Day 41 Meeting

Wound up chairing the meeting today... Well, not really... The chair was on "vocal rest" for a professional performance tonight and asked me to read all the stuff from the binder that conducted the meeting... The speaker was a 23 year old out gay guy from the South up here looking for a job... He was another of those impromptu speakers asked by the chair at the last minute... And once again... the twenty minutes flew by with wonderful off the cuff stories of experience, strength, and hope... He'd had a few slips when getting started. He attributes that to not changing his playground. He kept going to the same bars and clubs and hanging with the same crowd and abstaining... That wasn't working for him... So he committed to the program, started going early and staying late to meet people in order to "build up a network", got a sponsor, and... So, he has a year and a half today... He credits the meetings, which he has been able to attend in his travels... Which sparked an octogenarian to state in her later round robin share that "meeting makers make it", one of her favorite quotes... I shared about my morning with a wild bus driver who went off on me and I told him I wasn't gonna get upset, that I was just going to go to an AA meeting and share about it... Which sparked his retort: "You probably need AA"... OK dokey... Then another guy came out of a store to intimidate me from taking photos of the mannequins in his storefront public windows... I was on the phone with my sponsor at the time of that one (Who jokingly advised that I take his picture! LOL)... All of this after I had traipsed to AA Manhattan Intergroup's Office to buy some literature during the hours published on the meeting list and was sent away cuz that particular staffer had taken the morning off... Oy!. So, it was one of those mornings... I remarked that in the past I would have secretly held onto each of these resentments deliberately in order to fuel my next binge... But instead, I was using them as an opportunity to look at my own character defects: "over-sensitivity to being perceived as disrespected" came immediately to mind... But I went to that meeting and "punched re-set" (on the day, and on my attitude) as I've heard one member say in the past... And I think I've also heard something like: "You can always re-start your day"... So that's what I did and continued on happily with shopping, errands and chores... I also shared my day count at the Seventh Tradition break... Day 41. Clap, clap, clap...