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this reading seems to be in conflict with the one a few days ago about letting go of the differences. the conflict, at least in my head comes from looking at the same issue from two different perspectives. what this reading is talking about is welcoming members to the group who share different life circumstances. on a personal level, i am a dead man if i let the difference of another members race, creed, economic or social level, separate me from what we have in common, our disease and our recovery. it is true that i may not be able to relate to someone who happened to born into a different socioeconomic class, after all what they had to go through to get to this point in their life is way different than my experience in coming from white-bred suburbia. what is the same is that both of us reached a level of desperation that caused us to seek out a new way of life. just because they work the program differently, or may have a different class of substances in a manner that i did not, does not discount their experience. it just may be what the newcomer who walks into our group tonight needs to find to stay clean. the broader our base, the higher our point of freedom!
so exactly what was the reading saying this morning? that we need to welcome all members regardless of superficial differences, because in the end we are all the same -- we suffer from a chronic, fatal, subtle disease whose progress can only be arrested by the program of recovery we share. i want to recover today, and the more diverse my group is, the better the chance that i will hear what i need to stay clean one more day!

∞ DT ∞