A Return a Year Later

Well, I'm back in Windsor a year hence. I haven't returned to the place where it all began since March. Now the meetings that I go to where I live keep me sober as proven in where I am today, but "home" offers something so much more. As soon as I walked into the building, I was overcome by a rush of love, peace, and safety. Immediately, I saw old friends that welcomed me with smiles and hugs. Yes, gentlemen smiling and hugging. I've said it before that people just want to be loved. This weekend has reinforced that that's what this place does. It teaches us to love one another. That is exactly how I felt during this visit; loved. Through this experience, my appreciation and love has been renewed for those that are in my life all the time. I feel that I, perhaps, have been becoming complacent with those nearest to me. All weekend, I've been thinking of them with love and gratitude. I am a very blessed individual.
I was asked to share in front of the program and alumni. Nervous? Yes. The beautiful thing now is that I've been given the strength to work through nervousness, anxiety and fear. I had an opportunity to talk deeply with old friends, new gentlemen/new friends. It's amazing that although I was gone for such a long time that this program allows one to fall right back into step. I walked into that place last December emotional. I walked into that building embarrassed and anger about me being so emotional. Others walk in unable or unwilling feel. When I graduated, I was balling, but I was proud of me being that emotional. As I watched the graduates today, I began to tear up with a smile on my face. I teared up because I was feeling what they were feeling. I knew exactly what they were feeling. I was smiling, as I do every time I see another alcoholic show what's going on inside, because I was witnessing the program that works. Going from insecurity to strength in one's self is a seemingly impossible task. It's not. This place has been proving that wrong for almost a half a century.
We have been holding things in, ignoring our feelings, allowing our pride/fears to reach unmanageable levels to the point where we have turn to self-medication to falsely deal with everything. We find this place "where people need people." We begin to think and rely on others instead of ourselves. We begin to share and listen learning that we are not alone. We begin to learn that in weakness comes strength. We finally begin to learn to live. We finally began to recover.