The most common question I get asked is this, “Why do you still go to meetings?”
The answer is simple really, I know what happens to those that don’t go to meetings and I don’t want that to happen to me. How many times have you sat in a meeting with someone who’s just come back and one of the things you hear from them is, “I just stopped going to meetings.” There’s more that they say but the jest is always the same.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written you know I love recovery. I’m not the type that eats, sleeps and talks about it, I’m closer to the middle of the road in most aspects but the love of recovery is deep in my heart.

When I was starting out and throughout the years I’ve done lots of adventuring in recovery, checking the boundaries and finding the corner the posts. I know where they are and today I do my best never to skate on the “Thin Ice” of recovery. I do my best to teach those that I sponsor and my friends just how dangerous I believe thin ice to be.

That’s why I don’t believe in “Near Beer” or some of the “Near Drugs” that herbs provide. I don’t want or need that type of chaos in my life, that’s all those things are, they’re addiction in disguise waiting for some poor addict to find them.
I’m not against medication I’m alive today because of prescribed medication and the last thing I can be is some ones Doctor. The Doctor went to school and they are really capable of making the call.

What I really want to share about is why I believe people need to keep going to meetings. I believe I need to be at meetings just as bad today as I did the first day because I need to hear what others have to share. I need to hear everything that the meeting has to share with me. I love sitting in meetings as people share from their heart. I love hearing all about the lessons both good and bad.

I need to be there so that the new-comer can see someone like me listening to them share. I need the new-comer to share with me just how bad the chaos of addiction is. I need to listen to each word and pull that information into my soul and believe that what they are sharing is truth.

We get to learn how to “admit” in the first meetings. We get to keep admitting as we go along the path of recovery. When I sit with a sponsee I want to hear them admit to their addiction. My sponsee wants to hear me admit to my addiction also. When we admit to our addiction we take the first step toward walking away from addiction. When start putting hours, days, weeks and then years behind us we leave addiction and move fully into recovery.

“In the admittance lays the solution” was told to me in my first meeting and just like then I believe it today. We need to admit to God, ourselves and others that we are addicts. We need to see that in our addiction anything was possible and we truly were powerless over our addiction.

Sponsee’s hearing me share with them how my addiction was shows them that I walked out of Hell and that I live in Recovery today. My sponsee’s sharing with me shows me that addiction is still Hell and they now have a destination to walk towards. Recovery doesn’t happen by sitting in a meeting listening to others or by sitting in meetings reading the material.

Recovery only happens when one person sits with another and starts to share their soul with them. It’s in the process of honestly showing how recovery happens that I start to see more recovery. It’s in the process of one recovering person sitting with another that the miracle is duplicated.

Sitting in meetings passively sharing, doing “busy” work is simple. Sitting with another person sharing deeply with them how it was for us, what happened to us and what it is like now for us that’s hard.

Why?

It’s hard because that means you had to do the steps honestly. It’s hard because you have to had read the text of your program. It’s hard because you can not take some one you haven’t been and you can’t teach something you don’t know.

I had lots of people ask me over the years to sponsor them and for some I failed them. I had great words to share. I had funny story’s to share from the podium and in the meetings. Those things make great material but they make terrible bunkmates during the night when the “horror’s” of addiction come calling.

I’ve laid in beds all over the country knowing that if some one saw me that they’d lock me up and not let me out. You want to know how much “Recovery” you have ask yourself this question? How well do I sleep? Most people have terrible programs and the “Undone” work of recovery starts to chase them at night. The “Undone” work starts to nag at them around three in the morning.

The undone work almost drove me crazy and it was winning until I found a sponsor that had a sponsor and they all went to meetings. The accountability chain was there and working. They all had done steps and were still doing the steps. They all had honest recovery that allowed them to sleep at night. They all had honest recovery that could stand the light of examination.

When I started working the steps, going to the meetings to learn instead of find girls miracles happened. When I started working the steps, reading the books that belonged to my program I started to change. I started to live in recovery instead of play in recovery.

I had memorized the necessary things so I could date but every woman I dated quickly saw through the facade. When I started working in recovery I now longer had time to date and I no longer had the desire to date. I knew what I had to do and I knew that a relationship would only get in the way.

When I work with others today I don’t need to judge them. I don’t need to be mean to them. I don’t need to laugh at them. We all came into recovery beat up and the last thing I needed was some one being me to mean. I was already being mean enough to myself I didn’t need anymore help.

I hear so many “Old Timer’s” laughing at new-comers and I hear them bragging about being mean to the new person. I also hear them trying to cram their twenty years down the new persons throat. I know I had to walk my walk and I know that the next person needs to walk their walk. There is only one way to get twenty years and that’s the same way, one day at a time.

I do share my experiences honestly, I try to help the person learn the important things. First being this. God is God. God is not the group. God is not the wonderful tree just outside the club or in the park. God is not your girlfriend or any other object. God is God. We are here through His Grace.

Do I have a solid idea of what God is? I do. I know exactly who my God is and I love my God deeply for saving me and bringing the things in my life that He has brought me. I love God because of what I’ve been given.

Do I try to cram that down anyone’s throat? Nope. That’s not my job. I’m here to teach and if the person wants to learn that’s great. If they don’t want to learn than it’s time to keep looking for the next sponsor, because if we can’t agree on that important subject no ground can be made.

I love recovery to much to try and water it down so it tastes better. I love recovery to much to lie. I don’t want to lie and tell someone that I don’t care what they believe when I do care. I can’t sponsor someone who believes the “Old Oak” tree with the “Yellow Ribbon” around is God, when I know it’s not.

I can’t sponsor some one in name only, sign their court card and pat them on the head and pray for them. I do pray for them, tell them the truth and encourage them to move along and find someone who can help them.

Old-timers need new-comers just as bad as the new-comer needs the old-timer. We only grow from the bottom up. We need the new-comer coming in through the front door and we need the old-timers sitting in the rooms teaching, watching and listening. There is an old quote that says that “The master eye, works twice as hard as the master’s hand.” That lesson needs to be taught it can’t come through osmosis.