Happy New Year Mandi. Thank you 
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Happy New Year! 
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I read the selection and your post on the same day someone from my home group was talking about the Al-Anon speaker Mary Pearl T. Googled her, and listened to some old talks on my run. She’s funny, and captures some of the antics we can get caught up in before we find our New Employer. You might have a laugh, too! Glad we don’t live like that anymore.
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Today we finish the chapter Working With Others
(Ignore the partial top line, the page was apparently too short to copy starting at the next line)
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I can say, this part of the book has come true for me too. At first, I had to avoid my typical pastimes and the people and places I did them with. I had no spiritual foundation or solid sober legs under me. I had to change me first.
I didn’t work this program my first 2 years sober. I thought I could do without it. The night I realized I was isolated & still screwing my life up up, I got sick of my own shit and admitted I had no idea what I was doing, so I prayed. I asked anyone who was listening to show me the way, because I clearly didn’t know it. And in a succession of divine interventioning acts, the very next morning I was brought to AA. I surrendered and went all in with a sponsor that day.
Within working my recovery, I became spiritually fit. I’ve changed SO much about myself that I don’t need to hide from the world. Do I go to my old bar or parties with my friends? Nope. I don’t have a good enough reason to be there. But I do go places where there’s alcohol from time to time-if I have a legitimate and honest reason for going. I run it by my sponsor, I tell other alcholics I am going and may need to reach out and I make sure I can leave quickly if I need to.
I also have alcohol in my house because my partner is a “normie”. I couldn’t have done this successfully if I didn’t have this program, my spiritual connection and if I don’t keep working with both of them on a daily basis. I have zero interest-I see it just like food I’m allergic to. It’s another poision I don’t remotely want.
This program gave me life. I don’t want my old life back, but I don’t need to run from it or reject it either. I can love my friends that still drink. I can sit with my grandmother while she has an alcoholic beverage. I can have my partner drink his one beer and I can still enjoy his company and let him be him without trying to change any of it.
That said, do I still keep some distance between myself and those who just aren’t aligned with who I am now? Sure. I love them, but I also don’t want to play on that old rickety playground regularly, just waiting for it to break on me. I found a solid and stable foundation for the first time ever in my life and I’d rather hang out where I know I’m supported most often. 
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Thank you so much for sharing this Mandi. It is hugely helpful …. and encouraging of what is possible. 
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I don’t worry about going where there is alcohol or other substance use either: they are inert to me as long as I am doing whatever it takes to stay in a fit spiritual condition. I am in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. What a gift.
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The Plain Language Big Book version of this chapter, titled To Partners/Wives is much more tolerable for me. I belong to a men’s PLBB study group, we took our time with this chapter. In my home group, we skip this one altogether, due to its heavy straight male “traditional” role model fictional point of view. It really rankles the feminists in our group, a majority of us. But the PLBB version is quite well rewritten to focus on the damage to relationships that we as alcoholics have wrought.
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Thanks for the reminder – I’ve been meaning to check out the new PLBB. I’ve never even seen one! I sometimes like to listen to the earlier editions read by Howard L. on podcast. The stories are a peek into the past, but still so identifiable!
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