RAMBLING TO MYSELF

(Got two new sponsees this week. 

God is GooD!)

MY RAMBLING WITH--ME

It seems like everyone I know, or ever knew--is recovering from something. (Or should be--grin!)  I'm sitting here happily marveling over our meeting situation--in the Naples area, where 200,000 people live. As everywhere, our groups meet in assorted places; churches, banks, rented halls, small club houses, the beach, and  "other" --more than 200 times each week!
 
NOTE:  I have seen (since early 1974) our AA grow in Naples from 4 meetings each week, to well over 200.
 
In a given year I am a part of nearly each of those groups (of Alcoholics Anonymous) at least once or twice.  My home groups see the most of me, know me, help me, teach me, put up with my Ego, and deal with my Pride (in ways I sometimes do not appreciate--grin!).  And we ALL laugh a lot--together, even at each other's former shenanigans.

In not many venues in SW Florida (Yes, I realize in big cities there are groups which "boast!" 400-600 members, I call them mini-conventions!) do I find a group of 70-90 Peeps coming together at 7 AM every single day, to laugh, meet, greet, commiserate, laugh, enjoy, spread happiness, get work, , laugh, give work, sponsor, help, exchange phone numbers to "talk later", and then laugh some more. 

Within a few seconds, we are ascended immediately onto a spiritual plane, which lends itself to peace and serenity, through helping one another. And we continue smiling and laughing!

The laughing is not a result of jokes being told, although that happens (at 7 AM!). It is more the laughter and true happiness--a relief?--of people who had condemned themselves to an alcoholic and lonely death, and are now changed.  

We have been changed by willfully  following  a God-given Program of Twelve Steps.  We have been given a daily reprieve dependent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

We laugh especially loud when relating some of the horrors of our past actions, behaviors, and near-death experiences, either in prisons of our own minds, or society's prisons.  We are those who had given up on ourselves, hopeless alcoholics. We had been given up as hopeless by friends, neighbors, families, loved ones (OH! So many loved ones who cared so much for us).  We are not proud of how we have lived, but glad we do not have to live like that again.

You see, we had no choice. Sure, early on we would say softly, so only few might hear, "I wonder if I have a drinking problem?...I only drink a few beers now and then."  A few?  What is a few?  Did I EVER count? Did it matter? At first not, then slowly, through years of habit, I lost my reasons (and my 'reason') for a "few beers". And a few became a "couple" daily bottles of  vodka. Yesss!  A habit, once formed, seeks to grow...especially if it is one of which I LOVE the effect.  

Eventually I crave more and more of that effect.  When I say to myself, "I can stop right now"...I stop. Fine. BUT I become restless, irritable, and discontent, UNTIL I have a few drinks again. Why me? Why not? Maybe so God can use me one day to help another?

The same of those of us who have found a way out through AA.  Why me? Why not? And so I carry this message I've been freely given, to others who not only need it--but WANT it.  Others, who may now need it, but one day, one day...will want it!

Remember, in this posting I was just "talking to myself", Peeps. Rambling!
 
I wish you all to be HAPPY!
I wish you all to be at PEACE!
I wish you all to LOVE!

MANY OF THE PHRASES IN THIS POST WERE TAKEN FROM BOOK ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS