The "Get A Job Meeting"

It turns out that a possibly pejorative nickname for my morning meeting is the get a job meeting.  To be sure, a large fraction of the attendees are not employed.  If members stick around long enough, most of them do get a job—then they are busy working and can’t attend a 9:30 AM meeting.  So they do get a job and that is a good accurate nickname for the meeting.

Even when viewed from a more critical interpretation, those at the meeting are doing far better than how it used to be with drunk driving, lives of crime and heading towards a hard bottom of alcoholism and addiction.

One of our members got a job Wednesday and started working today.  I brought a congratulations card to the meeting and had attendees sign it.  Then I took the card to Crossroads Mall where they were working at the food court.  That was undoubtedly the first congratulations card they got from friends in a long long time—maybe 20 years.  I am sure he appreciated it.  I know I felt better for having been nice to another person by acknowledging their progress.  In July, he was looking at 8 months in jail for not paying a $70 fine. Now he has a job, that is a miraculous turnaround.

I am grateful to see the progress others make in getting their lives together thanks to the miracle of 12-step recovery.  It is good to be living in the solution and not still stuck in the problem.