T'is the season and the spirit of it is everywhere! Especially amongst the Fellowship! For most of the world, whether your tradition is religious or secular, it is considered the season of gift giving. Whether those gifts are wrapped in brightly-colored packages with ribbons or they are gifts of time with family or friends or doing charitable deeds for the needy, the spirit is one of giving.
I received a gift today, two days after Christmas when a man I admire called and asked me to attend a particular meeting.
For the first time in many moons, I walked in through the doors of the clubhouse I had spent much of my sobriety in and sat down in the Sunrise meeting to celebrate my friend's 5th year sobriety anniversary.
It felt a bit strange for a few moments, being in the room that I had practically memorized the cracks in the ceiling and knew exactly how many steps it took from the front of the room to the coffee pot. I saw faces I knew and exchanged hugs with many I hadn't seen in a long time since I now go to another meeting in a church. This meeting, in particular, was one that I started 13 years ago in a moment of despair and desperation with over 11 years sober, in an effort to survive one of those "low spots and trials" I was having that is referred to in Bill's Story in the AA Big Book.
That passage, which begins on page 14, warns that "if an alcoholic fails to perfect and enlarge their spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others" they may not be able to survive future bumps in the road (to paraphrase). Note that the sentence says "through", implying that the survivor's pathway IS the work and self-sacrifice for others - which echoes another mandate on page 20 in the Big Book. There it states, that "our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depends upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs."
I looked around the room in awe. It was standing room only at 6:30 a.m.and all these people were present for my friend that was picking up 5 years. That man had touched literally hundreds of lives in his (so far) relatively brief journey in recovery, tirelessly carrying the message to as many people as crossed his path. Going above and beyond, he had led regular workshops, sponsored oodles of men who went out and carried the message, started a weekly evening meeting that had blossomed to become so large they were forced to split into another group that met across town in a different location. Over half of the people in the room this morning were either directly or indirectly sober due to God working through my friend as a channel for the message of hope and the solution of recovery.
I was astounded. In my head, I heard the words of my first sponsor that perhaps the whole reason we in the rooms of AA and other 12 Step Fellowships were spared from the incredible odds of death by this disease of addiction was so that we might be of service to help someone else find freedom, hope, peace, joy .... all those lofty things the world wishes one another during the holidays.
Yet here, lowly, despicable drunks that we were, are today privileged enough to experience these lofty things every day of the year in recovery. And the evidence was all around me.
Sobriety in and of itself is such an amazing, incredible miracle and gift that we have been given, but to watch the synergistic effect of one alcoholic finding the Great Reality deep down within and having a spiritual awakening that rocketed him into the Fourth Dimension is a gift that cannot be described, only expereienced.
The 12th Step promises from page 89 says "this is an expereience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it."
I wish each of you all the gifts that are available to us if we will accept the grace being offered. God, as you understand God, is waiting to hand you a package, the whole package, the gift of living in the sunlight of the spirit in every season, every day. Please open your palms and receive it.
Peace.
