Fulfilling a BUCKET LIST …

I’ve been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for almost 24 years and I’m still amazed at the way peoples lives are transformed with the aid of this group. Here’s just one small example of how that works:

A little over a year ago we welcomed a new girl into our midst. She is in her early 50’s and married to a highly ranked Army officer. She had struggled to get sober and wanted to stay that way but was also facing the fact that, as his wife, she would be expected to hostess many social occasions and, of course, most of these occasions would include alcohol. It scared her to death.

In AA one of the first things we recommend is that the newcomer get a sponsor … one who will walk them through the program and who will stick by their side through thick and thin. This girl was sure that she wouldn’t find anyone who could relate to her particular situation. However, she attended an AA meeting where one of the participants was a woman in her 70‘s who is the widow of a prominent Naval officer. She and her husband had spent many years in Washington, DC and she was very aware of the pressures of that lifestyle so sponsor and sponsee clicked immediately.

About three months after they paired up our new girl’s husband was to be honored at a ceremony in DC and then sent overseas. It was just the sort of situation that would have petrified her before, but she asked her sponsor to accompany her for support and she said “yes”. That was all she needed to get through the event but that’s not the end of the story.

In the months before, while these two were getting to know each other, the sponsor had shared that, after her husband died, she’d made a bucket list of places she wanted to visit but she’d given up on the idea since she could no longer drive long distances. So, when the trip to Washington came up they decided to not just go there, but to keep going.

And that’s what they did !

They headed North, checking off the items on her bucket list as they went. It took them nearly two weeks and they were just beaming when they came home. The list was gone from the bucket but it wasn’t empty … it was overflowing with memories that will last them both for a lifetime.