A HALF SOUR PICKLE, A DIGRESSION
The world is white and the laconic tone of Madeleine Peyroux’s 'La vie en rose' croons me on this cold and silent morning. As I sit in the 'platfonds bas' of my regular morning church and I begin to settle down to the Monday meeting my mind wanders to the earlier beginning of the day. And I was somewhat taken aback when, running a bit late for my morning appointment with the rooms, I stepped out into and onto a freezing fluffy firmament, I was once again astonished by the weather. Why it should have affected me so is a mystery to me. After all, what could I have possibly been thinking of when I viewed those fluff flake iconographs on my I Phone’s weather app? Washing detergent?
Or maybe it was the complete contrast between yesterday and today, all crystal blue and bright, a perfect day to go condiment hunting tracking down the source of the perfect wild sour pickle, tomato and sauerkraut. Or another excuse to go into a sleepy New York City on a Sunday morning and roust my daughter, tempting her sour palate with the joys of sour and half sour pickles and such that she loves. (Not me of course). And although she is just a few miles from that hallowed ground, it requires prodding from the likes of me to get her to replenish her stores. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I am paying either, (not that such sour delicacies come at a high price. Such ambrosia is plenty cheap enough.)
But the truth of the matter is that the vinegary vindication for this lower east side excursion was to soak up some of the long overdue nostalgia of the place.
I had re-read a letter to a 'removed' cousin of mine in which I described as best as I understood, our relationship to one another and that led to a description of the family and its attachments to some iconic places in Jewish lore , beginning in the Galicia of Poland and ending in New York’s Lower East Side. A history that bridged two centennial celebrations, two world wars and the Great Depression.
Hence, the need to have me land my feet once again on Hester Street not just to visit Guss Pickles, but to stop by the long forgotten dry goods shop between Orchard and Essex Streets on the north side of Hester, where my grandfather’s last name was still embedded in the mosaic tile on the store stoop.
And did memories swirl back; to bare light bulbs, tin-pressed ceilings, creaky warped wooden floors and musty shop smells with huge bolts of fine woolen material stacked high on either side of the middle aisle. As a kid I thought those bolts rose to a height of at least fifty feet although adult inspection proved that it could not have been more than fifteen.
But to my surprise, but not my displeasure, Guss wasn’t there. Revisiting memories of a grandfather who took me to concerts, would surreptitiously feed me bacon (he called it chicory because bacon was verboten in my Kosher home) or made me 'san-a-viches' which he said in his inimitable eastern European Jewish accent), brought a noisy smile to my face.
So on a bright sunny brisk Sunday, on a hunt for the wild pickle, one cannot be put off by so trivial a matter that Guss had move to Borough Park across the East River. And having located the new lair of condimental comestibles, I hiked myself off to Brooklyn to retrieve quarts of the acidic loot. Although there is an AA saying of 'once a pickle, never again a cucumber', this sort of downplays the elegance of the former too much while over-extolling the virtues of the latter. Frankly, I’m a pickle lover, admirer, courtier. Whereas at best I tolerate a cucumber and at worst, I detest them.
(So I guess this really means I am a true alcoholic! Well, sigh, never mind.)
Which is all a circuitous way of returning to these pale, white mornings, and this one in particular for which I was evidently unprepared, as was, apparently, the rest of Norwalk and lower Fairfield County. The streets empty, unplowed, quiet, traffic unchallenging and me unchallenged by any other pilgrims wandering in the white-out.
So when I did pull into the church parking lot, I was somewhat astonished (although experience has shown me that among my co-practitioners this should not be the case), to find at least eight cars already parked and more pulling in. And by the time the 'Beginners Meeting' began more than 25 hardy but regular souls had shown up ready to do battle with their personal demons today, just this one today, one day at a time.
And the best thing that I can say on a snow day is that the world may appear to stop. On these days the world goes quiet. And for me and my kind that’s a good thing.
Because this quiets those restless spirits that haunt our souls. These are days that we cherish together sharing these quiet moments before we take on that world; that world which you call Life.
© res 2/21/11
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
WHERE OUR RESPONSIBILITY LAYS
WHERE OUR RESPONSIBILITY LAYS
I am not at all happy about it, but it happened again. But I was prepared, at least in the back of my mind I was. When RJ.. voiced his troubled announcement about someone having gone out once again and admitting that he feared the only thing he had to look forward to was that person’s funeral, it was pretty shocking at first, since I wasn't sure initially who he was referring to.
