TALKING ABOUT GRATITUDE

TALKING ABOUT GRATITUDE

We were talking about gratitude and service and the many ways it seems to manifest itself in our daily lives. It is a peculiar fact that if we are on the lookout for gratitude, we often find it; or perhaps if our minds are sharpened to its existence we just are more inclined to recognize it when it intrudes itself in our lives.

Parker was speaking about how he was getting fed up with his living circumstances, his day to day tribulations staying sober coming home to live in a shelter where there are strict rules about drinking and using drugs. But those rules don't seem to bother many of the other tenants and he guesses that although he seems to be able to tell who is drinking or using, their behavior is such that the powers that be are not enforcing those rules. The reason seems to be beyond his ken but it bothers Parker to know that he is trying to stay sober, go to meetings, and having found a job, trying to live a better life than that which led him to the circumstance where he was living in this shelter in the first place.

"Of course I am grateful for having the spot to stay in this shelter where there is always a 100% census. It isn't easy getting a spot here and I should be grateful to have it at all. Those others are placing their shelter spot in jeopardy while I am keeping my nose clean. It's just that it is so much more difficult to remain sober if there are people using all about you!"

Notions of service were discussed, from the person who sets up the room, to the coffee maker, to the greeter to the group leader and treasurer. It takes all kinds of help to run a meeting. "But we should all remember, and I am truly grateful for this fact, that just coming to meetings is service too. It doesn't sound like that should be  counted as service but believe me it is!

"I remember that during inclement weather, a snow storm perhaps, I could easily stay away from a meeting. And if you all did not show up for the scheduled meetings, I might have gone out and drank.  Bad weather never stopped me from finding my way to a liquor store and it should not get in my way of making a meeting.

"And it would be really terrible if I slogged through a snow storm only to find that there were no people there. Terrible but not the worst thing. For if I showed up then I might be of service to somebody else who might show up at that meeting for the very same reason that I was there."

Joe claimed that when he first got out of rehab he still had a superior attitude about who he felt he should be associating with and casually asked if there was a meeting that would have "his kind of people" attending. Those were people who wore suits and ties and spoke well and were "clean" and were good upstanding citizens.

His contact answered that he had just the meeting for him; a meeting where he could be the "chairman" if he chose. All he had to do was show up at such and such address and time and meet the contact there. And Joe did.

And his contact showed Joe just how to set the chairs up in this room, six rows of four chairs for the meeting, and to put away the chairs after each meeting. And so for the next ten months Joe remained the "chairman" of this meeting, a service which he learned to perform with gratitude and humility that he learned was necessary to remain sober and change his attitude about who was an appropriate drunk to associate with.

Then Alex complained that he was getting really angry, tired and fearful of the upcoming final stage of his chemotherapy. He related a tale of frustration during his past admission when he had been complaining of chest pain. And that was a pain which he had not been admitted with, yet with each complaint, nobody was able to explain it despite fairly extensive testing.

Yet one night he had been sleeping and was startled when he woke up with the chest pain after an antibiotic had just been hung for infusion. And when he suspected the association he pulled out his smart phone and googled the antibiotic and found that sure enough one of the side effects of a rapid infusion of the antibiotic was chest pain.

And Alex was feeling very angry and sullen about this incident and wondered how he was going to find the strength and fortitude to finish his course of chemo. His dilemma? How was he going to stay in the hospital for more than two weeks while his immune system healed when he had trouble tolerating just a five day stint?

Alex then thought about the situation a bit more calmly and realized several things. One, that this was the only therapy that had a chance of curing his disease; two, that perhaps he was a bit hard on the medical people who may not have come across this side effect before and so were unfamiliar with it and three, that perhaps he felt that the doctors and nurses had underestimated and belittled his integrity by ignoring his entreaties about the chest pain. And maybe, after all of this, he should just let the anger and resentment go and acknowledge that he was just pissed that he had this disease and all of the rest was just fallout from his resentment about this.

So Alex finally concluded that he needed to express a bit more thankfulness for the fact that he had had the disease discovered, that he was getting the most modern treatment and that his medical care was really top notch despite the fact that he did not want to be there in the first place. Sometimes you have to do things to survive that you don't like, but that you need.

And finally, George, picking up the theme of gratitude for people showing up at meetings then related to us a peculiar but eerily familiar situation that happened when he attended a mixed meeting, one he usually does not go to because he prefers to go to men's meetings.

So George relates going to an evening meeting where a young man spoke and said that he was attending this meeting for the first time because he was in a bar in NYC just the other day and remembers having one drink. And the next thing he remembers is that he is out at the tip of Long Island.

One drink!

So George uncharacteristically gave this fellow his card right after he spoke and following the meeting the young man came up to him turning his card over in his hand with a quizzical expression on his face. He then asked George "did you ever take a slim blonde woman and two kids out to a hockey game some years ago?"

George did not want to go through the list of blond women he had dated but he did recall just such a date and said so.

"That was my mother and I was the boy and my sister was the other kid. I thought you should know that my mom died a few years ago from alcoholic liver failure".

George looked at the young man and remembered him. He realized then that there are no coincidences in this world. And humbly he offered to be his sponsor.

These stories are routine occurrences in AA. But the best thing is that we can perform the service and be there when we are needed and be grateful to be available at all because we are sober.

© res 1/14/2012