How God Protects His Anonymity

Twelve years ago, my wife and I co-founded a community outreach for persons in recovery from addiction, abuse, and homelessness. We've been doing a christmas donation type project every year since then. It started small and has progressed into a large project. Santa Under The Bridge is its name. Go ahead. Google it. Over time, we got old. Not sure how that happened but it did. And we are retired now so there isn't as much money as there used to be. So, we were contemplating shutting down the project. Of course, we both knit quite a bit for the project and if we're not doing that, what would we be doing?

Sunday past, the missus and I went to church. We haven't been to church in quite some time except for weddings and funerals. We didn't get out the yellow pages and "pick" a church, there's one just up the street so we went there.

The reverend was talking about another church in Halifax, the Brunswick Street Mission, and the work they do in their community, certain outreach services actually. By coincidence, if there were such a thing, we have done work with Brunswick Street Mission so we know about community work. the reverend went on to talk about how he'd like to turn this church into something similar so that the community of people who don't attend regular service could be part of the church.

What a coincidence I thought that one of their proposed programs is knitting blankets for the less fortunate ones. We can knit blankets. Sometimes, coincidence is how God protects His anonymity.

Making Coffee

 I haven't posted here in a few years. I'm busy with things. Anyway, today was an interesting day. It's complicated trying to talk about it for reasons, shall we say, of confidentiality. Let me just say that I am a member of a fellowship that has no governing body. But, there are those of us in the fellowship that are involved in the service of keeping the fellowship running as smoothly as we can. 

There are a number of groups in the district I serve. Each one is different. There is one group that I attend on Wednesday nights. It's quite a distance from where I live and I do not own a vehicle. So, one of the members drives me there. Because of his work, he can only attend every other Wednesday. So, it had been necessary for him to get someone else to run things when he wasn't there. And, that person was not driving me to the group, so I was also only attending every second Wednesday.

Earlier today, I was having a conversation with the gentleman who hosts the meeting twice a month. The talk was mostly about how hard it is to get group members to be active in service. He was getting frustrated with the whole thing and talked about shutting the meeting down permanently. That would be unfortunate. It's a small group but it helps a lot of people in the community where it exists.

I also had another conversation with a lady who goes there and also would not want to see it shut down. I explained to her that I would like to help them in some way to stay afloat but I was a member of another group and I had no vehicle to get out there to do anything for them. She then offered to drive me there on the weeks when the other guy couldn't.  I spoke to my friend and told him the good news. So, we have found a temporary solution to their problem and now we can keep the doors open until the group members can come up with a more permanent solution.

It all reminded me of something I wrote in an article almost 20 years ago. "If everyone thinks someone else is making the coffee, guess what? The coffee won't get made."

Everything Is Connected

Things rarely happen to me by coincidence. I have an item I use in my morning prayer and meditation called a god-box. I pick words from it and those are what I concentrate on each day. Yesterday or the day before, I got Anonymity. I didn't think much of it.

Among other things, I'm working on revising one of my e-books. It is basically about work I have done in the field of alcoholism and I'm trying to be careful not to break personal anonymity of members or to breach confidentiality where my clients were concerned.

I do service work for the Fellowship of AA. An email came across my desk informing me that the position of chair of the central service committee was vacant. I haven't done service work in that capacity yet, so I asked some of the long term members what were the responsibilities for that position.

One fellow directed me to the local website where guidelines are posted describing those positions. So, off I went to do some pointing and clicking.

A passage grabbed my eye:

In the course of carrying out its functions, Central Service must respect and protect the anonymity of all AA members, potential members, and others who may contact us.

And, really, all members of AA are in service to each other, in service to God, and in service to the person who still suffers, so we should all respect the anonymity of all AA members, living or dead.

Much revision will need to be done before the book is finished.

More Proof

This story has appeared in 2 of my books. I added a paragraph to it just now because of something that happened tonight.

One Day At A Time

Nancy and I had our first date on March 23, 1998. The following day, March 24, 1998, we agreed to be a part of each others' journey through life.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I told Nancy that I could not promise her the moon or the stars or that I would love her until the end of time because I lived my life one day at a time. Therefore, I had no idea what I would be doing at the end of time. I knew that yesterday was gone and that tomorrow was uncertain, but that today was the one day that I had any control over. So, I could offer her one day - today.

Last night, March 23, 2015, Nancy and I did the same thing we did on that Monday night 17 years ago. We went for coffee at Tim Horton's on Portland Street, down by five corners. It's a bit different in there now; there's no smoking section. But the atmosphere hasn't changed. The lady who served us has been working there 19 years. When I said we were celebrating our first date she remembered and even said she recalled me booking the table on our wedding day.

After our coffee, we attended an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous at Club 24. It wasn't the same speaker. Sadly, Frank (who was also the best man at our wedding) passed away a few years ago.

But, the speaker last night also had a powerful spiritual message, as had Frank. Ironically, he resides in the same transition house I was living in when Nancy and I first got together. I am also sponsoring his sponsor.

