“Do I sometimes try and get some reward-even if not money- for my personal AA efforts?”

 I was working with a conference several years ago and a bunch of drunks had been given the task of going shopping for some food items for the hospitality room.  As usual, they weren’t exceptionally organized, so they were in a big hurry to buy all those groceries and get back to the conference before the big angry mob showed up without any food.  Well these guys were gone forever.  We were starting to wonder if they’d made off with all the grocery money!  Then someone spotted them walking through the angry mob carrying all the food and my sponsor asked: “What Happened?”  I can’t tell what he really said but by the look on his face, it wasn’t pleasant.

“Well, we’d been making pretty good time, we got there, stormed the grocery store, got all the food and we were making a mad dash back to the conference.  That’s when we saw the red lights.  Then we looked down and realized we were going really fast.” I seem to remember something like 60 in 35 or close to it!  Again the sponsor wanted some answers quick. “So Why did it take so long for him to write you a ticket?”

… here it comes…

 ”Well we had to explain that this carload of people and groceries was late and we are supposed to be serving a hoard of A.A. members at that big hotel up the street.  They’re having an AA conference and they’re all waiting on us.”  I know they started singing like mockingbirds.  They told that cop EVERYTHING.  About the service positions they held, how they’d been appointed and chosen and that they were each members of AA and on and on because they thought they might get out of ticket.  Like it makes good sense.  They thought “Surely he would recognize our good deeds and ‘let this one slide’….”  Heck, I was new enough that if I would have been able to drive, and was in that situation, I probably would have done the exact same thing.  I was just glad I was there to learn it without feeling the sting directly.

I’ve often wondered if they’d have even made it back at all if that cop would have pulled the rap sheet on everyone in the car!

That day, I learned a couple of things.  Some things don’t have to do with this topic.  But what we do for AA is part of the debt we already owe it for giving us back our lives.  We work anonymously, we contribute freely and we learn to give freely without having any strings attached.  Anytime we try to use the name Alcoholics Anonymous to better ourselves, we end up making ourselves look stupid and we damage the credibility of our program.

In The Language of the Heart pg 88 Is a writing of Bill W.s on the Ninth Tradition.  I find it amazing how often I latch on to the parts I think I should.  When I re-read this today, It took on a different meaning…

“The A.A. book and pamphlets, our meeting places and clubs, our dinners and regional assemplies — these are services, too.  Nor can we secure good hospital connections, properly sponsor new prospects, and obtain good public relations just by chance.  People have to be appointed to look after these things, sometimes paid people. Special services are performed.”

“The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of over-all policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.”

This concept means simply that the trustees are ones responsible for the oversight of the AAWS and the Grapevine and how contributions can be applied.  For example, the Grapevine has been operating at a loss for several years now.  In order to “keep their doors open”, the trustees have excersized their power to take money received by group and individual contributions to cover the expenses of the Grapevine.

I’m hoping to get some comments on this one…

On the first of each month, we get the phone list and write the members names’ and sobriety birthday for each member having a birthday that month, along with how many years of sobriety they have.  When I saw this month’s tally in years of sobriety my jaw dropped and I was almost overwhelmed with gratitude to be a part of something so wonderful.

The magic number was 54!

Looking back, I realize this doesn’t exactly fall into the instructions laid out in the big book, but something must have happened because I’ve managed to stay sober all this time.  It just took some extra work to get that 8th step list re-created.  My sponser at the time told me this: “There are always some people on your 4th step list that don’t need to be on your 8th.  And there are people that NEED to be on your 8th that never showed up on your 4th.  So take the time and search your heart and past once more to create this list.  It’s going to be an inevitable experience that you will run into someone later on that you will need to make amends to that you haven’t thought of at all.”

He believed the most important part of all this was to teach me the process.  Once you recognize your wrong, ask god for the strength and the opportunity to make it right.  Because I’m human, I’m going to continue to make mistakes that will require action on my part to try and set them straight.  The process outlined in the book is very much the same way.  We don’t drag our feet and we keep an open mind.  If you use the list you made during the 4th step, it makes the process a little faster and will cover most all of the amends you need to make.

“If we havent’ the will to do this, we ask until it comes.  Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.”  -Alcoholics Anonymous Pg 76 

To kick off this new topic, I’ll start with something I heard last night that was put so simply and so right on, it deserves to the be first installment.

“In step three, we turned our life and our will over to the care of God as we understood him. And in Step 11 he gives it back.”

If you read step 10 and 11 in the book Alcoholics Anonymous it lets us know what the proper use of our will actually is…. this tells me point-blank that the phrase: “Powerless over people places and things” is just nonesense someone made up.

John

I often get caught up in my daily routines, I forget where I came from, I forget that where I’m at doesn’t look a THING like where I was.  Everything I have today I owe to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Over the years I’ve seen many others who have chosen that alternate path, and I’ve seen many of them change the way they live and even drop off the radar screen.  I’m not about to suggest that Alcoholics can’t be tremendously valuable to treatment centers, hospitals or drying out places.  I believe there are times when only an alcoholic can help.  That was certainly the case with me.  But what I see is a very challenging situation for the newly sober AA.

My first sponsor went on to tell me that often times, people get their ‘job’ confused with their own personal recovery.  I’ve actually seen it.  People spend 8 to 10 hours a day, talking about their experience, what they’ve learned about AA and how they worked through the steps.  Often times, it’s easy to confuse that with their own recovery program and let their homegroup committments slide and they may even quit attending their regular meetings altogether.  The lines between being a member of AA and being an employee become blurred.  This is a dangerous place for the newly sober AA.  It takes discipline and a lot of commitment to keep the job and the personal recovery seperate.

I believe this is one of the reasons we have Tradition 8.  Because once we begin to get paid for our services, and money is introduced into the experience, people have expectations… the boss expects a certain performance level, and the employee expects to get paid.  I believe I’m at my most helpful with another alcoholic, when I’m working for fun and for free.  I will always be able to find a ‘trade’ which will allow me to earn a living, practice the principals of the AA program, stay away from the dangers of blurring the lines between employee/AA member and Still be quite helpful to the professional community.

In my experience, I’ve learned that business and AA just don’t mix. I have a new employer. So long as I stick close to Him and perform his work well all my needs are met. My job now is fit myself to be of maximum service to god and those about me.

It’s really hard for me to be an employee, living by a set of spiritual principles (Giving) and at the same time, run a company who’s company vision is profit (Taking). I’ve found that the most important thing for me today is make decisions based on the ability to follow those spiritual principles or else life becomes unbearable real quick. Business and profit just aren’t for me, when it stands in my way of usefullness to others.

John

My wife and I had a beautiful baby girl on January 16 of 2007 and she’s been the absolute joyous gift from God. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am that she’s finally arrived. She’s growing up so fast. I’m grateful to be able to be a part of it. To witness it. To actually be aware of it.

Thanks God!