December 16, 2008

Tolerance

Honesty with ourselves and others gets us sober,
but it is tolerance that keeps us that way.
Experience shows that few alcoholics will long stay away from a group
just because they don't like the way it is run.
Most return and adjust themselves to whatever conditions they must.
Some go to a different group, or form a new one.
In other words, once an alcoholic fully realizes he cannot get well alone,
he will somehow find a way to get well and stay well in the company of others.
It has been that way from the beginning of AA and probably always will be so.





That's one of the biggest complaints I have heard from newcomers at meetings. They don't like this, that, the cliques in that group are stupid, the speaker curses too much, etc, etc. I think we sometimes make excuses when we don't want to participate in something and don't want to tell people the reasl truth why. So we cover with bs, something we alcoholics and addicts are good at.

That's ok, everyone is entitled to their opinion. One of my biggest gripes was at the meetings I used to go to, people smoked like chimneys, and my eyes hurt after sitting in there for up to 1 1/2 hours. Wanting recovery is going after it like your life depends on it, because it does. All you have to do is look at the examples of those who don't make it. I know plenty of people who are now buried in the cemetary.

I had a friend who told me once - "I can't be an alcoholic like you, you grew up in the street culture, I wenty to better schools and surrounded myself with different people than you did. We had entirely different lives, you and me, so what you look at as important doesn't apply to me."

That friend is dead now, he couldn't deal with working out his problems, and kept it all inside.

We can all try to be more tolerant. The differences among us are on the outside. Focusing on them stops us from focusing on our recovery.