Sharing
Hello, my dear sisters in sobriety! Thank you for this opportunity to chair a meeting. As I was fishing for a topic, this is what came up for me:
It seems to me that secrets are about the only things (besides mushrooms) that grow in the dark. Secrets, wrapped up in shame, hiding under denial, festering in isolation, begging for a drink to keep them under wraps…What are my secrets today? Apparently I still have a few (!) — I’ve been going through a pretty difficult time, but have I shared about it? I have been going to f2f meetings, but I haven’t been opening my mouth. And I have been absent from GROW for quite some time. I get into that vicious cycle of not sharing regularly, and a week turns into two weeks, which turns into a month of not even checking in. Meanwhile, my secret shame is doing push-ups (just like my alcoholism) and starting to tell me things like, “You might as well drop out of GROW,” and other, worse things, which, experience has taught me, sooner or later will lead me to the alcohol watering hole.
Luckily (coincidence? I think not) I had signed up to chair this week — Something is keeping me connected to GROW…and committed to growing. The higher power, I believe, is doing this for me, in spite of my vicious mind. I have been shown my primary purpose — to stay sober and help another alcoholic. How to do that? HOW, the first one being Honesty, which takes courage, and courage takes faith, and faith takes letting go and turning it over, which gives me the strength to be Open and Willing to connect to other alcoholics by sharing whatever is going on with me. I know a drink is waiting for me to close up again and dive back into the depths of old thinking.
You know what hit me as I was reading back over this? I said, “I’ve been going through a pretty difficult time,” and it finally dawned on me — why is it difficult? I’ve been trying to control everything again! D’oh! So that’s what has been going on with me! All I had to do was put my problem into words (and the particulars really don’t matter) and share it, whether in writing or at a meeting, and the miracle of being restored to sanity can happen. And I didn’t have to drink over it!
Thank you all for letting me (and encouraging me to) share.