Morning meeting. Weekend. Misty and chilly. This weekend, Cape town plays host to our annual Jazz Fest. Much life-transforming live muzak will be played, celebrated and enjoyed! Many drinks will be drunk. Many drunks will remain so. Excitement. Sex. Drugs. Drink. All that jazz! Sounds like 48 hours of life in top gear, screaming down a long, empty road.
And (I’m chuckling now) on such a sweat-inducing, pleasure-seeking weekend, I find myself not hungover or jonesing but en route to a 12-step meeting!
The venue: Church hall. Stark glaring fluorescent strip lights. More than 50 souls present. Must be coffee here somewhere.
The topic: What a morning for thought-provoking milestones! These timely benchmarks are used not for fame or glory (although a little ego polishing does occur regularly). They are the calendar-driven anniversaries of sobriety and clean time.
Perhaps revisiting the spiritually-cogniscent days of Big Tent Church Revival meetings I guess, men and women in recovery carefully mark the days since last drinking or using. The day I quit the booze or snorting the blow becomes my 12-step birthday – the day I was born into recovery. If I suffer dual or triple addictions then I may well mark more than one 12-step birthdays.
As the call for milestones went out, three 12-step birthdays drew my attention.
1. Newcomer: No idea of who he was or might be, haven’t ever met or spoken with him. I wish him well on his journey. Clean time: 60 days.
2. D: A tall sombre figure with a slow, deep gruff voice and overarching eyebrows. Old school manners. Often speaks with wisdom and insight. Clean time: 10 years.
3. E: A jovial, charming fellow. Happy and gay. (Just saying). One of the hardcore oldtimers but not a bleeding deacon. Solid, committed and open-hearted. Clean time: 36 years.
As I consider these three milestoners, I can only hope I continue my journey to my own 12-step birthday with strength and sobriety. 90M
90meetings in 90days 