Through the Red Door Blog

I entered the Program, an alcoholic. I wasn’t told to sit in the “newbie chair.” No one called attention to me. Probably, when the chair asked if there were any “newcomers present,” I may have sat still, not saying a word. But when Mike asked, “How are you?” I felt he really wanted to know! But the fact is that from that first day, I really felt accepted as I appeared, just a drunk seeking help.

I must admit I don’t always carry that level of acceptance into my everyday normal interaction with people. I might ask, maybe, a bit of background and perhaps superficial information: high school, residence, and of course, the Big One, “Do you know …?” By doing so, I fear I might pigeon-hole who and what I think they are?

Learning new things about people is interesting -- their hobbies, travels, schools -- it can be just plain fun, but “pigeon-holing” is not fair. It’s more game-playing and we already have more than enough of that in our lives. Worse, we might tie them into our preconceived notions, or worse yet, reflect our prejudices. There is sometimes an element of fear on our part and maybe in some cases it’s justified.   

Perhaps the introductory question really should be phrased as words like, “How are you today, how has your weekend been?” and said as if I really mean it. From that, why can’t we answer with some feeling that our response is the truth?

I view Jesus as my Higher Power. He’d ask, “What can I do for you?” Why can’t I treat people in the same manner? “I understand your story … been there.” As recovering alcoholics we have the obligation to share our message of hope. Would my Higher Power expect anything less than that in our normal everyday conversations? Doesn’t He call us to reach out? For some reason today we tend to avoid or discourage, to shy away from “getting to close” to someone.

I need to remember to ask, “How have things been this week?” and really mean it.  And if asked, respond truthfully. Our Higher Power in the Program calls us to mean it. Is there any reason we should prejudge a person, or dig into our prejudices to avoid deepening our relationship?

Once again, the Program teaches us new ways to live all aspects of our lives.

JRA, St. X Noon

Again, how are we treated as newbies at a meeting? We say, “Glad you’re here, you’re always welcome.” That’s about it. We may not even get their last name or email address. What would our Higher Power say to that newbie? Probably,” Welcome, glad you’re here.” I doubt the question would be, “Where did you go to high school?”

I’m trying to grow up and learn to accept people as they are and not prejudge or burden them with a cross examination to learn where they went to high school, etc., etc. Heck, by this “preselection “process we may (probably?) miss a lot of good and interesting persons, or if we stay open, we might come across a practicing alcoholic seeking help or one in recovery – Yikes!

JRA, St X Noon.

Last month Jesus told us to love our neighbors, ourselves, and goodness knows, even our enemies. Could this commandment be related to Jesus’ recent journey into the wilderness where he meets our greatest enemy called Satan?

In her last book, Inspired, Rachel Held Evans leaves with us her experience of wilderness, enemies, and how this relates to Jesus and the God of love. She reminds us that our enemies will eventually drive us into the wilderness. Goodness knows, our addictions, once our friend, now our enemy, drove us into a wilderness where all hope seemed lost. Our enemy, our addiction, often causes us to flee to a wilderness to escape the life our enemy has brought on us. We are like Hagar, and her son turned out by Abraham and Sarah, or Jacob fleeing his brother Esau, or Elijah fleeing Jezebel. Evans believes that even the God of love, when clothed in human form, visits the wilderness to prepare for future head-on meetings with the devil.

The wilderness is usually thought of as a scary or barren place where God seems even more absent. Instead, I have learned from my daughter, who is a wilderness forester, that the wilderness is a most sacred place where we, like Elijah, best hear the silent voice of God. The wilderness is out of sync with our usual routine. It disorients us and leads us to a different way of thinking where we learn that the only way to face our enemies within and without is by connecting to the God of love.

