Debbie wrote: I am today and I would like to share with all of you how damn great it feels, but I just don't know how to say it.
I sure wish you would hurry the heck up and figure out how to say it!!! I'd just love to be reading about it! Watching you grow and change and walk through and get to the other side of your stuff has been very inspirational to me.
It's like "I'll be danged!!! This deal STILL works for those who grab on to it and work it! Thank you for being an example of the fact that "it works." Those of us who have been around for a while need to see it. That's what keeps us coming back. That's what keeps us doing the deal.
Each one of us -- every single day -- and many moments throughout the day -- are examples of the message by the way we live and work and walk and talk and have our being.
It's really been awesome to watch the changes in you!!! So get busy and keep posting!!!
I know what you mean about the "dry spells" on the site. We get a lot of spammers who attack the site and try to take it down and abuse it everyday. Sometimes -- that's why I'm not posting. It gets to be a real busy job just trying to keep the site up -- so that someone will post -- and so that others can come and read.
We get a lot of new people who join the forum -- and once in a while they'll request their membership be activated so that they can participate. They get activated -- but, then they don't participate.
I guess that's another similarity with meetings. We get lots of people that come to meetings -- but they never begin to participate. They watch. They listen. And, then they leave. No telling where they go. Sometimes -- after a while they come back. And, sometimes they don't.
Another similarity that I see with meetings and this site is this: In the meetings -- we often see only a handfull or less who are doing the work to keep the meetings going. The person who opens the door. The coffee person. The person who Chairs or Leads the meeting. The person who greets the new people. It always seems to be a certain small handfull of people in each of the meetings -- that keep coming back to make it happen. I guess we could call that "Service."
I've noticed that Alkies seem to have no problem in sitting back and watching someone else do the work!!!
"Work? Heck boss -- I just show up for the pay-check, not for the work!"
And, it's those "few" who keep coming back -- doing the work -- that we see are the ones staying sober for the long-haul. And, those are the ones -- that when they speak of happy, joyous and free -- you can see it in their faces and hear it in their voices -- that they are speaking about their experience -- and that they really do "have" what they are talking about! And, they stick around -- month after month after month, and year after year after year after year!!!!
One day, I read in our book, that "Our guiding principle becomes giving rather than receiving."
It was like a light came on inside me when I first read that. I pondered it. I thought about it. I meditated on it. And, that way great.
But the real amazement of it -- took place for me -- when I began to live that principle.
I started going to meetings -- not to get something for me -- but to see what I could give to someone else. It made a huge change inside me.
Then, I took it further -- by "trying it out" by living the principle "outside the meetings." WOW!!!! What a miracle that began to wrought inside me!
Thanks for sharing Debbie. Thanks for getting me started!
Thanks for suggesting me to get off my rump and start to trump!!!
Dallas
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