Doin' Push Ups

Every one of us, sitting in the very next meeting we attend, take a moment or two and look around the room.

If it is a newcomers meeting, in two weeks some of those people sitting there will be drunk. No body knows how many or who, but it will happen.

In a month, more still will be lost. In a year, almost all of those people sitting there tonight will be on the other side. This disease wins a lot.

If it’s an old timers meeting, their odds get just a little bit better, but look around the room, someone who is in there today will be lost to the disease tomorrow, and in turn they will die wet with a bunch of AA under their belt.

All statistics dealing with alcoholism are either incomplete or outright wrong. If there is no money involved, the statistics are just incomplete. If there is money changing hands, the statistics are pure bull shit.

No one knows who is going to die dry and who is going to die wet. And if they say they do, they are lying.

In my opinion, the one thing that keeps me sober today is, practicing acting spirituality fit, even if I don’t feel that way. It is the heart of sobriety for me.

I cannot think my way into right actions (not getting drunk) I need to act my way into right thinking. When I first heard that one, I didn’t believe it. It sounded ass backwards to me. Our thoughts dictate our actions, everybody knows that.

Men wiser than myself told me, “That brand of thinking will get you drunk.” I needed to act like a sober man even if I didn’t feel like one, and in time my actions (practicing that spirituality) changed my thinking. Not the other way around.

If you are just getting sober for the first time or coming back for the umpteenth time, practice every day, every hour if need be, acting like a sober man or woman. Ask God for the right action, ask right now.

Call other sober people, find a meeting and go to it, make coffee at the meeting, find some other poor slob to take to the meeting, show up 10 minutes early, and leave 10 minutes late, and if you go all day long without having a drink, or a drug, or making a major ass out of yourself, tell God out loud “Thank you”

And here’s the kicker, Do it again tomorrow, and then the next day, and the next day. Do it forever!
You know, or you ought to know, that the disease of alcoholism is out in the parking lot right now, doing pushups, just waiting for an opening. Don’t give it one.

On the road to the good stuff,
Richard

Tweet