the doors clang twice

...went to the jail meeting yesterday morning, there was a brand new guy there among the inmates in attendance, that's always kool. One inmate's solution to his drinking and drugging problem was to get three jobs upon release from jail, thereby relieving himself of any spare time for drinking and drugging. While this makes completes sense to me, I know that any alcoholic or addict who wants to use, will make the time. We ended up having an excellent discussion on the basics of recovery, how each alcoholic or addict must hit bottom to become willing to do what it take to stay sober a day at a time. I love those meetings when you get right down to the nuggets, the basic building blocks of recovery. Among the AA's from the outside we had guys with 33 yrs, 10 yrs, 6 yrs, 5 yrs and a few months. There were several different points of view among the outside AA's which gave the inmates many different perspectives to relate to. One of the inmates shared that since coming to meetings in the jail, he had noticed that he felt better. He said this was really noticable when he missed the meeting last Saturday. He shared that he spent the most miserable week of his stay in jail due to missing that meeting. He said he was up almost all night Friday night, afraid to miss the call to the Satruday morning meeting. I love to hear acocunts of how this program changes lives. I always get so much from making that jail meeting. Most of all, besides helping the guys inside, I get to see what I have to look forward to, should I decide to return to my life of drinking and using drugs.

Today, I am grateful that I don't have to live that way, and that I get to hear the doors clang twice on Saturday mornings.