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Experiences with A. A. I drove up to the little store that was oddly located behind a beer barn in a hard to find shopping center. It really amazed me that they would put an alcoholics anonymous group behind a place where alcohol was served at all hours of the night. The place was dark and it was located in a scary looking alley between two buildings. Since I went to a candle meeting at 12: 00 at night all I could see was a yellow sign of a triangle with a circle around it lighting the corner of the room.
When I walked in one guy sitting at the head of a long worn brown table yelled hi across to me. Feeling awkward, trying to draw little attention to myself, I softly said hi. Before the meeting started everybody seemed fine and happy. They were all talking about that new XFL football they have on TV. There were only about eight people there besides Chris and I. Chris had been to one of the meetings before, so he knew what was going on.
I, on the other hand, knew nothing about the meetings and didn t think to ask about them before. When the meeting started one young guy sitting on a couch by himself pulled out a black binder and said Hi, my name is Colby and I m an alcoholic, it s the top of the hour, let s get started. Everybody grew silent, and chanted Hi Colby. He read about A. A. and announced that this was the Plano group.
We went around the room saying our names and what our problem was. I was the only one that had nothing to say after my name. Everybody else said their name, that they were an alcoholic, and their sobriety date. Having nothing to say after my name really made me feel like an outsider. What was weird to me was that almost everybody in there, except for Colby, had a sobriety date from before 1994. I didn t know they continued to go to the meetings all their life, I thought they just went until they could remain sober.
Colby read a passage from the big book, and asked if anybody wanted to speak about it. It seemed like everybody knew each other, from listening at the beginning of the meeting, but nobody wanted to speak. I thought maybe that was because of me, because I was a new person interfering with this group. But, Colby came to the rescue and started off the conversation. From listening to all the people, many things were going through my head. One thing I realized is that they talk a lot about God.
Every person that spoke made their conversation about God helping them see what was right and what should be done. They all seemed to have a lot to say. We went around the room, and out of an hour only four people had a chance to speak. At the beginning of the meeting I remember Colby saying something about giving everybody a chance to speak, and it didn t seem to me that everybody got that chance. Even Colby himself talked for a very long time.
I also noticed that every single person in the room had a pack of cigarettes at the beginning of the meeting, but they were not smoking them. When the meeting started they all started smoking, and not one of them stopped until the meeting was over. It was cigarette after cigarette, and I was really getting nauseated not having three seconds to breathe. It seemed to me that they had replaced their drinking habits with smoking.
How much better for your health could that be? The stories of the people were even more astonishing to me. One guy that spoke really made me feel uncomfortable. He was talking about having problems with his wife when all of a sudden he started cussing, and saying Those people have problems with their family, they aren t perfect, everything isn t great for them, it sucks like our life too. After listening to the rest of his conversation, I realized whom he was referring to when he kept saying those people. He was referring to the non-alcoholics that live around him, that talk to him everyday, anybody that didn t have his drinking disease.
When I realized this, I knew I was in this group he was talking about. I have a big problem with being in places I feel united in, and this made it even worse. I toughed out though and sat through the rest of the meeting.
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