During this morning’s AA meeting, today’s topic guided me into writing this article. What came to mind didn’t have anything to do with the reading, but sometimes, that’s the way my mind works. It has a way of getting me to think in ways that helps me understand complicated issues. My Zodiac sign is Pisces, since I began this life in March; my thinking differs from most. We are a very visual group. Just reading the words doesn’t convey the message. I need to visualize or see a story attached to the idea, and then I can understand. It was like that today.

During the meeting, while others were speaking and I should have been listening, I pictured the navigation application on my cell phone called Waze. It’s a free program that gets me where I want to go. I think most of us have one of these applications. My mind compares that app to the program of recovery. First of all it is something outside of me that’s designed to help me navigate to a destination, and it’s free. The AA program does that.

Waze shows me where I am starting from, and how long it will take to reach my destination. Along the road, it shows me where the hidden obstacles are, such as ruts in the road, where the police are hiding, broken down vehicles, and even where the best restaurants, or in my case, ice cream shops are located. A good AA sponsor will tell me where the pitfalls are as I go along my recovery road. My sponsor knows because he’s experienced many of them or is aware of someone who has. As I travel toward the goal, Waze shows me where to turn and the distance to the next rest stop. My sponsor has often told me, “Don’t do that.” Sometimes, I listen; while others I need to experience it myself and endure the pain. Waze also allows me to turn off the path and navigate myself. It may tell me to make a U-turn, or it will direct me through some neighborhoods that I shouldn’t be in, but eventually, it will suggest a route that will put me back on the best road.

My sponsor is usually right all the time, so if I want the easier, softer way, I must listen to him. Waze will also show the road in red, meaning the traffic is heavy or stopped. Through others’ experiences, the program again shows me the easier, softer way. I can wait in line with others or take the alternant road which is suggested. It may take longer, but I will arrive safer.

It’s up to me to pay attention to what others are saying and especially seek advice from my sponsor when I embark on a journey where I have no experience. I still, after three decades of practicing this stuff, go off on my own to learn a new lesson which usually has emotional or financial pain attached to it. You have a choice: choose the least painful road or like many before you have done, suffer.