But as I re-scanned the room, JB's absence was apparent even though he had been sitting across from me just yesterday. And I could have scoured my mind for the all the reasons he might have gone out again, and all the possible things I could have done had I been aware of the immediate danger, but when all is said and done I realized that I am not and was not responsible for JB's sobriety.
And in fact, I had told him just that last week upon his latest return to the 'fold'. That direct talk that I had referred to in a previous essay was what I had initiated the day he returned. It was mostly an effort to save myself but also to let him know where the boundaries of behavior and expectations were, both for him and for those around him. He needed to know that there were those immediately around him who cared for him deeply and who would help him as much as they could.
But, once again, I had to emphasize that he was responsible for his own sobriety. We could not do it for him. We were responsible for our own sobrieties and frankly we would be remiss if we did not attend to that first above any obligation he might think we had to him, regardless of promises made and all good intentions offered.
Friendship is a pact, as is one's commitment to AA. Abrogation of that pact brings on the severing of the obligations and promises that went with those friendships to the extent that they endanger the requirement of self preservation.
I was very explicit and sympathetic and blunt. But I was kind and JB… readily admitted that whatever the reason for his going out, (which I said was not my concern, only his recommitment to his return was,) he wasn't going to be judged but he could not expect to bring anyone along that road with him. Additionally, he could not expect people not be disappointed in him and, he could not expect to finesse us.
You cannot lie to us, you cannot 'bend" the truth'. We are all master truth benders in this program, or in the vernacular, ' you can't bullshit a bullshitter'. We are going to be your harshest critics, your most disappointed friends and your most ardent supporters when you decide to return.
We cannot block your return to AA but most importantly, we will not block your return and if you once again say you want to not drink, one day at a time, we will once again try to show you the way we did it.
But you cannot bring us down. And you cannot take us with you.
© res 2/18/11
I am not at all happy about it, but it happened again. But I was prepared, at least in the back of my mind I was. When RJ.. voiced his troubled announcement about someone having gone out once again and admitting that he feared the only thing he had to look forward to was that person’s funeral, it was pretty shocking at first, since I wasn't sure initially who he was referring to.
But as I re-scanned the room, JB's absence was apparent even though he had been sitting across from me just yesterday. And I could have scoured my mind for the all the reasons he might have gone out again, and all the possible things I could have done had I been aware of the immediate danger, but when all is said and done I realized that I am not and was not responsible for JB's sobriety.
And in fact, I had told him just that last week upon his latest return to the 'fold'. That direct talk that I had referred to in a previous essay was what I had initiated the day he returned. It was mostly an effort to save myself but also to let him know where the boundaries of behavior and expectations were, both for him and for those around him. He needed to know that there were those immediately around him who cared for him deeply and who would help him as much as they could.
But, once again, I had to emphasize that he was responsible for his own sobriety. We could not do it for him. We were responsible for our own sobrieties and frankly we would be remiss if we did not attend to that first above any obligation he might think we had to him, regardless of promises made and all good intentions offered.
Friendship is a pact, as is one's commitment to AA. Abrogation of that pact brings on the severing of the obligations and promises that went with those friendships to the extent that they endanger the requirement of self preservation.
I was very explicit and sympathetic and blunt. But I was kind and JB… readily admitted that whatever the reason for his going out, (which I said was not my concern, only his recommitment to his return was,) he wasn't going to be judged but he could not expect to bring anyone along that road with him. Additionally, he could not expect people not be disappointed in him and, he could not expect to finesse us.
You cannot lie to us, you cannot 'bend" the truth'. We are all master truth benders in this program, or in the vernacular, ' you can't bullshit a bullshitter'. We are going to be your harshest critics, your most disappointed friends and your most ardent supporters when you decide to return.
We cannot block your return to AA but most importantly, we will not block your return and if you once again say you want to not drink, one day at a time, we will once again try to show you the way we did it.
But you cannot bring us down. And you cannot take us with you.
© res 2/18/11
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
Step four, ‘making a searching and fearless moral inventory,’ was the topic of our step meeting today of our rather ragtag group on a similarly wearying drizzly day.
As we went around the room to share the importance of preparing ourselves to be rigorously honest in attacking the fundamentals of our personality defects and vigorously scrupulous in scrubbing our respective consciences, it became clear to me that there was a pall hanging over the proceedings.
