Carry this message to other alcoholics!

It works when other activities fail

“Practical experience show that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember they are very ill.”

-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 89

I will never forget the person who twelve-stepped me into AA. And neither will you. The people in AA who take the time to reach out to us are priceless. And today, we are those people. I am called for a unique mission: a mission I am uniquely qualified for because of the insanity and losses incurred by my drinking. Doctors can’t do this. Therapists can’t do this. Priests can’t do this. But I can do this. I can show up at a meeting and share my experience, strength, and hope with the desperate and afraid newcomer who walks through the door.

It happens all the time. I don’t feel well either physically, mentally, or spiritually. I am the very essence of HALT. But I go to the meeting despite how I am feeling. A new woman shows up. I reach out my hand to her and say hello, how are you? We chat a little before the meeting. Then, during the sharing, her experience resonates with something I share. We exchange phone numbers. She asks me to be her sponsor the next time we talk.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, showing up isn’t about me. This program hasn’t been about me for many years—nor should it be once I am no longer new. It is about the new person I can help. How can I best serve my Higher Power today? How can I best practice my Step Twelve? Suit up and show up—it’s that simple. God will always give me someone to work with if I just go. Go to the meeting. Leave self behind. Do God’s will. This is just how God works. When I show even the smallest amount of willingness, even 10%, God shows up in all of God’s goodness and glory and gives me the other 90%.

AA is full of miracles. You and I are those miracles. We are miracles to the still-suffering alcoholic who shows up at the meeting. Bill W., at the end of his story, comes back around to the man who twelve-stepped him:

“Each day my friend’s simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself in a widening circle of peace on earth and good will to men.” -Alcoholics Anonymous p. 16

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