From January 25th - Just For Today:
We watch them walk in to their first meeting defeated, their
spirits broken. Their suffering is obvious, and their desire for help
even more apparent. They collect a welcome chip and go back to their
seats, shaken by the effort.
We see them again, and they seem a little more comfortable.
They’ve found a sponsor and are attending meetings every night. They
still won’t meet our glance, but they nod their heads in recognition as
we share. We notice a spark of hope in their eyes, and they smile
uncertainly when we encourage them to keep coming back.
A few months later, they are standing straight. They’ve learned
how to make eye contact. They’re working the steps with their sponsor
and are healing as a result. We listen to them sharing at meetings. We
stack chairs with them afterward.
A few years later, they are speaking at a convention workshop.
They’ve got a wonderful, humorous personality. They smile when they see
us, they hug us, and they tell us they could never have done it without
us. And they understand when we say, “nor could we, without you.”
The truth of the matter is a 12 step program's life blood is the new comer. The struggles of someone new cause us to reflect on our own past experience and force us to reach back for the tools that helped us in the past. In sharing our experience, strength, and hope with someone else we keep the knowledge of these tools in the forefront of our brain... at the ready to be applied to events of our lives as they come up. New comers in need of rides depend on us to pick them up... even on nights when we would rather just go home and rest. Beside they keep us up to date on the latest slang (Let's go to the "XXXX" meeting tonight... Really, man? I don't know that place is ratchet). Whether we like it or not, new comers watch people with time... if we don't take meetings and our discussions afterwards seriously then neither will they.
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher
“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Chinese Proverb
There was time when we would laugh at others and ourselves for being this high. "I'm so high that I can't even hold the fork..." It's not so funny now, is it? We give you one promise: "an addict, ANY ADDICT can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live." Stick around.
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher
“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Chinese Proverb
There was time when we would laugh at others and ourselves for being this high. "I'm so high that I can't even hold the fork..." It's not so funny now, is it? We give you one promise: "an addict, ANY ADDICT can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use, and find a new way to live." Stick around.