Jack suggested that if one hadn't been careful to do an honest fourth step, complete or not, then success in the program was unlikely. He went on the say that there was always room and time to repeat the step because life was an unending revisitation of your moral failings and staightenings of crooked paths taken. It was, in fact, just the beginning of that guide for living meant to last a lifetime. Incompleteness to start was to be expected and opportunities to repair and mend were always present. But to fail to do a fourth step or to attend to it properly was to invite failure in the program.
After many other shares I was getting pretty antsy because of the large hole in the conversation of what had not been said, and that was, how does one get to doing step four? Of course, you have to do steps one, two and three. Joe, another twenty-six year survivor of the rooms, declares that just walking into the rooms demonstrates a desire to accept steps one and two, that you realize that you are powerless over alcohol and your life has become unmanageable. Having come into the rooms you have admitted that a power greater than yourself, even if you only believe that power is only the power of the people in the rooms, can help restore you to sanity. However,if you haven't even walked into the rooms then these two steps remain unaddressed, at least as far as AA is concerned.
Further,our Methuselah goes on to assume that step three 'Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we understood Him' is further manifest by having walked into the rooms for the first time even if one's understanding of God is the AA group itself or the proverbial and oft joked about doorknob on the front door.
But I was having trouble with this on this particular morning because J... had just gone out for the second time in as many weeks. And I recalled for the group how I had done my first three steps and presumably fourth step many years ago and fifth step and more and maintained a sobriety that I believe was only maintained by coming to meetings every day. And the adage 'don't drink and go to meetings' as the routinely stated admonition to ward off the bogey man of the drink to maintain sobriety, is only so many words if the hard work of steps four through ten are not seriously undertaken. For I am here to say that just not drinking and going to meetings is an insufficient way to stay sober. It may keep you from getting drunk but it won't keep you sober. As it did not for me when after two years I chose, as we always do for reasons only we know, to go out and then my sobriety was gone.
Sobriety is a state of mind, not a chemical state. Abstinence is only the first of many required acts.
So once again I asked how do you really get to step four, how do you really get someone to want to not drink and be sober? THAT IS WANT TO BE SOBER? Of course the answer is simply the not so simple answer that you cannot make someone want to be sober. You cannot make someone not want to drink...they have to come to it themselves. You can try to be there to help that person try to be sober, try to want to be sober, try to help him stay sober. But you cannot make him sober.
And you cannot risk your sobriety in order to do that. And that is why I brought this up at the meeting today. I was frightened. Frightened for my sobriety, my mental stability, my mood and ultimately my happiness.
I realized that when I walked into the meeting this morning, had J... been there, I would have had to pull him aside and let him know in no uncertain terms that he would have to want to be a sober person. He already knew what I and others thought he needed to do to start down that road; and what he steadfastly had rejected because of personal fears, chimeras and demons.
I would have had to say that his reasons may have been fine and good for him. But not on my time,not with my emotional investment,not with my emotional capital. I had put in as much as I had been willing to risk, but I could not,for my own health and sanity,risk anymore.
If he wanted to regain the support that I had offered he would have to demonstrate his willingness to do the hard work.
And I said this to the group and one by one they assented not only by nodding but by other shares, that revealed similar frustrations and fears that despite their greater sober time than mine, they were just as wary of getting any closer to J... who had not yet demonstrated the willingness to get to step four.
But it really doesn't make me feel any better to acknowledge that AA is for those who want sobriety not for those who need sobriety. Particularly when you have developed a close relationship with a fellow sufferer. But this serves as a dire reminder of how brittle and tenuous is our hold on sobriety and success in this program. We don't want to fail others for many reasons but particularly because we see in them our weaker selves. And the guilt that wracks us is, had we not been the recipients of the generosity and kindness of the strangers who helped us, where would we be now?
© res 2/8/11
Step four, ‘making a searching and fearless moral inventory,’ was the topic of our step meeting today of our rather ragtag group on a similarly wearying drizzly day.
As we went around the room to share the importance of preparing ourselves to be rigorously honest in attacking the fundamentals of our personality defects and vigorously scrupulous in scrubbing our respective consciences, it became clear to me that there was a pall hanging over the proceedings.
