Rob, when I was in my first year, there was an amazing men's AA group called "The brain damage group" in McLean, Va. Many of the men, who were members, were pillars of the community (judges, doctors, councilman...) and most were retired n their 60's-80's. Then there were several hundred per meeting, like me, younger men that were intrigued by their presence. We'd spend about 10 minutes, meeting and greeting, in the large church function room before splitting up into 5 or so smaller meetings. I liked the one held in a vault way down in the church basement. It had a certain medieval feeling to it that, perhaps I'd experienced in a former life or maybe I was just comfortable because I drank and used in a lot of basements ala "that '70's show" :P.

This particular night was a second step meeting and focus seemed to be on insanity. After the meeting, a member (retired attorney) named "Stretch" approached me and commented about something that I had shared in the meeting. He said "We are all nuts in here and there is two kinds insanity. There's psychotics and neurotics." He continued "Psychotics are way out there and most of them you can't reach. They think that 2 + 2 = 5." Then he leaned over with a devilish grin and tone to his voice and said "But Neurotics, like myself," we know damned well that 2 + 2 = 4 But we don't like it."

That immediately registered with me. To this day, I still approach every traffic light with the expectation that it should be green when my vehicle gets there and I'm pissed when it's red. This is why the serenity prayer is so important. All that wasted energy being miffed about the things that we can't change.