Also titled, "Why Doesn't God Want Me To Go To a Second AA Meeting?"

I've been tossing around the idea of going to AA... I went to one meeting about 8 or 9 months ago, and never went back. Nothing wrong with AA, mostly it was me, my social anxiety, I couldn't handle the one or two people who followed me out as I hastily retreated to my car, and they were thrusting phone numbers and friendship at me... Couldn't handle it.

Plus, I don't smoke, So I don't have that... connection... everyone standing outside, smokin' and jawin'... I can't just HANG... I hate that part, the before and the after part of ANYTHING, I can't just hang and BS...

Mortifying.

But yesterday, I just felt like, what the hell, let's try it again. I'm curious about AA. I'm ready to do the steps, I think, I want that experience. I'm not struggling any more, not with alcohol, Thanks GOD!... but I want to move forward in total Recovery, I want the whole package... and I want to talk about it. With people. I want to learn. And I want to be heard. And I'm not hiding anymore, I don't care who knows I have an issue with alcohol, I just don't, I'm addressing the issue, I'm doing the work, I've actually moved to a place of PRIDE, !!!, about it. I've come a long way, and I can go further.

So I got on the website, jotted down a couple meetings that looked good to me, in particular I liked "Sisters of Sobriety", all women, closed,discussion, I thought I'd start there. I left the house, looking like some sort of baglady, I had been cleaning the garage all day, wearing a purple printed skirt, an orange bathing suit top instead of a bra, a teal sequined tank top, and a white over-shirt with ripped sleeves (the elastic at the elbows was making me CRAZY, so I just grabbed each sleeve and pulled, RRRRRRIPPPP. It ripped the material. The elastic held tight. Maddening!). I was also wearing flip flops, and my dirty hair was piled on top of my head in a sort of rooster-lookin thing... I guess I just felt like I had a costume on, I was incognito, sorta, it gave me a little extra confidence...

I drove to the church, parked in the back, and huddled behind my steering wheel, hoping no one would notice me..

There were two ladies in the parking lot, one changing a baby?!? she had splayed across the trunk of the car, and the other lady a little older, wearing a wig and fussing after diapers and wipies...

A baby at an AA meeting?

Not so much. It was a wedding friggin rehearsal. I was at the church the wrong night! Turns out the nice lady in the wig, she was being treated for breast cancer, she announced, and told me where and when and how she'd had her breasts removed and where she goes for treatment, Godblessherheart, say a prayer.. and her son, who is the one getting marriied, and who drives her to New york to get her treatment, he's also a friend of Bill, so she called him to find out where was my meeting... oh it got very involved, because we had to go inside and ask the pastor, who ALSO was a friend of Bill, about the meeting... He gives me a meeting list, dated 2007!!! So I'm standing there, in my baglady costume, in the midst of this wedding rehearsal party, talking to an alcoholic preacher with questionable information, and women and children are POURING IN for the rehearsal, there were babies everywhere and little girls in sundresses and people all scrubbed up for a happy occasion, I was surrounded by their happiness and excitement and their BABIES, we're in this tiny hallway in the back of the church, no one could move, there was a three-baby pile-up at the door.... sigh... awkward...

So I took the Preacher's dated list, thanked my new friends and family, wiggled out through the babies, and headed across town to the Drug and Alcohol unit, ANOTHER wrong night, wrong time!

So I said, Hey God, I really did try. I'm going home now. I'm gonna try this again tomorrow, ok? And I will. Tonite there's an open speaker meeting at 830. I have aaaall day to put together my costume...