Hey, Man, Nice Shot

 
"An unexamined life is not worth living."  Socrates

See?  In 500 B.C. Socrates saw that the Fourth Step was going to be crucial for alcoholics.  And Freud's major contribution to psychology was the theory of the unconscious mind, functioning below the level of our awareness and influencing our behavior.  This leads to the belief that to change habitual and maladaptive patterns of behavior requires first some recognition of the pattern.  People (I.E, alcoholics) tend to resist this, preferring to invoke coincidence or simply focus on individual events in a way that places responsibility on others.

We do not like to look at ourselves.  Especially when we're behaving badly.

In California the service position of group secretary is a year commitment.  In the Midwest each member ran a meeting for a month (OH, IN) or three months (IL).  I intuitively understand the rationale behind both: the former is a way to require a newer member to show up every week for an entire year while the latter allows many different members to be of service.  Here in CA getting a secretary appointed is a major fucking event because not a lot of people can/want to commit to a year of always attending the same meeting if by "people" you mean "me/myself/and I."

Our Monday position is currently open and nobody is stepping up.  I'm getting needled in a good-natured way to take the commitment.  To this I say: "Needle me to death 'cause I'm not doing it."  I just don't want to have to come to the same meeting every week for that long.  I was always under the impression that the main idea behind a service position was to manipulate new/newer people into the position where they were thrown into the middle of things.  I don't like to point out that I've been sober for so long but I don't need a service commitment to ensure I get to enough meetings.  My service position is I'm going to a lot of 7 AM meetings.  I don't see too many other people with that much time getting up at 5 AM when they don't have to.  If this sounds arrogant I say Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, but I'm still not getting up at 4:30 AM so that I can open up a meeting.

One of my friends - who obviously wanted to say the following to me so acutely that he looked hard and far and wide for something said in the meeting to reference -  told me this morning: "There's a guy who doesn't have a commitment."  I'm the guy.  He was talking about me.  I laughed.  I don't care.  I'm still not doing the meeting.  I will, however, take a good, long look at my insides to make sure I'm not avoiding something that I need to do.