This opening blog is to announce that I certainly have faith in Alcoholics Anonymous (aa). In this blog, I simply define that faith as a belief, based on my own experience, that Alcoholics Anonymous enabled me - more than 18 years ago - to dredge myself out of seemingly overwhelming life difficulties. Because the experience was within the rooms of A.A., my focus was on quitting drinking for good. That phase of the experience began at once and has continued every since. I believe the basis for the faith and for the successful experience was, initially, diving into the A.A. program from every possible angle: (1) Incessant meetings. (2) Treating the Big Book as containing "the" program. (3) Recognizing that the phrase "rarely have we seen a person fail" had a second part "who has thoroughly followed our path." (4) The path meant learning how to "take" the Twelve Steps. (5) Procuring the help of a sponsor. (6) Making the A.A. fellowship the principal activity of my life - meetings, outings, comradeship, birthday parties, dances, retreats, camp-outs, commitments to service, seeking out newcomers to help, enlarging my knowledge through Big Book seminars and all kinds of A.A. conferences and seminars. (7) Making the finding of a newcomer to help and sponsor into recovery the main reason for my intense involvement. (8) Eventually realizing that all these busy-busy activities were filling my hours, keeping me away from sordid places, putting me in a fellowship of people who neither judged your past nor considered drinking anything but trouble, and giving me a purpose in life which seemed to have slipped through the cracks.
That's the September 1, 2004 post. Your own comments and experiential posts are welcome. And it's only a tiny part of the "faith" discussion that will come.
God Bless, faithinaablog
