If You Want What We Have

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From the Book

If You Want What We Have:
Sponsorship Meditations
By Joan Larkin
©1998 Joan Larkin


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How easy it was to underestimate what had been endured.
MARGARET DRABBLE

Newcomer
I heard someone share that it was her anniversary and that she wanted to celebrate by stepping in front of a car and killing herself. How can someone talk that way at a meeting? I don’t want to listen to it.

Sponsor
The first thing I notice about this dramatic statement is that it was made at a meeting. As desperate as the person who made it may have been feeling, she did not act out her addiction, but instead showed up and shared. I’ve walked into meetings feeling depressed, despairing, angry, rebellious, alone, or misunderstood, and when I’ve been willing to share my state of mind, have felt sudden relief.

Not knowing the person who shared, and not being experts, we can’t really know how seriously to take such a statement. From one person, it might be a sign the compassionate professional help is needed; from another, it might be just a bit of self-indulgent humor or a bid for attention. People come to meetings in many different frames of mind, with different life experiences, and with recovery of varying lengths and quality. Some make everything they experience sound like high drama; others are reluctant to expose depths of real pain. And of course, there are many people with strong recovery who use the tools of the program to help them “ride the waves” of life’s problems with relative ease and even joy.

Rather than focus on your discomfort with someone else’s sharing, why not keep the focus on yourself and your own recovery work?

Today, I say a prayer for those who are still sick and suffering, in or out of this program. I give my attention to the work that’s mine to do in recovery.