One Year of Continuous Sobriety

The purpose of this blog/journal is to serve as a vent, an outlet, a scratchpad for thoughts and feelings that don't fit in my mainstream 'normal' blog-the one for the 'pinks' in subgenius lingo.

A lot of what I write here may not be popular at some tables and/or hard to explain to pinkfolk, whether due to 12 step references or it being too spiritually off-putting or whatever. Lord knows, like so many of us I used to cringe at the S-Word, the G-Word, the J-Word, etc. All before the concept of a user-customizable Higher Power was explained to me and finally sunk in.

Last week I went to one of my usual meetings, a weekly Monday night open talk. They were celebrating anniversaries and I had just had my one year re-birthday. I humbly accepted my coin (in my pocket as I write now), and when they (inevitably) asked, 'How'd you do it?' I answered, 'How did I do it? It wasn't just me. There was a whole lotta WE going on. So, that. And Love. And Prayer.

Toward the end of the talk I drifted off a bit and reflected on the Service part of the program's trinity. I have yet to volunteer for any duty (coffee making, etc), telling myself I wouldn't want to make a commitment I couldn't keep for a month (because of possible conflicts with work, family life, etc., forgetting ALL about the One Day at a Time principle). Just as I remembered that at one year clean I am eligible to man the helpline at HQ and got very excited at that prospect I was brought back into the room by the speaker, Josie: "Hey! is it David is it? You got a year, right? well, the speaker has to pick the next speaker, so I'm picking you!".

There are no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. Rinse. Repeat.

So, that's where I'm off to tonight. To do my first open talk. I'm not nervous. Yet. I usually suffer from a mild fear of running out of things to say. Tonight I'm wondering how to keep it under Five hours.