I was at a first step meeting last night and today I went to a big book meeting and the discussion was on powerlessness - again! I guess I needed to hear this, at least twice, if not every day. I know I am powerless against that first drink - this I know for sure. But what has been worrying me lately is that I am feeling like I am taking back my old life again. That maybe I have sufficient defense against that first drink after all these years. That relapse cannot happen to me. After all, I am working the steps right now with a newcomer so that should protect me, right? And the longer I don't work my program, the more difficult I find it to jump back in. Yet when I do - I love it! The people in the rooms know me and love me in spite of myself. Even when they do not "know" me, they know me and care. Why is it sometimes so very difficult to accept this, do the "WE" part of step one.
Someone shared a wonderful metaphor today at the meeting. He was talking about being a kid and putting the baseball card on the spokes of a bike with a wooden clothespin. I remember doing that. It felt so sophisticated and so cool! But at some point all the spinning of the wheel, the going around and around, over and over, again and again, destroys the baseball card and it disintegrates or just falls away. And it occurred to me that that is what being an alcoholic is like - feeling sophisticated and cool at first, drinking to fit in, flying around in wild wonderful endless arcs. Then the wonderful starts to fade and the spinning gets faster and faster and yet never catches up again with that blissful feeling. Just like the once new and pristine baseball card could not go back to its original shape, color, form.
And then spinning, spinning, needing more and more alcohol to fuel the spins, stuck - going around and around, over and over, and again and again. Until I could not longer hold on to the spokes of my life: to myself.
Great metaphor! I guess that there is something to going to meetings! Dare I say "It works, if you work it?!"
