I had been sober in AA for about 3 months. 3 long miserable months. I was showing up at a meeting a day, showing up 2 minutes before the meeting was due to start. At the end of every meeting I pretty much bolted. I made no eye contact and I avoided the people standing in a little circle smoking, even though I am a smoker.
I would rush down the street, head full of fear and anger and go home. I would sit on my couch for the rest of the day, or curl up in bed and try to sleep the afternoon away. I was not really surprised that this AA thing wasnt working for me....I mean, its a great place for people who are drunks but I wasnt sure I was one of those. And even if I was, I was too smart for any 12 step mumbo-jumbo.
Slowly, thoughts of suicide began to creep in, and I started to believe that while it might not be a great solution, maybe it was the only one available to me. I put a lot of thought into how to accomplish my own death and not have it look like I did it myself. Guns were out, too messy. Overdose was out, good gawd I couldnt hve anyone thinking I was an addict! Hanging, nope..no mistaken accident there. Walking in front of a bus became my constant thought companion. I watched buses and the streets they went on. I figured I would have to get myself to the expressway so I could wander in front of a fast moving one, to make sure the job got done and I wasnt left as some vegetable.
Monday morning.
I awaken with the same dull ache, the soul pain I always awake with.
Maybe today will be the day.
But, for some reason I decide to go to the morning meeting like I had been doing for the past few months.
I sit through the meeting, hearing nothing but my own head.
I scoot out of the meeting when its over, the same as I do every other day.
And on my way..where? Home? To find a bus? I hear it...well, hear is the wrong word...I feel it. "Julie, do something different."
Huh?
Different? Do what exactly?
Somehow my feet got me turned around and I walked back to the church, looked at the circle of smokers and said: "Doesnt anybody go for coffee around here?"
And that moment...everything changed.
I met a great spiritual teacher.
He took me for coffee...we drove around the outskirts of town for probably 2 hours. I dont remember a word of what he said....except that he said "You have value and you have worth." and ...well, it was the first time I heard hope.
Hope was delivered to me through a 6 foot bald man in his fifties.
God used him to deliver hope to me.
I didnt recognize for many months to come that when I felt "Julie, do something different" that was God talking to me.
I didnt recognize that God had a plan for Lou that day, and all Lou had to do was show up and try to do Gods will.
In my gratitude, to God for His grace, to Lou for showing up and being willing, and to AA for the principles that it teaches...all I do now is show up. Show up, stay out of my own way and try my best to do Gods will.
If I do that, then I get to be the carrier of hope to somebody else, and that is a feeling that no drink, no drug could ever touch.
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