Lead By What Now?

It's funny how we pass the message along in The Program.  I know that I am most receptive to the message delivered in an exemplary fashion.  As in, "this is how I do it which you may or may not find appropriate for you."  The subtext is "I really don't give a shit -- go talk to someone else if this doesn't interest you."  I found it riveting that nobody was explicitly telling me what to do when I started to attend meetings.  I had a long history of people telling me what to do and then explicitly not doing it, even though the suggested plan of action was much, much better than anything I was currently doing.  So when I waded into this group of people who were letting me do whatever I wanted to do -- encouraging me to do whatever I wanted to do, in fact, going so far as to suggest good local hardware stores where I could buy good locally sourced, organic rope with which to continue hanging myself by the neck  -- I was really drawn to the message.  I was used to getting attention by acting out and here were these men and women who weren't paying me any attention at all.  I had to know more.


Example:   A person or thing to be imitated; model; pattern; precedent.


This is our great party trick: leading by example.  Alcoholics really are like children.  We don't do what we're told to do but we pay close attention to what is done.  As a person, I'm very much an amalgamation of my parents; I behave in a manner very similar to both of them even though I took almost none of their advice, obviously, or I wouldn't have ended up a drunken, aimless, drug addict.  So we get the leading by example part right in The Program.  We give people plenty of hanging rope.  


"If what you're doing is working for you by all means keep doing it," they told me, wandering off to talk to someone who didn't have their head as far up their rear as I did.


"What?" I muttered under my breath.  "It's CLEARLY not working, you dumb ass.  Why don't you raise your voice and stick your finger in my face and get angry and tell me what to do, or else."  Either that, I figured, or pretend like nothing was wrong and if it was, it was all going to work out just fine by being hopeful and ignoring any of the symptoms of the slow motion train wreck that was unfolding in clear view of everyone.


The other thing I liked is that there were a few guys that told me EXACTLY what they thought, and it tended to the uncomplimentary side.  I needed this, too; I craved some discipline.  I wasn't behaving very well and I needed some people to say: "Uh, you're behaving like an ass."  I needed that explicisity.


Which isn't a word but you get the point.