LEFT UNSAID

LEFT UNSAID

We were talking about the ninth step, making amends to those persons whom we have harmed, and just how we were supposed to go about that task. This is not, after all, the easiest of labors. It must be performed with surgical delicacy in many instances. And the aim of this exercise is to explain to that person that you are on a mission to clean up the damage that you have done to people you knew during your drinking life. If that damage was social, emotional, financial or sexual the purpose was to explain that you have now stopped drinking and intend to set right those wrongs which you have done or think you may have done to people during those periods of inebriation or 'loose tounguedness'.

The gamut of people to whom this could apply reaches into all manner of relationships from work to childhood, to school friends and camp buddies even to drinking chums although this last group will be less likely to have been conscious to remember to hold a grudge or feel justified even if they did.

The most important relationship to consider is the one that will have the most impact on your life not the one that will least affect your long term moral rectitude. We could dwell upon small acts of silly idiocies while blithely letting major acts of reckless abandon go unchallenged, unchecked and unattended to. Yet the latter are clearly the more important to handle.

But in the long run we may have to challenge ourselves to be creative in addressing our needs to make amends to  people who may not be, in this life, available. In other instances we may have to hurry in order not to miss the opportunity to make amends lest that occasion not return or be missed in the hubbub of a busy life; or shall we find finalities that death prevents us from carrying out necessary appointed rounds and then later on it occurs that we are truly sorry that we could not make the amends in the most satisfying face to face way.

I find in my second year of satisfying sobriety that I wish I could have done a fitting amends to my mother and my father. My father less so since it was my mother who bore the brunt of my alcoholic rages. And as I think about it I confess that perhaps even now I need more time than ever before to make amends; because I am still stuck on the question of  just how is it that I could make my mother understand why it was that she drove me to drink. And thinking in that rut is thinking that is not an amends at all! That is just another excuse to once again lay blame at her feet.

A true amends would be to just explain that I am an alcoholic and leave her out of it. That I am doing better now, that I understand my condition better, that I am improving psychologically and eventually I will be prospering again financially. And that is that. I know that is not particularly satisfying for me but extending my hand to try to make things better for her would have been the obvious next step but now that of course is not possible.

That's what could have been and although it does not seem to feel as if it could help me now I suppose I have to do an official amends of some type to see how that will go.

Davy was sitting morosely at the end of the table while this discussion was going on and when he was asked what was on his mind he sort of choked up and said that he was just thinking of his son and how this time of the year reminded him of his graduation from high school. But Davy went on to say that he was pleased to admit that he never had to make amends to his son in anyway other than to say that being sober for his son was just a delight. All his son said was that his drinking was in the past and he was glad to have a sober father now and that he couldn't remember when his father drank anyway.

And Davy got all teary remembering the interminable five minutes before the twin towers fell when his son called him to let him know how much he loved him and how proud he was to have been his son...  

Elvin was saying that just after he had gotten sober was a bit early to start making amends. But his father had just been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and amends just couldn't wait. Elvin felt that he did not think that under other circumstances an amends would have been possible if the conditions had not been so dire. But things just could not be left unsaid. Apologies were not made but expressions of regret were engendered.  The pressure of the moment created a bubble of opportunity that a more lingering disease may not have provided. So now he is able to have quiet moments of informal discussion with his father just to check in from time to time. It has become unconscious even.

So years later, while at his son's lacrosse game and he was ranging up and down the sideline. And  following the action he was apparently mumbling to himself  and talking, "great shot, don't you think dad?"; and another parent standing beside him looked around and seeing nobody else, gave him the Spock eyebrow.

Amends have to be sincere. As big Al said quoting his wife, "Every time you say you're sorry, it's like stabbing a knife into my arm. And every time you apologize it's like you pull it out and it leaves a big painful gash in the arm that doesn't heal. When are you going to change your behavior so the wound can heal?"

Apologies are our stock in trade and that is damaged goods now. We cannot sell those things anymore. We need to get real and not repeat that technique. Owning our behavior, our past and extending a hand toward the future is the only way to move forward.

