My First Time Speaking

This week I spoke at a meeting for my first time ever. It was quite the nerve wrecking experience, I must say. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. My thinking was if I can make people laugh and cry I did a good job. The advice I was receiving from people was usually, “relax… breathe…. and let God do the rest.” I thought this was good advice, but the last time I relaxed and let God do the rest was during a college final that I didn’t study for… God left my scantron blank.

I got to the meeting 15 minutes early and took a seat where I would be speaking. As I sat there and watched people shuffle in, I had a realization… if I have kids that listen to Nickleback they will immediately be put up for adoption. The other realization that I had is that the major purpose of telling my story is to hopefully say something that will help someone else in his or her recovery.  I began speaking… nervous… arms sweaty… mom’s spaghetti. I started telling my story.

Even though the point of speaking was to give something of my story that will be useful for someone; however, I was still in my head. Typically, a few things comfort me when I speak: laughter (hopefully at funny parts and not the parts when I am talking about a dead relative), head nodding signifying someone is agreeing with what is being said, eye contact, etc. The first thing I noticed was the girl sleeping in the 2^nd row. That’s nice.  She probably listens to Nickleback anyways. I moved on. I remembered my goal is to try to send a good message.

Everything went well with my share and after people told me they connected and got something out of my story. This made it all worth it. One thing I noticed is that I didn’t speak my full truth and since I don’t really work such a strong program I didn’t have all the much great “wisdom” to share. This got me thinking about how I would like to be someone who can speak at a meeting and be able to help that newcomer in the corner who thinks he can’t do it. To me… that is worth it all.

Related posts:

• Study Shows Genetics Affect Severity of Addiction
• Caffeine Wonder Drug
• Studies in Sobriety