Newbie describes how awful her A.A. experience has been for her so far

So I went to the nooner by the courthouse yesterday and the one the day before.

This gal describes how things are going after about two months of sobriety now.



She's coming up on the holidays and is bummed she don't have much money. She knows she'll receive gifts from her folks and she is remorseful that she cannot afford to buy them gifts... again.



So her mom tells her, "This is the best gift you can give me." Just calling her sober is something new. She described how her mom used to call the hospitals and morgues trying to locate her.



It was sort of a touching moment... guess you sort of had to be there.



The topic of the meeting seemed to be reliance on God vs reliance on self and... something to do with pulling off the mask and being our true self in sobriety... as opposed to putting on our A.A. cloak and saying "I'm fine."



I liken the latter topic to locating our ego... drunk or sober. A lot of folks come from the place that they are free of this mask "now that I'm sober" and that's that. For me, it's an ongoing battle. Without diligent step work, the ego rebuilds and manifests itself eventually. I eventually go back to running the show, arranging the lights and the stage characters in my own way. In other words, I eventually play God in some way or... there's some area of my life I've not turned loose of or I'm not fully aware of where I'm off the beam.



For example, with my coworker, I felt bullied at times and taken advantage of. When I fought back, it was a battle between his character and mine. I wanted to shed light on each and everything he did wrong, whether I was involved or not. I wanted assurance and approval of me being in the right and him being wrong. With that, I'd gone to far. What was this lack of faith based in? Fear. Lack of control. Lack of power. I got away from doing my work for God rather than not doing it for him.