Welcome to the December 2022 Jackson County A.A. Central Office and Josephine County Intergroup Newsletter. Thank you for subscribing.
As we move through this journey in sobriety, we grow closer to not only other people but to our true selves. We do this through daily conscious contact with something much bigger than ourselves, God.
Understanding that we are not in charge and taking a day at a time is an easier way to live. Many of us didn’t hate or love God when we came in, we had just pushed Him either aside or away. However, all the times in our lives when we were watched over and remained safe despite extremely reckless behaviors proved that it had to be something much bigger than us that was keeping us safe destined for a bigger purpose.
For many of us with our lives spinning out of control, we were terrified of what was going to happen. Would we die an alcoholic death or wind up in prison and lose everything that was important to us? We were desperate and hopeless.
Until a life-changing event occurred, we walked, or crawled, through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time. On that day, in those rooms, the beginning of our own separate yet so familiar journeys began to a beautiful sober life with a wonderful fellowship of men and women who would become our lifelong friends.
Now that we are in recovery beautiful things are happening every day around us. We wake up knowing that we have a choice. We enjoy life. We laugh. We love. We remember. We’re compassionate, and WE WILL NOT EVER trade this for what we had or who we were. Many of us were hypocrites, liars, thieves, cheats, and narcissists, full of resentments, never seeing our part. Today, our lives are nothing like that anymore. We live to serve and help others get what we were so graciously and freely given. Please don’t misunderstand. Life has not been smooth sailing. We have endured heartache, pain, suffering, and loss in sobriety. Many times, in fact, life has been unfair, but we don’t drink over it. We get to do this life sober. Bottom line is that we pray and meditate to have conscious contact with God, turn our will and lives over to His care, do the right thing, help another person, and we don’t drink no matter what, and we do it one day at a time.
So, during this Holiday Season, please remember that only God can truly keep us sober and genuinely cause us to grow in the Program as we were destined to, as Dr. Bob and Bill W. envisioned it. God is God and we are not. We come to learn in this Program that He is good, giving favor, guidance, and blessings to all those who seek after Him. So, my wish for all of you this Season is that may God bless you and keep you, may God’s face shine upon you and give you a sense of great peace.
Have a beautiful holiday season.
Sincerely, your friend,
Winslow C.