We all have had experiences where we have been harmed: death of a loved one, loss of a job, struggling with our addiction, physical or verbal abuse, a severe illness, depression, other mental disorders, difficulty with our children, parents, or siblings, struggling with our present political and pandemic scene. Rachel reminds us that we are driven into the wilderness from these experiences. We will always learn a great deal about ourselves and especially about the God of love that has been there before us and with us. That is the experience of the children of Israel, Hagar, Jacob, and even Jesus, our constant companion. When we are driven to this more barren place, we meet and are saved by the God of love and are attended by angels. We realize we have been living with the personification of evil, the one who lives only for himself without love, that part of us where love for others does not live because our addiction has become our love, our God.

When Jesus confronts the devil, the evil one, first he listens. This is what we are called to do, to listen. We will soon hear another voice that was always in us, but our addiction blocked it out. That tiny voice of the love of God within us calls us a different life. Evil, our addiction, and our self-interests do not understand this voice. Evil can never overcome this love.

Our usual modes of travel, most of the people who helped us seem gone in the wilderness. It is so quiet we can hear the still small voice of God within us. Our enemy, our addiction, once our friend, has led us to hear a higher power that now can be most heard in the quiet of a wilderness experience. This time, we listen, and our life is changed. The enemy, our addiction, has led us to a new way of life that we could only see and hear in the wilderness.

Lastly, Rachel reminds us to name these wilderness experiences. Hagar names the well in the wilderness which saves her life and her son, Ishmael, “I have seen the God who sees me.” Just as Jacob is about to meet Esau in the wilderness, he wrestles with God and names the place Peniel, which means “ Face of God.”

In these next few weeks, we have another opportunity to be quiet and hear the powerful voice that saved us when all other voices within were silenced. The name of our yearly liturgical wilderness experience is called Lent.

Lent calls us to remember where God was with us in the wilderness and led us to recovery. Lent is a time to remember that our addiction was what brought us to our knees in the wilderness and a life beyond compare. Lent is a time for gratitude.

One more time, we have an opportunity to listen to a voice that often can only be heard when we intentionally live in silence and listen.

Lent is a time for silence and listening.

Rachel Held Evans in Inspired ( Nelson Books 2018) pp. 48-50.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

I’ve been thinking a lot about stories lately. Stories are everywhere. Stories are how we tell others who we want them to think we are. Stories are how we tell ourselves who we are…or are not. Above all, stories are how we learn about the world around us. Most of us discover early on that not every story is for everybody. For those of us who straddle the communities of recovery and faith, this can complicate things.

When I was in early recovery, both in rehab and in the rooms of NA and AA, I often found myself surrounded by deep, sometimes hostile, anti-religiosity. Perhaps you have had similar experiences, but as a religious person, not to mention an ordained person, I was beyond bewildered.

Some people told me that I had to change everything… including the way that I understood God. Others told me, or scolded me, that my occasional use of religious vocabulary meant that I “just wasn’t getting it.” I often felt that I was being asked to make a choice between God and recovery. Of course, I thought, as an Anglican, the either/or thing didn’t make any sense. The real story, however, was that this this stubborn and scared person didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

Fortunately, the grace of humor (what I call humor, anyway) came to the rescue early on, and I began to change the story that I was telling about myself. When people asked me what I did for a living, instead of (ever) saying that I was a priest, I might say that I worked for an internationally recognized Higher Power. Laughter really can be the best medicine, lovingly jostling stubbornness (especially my own) into a bit of teachability.

Spoiler alert! My understanding of God is not the same that it was in those early days. For me, my understanding of religion, the Who of God, has remained fairly constant: traditional, western, and Trinitarian (no surprise there). But here’s the good news: my understanding of spirituality, the How of God, has blossomed and grown. And this is where stories come in.

Over time, I have come to believe that the How of God is most active when stories are shared within community. In the fulness of being heard aloud, stories can embrace the entire human condition, good, bad, and indifferent – our joys, our scars, even our still-open wounds. And in that embracing, stories of experience, strength, and hope – whether told downstairs or upstairs – serve to convict, and caution, and comfort us.

