A Better, Fuller Life

Over the years, I’ve held a lot of service positions and learned so much in each one. For me, the rewards of service are many, including self-confidence, people skills, and friendships, not to mention the fact that honoring a service commitment has sometimes been the only thing that has kept me coming back. Recently, I’ve experienced unexpected perks from my service, especially as website manager for our intergroup.

My family is having a big reunion next year, and as chair of the reunion committee (I’m the eldest of the group!), I offered to make a website to keep everyone up to date. I’ve been having a blast developing it and adding picture pages for my parents and other ancestors and pages for each of my siblings and their kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.

Not only am I having great fun, but last week, I overheard my grandson bragging about how tech-savvy his grandmother is. Last night, my niece emailed to say how impressed she is with the website and my skill in creating it. In the past, young people made assumptions that I couldn’t possibly know anything about technology, so it’s been very enjoyable for me to surprise these kids with my tech skills.

Truthfully, if it weren’t for OA, I wouldn’t know half of the tech stuff I do. If my intergroup hadn’t needed website updates, I wouldn’t have learned anything about website building. I’ve also learned about emailing, conference calling, spreadsheets, word processing and other tech skills for OA service positions.

Today, I use these skills in many areas of my life. I’ll be setting up video meetings with family who live in other states‚ and I’ll have to teach them how to do it.

The reunion effort has been similar to working on region convention planning committees. It’s also a year-long process to create a fun and inspiring gathering for more than a hundred people, and I know how to do it because of OA service.

Working service positions is just like other Twelve Step work: it’s taking things one day a time; building new skill sets one shaky step at a time; and waking up one day to the realization that I’ve learned and grown in so many ways. I live a much better, fuller life for having been an active member of this Fellowship.

I recently celebrated twenty-four abstinent years, and I thank God for the graces I’ve received in OA. Keep coming back. It works if you work it, and you’re worth it!

— P.O.