• How many of you reading this post came to A.A. to stop drinking?
• How many of you thought you had a drinking problem and someone told you A.A. could fix it for you?

Tonight at my home group, the chair pulled tonights topic from the Big Book page 62… “This is the how and why of it….” Pretty quickly we all realized this was gonna be a Step 3 meeting (#awesome). He read onto page 63 and stopped at the top, “We were reborn.” Then he threw a curve call and moved us over to page 417 (acceptance). He read the infamous paragraph at the top and he then proceeded to artfully connect the two readings together through his share before he opened it up for a show of hands.

He shared beautifully from his experience how the two related and in his share he said, “Somewhere along the line I realized when I looked back at my life that I never reacted well to life (even before I started drinking).”  THAT I could relate too.  He shared several other things before opening it up that really did a good job of connecting the two things together.  Share after share after share in the room were amazing and so relatable for me.

As people were sharing, I would meander in my mind over to page 544 in Freedom From Bondage and thought about the author saying, “The mental twists that led up to my drinking began many years before I ever took a drink.” One member shared about the restless, irritable, and discontent state he’d find himself in that often lead him to drink. Another member talked about how they’d bring God into every aspect of their life except their job.

Then all of a sudden it hit me.  A.A. is the ULTIMATE Bait and Switch!!!! Pretty soon after arriving in A.A., I thought that maybe, just maybe if I really did have a drinking problem these people could help. Folks in those rooms seemed to be able to put down the bottle and their lives started to get better.  Now, don’t get me wrong, putting down the bottle certainly IS the first thing that needs to occur for any of the rest of this to work, but for some reason in the meeting tonight, it hit me…

I didn’t come here to learn how to stop drinking – I came here to learn how to live my life (without alcohol)!!!

• If I’d been told I was going to have to have a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism before I hit the doors…
  I don’t know that I’d have come.
• If I’d been told that I first had to quit playing God…
  I don’t know that I’d have come…
• If I’d been told that my troubles were basically of my own making…
  I can ASSURE you I wouldn’t have come!

How grateful am I today I had no idea of what I’d actually learn about me after coming into the rooms and letting down my guard long enough to let a God of my understanding in to begin the work of becoming a different man (the same man will drink again).  Not JUST a man who doesn’t drink, but a man who has had a profound alteration in how he reacts to life.

So, if this program really IS just a bait and switch – AWESOME! I’m glad it brought me in so I could learn the truth – FINALLY!

In love & service,