But leaving things unsaid, well that is the sure way to a relapse. Not attempting to heal the old wounds is just as bad as rubbing salt in it. As far as we are concerned they do not resolve anything for us and therefore do not bring any closure for us.

Amends is a process for us not for the recipient. The recipient may or may not accept the amends and its intent.

But not to make the attempt will leave an echo of "shoulda' regrets" bouncing around in the head for years to come with no way to quell the ringing in that chamber.

© res 4/27/2012

RECOVER SALESMAN!

RECOVER SALESMAN!

"But he's a human being and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.  He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog.  Attention must be paid to such a person... But you don't have to be very smart to know what his trouble is.  The man is exhausted..."  "The man who never worked a day in his life but for your benefit? When does he get a medal for that?" *

I was thinking of those hauntingly piercing words from Linda Loman in Miller's "Death of a Salesman" while we were talking about Max who admitted himself to the psychiatric hospital yesterday. He did this out of sheer exhaustion.

After cycles of going in and out of sobriety, promising to stay continent and then losing it because of his damnable bipolar disease, his wife had finally given up on him and filed for and got the divorce.

The final straw for Max who, although he intellectually understood what was happening, found himself spiraling into a vortex of depression so deep that it had threatened his latest successful run at temperance. He was having a hard time keeping a smile on his face and confessed to us daily, when he came to meetings, that his depression was sucking him down like quicksand; each move further ensnaring him in a despair  which left him exhausted and more deeply entrapped in that constitutional morass than before.

I had been watching this,  getting progressively worried for weeks for many reasons, one of which was professional and the other which came from a notion that wafted in the rooms like a fog hugging the ground, that all behavioral problems could be solved by a greater, more attentive application of the AA principles to one's life.

Which is to say that it is the experience of many in the rooms who have suffered deep depressions as a result of abuses of alcohol and drugs that only by a slavish adherence to AA rules and precepts, denial of self, and self serving ideas and behavior, can one ever be free of depression and 'psychiatric abnormalities'. (Of course that is only true to the extent that one's depression was purely or substantially drug and alcohol induced to begin with.)

For those for whom the drugs and alcohol have just complicated pre-existing depression, bipolar or schizoaffective disorders, just coming to meetings and not drinking or drugging will probably only temporarily solve the abuse problem. Because without addressing and attacking the underlying pathology, the etiology and stressors for the drug behavior, which often becomes a means of release from those oppressive feelings of the depression, remains untreated.

So it was with Max, and my worries were justified because he was not holding his own even as I approached him with some suggestions about the latest thinking about treatment for his bipolar disorder. It was my hope that armed with some fresh and current information, it might become clear that he would need to be switched to a completely new drug regimen; and for this he might require a complete "time out" from his daily affairs.

I must confess that I had nothing to do with his recent admission but I am glad that he found courage before the desperation became so great that he might lose all that he had so recently struggled to regain.

It was clear from this morning's meeting that there are two poles, two schools of thought about how we "get better" in AA. But it is also clear from the Big Book and other approved literature that people who have true mental illness need to have that cared for before a reasonable expectation of AA's efficacy can be divined.  Otherwise it would be unfair to the sufferer to expect performance beyond his ability and unreasonable to expect of AA to provide a venue in which those people can heal unaided by modern medical treatment.

So as Arthur Miller implies by other reference, "attention must be paid..." to all aspect of the lives of people; their bigness, their smallness, their greatness and their foibles.  And even those of us who often brought tremendous pain to our families may have done so after many years of steady house holding, plodding provisioning and having careers, the success from which our families readily shared both remunerative and social returns. And then we fell because we did not 'pay enough attention' and failed to be on the lookout for our souls.

And now attention must be paid to ourselves in life's most important matters of the spiritual, the physical and the psychological realms, for our own salvation's sake.

© res 4/19/2012

*Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, 1949

TRUE LIES

TRUE LIES

"To say I was being honest would, obviously, be a lie. I have been saying that I've been counting days but every day has been spent trying to find time to drink, trying to find a drink, trying to hide a drink and trying to hide from you while I drank.

