A Powerful Word

It is only a two letter word, but I had a love-hate relationship with it until I got sober. Frankly, I am not even sure how many meetings I attended before I really saw the first word of the 1st Step - We. Looking back on my life I can see how I gave up on the concept of a we anything; I had tried to join groups but ended up walking away.

I know now that I had alcoholic thinking long before I picked up my first drink, and, in addition, my dad was in the military and we were always moving every year. Choosing to be alone and isolate always felts like a better option than being rejected time and again. It would be years before I realized that my "ism" was all about this need for isolation; if alcohol can get me alone, it will kill me. So the program is brilliant in that it recognizes this about me and replaces my powerless little "i" with a slightly stronger "we" in the very 1st step. I can see now how much easier it was to admit powerlessness when I saw everyone else doing it.

Admitting the problem as a "we" helped me look for the common solution as a "we" too.  There I was out of my house for the first time in a long time, coming together in  a spirit of cooperation, and this very act seemed to verify that I could no longer do it alone (this is hindsight, as I would not have had the words then to explain this phenomenon). I used to have a sponsor who said, "some of us have a higher power that takes two steps back from Steps 2 and 3 to lend us the faith needed until we can find him and the courage to begin with all the changes that lie ahead." The pain of admission to alcoholism was replaced with the healing salve of hope.

Today I know that I am not as important as the group. By going to meetings and admitting my alcoholism, whether I speak or not, my actions say that I am part of our solution. Every time I do this I remember there is no I in We, and I learn the importance of unity to our continued primary purpose which is to carrying the message to those still suffering. Have you been to a meeting lately? What are you doing to reject isolation for community?

Published June 18, 2012