PLOWING SHARES

PLOWING SHARES

Bill came up to me this morning and asked whether I was going to share today. "Are we going to finally hear from you today and find out some more about you?"

"What more do you need to know about me", I said as I guiltily disengaged myself from the conversation. Because I knew that he was right in that I rarely share and only when I am in extremis. Which, for me, is when I think I need to share.

Unlike others in the rooms who, for me, share everything in their lives or whose lives seem always to be on the brink of some major catastrophe, I find that I have little to say. Not that my life is so serene, because it is not. I just do not find that my diurnal travails are particularly noteworthy nor serious enough either to be the cause of major consternation or of my going out.

Yet there are folks in the rooms who, with similar problems, must share their distress for fear of going out in some major way. At the same time that I say that I do not behave that way I must reconsider to think if that is really the case. Or am I just sublimating minor behavioral irritations that if they accrue over time will ultimately set me off down the road to making poorer and poorer decisions until I finally find a drink a reasonable option.

So what are the things that people share that I do not personally feel obliged to confess in the manner that others do?

Well Johnny, who led the meeting, confided that he needed to continually remind himself that if he gets too complacent all he has to do is remember that ten years ago his family fired him from his job, the job from the business that he owned; and his wife  tossed him out of his house. And his only ticket back was to take his recovery seriously. So he must guard against smug contentment for down that road is a slip.

Joe wanted to apologize when he announced that he was one day back. He was embarrassed and ashamed that he went out but felt relieved that he had returned now. He had had enough and wanted to get back his sobriety. He vowed to share each morning to remind himself of how low he had sunk.

Then Tommy had to confess that he lied to his wife. And it wasn't so much that he lied, but that he did not want to admit that he had not made arrangements ahead of time. So when she drove him into a rough part of the next town for a business meeting, he did not have a return ride. He did not even know why he lied to his wife except that he did not want to rely on having to call another AA for a ride. It was a pride thing he said. And now he had to deal with the fallout of not being honest with his wife no matter how trivial the untruth was.

He has placed himself in danger by several counts. One, by lying he was setting himself up for other untruths and going down that road only would lead to a drink. And by not having a ride, he exposed himself unnecessarily to an environment where he could easily have picked up drugs or alcohol. One lie, much unsober fallout. For Tom, his share was a reminder to remain humble.

Richard confessed that he was thinking the most unsober thoughts the other night because he had overworked himself by having so many deadlines and not enough time. He had drunk all of the caffeine that he could handle and he actually had considered taking some of his girlfriend's stimulant medication "only as a medication was my thinking. And if I 'needed' more then I would go to my doctor and get a prescription for it. I can't believe that I found myself actually planning a slip!" So Richard's confessions were memos to himself to recall not to overtax himself and not look for artificial poultices.

Jacob wanted to let everyone know that despite the fact that he had shared yesterday his fear of his job interview, he actually was offered the position with the largest employer in his field in the city. And despite the fact that he "aced" the interviews that he was frightened of screwing up, now he was terrified of how he was going to perform in the new position.  And only two weeks ago, 'Jake' was projecting that he was going to be homeless and penniless and would not be hired since he was then out of work at the grand old age of fifty eight. He had to recall daily how to remain grateful for the promises of the program to be fulfilled.

So when I thought of what Bill said in accosting me at the beginning of the meeting I wondered after listening to all of these shares was what was going on in my life of such personal moment that I needed to get it out in front of this group of men? And of course the answer was I don't know. My jobless situation is nothing new and I have shared it before with this group. I don't know  how many times I can restate my anxieties about my jobless situation before it becomes "old"; My fear is that people will begin to wonder why I haven't started some other type of employment and then I will have to explain my rather tentative state of health.

One of the reasons I go to Caduceus meetings is for this very reason. It is there, among my medical peers, that I can complain week after week because they understand the difficulty of my licensure position. Would anyone in the program be particularly sympathetic to a doctor not working and not finding work because one of the problems is that people won't hire him because he hasn't worked? That there is a reticence about hiring for fear  that he is out of practice? After all, how well does anyone know how good a doctor I am?