Then I was caught.

And I guess I really didn't fool anyone at all. I was just kidding myself that I was fooling you all. After all, you are all professionals at this!  How could I possibly have thought that I could get away with this for very long?" So today I declare that I am on day one and I hope to God that I can stay sober 'til tomorrow when I will declare that I want to stay sober for another day."

The room was quiet for a moment and then erupted into spontaneous greetings of "welcome back" and "keep on coming", followed by hearty applause.

Jack offered that "you are the bravest and most important person in the room because you keep me sober. I don't know that I would have had the courage to come back and say what you just said, for one of my greatest character defects is false pride."

This morning we happened to be talking about step seven "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings", which requires of us to understand humility and at times eat 'humble pie', as Alex had just confessed. But he was still at the beginning of his journey and had more than just one of many humiliating experiences to overcome. He first had to accept, truly accept, that he was alcoholic, that his life was unmanageable, that he needed to do something about it and that he had to surrender his will to some power greater than himself, which he repeatedly had failed to do over the past four months since he started coming to our meetings.

But what finally exasperated him was that no matter how many times he claimed to reset his sobriety date, he had always been accepted back into the fellowship of the rooms without rancor or judgment. And it was gradually dawning upon him the significance of what the fellowship stands for and why we take what we say in our preamble so seriously... "our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety".

As Pete said " I know where you've been because I've been there too. I lied, I cheated, I drank and I went to jail. I even went to an institution. And if you guys had given up on me I would not be here, sober, after two years.  But with the grace of God and the power and love in these rooms I am here, sober, alive, clear headed and available to help another drunk like you.  Who am I to cast aspersions on your state of sobriety? I couldn't make you feel worse than you already feel about yourself".

After the meeting I went up to Alex and recalled with him that when we first met at the rehab center, he was a beaten man. I had invited him to join our very special men's group in town when he got out. I explained that this group of men latches onto you and if you want to get sober and learn from sober men, you won't find a more fiercely dedicated and loyal group of friends and mentors.

Alex nodded, agreeing that if it weren't for this special group he would not have found the strength to have bared his soul so nakedly.

Trust is not easily earned nor so freely given. It is a testament to this band of drunks that he was able to grab onto their spirituality, absorb the truth of it and finally act upon it.

For Alex, this was the singular act of faith in his life; but so too was this group's interest to have had  him join them. For the mutual benefit was clear to all. 

© res 4/13/12

WIT AND WISDOM FROM THE ROOMS OF AA

WIT AND WISDOM FROM THE ROOMS OF AA

(note: these are somewhat paraphrased passed down plainspoken erudition from the rooms)

 

“My alcoholism is now not an affliction, it is now a circumstance”,
2/18/11

“The fact that I don’t drink is not news. If I drank, well that would be news”.

2/18/11

“When I say I suffer from the fallacy of terminal uniqueness, I have to remember that I was just another fool on a stool in  a bar downtown”.

2/18/11

“There were times when I was so drunk that I was driving by Braille”.

2/12/11

“I grew up on the mean streets of Fairfield, CT pursued by roving bands of preppies”.

“Crisis I can handle, every day stuff is a struggle”.

2/12/11

The only thing I know about reasonable is how to spell it. I either know how to do it right or I do not do it at all. Nothing I do is reasonable.

2/20/11

 

“AA is the locker room of life. Here you show up, suit up and get spiritually fit for life.”

2/1/11

“Spirituality, serenity, peacefulness are the quorum of my mind. If they don’t show up “the great I am” takes over the meeting and it becomes a disaster.”

2/23/11

 

“This is the cheapest club that I have ever belonged to but it has the most expensive entrance fee of any club that I have ever belonged to.”

2/23/11

“I almost always laugh every morning,

I almost always smile every morning,

I almost always cry every morning,
If I am lucky enough to go to an AA meeting”

2/23/11

 

I didn’t go to sleep at night so much as I passed out and I didn’t wake up in the morning as much as I came to.

