Читать книгу AA in the Military - Группа авторов - Страница 11

June 1954

I received my first issue of the Grapevine (Vol. I, No. 1) in June of 1944. At that time I was in the Army, stationed overseas. So far as I knew then, there were no AAs within several thousand miles of me, so you can imagine the kick I got out of that first number.

There was more to it than that, of course. I think I probably felt a good deal like a shipwrecked sailor when the rescue vessel steams in sight. For what that first Grapevine did for me, more than anything else, was to assure me that I was not alone.

I had come into AA almost two years earlier, and through the miracle of this Fellowship found the sobriety I had been seeking. When I was drafted, after only four months in AA, I was secretly terrified I would start drinking again. Thanks to loyal AA friends who wrote me, and to the good God who brought me to AA, I didn’t. But staying away from the first drink wasn’t easy for me, and I lacked any real confidence that I would be able to make it stick.

Vol. I, No. 1 changed all that for me. Because after that I knew that no matter where I went, my Grapevine would sooner or later catch up with me. And I knew, too, that in its pages I would find the help I needed. Just knowing it was coming each month helped keep my defenses up. It was such a solid and reliable tie to AA-style sobriety (and no other style had ever worked for me!)

“Mail Call for All AAs in the Armed Forces” was especially helpful, for it was concrete evidence that we weren’t forgotten. At the same time, it proved to me that others in the service were keeping the program ticking. To that extent, it made things easier for me.

Those days are long gone now, but Grapevine, happily, is still with us. I, for one, find it just as helpful now as it was in 1944. Today, it helps me in a different way—but none the less effectively. For one thing, I haven’t gotten to meetings very frequently for the past year or so, and I find that Grapevine helps keep me from feeling out-of-touch. Not that Grapevine, or anything else, is a substitute for meetings, but it does help when you’re not able to get around as much as you’d like.

One thing in particular I’ve always admired about Grapevine, and that is the readiness with which it has accepted “unorthodox” views. Such a reception is not always accorded the dissident elsewhere in AA.

I like the changes that have been made in Grapevine, too. Changes in format, changes in content, changes in personnel. Changes in almost everything, I expect, except in its basic purpose (Grapevine still dishes out my brand of AA). I understand they’ve even changed the financial picture—no more running in the red. For that accomplishment, a loud huzzah from this correspondent!

As you may gather from the foregoing, I am not one of those “old-timers” who yearn for the “good old days.” I think both Grapevine—and AA—are better today than they ever were, for we have begun to mature

R. H.

New York, New York