As many of you know I've been in and out a few times...a lot of times actually. When I look back to my first stints in AA it seems so different than now. I seem so different. I used to go to meetings with such an overwhelming feeling of desperation, like I wanted to be sober and clean and "cured" right now. I was so impatient. Tonight I didn't feel that way...I felt like I didn't need to rush things, I felt calm and relaxed, like I was back in a familiar place. A good place.
I dont want to read too much into how I feel or what I'm thinking because I've let myself down so many times but when I was sitting there tonight I thought of something some old timer said to me a long time ago when I was being difficult. He said "you know what you should do, you should go out and get drunk and come back when you're ready to stop being a knowitall little asshole." I told him that was a terrible thing to say and that his sponsoring skills really sucked. I said "Um, correct me if I'm worng but isn't it your job to help me get sober?" and he said "Nope. It's not our job to make the horse drink the water, it's our job to make him thirsty"...I told him that he was a crackpot, I left AA and never saw him again.
I was in the revolving door for 2 years before a chain of events occurred that got my attention and I then decided to make getting sober my 1 and only priority. At that point I was not picking and choosing which methods, steps, or suggestions that others were employing to stay sober. I was Do-ing as many as possible.
You've heard it all before so I'm not going to write a big list, but if I were you I'd be going to a meeting everyday (no excuses) getting with a sponsor and hanging out with ONLY successfully recovering people. I pretty much lived in an AA club, 3 times a week attended the 7 am meeting, eat lunch there while in the noon meetings, went to a couple 5:30 meetings and went out to dinner with other AA's after the 8pm meetings on Fri and Sat nights.
I noticed something peculiar after about 3 months. My car started driving itself to the AA club instead the bar or the beer store. Buckle up!