But does it matter? Which is to say, does all of this personal rationalization really matter to them? They are not there to judge me about my situation. They are there to commiserate and by doing so help me stay sober. And I really need to remember that. I have to place my pride to the side. That is not the issue. My competence in medicine is not the issue in the rooms. My sobriety is, and that is all that anyone should be caring about.

So when Bill then shared that he was being frustrated by his boss because he finally had brought in a big deal to this small company and his boss had barely recognized him for doing it, his mind started to wander all about the unsober landscape. Like should he quit and take the account with him? Should he tell his boss just what he thought about him?

And then he reminded himself of the period prior to this job and how the men in the rooms kept him sober during the frustrating  job search that lasted almost six months. And he thinks better of acting on the thoughts that brought him into this fellowship to claim his seat at this table today.

Maybe that is why Bill thinks that I should be sharing to these fifty odd men in the room. Not because I have such a mundane life, or that my issues are not much more than trivial in the greater scheme of things. But to touch bases with these guys, to hear men speak of their problems with other men, and to have them hear me. If they offer their support, their being there... well that's enough. I cannot find that support anywhere else, I should take advantage of it.

Men have burdens that need lift and it is remarkable how liberating it can be when I talk to another man to let him know where I am in my life. Just touching base. Just sharing my thoughts and feelings and frustrations with someone who has been in this situation. Because he will know, if I sound the least bit unclear about where I am in my sobriety or what I should be doing, or if I am planning some uncalled for behavior, he will be there to call me on it.

When I think back over the past week and all of the reasons men gave why they came to the meetings despite all temptations to stay in bed and sleep, those that stood out were:

"I want to be accountable to myself and to others which is why I come."

"I hate this damn disease so that's why I am coming today so that I can report in."

"I get to a meeting and I immediately feel a weight lifted; and then I think that I really didn't want to come this morning and I wonder why was that?"

"I come to learn to become willing to conquer my disease and learn to live a life worth living."

So that must be my conclusion to my query to Bill about the value of the share. I have to suit up, show up and speak up.

© res 1/26/2012

TALKING ABOUT GRATITUDE

TALKING ABOUT GRATITUDE

We were talking about gratitude and service and the many ways it seems to manifest itself in our daily lives. It is a peculiar fact that if we are on the lookout for gratitude, we often find it; or perhaps if our minds are sharpened to its existence we just are more inclined to recognize it when it intrudes itself in our lives.

Parker was speaking about how he was getting fed up with his living circumstances, his day to day tribulations staying sober coming home to live in a shelter where there are strict rules about drinking and using drugs. But those rules don't seem to bother many of the other tenants and he guesses that although he seems to be able to tell who is drinking or using, their behavior is such that the powers that be are not enforcing those rules. The reason seems to be beyond his ken but it bothers Parker to know that he is trying to stay sober, go to meetings, and having found a job, trying to live a better life than that which led him to the circumstance where he was living in this shelter in the first place.

"Of course I am grateful for having the spot to stay in this shelter where there is always a 100% census. It isn't easy getting a spot here and I should be grateful to have it at all. Those others are placing their shelter spot in jeopardy while I am keeping my nose clean. It's just that it is so much more difficult to remain sober if there are people using all about you!"

Notions of service were discussed, from the person who sets up the room, to the coffee maker, to the greeter to the group leader and treasurer. It takes all kinds of help to run a meeting. "But we should all remember, and I am truly grateful for this fact, that just coming to meetings is service too. It doesn't sound like that should be  counted as service but believe me it is!

"I remember that during inclement weather, a snow storm perhaps, I could easily stay away from a meeting. And if you all did not show up for the scheduled meetings, I might have gone out and drank.  Bad weather never stopped me from finding my way to a liquor store and it should not get in my way of making a meeting.

"And it would be really terrible if I slogged through a snow storm only to find that there were no people there. Terrible but not the worst thing. For if I showed up then I might be of service to somebody else who might show up at that meeting for the very same reason that I was there."