This is the great gift of stories shared in community. The tradition of cross-generational storytelling, whether from the Good Book, or the Big Book, generates a matrix. You might see it as a tapestry. The sharing of our stories, and the stories of those who went before us, gives us a context in which to see our own experience, our own strength, and our own hope. This communal matrix provides a framework on which each of us can organize our amazements and our agonies, our joys and our sorrows.

We need each other’s stories to remind us that we need each other. We need each other’s stories to remind us that each of us relies on all of us for health, and wholeness, and sanity. We need each other’s stories to remind us that we are not alone.

One of the spiritual exercises I’m trying on this Lenten season is to recall some of the stories that were important in my recovery and in the growth of my faith. There’s the first time I heard someone tell my story. And that story that said, “there’s someone with whom I can identify.” And that story that planted the seed that, maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t quite as alone as I had thought. And that story that gave me enough courage to say, “Hi, I’m Paul. I’m an addict.”

For me, for this recovering person, the How of God as I understand God is in that place where the matrix of Christianity and the matrix of Recovery are in deep conversation with each other, sometimes even dancing with each other. The way I hear upstairs stories has been forever changed by the stories I’ve heard downstairs. New light fills the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers, and the one about the prodigal child, and the one about the raising of Lazarus.

The list is endless. Every story of a power greater than me gives me hope and, in that hope, the power to imagine that I am not alone, that I belong here, in these twin communities of recovery and faith. I hope you can, too.

Paul J.
Muncie, IN

“Not-God” by Ernest Kurtz is worth reading. Comprehensive, readable, and without an ego-driven bias. It has the appearance and format of a thesis written to fill a requirement for a PhD from Harvard and indeed the author received his PhD in 1978 and the book was published in 1979 and expanded in a new edition in 1991. It was published by Hazelden Press a well-known long-standing center for the study and treatment of the abuse of substances.

I’m always interested in histories of organizations but what caught my eye on this one was this part of the title: “Not-God.” At first, I thought it was a reference to the difficulties some saw in the early drafts of the Big Book where the role of God in the Program was described. Hence, “Higher Power” was substituted for “God.” That change made sense. Remember back in the 30s there really was no recognized process for the effective treatment of alcoholism.  Back then, the definition of “an alcoholic” seemed limited to the down-and-out-alley-drunk. Today we know differently. Back then, some treatment plans seemed to be focused on the sin of it all, “God abhors alcohol. If you are a drunk, you probably will dwell in Hell forever.” That so-called treatment was ineffective for any long-term sobriety. Moreover, medical experts didn’t have any good suggestions for treating or dealing with alcoholics.    

Remember that Bill and Dr. Bob had figured out a new way to deal with an alcoholic simply by adherence to a program of conversations with other alcoholics, of carrying the message of recovery, and the importance of a genuine willingness to stop through some sort of ‘white-light’ experience.

So, I thought his point for the Big Book was simply “God” evolved to “Higher Power.” But no, that’s not what he was saying. He was saying that WE are not God and we have to accept that the problem centers on our ego, our arrogant feeling that we can do it all – “I can handle my booze intake, thank you.” And that forces us to focus on the ego as a cause of much of our anxieties in life. Ego causes us to think we know it all, that our word is Right. Even the Program itself doesn’t claim to be the “be-all-and-end-all remedy to deal with alcoholism.” We tell the newbie, “It worked for me; maybe it will work for you.” Abandoning the idea that we’re God’s gift to the human race, permits us to develop a humbleness, a feeling of gratitude. We drop that arrogance, and we don’t have that need to be “right all the time.” A self-righteous attitude gets in the way of our interaction with others.

So, if you are looking for a good read, try “Not-God” but just remember your Higher Power is not you.

JRA, StX Noon

Today is Ash Wednesday. And we are reminded we are dust and to dust we shall return. The sign of the cross is made on our foreheads from the ash of the palms we waved in joyful hosannas a year ago. Now it is dark and we wonder what the next 40 days hold for us.

