Why Attend?
Last Updated on Friday, 30 January 2009 14:36 Friday, 30 January 2009 13:58
Since coming back to AA and realizing that the best I could do left to my best ability got me drunk. I look hard at people in the program and what they do to stay or what is the point of it all. I often hear people give themselves the same excuse I used to avoid taking chances and having faith.This is what I used to say to myself, "Sponsorship is for people who are better suited for it and I can help in other ways, like in my family and at my job, working the principles. Service work outside of my meeting is for people with big egos, but let me tell you there was none bigger that mine. AA Retreats are for people that don't have families and can take the time. Conventions and Conferences are for people that AA is their life and they can't get the balance they need from just attending meetings."
I know now that when I get involved with service to the member, group, district, area, AA retreat, or conference the spiritual benefits far exceed anything I could have expected. Ask any sponsor if working with his sponsees has enriched his or her life. Working the steps with sponssees and sharing your experience, strength and hope is key the key to sobriety. It gives us a better understanding of ourselves and others.
So, Why attend a conference? It simple because thousands of fellow AA's have done it before us. Because fellowship works. To listen to great speakers from other parts of the country. To meet and share with people outside of your small circle of AA friends. To attend workshops that can make you think about your recovery. To broaden your AA triangle. The most important thing is to not get bored and fall into an AA rut, reducing your meetings, coming late and leaving early, thinking you have heard everything you could hear in AA. Well, maybe you have, but certainly you have not done everything you could do to enrich your sobreity and develop a faith in a higher power and reach outward to your fellow alcoholic that was there for you when you needed them. At some point in my sobriety I have to ask myself not what AA can do for me, but what can I do for AA, my God, and my fellow man.
