AA Membership is Lifetime, If You Want

I've been chewing over my last post about the 3rd Tradition and the fact that I haven't had a desire to stop drinking for a long time --- in fact, that desire stopped two days before my first meeting of AA.  Seemingly on its own.

What I've concluded is that the desire to stop drinking is an event that happens and once it does, that person has achieved the one thing that is required for AA membership and that once this happens, that welcome is extended to them for as long as they want.  Once you've walked in the doors and choose to be one of us, then that membership is, in my opinion, permanent.  At least so far as you want to remain a member. 

For me, that's what happened.  I had a desire to stop and for a variety of reasons, I woke up one morning and realized that my inability to stop was because I was (and am) an alcoholic.  Looking back, after having come into the rooms of AA, I realized fairly soon that what happened that morning wasn't that "I stopped" --- what happened, to my utter surprise (even now!), was that I stopped trying to stop (some call this "surrender") and, in effect, I stopped stopping.

I began trying to stay sober --- one day at a time.  And that, amazingly, has worked for me for over 8 years.

So, in case you were wondering: I do now consider myself a legitimate member of AA.  No one can take that from me, but me.

Take care!

Mike L.

Am I Still A Legitimate Member of AA?

For quite a few years now I've been quietly wondering to my innermost self whether I am still a legit member of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Why?  Well, because of the 3rd Tradition.  I know that I oftentimes hear people refer to that tradition as the one that allowed them to remain a member of AA when all else seemed to warrant excommunication or desertion.  But I've been unable to honestly say that I have "a desire to stop drinking."  In fact, I haven't had a real desire to stop drinking for over 8 years now.  In fact, I think I lost that desire two days before I first set foot in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Sure, prior to the morning I woke up "struck sober" on October 20, 2001 I had become resigned to a daily and hopeless desire to stop drinking.  Most mornings, my first thought was "Christ!  I just can't stop!"  I'd almost given up trying to stop.  Stopping wasn't possible.  For the last 10 months of my drinking, I was trying only to drink and not get caught.

So when I began attending meetings of AA and heard mention of the 3rd Tradition -- my initial reaction was like most people: I felt welcomed and included.  Finally, here was a group of people like me.  People who couldn't stop drinking either.

But in time, as the fear of drinking again began to melt away as a natural consequence to my re-focusing my efforts not on "not drinking" but on "staying sober" and "learning to live sober", I gradually realized that I no longer had a "desire to stop drinking".  In fact, the mere thought of "trying to stop" was a dangerous path for me.  It seemed to reawaken the false belief that I could use willpower to stop and stay stopped.  It wasn't any solution for me to seek a "higher power" to allow me to stop.  That was equally dangerous for me because the line that separates me from "me becoming God" is a very thin one and easily crossed by me without my knowing it -- except in retrospect.

So I freely and knowingly gave up the desire to stop drinking years ago.  I eventually subscribed to the "AA didn't teach me how to stop drinking, it taught me instead how to stop stopping!" school of AA thought.

Last night this all came to a head when I was at my main home group, the Wednesday night Dignitaries Sympathy men's group in Walnut Creek.  At that group, we don't have a speaker.  We just read How It Works and then go around the room and have people share (1) what they've done in the last week to stay sober and (2) if they are struggling with something, to share it with the group.  And we permit feedback during the meeting.  What happened last night while Gary was reading the introduction to the meeting, I noticed that our format says that the only requirements for attending this meeting are that we be male and that we have "a desire to stay sober."

A desire to stay sober!  Not a desire to stop drinking!  A desire to stay sober!  I BELONG TO THIS GROUP because I HAVE A DESIRE TO STAY SOBER! 

Although I have no dreams of getting AA to change it's coveted 3rd Tradition, I guess it won't hurt to make my motion here on my own recovery blog.  Why don't we change the 3rd Traditon to say, "The only requirement for membership is to have a desire to stay sober."  I think setting the standard for admission and membership to this even lower level (I've always appreciated AA's setting the bar for admission to a very low standard!) than the "desire to stop drinking" level.  Let's bring it down one more notch!

Hi, I'm Mike and I have a desire to stay sober today.

Take care!

Mike L.