I’m grateful for a Sunday morning listening to Schumann, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. I’m grateful for dinner with my parents and grateful they’re having so much fun here. I’m grateful to not have to water the garden. I’m grateful to not have to figure out my drinking schedule every day. I’m grateful for newcomers and enthusiasm for the program. I’m grateful enthusiasm is contagious. I’m grateful for doing the thing I don’t know how to do. I’m grateful to be sober today.
I hope you’re having a great Sunday. I was thinking about something that Olis said at our breakfast about being told that the people who do “Hospital and Institutions” service don’t relapse.1
Bill W. realized that helping other alcoholics was actually the thing keeping him sober and Chapter 7 of the Big Book, “Working with Others,” lays this out:
Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics. You can help when no one else can.
Big Book, p. 892
Olis found that to be the case and I think my work with sponsees is the most rewarding thing I do. With only a few years of sobriety, Bill W. devised this completely ingenious flywheel of recovery, me helping you, helps me, you helping the next person, helps you and so on. There are lots of opportunities for service in AA and if you’re interested, you can click here: New York Intergoup.3
Have a happy Sunday, I have a surprise coming for you all later today and hope you enjoy it. And since you read all the way to bottom, here’s another photo:
Thanks for Letting Me Share
This refers to going to hospitals, institutions, jails and prisons and helping to put on AA meetings.
The Fifth Tradition of AA: “Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.”
This is the New York Intergroup site, there’s one of these for every state and lots of countries.