We might be kick starting our sobriety, picking up where we left off after an anything but Dry January. We might be swearing off Facebook, Instagram, FOMO and swearing off swearing. We might be wondering how to terminate the relationship with the Girl Scout cookies in the cupboard which also, ironically, occur this time of year.

Whatever it is, Ash Wednesday demands our attention. And perhaps a reframe. We may want to deliberately choose to focus attentively, mindfully with our “face toward Jerusalem” as the gospel of Luke declares. Rather than what can we give up—which seems a recurrent theme in sobriety—what if we focus on what we gain? Clear head. Less shame. Restored relationships. And what about a Companion on the way? The prophet Joel reminds us this Companion says we can return to Him with all our heart, with fasting. For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relents from punishing. That will definitely be helpful!

We can take this 40 day One-Day-At-A-Time journey knowing it takes us into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. Through a dinner with friends sharing the bread and wine and washing the feet of the betrayer. Tears in a garden praying for anything but this, anything! Mockery, torture, death and the darkness of the tomb.

But it takes us to salvation as well. To that happy morning when hell today is vanquished.

And doesn’t that sound like recovery? Haven’t we all endured our own heart breaking betrayals? Unsure who our friends are? Our sleepless nights praying for anything but this, anything! Even our own deaths?

So this year invite the Spirit to join you. To enter into your recovery, into your next day, into your next 40 days. Journey with Jesus of Nazareth who was acquainted with infirmity and rises from the grave with a mighty triumph o’er his foes.

We all need a Friend like that who loves us even though we are dust.

Deborah M
Lancaster PA

We all know many people say it took a “crushing event” to bring them to their senses. Of course, we don’t need that disaster. It may be just a question of definitions for if we sustained just enough small disasters and we seek help, that “small” incident was enough. I believe any incident causing us to seek help is enough. The alcoholic doesn’t need to kill someone, suffer loss of a job or family. But honestly, get serious, an alcoholic usually doesn’t wake up one morning, stretch, yawn, and proclaim, “Gee, I think I’ll go into alcohol rehab. I’m drinking too much, maybe.”

Sadly, more likely than not, it does seem to take a jarring bump to tear us away from our ego, our supreme arrogance, and self-reliant attitude. “I can quit myself.” Well, most of us learn we can’t quit by ourselves and maintain sobriety for any period. Those who can usually call it that “dry-drunk time.” No, we must cleanly and finally break from our past dependence on ourselves and admit that we can’t do it. We’re helpless when it comes to alcohol, it’s wrecking our lives and our families. And the first thing we learn is that no matter how long or how much we drank alcoholically, we can do it if we take it one day at a time.

Maybe a “jarring bump” is needed. Remember, we have lived our lives depending on our own decision-making processes. We’re self-reliant or maybe we just follow the crowd and don’t know any better. Usually, we’ve lost much or all our spiritual basis for life. We don’t admit our life is unmanageable and even if we do, we don’t seek any spiritual support or guidance. Why? As human beings, we have the gall to claim outlandish arrogance. “I need no help from anyone or any spirit in the sky.”

As sensitive and uncomfortable as it may be, we need to recall those moments. After all, it was those moments of pain that probably pushed us into action and entry into the Program. It was the time we looked ourselves in the eye and asked, “Is this how I want to live?” “Help!”  Maybe it’s something I need to recall around the time of an anniversary.

And, speaking of an anniversary; it approaches for me.

JimA St X Noon

In AS BILL SEES It, we read; “Honesty with ourselves and others gets us sober, but it is tolerance that keeps us that way” (312). I do not wish to disagree with Bill, but, in today’s world, the world “tolerate” has more negative baggage than perhaps in the past. All too often we tolerate the inappropriate behavior or language of a family member, a friend, a coworker, because we do not want to “start a fuss,” we don’t want to “embarrass them” with a confrontation, privately or otherwise, of their behavior.

