Topic for the week: Gratitude for our Fellowship and its 87th anniversary
Hi friends. I’m Louise and I’m a grateful alcoholic.
Yesterday we celebrated 87 years of AA’s being in existence. I have been in touch with AA for 50 of those years, and continuously sober for the last 39. It’s made me sit back and take pause to think that the Fellowship was relatively young when I was first introduced to it– it had been going 37 years only. My next thought was to wonder what would have become of me if I hadn’t been introduced to AA.. Now that makes me shudder…
I have very good reason to believe that I would not be here today, that the disease would have taken me. Where would I have got the help that took me and transformed me when I became hopeless and helpless enough to surrender to it. Where would I be without the groups of fabulous women and men who can relate to me, and me to them, for we have all been in that dark pit of despair. I love you people for you know what it’s like to turn to the bottle again and again even though you know it’s destroying you– the big hallmark of the disease. Only someone else who has ‘been there’ knows what it’s like. I’m so very grateful for each and every one of you.
Bill and Dr Bob’s meeting when they did, the springing up of this now global fellowship, the 12-Step program which has been adopted by so many other organisations today– because it works– these are just amazing facts which save lives! And in many cases the lives of those who love us.. .
To my mind, AA’s 87 years of thriving is cause for remembering, reflecting and celebrating the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous. And one of the greatest gifts it’s given me is to realize how powerful having an attitude of gratitude is in my life. I practice this every day by writing out what I’m grateful for and sending it on to a group of other women. In return they send back to me what they’re grateful for. Often, if I’m feeling a bit low, caught up in self, and self pity or resentment has started to creep in, this gets me back on track. Writing it, yes, but also listening to the truth behind what others share with me.
I can look at the same world, same set of circumstances, on two days and see different things. One day I could be focused on what I haven’t got, and how my loved ones or friends either aren’t changing or not doing it quickly enough …I could look at my home and want things beyond my means. .. I could focus negatively on me and what I haven’t achieved. But throw a pinch of gratitude in there and everything changes, starting from the inside out…it truly is an inside job. Chuck C called it wearing ‘a new pair of glasses’. Inventorying daily is part of how I live today. I can easily see when I’m ‘off’. It doesn’t always mean I get out of it easily– some things take me longer than others…I struggle. But mostly I turn pretty quickly to my Power and ask for self to be removed.
Gratitude is an attitude that is worth cultivating, in my experience. And what underpins it is my relationship with a Power greater than me. I can turn to my God as I understand God each and every day, moment by moment. And as I’ve heard it said– the more of God, the less of me.
I’d love for you to share about gratitude in your life this week. About what the Fellowship means to you. And maybe even how it’s changed or evolved throughout the pandemic.
Thanks for being here, ladies, and for reading. I look forward to your shares this week.
Hugs
Louise