July 9
The Speech in My Pocket
We arrive prepared to help, with a surprisingly complete account of what someone else needs to change. Their drinking has frightened us. Their excuses sound familiar. Before they have finished explaining themselves, we are ready to deliver the speech we have been composing all afternoon. It may contain good advice. There may also be very little room in it for the person who is actually sitting there.
The Big Book's caution about becoming a reformer gets close to this temptation. Our experience can open a conversation; our certainty can close it. Helpfulness asks something more demanding than saying everything we know. It asks us to discover what can be heard, and to remember how strange hope once sounded to us. Prayer may help us loosen our grip on the speech long enough for a real exchange to begin.
What am I too prepared to say to hear something unexpected?
There is room for a conversation.
For the A.A. nerds: Alcoholics Anonymous, “Working With Others,” pp. 89, 91.