TAKING A TRIP
How many of us in our "drinking days" decided to take a trip, physically or mentally. So what we did was: carefully or not so carefully pack our bags (or bottles) perhaps even suspended our newspaper and mail delivery, maybe even got the car checked, to including putting gas in it, gathered our family or whomever we could find to join us on our adventure. We attended to every necessary detail except ONE: we never thought to pick up a road map and if we did, who needed it?
So we hurried off in a hurry to reach our destination, we loaded up the car and off we went on our marry way. O, which direction did we go; north, south, east, west? Come on now, did it really make a difference! Heck, since we felt we were headed the right way, we kept the petal to the metal.
We were like the bus driver who, after a day of hard driving, turned to her passengers and said, "Folks, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is we're lost and I haven't the faintest idea where we are. The good news is we're making excellent time!"
If you find that insulting and swear you never did that, even in a black out, O.K., who's to argue. But how about our recovery? A lot of folks start out on their recovery journey this way. They are so excited about their progress toward making 90 meetings in 90 days, they get lost along the way. They are so intent on reaching their destination, they ignore the Steps that would get them there. In other words they rely on Fellowship and not the Instruction Manual--the book we call "The Big Book"-- Alcoholics Anonymous. Which by the way, has the practical road map in it which will make our journey so much easier and faster. And if by chance we get hold of this map, we, in our excitement, because we heard it so often, Chapter Five read at meetings, we forget there are pages preceding that chapter.
I wonder how many more folks would enjoy the promises, all of them, and lets not limit ourselves to pages 83 and 84, a lot faster and then be in a better position to help others.
Been there, done that, didn't know how I got there, didn't know what I did, didn't know where I was.