Not Fitting In

I've been rereading the stories in The Big Book.  Most of them are very familiar.  Some of them really hit home and some of them bore the shit out of me.  There's a lot of emphasis on the drinking part of our stories and not enough on the recovery part in some of the stories.  There are a few written by men and women who sound like pompous assholes or those interested in grandstanding, making their tales more dramatic than they need to be . . .  or probably were.  Most of the people I've met over the years in Alcoholics Anonymous have been functioning - or partially functioning - people trying to deaden the pain of the dissatisfaction they felt in their own lives.

There are also some themes and threads to be gleaned.  One if the tremendous relief and gratitude that we all feel when we find a solution that works for us.  Another is the responsibility we feel towards The Program and we turn this into the service work that sustains us as we bumble through life.  The one similarity that has been surfacing over and over is the feeling that we were lost in the game of life, that we felt different and disconnected and that we didn't know how or why and that we didn't know any other way to make these awful feelings go away except to drink to excess.  What a relief it has been to those of us who have been able to internalize the spiritual approach that manifests in the Twelve Steps.  Not for everyone, for sure, and we don't try to be but what a relief for those of us who find an answer in A.A.