School and Work are Fine

“School and work are fine – and that is what we do between meetings”
Karl M., Covina, CA

“Why do we have to listen to the same people tell the same stories at every meeting?”  Norman leaned over and asked me that at a meeting last night.  He’s right, of course.  We hear the same people share the same stories day after day after day.  Particularly in a small city like mine where the fixtures at the meeting don’t really change.  It is actually one of the things I like best about blogging.  It gives me the opportunity to take a look at today and apply the lens of the solution offered in 12 step programs.  It helps me see the present more clearly.  It gives me new stories; new experience, new strength and new hope.  It gives me a constant source of new stuff to share at meetings; stuff that is already developed and grounded in the solution.  Sometimes, but not very often, it works the other way around; I find information about what I’m living by listening in meetings.

The collective experience, strength and hope shared by sober members of 12 step recovery is much bigger than I can avail myself of in local meetings, though, and my own answer to the problem at the root of Norman’s question has led me not only to the blogs my colleagues write, but to podcasts of AA speaker tapes.  (You’ll find a link on the sidebar, or you can search for “AA speaker tapes” in the search field of iTunes.”  I load my iPod up with these.  At some point every day I’m listening to the experience, strength and hope of other people on this path; other people that I am unlikely to ever meet or hear otherwise.

The problem and the solution are the same, of course, so I’m probably simply hearing new information because the voice is different, and that is a great thing.  Everything that I can add to my recovery is a great thing, and I’m grateful today to have been shown an answer to a couple of my questions about my recovery by Karl M. of Covina, CA in a speech he gave at the Denali Workshop.  I’ve listened to that podcast three times in succession now.

I’ve decided I am absolutely returning to school and that I’m returning to learn a trade, rather than a profession.  I just don’t think I have it in me at the moment to remain in a job that takes up all the psychic and emotional energy I have that I would rather commit to recovery.  I need to double my income fast and I need it to leave my mind and spirit free to give to AA.  Karl talks about how grateful he was that he visited AA before he visited the counselor at the school he was going to attend.  “School and work are fine, but we live in Alcoholics Anonymous and we visit the world.  We don’t live in the world and visit AA.”  I felt that.  I suspected that.  But I didn’t have an adequate way of stating that so clearly and I didn’t have any validation of that in the recovery community around me, at least not so that I could understand.

The other thing I gleaned form this particular tape was the answer to a question that I didn’t even know I had.  How do you know that you’ve given your will and your life over to the care of God.  I’m not going to repeat the explanation Karl gave.  You can learn that well enough on your own, and I would encourage you to, but the answer is absolutely yes.  I have definitely turned my will and my life over to the care of God.  That answer struck me to my core and validated everything that I am doing today for my recovery.  Like finding a landmark on a seldom traveled path at the point you’re sure you’re lost, this bit of information, delivered clearly and specifically and in a way that I could understand, has given me a much needed dose of faith and hope.

It’s fantastic to be sober.  It’s fantastic to have been given a life and a purpose, and it’s fantastic to be able to share it.