It is not helpful to me or another person to be tolerant. People have died -- mentally, emotionally, physically -- because of tolerance of their inappropriate behavior or language. We “put up with” them because, when the person is sober, “he’s a lot of fun. He is really a nice guy. She would be embarrassed if she knew what she did.” And so, we continue the sickness of a secret through our tolerance.

For the life of me, I wonder how people tolerated my behavior; that I celebrated the Eucharist while at least three sheets to the wind and did not remember if I preached or read the gospel. I have been told of many “wonderful services” I celebrated, and I have no memory of them.

As I began to enjoy this life of sobriety and review my past behavior under the influence of alcohol and or other drugs, it fascinated me that my only memory of being confronted was my being told, “Séamus, you’re an alcoholic.” That simple statement, said to me by a person I greatly respected, stuck with me through my drinking and till today. That was the only “confrontation” I can remember. Fortunately, in sobriety, I have learned about aspects of my past negative behavior, and I wonder if I could have been saved some heartache if I had been confronted.

Unfortunately, I have lost those whom I once thought were friends because, out of respect for them, I chose to talk to them about their behavior when they were under the influence of alcohol and or other drugs. They said they appreciated what I told them but said,“it’s none of your business.” It was my business as their behavior was embarrassing to me and others. Out of respect for them I spoke to them in private and they chose, as I probably did, to ignore it.

When I reviewed my fourth step, I felt embarrassed and wondered “Why was nothing said to me at the time? Why was my inappropriate behavior tolerated?  Did they not care enough about me to confront me? I also had to consider the possibility of being confronted, and I have no memory of it. Was my behavior and my attitudes tolerated in a way that I would not tolerate in another? When I got around to doing a fourth step, I had not lost a home, a car, or employment, etc. What I came to grips with was that what I had lost was something more valuable - my values. It was sickening to look at that fourth step and wonder how I had gotten away with such behavior. I felt embarrassed at the thought of others being aware of my behavior and remaining silent.

I too am guilty of tolerating inappropriate behavior for a variety of excuses but no good reason. As I see it, I did not have enough respect for myself or the other to have a conversation with the individual and then give then the space to consider what they might choose to do.

When I tolerate inappropriate behavior or language, I put up with it; I endure it; I stomach it (and if I do that long enough, I get ulcers). When I respect another, I admire them; I hold them in esteem, I have a high opinion of them.

Today, I have to take a deeper look at why I may tolerate the behavior of another. Or will I risk losing that person because I respect them and I am willing to lose them by telling them something they may need to hear but do not want to hear it? All of this, to me, gives a new meaning to “I’ll be there for you.”

Do I give what I can and be done with it? Do I have to believe somehow my gift really might help him? What if he is really disheveled or reeks of alcohol or can barely stand up? Do I just willy-nilly throw away my own hard-earned money to the same beggars every day?

For guidance, I looked at the Program. I know we are called to carry its message of hope and grace. I also know the Program expects us to keep carrying the same message to the same person regardless of whether he stops abusing alcohol. I know from personal experience after carrying the message that I wondered if they really did hear it. They may have said so. They may make all the right signs of deciding to quit. But, deep inside, often as it was with me, they would secretly reserve the right to go back out, playing the game bit by bit – no real surrender. Practicing alcoholics are strange critters!  

Are there any limits to the time one spends carrying the message of the Program? Is there a rule that says that if the inmate has more than XXX number of DUI tickets, he can’t leave his cell to again hear about the Program’s good news?

Would the Program shed any light on my question? Of course, I found it did. If I am stuck with a decision about something, I should, but don’t always, seek guidance from my Higher Power. What would He say to that street corner beggar? You bet he would say, “Give, don’t attached strings to your gift. It’s the Grace of the Program, just like the Program was carried to you several times before you really did something about it.”

