Akron, OH International Convention: July 11-13, 2008

What it was like. I enjoyed my first convention in the place where it all started. My cell phone’s background screen now has a picture of the gatehouse where Dr. Bob and Bill W. first met. When I open my phone, I say a prayer of thanks to God for the Twelve Steps. But the strangest thing happened for me that at first I thought was a tremendous inconvenience but turned out to be a beautiful blessing.

What happened. When we got to the airport on Sunday afternoon, we found out that our flight to Atlanta was cancelled. This was a first-time experience for me, and I felt very uncomfortable. One other SA from Georgia was with me, plus another SA from St. Louis who also had a connecting flight in Atlanta. So we left the airport, got a nice room with a kitchen and a couch, and went to eat dinner. That dinner conversation changed my path to recovery. The SA from St. Louis has over 10 years of sobriety, so the other SA from Georgia and I were intent on hearing every syllable he shared. To sum it up, he talked about Step Eleven, conscious contact with God. I realized afterward that I had not practiced this Step on a daily basis. Oh, sure, I said my Third Step and Seventh Step prayers, prayers for others, readings, meditation, etc. But it was feeling stale to me and I couldn’t figure out why. After dinner, we went back to the room and had an SA meeting right there in the room. It was a nice way to end the day and the weekend, and it made me realize that we can have an SA meeting anywhere at any time.

What it’s like now. To practice that conscious contact with God, I still say the Third and Seventh Step prayers and do the other stuff, but to improve my conscious contact with God, I pray for one person all day throughout the day. Whenever I am away from my desk at work, walking down the hallway, I am praying for that person. If I am driving, I am praying for that person. What it’s like now is the key word (for me) in Step Eleven: “improve.” If I am improving every day, I will not feel stale. That was what was missing before. I was not improving, so the result of that was I was not getting a daily spiritual experience as mentioned in Step Twelve. If I’m not improving, I’m deteriorating. God bless.