An AA Christmas
Greed filled their minds and envy their hearts
Then someone said, "Time for the meeting to start!
Does anyone have a topic for discussion tonight?"
Every face in the place turned a wintry white!
They lost all self-seeking, self-pity and self-will
When down through the chimney came the ghost of St. Bill!
He chuckled and said as he sat himself down
"I love it when there's lots of newcomers around."
Then he looked through a Big Book and said with a tear,
"Wow! No one rewrote this after many a year!
Clean house, help your neighbor, be loving and kind,
And don't take the first drink - one day at a time.
"How could a message as simple as this
Be over-analyzed and intellectually dismissed?
Therein lies the reason this ghost has arrived:
to re-give a gift that has saved all your lives!"
Then he set up a big screen and a DVD
So every lost soul in the meeting could see.
He played a movie of drunks, at their best and their worst,
What is and what was, when blessed and when cursed.
There were scenes of a housewife passed out at a bar,
A respectable businessman wrecking his car,
A fight in a kitchen, a fight in bed,
A fight at a reception between newlyweds.
An empty bottle, a desperate man
Alone in a motel with a gun in his hands.
He puts down the gun and picks up the phone
And whimpers and blubbers, "Honey, let me come home."
She hangs up as she tells him, "Don't call anymore."
He reaches for the phone book and falls to the floor.
Somehow that phone book seems to capture his gaze:
It's open to a number under the A's.
Then all of the people in the movie converged
On the poor side of town in the basement of a church.
Driven together in a willing herd
To hear of hope and deliver the word.
The ghost of Bill W. turned off the TV
And said, "The first word of the first step is 'We'.
I suggest you start there and see where you go.
Be thorough and fearless, and please learn to let go!
"Let faith set the tone, let love make the mood
And as for a topic...how about gratitude?
Just don't drink, go to meetings and pray
And be glad you're alive and sober today.
"Be a good woman, be a good man
And be of service whenever you can.
Be a good mother, be a good dad
Be good to your kids, when they're good and they're bad.
"Be a good husband, be a good wife...
Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good life!