Getting Over The Age Thing

When I first got into the program, I found it difficult to open up to people who weren't in my age group. I also found it very difficult to open up to people who weren't exactly like me. In fact, I remember feeling extremely resentful when attending my first outdoor AA Round-Up, and discovering that the keynote speaker was a woman. How could this person possibly speak to anything that I was thinking, feeling or going through?

Over time, those barriers melted away for me. I stopped looking at ages and genders and similar characteristics. Instead, I focused solely on straining to hear something -- anything -- from anyone in the room that would help me stay sober just one more day. They could have had six green heads and zoomed in on a purple skate-board for all I cared. If they had
something to say that helped keep me sober, I was grateful they showed up.

I'm the same way today. Sure, I love listening to and reading the insights of oldtimers who come out with those finely wrought gems of insight. But I'm equally inspired by a twenty-something newcomer with 29 days, because I know the courage it takes to keep believing in the program while fighting the cravings and trying to make sense of the sober life for the first time.

More than anything, the one tenet of Alcoholics Anonymous that kept me coming back -- and keeps me coming back to this day -- is that simple, beautiful, eminently efficient declaration: the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. You're a member if you say you're a member.

-Joe@aalivechat.com