January 31
Without the Right Vocabulary
Someone asks us about recovery, and we worry that we cannot explain it properly. Other members seem to know the literature by heart or speak comfortably about God. We have a few things that happened, some help we accepted, and a life that has become less impossible. Beside a polished spiritual explanation, this can seem like very little to offer.
It may be exactly the part another alcoholic can hear. Understanding between people does not always begin with agreement about beliefs. It can begin with recognition: someone else knows what that loneliness felt like. We can share how we came to ask for help and what we actually did with the help offered. Questions we cannot answer may remain questions. Faith expressed through honest company has its own usefulness, especially when we resist the temptation to borrow convictions that sound better than the experience we can truthfully share.
What experience can I offer without pretending to possess a better explanation?
This is how it happened for me.
For the A.A. nerds: As Bill Sees It, No. 212, “Faith and Action.”