“Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 33
It’s hard to imagine, but at one time, women were different in AA. There were almost no women in the beginning. In fact, Bill W. mentions in his other writings that it took four years for a woman to achieve actual sobriety. The number of women is much larger now, some 80 years later, but men still outnumber women by a substantial number in mixed meetings I have been to in many different towns and cities.
We love to feel different. It’s our uniqueness, we feel, that makes us so special. The early women of AA felt this way as well, I am certain. They were so unique that they didn’t stay sober. While there are more women in AA today, there are other groups that come in, judge themselves as different, and leave—just as the women did in those early years. Today the perceived separation could be based on gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, or age.
We are all one—and how we label ourselves as different is really our own attempt at separation. One longtimer in my meeting, a black man, heard me complaining about women being a minority in our group. He pulled me aside and corrected me after the meeting. There is no difference—men, women, black, white—he said. We need to stop labeling ourselves. We are all alcoholics.
Today’s Prayer
God, there is no separation. We are all one in you. Help me remember today to see the similarities in all of us.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to my readers! No matter how you celebrate, a sober and sane life is worth the extra gratitude an authentic life brings us this year. The above post is the December 17 reading from my book of daily meditations, With Gratitude: A Journey in Recovery, $17.25 on Amazon.