On January 9th, I reached 38 years of continuous sobriety. Part of acknowledging my anniversary is chairing this meeting the following Sunday. I will also celebrate at my home group next Wednesday Night. This January, four of us with anniversaries this month will all collect our medallions at Wednesday’s meeting. It feels special because there will be one with 15 years, me with 38, another with 48 and one with 49. Together it totals 150 years!
That meeting reads from “Each Day a New Beginning” and the reading from last Wednesday was on having rapt attention to each other. When I first came into sobriety there was such a roar of thoughts, comments, criticisms and judgements swirling around in my head every minute that I had to learn HOW to listen to the people as they shared in meetings. I asked my nonexistent higher power to help me hear what I needed to hear in order to stay sober another day. I found it so exhausting that I would often come home limp from the effort – but with the one memorable thing that resonated with me and helped keep me sober.
Over time, I found it awesome that when people shared during a meeting, everyone else was silent and attentive. They listened to hear what was being said, not to respond. It remains the one place in the world to me where that is still true. Particularly in women’s meetings it is that deep respect we give one another that allows her to be heard and to have her experience witnessed, validated and shared. Something profoundly healing occurs during that singular attention.
At last week’s meeting, one woman had relapsed and totaled her car so asked for rides to meetings, another in early sobriety remarked she had just come from arguing with her husband and realized now that she had not listened to anything he had said, just waited for an opening to respond, three women let the group know they had reached 60 and 90 days of sobriety, another announced she had 27 years sober, and one woman tearfully described having spent the day at the hospital holding her daughter. The daughter had attempted suicide while in her father’s custody. You could hear a pin drop while each woman spoke.
I try to listen with that deep respect anytime someone in the program calls, or shares her experience with me. I believe simply listening, not “fixing”, not “giving advice”, not “complimenting or correcting”, lets her know that she is important to me, that she matters, that her experience is valuable and worthy of notice. It also lets her often figure out what the solution is to her problem, or gives her clarity on why she is feeling the way she is, and she always sounds lighter by the end of the exchange.
I only learned that because I reluctantly came into the rooms of AA and let this magical program of recovery show me how to live a life richer than anything I could have dreamed during my drinking years. I thank all of you in this meeting for sharing your truth, your experience, your struggles in your shares. I still read every share and find something I needed to hear to make my sober life better every day. Thank you!
And in that spirit, please feel free to share on topic or off, especially if there is some problem putting your sobriety at risk. I swear that honestly sharing the problem out loud de-fangs it so it is no longer a problem