Bill was first attracted to Ebby by what he saw when he answered the door in their Brooklyn house.
“The door opened and he stood there, fresh-skinned and glowing. There was something about his eyes. He was inexplicably different. What had happened?”
Bill’s first reaction was one of attraction.
Is AA attractive today? Are we fresh-skinned and glowing? Are we dressed well and looking sharp? Are we cleaned up and attractive? Would Bill find us attractive?
Old timers get dressed for meetings and show up looking good. They look like they are succeeding, look like they are winning, look like they are spiritually developing. They know the importance of attraction and creating a winning impression.
There can be a danger here; old timers can start thinking that they always have to ‘present well.’ No matter what they feel or problems they are having, they put on a game face for the meetings. But that gets old after a while. Internally exhausted by the duplicitous game they are playing by hiding their pain, they stop coming to meetings. The slide to separation from the Program has begun.
The smart old timers have a sponsor and keep in touch with that sponsor. If they have problems, then the sponsor hears about it first. They sort things out privately, not publicly at the meetings. You can always tell the people who don’t have sponsors, they use the meetings as a sponsor, sharing all kinds of stuff that would properly be brought to a sponsor.
The wise old timers know that in weakness is strength. Even after sorting problems out with a sponsor, old timers that talk about difficulties at meetings, they share about the problems calmly and discuss and share the solutions. These shares are lighthouses for newcomers. A beacon of credibility. Sharing problems and solutions enhances the credibility of all that the old timer says because the newbie knows that he is prepared to talk about problems, so if he is not talking about problems then things are running well. Second, it shows that the old timer is within reach, the newbie can identify. Third, it highlights the fact that our Program and our way of life is a long game. Fourth, expressing problems in the right way makes the old timer attractive, human. Someone you can identify with and someone you can trust.
The old timer is attractive.
We have to be attractive. Look fresh-skinned and glowing, have that something about your eyes, be inexplicably different. We have to be attractive to the suffering alcoholic, in the rooms or on the street. We want them to ask, when they look at us, “what has happened?”
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