Chicago Blues

I attended a Big Book meeting yesterday where we read the story about the woman who was one of the early pioneers in establishing AA in Chicago.  Most of the stories affect me only peripherally but a few of them blare like a Klaxon.  Dive!  Dive!  Dive! I have to admit that the stories that speak to me strongly are written by women.  I have enough trouble with my masculinity as it is so this isn't especially reassuring.  A couple of times - more than once - I have been at tag meetings where we alternate boy-girl-boy-girl and I've been called on to share by the man who just spoke.  This isn't helpful, either.

Here are a few bullet points that screeched at me from the story:

Nothing is ever my fault.  It's the fault of someone else unless the outcome is positive and then it's my own doing.

If I was in a situation where I knew I wasn't going to have access to enough alcohol to get good and drunk I wouldn't start drinking.  Half a buzz is worse than no buzz at all.  Plus, if I wasn't able to drink to my heart's content then I could let my passive-aggressive freak flag fly and pout like a two year old.

After I quit drinking the circumstances of my live deteriorated.  Just because I was sober didn't mean that all of the wreckage I had been carefully cultivating went away.  The banks still wanted their money, my bosses still loathed me, my legal/financial/relationship problems didn't magically disappear.  I sunk for while.  People didn't believe me which was an unbelievable thing to happen to a prodigious liar.

Her big finish was along these lines: Just do the work.  Don't think about it, don't try to understand it, don't try to tweak it.  There are only a few general spiritual principles we have to obey so do 'em.