Joe claimed that when he first got out of rehab he still had a superior attitude about who he felt he should be associating with and casually asked if there was a meeting that would have "his kind of people" attending. Those were people who wore suits and ties and spoke well and were "clean" and were good upstanding citizens.

His contact answered that he had just the meeting for him; a meeting where he could be the "chairman" if he chose. All he had to do was show up at such and such address and time and meet the contact there. And Joe did.

And his contact showed Joe just how to set the chairs up in this room, six rows of four chairs for the meeting, and to put away the chairs after each meeting. And so for the next ten months Joe remained the "chairman" of this meeting, a service which he learned to perform with gratitude and humility that he learned was necessary to remain sober and change his attitude about who was an appropriate drunk to associate with.

Then Alex complained that he was getting really angry, tired and fearful of the upcoming final stage of his chemotherapy. He related a tale of frustration during his past admission when he had been complaining of chest pain. And that was a pain which he had not been admitted with, yet with each complaint, nobody was able to explain it despite fairly extensive testing.

Yet one night he had been sleeping and was startled when he woke up with the chest pain after an antibiotic had just been hung for infusion. And when he suspected the association he pulled out his smart phone and googled the antibiotic and found that sure enough one of the side effects of a rapid infusion of the antibiotic was chest pain.

And Alex was feeling very angry and sullen about this incident and wondered how he was going to find the strength and fortitude to finish his course of chemo. His dilemma? How was he going to stay in the hospital for more than two weeks while his immune system healed when he had trouble tolerating just a five day stint?

Alex then thought about the situation a bit more calmly and realized several things. One, that this was the only therapy that had a chance of curing his disease; two, that perhaps he was a bit hard on the medical people who may not have come across this side effect before and so were unfamiliar with it and three, that perhaps he felt that the doctors and nurses had underestimated and belittled his integrity by ignoring his entreaties about the chest pain. And maybe, after all of this, he should just let the anger and resentment go and acknowledge that he was just pissed that he had this disease and all of the rest was just fallout from his resentment about this.

So Alex finally concluded that he needed to express a bit more thankfulness for the fact that he had had the disease discovered, that he was getting the most modern treatment and that his medical care was really top notch despite the fact that he did not want to be there in the first place. Sometimes you have to do things to survive that you don't like, but that you need.

And finally, George, picking up the theme of gratitude for people showing up at meetings then related to us a peculiar but eerily familiar situation that happened when he attended a mixed meeting, one he usually does not go to because he prefers to go to men's meetings.

So George relates going to an evening meeting where a young man spoke and said that he was attending this meeting for the first time because he was in a bar in NYC just the other day and remembers having one drink. And the next thing he remembers is that he is out at the tip of Long Island.

One drink!

So George uncharacteristically gave this fellow his card right after he spoke and following the meeting the young man came up to him turning his card over in his hand with a quizzical expression on his face. He then asked George "did you ever take a slim blonde woman and two kids out to a hockey game some years ago?"

George did not want to go through the list of blond women he had dated but he did recall just such a date and said so.

"That was my mother and I was the boy and my sister was the other kid. I thought you should know that my mom died a few years ago from alcoholic liver failure".

George looked at the young man and remembered him. He realized then that there are no coincidences in this world. And humbly he offered to be his sponsor.

These stories are routine occurrences in AA. But the best thing is that we can perform the service and be there when we are needed and be grateful to be available at all because we are sober.

© res 1/14/2012

TIME AND TIDE

TIME AND TIDE

The sun is barely peeking over the eastern horizon as I sit in my car looking out over the estuarial 'Tuxahunk' River. The rise and fall of the waters reflects my mood on the is second anniversary of my sobriety.

Like the tide, the serenity of my recovery has ebbed and flowed, rising and falling with the emotions that are, no doubt, challenging for the healthy and well adjusted person but which are doubly acute when sharpened by the irritant effect of alcoholic moods and thoughts.

During the past two years alcoholic thinking has intruded upon my daily routine. It is thinking that daily attends my alcoholic mind but to which an adjusted person rarely gives a thought. Emotions which are habit for normal folk are gala affairs for me and my ilk so that excessive energy is spent on hypervigilance in the awareness that my behavior is a long way from what most people recognize as normal.

