What do I understand by “the joy of service?” When I began attending meetings in 2008, I did not want to do any SA service. But on Saturday, August 5, 2018, my current sobriety date, I began to feel different. On Sunday, the very next day, a local group voted me in as its Intergroup Rep. Before that, I had only done things like putting out chairs, filling in as a back-up meeting secretary, making coffee, serving as a temporary sponsor etc.
This is Ameer, recovering sex drunk from Iraq. If I wanted to summarize the AA Big Book on the importance of service, it would be in one word: joy! I have been transformed from misery to joy by freely giving of myself to others. I have experienced the principle: “The measure we give is the measure we get back.” It’s true! I am now addicted to service (in a good way!). Joy in recovery is not limited to sobriety; it includes helping others and witnessing their recovery! For years I experienced the false joy, the emptiness of lust.
My experience of joy in service through making SA a better place for women includes how one individual, then a homegroup, then intergroup, and finally the SA international community made themselves better places by taking measures to more comfortably accommodate me, a woman.
A few years before I came to SA, I saw several therapists. I didn't realize it then, but I was looking for a “higher power” that would save me from myself, that would carry me. Being saved and carried was exactly what I tried to find in lust.
When I admitted powerlessness and unmanageability (Step One), I began Twelve-Step recovery. Within one week my spiritual awakening began as I could believe in the experience of others and feel hope. For me this was Step Two. Beginning to learn and live the Steps in my life (with some assistance from professionals) enlarged and deepened my spiritual awakening.
Every morning my alarm goes off at 5:30 am. I get up, put on clothes over my pajamas and go outside for a 30-min walk. This is where my morning ritual begins, supporting the SA program with another method. This method is about mindset (attention, dedication, focus and meditation), about breathing and cold therapy.
You are the mother I have always longed for Showering me with affection and overwhelming me with love You are the father I never thought I had Raising me into a man and leading me from above
In the April issue, read about the miracles that have happened in members’ lives since they started living according to our common sobriety definition.
Starting an SA meeting in prison is not an easy job, despite lust being a widespread problem. Although I had no experience with prison meetings to speak of, I did not let that get in the way. My own lusting experience and service had shown me how we can be uniquely useful to others.
The author of “Giving Time to My Family Is Service Too” describes how he had plenty of time to do SA service when he got sober in 2009 and was no longer filling up every spare minute with lust. He lists all the services he did in the first years of his recovery, services that are available for us to do too.
