Acting AS IF
In the beginning I was told to Fake It Till You Make It.
In a lot of ways it worked

and some time God may use me as a bad example.

Nothing wrong with faking it till ya make it. I have many friends with long term sobriety started out that way.

I used to think "fake it till you make it" was pure BS.

Now I think it is pure Karma.

Yes Greg, I'm sure I am also a bad example on occasion. I must be frank and say too, that at 10 years sober, I really do learn just as much from positive role models as I do from poor ones. I'm not saying "I'm the righteous chick who thinks she has it all together and can thus makes judgements about other people", although I do that too. But I mean that sometimes someone else's behaviours, words, actions will puncture through my consciousness to such an extent that I'll think, "That's not the type of behavious I aspire to". And conversely, I can also BUY In to that type of behaviour and participate in say, judgemental conversations aboout other people. But on balance, I try to seek out more mature, constructive people, as that is the behaviour which will make me a better person for myself and for how I interact with the world.

Do you know, 11 years ago I would have read the paragraph I just written and thought "What the hell are they on about????" So I guess that's positive change.

Wendy

In the immortal words of Mae West, "When I'm good, I'm very, very good. But when I'm bad, I'm terrific."

Too True!!

Wendy,

A true story. One summer about fifteen years ago, when an AA oldtimer of my acquaintance had then been sober for 25 years, he decided to cut his own firewood for the coming winter. Now there are always a lot of summer vacationers at our noontime meeting here in the Lakes Region of central New Hampshire. Big John would usually arrive ten minutes late, wearing a sweaty old T shirt with holes in it, jeans stained with chainsaw grease, wood chips in his beard and shoulder length hair-- in other words, looking like he had just rolled out of the woods only to refill his jug of moonshine.

He would then noisily pour himself a cup of coffee, grab a folding steel chair, drag it on two legs to the wall, rock back in it and stare despondently at that cup for the next 45 minutes, gingerly taking small sips from time to time. You could feel the combo of pity and indignation oozing out of the visitors, who couldn't imagine why we weren't paying more attention to this poor suffering soul, glancing over at him with kindly concern as they chanted the standard litany of advice to newcomers, and then glaring back at the rest of us with silent, tightlipped reproach.

Then, when there was only a minute or two left before closing, Big John would raise his hand and start telling a story, usually some hilarious episode from his former career as an addictions counselor in a psychiatric clinic. The crestfallen looks on the faces of those self-appointed Program Illuminati as he popped their balloons of righteous superiority always made it well worth our putting up with the charade one more time!

In more recent years, this same home group adopted a Welcome Wagon approach, showering each newcomer with pre-selected books and pamphlets, as well as passing a printed form around the room for us regulars to write down our phone numbers. Not one person who was greeted in this manner ever came back, and as soon as our old laissez-faire informality returned, we at once started to attract a lot of new members.

If there's a point here, it's that there's a huge difference between just being our good ol' selves and being a do-gooder. I think people are naturally attracted to the former, and justifiably suspicious of the latter.

Yes, I moved from Melbourne to a country town of 30,000 last year. Some of the people who come into our meetings are farmers or tradesmen, and some stratight from their work day, so they might have a similar appearance to the fellow you mentioned. I am lucky that I did cotton on quick to ignore appearance listen to what people had to say and listen to their generosity of spirit too.

Ironically, I was a professional in my career PR and Communications), which I lost two and a half years ago due to mental illness, which has swept away everything in my life. During that career, whether I was drinking alcoholically, or acting strange due to mental illness, I frocked up every day in my suits, hair done and makeup on - every day.

Now, I mostly scoot around in a tracksuit, no makeup, hair a bit frazzled. And if people make judgements about me based on my appearance, they would miss out on my life experiences and what I hope I have to offer AA and also the mental health circles I move in too.