Tonight was our beginner’s meeting, the one we hold on Mondays for newcomers. The topic is usually kept simple, steps one, two, and three. The chair opened by having someone read the How It Works section, page fifty eight, and he singled out one sentence from it: Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. He shared a few of his own, then opened it up to the room, old ideas we’d been holding onto that no longer applied.
I sat and listened for a while, and sure enough, a few old ideas came to mind. My name is John, I’m an alcoholic. I told the chair it was a good topic, and that I had some old ideas for him.
The first was that I wasn’t hurting anybody. With some clarity and some sobriety behind me, I came to realize I was hurting pretty much everybody, especially the people who cared about me, just by making them watch me stuck in that insanity, unable to find my way out of it. I was hurting people around me regularly, especially anywhere dishonesty was involved. And more than anyone, I was hurting myself, to the extreme. I’m lucky I survived being stuck in that illness.
The second was that I believed I was a thoughtful and caring person. After a good look at my character, I realized a lot of what I thought was kindness was transactional, wanting to look like a good person, or doing something nice so someone would owe me one way or another. Working the program and working with others taught me what being selfless actually looks like, and I’d had it wrong.
The third was that I drank because I was sad and depressed, because life was hard. I had that backwards. With enough sobriety, I learned I can go through hard things without falling apart the way I used to. The drinking was what made me sad and depressed, and what made my life difficult. Taking it out of the equation, I found I could handle much harder things, and started seeing what I’d gained instead of only what I’d lost. Sobriety is a powerful lens.
The fourth was that I had a strong relationship with God. I believed it at the time, since I meditated and felt some kind of connection. But working steps two, three, and eleven showed me I was closer to an atheist than to any real connection. I didn’t trust that God was there for me or taking care of things. I always felt I had to do everything myself, by my own will, with no faith that a higher power was guiding me or clearing a path. Through sponsorship and the steps, I learned that I’m in charge of the actions, and God has the results, and I have to trust that. That reframed everything for me, and let me trust a lot more, have a little more faith. It’s thanks to that relationship with a higher power, through sponsorship and fellowship and the steps, that I found my way out of my addiction.
My name is John, and that’s what I got.
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