First & Twelfth Step Today. Iggy and Lyn Would Be Proud

I attend an out of district meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  It's in a small church in the shadows of Geneva's court area.  It's like a lot of the other Closed meetings I attend that help locals and regulars, but they also get a number of people from the court house.  (I feel like I'm repeating myself from a different blog post, but whatever.)


Closed meetings are restricted for existing members, but all are welcome to attend, provided they are there to stop drinking.  We had something of a bandwagon roll up today it seems.  This close to the weekend, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  The hostess asked if there were people there for their first AA meeting of any type anywhere and a number of hands went up.  Patty asked if there were some guys that would like to do a First Step meeting with them, so I was one of the few who volunteered. 


I had a marginally selfish reason.  As I've been a little down of the depressing nature of the daily readings lately, I figured it would be a better meeting for my time and the effort of driving out all that way.


We only had about an hour (after the initial introductions), so myself and two other guys did a very brief AA history of ourselves and let the new guys introduce themselves.  They were there from the courthouse and were in the process of losing their licenses and ordered to attend meetings.  I've heard variations of their stories in other meetings and I'm not being overly judgmental, but they were clearly there for the signatures saying they attended.  That was for Ron to do, as he was the senior AA member in the room.  He's got 23 years on me in sobriety.  But, it was a nice meeting overall.  I highly doubt we'll see those guys again at that particular meeting, unless of course they stick with the program and end up back in the nearby courthouse. 


So I did my best in the twelfth step area and brought the message of AA to some others who were suffering.  I'll have to make a mental note and share today with Psychiatrist Jim at my next After Care meeting.  Iggy's gone, so I can't tell him.  He'd have smiled that smile of his, I believe.  I will let my Sponsor Lyn know when I see him after his vacation.  The only other person that I think will enjoy hearing about that is Andy from Residential.  I'll tell him for sure.  That will make his day.


I was thinking about this on the drive home, but it's really pretty sad that I could wrap my issues with alcohol in about a five-ish/almost ten-ish minute recap.  But then, I was a pretty sad individual when I was drinking, so it makes sense.


ANYHOOTS... all that being said.  FANTASTIC endorsement speech by the President last night.  I'm looking forward to tonight's speech.  I watched a good chunk of last week's convention as well, as it's only right (in my mind) to hear what the other side had to say.  After tonight, I'm politicked out for a while.  I'm going to sit on the sidelines and take a breather.


One Day at a Time!  


P.S.  And the following graphic is for the actors who played Bob, Gordon and Luis over on Sesame Street.  The three original remaining cast members were FIRED after forty years with the show.  Booooo HBO!  Just Booo!