A Desire to Stop Drinking

Hi, my name is John, and I’m an alcoholic.

That is how I introduce myself every time that I share in an AA meeting. Pretty typical. How did I get here? I needed to stop drinking. I was drinking every day and I had no way out. I had heard AA had meetings all over and membership was free. In fact, the membership requirements were pretty straightforward, too!

AA’s third tradition suggests that the only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.  That’s enough for me.  Since I’m a member, I can attend all the meetings that I want to!  I can head out in the evening and spend an hour enjoying the fellowship, or I can hide in my office and take in a Zoom meeting.  But I need a meeting, at least for a couple months so I can complete my 90/90.  What is a 90/90?   Going to 90 meetings in 90 days.  I want to really kick off my sobriety with a bang.

My program

What’s my program?  My program is what keeps me sober.  The most important is meetings.  Meetings allow me to share.  Sharing is therapeutic for a couple of reasons.  Number one is that it forces me to admit that I’m an alcoholic.  I say it out loud at the very beginning of every share.  Once I start talking, I don’t know what I’m going to say.  Well, I have an idea or a theme, but mostly, it’s stream-of-consciousness.  It’s almost as if I give my will over to God (step 3) and let Him direct me what to say.  I am his conduit, delivering the word to other alcoholics.  So, in essence, I’m doing my 12th-step work in every share.

When I’m not sharing, I’m listening.  Actively!  I even take notes.  When I hear something that strikes me, I write it down.  I like to look through my notes and recall what I was thinking about and how I was feeling at the time.  I mull it all over in my head and then make a supreme effort to write it down in this blog.  Writing helps those thoughts to gel and become cohesive and coherent.

A Phone App for Alcoholics

I highly recommend “Everything AA” for Android or for iPhone.  It has a lot of the literature to read on your phone.  Or you can listen to the literature while driving by playing it in the audio section of the app!  My favorite thing to do whilst driving to and from meetings!

Lately, I been really enjoying “The Joe and Charlie Big Book Study”.  It was recorded in front of a live audience and they really get a lot of good laughs out of the audience.  But mostly, they’re working their way through the Big Book and they have been working the program for longer than I’ve been alive so they have some really good insights into what Bill W. was trying to do. Here’s a transcript, but it’s better on Audiobook.

The Good Seats are Up Front

All of this reading, writing, and listening is helpful and therapeutic. They say you should spend as much time thinking about AA as you used to spend thinking about drinking! But nothing takes the place of a meeting. A quick Google of “AA Meetings near me” will give you a boatload of info about where to find a meeting. They start and end very promptly.

Come in and take a seat.  The price of admission is the same for the good seats up front.  I can’t hear very well, so I rarely sit in the back.  Besides, the people that sit in the back row at AA meetings are like what you find in the back of the closet: the slippers and the loafers!