Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in a while isn't enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day, if need be. It may mean the loss of many nights' sleep, great interference with your pleasures, interruptions to your business. It may mean sharing your money and your home, counseling frantic wives and relatives, innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums. Your telephone may jangle at any time of the day or night. Your wife may sometimes say she is neglected. A drunk may smash the furniture in your home, or burn a mattress. You may have to fight with him if he is violent. Sometimes you will have to call a doctor and administer sedatives under his direction. Another time you may have to send for the police or an ambulance. Occasionally you will have to meet such conditions.
We seldom allow an alcoholic to live in our homes for long at a time. It is not good for him, and it sometimes creates serious complications in a family. Working with Others. pg.97
I was going through my BB and looking at the passages that were NOT highlighted. No doubt me not highlighting this was because I couldn't fathom the responsibility of it, nor did I want to. Thankfully my gig hasn't consisted of this class of chaos, as I would have probably gone mad! My own nonsense with my husband was bad enough. However, I do remember a time when the men in the program really had to step up and do some intense 12 Step calls which apparently could get pretty dirty-but nowhere close to setting furniture on fire. The founders were rockstars! I can feel through these words how badly they wanted to help people because you genuinely want people to be free of this, but the truth comes to pass that not many people want freedom because real freedom is work and the truth is very hard to take.
I was at the thrift store earlier this week and I was talking the cashier about my purchase of a framed picture of the 10 commandments which I intend to use the frame for something else entirely and disregard the print, but we started talking about God and she invited me to the park on Sunday at 11:00 where she goes to minister to the homeless if they want to hear her read out of her bible. My soul was convicted because as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous my continued growth in sobriety is contingent upon being of service: Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery-and that a kind act here and there won't cut it-here I am resting on my laurels and this woman of faith just does this because.
I have to remember that sharing to you guys on occasion and serving this group will not carry me for the long haul because my spiritual malady is a product of selfishness and self seeking that can easily attach itself to my "service" if my spirit and mind are off the mark. I certainly would rather NOT do something like that on a Sunday-but, if I don't who will? Do I not just extend my hand to an addict on the street and give him a card with a number if he or she is tired of living that way?? I mean, it's not too much to ask.
When I was like a couple days sober and I had to go back to work as a waitress and I still had to take the bus to and fro, and change clothes in the bathrooms of restaurants and gas stations (especially when I was riding my bike before it got stolen) and my normal would be to take a couple a swigs of vodka while in there, but since I was trying to not do that, I was just sitting at the bus stop crying because I had NO idea how I could do this ongoing humiliation ritually sober! For me this was a really low bottom considering where I was before. Out of nowhere this man gave me one of those religious pamphlets, and I was SO SO SO grateful because that God shot literally kept me sober the rest of the day and I really wanted to give up. I remember looking down at it and then looking back up to thank him and he wasn't there-it was as if he vanished. He was right where he needed to be when I needed him to be there, so you never know when you are inadvertently wearing the wings of an angel that day.
Instead of sharing about all the stuff we do do, have done, or give a run down of our service resumes and allow our egos to capture us into debate about what does or does not constitute service, (been there, done that) let's instead maybe share about some of our angel stories that we had when we were new and allow those to maybe inspire us into stepping into that role more often.