Still Sober......12 Stepping in SB

10/28/2011


Well it’s been a long dry season. My access to AA has been pretty limited but I grabbed what I could. I hit meetings in Mazatlan in April, tried my best at Loreto Fest with the offer of meetings but the best I could manage was to simply suit up and show up –alone, found great fellowship in San Carlos in May and again in July and soaked up some of the soul of the program in July at a Spanish language meetings in Santa Rosalia. Pretty slim pickings compared to the smorgasbord of choices I was used to back home. Never the less I am still sober and still relatively sane.

Obviously my “program” looks a little different these days than it used to. Email has taken on a whole new focus and weight and I have been unswerving in my commitment to my morning’s daily dose of recovery and Higher Power time. Sponsorship looks different too as I left my old sponsor thinking I would find a new connection then simply realized that we could also reconfigure our work together. We are still sort of figuring it out but in fits and starts we have been working together again with me as a “Loner” and I recognize the value and worth of having someone I can “work” with not just write back and forth with.

The single most frequent active form my recovery takes as a member of AA has turned out to be along the lines of Public Information and “working with the family.” Cocktail hour is a nation pastime in this world I now live in and of course I don’t drink nor does Bill. People eventually notice that. Not as a problem for me or as any interruption of the ritual but eventually people begin to ask questions and surprisingly often it has led to discussions about grown kids, best friends, brothers or sisters and spouses. In turn I tell a bit of my own history and then try and offer them as clear a picture as I can of what I know about the disease of alcoholism and of what AA is and what it’s not. I have no idea if anything I say has or will ever touch anyone else’s alcoholism but it seems to be my role right now.

I pray about and try and stay open to any opportunity to do 12th Step work. I know that the disease is alive and well no matter where I go so I try and leave an open door for God to work in and I got a wonderful answer on our short trip to California. First off I have to admit that we were all the way to Santa Barbara before it dawned on me that 1.) We would have a rental car and 2.) There are meetings all over California. I have become so accustomed to NOT having meetings available that it completely slipped my mind and I actually spent time regretting not taking the opportunity to anticipate a meeting or two. Oh well…..

So, there I was walking into a nearby community center headed to a meeting, arriving a good half hour early so hopefully I could help make the coffee or set up choirs or something. The online listing showed both a women’s meeting and a regular open meeting. I was headed for the women’s meeting but there was no one moving in 4A. I wandered off looking for the ladies room and saw two guys walking down the corridor and I knew they were AA’s - we somehow always standout in a crowd to me. Sure enough Mike and Bart welcomed me and we all got busy setting out chairs and making bad coffee. After a few minutes a woman walked in the door, hesitant, shaky, somehow smiling and gritting her teeth at the same time. She sat down next to me and the magic began to happen.

As it turned out it was her first ever meeting and I was the only woman in a very small group. I am certain that they would have taken care of her without me but she literally grabbed on to me like she was about to drown. She really needed the reassurance of a woman and there I was. We talked for a few minutes, the meeting began and without ceremony or discussion it was a powerful first step meeting, then we talked some more and exchanged emails. I thought she was going to cry when I told her that she would probably never see me again but then she asked me what she was supposed to do now. I told her she never had to drink again and grabbed Mike to help me get her a Big Book. Before I left I wrote down a little list of things she needed to try and do and she grabbed it and held on like I just gave her the keys to the world.

1. Go to meetings. Lots and lots of meetings and don’t drink in between. Arrive
early, at least 10 minutes and stay at least ten minutes afterwards.
2. Go to lots of different meetings until you find the ones that make you feel
like you’ve finally come home.
3. Get a Sponsor: don't wait to find the perfect one just get one.
4. Grab on to the women in the meetings.
5. When some woman ask if she wants to go have coffee, take a walk or grab
dinner do it.
6. When they announce the business meeting attend it even if at first it
makes no sense at all.
7. When someone offers you a job do it: make the coffee, set up chairs or be a
greeter.

If you do these things you will find yourself in the middle of AA and in the middle of some really wonderful people. They will be there for you to help you to find out for yourself that there is another way to live and it is immeasurably easier than the life you are living right now.

I left that meeting feeling better than I had in a long time. I sure hope she felt the same way.

Kat