Today, I’d like to talk to you a little bit about a word that a lot of people have misconceptions about, and I, for one, in the beginning, sort of rebelled when I heard this word. The word is called love. Now, when I first arrived at this program, and for many years while I was trying to grasp this program, I lived under the illusion that love was something that took place in a motel room or in the backseat of a car or was embracing in a passionate kiss or an act of sexual intercourse or something like that. So it sort of amazed me, or perhaps not amazed me, perhaps confused me, that you people openly admitted love for each other right in your groups. Now, of course, it should amaze me because I wasn’t fully aware of exactly what your kind of love was. Now, I don’t know about the women, but in general, I think most men assume that kind of an attitude when they see love being talked about or being demonstrated.

Uh, in my own case, and I think I’m an average guy, a lot of people, uh, believe it or not, have a fear, a certain kind of fear for love. Uh, love, uh, to many of us means sort of a, a possessive, uh, permanent thing, you know? Uh, I’m, I’m always scared, you know, and I don’t say this to be cute or funny. It’s like if somebody says, “I love you,” uh, I almost get a fear because that means they’re saying, “And I want to possess you, a-a-and I want to know everything that you do. I wanna be every place where you go,” and, and, and they wanna be together, uh, you know, as one. Now, maybe that is love in the opinions of others or to suffice some other kinds of definitions, but I don’t believe that that’s the kind of love that we talk about in AA.

Now, I took a moment just this morning to look up in the dictionary, uh, the definition of the word love, and, uh, one thing that surprised me right off the bat, there’s about a five-inch paragraph following the word love in the dictionary that lists very, very many assorted, and I said assorted, not sorted, uh, definitions of the word love. And I guess if you use a little bit of open-mindedness, you can accept all of those definitions of love. I didn’t find any confusion in their definitions as I do when I seek definitions of the word alcoholism. But the one that stuck out and the one that I think applies not only to me but to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is this definition. It said, “Love is a feeling of brotherhood and goodwill towards other people.” And that’s about what I think I understand as love. I’m not unique either in this statement.