Me and Dr. Bob

Our Founders, Bill W and Dr. Bob.  I always wanted to be a Dr. Bob - kind, humble, thoughtful, spiritual - but I'm clearly a Bill W.  I'm on the move, trying to get people to do what I think is best and to recognize my brilliance in all things human, selling, promoting, always selling.  Sigh.  I AM working on it.  Dr. Bob was once asked why he still attended meetings.  Here's what he said: 

1,  Sense of duty.

2.  It is a pleasure.

3.  Because in so doing I am paying my debt to the man who took time to pass it on to me.

4.  Because every time I do it I take out a little more insurance for myself against a possible slip.

I was pondering in my Quiet Time this morning why I still attend meetings regularly after 38 years.  My list - which I'm typing down before looking up Bob's list so it's going to be interesting/revealing to me to see the convergence and the divergence:

1.  I don't think about drinking or using except on rare occasions but occasionally some stray thought will pop into my head, wondering about the greatly increased THC concentration in today's weed or how hard lemonade or a craft beer would taste.  Very rare but not unheard of.  I need to always remain vigilant.

2.  I owe a debt to the men and women who listened to my insufferable younger self whine and complain about everything.  I was being treated so unfairly by the world and here's why!  That kind of crap.  Thanks to all of you, living or dead.

3. I try to repay this debt in some little form by helping new people begin the trudging process.  God help us all but I do have some experience, strength, and hope to pass along.  This was the genesis of my still shocked realization that giving with no expectation of return is one of life's great joys.  That still makes no sense to me, how satisfying that is, so I try not to think about it too much.  Even writing it down just now gives me the heebie-jeebies.

4.  I gotta say this - alcoholics are very interesting people once they stop acting like out of control psychopaths.  Not just psychopathic behavior - out of control nuttiness.  We're smart and talented and hard-working, curious people with a lot of charm and charisma and we learn how to present this to the world without being insufferable narcissists.  I like hanging around with people in recovery.  It's not often boring.