Tuesday Stuff

I woke up late this morning and I still need to get out and run. I will try to make my post brief so that I can get out, run, come back and get ready for work and not be too late. I had some sleeplessness due to family "issues" last night. I need to trust God and know that God has no grandchildren - or great grandchildren. We all have our own primary relationship with him, and he does not need me to be an intermediary for my children or grandchildren.

I went to the 6:30 meeting yesterday. I looked around and saw so many people I love. I was thinking about this yesterday before I went to the meeting - how the anticipation of who I will see at the meeting will add to my desire to go to the meeting. To me, it is absolutely essential that I get to know the people who are in my AA sphere. I don't generally love (or even like for the most part) the people I see in meetings unless I take the time to get to know them. When I get to know them outside of the meetings, I come to understand why they act the way they do, I come to appreciate the people they are, and I come to love them. Then I actually look forward to seeing them. Which actually motivates me to attend a lot of AA meetings. And over the years I have found that attending a lot of AA meetings is very good for me. I am happier when I go to meetings. I am less happy when I don't attend meetings. Another thing I have learned from getting to know people is that most of the people I have known over the years who have stopped attending meetings, have eventually drank again and many of them are dead.

So instead I can sit at a meeting on a Monday morning and look over at C., who came in and out for 5 years, always raising her hand... I never thought she would get sober - she chaired the meeting yesterday and recently celebrated 8 years of continuous sobriety - and I am now her sponsor. I sat next to Larry, who I love. As someone I just know from meetings, he isn't the coolest guy on earth - but I have gotten to know Larry and I love him... and he loves me. What better way to bond than ambulance rides together? I looked across the room at Holly. She came over to my house last year at Christmas time and helped me put up my Christmas tree - I was too sad about my son's absence and didn't think I could do it. But I didn't have to do it alone, Holly and Connie helped me. Holly also came out to support me at the half-marathon and I feel like she saved my life. I love Holly. On the other side of the room was L., she and I aren't the best of friends, but I do love her. We used to hike together and indeed, we attempted to climb a 14'er about 10 years ago. I have a picture of us together in one of my AA books, and I look at it every day... she is a part of my life whether we like each other or not.

I could go on ad infinitum. But I don't have time and you probably don't have patience for it. My point is - I am so grateful that I have gotten to know the people I come in contact with in AA. When I take an AA member at face value, I really cheat myself. We are some of the most incredibly interesting and fascinating people on earth. And we really do things like help each other put up the Christmas tree.

-oh sorry to keep writing like this (so much for the "brief post" I intended to write), but yesterday I noticed that my son had a golf shirt with "Walter Hagen" stitched on the sleeve. I asked him if Walter Hagen was a golfer in the 1920s and he said yes. I told my son that Walter Hagen is in the Big Book!!! I so excitedly went to Bill's Story and read the part about Bill Wilson getting involved in golfing. Silly, huh?

"When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?" -- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 53