Large People

Alcoholics are Large People.  We have the ability to help those who walk among us in despair.  Remember what it was like when you were drinking?  I do.  I remember the hopeless state of mind -- day after day of despair.  It was not a pleasant time.  I was not enjoying myself.  Sometimes I think of all the years and opportunities that I wasted and I feel a tinge of regret.  But I try to remember that I had to go through all of that to get where I am today, with a unique ability to help people who don't think they can be helped.  We can do more than doctors and religious leaders and folks with PhDs in all kinds of people helping disciplines.  They can't do what a guy who was homeless can do for someone who has lost all hope.  That's power.

I sobered up in Chicago and I spent a week there when I was about 10 years sober.  I went to some of the meetings I frequented in my early sobriety.  I got to see folks who were Large People; they helped me learn how not to drink on a day by day basis.  I remembered a lot about them but I could see that many of them didn't know who I was.  I was surprised but I didn't take it personally.  I was another new guy who probably wasn't going to stay sober, and they didn't invest their emotions in me like I did with them.

That happens to me sometimes.  Someone I couldn't pick out of a police line-up will tell me about something that I don't remember saying at a meeting I don't remember attending.  I smile, tell them it's good to see them again, too, and pretend like I know what the %$!! is going on, which I don't.  I can't find the water glass that I filled up 2 minutes ago.

I make a difference.  I'm loved.  I'm appreciated.  That's amazing.