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Wants to Run the Whole Show
Tonight was a newcomers meeting, and the chair had someone read from the Big Book, the passage on page sixty and sixty one about the actor who wants to run the whole show, forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery, and the rest of the players in his own way. It’s…
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The Recovery Quote Card Bundle Is Live
The AA Recovery Quote Card Bundle is live on Etsy, in both colorways. This one started the same way everything here does, with lines that actually meant something to me in the rooms, turned into something you can hold, hang, or carry. Every card in the bundle came out of real recovery, not a…
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Recovery Gave Me Back to Myself
Tonight’s topic was recovery in general, one the chair opened by sharing a bit of his own experience before turning it over to the room. It’s a broad topic, but a good one, especially for newcomers still figuring out that this isn’t just about not drinking. A lot of people spoke up tonight who…
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Worse Before It Gets Better
Tonight’s topic was recovery and release, one of the open ones where the chair shares a little of his own experience and then hands it to the room. It felt different than most topics, harder to get a grip on right away. Nobody spoke up for a while. I think a lot of us…
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The Foundering Vessel
Tonight’s reading was from the Twelve and Twelve, page 35, on the third step. Someone else was reading it out loud, and one phrase stopped me. It said the alcoholic has already shown his willingness to give his life over to the program, because of what it called the foundering vessel he has become.…
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Afraid of the Wrong Pain
Tonight’s reading was from page 23 of the Big Book, on the obsession of the mind. It used the image of a man complaining about a headache who responds by banging himself over the head, trying to cure the very thing he’s causing. I sat with that for most of the hour, turning it…
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The Flimsy Reed
Tonight the daily reflection was called “A Design for Living,” pulled from page 28 of the Big Book. Before I even got to sharing, one phrase in it caught me: “we sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the…
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Self-Reliance Almost Killed Me
Tonight the topic at the meeting was self-reliance. It came from the reading at the start, and it stuck with me enough that I wanted to share. I sat there calmly and started to express myself, speaking clearly and loud enough for the whole room to hear, in hopes that sharing my experience, strength,…
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THREE WORDS FROM HOW IT WORKS
I want to start this blog the way I actually started thinking about it: at a beginners meeting on a Monday night, listening to someone read from How It Works. It’s usual for our chair to run that meeting a certain way. He has someone read a passage out loud, a little at a…