One of the best things I like about Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is how small the world seems to be sometimes in that arena. No matter where I seem to be on this planet, I always find myself somehow connected to people I’ve never met in the program.
Take just recently for example when I asked one of my home group members if his two sons, who are also in recovery, might be open to attending a meeting with me at this detox I go to every week in Toledo, Ohio. I knew they were going to be visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday and hoped they could help support it alongside me. After getting in contact with them over the phone from the numbers their father gave me, I was grateful to hear that each wanted to participate.
When the evening of the meeting finally arrived the day before Thanksgiving, I got to spend a few moments prior to its start time talking to the both of them. It’s then I discovered that each had lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area (where my recovery from addiction began) and spent considerable time with the recovery community there. Upon further introspection, I was excited to learn how I had shared the same sponsor as one of them around the same time period and how we all had the same friends in common, had gone on the same retreats, and essentially experienced the same fellowship.
This is exactly why I tend to believe the best thing about recovery is how small the world really is in that realm. Because prior to finding AA, I always felt more alone than not. But ever since I began attending AA, I’ve continued to run into people I either know or am connected to somehow no matter where I am on this Earth. And usually once that connection is made, I go from hardly knowing someone to giving them huge embraces. This is truly the biggest reason why I keep coming back to AA, even after many years of sobriety.
AA is a fellowship that is far more about the “we”, the “us”, and the “our” in life, and not so much the “I’ or the “me”. In discovering that principle over the years, I came to make quite a bit of connections to people all around the world, some solely because of mutual friends we had in recovery from other places on the planet.
The fact is, I never have to be alone anymore, so long as I stay in those rooms of recovery. Because there’s always someone I either know there or am loosely connected to and that truly makes the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous a very small world indeed.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
Great article, Andrew! These are some of my favorite AA stories. When I was in Berlin, Germany a couple summers ago, I went to a meeting (of the only two I went to while visiting) and in walks in a friend I had met in Los Angeles the summer before. I had to do a double take. I walked up to him afterwards and we were both blown away by the “coincidence.” I consider these synchronistic events God’s way of telling me I’m still on the right path. Sending Love 🙂
That’s an awesome story! Glad you shared it. Ironically my posting for tomorrow is rather a question of when people have experienced the small world phenomena! 🙂
Andrew,
Your HP always puts you in the right place at the right time. Keep up your spiritual good work.
Love you,
Chris