Jack suggested that if one hadn't been careful to do an honest fourth step, complete or not, then success in the program was unlikely. He went on the say that there was always room and time to repeat the step because life was an unending revisitation of your moral failings and staightenings of crooked paths taken. It was, in fact, just the beginning of that guide for living meant to last a lifetime. Incompleteness to start was to be expected and opportunities to repair and mend were always present. But to fail to do a fourth step or to attend to it properly was to invite failure in the program.
After many other shares I was getting pretty antsy because of the large hole in the conversation of what had not been said, and that was, how does one get to doing step four? Of course, you have to do steps one, two and three. Joe, another twenty-six year survivor of the rooms, declares that just walking into the rooms demonstrates a desire to accept steps one and two, that you realize that you are powerless over alcohol and your life has become unmanageable. Having come into the rooms you have admitted that a power greater than yourself, even if you only believe that power is only the power of the people in the rooms, can help restore you to sanity. However,if you haven't even walked into the rooms then these two steps remain unaddressed, at least as far as AA is concerned.
Further,our Methuselah goes on to assume that step three 'Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we understood Him' is further manifest by having walked into the rooms for the first time even if one's understanding of God is the AA group itself or the proverbial and oft joked about doorknob on the front door.
But I was having trouble with this on this particular morning because J... had just gone out for the second time in as many weeks. And I recalled for the group how I had done my first three steps and presumably fourth step many years ago and fifth step and more and maintained a sobriety that I believe was only maintained by coming to meetings every day. And the adage 'don't drink and go to meetings' as the routinely stated admonition to ward off the bogey man of the drink to maintain sobriety, is only so many words if the hard work of steps four through ten are not seriously undertaken. For I am here to say that just not drinking and going to meetings is an insufficient way to stay sober. It may keep you from getting drunk but it won't keep you sober. As it did not for me when after two years I chose, as we always do for reasons only we know, to go out and then my sobriety was gone.
Sobriety is a state of mind, not a chemical state. Abstinence is only the first of many required acts.
So once again I asked how do you really get to step four, how do you really get someone to want to not drink and be sober? THAT IS WANT TO BE SOBER? Of course the answer is simply the not so simple answer that you cannot make someone want to be sober. You cannot make someone not want to drink...they have to come to it themselves. You can try to be there to help that person try to be sober, try to want to be sober, try to help him stay sober. But you cannot make him sober.
And you cannot risk your sobriety in order to do that. And that is why I brought this up at the meeting today. I was frightened. Frightened for my sobriety, my mental stability, my mood and ultimately my happiness.
I realized that when I walked into the meeting this morning, had J... been there, I would have had to pull him aside and let him know in no uncertain terms that he would have to want to be a sober person. He already knew what I and others thought he needed to do to start down that road; and what he steadfastly had rejected because of personal fears, chimeras and demons.
I would have had to say that his reasons may have been fine and good for him. But not on my time,not with my emotional investment,not with my emotional capital. I had put in as much as I had been willing to risk, but I could not,for my own health and sanity,risk anymore.
If he wanted to regain the support that I had offered he would have to demonstrate his willingness to do the hard work.
And I said this to the group and one by one they assented not only by nodding but by other shares, that revealed similar frustrations and fears that despite their greater sober time than mine, they were just as wary of getting any closer to J... who had not yet demonstrated the willingness to get to step four.
But it really doesn't make me feel any better to acknowledge that AA is for those who want sobriety not for those who need sobriety. Particularly when you have developed a close relationship with a fellow sufferer. But this serves as a dire reminder of how brittle and tenuous is our hold on sobriety and success in this program. We don't want to fail others for many reasons but particularly because we see in them our weaker selves. And the guilt that wracks us is, had we not been the recipients of the generosity and kindness of the strangers who helped us, where would we be now?
© res 2/8/11
Monday, February 7, 2011
THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION
THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION
'You're only as sick as your secrets.' We hear that practically every day in the rooms.
What secret was J... harboring when, despite all the warnings of his friends that he only treat his cough with over-the-counter medications, he deliberately went to a doctor and got narcotic medication? And then on top of that decided to have plenty of vodka to wash that down! We have within us either the seeds of our own salvation or destruction. Deep down we always know what we are doing even while we act out in despair and desperation, often in the hope that someone or some agency will, in that overwhelming feeling of desperation, pluck us out of our misery and place us in some more tenable nirvana.