2/26/11

 

(In referring to his children with troubled lives:)

They are the authors of their own Book – I didn’t start writing mine until I was forty.

2/26/11

It’s good to hear the wife call me “Jackass”. A few months ago she wasn’t even talking to me.

3/6/11

 

Your feet get you here, the program keeps you sober.

3/6/11

 

Now that I am sober I have to remember to say “Good morning God, instead of Good God it’s morning!”.

4/4/2011

 

Depression is just worn out anger.

4/16/11

 

"Some people are genetically predisposed to see the glass as being half full.  I'm one of those people who are genetically predisposed not to see the glass."

4/17/11

“I never thought I could live without a drink but I got through my wedding without a drink and then I got through my divorce without a drink. And I lived through both.”

4/14/11

Sometimes you don’t get what you want

Sometimes you get what you need

Not lying is one thing, but it's not the same as telling the truth.

I cannot wait for people to forgive me, otherwise I might drink.

We get forgiven but we don't necessarily get forgot.

Sometimes we forget that part of the program is not drinking.

 

1/17/2012

The first drink will kill you just as surely as the first car in a train will kill you. It doesn't really matter how many cars role over you after you are dead.

1/18/2012 

You don't know God is all you need 'till God is all you got.

I could fuck up a free lunch.

I sometimes forget that the deal is when I come here I get what I need, not what I want.

I enjoy watching the evolution of people, having the empirical evidence of watching the transformation from shells of human beings to living breathing three dimensional beings.

With time people grow beyond their stories.

1/28/2012

The Story of X's Sponsor

"When I first came into the program I got a sponsor who was very enthusiastic about the program. And I learned a lot from him. However, his knowledge of the program was all aural, he never read the Big Book.

And he had more than twenty years of sobriety. And his favorite saying to me, and at times it used to annoy the hell out of me, was "I never had it so good". Even in the darkest of times, that was his mantra.

And even thought he brought me through some pretty deep dark periods he never failed to remind me that in the absence of something different I never had it so good either. Which was advice that I grudgingly agreed with.

It annoyed me quite a bit though, that constant irrepressible unbridled optimism. I was even on the super highway once when he pulled up to me and rolled down his window and honked to me. I looked over and he shouted with his broad dopey smile, "I never had it so good".

I learned a lot from him because of that. For when he retired to Florida I remember that he called me up to let me know that he had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. And that was not the result of smoking, just the luck of the draw. But he weathered it with aplomb.

And four days before he finally passed, I remember getting an email from him which said " All things considered, I never had it so good".

So I keep that in mind no matter how bad things get because I remember how bad things had been.

1/28/2012

I need to recall that the first thing I should do when I find myself in a hole is to stop digging;. - Then remind myself of the tyranny of the self and that not everything is my fault - I didn't cause everything that is wrong in my life.

3/1/12

Genesis

Our resident cleric mentioned that he was lecturing
on the book of Genesis. Specifically, the creation part of the story. And he was talking upon the origins of the account which drew upon the Babylonian myths and the Gilgamesh myth as well as other creation myths.

His students, who were adults, were slightly perplexed and one asked seriously "Where is God in this rendition of the origin of Genesis?" He turned and said that he would tackle that in the next lecture.

But to us he elaborated on what he would have liked to say which was that for him God was just a fact. " It had been faith and  spirituality  that I had been lacking when I was a young priest. And it hadn't been until I found the rooms of AA that I learned what  spirituality was" he remarked.

"Some people need the bible as a road map to tell them what to do. If they truly believe in God, then it is really nothing more than a good read."

© res 3/13/2012

DISTRACTIONS

DISTRACTIONS

"I know you're going to think that this is an old story," moaned Marty, "but I have to keep saying this because it keeps happening to me. Last night I had the worst drug dreams that I have had since sobering up. And when I was not dreaming I was craving. Horrible! I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do. I come to meetings, I go to my IOP, I call five other drunks every day and I read the literature and at best I extract only fractional snippets of respite from this torture from day to day. It's horrible. And now that I am doing the best that I can, my wife, of course, is asking for the divorce. Not that I didn't see this coming. Of course, I'm at fault. I have acknowledged that I'm at fault but must I have my face rubbed in it every minute of every day?"

