IT CAN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS!

IT CAN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS!

A splendid sympathy radiated from the men in the room. It was a radiance I had not felt in the ten months since I had quit the men's meetings because of my complaint of their "unbridled optimism". It was an enthusiasm for life and the future which, at one year of sobriety, I had not yet achieved the wisdom nor the serenity to appreciate. And being assaulted with all of this enthusiasm of the good life to come but with no idea of how to achieve it, that was not only unnerving, it was not making my sobriety any easier to maintain.

On the surface of it I should have been uplifted to have been surrounded by the success represented by those glowing drunks, who, having gotten past the lowest of their lows, were so unsparingly generous in sharing their brilliant lives week after week. And Oh! how thankful they were for their lives!

And the subtext that I read into that was "thankful not to be where  you are today stuck in the miserable hole of a life that you have; still tied to your resentments, prejudices, anger, pride and fears". And to have this rubbed into my face on a weekly basis without an obvious remedy was unbearable. This, at least was my perception since I was then at a stage in my sobriety where I felt I had little to be thankful for. As we say, I was "irritable, restless, and discontented" and I did not yet know how to be other than that.

So after a year of this irritability and alienation I moved on to other meetings where the tenor was not so grateful, not so bright nor so splendidly simpatico.

And with a bit more gloom to scaffold the structure of my program and more basics provided in my daily meetings themselves I embarked upon learning how to achieve the wisdom, clarity, serenity and lightness of being that so typified the men of that meeting so that I could finally be as grateful myself for being as alive, well and sober as they.

That was the plan. And it took work, as all things worth anything require. Daily I would apply myself to learning the basics of the AA program, how it worked, how to stay sober, how to find a sponsor, keep in touch with other AA's and study the literature.

And then by attending different meetings with a focus, this made me attend to aspects of the program one important part at a time. This day focusing on the Big Book, the next day studying the Steps in greater detail. The next, listening to members' stories to remind me just how similar and varied our experiences and paths to sobriety are. Finally, attending prayer or spiritual, or meditation groups to discover how others found gratitude and serenity in their recoveries.

The importance of the latter is instructive because the quality of one's serenity and gratitude can be achieved without necessarily regaining  financial wholeness. Some might think that financial security would necessarily be a prerequisite to achieving a sense of serenity, but that is not required, nor is it necessarily desirable.

I have learned that I can be satisfied, grateful and serene even if I have not yet gotten back on my financial feet. The Big Book teaches that we will finally "lose our fear of financial insecurity". Of course that means we will lose our "fear" of that insecurity, not the financial insecurity itself. Nor should we accept that loss of insecurity as an end in itself. Just not be so paralyzed by the fear that we cannot do anything about anything except to drink at the fear. And although most of my life I have had a healthy fear of financial insecurity (and although that fear is a motivator), in my case the fear of insecurity added to my reason to drink and then financial decisions that I came to during my drinking days had disastrous results upon my fiscal well being.

So the unprepared mind cannot appreciate going to a meeting of twenty eight to forty apparently successful sober men, all exclaiming practically "hallelujah" like praises of AA and how it made them sober and happy without giving that man any clue as to how this happened and how he is to achieve this happy end. And except for the hints dropped during shares of how alcoholically they actually did behave, you might not be able to tell the difference between this and a revival meeting, except for the absence of exclamations of salvation from the lord Jesus.

So the newcomer is naturally lost and put off - at least I was. But I, I believe wisely, chose to get a properly grounded AA education before I returned to this meeting as I approached its glow upon this misty and gloomy morning. And after eight or nine men shared on how wonderful life had become since stopping the drinking and ending with phrases like "and all this would not have happened if I did not have AA in my life", Frank, with ten days sober put up his hand to share.

"I'm having a hard time today. The mother of my son needed my help last night to get out of jail and although she has not let me see him for weeks, it felt good to be able to help out and find out that she was grateful for the help. But this morning she calls and says that she is moving to Boston. What is that all about? And I have nothing to say about this? I can only see this sobriety thing getting tougher!" And with that there were a few murmurings for him to hang in there and then the shares continued with testimonials to AA with the same "unbridled enthusiasm" as I watched Frank fold gloomily into himself sitting in the chair next to me.

Looking at him I then recalled that Frank had attended one of my classes that I gave at the drug rehabilitation facility in town. So I caught him after the meeting to suggest to him how I felt after meetings like this when I was in early sobriety; that I felt like I was swimming against an unsympathetic tide when confronted by this wall of optimism that for all I knew did not comprehend just what it was that I was saying. And that was a difficult concept for me to absorb, that chasm between me and their apparent incomprehension.

And that was not just because there was so much joy in the room that it negated all understanding, but because that was all that there was; no structure, no basics, nor formality nothing to hang an AA hat on - a metaphoric life preserver. Some basics? None!  So I guided him and stressed the other meetings which I had sought out not so long ago, so that I could grasp onto something solid until I was ready for the more freewheeling style of meeting; until such time when 'Time' had presented him with enough salved experience to permit him the appreciation of the gratitude that he had achieved.

As for me, I hadn't realized how much I needed to hear a bit more enthusiasm in my daily life. So I have returned to that meeting in order to enjoy spreading that "unendurable news" of having a life suffused with the glow of "unbridled optimism" that only a life that has achieved serenity can bring.

© res 12/6/11