Detox..Thoughts

Originally posted Friday, June 26, 2009  on

 steveroni.blogspot.com

DEE-TOX! A FEW THOUGHTS

Now that it is Friday, I am particularly glad to be home, for it is my night to attend a small meeting at "detox". This is a locked area of room-and-board in Naples where people go to slowly have removed from their bodies whatever they were using to make themselves 'feel good' (Detoxification!).

Average stay is usually 4-6 days, and so if I see any of them more than once it would be at an AA meeting, or when I pick them up to go to a meeting. A guy asked me this morning (at 6:30 AM) "Why do you take meetings to Detox--after you've been sober 35 years?"

Good question! "I really don't know. I've stopped asking 'Why' about AA work. It's simpler to just do it, whatever it is."

(LATER, to myself) Wait! I DO know why I feel drawn to detox for a meeting. That is where it seems to begin, for some. For me, I need to observe that beginning stage of "soberism".  Many years of sobriety can create a tendency to become distant from "What it was like".

Sure, I attend usually two meetings a day, Big Book, Step, and Tradition meetings each week.  Even with some service work, I still find that NOTHING brings my chronic, fatal disease so close to home--to reality--as meeting those suffering their first days and nights in a Detox unit.

This is where the hair of the bow meets the violin strings. WITHOUT that 'meeting' there will be no music played. THAT'S why I feel blest to be allowed to share my Experience, Strength and Hope with newcomers.

At Detox tonight were 6 patients, and six of us from outside. Of the incarcerated six, two slept, one said he never had a drink in his liar--oops, I meant LIFE! And three seemed as if they thought we'd meet again.

After the meeting--outside--the six of us (I recall Megan and Alma and Jerry) shared another thought--we knew we had been where we were supposed to be for that hour tonight! Thank You, God. Thank you, AA. Thank you, Blogger Peeps!

In love and service,
Steve E