I’ve had a tough couple of weeks.  I’m not even sure why but I couldn’t get out of my own head during the day and tossed & turned at night.  I’ve had a hard time letting go of the idea that I could get back things that I’ve lost.  One of my greatest struggles over the past 26 months has been giving IT to God. IT is not just my drinking but my will and my entire life over to the care of God. As I’ve shouted from the highest mountain God took away my thirst for booze so I’m all in with my trust in Him…theoretically..but tactically is where I still struggle at times. I’ve heard Faith & Fear can’t coexist. It’s easy to say I trust His plan but it’s another for me to LET GO and stop thinking about the plans I had in mind.

The good news is that having a tough week doesn’t lead to falling off the wagon as I know where that would lead.  However I’m also not taking any chances. I’ve been collecting tools that I use everyday. Sometimes the best advice is the simplest…

Go to a Meeting! 

Don’t drink and go to meetings
We’ve got a chair here with your name on it
If you hang around a barber shop long enough, you’ll get a haircut
Keep coming back
Meeting Makers Make It
Sit down, shut up and listen
It’s the second meeting that’s the most important one
Seven days without a meeting makes one weak
If I don’t go to meetings, I don’t hear what God wants me to hear
I am the black sheep of the family. I came to a meeting and found the rest of the herd
Bring your body, your mind will follow

In other words:

Meetings are Wicked Important!

I never leave a meeting feeling worse than when I came in. I always leave saying, “we truly are the lucky ones” as most people don’t get to experience what we have.  It’s true that you always hear just what you need. There is no better place to see God’s grace at work. And I see it every time.  

So I have a meeting I can get to every day of the week.  At least one.  Now life happens and you often can’t get to a meeting when you need it.  This was even more true during my first six months when I could of, should have, been at a meeting all the time.  But I had to work and raise my boys so I often had to bring meetings to where I was.

One of my favorite resources, a lifeline, has been Tom Murphy’s ‘Your Daily Reprieve‘.  Tom has a daily email blast that he sends around the world every morning around 5:30 am Eastern time.  It is packed with resources including inspirational quotes, AA sayings, daily podcasts of AA speakers, and links to endless other podcast resources.  I’ve spent hours in my car, my office, airports, hockey rinks, on park benches, and in bed in the middle of the night listening to speaker podcasts that came from Tom’s emails.  You can also google or search YouTube for AA speakers or some of the classic old times such as Joe & Charlie, Sandy Beach, and even Bill W.

One of my favorite sections of Tom’s Daily Reprieve is “Celebrate Your Anniversary” where he lists all of his readers (name, town & years) who have an anniversary in the current month and then he highlights them on the day.  On this month’s emails it reads his April list has “1310 Total Years of Sobriety!”

Tom’s email has also been a lifeline to help me find meetings whenever I travel.  Readers send Tom an email in preparation for a trip or moving and he blasts it to his 3000+ subscribers (30k daily readers).  I’ve used this when traveling to Cincinnati, Dallas, Montana, Poland, Romania and France.  Thanks to a reader & now friend named Crowe I was able to get to a meeting in Paris hanging onto 90 days sober and he again helped me find the American Church in Paris to pick up my 2 year chip earlier this year!  If you have never been to a meeting while traveling I highly recommend it.  A drunk is a drunk in any land or language! 😉

Please email Tom at txm1@comcast.net if you’d like to receive ‘Your Daily Reprieve‘

So when I have a tough day I get to a meeting one way or another.  It always makes me feel better.  There’s no excuse for not hearing what you need if you just put in a smidgen of effort.

But you can’t leave your house?  You now know how to find meetings online!

You say your power is out?  Read the Big Book!

Ohhh so you say you’re in the pitch dark? ….PRAY!

Finding a meeting is simple   All you need is a resentment and a coffee pot.

Greg – RagamuffinDad