The Right Balance

It was our Monday night Step and Topic meeting. There was a group of newcomers, men from a nearby treatment center, so someone suggested Step One. One of the treatment center guys suggested “balance” as a topic.

The meeting started. The first three regulars volunteered and focused their shares on Step One and the need to find a bottom. Good solid shares.

Then the first treatment center visitor shared. He had suggested the ‘balance’ topic. He began, “I suggested balance because I don’t want to become an AA drone, where there is nothing in my life other than AA; where my only life is AA. I am going to need balance in my life.”

We were a small meeting, only 15. The meeting regulars who had not shared were taken aback; they sensed something was wrong with that share but were unsure how to deal with it. The silence, while the Secretary waited for someone to share, was pregnant.

Finally, an old-timer leaned forward and introduced himself, and said, “I am an alcoholic.”

“Balance …. that is the key; anyone focusing on the right balance is on the right track.”

Our treatment center guest preened with pride. He had hit the mark with his share.

The old-timer continued, “I pay attention to balance. I think of it like an old-fashioned scale hanging from a pivot with weights on either side.

“With that in mind, the right balance for me and booze, zero, all the weights are on the right side, and there is nothing on the left side. And for AA, the right balance is again way over to the right; it is the most important thing. Everything else is secondary. And over the years, I have found that the right balance for working with other alcoholics is the same, way over on the right, extreme involvement.

“Yeah, balance is critical. And for us as alcoholics, recovery is way over at the right.

“How I feel and look, and whether people think I am an AA drone; that issue is balanced way over to the left, towards the ‘who cares’ side of the scale. But it is all still a question of the right balance.

“Anyway, that is how I look at balance.”

I suspect that the next day in their group session, the counsellors at the treatment center got a report on rude and abusive old-timers.