THE FAMILY AFTERWARD

THE FAMILY AFTERWARD

Ordinarily it would be unusual to find fifteen men being intimate with one another on any particular occasion but on this Wednesday morning in December it was our regular 7:30 men's Big Book meeting.  We had just finished reading a portion of the chapter "The Family Afterward" which cautioned against instantaneous expectations of forgiveness and redemption after having found the blessings of sobriety in AA. Although the newly sober AA may have found true belief in God or a higher power and in his enthusiastic fervor to spread the good word to the family he may also find an unwilling audience in a group of folk who believe they have been more than forbearing in their behavior towards him and less than willing to suffer the outrageous enthusiasm of his newfound "religion" in his sobriety.

Having been required to listen to his old ravings of how the world, (and they)  had done him wrong, they now have to listen to his sermons on how he can bring salvation back into their lives by the light of what he has just been granted, this may then be too much!   

That is the message contained in the reading today, one that all of us have read time and time again over the past year or more depending upon how much sobriety each of us sitting at the table had. So its specific meaning may have been less germane than its more general message which to some contained some pointed references to step nine work (making amends) that we had either not done or had yet to do with our families.

And Martin pointed out a rather plainspoken truth that is overlooked and unstated in the rooms but so evident that we do not talk about it often enough. And that is that the people we hurt first, so deeply and frequently in our long descent into our personal hells are our families. And in our headlong rushes to make amends in order to jump back on the path to sobriety, we often delay our amends for the last to those whom we have hurt the worst, if ever.

And Martin was reminded of this when 'out of the blue' it seemed, he received a phone call from his sister-in-law, blasting him, very non specifically, and subtly uninviting him to the Christmas dinner this year.  And he took this, upon reflection, to mean that his behavior once again was read as outrageous since it resulted in his mouthing off remarks that might have sounded insulting to the family at large. With the result that he was now being banished.

And  he understood just what they were talking about because what they did not understand was that his "mouthings" were just ways for him not to say how jealous at his brother's successes and material gains he was. The fact that his brother  has been very generous to him have made him even more ungrateful and he has not found any way to get past that. Yet when he tries to say something sarcastically clever, it comes out as an outrageously jealous and accusatory statement at his brother's good fortune. Petty and ill natured, ill-humored and cruel.

Nobody knows or understands why he is making the remark, it is just that he has not yet resolved (eighteen years into his sobriety) this envy for his brother's golden touch. And despite that success his brother would share that good fortune, even in the depths of his depraved envy, with Martin. And all Martin could do is spew resentment at him.

But how could he explain that to his sister-in-law?

So after eighteen years Martin had to sit down and write a long amend to his brother, spewing forth all of the pain, the resentment and the anger, fear, jealousy  and now remorse that he feels in having behaved this way for this length of time. And the apology, (yes the apology!), he must say that he is sorry. Unlike other relationships  in AA, how can he make an Amends? In this case an amend without true contrition amounts to the death of a relationship which is not the desired outcome. So we shall see how his brother responds to this eighteen year late missive.

And then Jack said that in this season with the death of his mother, he had just begun making overtures  of reconciliation with his sister who would not speak to him for the past ten years because of his alcoholism. And this is without any rancor for her drug addiction because he can only take his own inventory.

And Darrel, who, with a month sober, is still trying to understand why his mother will not speak with him (although he understands that she is an alcoholic,) and he cannot talk with his father after four PM when he is in his cups and is one ornery son of a gun. It is then that he becomes so accusative that no path to reconciliation seems possible.

Or Ted, who, during his first  ten years of sobriety would attempt to push a meeting book in front of his father between the period when he was just getting sober and just beginning the next drunk. Until finally his father started to go to meetings. And it wasn't for several years after that that they were able to finally meet on a level playing field of understanding to make a mutual amends.

So I am trying to not bring any AA jargon home with me just now. Sometimes I do that with some success and at other times not.  Home for only the past three months, I am not yet  feeling comfortable or even welcome. I do not even feel  I am living in a home of my own anymore, that I am just a sojourner.

I try to make living amends but I do not even know that they are recognized although that is not the point of doing them. I do them for me and am happy to do them.

But as Joe said, he was surprised when his wife said that they were throwing a Christmas party for the whole family. Because sometimes, many times, all the time nowadays, he feels "less than" (a not uncommon feeling among AA's). Because his brother- in- law usually throws the party in their successful home, with their successful lives, in the brightness of their new house among the opulence of their lives.

Whereas this year the family will have to squeeze into their house with the living room with the low cracked ceiling;  to walk on the carpet with the threadbare pathway worn through it and the squeaky floor sounding familiarly mouse-like underneath.

"But I know, that if I run into any trouble at all during the holidays, or any day of the year or any time of the twenty four hours of the day, all I have to do is look at the list of phone numbers in my wallet or in my phone and I can call twenty or thirty men and talk to any one of them about my problems. 

"Who in my family is rich enough to have that!"

© res 12/14/11