She delivered the news rather matter of factly. When she had gotten sober eight years ago she and her beau had had a hard relationship; hard drinking, hard sex, hard loving and hard knocks.
But she felt that had she not sobered up she would have gradually plunged down the hole of despair, desperate drinking and debauchery, she dragging him down and him returning the favor, pounding down drinks, drugs; using hard and living hard and fast.
So she cleaned up her act eight years ago and never looked back. And every now and then she would try to bring him along, each time tentatively testing the waters and then scurrying away as if bringing the sober word to him were the bogey man of his life.
Eight years passed. Last Friday she invited him to dinner and she made another cautious attempt to bring him into the fold and at last he seemed to finally get it and made a promise to try ever so hard to approach a sober life. Today would be the day.
She went home with some nervous trepidation but hopeful at the possible breakthrough until she heard the message on the answer machine. He had thought it over and he could not see himself honestly in sobriety and was sorry that he could not breach the rift of those years of pain.
And this morning she received a phone call that he was dead.
Just like that. Dead. The rift was too great the Stygian waters too swift and deep. What he was saying was that it was too late for him, for salvation and he was checking out.
She told us this so matter of factly because death, of late in the rooms has become rather matter of fact. But life for her and the rest of us requires these precious daily reminders to keep us coming back; reminders that it takes no time at all for death to claim us - only the time it takes to go out to dinner.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Slips, Inevitablity or Part of the Growth?
It is Labor Day here in the United States and if the typical course of events is to play out today, there will be much celebration, family and friend get-togethers and the usual holiday libations. If memory serves well those festivities will tend towards the over zealous and more inebriated and therefore are to be avoided or stood apart from by those of us in AA. And of course this morning's AA meeting, which was attended by at least sixty bright eyed drunks focused on the perils of holidays and the dangers of "slips".
The meeting was a beginners meeting and there were many in their first week of sobriety, some recently returned from 'experimenting' after periods of sobriety ("maybe I can have just one drink"), and others just joining the fellowship in order to achieve a modicum of peace in their lives trying to pick themselves up from the wreckage of some former existence. And the moderator turned the discussion to the topic of trying to avoid slips because, (and he quoted another AA from a few days before, "a drink isn't just a slip, it is a disaster"). And Emit shot his hand up to tell his story how he had after two sober years found himself romancing a drink in the most peculiar set of circumstances.
Emit had been two years sober, tidied up a previously codependent relationship, steadied his financial footing and generally regained years of whittling away of his physical and social life till he was well on the way to recovering a new life. So when he went on a date he felt he had his sobriety under control. She offered some wine and he felt he had this whole thing under control and would be able to take a glass of wine.
Two days later in jail, having committed a crime in a blackout, his fiscal and social equanimity in a shambles he now learned that he cannot trust himself with one glass of wine. Because, he now knows that that led to 4 liters of vodka, blackouts, violent behavior and the lock up.
There are those who maintain that slips are not a requirement for growth in the program and others who warn that there is no guarantee that if you go out you will ever come back in. My experience has led me to believe that for myself, I could not convince myself of the severity of my disease until I "slipped" once, twice, three times, each time the recovery being more difficult, each time the fall even farther, each time hitting bottom even harder. But for me, and for most others sobriety does not come without a spiritual awakening and until that point sobriety only means not drinking and that is just being a dry drunk.
Until I began to see that I needed to cleanse my soul, to look into the center of my being, sobriety meant and would mean very little to and for me. Until this last time when I saw the reason for being sober. Actually I did not "see" any reason at all but rather "felt" the need for sobriety... the "need" to live. And until that happened, I would have never appreciated or understood life without a drink.
So as to whether slipping is the 'organic' way that one achieves sobriety, there are many who will attest to the fact that it is not a requirement.But for those lost souls like myself, if we are lucky enough to find our will and need to live before alcoholism claims us, then slips probably are an organic and inevitable part of the cycle of recovery.
Because one can try to adopt the steps with all one's heart, but actually believing them to the point where you can save yourself is where the promise of AA meets that desperate hope for life.
The meeting was a beginners meeting and there were many in their first week of sobriety, some recently returned from 'experimenting' after periods of sobriety ("maybe I can have just one drink"), and others just joining the fellowship in order to achieve a modicum of peace in their lives trying to pick themselves up from the wreckage of some former existence. And the moderator turned the discussion to the topic of trying to avoid slips because, (and he quoted another AA from a few days before, "a drink isn't just a slip, it is a disaster"). And Emit shot his hand up to tell his story how he had after two sober years found himself romancing a drink in the most peculiar set of circumstances.
Emit had been two years sober, tidied up a previously codependent relationship, steadied his financial footing and generally regained years of whittling away of his physical and social life till he was well on the way to recovering a new life. So when he went on a date he felt he had his sobriety under control. She offered some wine and he felt he had this whole thing under control and would be able to take a glass of wine.
Two days later in jail, having committed a crime in a blackout, his fiscal and social equanimity in a shambles he now learned that he cannot trust himself with one glass of wine. Because, he now knows that that led to 4 liters of vodka, blackouts, violent behavior and the lock up.
There are those who maintain that slips are not a requirement for growth in the program and others who warn that there is no guarantee that if you go out you will ever come back in. My experience has led me to believe that for myself, I could not convince myself of the severity of my disease until I "slipped" once, twice, three times, each time the recovery being more difficult, each time the fall even farther, each time hitting bottom even harder. But for me, and for most others sobriety does not come without a spiritual awakening and until that point sobriety only means not drinking and that is just being a dry drunk.
Until I began to see that I needed to cleanse my soul, to look into the center of my being, sobriety meant and would mean very little to and for me. Until this last time when I saw the reason for being sober. Actually I did not "see" any reason at all but rather "felt" the need for sobriety... the "need" to live. And until that happened, I would have never appreciated or understood life without a drink.
So as to whether slipping is the 'organic' way that one achieves sobriety, there are many who will attest to the fact that it is not a requirement.But for those lost souls like myself, if we are lucky enough to find our will and need to live before alcoholism claims us, then slips probably are an organic and inevitable part of the cycle of recovery.
Because one can try to adopt the steps with all one's heart, but actually believing them to the point where you can save yourself is where the promise of AA meets that desperate hope for life.
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