Wine and Forgiveness

Do you remember the ads for Paul Masson Wines back in the 1970s?  They featured Orson Welles uttering the then famous catch-phrase, We will sell no wine before its time.  Since Paul Masson was a mass market product featuring wines sold in flip-top decanters … and often cited as an alcoholic’s cheap wine of choice … the ad was considered low humor by serious wine drinkers.  In addition, numerous outtakes of the Welles commercials with Orson apparently three-sheets-to-the-wind have surface on YouTube, adding to the humor.  Orson was dumped by Paul Masson after admitting on a talk show that he never drank the stuff.

The Top of the List

If you ever find yourself working the 12 Steps, you will eventually be making a list of persons you have harmed in order to begin to become willing to make amends to them all.  If you are anything like I am, you’ll find the list making easy and the notion of becoming willing a bit abstract.  You’ll end up with a long list of people that you’ll review with a friend or sponsor and likely discover that you never actually harmed some of the people on your list, so you get to cross them off.  Whew.  But there will still be plenty left … some, you could make amends to tomorrow … some, perhaps never.  If you have a good friend or sponsor, he’ll tell  you, Put yourself at The Top of the List.   You’ll say, Oh, sure, maybe even writing your name on the page, but you’ll go back to worrying about those other people on your list.