To me it’s an integral aspect of the program and really maybe the first, most important aspect as it launched the program and made the system for sobriety spread from Bill to Bob to the The Man on the Bed (my favorite AA symbol). Hearing the experience of others, others who are the same as me and who suffered the same as I had suffered opened my mind to the possibility of living as an alcoholic in sobriety. And I have no doubt that living as an alcoholic in sobriety I have continued to benefit from others sharing their sober experiences with me. It’s like continuing education for life for a very small, very special and very difficult subset of humanity, the alcoholic living in sobriety.
I’ve shared my experience here and in real life as an introvert in the extroverted world of AA. It hasn’t been easy. It continues to be difficult, actually. But the “making me come out of my shell in order to survive” that AA made me do has been a benefit there and in the rest of the world. I’m so fortunate that I immediately believed the people I met in AA when they told me they understood how I felt. I was, remember, 16 years old, almost 17, and they…..weren’t. But I believed them.
I must have heard thousands of stories by now and I must have shared mine thousands of times. What a special miracle it is that by telling you I peed in a plant, I save my life and maybe yours as well. It doesn’t debase me, although it is quite shameful. It’s my message of hope, that life doesn’t have to be that way for me or for you. As e.e. cummings wrote, “i who have died am alive again today.”
Happy Easter!