When I was still a newbie, there was a bit on controversy in AA in Sydney in which some members were telling newcomers like me to just stay away from alcohol, get to lots of meetings and say the Serenity Prayer a lot. But others objected saying that was just not what AA was about. I was greatly relieved when I heard someone in a meeting say that they were both right That is not what AA is about, but if you don't do those simple things, you are not likely to be around long enough to find out what AA is about. It was quite a relief to hear that, as it put things in perspective for me and let me know I wasn't doing too badly. I got stuck into AA like I had into alcohol, getting as much into me as possible. It wasn't all that hard getting to ten meetings a week as I didn't really know what else to do with the time when I wasn't working, eating or sleeping. I went nuts sitting around in my flat through an evening, alone with my crazy head, and I couldn't think of anyplace better to go other than meetings or pubs. I tried going to pubs sober and found that I was no longer comfortable doing that. As someone said, "Going into a bar for a Coke is like going into a whorehouse for a good-night kiss." I find it a bit hard to believe that people who had spent every night on a bar stool can't get to more than a meeting or two a week. Meetings where the only times when my thinking would slow down, get a bit less crazy and not be all I had to listen to. Those that ranted about doing the Steps weren't telling me how to do so and, even the AA literature didn't seem to help much with how to do the first three steps, until I came across Came to Believe. I really needed something like Living Sober, but this was 1974 and it hadn't been written yet. There were cloth banners with the Steps and Traditions where hanging in nearly every meeting room and I would often read them while listening to someone tell his drinking story by rote for the umpteenth time. About all I could understand and relate to was Tradition 3 and, for the first couple months, I only wanted to stay sober until 3PM on Friday when free beer was served in the monastary of the Catholic boys' high school I was teaching at. I thought I might be able to do Steps 4&5 in some mmanner, but many were saying that the Steps should be done in order, and Icouldn't really see how I could do the first three, as they looked like mental gymnastics to me. How could you admit what you don't admit, come to believe what you don't believe and then turn your will and life over to the care of God when you don't believe in anything more than that meetings and saying the Serenity Prayer seem to help you stay dry? I did eventually accept that I couldn't guarantee my behaviour after the first drink, which I discovered was what an alcoholic is, not just someone whose main problem was drinking. Then, reading Came to Believe, I came to believe that Something other than myself was running things, although I didn't know who or what it was. Then, when I discovered the words, "care of" in Step 3, I decided that Iwould just try to stay sober follow my conscience and trust that God would find some way to give me the guidance and protection I needed. When I got a year of sobriety up, I thought things would get easier. I now see that nothing really changes when a milestone is passed. A couple weeks later, I was feeling like I was going nuts, so I did Steps 4&5 as well as I could at the time, although it wasn't much of an inventory, more the story of my life which I wrote and went through with a priest I had seen at meetings, although he wasn't an alkie. I was looking for that to make things easier, but it didn't do much but ease my conscience for having done it. I then looked at the next step and stopped as I decided that I wasn't "entirely ready," and still am not in some areas. I thought for years that I hadn't done 8&9 very well, but finally concluded that I just didn't have as many skeletons in my closet, probably due to getting here at 28 and having a pretty weak drinking story. My problems with the past were more in the form of resentments I had to deal with, and pray for, than things I had done. The last three are ones I am still trying to do, as should be the case. It seems to me that arguements about whether the Steps or meetings are more important are harmful as well as fruitless. I have seen a lot of cases in which members feel that they don't need to work the Steps because they go to meetings or don't need to go to meetings because they work the steps. Just going to meetings without doing the Steps may keep someone dry, but I can't see how they would find real contentment in sobriety. I have heard it compared to sitting in a chicken coop waiting to become a chicken. On the other hand, I don't think I could keep working the Steps, giving sobriety top priority in my life, without going to meetings. The last one tells me to keep carrying our message of recovery to alcoholics. I might be able to do that by hanging around a treatment center, but I know, by having tried that, that most residents are playing games rather than really seeking sobriety and I would be more likely to pick up the sort of sick thinking found in bars than the sort of sober thinking I find in meetings. It would also be hard to keep doing a daily inventory without being reminded of the sort of defects many of us have, which I hear in meetings. I also need the sort of reminders I get in meetings to maintain conscious contact with God. Even with meetings, I can lose track of what that is. The same goes for practicing the principles found in the Steps in all my affairs. I can't really see how I could keep sobriety from losing it's priority without meetings, and I enjoy going to them now anyway. I concede that it might be possible for some to stay sober, and perhaps even sane, by doing only Steps or meetings, but there would be no prize for doing so, and I doubt either could ever make life as comfortable as finding a combination of the two that seems to work and then maintaining the habit of doing those things. It seems a lot easier for me to just do certain things daily or weekly without having to talk myself into doing them. Maintaining good habits is a bit harder than maintaining bad ones is, but life seems a lot easier that way than doing things only because I have gotten miserable enough to decide I should do them. Life is still a matter of staying sober and doing the next right thing, with that thing often being to work a step or get to a meeting on time. I feel that I have probably found more contentment in life than 90% of those who are not in AA, but they don't have to maintain their condition, and I do. A combination of meetings and Steps is the way I do that. It has all become so habitual that I don't think much about it, just do it. I had thought that staying sane and sober would get much easier over time. I'm not sure it has, but it has gotten easier to keep doing the things I do because I find them enjoyable now and they keep life comfortable. If AA is Altered Attitudes, both Steps and meetings keep them in about the right adjustment for me so that life happens and welcome it instead of shit happens and I grumble about getting splattered with it. |