This magical thinking that got us to where we are in the first place drives us to desperate solutions in the second place which is, not infrequently, the ultimate place. It is this thinking that gives us delusions of hope as hope’s solution. It drives us to attempt doleful solutions, solutions which inevitably become the problems instead of solutions for living. And then instead of learning to live in the solution we start to die in the problem.
Muddied, globular thinking, dripping into viscous puddles of confusions, running off in molasses rivulets.
The problem both J... and we all face is the duel dilemma of living with our problems and just living per se. Life asks so much of us and in our special case we cannot drink because of that, because to do so will not permit us cogent thought. And cogent thought brings on the realization that if we are to live, we must first do without; do without comfortable lodging perhaps, without some luxuries, and live with maybe some unsavory characters, but characters who have a better flavor than others and who do not hold us emotionally hostage to any personal past.
So if we find ourselves having to live with another alcoholic who is active, we know that is anathema. We cannot and will not remain sober in such a situation. And to pretend that this is by any stretch of the imagination reasonable is folly to the nth degree. We cannot say that we have no alternative, that we are at the mercy of someone for our room and board, and that is why we must stay with that person.
What point is there in subjecting ourselves to that kind of daily assault if the inevitable end will be that we wind up where we started in the first place; drunk and in the deepest despair? Each time we return from going out, our recovery finds us a bit weaker than the last time and each time we having fewer resources to return to with an ever narrowing circle of supports and friends. And who of them will then be willing to place their own sobriety on the guillotine of risk for us?
Sometimes, most times, we think we are just talking, arguing with ourselves. It's like that Alka Seltza commercial in which the man is arguing with his stomach about all the wrongs his stomach has committed against him as if he weren't the problem in the first instance. We don't want to face ourselves in the mirror and have a real discussion with ourselves; instead we choose constructs, stand-ins to talk with, virtual stomachs as it were.
We blame our woes on the symptom pain not on the source of that pain, which in the case of alcoholics is ourselves. We continually miss our Pogo moment. And unless we find it we will be searching all over the battle field for the enemy until the war is lost for good.
© res 2/7/11
'You're only as sick as your secrets.' We hear that practically every day in the rooms.
What secret was J... harboring when, despite all the warnings of his friends that he only treat his cough with over-the-counter medications, he deliberately went to a doctor and got narcotic medication? And then on top of that decided to have plenty of vodka to wash that down! We have within us either the seeds of our own salvation or destruction. Deep down we always know what we are doing even while we act out in despair and desperation, often in the hope that someone or some agency will, in that overwhelming feeling of desperation, pluck us out of our misery and place us in some more tenable nirvana.
This magical thinking that got us to where we are in the first place drives us to desperate solutions in the second place which is, not infrequently, the ultimate place. It is this thinking that gives us delusions of hope as hope’s solution. It drives us to attempt doleful solutions, solutions which inevitably become the problems instead of solutions for living. And then instead of learning to live in the solution we start to die in the problem.
Muddied, globular thinking, dripping into viscous puddles of confusions, running off in molasses rivulets.
The problem both J... and we all face is the duel dilemma of living with our problems and just living per se. Life asks so much of us and in our special case we cannot drink because of that, because to do so will not permit us cogent thought. And cogent thought brings on the realization that if we are to live, we must first do without; do without comfortable lodging perhaps, without some luxuries, and live with maybe some unsavory characters, but characters who have a better flavor than others and who do not hold us emotionally hostage to any personal past.
So if we find ourselves having to live with another alcoholic who is active, we know that is anathema. We cannot and will not remain sober in such a situation. And to pretend that this is by any stretch of the imagination reasonable is folly to the nth degree. We cannot say that we have no alternative, that we are at the mercy of someone for our room and board, and that is why we must stay with that person.
What point is there in subjecting ourselves to that kind of daily assault if the inevitable end will be that we wind up where we started in the first place; drunk and in the deepest despair? Each time we return from going out, our recovery finds us a bit weaker than the last time and each time we having fewer resources to return to with an ever narrowing circle of supports and friends. And who of them will then be willing to place their own sobriety on the guillotine of risk for us?
Sometimes, most times, we think we are just talking, arguing with ourselves. It's like that Alka Seltza commercial in which the man is arguing with his stomach about all the wrongs his stomach has committed against him as if he weren't the problem in the first instance. We don't want to face ourselves in the mirror and have a real discussion with ourselves; instead we choose constructs, stand-ins to talk with, virtual stomachs as it were.
