January 15: Connections/Passing it on

Topic for the week: Connections / Passing It On

Hi again, I’m still Mari Ann and I am an alcoholic.

I woke up in the middle of the night last Monday filled with awe and gratitude at being 35 years sober and that it has been connections with other women in the program that made it possible.

I was a loner my whole life. Growing up I waited for the spaceship from my home planet to swing down and retrieve me because I sure didn’t belong wherever I was.  Once I went out on my own, I learned to like being independent and alone.  Fast forward to decades later when I was in treatment. The topic in one of the group sessions was the slogans. The one I was given said “you never have to be alone again”. Yeah, right.   I preferred being alone, I wanted nothing to do with you people.

That was then. Two events in recent months made visible to me just how different my life is today.  Last October I attended a dinner/meeting where one of my sponsees spoke on her actual 25th soberversary.

One of her sponsees caught my eye and gestured from me to my sponsee, then to herself, then to her sponsee who then pointed to her sponsee and ultimately to that one’s sponsee. Six levels of sponsoring at one large table. Six levels of one woman passing her experience, strength and hope to the next in the desire to stay sober herself!   It still gives me goosebumps.

The second event was this week when a local woman celebrated 45 years the day after my 35. I wrote a card to her in which I explained that she, at about 5 years sober, attended a meeting crying about how awful she felt because her son had been killed in an accident and she wanted to drink so badly that she came to a meeting instead.

I wrote how her example – at that meeting – inspired my own sponsor (who was newly in the program) to stay sober too. As my sponsor said, “If that woman could stay sober after her son was killed, I had absolutely no reason to justify ever picking up a drink again.”

My sponsor celebrated 40 years last October also.  It was only after listening to her share at a lot of meetings, I came to the conclusion that she had probably faced all the same kind of demons that I was facing and she stayed sober so maybe she could show me how to do it. At which time I asked her to be mine.

Putting all that in the card made me shiver with awe and gratitude again for the miracle of one woman, daring to be honest and share her truth at meetings to save her own sobriety, actually wound up saving many more.

I am richly blessed with a host of women I can call on locally, across the country, and a few who’ve been godsends from overseas. Every single share I read or hear adds something to my own recovery. Every phone call, WhatsApp text or call strengthens another connection.  You may not know me personally, but you have enhanced my own program and recovery every time you share.

One of my wise women said she really liked a hardware store ad because of how well it fit the AA program. The ad said “You can do it; we can help”.

May Serendipity bless all of you for all of you helping me.

<done>  <=== from the old chat room meetings