Читать книгу Beginner's Book - Группа авторов - Страница 9

In this book, AA members share what helped them in early recovery—a journey sometimes full of bumps and detours but also new ideas and surprising insights. This is an ongoing process, and the results of it appear, as the Big Book says, “sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.”

“I wish for you a slow recovery,” an old-timer sometimes says to a newcomer in AA. This may make some of us bristle. When we first get sober, we want to move forward quickly, not slowly. We’ve wasted a lot of time in our drinking days, we think, and now we’re impatient to get on with our lives. We don’t want to wait to get our families and jobs back, or maybe fall in love, travel, pursue some long-lost dreams.

This is not to say that eagerness for the fruits of the program isn’t wonderful. Hopes and dreams of the future—even tomorrow!—help us stay sober. But we could shortchange ourselves if we hurry through these early days. We need time for healing—emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Freedom, happiness, peace of mind, a sense of usefulness, and a connection with our Higher Power are the solid rewards of taking it one day at a time.

This is where “progress not perfection” comes to our aid, a reminder that we are all works-in-progress. How fortunate that is: as members of Alcoholics Anonymous, we can continue to learn, change, and grow as long as we stay sober.

So we’ve found it can pay to take a moment and listen when someone with long-term sobriety says to us, “Give time time” or “I wish for you a slow recovery.”

After all, sobriety is the adventure of a lifetime. And it begins the moment we ask AA for help.

THE EDITORS