Music

I have a cassette tape of Fr. Martin's "Symptoms of Sobriety." In it he suggests that a person with 10 years sobriety(an arbitrary number)who still finds it necessary to go to 6 or 7 meetings a week, missed the message somewhere along the line. When I was new to AA, I went to as many meetings as I could squeeze into a day. Sometimes on weekends, I went from morning 'til night in the same place; meeting every 2 hours. At some point, I realized what the word "sobriety" really means. Sobriety doesn't just mean "not drunk." It means a healthy state of mind, body and spirit which is the whole point behind the AA program. When I reach this point, family, friends, job and entertainment become a responsibility as well as going to meetings. One of my sponsors used to impress on me the importance of striving for an equal balance of AA, work, love and play. In the beginning, my life was about going to AA meetings. Now my AA meetings are about what's going on in my life. I don't believe the point of the AA program is to switch one addiction for another; replacing AA meetings for my drug of choice. It was at first, but not now. It has nothing at all to do with the message at meetings, although there is a big difference in the meetings today and the way meetings were when I first started. I won't go into that now. I used to hear "fear is the absence of faith." If that's true, and I believe it is then "faith is the absence of fear." I very seldom feel any fear these days but that's because my faith in God and AA have grown over the years. That's why I don't attend as many meetings. I just don't feel the need. I thank God for the desire to stay sober. I no longer feel the fear of taking a drink.