Living Life on Life's Terms

Everyone should attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at some point in their lives.  What’s that you say?  You’re not an alcoholic?  You should still attend one!  There’s so much to learn!  I promise you’ll take something away from the meeting.  In fact, there’s a saying for that: “Take what you need and leave the rest.”

This saying is one of many that surrounded me during an internship I completed in order to become a Certified Drug and Alcohol Counselor over 15 years ago.  I understand it to mean, in settings where I don’t connect with or relate to everyone else’s experience, there might still be something from which I can learn.  Others include, “One day at a time,” “If you want what you’ve never had, you must do what you’ve never done.”  These little mantras taught me life lessons that extended far beyond learning about mind and mood altering substances.  And then I stumbled upon my personal favorite: “Live life on life’s terms.”  

To me, this saying is AA speak for “Be flexible.” If we have the ability to be less rigid, more like water than like ice, we have the ability to flow and not crack.  The value of being flexible might never serve us more than this strange time in history.  We followed the rules: we did the shelters-in-place, we wore the masks, we got the vaccines, we kept the distance from the people.  And yet, the terms of life told us that we could not pass Go.  Delta had something to say.  

We can kick and scream all we want.  But “Living life on life’s terms” reminds us that we’re not ultimately in charge of the Coronavirus’ grip on the planet. So instead we are given two choices.  We can believe that the Delta variant is a personal affront and try to “Live life on our own terms,” or we can “Accept the things we cannot change,” and flow like water.

If you’re interested in checking out an AA meeting, search for “open” meetings. Open meetings are open to people who do not identify as alcoholics, but are interested in learning more about the Twelve Steps.