"Take the mess to your sponsor, take the message to the meeting."
A friend in recovery shared something once that Ive never forgotten. He was newly married and struggling with the transition from living alone for many years as a bachelor. His therapist suggested that rather than trying to process his uncomfortable emotions with his new bride, he should, instead, bring his problems into therapy, and then bring the solutions back to the relationship. I thought that was just brilliant advice.
And it was definitely not how I was used to living my life. Before recovery, if I had a problem (and I had many), everyone heard about them. I would bemoan the state of my life to anyone within earshot, and if you were the cause of my stress, I talked endlessly behind your back. My ultimate solution was to get drunk, but when I came to, none of these problems had gone away. Instead, I often had just made them worse. I needed a better solution.
When I entered the rooms, I thought I had found one. In each meeting I went to, I began sharing how bad my life was, how it was everyone elses fault, and how the Twelve Steps probably wouldnt help me. My new sponsor pulled me aside early on and suggested I share this mess with him, one on one, and then bring any solutions I found back to the meetings. That worked much better. Today, I go to meetings and listen to other peoples solutions to the problems I may be struggling with. I always hear them if Im willing to listen.
