It doesn't really matter what you dream it looks like and maybe it changes and it resembles all of the above. Whatever the case, you want to get there ... you just know that you want to be on it with your friends, walking, step-by-step, maybe even skipping from time to time, in the same direction, laughing, happy, joyous and free.
Let's try something. Enter the Road of Happy Destiny in your GPS. It will likely offer some suggestions that may or may not include components of your request. Then you'd have to pick one that doesn't say exactly what you are looking for. Now you have to choose whether you want to blindly trust where the navigation system is going to send you and hope it's remotely near your destination and won't take you hundreds of miles out of your way... or you could just break out the paper map. In this case, that map would be the turn-by-turn directions bound in a little "atlas" known as the Big Book, officially known as Alcoholics Anonymous.
A Florida elder statesman in the Fellowship, Sandy B., refers to the Big Book as a treasure map. It is not the treasure itself, but it will tell you where to find the treasure. That said, I suppose that makes the map absolutely essential if you expect to find the treasure, otherwise you may as well enter "TREASURE" in the GPS and see where that takes you. Few of us are as lucky as Captain Jack Sparrow to have a compass that doesn't point north but will take us directly to what we most desire.
I am sad and amazed that in some meetings of 12 Step recovery you will get the evil eye if you read a passage from the Text - "Text" referring to the first 164 pages of the Big Book. Now, if you read from the Daily Reflections in order to get your topic, or the 12 x 12, or that message-mangling, Living Sober book, there seems to be no issue. It is moments like these that I feel I am living in a parallel universe, that I appear to be sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous but it's really a game called, "What's Wrong with this Picture?"
A sponsee of mine recently read out of Chapter 3, "We Agnostics", at a clubhouse, open "destruction" meeting and afterward a man approached her and asked what she was reading from. When she showed him her Big Book, his disappointed reply was, "Oh, I thought it was a spiritual book you were reading out of." When she informed him that indeed it WAS a spiritual book, he walked away mumbling that he had read that ...ONCE.
One wonders, what was he looking for, exactly? A volume that when you open it up a magic wand floats out of it and bonks you over the head with some airy fairy poetry and you are enlightened?
A treasure map implies you have to go somewhere, do something, find something by taking some actions.
If someone gave me some rumored, spoken instructions, one time only, on how to ride a horse, then told me that they rode side-saddle and yet I had never seen a horse, nor knew how to mount one, let alone ride it, side-saddle or otherwise, I would not feel comfortable getting on a horse and galloping around the countryside.
In the relatively short time span that A.A. has been around, can it be that the Fellowship is losing its way already? Such a result usually happens when what is relied upon is opinion or conjecture rather than using informed directions, over and over, step-by-step plus utilizing the guidance of personal experience, strength and hope of a sponsor. I find it a dark day when I cannot simply tell someone who approaches me for help to just attend a meeting. Instead, I feel it responsible to warn them about not believing everything they hear and suggest specific meetings where they might obtain the real message. Many of these are Big Book or Step studies and many times, closed meetings (mainly to avoid court referrals and the Lost & Lonely Hearts Club).
Please understand I am not intending to disrespect AA - quite the conrtary. I am not making a blanket statement about the whole of the A.A. Fellowship, nor all 12 Step programs, for that matter. However, we do seem to have wandered off the beaten path quite a bit and in droves. Fortunately, there are "pockets of enthusiasm", (a recently coined phrase), all over the world where people are passionate about carrying THE Message, as it is written in the Text that clearly states "Rarely have we seen a person fail that has thoroughly followed our path." These members and groups are getting back to the proven solution outlined by the first 100 men and women who wrote this book and the legions of people that have followed their course of action to the letter and achieved happy, useful sobriety/clean time or abstinenece. Their meetings usually have structure and guidelines so that people don't hold an entire meeting hostage, bemoaning their woes and treating the hour as their personal group therapy session.
When a meeting has 40 people in it and 5 people hog the entire hour, and of those 5, only one maybe even mentioned solution or steps or the Big Book's agreed upon recipe for recovery, then there is something drastically wrong with this picture. Hearing about what a victim you are because your boss doesn't appreciate you, or that your weedeater is broken again and throws you into a murderous rage, is not sharing to help someone. Airing your dirty laundry with information that really should be reserved for and restricted to your 5th Step, and your sexcapades are recounted in a mixed company gathering that horrifies and runs off newcomers, and they are not silenced by the leader of the meeting - this is NOT responsible and cannot even be considered "sharing & caring", for crying out loud.
When someone says they have been given a relapse prevention workbook from a facility, though I am certain the center had the best of intentions, I wonder if the person with the workbook even realizes that the best relapse prevention is called getting recovered. (Yes, I said the past tense word ... and with no apology.) The instruction manual for permanent recovery (read your forwards) is clearly outlined in the cleverly disguised Big Book and prescribes working the Steps in order to have a spiritual awakening (or awakenings), carrying the message and continuing to work the program as shown to us in the text. "Relapse prevention" implies that I have the ability to keep myself sober if I just follow these nifty little tips in the facility workbook and keep a watchful eye on my triggers. In which case, if I could prevent my disease in the first place, I would not be powerless and therefore, I would not qualify for this program.
If I want to just be "dry", abstinent from all mind-altering substances and attempt to rack up some "time" by relying on the Fellowship and comraderie from the shipwreck to help me white knuckle my way to a few chips or even medallions, I am free to take the "advice" so liberally thrown around the rooms of watered-down Program. I can "keep coming back", "keep the plug in the jug", "just don't drink and go to meetings" and "hang in there, baby" with no dramatically different quality of life or emotional stability. If I make it, allegedly, I might end up eating a bullet one day with double digit "sobriety" because I am haunted by an out-of-control spiritual malady with no way out because Pride and Fear are my captors.
Warning - at the very least, this particular route may resemble driving with the GPS around Katmandu to reach Timbuktu, if you're lucky. Or it could lead you back into the abyss of your disease or to the gates of insanity or death, if you are truly one of us, of the hopeless variety.
Thankfully, we have another choice. Ditch the GPS du jour and study the treasure map!
It's colorful, a symphony of intricate icons, and though the writing seems cryptic at first, keep reading. It is beautifully, and mysteriously, crystal clear when you follow the clues and steps in order. The truth unfolds like a ship's sail and then you see the pattern painted upon it and you will understand what we are talking about.
Then you can join your brothers and sisters that are living in the common solution described on page 17, and by the time you hit page 164, you can be trudging (which does not mean grueling by the way, but "walking with purpose") the Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you and keep you until then.
Aaargh!
