Go or Not Go to a Meeting?

Please know I write this blog with the "take what you want and leave the rest" idea in mind.  I attend meetings with the same perspective.  I heard a new one yesterday at Alanon that I hope to keep.  "However I stand in front of a mirror I can only see 60% of myself".  This was in reference to the process of working a 4th Step inventory and the importance of the 5th Step where we need each other to help see sides of ourselves that we are blind to.  I so enjoyed the meetings yesterday, actually I enjoy the meetings every time I go.

I remember in early sobriety how I r-e-a-l-l-y didn't want to go to meetings.  I thought it was such a hassle to get dressed-up, go listen to blah-blah-blah and to act as if I knew what the heck I was doing.  Even under those circumstances, where I may have arrived in my own head, by the time the meeting was over I felt so much better.  Clearer.  Saner.  Didn't even notice the difference until I went to a meeting to help clear it all up!   LOL

Even though I enjoyed the aftereffects of attending a meeting, I struggled with resistance and reluctance to make myself go in the first place.  "It's raining."  "It's too hot."  "I'm too tired."  "I'm too busy." "I have way too much to do."  "I don't have time."  "It's too late."  "I don't have enough gas in the car." "I don't have a dollar to put in the 7th Tradition basket." It's such a hassle."  "I have nothing to wear."  Oh, my gosh...there are more where those come from!  Excuses and reasons to not go.  Charity, my sponsor, encouraged me to think of 12 Steps meetings as treatment, like people who have cancer go to chemo treatments, or people with kidney disease go to dialysis, so it is that people with Alanonism, alcoholism, etc. go to 12 Steps meetings for treatment and recovery of their illness.   Hmmm.

A measurement or tool I used to determine whether the reason or excuse justified not going was a simple question:  "If I was going to _________ (fill in the compulsion, for example:  go buy alcohol, drugs, sex, Hostess Donuts, "talk" to so-and-so, etc.) would I let this stop me from going?"  If the answer was an honest "yes" or "no" then I applied it to whether to get my butt to a meeting or not.  This still works for me, PRN...as needed.

Well, it's Monday morning and just for today may I keep an honest heart, an open mind and a willing spirit to do my Higher Power's Will...one day at a time...just for today...