Note: Toro: New AA Sec. at Sally's!

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Love God, Stay Straight & Help Others!

My Companero Jose M. {aka Toro} has committed himself to being the new A.A. Secretary at the Salvation Army on Fridays at 7 PM. The above is a picture I took of him last night.

Toro and I have been good friends for some years now and we use to get drunk together back in the day. Those days are now over and it is good when we are together in our sobriety.

The last A.A. Secretary we had, Randy F., had yet another relapse that behooved him to resign as Secretary. Now he is doing well and we pray for his continued recovery and that we all take our recovery program seriously, especially because for manhy of us it is a matter of life or death.

The Secretary before him, Brother Julius W., had ‘mental health’ issues, which I think was a cover for his actually having a relapse and I have not heard from him at all. Relapses by brothers were ~past tense~ good examples for others are casualties of war.

Before Brother Julius there was a Brother Robert who was the Secretary for over a year or so. I have to check and see how he is doing. He eventually moved on to living at Quinn Cottages, but I have not seen him at our Friday A.A. Meetings.

We must all understand that we are dealing with a war situation in this drug war, as in a regular combat war, many die, get wounded, end up crippled and/or fall down into death. Nevertheless, we must keep fighting, keep struggling and never never give up!

In the context of progressive recovery, it is more than just mere sobriety, though sobriety is an essential gatewau for progress; it is also more than just continued recovery, though recovery is key; it is really all about us being truly liberated from our oppressive harmful addiction, the negative effects of addiction and the damage that our own character defects have wrecked upon us in our lives..

Every day I grow, change and develop. I am far far from perfect, but I am more mature more than ever. Better to learn too late than never to learn at all. And it is never too late for us to have the courage to change. Ajua!

c/s