The thing with that meeting I started out going to on Sundays is that it felt like everyone was doing the minimum they needed to do to stay sober. I mean, they all have more time than me by at least a handful of years, so what they’re doing is working for them. But it’s not the kind of sobriety that I want.

Everyone goes to a couple of meetings a week. Not everyone has a sponsor, and fewer people are sponsoring others. It didn’t seem like people were doing service work beyond what it takes to run the meeting. It’s just not what I want.

Passively staying sober by doing what I need to do for me feels like it would be missing out on the bigger picture of creating meaning for myself and value for others out of my experience.