Saturday, December 17, 2011

Coming Home

Look at what my kids gave me for my birthday!
God truly can write straight with crooked lines.  I have been despairing at the meeting I have been attending for a while (well, 17 years), and I have prayed about it.  I have been sponsoring someone who is having the same issues with the meeting.  I told her that if she was looking for a sponsor to tell her to "write inventory" about the group or some other such thing, she had the wrong sponsor.  I told her what my sponsor told me -- "go to another meeting."  Do not persist in going to a group you don't like.  It is that simple.  But the time and place are so convenient!

This morning, I woke and thought I could easily make it across town to go to my old homegroup.  When I walked in the building and saw the old threadbare stained carpet, and the old 80s office chairs chained to the wall in the lobby, I thought - Well, this seems to be my old homegroup.  I got to the meeting 20 minutes early because seating is always an issue.  When I walked into the meeting room, I was greeted by strangers - it was reassuring to me.  They didn't know me but they greeted me warmly and made me feel welcome.  What kind of awesomeness is that?!  And then old friends started drifting in.  I haven't been to that group for a while, so they were shocked (pleasantly) to see me.

The man who took me to my first meeting was there!  There were at least 4 people in the room who are sober longer than me!  They remember me as a young woman.  The woman who chaired the meeting has known me since the day I came to my first meeting.  She said to me and two other women who were bat-shit crazy back in the 80s (and into the 90s) that she really appreciates who we are today because she knows the misery we went through to become the people we are.

We talked about gratitude!  We talked about working with others!  We talked about GOD!

It was an AA meeting.  A meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.  With people who are firmly committed to their sobriety and being sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Happily sober, grateful, faithful alcoholics.  Wow.

I know where I belong.  I simply MUST make that trip at least once a week.

Some people say they have never been to a bad meeting.  (an old timer I knew used to say that if you haven't been to a bad meeting, you are not going to enough meetings.)  Some people think they ought to work on themselves if they are finding a meeting objectionable.  That all sounds good.

But I say, you must find a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where alcoholics are talking about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Not what their therapist said.  Not how they would love to have a drink.  Not how being sober doesn't matter.  Not how the only important thing is to "keep coming back."

Oh, thank you God! for sending me back to my home group.  I know where I belong.  And I am eternally grateful that I can still go there.

And now I am going to stick some vegetables in that fancy food processor and make a great breakfast!  I couldn't believe they bought me that!  I have an old, first generation, Cuisinart -  from about the time I got sober.  It still works, but it looks so bad, I have it hidden in a cabinet... on a top shelf where it is a pain to drag it down.  But this thing is so beautiful, I will leave it on my kitchen counter!  And maybe my sober daughter wants my old one.  I forgot to ask her last night.

So grateful.  So grateful.

As I sat in that meeting, it occurred to me that my blogging community has probably been my only link to real program I have had in the last couple of years.  For that, I thank you with all of my heart.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo, Mary Christine.

7 comments:

dAAve said...

Happy birthday, again.

I hear just about everything I need to hear at my homegroup at 6:30am. Of course, by noon, I have forgotten much of it, so I do it again at 12:15.

I absolutely love those 2 meetings (every day). I really can't remember when I've been to one that I regretted being at.

Grace-WorkinProgress said...

I agree that if you have never been to a bad meeting you have been to enough meetings.

I think change is good. It is something that I have always avoided at all cost. But my best lessons involved radical change and being pushed without a safety net. I survived and actually on occasion grew wings.

I love your new toy.

Lou said...

I bought the Dad the fancy red kitchenaide with all attachments. He just pulled a warm, wonderfully smelling loaf of bread out of the oven! He has been hand kneading all these years, and is thrilled with his new gadget.

I liked the meeting story. I went to a "kinda like Alanon" meeting at the rehab, and it was totally unlike Alanon.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that is so nice! I bet the blades are super sharp and after you use the first time you will be saying, "Where have you been all my life?

I am really surprised by your view on meetings as I was always taught that if I am not happy at a meeting there must be something wrong with me, and I should either change myself or stay and try to to change the meeting. BTW, that is a good way stay in insane behavior!

Pammie said...

Thank you. Tomorrow I am going to get up early and go to a place where I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the meeting will be a REAL AA meeting. I will fit in. I will be welcome.
LOVE the machine.

atomic momma said...

Thank you for the wisdom you share in your posts. I so appreciate them at my point in my life at 43 years old.

I am so excited for you with your birthday present. I love our cuisinart and your kids got you a great gift!

Syd said...

Great gift of the gadget and the meeting. I do not punish myself by going to meetings where the traditions are not practiced. I forced myself to deny stuff for years. No more making do with unacceptable stuff.