And Marty went on with the familiar litany that has been his signature daily complaint since he returned from his most recent slip fifty five days ago. Yet there were others in the room who had similar stories with girlfriends or ex wives suddenly demanding more money that they didn't have or more emotional support that the ex  did not initially want but now that old lives were being renewed and restored they became fair game to be picked over by their old predators. At least that was the point of view of these men.

It is instructive to note that these complaints came from those who had the briefest sobrieties and the minimum acceptance of their situations. Certainly some of these guys had not yet accommodated themselves to the fact that these irritations would claim a  permanent place in their lives and that the only thing that would improve the situation between them and their ex's was for them to gather some tranquility  into their lives and learn to live a bit more calmly in this new reality.

In thinking about my early sobriety I don't recall that cravings were a major hassle in my having difficulty staying sober. So it was a strain to identify with those whose major complaints were of this variety. But my constant ebb and flow of blame and acceptance of blame for all the difficulties in my relationships and the way that they pertained to my sobriety, well that was something that I recall with great clarity. For in the first six months I remember taking only partial responsibility for my alcoholism, that I had claimed, in effect, I had been 'driven to drink'. That was one of my excuses. And I recall my sponsor uttering the same words so often echoed in the rooms yet so often cursed at by those newly arrived at in AA, which was that "time takes time".

"Time takes time", said my sponsor, to which, in my early "sobriety" I would spit back "f_ _k off!"

And I was lucky that my sponsor, who outweighs me by a good hundred pounds, is compassionate and has a good sense of proportion and humor. For he responded with, "I can tell by your reply that you're right where you ought to be!"

Which would send me into a quiet rage, for with all of his composure, (and his great size), I wasn't going to let him see his serenity get to me! And week after week we met in the playground behind the church until one day he said "Bobby, you haven't told me to 'f_ _k off' once. Are you alright or do I sense some serenity coming over you?"

And I had to admit that in some surreptitious fashion I was no longer so angry, so self involved, so thinking of me, me, me all the time. Indeed, I could now consider that the rest of the world had its point of view too. And he once again proclaimed, "You're right where you ought to be." Therefore, what is important for me when I sit in a room of twenty drunks and addicts is that I am among people who collectively have a few hundred years of sobriety, and that experience, if I am careful to listen to it, can serve me in good stead. And the key ingredient that every one of them will say today to all of those still suffering men is that it takes time for things to get better. It is a poultice that only time can balm wounds with. Time permits you to develop that inner peace which is necessary to tackle life.

And that is less because time is going to solve all of the problems that the world throws at me; but that time at least gives me the perspective to understand what is important to get excited about and what to let go. And with that time, comes the wisdom to solve what needs to be solved so that there are fewer problems that require thoughtful consideration over the long haul. The rest need only cursory consideration before they are thrown in the trash bin labeled 'nuisance problems'.

But if we insist that the solution to all of our "needs" has to come right now, then sobriety will never come. Because the first agenda item on this great list of things that we must accomplish when we find ourselves suddenly sober is to stay sober. Everything else is secondary.

Drunk dreams, drug dreams, they are all distractions. Cravings, are distractions too. Because at the end of the day nothing gets solved by giving into these distractions. The wife, ex or not, the child support, the house, in foreclosure or in arrears, the job, whether you can return to it or whether you have to seek out a new one, are all dependent on one thing. Sobriety.

We can complain all that we want about how life has thrown us a bum steer. We can complain that we haven't been treated fairly. We can rail at enemies real and imagined. But all that is beside the point.

The question then is are we going to get honest with ourselves so that we can vigorously approach our sobriety; and will we do this sooner rather than later? Because all other extenuations are just another distraction.

© res 4/4/2012