SANITARY PRECAUTIONS (OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS)

SANITARY PRECAUTIONS
(OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS)

Sometimes the decision in the rooms seems to orbit in the purported esoterica regarding how to proceed with this step or that; is it best to do this step quickly and to get through it or to make a considered step not rushing into territory which, after all, in the newly minted AA is terra incognito? Experience tells us that procrastination inevitably leads us to put off ‘till tomorrow what we should do today, and we repeatedly do this until we never do today what we had determined we should have done yesterday.

On the other hand, we are equally experienced in rushing in with involving ourselves in and with situations prior to considered thought, with the result of some disturbing outcomes. So we are confronted with the irritating dilemma, do it sooner or do it later? Temporize or make “tempus fugit”?

So in addressing Step Nine, “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others”, we undertake the task of engaging the people we listed in Step Eight who we have determined we have harmed and to whom we feel we are willing, and indeed, required to make amends. This discussion of how to proceed, that is, with all due haste or with all deliberate speed, is often not a topic of small debate. Both camps have their champions, often quite vocal, and single minded in their resolution as to how this step should be approached.

At one such meeting much talk was spent on the concept that many of the 12 steps are a work in progress and that work is not static. One should be prepared to repeat the steps time and time again throughout one’s life and in particular steps four through eleven. For these steps are, in effect, AA’s “design for living” and crucial to that design is the foundation that it calls for in the building of our new moral-ethical edifice.

So in a sense, whether we approach our amends quickly or deliberately, these steps are an Ouroboros, a life circle, meant for eternal revisiting. Because we can only progress toward perfection to achieve the kind of spiritual equanimity that we aspire to through the vehicle of these steps.

To the outsider this surely must appear like theological mumbo-jumbo. But it is more like asking the pitcher of a ballgame with one out and batters on first and second whether he should throw a fast or curve ball, attempt a pick-off or sacrifice fly-ball. These are strategic choices to get to win the game, and in this case the game is the life of the drunk and all those he loves on his team.

What should or can an outside agency offer in the way of advice to the drunk in the throes of such decision making dissonances? First of all, unless one is a trained counselor or a concerned party or trusted friend, I would say, very little. Stay back and stay away from the alcoholic mind. As the saying goes, “Don’t play in my mind without adult supervision”. This is dangerous terrain, not subject to the normal rules of physics or even of typical human psychology.

But, if forced to play a part, the best advice one can give is that one never has to act. There is almost never any compelling requirement for any action steps. Amends do not have to be made instantaneously – they can always be put off until tomorrow, more thought can always be brought to bear on the subject.

One thing is clear, one more lame and insincere “apology” is not needed. We have offered more than enough meaningless apologies all of our drinking lives, and one more, hastily delivered insincerity will only be greeted with the disdain that it deserves. An amend requires a “quid pro quo”, a something for something else. And in this instance, the drunk offers some form of restitution, monetary, emotional, temporal or social. What does he get in return? Peace of mind! We like to say that is permits us to ‘clean up our side of the street’.

But in the context of the concept of amends that we provide now and in the future, whether monetary, emotional or social, we commit to restitution and the honorable discharge of duty which we have hitherto not been assiduous in performing during our lives. And with these positive acts we not only clean up our side of the street as a beautification project; but we also make it possible for us to walk down our side of the street finally as people of honest,humble and dignified integrity.

© res 4/12/11