My sponsor assigned me to find out where the saying "Keep coming back it works if you work it. So work it you're worth it" came from. I remember someone giving the answer to this in an AA meeting once but can't recall what he said. I know it is not really "AA" and it just came about like some other AA sayings. I heard it originated in the mid 90's and may have been taken from some popular commercial or something and then it stuck. I thought maybe someone of you that were sober then would know when this started.
Thanks,
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Aloha Mark...I remember it from the early 80ies and from the room across the hall...Al-Anon. I've heard it also called "a chant at the end of the meeting" that works to keep the fellowship together. Like other intentions of recovery, "it works".
Aloha Mark...I remember it from the early 80ies and from the room across the hall...Al-Anon. I've heard it also called "a chant at the end of the meeting" that works to keep the fellowship together. Like other intentions of recovery, "it works".
Amen...Jerry. What matters most of all is continuous sobriety, of course. So, keep coming back...and do just that. Remain sober...
~God bless~
-- Edited by Mr_David on Friday 30th of September 2011 02:20:30 PM
It turned up here sometime in the nineties. It was generally thought to come from treatment centres or maybe another fellowship but is not AA. It has become less popular recently.
I don't know where that particular saying comes from, but I was listening to a Clancy talk a few months ago and he was talking about attending a meeting out in the Valley (LA) years ago and there was this idiot ..I mean...umm.... guy with Terrets or something, or echolia who would "chant" things along with the reading like "principles before personalities" and "God could and would if He were Sought" and he went back a few years later and the whole room was doing it, and he watched it spread until now it's all over the world, it's a pretty funny story
-- Edited by LinBaba on Friday 30th of September 2011 09:44:19 AM
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Most annoying was when I went to a convention and people where doing these dumb "rocky horror show" like additions to How it works. "At some of these we balked" and they they would bawk like a chicken. So dumb.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Didn't hear it move into other fellowships until later-end of '80s.
It was being done in the mid/late '80's meetings when I got there. "Keep coming back it works". Then "if you work it" was added early 90's, in the DC area.
I'm pretty sure I heard it was from L.A. at least few decades back. I'm going to ask around. I love stuff like this, history trivia. Except it's not trivial: "Keep Coming Back" was the ah-ha message for me this week. Like keep coming whether in gratitude, with crappy attitude or in neutral. I have heard this is a key ingredient in the recipe for long-lasting sobriety.
Around here some add ..."Cause you're worth it." My feeling it that it takes away from the keep coming back. Many share that all they remember from the beginning was feeling welcome/belonging, don't pick up the first drink, and keep coming back.
It might be my problem with this add on to the Serenity prayer, is because this year seems to be about working on a character defect of lack of self-esteem. So "As a child of my creator, I am worthy" was a something my sponsor asked me to say everyday, one of those Stewart Smalley affirmations, and boy have I had to choke the words out till recently.