I believe there is no limit to the time we spend carrying the Message. The offer is always open, no time limit on it. And I believe this is so regardless of the results. We’re not judged on how many people we convert to the ways of the Program. We simply tell them what it has meant to our lives; how we are given tools to better work our way through life’s bump and pits. The Program makes it clear that it is a program of attraction rather than promotion. And we learn from experience that it is only through constant daily contact with the workings of the Program and our Higher Power that we are able to have a chance to maintain the serenity in our lives the Program brings.

So, it is from God’s perspective. For me, the Program’s Higher Power is God manifested to us by Jesus of Nazareth. God is always with the beggar just as He is with us. Always, not now and then, but always. That’s His Grace. Christ teaches us to reach out to the poor, downhearted, prostitutes … and beggars.  Just as we continually carry the message of the Program, so too, are we to carry the same message of our Higher Power of hope and Grace by honoring the street corner beggar’s request. Can we turn down Christ who speaks as that beggar and is always of that beggar?   

JRA St X Noon

On January 3, I voluntarily decided to surrender my car-keys and sell my car … this at age 83, and a young 83 I add, and following 67 years of a fairly clean driving. Me, Jim A, St X Noon, decided to do this. I did it myself. I didn’t want any intervention laid on me. I loved to drive, always did. Loved cars and a variety of styles and makes. As a pre-teen kid, I studied the free Standard Oil gas station road maps, so when I started to drive, I was pretty good getting around in a car, even the unlit, dark, rural country roads in England. But on the 1stof January, I was feeling uncomfortable driving. It just wasn’t the fun it used to be, and I was 83 and had had open-heart surgery, my recovery period a bigger trip than I anticipated. Moreover, I wasn’t going to play the “poor-me-bit” which could have arisen with a forced car-key surrender. But that morning, having decided to hang ‘em up, I realized I faced a load of nits & nats to solve, all centered around how much of my “freedom-to-drive anywhere” lifestyle was I going to be able to retain? I certainly didn’t want my wife to become my all-purpose taxi driver, nor did she wish that fate.

To solve this quandary, for some reason, probably my Higher Power’s work, I looked at our 12 Steps that very morning and discovered The Steps had already outlined the very path to do just that. Maybe it takes a bit of fiddling to meld my car-key issues with the Step’s action words, but surely, one can see the Step’s innate spirt and wisdom. So, and without delay, here’s how I used the Steps.

Steps 1, 2 and 3—I decided to quit my addiction (my driving) now and did so avoiding the familiar risks of the half-quit. I’d tried that with my addiction and sooner or later I eased back into the old ways. So, with my driving, I knew I had to “give it up” all at once, not on a test basis, not halfway (day-driving only!). As with any change like this, I am re-learning the importance of a nurturing expansion of my spiritual life. Also, I see that my feelings of aging spill over to the importance of a couple’s daily lives and the changes brought on merely by the inevitable aging process.

Steps 4, 5 and 6—I made “to do” lists. Specifically, what did I have to change to achieve the goal? The list includes all things driving gave me—freedom to meet friends for lunch, regular visits with my somewhat challenged sister, going to St. X Noon meetings, runs to the library for more books, a freedom to continue my charitable activities, just driving around seeing new stuff. My list, however, this time centered on the positives, not addiction’s negatives. For 50 years, I’d developed personal relations with fellow attorneys, and after retiring, expanded the scope of my friends. I wanted all of that to continue. So, with the help of the gadget-oriented world of electronic products, I figured I could do so. And with the assistance of my kids, I am learning all I need to know to get out and see people “on my own” via UBER, ZOOM, GOOGLE, AMAZON, laptops, FACEBOOK, emails, KROGERS, all the new online shopping opportunities, home-delivery food markets, restaurants, and most every commercial operation claims to have this service.

