Whenever I am in Thunder Bay, I try to make it to the Welcome Group in Westfort.
I suspect that Thunder Bay is not at the top of the list of places that you want to visit. So, if you are ever at the Welcome Group, you have probably taken a wrong turn, and have found yourself in Thunder Bay against your better judgement. But you are in luck because the Welcome Group is a great group of people.
One of the shares at the Welcome Group meeting was, “Normal is a setting on the dryer, not a way to measure life.”
We are promised sober living, not normal living. That distinction has avoided decades of discussion around the meaning of the word ‘normal.’ Normal is a community standard, sobriety is an individual standard. And this is key. It is part of our Third Tradition, the only requirement for membership is a subjective standard, and a big part of what keeps us together.
We talk a lot about “doing together that which we cannot do on our own.” And it is right and proper that we talk about that phrase. Our collective effort results in an individual victory. This paradox is one of many in the Program, starting with “what is weakness makes us strong” and ending with “through our defects we become closer to our Higher Power.”
But the end result is personal. One person at a time.
I have learned not to strive for normal; that is a mug’s game. Strive rather for maturity, sobriety and spiritual growth (excuse the redundancy.) That is the Program game. Normal is just a setting on the dryer.
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