We blame our woes on the symptom pain not on the source of that pain, which in the case of alcoholics is ourselves. We continually miss our Pogo moment. And unless we find it we will be searching all over the battle field for the enemy until the war is lost for good.
© res 2/7/11
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
ICE STORM
ICE STORM
As I try to approach my car I catch a glint on the dull ice and glean the treacherousness of the enterprise that I am intending to embark upon. It looks much more foreboding than I had anticipated. I had just finished my shower when I heard the brrriiing of my phone which indicates a text message and at this early hour that is usually a request for transportation to an AA meeting.
And it is A.. who has called having exhausted his normal avenues of transport on this winter ice squall morning. He says that his usual ride has failed in his attempt to get out of his driveway and his sponsor has not even challenged his exit strategy so in either desperation or some hope in the knowledge that I do not usually let any weather stop me from getting to a meeting, he called me. And ordinarily I would be flattered except that I am running late and I am anticipating a bit of time to get out of my driveway with this ice out there. So as I hastily go out to start the car I note this evil sheen on the ground which gives me pause to stop me in my most Lewis and Clark enthusiasm.
That first step causes my right leg to demonstrate the tectonic plate theory by an attempt to separate my legs from my torso. The result is a right gracilis strain which is only bad when you realize that we normally call that a groin injury and I fear that I will be walking or rather hobbling around for the next week holding my crotch.
I felt like a down fluffed cartoon sail skating across a parking lot in a Talley-ho! posture awaiting the inevitable crash at the end of the line. Wiley Coyote in mufflers and gloves!
And when I finally hit the driver’s door and clung to the handle for dear life I could hear the laughing clucking of this flightless bird going 'beep beep' in my ear.
That's when I decided that for the second time this winter, I would not tempt fate and allow myself to miss the meeting in full knowledge that tonight I will be leading another at H B Hospital if I can survive the day. So having given it the old AA try I decided to live another day in order to live another day.
This got me to thinking just why and perhaps how it was that I was able to attend so many meetings regardless of the weather, my health, my mood and a host of other variables which during the rest of my life have certainly held me to a less constant life style than I have lived during this past year. I cannot attribute this to jaw gritting determination because I am no more that kind of a person now than I was a year ago.
Yet, there is a determination there, but it is less involved with just the self than with the complicated relationships that I have formed between me, my friends in AA, my daily needs and my obligations to all of those individually and collectively . When I show up every day I make a pact with myself to do something RELIGIOUSLY.
I don't do anything religiously. I don't pray or meditate or even read anything regularly; but the one thing I do daily is come to a meeting. And not just any meeting but the same meeting each week each day, predictably week in week out. If it is Tuesday, you know where I am at 7:30AM. That is just a promise to myself and to anyone in the program who needs to know that.
In a way, that is my service to the program and to any other drunk who needs to know that. On Wed at 7:30 AM I will be at the Saug Congregational Church Early Bird Meeting of AA, IF YOU NEED ME OR IF YOU WANT TO SEE ME. Because I was never that reliable before and now I am because I can be and I want to be and perhaps I need to be. I only now realize the importance of that statement and how its evolution has become something most important for my sobriety.
It is like my commitment of taking on the chairing of the meeting at H B Hospital on Wednesday nights. If you want to know where I will be on Wednesday nights, I will be running a meeting of AA at HB Hospital's clinical inpatient ward because that is what I do.
I have never been able to say this kind of thing in my entire life. Except for my job commitments you would never have been able to know where I would be at any time or place. I just never wanted you to know. I wanted to be invisible. That was part of the persona of who I was. When I drank, I wanted to wash away fears, not face them; wash away anxiety, troubles and woes, all the things that add depth, color and dimension to life. I wanted to have a monochromatic, mono dimensional life so that I never had to dig below the surface.
So you never needed to know where I was going to be because what you saw today was what you would see tomorrow and what I was yesterday; a never changing monochromatic, mono tonal one note Samba. Even less interesting than a Jobim construction.
So I am waiting for a bit of a temperature rise to occur before challenging the ice again. A bit of surface water to add to the surface friction so that some purchase can be gained on the ice to get into the car.