So I look back on these past two years and wonder what I have learned about my sobriety and what it has taken me to arrive at this riverfront on this fine January morning.

I have to acknowledge right off the bat that sobriety is no mean achievement. Just watching the difficulty of newcomers stay in the program for the first ninety days, and then the next three months, well let's say that I have seen my share of slips. And I recall that it took me ten years to get serious with my program myself. It is hard work which must be attended to daily through wariness, prayer, attitude, and care. Initially it was just a matter of showing up; and that was no small accomplishment.

Just getting out of bed, clearing away the ghosts of the night in order to make it to a meeting every morning took a yeoman's effort. Then sitting and listening and trying to distill some meaning (let alone wisdom) from the cacophony of nomenclature,...terms such as serenity, humility, inventory, character defects and God (or higher power). These could be (and were) often overwhelming. What did it mean that I had to get over my anger and my fear? That all I needed was to do the next right thing?

And then my mind wanders to the notion of why those close to me are not congratulating me on today's monumental achievement? Don't they even remember that two years ago I was a drunk? And then I remember that which I cannot forget, which is I still am a drunk.

Sitting in this room this morning at our men's step meeting we are speaking about Step Six "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character". And shares fly around the table from testimonies that no matter how late one may come to a meeting we are grateful that the meeting is there so that we can maintain our sobriety.

One member reports that it took seven years of him coming late to meetings. He was in and out. Using and abstaining both alcohol and drugs. People despaired of him finding the way to the program. "What I have learned about addicts and alcoholics is that we want to use and drink; but AA's doors are always open if you want to walk in. And if you "go out" or can always decide to return, no recriminations, no blame. We are here for you and your sobriety. And I believe, I know, that I cannot do this alone. Each day I remember that staying sober is the most important thing in my life. Otherwise I will have no life against which to measure its value".

The men at the meeting remind me of other valuable lessons learned during the past two years. When I have periods of low self esteem, when I feel badly about me, I am reminded to do "esteem able" acts. That is, doing unto others as I would have them do unto me. I did not really live the Golden Rule before but going to meetings daily reminded me that by giving kindness one gets kindness.

I forgot these things.

All of what I perceive of as the gifts of the program will not come to me in one fell swoop. I takes time. What I thought was an insipid bromide has become a living axiom of sobriety. Time takes time; and patience takes time. When my daily plans included only instantly gratifying goals, patience was nonexistent and time was a virtue not suffered bravely.

But through the lens of two years I have a different perspective. My goals requiring instant gratification recede in a distant parallax view. And it continually recedes if I approach that goal with any attitude short of the patience needed to fully apprehend the journey to that aspiration.

So I try to live as serenely as I can in all my daily affairs. Only my family can attest to how difficult an effort that has been. I try to understand the concept of humility and live an honest life. Which only comes through the daily examination of my character defects and then a willingness to have them removed by my higher power. It is a process of continual becoming... and that takes time. And those closest to me will definitely subscribe to the notion that ridding oneself of character defects is a lifelong goal not just to be performed once and then considered done.

So I stand on a pier jutting out into the river. I hear the gurgle of the tide turning back the estuarial river. The mud flat rivulets that were carved during the receding tide are now filling in and crumbling. The constant remodeling of the world proceeds.

Like the river and tide remodeling the shore my soul is being remolded. It is being refreshed as new concepts and true belief wash in. And for that I need a daily reprieve from the storms of alcoholism.

AA provides that anchor in the storm and the rooms the hearth to warm the soul.

© res January 13, 2012

A DISASTER

A DISASTER

A long time sober member of AA once said that a slip isn't just bad, it is a disaster. And by this he meant that it is the culmination of events in one's life that first caused the drunk to veer away from his program of abstinence and then sobriety, and then away from the meetings that kept him sober. He then stops practicing the program and starts to behave in a manner that recalls his early years before he came to AA.

It is this spiraling course that he traces that is the disaster. Because a slip implies that the event was an "accident", that it just happened out of the blue. But as we all know, these things do not just "happen", they are planned, whether consciously or unconsciously, they precede the event by days, weeks and months.

