I had a desire to stop drinking, but I really didn't want to be a member..LOL! I remember telling people that I would go to some meetings, stop drinking and get on with my life. I would use AA the way I had used everything and everyone else...to get what I wanted my way. Instead, I learned that along with the desire to stop drinking I had to actually give back to AA. AA is not a self-help program. It is a program to teach selfish people how to not be, at least that's' how it was designed. I am a member because in order for this thing to stick, in order for me to have sustainable, solid sobriety, I need to show others precisely how I recovered. Not use AA to feed my ego or make it about me...which I have in the past.
We, OF Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW WE HAVE RECOVERED is the main purpose of this book. For them, we hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. We think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. And besides, we are sure that our way of living has its advantages for all.
I was very very sick; mind and soul. My heart was dark. I was selfish and didn't think I was. I was a victim because of my circumstances and my gender-not the content of my character, my choices and behavior, or how I treated myself and others. No, none of that applied or mattered, it was YOUR FAULT, and I ran with that! I identified myself and marinated in victim narrative which kept me sick, forced others to accept my reprehensible behavior and normalize the abnormal so that my precious feelings didn't get hurt. No matter who I hurt or what I did I was entitled to do it because I was "sick".
Yes, I was sick, very sick, but that doesn't give me the right to hurt others and force my mental illness onto them and make them endure hell because I didn't want to look at myself. In AA I learn to humble myself, not celebrate myself because I am finally doing the right thing. In all humility and meekness I shut my mouth sometimes, listen, learn, take in information, get honest with myself, stop glorifying and identifying with the disease part but place more effort into the solution, growing spiritually, getting to know God and serving others.
Love isn't feeding a state of delusion. Unfortunately, not many people have the courage to confront us or cut us off. God intervened and took me out of that hell because He was all I had left in the end of my drinking, and actually in the end of all of this he will be who I go to. No human power could have helped me anyway, that being said, I think that my family and friends pretending that my abnormal life style was normal only hurt me in the long run. But, they were sick too.
Victims are without out hope and then confused when everyone seems to celebrate and empower that they are victims. Everyone feeding that does the being a great injustice. Teaching the "victim" to rise and to overcome, is what AA and sponsors did for me. They didn't caudle me or celebrate me, they taught me how to do life by taking responsibility and accountability for my behavior. They brought me out of a animalistic self sabotaging and unruly state, into a state of growing toward being a spiritual women with grace, meekness and dignity. I seek to be a asset in this place now not a liability that needs to be herded, managed or controlled like a farm animal.