Recovery from addictions in a pandemic might not be what Bill W and Dr. Bob imagined, but AA’s principles work, and their Higher Power is not social distancing!
The cover of the April Grapevine is “Glad You Made It – A blizzard couldn’t stop this home group from plugging in the coffee. And one guy is happy they did.” The issue is about home groups and the safe haven they have been for a room of recovering alcoholics.
COVID-19 has changed that.
But the phone and social media are still ways to connect.
As some recently said:
I thank you Lord that before you allowed the plague of COVID-19 to hit our nation, you caused us to have an electronic network that allows many to keep worshipping together and encouraging one another from home to home! (Psalm 22:27-28)
My sponsor told me staying sober would be a daily decision; some days it turned out to be an hourly decision. Each choice I made helped me make the next one, just like folks told me:
- willingness is the key and
- more will be revealed
It’s a great thing when it finally dawns us:
“I didn’t realize people got sober by choice and with support for those choices. It wasn’t about rules and regulations — it was about living a better quality of life.”(DMN: Recovery As COVID-19 Strains Resources)
In this crazy time, I have a lot of time to think. I can make choices about how to cope even if the new normal means not a lot of meeting choices.
I choose, then, to remember to look at all the stuff that bubbles up throughout aloneness with the lens the 12-Steps are.
- For small stuff, I look for a lesson I need to apply to this day – like KISS, or HALT.
- For bigger stuff – memories or “worries” that rattle me — I can choose to give it over to God . . . in prayer, and let HIM worry about it. (Martin Luther said that . . .)
Of course, some 4th, 5th and 6th Step work might be in order, too.
When it dawns on me, in all this extra time I have to think about stuff, how much work I might need to do, an adage a friend shared makes sense:
A teacher said about mistakes, “Oh look, you have created an opportunity to make a change.”
Every day is an opportunity to change . . .
Here’s a link to the AA Online Meeting List. (And yes, I know, sometimes some links don’t work.) But, the link to the Big Book, and the Twelve and Twelve works . . . and my sponsor and I stay in touch. I hope you will, too!
Love in Christ,
Sober and Grateful
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