I was riding with other members, to different AA meetings, all throughout the local area.
However, with my “Striving for independence attitude,” I wanted to get to a meeting on my own, independently.
I lived in a small town called Walworth, which had a hardware store, a gas station, and two churches.
I then called my sponsor in AA to seek his advice on this matter of me being able to walk to a meeting independently.
I asked him, “Fred, is there an AA meeting in Walworth?”
After looking at his AA meeting list, he said, “No.”
When I asked him if someone could start one in Walworth, so that I could walk to it, back and forth, he replied, “Why don’t you start one yourself?”
My response was immediate. “Are you kidding me? I am blind and a nobody”.
My low self-esteem said that last part.
The last thing on my mine was for me to start a meeting.
As I was going to meetings with others, repeatedly, I kept asking Fred about having a Walworth meeting.
I finally said, “OK, how do I start a meeting?”, as I wanted so badly to be able to walk to it on my own.
He then informed me what I had to do. The first thing was for me to go down to the church, to ask if our AA Group could rent a room once a week.
I agreed to do this, but I was very afraid.
I had little vision at all. I walked over to the church, then I walked up a few steps, and I heard an organ playing inside, so I knew that someone was in there.
I knocked at the door with no response. Therefore, I tried the door handle and opened it.
Keep in mind that I look like a monster with my damaged eyes.
I walked in, I did not see the second door, which was already open, and as I walked forward, I tripped on the threshold and fell on the floor.
The woman that was playing the organ stopped when she heard me and walked towards me, I then stood back up. I looked at her and said, “Hi, my name is Dan, and I am an alcoholic.”
I tell this story in front of AA groups, and I tell them that this is why we have our AA meetings in the other church. It usually brings a roar of laughter.
I then made an appointment with an assistant pastor of the other church, and all went well there.
I was able to type up all the paperwork for the meeting, as I typed it from the cassette recordings of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, into the word processor.
I was also able to print out all the readings for the meeting on our printer.
I had my brother Bill take me to buy a thirty-cup coffee pot, with cups, sugar, and cream, and then I asked the people in AA to spread the word about the new meeting.
Then we had our first AA meeting at the Baptist church in Walworth on April 13, 1984, called “Walworth Attending.”
It was so rewarding for me to be able to walk back and forth to this meeting, and it was so huge in my recovery from alcoholism, as I did every kind of service work affiliated with AA at this meeting.
A common saying in AA is, 95% of people who do service work stay sober.
It did not matter to me what the weather was, as I only had to walk three blocks to get there. There were times that I used an umbrella, and there were other times I had to slide down a snowbank, but it was worth it to me.
At this time, I had about one and a half years of sobriety under my belt. Every Tuesday evening, I attended the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in our small town of Walworth. I chose this group as my home group, for I can attend the meeting independently. Especially, being physically blind.
I would be there early to make sure that the meeting had coffee ready, and I would help set up the tables and chairs. This is an especially important setting, as it helped save my life and contributed to my recovery from our dreaded disease.
There is another reason I had for the importance of this walk. I had another sponsor. His name was George. He was very encouraging to me, and he helped me with this concept of power, “greater than myself.” He even invited me to church with him, but I did not want to go.
The time in our home, with the friction between Ann and myself, finally prompted me to say, “Yes, I will,” to George.
After having this time in AA, I must have been ready, as God touched my heart that day while standing in front of the pew.
I was very grateful to George, for being persistent, as that had helped change my life for the better.
Then George gave me a cassette tape, of a Gospel singer named, Keith Green. I enjoyed listening to it repeatedly, but one song shined brightly to me. The name of the song is, “I make my life a prayer”.
This song matched what I was feeling in my heart to the newfound God, in which was just introduced to me. In a way, this song gave me a sense of freedom, away from the dysfunctional turmoil of my alcoholism.
Therefore, on my way, back and forth, to the Tuesday meetings, I would sing this song on my “Independence” walks. I would like to share some of the words of this song, to let anyone who is reading it, to know, what it has done for me.
I want to thank you now,
For being patient with me
Cause it’s so hard to see,
When my eyes are on me
I want to die and let you give
Your life to me, so I might live
To share the hope, you gave to me
I want to share the love that set me free
I now try my best, to live by these words, but at the same time, I allow myself to be human.
I have made my mistakes, and I still do, but as our instructions in the readings state, “We claim spiritual progress, rather than spiritual perfection.”
To simplify, there are two things I need to know about God, “That there is one, and it is not me”.
Therefore, as the third step states, “Made a decision, to turn our will and our lives, over to the care of God, as we understood him”, and now, I knew I had one.
After the Walworth meeting had started, I acquired prosthesis for my eye sockets, so I no longer looked like a monster.
I am so grateful to the man who made them. His name is Jim. Most people do not know that I am blind by looking at me, and many people tell me that my eyes are beautiful.
From time to time, I would help pass out the readings for selected members to read such as, "How It Works," "12 Steps," and other readings.
I had done about every job at my home group except to be able to read the material passed out at the start of the meeting.
Therefore, having the "Big Book" on tape, I got my tape player out, placed it in the middle of chapter five of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. I set it next to our typewriter and started listening, repeatedly to the twelve steps as I typed them out.
I figured that this would be the best way to memorize these twelve steps.
At this time, I had plenty of practice, but I had not had the opportunity to read them at a meeting yet. So, the next time someone would ask me, as a joke, to red, one of the readings, I could say, "Sure, give me the 12 steps, and I'll read them."
After the first time reading them, I began to read them every Tuesday.
My friend Sherry was sitting across from me, next to a newcomer, who did not know me at all. Her name was Linda.
She asked Sherry a question about me, and then Sherry told her, “He’s blind you know.”
She said, “No, he is not, I just saw him read the twelve steps.”
Linda did not believe Sherry, because I really do not look blind, and besides that, I was holding the paper, acting as if I was reading it.
After the meeting was over, she approached me and said, “Excuse me, but are you blind?”
I said, “As a matter of fact, I am.”
Linda and I became good friends after that.