeling before but it had been so many years since I had felt that way I could not quite put my finger on it.......... Well after a few minutes I figured out what it was, I was smiling for no real reason at all, except I felt good and I was calm.
For me it all took time, I had to let go of my hatred, my anger, my sadness and start to accept things the way they were and begin to change. Time takes time, it can be frustrating as all get outs, but with time and change I became a better happier man then I had been in many years.