D-TOX! A FEW THOUGHTS
Now that it is Friday, I am particularly glad to be home, for it is my night to attend a small meeting at "detox". This is one of our locked areas of room-and-board in Naples where people go to slowly have removed from their bodies (maybe also their minds? No, maybe not!) whatever they were using to make themselves 'feel good'.
Their 'stay' is usually 4-6 days, and so if I see any of them more than once, it would likely be at an AA meeting, or when I pick them up to go to a meeting. A guy asked me this morning (at 6:30 AM) "Why do you go to detox meetings, after you've been sober for 35 years?"
Good question! With all the great wisdom I could muster, I told him, "I really don't know. It's been too long since I've asked myself 'Why' about activities like that. I've finally come to the point where I just do it. Whatever 'it' is.
(LATER) Wait! I DO know why I am drawn to detox for a meeting. That is where it all begins, for some. And I need to witness that beginning stage of "soberism". I have found that, for me, many years of sobriety can create a tendency to become distant from "how it was".
Sure, I attend speaker meetings, I sponsor a couple (three) guys, I get to lots of meetings, at least two a day. Big Book, Steps, and Tradition meetings are a regular part of my diet. Along with some service work, I still find that, for me, nothing, but nothing, brings my disease so close to home, to reality, as a meeting with those suffering in a detox unit.
This is where the hair on my violin bow meets with the strings on my violin. Without that 'meeting' there will be no music played. And so THAT'S why I feel so blest to be allowed to share my ESH with the newest of the new.
Lets go back to: "I've finally come to the point where I just do it. Whatever 'it' is.
NOTE: Sometimes as I look back at a particular 'it', I recall how embarrassed I would have been 20 or 30 years ago, doing the same 'it'. Because not every 'it' is commonly, usually normal. But at my age, at my stage, I just move on, trying to let go and let God take care of the outcome. Frequently I'll pretend I'm "looking" at God, and I'll say (not pretending!), "Are You kidding, God? You want me to do THAT? You want me to say WHAT? 'They' will laugh at me, God!"
But, when that (heavenly? Hmmm?) urge keeps rattling the brain, I finally say, instead of "Why?"...well, I say, "Why not?" And ....away we go.
At the detox tonight were 6 patients, and six of us from outside. Of the six incarcerated, two snored somewhat, one said he never had a drink in his liar--ooops, I meant, in his LIFE! And three seemed as if they figured we'd see them again.
Outside after the meeting, the six of us from AA had another shared thought--we knew we had been where we should have been, at least for one hour, today! Thank You, God. Thank you, AA. Thank you, blogger Peeps!
AND NOW...TRIVIA!
Barnyard hogs kill more people every year than sharks do.
--Taken from L.M. Boyd's Curiosity Shop
In love and service.
Steve E
