Mar 18: Whatever It Takes to Stay Sober

Whatever It Takes to Stay Sober

Hi Ladies, I was told when I came in, to put as much effort into staying sober, as I put into getting drunk. Little did I know that it meant instead of running to the bottle when my feelings got hurt, it meant swallowing my pride. Little did I know that when my first sponsor shared my “secrets” with mutual friends outside the program, that it meant I had to work on forgiveness. Little did I know that when I tried to read out of “Only for Today” instead of the Daily Meditation at our morning meeting and offended some because I chose non-sanctioned material. I had to chalk that up as a learning experience. Little did I know that I would become a defender of those scared coming into a meeting and that THE ONLY REQUIREMENT IS A DESIRE TO STOP DRINKING. You don’t have to declare allegiance to AA.

All those painful experiences have taught me that I am not as fragile as I think I am, that I ALONE am responsible for the quality of my sobriety, that I can’t do this alone. AND most importantly I need the program of AA to learn to place principals before personalities.

Seeing what happened this week at this meeting, I just wanted to suggest that we share our AA horror stories and how we survived them.

Thanks for the opportunity to lead this meeting. I look forward to your shares on this topic, or anything that you feel the need to talk about.