KEEPING THE DOGS AT BAY or Finding Salvation at Thirty Thousand Feet

KEEPING THE DOGS AT BAY
Or
Finding Salvation at Thirty Thousand Feet

We were talking about how we try to manage the temptations to drink. What do we do when we can’t avoid people places and things that are around alcohol? In my many recovery incarnations I have been diligent in avoiding weddings, dinners and other convivial occasions and I realize now that I did that with good reason. My sobriety was on anything but a solid footing. I knew at that time that these occasions were opportunities in waiting just to disappoint both myself and my family. They were challenges that I did not need.

So I missed weddings in California and Florida and I almost missed my nephew’s in Cleveland and so countless family get-togethers for fear of drinking. And at those I did attend, my behavior was anything but sober. I know that these were trying events during my two year “dry spell”; and I was anything but sober and the only reason for my sobriety at that time was that I went to meetings and stayed away from a drink one day at a time. But it was such an effort! Daily cravings, thoughts that I could actually drink again at some future time plagued me, and each event where I was around liquor became more challenging than the previous; until going to daily meetings did not keep me away from a drink anymore.

So what hadn’t I done? I hadn’t read the big book, I hadn’t truly gotten beyond step two. I never sought the counsel of my sponsor and even though I took him with me to a meeting nearly every day, I probably kept him sober more than he kept me. But my lack of sobriety was not his fault. I chose not to use him nor the tools of the program.

And did I really see myself as a spiritual individual? Did I truly understand and examine my character defects? Did I “take a searching and fearless moral inventory” and take responsibility for my peculiar predicament in terms of my poor job and career situation? Well without having done a fourth step that would have to be a no. And in the absence of a successful step four how could I seek out the help of a higher power, how could I surrender all of my character defects to God?

In other words, was I being scrupulously honest in the problem of self to self and to the spirit of the rooms and the groups? And the answer to that was a resounding NO!

So when I hear others in the rooms who after one or two years of solid sobriety fall into periods of challenged sobriety, I have to stop and listen to that story. And that is for many reasons, not the least of which is to avoid overindulgence in confidence in my own sobriety, and why I should not get too cocky about it. For it has been sixteen months since I had even the slightest twinge of desire for a drink and that is surely a miracle.

I have been to jazz clubs, traveled airplanes, been to restaurants and at many reunions without the smallest twitch of desire for alcohol. And whereas that is great for me, when I hear some veterans in the program speak of strong temptations to drink and the circumstances in which they occurred, I sit up and take notice.

In particular, I always get a kick out of Tom’s airplane tale which he repeats often but only because it is instructive and he needs to employ the technique over and over again on business flights. As he tells it, early in his sobriety Tom was on a transcontinental flight to San Francisco and as he settled into his first class seat, the flight attendant immediately started to serve drinks ( which in first class are “free”) and when she arrived at his seat she asked what he would like to drink.

And Tom actually considered this question over in his mind! Really! This is how our thinking goes – just weeks out of rehab. And he is saying to himself one drink won’t hurt, after all it’s just one, and after all it’s free and who’s going to know anyway and …

And then he remembers his backstop thought from his sponsor “It’s the first drink that get’s you drunk”. So Tom turns to the attendant and says “I have a problem with alcohol and if you give me that first scotch, you won’t have enough alcohol on this plane for me for the rest of the flight”. At which they both laughed and he did not have to worry about that situation again on that flight.

Tom now gives that admonition preemptively now whenever he flies. And I have to remember techniques like that, simple, powerful but effective, and infused with humor to deflect embarrassment.

Which brought me to recall a similar interesting occurrence when Wildman was flying on business down South. Normally, he commutes between Connecticut and Boston; so much so that I noted just the other day that his cell phone has a Boston area code. And he found himself on a fairly crowded flight to Atlanta and unlike Tom, his company had not sprung for first class seats so his seating arrangements are more crowded. Of course any in-flight business of his then is also his neighbor’s too and vice versa. Like Tom’s flight, drinks were flowing freely, which Wildman did not partake of and although he doesn’t typically get squirrely under these circumstances, this flight occasioned an anxiety about the substantial quantities that his row mate was imbibing. And with periodic nudging and queries from him if he wished to have a drink, Wildman was getting restless, irritable and fatigued.

So in desperation he pulled out his copy of the Big Book and buried himself in one of the stories. But soon he felt the eyes of his neighbor on him, piercing his shoulder in order to read the story in his Big Book that he had been furtively reading. And in his semi slurred but gentle way the fellow inquired as to whether “that was a good book?”

Wildman replied that is was very good and seeing an opening, proceeded to tell him not only the title, but why he was reading it and what he got out of it. And the gentleman sheepishly asked if he could look at it and soon was glued to the pages. By the time the plane had landed the fellow had gotten through “The Doctor’s Opinion” and “Bill’s Story”, the first two chapters, and Wildman could see that flicker of recognition in his face.

As the plane pulled up to the gate Wildman suggested that the fellow keep the book since he had another copy at home. And indicating that he read the first 164 pages and should he find the contents familiar he should then try to find a meeting of AA in any city that he happened to be in. “You may have found yourself a resting place” Wildman said reassuringly.

Every four months or so, Wildman has a new remarkable story to tell in which he has serendipitously changed a total stranger’s life through some small act of kindness. A few more of those and his place in heaven will have been assured.

© res 4/3/2011