Aa Interview Journal

Reading my copy of Roundabout I liked the new interview article and the question about a favourite slogan or phrase in AA got me thinking about the phrases I hear repeated at meetings and what they mean to me. Both what they meant at the beginning of my sober journey and what they mean today. One of the first I remember hearing was one an old-timer said to me as I was leaving the Anniesland Wednesday night meeting, it was his parting comment and was almost like an aside. He said, “Many meetings make it easier, few make it hard and none make it nigh on impossible”. He might have missed out the words ‘nigh on’ but I paid little attention to whatever version it was he used, faded away from what few meetings I was doing and drank again. Today,
If I was with people who were drinking I would either see them getting away with it and believe the lie that I could too or get jealous and resentful about how unfair it was that I couldn’t drink with safety. Either way I would end up drinking. Today most, though not all, of the friends that I spend time with are in AA so it’s easy for me to keep sober company. The ones that aren’t in AA don’t need to be as they are part of that strange breed who can have a can of beer or a glass of wine and not need the second or third or tenth. I have one close relative who drinks heavily so I make sure when I visit him that I can leave anytime if I start feeling restless, irritable and discontent. These days I like to be around people who are not just physically sober but also have emotional sobriety. If I spend a lot of time with someone who is critical and judgmental of others, who gossips, puts people down, is full of the poor me’s, all that negative stuff, I join in and become
I didn’t do that when I was drinking, I was too busy being a practising alcoholic, but sober and not drinking in AA, all of a sudden what people did and said and what they shouldn’t be doing or saying was an incessant noise in my head. I was taking resentments against lots of people and in so doing they were living rent-free in my head. That can still happen today, but with the help of AA’s 12 Step Programme of Recovery it’s not nearly so bad and I can pack their bags and get them out a lot quicker. I also heard, “Your head’s out to get you.” Yes, my head can do a number on me, it can convince me of all sorts of things, that I’m not good enough, that I’m better than everyone else, that I don’t deserve to be sober, that I’m hard done by, that I don’t need to share what’s in my head with another alcoholic, that I can do it all myself, that missing meetings is okay and that a drink is a good idea. Thanks to AA, since I came back the thought that a drink is a good idea has not had enough strength nor lingered long enough to override the power greater than me that is in my life, one day at a time. Thanks to AA and a power greater than me that I found in AA, I have something I never had before – a mental defence against the first drink, just for