WIT AND WISDOM FROM THE ROOMS OF AA

WIT AND WISDOM FROM THE ROOMS OF AA

(note: these are somewhat paraphrased passed down plainspoken erudition from the rooms)

 

“My alcoholism is now not an affliction, it is now a circumstance”,
2/18/11

“The fact that I don’t drink is not news. If I drank, well that would be news”.

2/18/11

“When I say I suffer from the fallacy of terminal uniqueness, I have to remember that I was just another fool on a stool in  a bar downtown”.

2/18/11

“There were times when I was so drunk that I was driving by Braille”.

2/12/11

“I grew up on the mean streets of Fairfield, CT pursued by roving bands of preppies”.

“Crisis I can handle, every day stuff is a struggle”.

2/12/11

The only thing I know about reasonable is how to spell it. I either know how to do it right or I do not do it at all. Nothing I do is reasonable.

2/20/11

 

“AA is the locker room of life. Here you show up, suit up and get spiritually fit for life.”

2/1/11

“Spirituality, serenity, peacefulness are the quorum of my mind. If they don’t show up “the great I am” takes over the meeting and it becomes a disaster.”

2/23/11

 

“This is the cheapest club that I have ever belonged to but it has the most expensive entrance fee of any club that I have ever belonged to.”

2/23/11

“I almost always laugh every morning,

I almost always smile every morning,

I almost always cry every morning,
If I am lucky enough to go to an AA meeting”

2/23/11

 

I didn’t go to sleep at night so much as I passed out and I didn’t wake up in the morning as much as I came to.

2/26/11

 

(In referring to his children with troubled lives:)

They are the authors of their own Book – I didn’t start writing mine until I was forty.

2/26/11

It’s good to hear the wife call me “Jackass”. A few months ago she wasn’t even talking to me.

3/6/11

 

Your feet get you here, the program keeps you sober.

3/6/11

 

Now that I am sober I have to remember to say “Good morning God, instead of Good God it’s morning!”.

4/4/2011

 

Depression is just worn out anger.

4/16/11

 

"Some people are genetically predisposed to see the glass as being half full.  I'm one of those people who are genetically predisposed not to see the glass."

4/17/11

“I never thought I could live without a drink but I got through my wedding without a drink and then I got through my divorce without a drink. And I lived through both.”

4/14/11

Sometimes you don’t get what you want

Sometimes you get what you need

Not lying is one thing, but it's not the same as telling the truth.

I cannot wait for people to forgive me, otherwise I might drink.

We get forgiven but we don't necessarily get forgot.

Sometimes we forget that part of the program is not drinking.

 

1/17/2012

The first drink will kill you just as surely as the first car in a train will kill you. It doesn't really matter how many cars role over you after you are dead.

1/18/2012 

You don't know God is all you need 'till God is all you got.

I could fuck up a free lunch.

I sometimes forget that the deal is when I come here I get what I need, not what I want.

I enjoy watching the evolution of people, having the empirical evidence of watching the transformation from shells of human beings to living breathing three dimensional beings.

With time people grow beyond their stories.

1/28/2012

The Story of X's Sponsor

"When I first came into the program I got a sponsor who was very enthusiastic about the program. And I learned a lot from him. However, his knowledge of the program was all aural, he never read the Big Book.

And he had more than twenty years of sobriety. And his favorite saying to me, and at times it used to annoy the hell out of me, was "I never had it so good". Even in the darkest of times, that was his mantra.

And even thought he brought me through some pretty deep dark periods he never failed to remind me that in the absence of something different I never had it so good either. Which was advice that I grudgingly agreed with.

It annoyed me quite a bit though, that constant irrepressible unbridled optimism. I was even on the super highway once when he pulled up to me and rolled down his window and honked to me. I looked over and he shouted with his broad dopey smile, "I never had it so good".

I learned a lot from him because of that. For when he retired to Florida I remember that he called me up to let me know that he had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. And that was not the result of smoking, just the luck of the draw. But he weathered it with aplomb.

And four days before he finally passed, I remember getting an email from him which said " All things considered, I never had it so good".

So I keep that in mind no matter how bad things get because I remember how bad things had been.

1/28/2012

I need to recall that the first thing I should do when I find myself in a hole is to stop digging;. - Then remind myself of the tyranny of the self and that not everything is my fault - I didn't cause everything that is wrong in my life.

3/1/12

Genesis

Our resident cleric mentioned that he was lecturing
on the book of Genesis. Specifically, the creation part of the story. And he was talking upon the origins of the account which drew upon the Babylonian myths and the Gilgamesh myth as well as other creation myths.

His students, who were adults, were slightly perplexed and one asked seriously "Where is God in this rendition of the origin of Genesis?" He turned and said that he would tackle that in the next lecture.

But to us he elaborated on what he would have liked to say which was that for him God was just a fact. " It had been faith and  spirituality  that I had been lacking when I was a young priest. And it hadn't been until I found the rooms of AA that I learned what  spirituality was" he remarked.

"Some people need the bible as a road map to tell them what to do. If they truly believe in God, then it is really nothing more than a good read."

© res 3/13/2012