MIRecovery

"A VISION FOR YOU"

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination.
It means release from care, boredom, and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt - and one more failure.
The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker.
Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did - then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen - Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!
Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, "I don't miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time." As ex-problem drinkers, we smile at such a sally. We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He fools himself. Inwardly he would give anything to take a half dozen drinks and get away with them. He will presently try the old game again, for he isn't happy about his sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end.
We have shown how we got out from under. You say, "Yes, I'm willing. But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring, and glum, like some righteous people I see? I know I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute?"
Yes,there is a substitute and it is vastly more than that. It is a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. There you will find the release from care, boredom,and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship, and so will you.
You are going to meet these new friends in your own community. Near you, alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in a sinking ship. If you live in a large place, there are hundreds. High and low, rich and poor, these are future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

uncle holmes

Thanks for posting this! I love this chapter. AA fellowship is important. But I've always wondered what our co-founders from the 1930's would be thinking if they saw how many people in today's times go to AA meetings for fellowship with many never having read the BB or doing the steps?

Db1105

As someone who started out that way in this Fellowship, the "I wonder" doesn't matter. What was said to me was "welcome, keep coming back, bring the body, the mind will follow, just don't drink today, call someone before you pick up that first drink, etc., etc.,etc.." I had to just show up before this program clicked for me. As someone who has had first hand experience with being told that I was not welcome by one person, I will always be grateful for the many others who told me I was.

sugarbear1

In the beginning, many of the members of AA gathered at people's home nightly, some were there as Bill W. and Bob opened their homes to housing those who were detoxing or in early recovery. Basically, they "fellowshipped" nightly and had one meeting a week.....

We don't have a need to do this today, although I know of people who continue this open door policy and of others who always have sober company in their homes on a frequent basis.

I once heard Bill W. on a speaker tape at a convention. He was speaking of the future of AA and mentioned that "AA can and must change." I believe he was a forward thinker and knew that AA must change with the times, as it has.

Works for me!

MIRecovery

My first sponsor 35 years sober said words to me that have always stuck. He said, "I have never figured out who is going to make it. I have been wrong so many times I have given up trying."

Whatever a person's motivation is, going to a meeting is the next right thing to do. When we start stringing together enough right things sobriety follows. We all get from point A to B on our own path

uncle holmes

Good point! I didn't mean to make it sound like a person isn't welcome to meetings unless they work the steps and read the BB.

uncle holmes

Good point! Going to a meeting is the next right thing to do! Some people start off on the steps and read the BB in the very beginning.

Many others don't. Some people are so messed up when they first come in that even if they did read the BB and start the steps in the beginning, it still wouldn't click.

And going to another meeting is many peoples best chance of staying sober even if they don't read the BB or do the steps right away!

Gottalife

I am sometimes surprised at who does make it, but I am never surprised to see certain people who I know do certain things, still there, still doing well, when I turn up on my periodic visits.

These are the sponsors and the ones active in helping others (one alcoholic working with another). It is the best kept secret in AA, and it can't be contracted out of by doing other service. 12 step is not service, it is recovery.

Those that don't take advantage of sponsorship, home group, steps and giving back seem to be a passing parade, visitors ot all groups and members of none. And research shows their chances are not good.

It doesn't work too well going to AA to take without giving back. A person who only breaths in will suffocate.