I am in the process of transferring old posts from “The Four Last Things,” a blog I ran until 2016 on ‘Death, Judgement, Heaven (& Purgatory) and Hell.’ This process of migrating was started quite some time ago, but for no reason aside from laziness and forgetfulness was never completed until today. By ‘completed,’ I mean the posts have been moved and mostly postdated, a few backdated. I ran across this one from August 7, 2013. I was going to backdate it, but figured hardly anyone will see it unless they explored the archives. So here it is, unedited:    

I attended an AA meeting today for the first time in who knows how long. I had intended to go to Confession, but I ran into the priest and he told me that it was cancelled for today. Some diocesan shindig. I knew the parish hosted an AA meeting at the same time and so I figured, “What the heck? I’ll check it out.”

The topic was death and acceptance.

I didn’t share as I’m usually reticent about doing so. Fear of speaking at AA meetings go ‘way back. I do when I can offer something. I should have today, but was nervous as I had never been to this meeting before.

What I would have said, had I bothered to was something like this:

“Taking death and acceptance, and putting it into our recovery, all I can say is that we’ve already died once. Our old practicing alcoholic selves died when we entered the program and achieved a lasting sobriety. We’ve been reborn, in a way, when we got that sobriety and learned a bit about the Steps.

I think the book “Daily Reflections” has a reading from (I think June) which says something about how we alcoholics are fortunate to have lived two lifetimes in one life. There’s the life we lived as drunks, and now our new one as sober alcoholics.

All we have to do is “keep our side of the street clean” against the eventuality of our own death.”

Not bad. But it was enough to conquer the fear of attending a meeting for the first time, much less expecting me to talk. What I said was hinted at anyway by some other speakers, so really no big deal.

Maybe next time.

NOTE: (26 October 2021.) Well, there never was a ‘next time.’ I went to a few more meetings, started regular meeting attendance in early 2014, but quit after a few months. I do online recovery instead. My sobriety is just as strong as it was when I regularly attended meetings. Which, come to think of it, was really only from 2001-2004! But this is me, if you need regular meetings, by all means…

Additional NOTE: This is a “retropost,” a post from an old blog I wrote on “The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven (& Purgatory) and Hell” that I shuttered a few years ago. Individual posts are being transferred to either In Exile or Sober Catholic, whichever seems appropriate. Some are backdated, others postdated, some edited, in case you’re confused as to why you never saw a particular post if you’re a diligent reader. The process should be completed by early 2022.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)