The recovering community of South Florida was shocked at the tragic accident and sudden death of Joe Ayala a friend to many and an example to all of us in recovery. Those of us in recovery have learned to live our lives one day at a time and we all realized how fragile our sobriety can be. It is such  a tragedy that makes us aware of how fragile our lives are and how very important it is to do the best we can with what we have each day.

Joe understood this and practiced the principles of our program every day. He offered hope and love to all who knew him. As owner of Bridge Back to Life Joe offered a new start to hundreds of recovering alcoholics and addicts. He was the man who would take a chance on the street addicts, the ex-cons, the homeless and the destitute. He always had a good word and positive spiritual message for those who had lost hope.

I did not know Joe well but he was one of those people in the program that truly had the program. When he spoke at meetings my attention immediately increased. He always had valuable information to share. I remember meeting him for business and always feeling better from our time together. I would call and when Joe wasn’t there I would always get a positive, spiritual message on his answering machine. I would joke with him about that but I don’t think he ever knew that from time to time when I needed a lift I would call his number just to hear the positive message for the day. Joe lived in the solution and not in the problem, his life reflected this.

His passing leaves a tremendous void in our community but also leaves a tremendous legacy. He will always be with us in spirit and memory. Every time someone he helped helps another, every time someone shares something that he had shared, every time someone remembers his positive message of hope he will be with us.

{Since I wrote this piece I have been in contact with Joe’s wife Tina. Many people have asked her what they can do to help and she has given this a lot of thought. Tina is currently keeping The Bridge Back to Life running  while being a full time mom to her three children. She feels that what the men living there need more than anything is recovering people to talk to.

In order to lighten her own load a little she has decided to ask recovering men to volunteer to spend time in the evenings at The Bridge Back To Life.  Tina also would like to hear from Bridge Alumni. It would be great for men who have lived at The Bridge Back to Life to return to work with the new men there.

Tina has also decided to give The Bridge Back to Life a face lift. She plans to renovate interiors, paint and landscape the exterior and generally fix up the property. She hopes to accomplish this with volunteer help. This is a major undertaking and it is an opportunity for those of us in the construction trades to volunteer time and skill to a good cause. Tina would appreciate any donations of materials for this project and could use the help of any merchants willing to work on a wholesale basis.

In my home state of Pennsylvania it was common for the farm community to get together when someone had their barn burn down. They would have a barn raising and the community would be able to do in a day what it would take an individual months to accomplish. This spirit exists in our recovering community and it is time to come together.}

I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard the slogans “First Things First “ and “Easy Does It” over my years in the program. Much like the other slogans and repetitive phrases that we hear in the rooms  it is easy to take them for granted. It occurred to me this week that probably the biggest downfall for people in early recovery is not paying attention to these simple slogans. How often do we see people get clean and sober  and after a short period of time become so involved in trying to catch up or make up for the years lost to their addiction they begin to lose their focus on recovery. They forget that the first “first” in “first things first”  is their recovery program.

It is human nature to want to make everything  all right when we first get sober. We want all who love us to forget our behaviors of the past and accept our new life in sobriety. We want to repay the financial debts our addiction has caused and we will work long hours or several jobs to accomplish this end. If we stopped our formal education because of our addiction we want to hurry back to college. Pretty soon we are stretched way to thin and wonder why we feel overwhelmed and confused. We are definitely not practicing “Easy Does It”. Sometimes the only place we are applying this slogan is in how we work our program and we need much more than a half-hearted  approach to sobriety in order to remain sober.

I have often thought that if I was diagnosed with a terminal illness and told that the only way that I could put the disease in remission was to walk from here to California I would immediately start lacing up my hiking boots. No argument, no questions and no resistance. Yet when alcoholics and addicts are faced with the same proposition they quickly place obstacles in the recovery journey.

To truly place first things first our personal recovery must become our number one priority. It was explained to me that  I had to begin to think of myself in a new way. If I had a bad cold I was an alcoholic with a bad cold, if I was broke I was an alcoholic who was broke, if I was unemployed I was an alcoholic who was unemployed. By placing my condition first I would begin to realize that I needed to place my recovery first in my list of priorities. I have since learned that by doing this all my other so called “needs” or “problems” seem to take care of themselves if I do the foot work and rely on God’s help.

A friend with two years sobriety recently left a big job when he realized, in time, that the seventy hour work week was causing him to miss meetings and neglect his program. Good choice. Others I know continue to heap on the pressure and stress in order to somehow  make up for the  wasted time of the past. This can only lead back to the past they are trying to make up for. Why not spend the first eighteen months of your recovery devoted to building a strong foundation in a twelve step program? We beat ourselves up enough in our active days. Why not practice “First Things First” remembering always that the first

A recent phone call from the relative of a recovering person made me think about the tremendous scope of influence our twelve step program has achieved. I wonder if Dr. Bob and Bill could ever imagine the widespread acceptance of their twelve steps. They often referred to “the fellowship of the spirit” which included all members of the AA program. Now this fellowship has expanded to over one hundred organizations based on the twelve step model.

We have found that the steps can be applied to many addictions and behavioral problems with successful results. This makes all of us who use the steps as a basis of recovery members of this fellowship of the spirit. We share a common philosophy based on love and service to others. We contribute to the general goodness of the world in which we live. Although the direct result of our program is our individual recovery, we are part of a tremendous movement toward positive change in the world.

It is conservatively estimated that there are six million members of AA worldwide. If we add another five million people working other twelve step programs a conservative estimate of people actively working a twelve step program of recovery would be eleven million people. Experts suggest that every active alcoholic negatively effects ten people; usually family, friends and co-workers. It is logical to assume that when these people become involved in recovery that they now positively effect ten people. So we might say that the scope of influence of the twelve step program extends to over one hundred and ten million people.

One of my fondest memories in this wonderful program is the night I stood holding hands with 50,000 recovering people and their families in The Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada. On the field were the flags of one hundred and eighty countries in which AA has a presence. We all recited the Lord’s Prayer at the big meeting for the 50th Anniversary Convention of AA. I still get this feeling when I meet another member of the program inside or outside of the meeting rooms.

It is this common bond that provides the healing power that succeeds when all other temporary remedies fail. It is this program that makes us a part of the world rather than apart from the world. It is this fellowship of the spirit that allows a higher power to work through us to help others. It is this wonderful spiritual philosophy exppressed by us and observed by those in our lives, which cannot help but affect positive change in the world in which we live.