Wherever two or more are gathered ...

Originally uploaded by Sarah .K
Tradition 3 in AA has within its contents a statement that wherever two or more are gathered for sobriety, it constitutes a meeting.

Yesterday morning, on the deck of a beach vacation rental for a friend's birthday, 2 of us gathered for the purposes of sobriety and abstinence. A combination OA/AA/Non-dual healing meeting.

It began with a simple gesture: I brought my Daily Reflections and Step books with me and wanted to begin the day making a commitment to having a sober day.  One woman at this birthday weekend, who is a member of OA, was sitting on the couch sipping her coffee. I tapped her gently on the shoulder, showed her the books, and without another word spoken she joined me on the deck.

Warm sun beaming on us both, we talked about how our journeys began on the path of recovery. Neither of us knew the other's story, so we began there. We talked about the key differences between alcohol and food abstinence. In a very light-hearted moment, my friend speaks about the "cool" factor of being a stone cold drunk versus the wimpiness of having a food addiction; jokingly, I remarked: "Well, having a bunch of muffins probably wouldn't have led me to promiscuously sleeping with gross men like booze did!" We both giggled. Getting more serious, she wondered if alcoholics looked down upon compulsive overeaters. On the contrary, was my response. An alcoholic can completely discard the bottle while the food addict has to actively, every meal, be "in relationship" with food in a healthy way. No easy feat !

There are also many more similarities, particularly the "disconnect of self" from others, from reality. We both "filled up" on our substances of choice, while mine was used to obliterate all that I was feeling and hers was to create some semblance of  feeling fullness which was actually perpetually empty. Both of us experienced numbing and checking out of life. We talked about branches on the Tree and their associations with our "isms" and functions our abusing substances served.

We closed our meeting by reading the passage in the Daily Reflections. Interestingly enough, it had to do with the willingness to have our character defects removed. I think we tossed a few up into the salty breezes and let them get carried out into the ocean that morning.

This woman with whom a meeting was formed had only been known to me prior as the birthday girl's oldest best friend. We met at numerous lesbian camping fests and then through our non-dual healing work. After our Sunday morning sharing of experience, strength and hope,  she quickly became a confidant and friend that I could claim independently of our mutual friend. I will treasure this intimate fellowship.