I just want to be able to stand there and allow people to notice, not whizz by without making a mark. No 'beep beeps' of joyous triumph or warning to get out of the way. Just an acknowledgment that 'if you need me or want me I'll be at this place at this time. Just show up. We can go for breakfast after the meeting'.
© res 2/2/2011
As I try to approach my car I catch a glint on the dull ice and glean the treacherousness of the enterprise that I am intending to embark upon. It looks much more foreboding than I had anticipated. I had just finished my shower when I heard the brrriiing of my phone which indicates a text message and at this early hour that is usually a request for transportation to an AA meeting.
And it is A.. who has called having exhausted his normal avenues of transport on this winter ice squall morning. He says that his usual ride has failed in his attempt to get out of his driveway and his sponsor has not even challenged his exit strategy so in either desperation or some hope in the knowledge that I do not usually let any weather stop me from getting to a meeting, he called me. And ordinarily I would be flattered except that I am running late and I am anticipating a bit of time to get out of my driveway with this ice out there. So as I hastily go out to start the car I note this evil sheen on the ground which gives me pause to stop me in my most Lewis and Clark enthusiasm.
That first step causes my right leg to demonstrate the tectonic plate theory by an attempt to separate my legs from my torso. The result is a right gracilis strain which is only bad when you realize that we normally call that a groin injury and I fear that I will be walking or rather hobbling around for the next week holding my crotch.
I felt like a down fluffed cartoon sail skating across a parking lot in a Talley-ho! posture awaiting the inevitable crash at the end of the line. Wiley Coyote in mufflers and gloves!
And when I finally hit the driver’s door and clung to the handle for dear life I could hear the laughing clucking of this flightless bird going 'beep beep' in my ear.
That's when I decided that for the second time this winter, I would not tempt fate and allow myself to miss the meeting in full knowledge that tonight I will be leading another at H B Hospital if I can survive the day. So having given it the old AA try I decided to live another day in order to live another day.
This got me to thinking just why and perhaps how it was that I was able to attend so many meetings regardless of the weather, my health, my mood and a host of other variables which during the rest of my life have certainly held me to a less constant life style than I have lived during this past year. I cannot attribute this to jaw gritting determination because I am no more that kind of a person now than I was a year ago.
Yet, there is a determination there, but it is less involved with just the self than with the complicated relationships that I have formed between me, my friends in AA, my daily needs and my obligations to all of those individually and collectively . When I show up every day I make a pact with myself to do something RELIGIOUSLY.
I don't do anything religiously. I don't pray or meditate or even read anything regularly; but the one thing I do daily is come to a meeting. And not just any meeting but the same meeting each week each day, predictably week in week out. If it is Tuesday, you know where I am at 7:30AM. That is just a promise to myself and to anyone in the program who needs to know that.
In a way, that is my service to the program and to any other drunk who needs to know that. On Wed at 7:30 AM I will be at the Saug Congregational Church Early Bird Meeting of AA, IF YOU NEED ME OR IF YOU WANT TO SEE ME. Because I was never that reliable before and now I am because I can be and I want to be and perhaps I need to be. I only now realize the importance of that statement and how its evolution has become something most important for my sobriety.
It is like my commitment of taking on the chairing of the meeting at H B Hospital on Wednesday nights. If you want to know where I will be on Wednesday nights, I will be running a meeting of AA at HB Hospital's clinical inpatient ward because that is what I do.
I have never been able to say this kind of thing in my entire life. Except for my job commitments you would never have been able to know where I would be at any time or place. I just never wanted you to know. I wanted to be invisible. That was part of the persona of who I was. When I drank, I wanted to wash away fears, not face them; wash away anxiety, troubles and woes, all the things that add depth, color and dimension to life. I wanted to have a monochromatic, mono dimensional life so that I never had to dig below the surface.
So you never needed to know where I was going to be because what you saw today was what you would see tomorrow and what I was yesterday; a never changing monochromatic, mono tonal one note Samba. Even less interesting than a Jobim construction.
So I am waiting for a bit of a temperature rise to occur before challenging the ice again. A bit of surface water to add to the surface friction so that some purchase can be gained on the ice to get into the car.
I just want to be able to stand there and allow people to notice, not whizz by without making a mark. No 'beep beeps' of joyous triumph or warning to get out of the way. Just an acknowledgment that 'if you need me or want me I'll be at this place at this time. Just show up. We can go for breakfast after the meeting'.
© res 2/2/2011
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