and now, without (much) further ado.

So I am speaking tonight at my first speaker meeting in sixteen or seventeen years (after a fourteen year relapse, and nineteen months of sobriety). It is one of those big birthday speaker meetings with cake and stuff.

No one there knows my story. Some people know parts of it, because it is at my home group. It is a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and we honor the primary purpose of A.A. to the best of our abilities in a meeting where probably 95% of the people who attend are people like myself who were addicted to things other than alcohol, but who found the spiritual solution to our problems through A.A.  It is a very young, very hetero, very Baptist meeting (I am none of those things).

I really have no idea what I am going to say. I have been looking for answers everywhere—prayer, my sponsor, my inner circle, the big book, the internet. Turning it over to God seems lazy and sort of contradictory—it feels like asking God to do my homework for me (or just not doing my homework and “putting my grade in God’s hands”).

I’m a decent public speaker. But I know that tonight I’m being asked to bring my A game. Families and friends are travelling in from out of town for the birthday celebrants.

I’ve been sorting through anecdotes in my head (Too funny? Too sad? Too revealing? Too off-topic?). I haven’t been rehearsing in my head, but I also don’t want to ramble for 45 minutes in a stream of meaningless non sequiturs. Really, I just want to be of maximum service.

I found an old post on Mr. SponsorPants’ blog that has helped provide some clarity for me:  Sharing x [(ego) + (fear)] = performance art

It doesn’t tell me what I should share, but it does tell me what I shouldn’t (or more precisely, why I shouldn’t). Like some other people I know, I have fully mature insecurities about acceptance, and truly juvenile needs to be applauded and loved—Look at me! But only when I want you to look at me, and only with a look that I can perceive as loving and supportive!

So I’m going to share my truth tonight—I hope it is the right truth, and at the right time, and that it helps someone. And if I don’t, at least there will be cake.