BillyWright Mon., Wed. 7:30-8:45
Why I Pay it Forward
In Bill's Story he wrote “While I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what had been so freely given to me.
Perhaps I could help some of them. They in turn might work with others”.
My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For if I an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge my spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others,
I could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If I do not work, I would surely drink again, and if I drank, I would surely die. With me it is just like that.
I for one would not be here today had one man at my first meeting appointed himself to be my sponsor, and herein lies what I believe to be the miracle of AA. He was just over 5 years sober at the time and was experiencing difficulty, he shared this with another member and was told to get a newcomer and work with him. He asked where am I going to get a newcomer all the rest of you seem to grab them. He was told to pray for a wet alcoholic to work with, at this point in his life he was not too heavily into prayer but he had no better ideas so he did what was suggested and he shares this as part of his story now,” Billy fell into our meeting”. He surmises that the group had not seen a worse example at that time and they were quite happy for him to have me because none of them thought I had much of a chance. Man did he persevere with me. I was not honest and was drinking between meetings for a while but he kept turning up and taking me to meetings that I didn't want to go to and he kept sharing with me about the AA program and how all I had to do was to get honest. My wife would tell him "Joe he's still drinking" and he told her that didn't matter he was only taking me to meetings so he could stay sober himself. She could not work this one out and thought we were both crazy and perhaps deserved each other.
The miracle was he stayed sober and I got sober, I believe absolutely today that his prayer set in motion the chain of events that caused me to get to that first meeting and no power on this earth will change my mind. Today as a part of my morning prayer I ask God to use me to help others, because he has given me a gift, not only that of sobriety but also what I have had to go through to maintain it. In the promises it tells me that no matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. In another book I think it says that greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for another. I used to take that literally and thought that it meant you had to die in the physical sense, but I believe differently today. I believe that every time I share my story and my experience strength and hope that I am in fact laying my life down for another. Because you see I believe that I did die before I came to AA. I was not the sort of person that God had intended me to become, I had to be reborn.
Every time I share my story that old me dies again and the new me is reborn. I can walk tall and feel good, safe in the knowledge that today I know what my primary purpose is.