It is an exasperation, an extenuation, an extremity that may drive one to a wit's end decision. We know in our heart of hearts that the course is futile, the action fruitless, the activity unavailing, yet out of sheer frustration and a crying need for release we go ahead and negate all that we may have worked for during the past year, or half year or even nine months or nine years. How do we come to such a consequence?

I'm not sure that I have any answers but let me paint the picture and see if you can understand the predicament. Because what may seem like an option for some people, may be a disaster for another.

Every new year brings a fresh crop of newly sober individuals. After suffering the pains of one last debauch, or during some holiday celebration and causing one final indecency that caused the piled on family resentments to collapse about him, he is left  in the rubble of his own deconstruction, bereft of family, friends, love, honor and self respect.

And like a dog with his tail between his legs he drags his forlorn carcass into the rooms to try to find out why his disease is so incorrigible and how he can tame his wild passion and cravings for his drink of choice. Some come whimpering, others defiant, still others return completely bewildered. But all who make it understand that they are here to try to (re)learn why they are different than the normal garden variety drinker.

And then there are those for whom the holidays were just one straw too many. Just the end of a string of indignities which just happened to culminate at the witching hour on December 31st.

Here is how it happens because life is already difficult for some. Someone, one, in particular, has to contend with treating a malignancy and this is her mission just now. She must concentrate on her treatments, not on the Stürm und Dräng of a ruptured family domicile arrangement, of a sister who will not take her antipsychotic medication who preys upon a mother who in her aging years can barely take care of herself let alone a mentally disturbed adult child; at the same time she can scarcely "tolerate" the prodigal who has returned only to find that she has to be treated for a cancer. You can feel pretty unwanted in this situation - and she did.

And some people do not have the inner resources to help contend with life's exigencies, and fall back upon maladaptive behaviors. And she did. Just one pipeful of crack but there went nine months up in a few puffs of smoke. Why? We seek succor in places we know. Bad  but familiar choices.

And then, what does Casey do with five years of sobriety when your self confidence is whittled down by a husband who constantly shoves what he considers your inadequacies in your face daily? And you can't avoid it because in a housing market such as this you cannot unload this white elephant and so you are forced to live in the same house with your divorced spouse! All the while the ex is dating the old nanny. Would drive anyone to drink, no?

Are we all to have the patience of Job? Yes. We do learn to turn the other cheek but when does this all become so much that you start to believe in the back of your mind the lies that he says to you and about you? Until your will and self restraint and resolve falter. And determination is subtly undermined.

At some point during the holiday you are offered a bottle of fine wine. And because you have been feeling so badly about yourself, you have been slacking off on your meetings, not speaking to your friends, not getting the feedback that you need. You stop calling the people you need to call and your program subtly slides.

All of a sudden a glass of wine does not look like such a tragic thing to have to celebrate the new year. And you forget all that you have learned over the past five years. Ten years if you count your previous attempts at sobriety. And the next thing you know you awake with an empty wine bottle in your hand and fistful of regret in the other and a hangover to remind you that you need to return to the meetings where you will again be safe.

It's hard work staying sober.

Sometimes I can get glib about this and I have to check myself regularly. Vigilance for us it is a full time job; for lest we forget that we are at work twenty-four hours a day, anyone of us can fall prey to our darkest anxieties, angers and fears. And then that worm of the drink, when wrapped as a Christmas or New Years present will hook us as surely as a fish is lured by a tempting bait, lured by the basest of needs and hunger. It is a constant and requires conscious battle.

I cannot blame anyone for "going out". I can empathize, understand and welcome them back if it comes to that. I just have to remember that I cannot go there myself. I have to fight the notion that misery loves company. If I go down that road I will surely have misery, but as for company, that is a chimera; there is no company down that road, just loneliness and desolation.

The good news about the new year and new people coming into the rooms or old people returning to the rooms is that I can appreciate where they have been. I can welcome them back and help them to retrieve some of what they have lost. And in doing so starkly recall what it is that I have to lose.

©  res 1/11/12