November 25
What They Can Use
Someone who helped us may have forgotten the conversation we remember for years. They explained something without making us feel foolish. They waited while we found words. They treated a concern as worth hearing. What stayed with us may have been less the advice itself than the experience of being taken seriously by another alcoholic when we expected to be dismissed.
We cannot arrange to become that person in someone else's memory. Trying too hard might turn an ordinary encounter into a performance. But we can appreciate the kind of care that made our own recovery possible and allow it to influence how we respond. Perhaps the legacy of love is partly this: another person leaves a conversation a little more able to ask for help, tell the truth, or participate. They are free to use what they received without remembering who gave it.
What quality in the help I received could become available through me?
The kindness may travel farther than the memory of us.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Twelve, pp. 106, 109.