12SR: Answers in Strange Places: A Chance Encounter at the Peace Cafe

As I lingered in a café, a chance encounter with a stranger's laptop screen sparked memories of my own quest for serenity and sobriety. 

The episode delves into the empathy and misunderstandings among different seekers of tranquility, culminating in the realization that we're all essentially searching for the same sense of connection and inner peace.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

The other day I was in a cafe. I had about 45 minutes to kill before I had planned to go to the evening 12-step meeting and I didn't have much to do and I was just sat there and my attention was caught by a guy on another table who was a couple tables in front of me and he was on this laptop and I couldn't help but notice that he was looking at rehabs and he was looking at this website and I remember that the tagline said the most exclusive rehabilitation center in the world and it had all of these, you know, frills. I couldn't really see from a distance, but I had a. You know, I had a little moment with myself about it and you know I was thinking. I stopped believing in coincidences a long time ago and you know, in that moment I was thinking should I go and say something to him? Should I invite him, you know, with me to the meeting that I was heading to? You know, I didn't know what his problem was and what have you in? It also reminded me of something that happened in my really early recovery and again, it is a nice little story that I often, I often think about and it was nice to be reminded of, I used to go to a 12-step meeting in this place that was.

Speaker 1: 1:30

It was called the Peace Cafe and I think it was like a Buddhist or mindfulness based center and they allowed to have 12-step meeting hosted in there. There was two floors to the center and we had the meeting on the downstairs and at the same time that we had the meeting they held a meditation group upstairs which I believe was Buddhist or it was completely definitely not to do with recovery and sometimes when we would, we were in the meeting downstairs. Somebody would come into the meeting because they had arrived late, but they were actually looking for the meditation meeting and they would walk into the 12-step meeting and it was a book study so we would sit there with the literature and we would read it and it was an AA meeting that I was in and you would see these people kind of come in and you know initially they're really sorry that they're late and they sit down and you know we don't know if they're there, for we assume they're there, for you know the AA meeting. But sometimes you could tell the people that were coming in. You could tell that, oh no, no, no, they, they mean to be going upstairs. There's just something about them you could tell, and they would sit down and we'd give them the book and we'd all be reading it, and then I would watch them as they realized where they were, you know, and how they weren't where they thought they were, and it would be funny, you would sort of usually they would they would leave, right, they would kind of realize, oh no, I must be in the wrong place.

Speaker 1: 3:09

Somehow I've walked into an AA meeting when I mean to be in a meditation group and and they would leave and you would sort of see on their faces this kind of sense of, I guess, almost pity for the people that were in there. You know they had this sort of sympathy of kind of poor, poor, you guys. You know poor, poor drunks trying to trying to get sober, and you know that you could tell that there was this little bit of sort of awkwardness with them and and off they would go and I imagine they found the meditation meeting and and perhaps they they found what they were looking for there. And you know that that was what kind of dawned on me was it was for someone to seek out a meditation group and to go along. You know they're obviously looking for something.

Speaker 1: 4:09

What that thing is has been called many different things, you know. Some people call it God, some people call it enlightenment, some people call it just peace of mind or relaxation and that seeking of going to try and find it. And and then in they walk into this room where there's this group of people and from their perspective they're thinking, oh no, these, these kind of poor people, and they, they kind of leave. But the reality is that most of the people in that room have found the very thing that that person is looking for. They found that connection, they found that peace of mind, they found that relationship with a higher power.

Speaker 1: 5:04

And I always just it makes me laugh, you know I've touched upon it in some other tapes where when you're new and when you first arrive into these sort of 12-step groups, it really just looks as though you know nothing's happening and it doesn't look like a place of healing or it doesn't really appear to be possible that much change could come through those experiences and those meetings. And you know, the reality is that probably more of the people in those kind of rooms especially that you know I've gone through with the process and stuff have have really reached to those levels of freedom and peace of mind and relaxation that so many people are aspiring to, you know. But you have to have that sort of humility to accept that the answer is probably not going to be where you think it is. You know the the ego likes to think that if you're, if you're an alcoholic or a drug addict or something, that the answer is going to be in some fancy rehab, and the reality is that it probably won't be. And you know, the last place that you really expect to find it is is in these sort of strange little meetings.

Speaker 1: 6:33

But if you keep going to them you end up meeting the person who generally again looks not to have that much to offer you and you start engaging in a process that you don't really have much faith in and all of a sudden things start to happen and things start to change and it's such a sort of wonderful way of it happening. You know that it's. It always seems to come unexpectedly and there's a funny joke in 12-step groups where they say the best presents often come in shitty wrapping paper, and I think that is to be really true. So just wanted to share that story that you know the answers that you're looking for, usually not in the places that you think they will be, and often in they're in the places that you don't want to look. So that's enough for today. Hope you enjoyed this story, as always. If you do, please share it or rate the show and helps other people to find it. Have a good day, unless you've got other plans you.