We did not know he was the speaker until shortly before he spoke. He did not even know he was the speaker until earlier that day. Often, that is the way these things happen.

I am grateful we decided to relive the events of that first night. It reminded me that we play parts in each others journey and that we never know what those parts are until they are played. I look forward to today.

This evening, September 29, 2015, I attended a birthday meeting on a whim. One of the celebrants was the young man who spoke on our anniversary night. He has one year of sobriety and I was able to participate in his night as he was able to participate in mine.

Those who have gone before

I read in some old AA literature that anytime a sober alcoholic considers the possibility of relapse, that he (or she) must take into consideration two things. Those who have gone before and those yet to come. For example, if I ever thought of relapsing (It hasn't occurred to me in at least 17 years, but suppose it did), I should consider all those people who helped me in the beginning. There were a lot of them. Members who took the time to explain things to me, my sponsor especially. A man I never met who lived thousands of miles away and spent weeks and weeks that turned into months that eventually became years of his time that was probably valuable to him, talking and explaining and giving direction to me. And what did he get in return. Well, as a sponsor I know what he got in return  I know what I get. I get to stay sober myself by doing for others what he did for me. So do I allow all that to be a waste of time so that I can enjoy a few hours of pleasure? That would certainly be selfish of me. 

And what about that second group of people, those yet to come. The alcoholics who don't know they are just like me. The ones I could have helped if I'd just stayed around another day or week or year. Imagine. I'd have to close the group that meets in my home. What interest would I have in that if I was drunk all the time. And never mind the outreach work I do. They'd kick me off the board quicker than I could say last house on the what. Again, I would have no interest in it. And Nancy? I'm sure she wouldn't give up on me right away, but I'd very quickly make our lives a living nightmare and it would only be a matter of time before she kicked me to the curb. Yeah, it only takes me about 30 seconds to figure out that taking a drink wouldn't solve any of my problems. It would create problems and not just for me. 

Just for the record, I wasn't thinking about it.

Sometimes God Says No

We talked about closing the group that meets at our place on Thursday nights. We did that. We also moved the sponsorship meeting to Thursday night as we talked about. It seemed to be doing okay.

But, I learned a lesson about doing my will instead of God's will. I decided to join another group so that I would still have a home group. There's one I often attend on Tuesday nights. I have been going there for all of my sobriety - 17 years - so it seemed like my best choice.

I also work Tuesday nights but I have just enough time to attend that meeting and if I can get a drive to the bridge, I can make it to work on time. It was a good idea.

For most of the past 2 months, I have either been sick on Tuesday nights, been working extra hours on Tuesday nights or the weather has been so severe on Tuesday nights that I have been forced to stay home and concentrate my efforts on just getting to work.

And if that wasn't enough to clue me in that I had made the wrong choice, there is a major refitting job taking place on the bridge beginning next month. So the transit service has gone through some changes and now in order to arrive at work on time, I will need to leave 30 minutes earlier. So I won't be able to attend the Tuesday night meeting. Or Wednesday night. And Monday and Friday are no good for other reasons. The only night that leaves is Thursday night.

So. It looks like our group will be starting up again. If that's OK with my higher power.

Meeting Changes

In 1998, Nancy and I were living on Rose Street in Dartmouth, up behind Sullivan's Pond. It was a long climb up Oak Street, up a long flight of stairs to get in the building, then 2 more flights up to our flat. When you looked out the living room window you could see Break Heart hill. Or was that Brake Hard hill. It was quite a view either way.

We started an AA group there called the Hilltop Group. We met at our place for a while, then moved it to the Starr Room at the Alderney library and from there it went to the church on Hawthorne & Portland, the same church we met and were later married in. The group lasted eight years.

We moved to Woodside, up on Chadwick Street, another killer hill. In there, we opened the Woodside Group in 2000. We moved that to the North Woodside Community Center but eventually it came back to our home.

During that time frame, I opened a third group at the Hawthorne church. That was a Saturday night group called Serenity Corner. That group lasted eight years.

The Woodside Group shut down in 2006 when we moved to the trailer park in Woodlawn. Well it didn't completely close. We just moved it and changed the name. It became the Trailer Park 12 and 12 Group.

For about seven years we met on Wednesday evenings. A little over a year ago we switched to Thursday.

Those groups were all registered AA groups. We also started a sponsorship meeting which was not part of any registered group. We held that on the weekends. Unfortunately, this job I have now requires me to work every weekend. We tried having it on different nights but it's never worked for long.

So Nancy and I had a talk. The group on Thursday isn't very big. Almost all the members belong to other groups so if it wasn't there anymore, those people would still have a home group. So we decided to close the Trailer Park Group and move the sponsorship meeting to Thursday night.

So there is still a meeting there on Thursday nights. It's just not a registered meeting. It won't be in the meeting list. Format is pretty much the same. We will still have cheesecake or Apple pie. We will still study the big book. The only real difference is that it's only for the people we sponsor or for people who are sponsored by the people we sponsor.

So now you know the password.