Steps 7, 8, 9 and 10—These were simple steps to follow. I told my family that each new way I was going to follow to get around was going to be subject to review. I wanted to be independent as much as possible, but if a change of mode of transportation didn’t work, following a review thereof by thoughtful face-to-face family discussions and spiritual study, I’d try whatever way came to the surface.

Steps 11 and 12—Yes, none of this would have been possible without developing a spiritual life, cultivated by readings and attendance at Bible study groups and Program meetings—a way of walking with our Higher Power through life’s adventures. Several thought what I was doing was good for my soul, my family’s feelings, and personal friendships. They saw the worth in keeping with the Twelve Step framework. I promised myself, I’d pass along how nicely the Twelve Steps fit my process of giving-up-my-car-keys. I am once again grateful for my Higher Power and the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. … I kept coming back to it.  

JRA St X Noon

In the Book of Genesis, Joseph is in Egypt and has been placed in charge of the coming famine. The Pharaoh tells the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”

When I was in treatment (a century ago), I can still remember the counselor tell the group – and me in particular – “get a sponsor and do what he tells you.” Baloney. Anyone can stay sober. Why do you need a sponsor? I don’t particularly like being told what to do. Now, I don’t have an authority problem. Ahem!

When I told the director I wanted to go to treatment, he phoned the Adult Unit and then told me to go down the street and admit myself. I went home and showed up at the treatment center some four hours later.

I can look back at a history of being told what to do and then either doing the opposite or “doing it my way.”  Throughout high school, the rules I kept were those that showed me in a good light. All others I bent or broke – and for some reason, perhaps because of my charm or arrogance or both – I got away with it. And that was long before I took a drink of alcohol or any mood-altering drug.

The arrival of alcohol in my system only solidified my knowledge that I did not need to be told what to do by anyone. Like the child learning to ride the bicycle, I insisted, “I can do it myself.”

I did it my way and spent five weeks in a four-week treatment program. Anyone else might have been asked to leave, but I was also an employee of the hospital that owned the treatment program.

After treatment I was assigned to an Aftercare program in which I thrived on telling the counselor just how good a job I was doing in the program. I was working the steps (my way); I was going to more meetings than anyone in the group – just so I could look good. And yes, I had not one but two sponsors. Well, sort of. You see, there were these two guys who took me under their wing and kept me on the straight and narrow till I finished that year in Aftercare.

I did what they told me to do. I read the Big Book and memorized lines I could then quote at a meeting. I went to meetings two and three times a day and talked so that others could learn from me. Oh yes, I was brilliant!! I did what I was told to do but for all the wrong reasons.

After almost five years of a dry drunk, I had my spiritual awakening. The threat of the possibility of losing everything due to bankruptcy clarified one thing for me – I had something that could not be taken away from me – sobriety. At least I thought I was sober. At any rate, at this point I did not want to go back to drinking. I has smoked in order to fit in; I drank in order to fit-in. God only knows what else I did in order to ‘fit in” But I belonged in A.A. I did not fully understand that, but I belonged there. I didn’t fit in. I belonged.

Talk to God, to your Higher Power, and do what He (She) tells you to do. Do the next right thing.  Something had changed in me. I was listening for the first time in my life. I learned to live the program and not just work the steps. Rigorous honesty brought me face to face with myself, my character defects, all of me, warts and all, and I learned to love who I am.

Without being consciously aware of it initially, I was learning to do what I was told to do. The program works if you work (live) it. And that work/life involves doing what the winners told me to do. They told me what to do by word and example, and more often than not, it was their example that spoke the loudest to me. I listened to what I saw and what I saw was what I wanted in life – sobriety, peace of mind, happiness, freedom from fear, freedom from regret, shame and guilt. These were people who were at peace with themselves, at one (atone) because of Amends making, and that was what I wanted.

“Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.”  “Joseph” was, for me, those who took me under their wing; those who told me what to do by word and example; my Greater Power/God, and for all of them I am grateful.

Séamus D.

Greater New Orleans, LA