We passed the basket as we do every day at our meeting. A man who I had not seen at the meeting before, came around to me as I was sitting next to the treasurer and handed me a coin as the treasurer was busy counting the paper dollars contributed. I looked at the coin. It was a dollar. A silver dollar. The date was 2012. That was my sobriety birthday year. I got the message immediately. It wasn’t a coincidence or an accident about the coin he handed me. It was the last coin I had used to buy a rock by a dealer on the street in San Francisco. My hard work and goodwill was coming back to be after I had lead a meeting twelve years later.
I looked at the date again. Here was a birthday coin with so much more power than a typical chip or medallion. I had to keep it. I handed a fifty to the treasurer and said this was a late contribution. I knew this silver dollar would soon be worth fifty dollars and that this talisman would be the beginning of a new life of abundance.
The message on every anniversary coin given to an alcoholic at every announcement of clean time rang true through my head as I put the coin in my pocket.
“To Thine Own Self Be True.”
The Dao of Doug: A Bus Driver's Perspective 