IN THE BEST OF SEASONS

IN THE BEST OF SEASONS

There is something renewing about having a New Year's celebration in the Fall, something much more rejuvenating than a New Year's celebration in the most insensate part of the year. But with the sky a deep azure with a bit of a nip with a promise of warmth by noon there is still hope in another day.

And yet the trees, green, hinting of the gilt on the leaves and the promise of a harvest, these are the joys of a new year in the autumn.

But for the Jew the new year is a call to hearken back to year gone by to recall if one's deeds are worthy of being called to be written in the Book of Life for another year. Has one been good to one's fellow men, kind to one's family, a worthy Jew, peaceful, supporting the needy and helping the poor and suffering.

These are the requirements of normal people with normal lives. This is a normal life that I should have been living. But today I am leading a meeting, a Twelve and Twelve and at times I feel ill equipped to lead such a meeting because after 32.09 months of sobriety one would have thought that I would have gotten this "sobriety thing" down. This idea of knowing how to deal with guilt, grandiosity, problems with either blaming others or blaming myself too much. Dealing with insecurity, depression, worry, anger, self pity and relationships. And finally coming out the other side and not blaming anyone at all for my life, even myself, but accepting it with the notion that in the end with patience, and time, all things will get better.

Have I yet learned that?

Step four is to take a "fearless moral inventory" of oneself of all one's shortcomings and come to terms with those failings, who they involved and how they involved those folks. And in the end they will require of us that we make amends to those people with whom our inventory is involved. It is only when we come to terms with the baseness of our very beings, our souls, that we will finally be able to face a new and useful and fruitful life moving forward.

Otherwise we will always be reminding ourselves to "abandon hope of a better past" for the future that will be no different.

But somehow I never feel that I have the suasive ability to make myself believe that I can impart that knowledge or wisdom to a group of people who are as eager to understand sobriety as I am.  Indeed, who am I to do that at all, I often ask?

And to indicate my confusion I lead the discussion by analogy. Most people, when they do a fourth step, find that they have great difficulty in getting honest with themselves, with others and with the program. And after great personal angst with some literal and figurative cramps, out pops some story of mournful suffering which ultimately ends in a sense of uplifting release.

My story was like a feeling of being in an operating room getting an angioplasty with the surgeon telling me to hold on just a bit longer; the pain was only going to last just a bit longer while I was listening to a whirring sound of the atherectomy blade eating away the plaque in my anterior descending artery. "Just a moment longer" he was urging on as the pain felt like my heart would just rip out of my chest.

And then - - - quiet - - -. No more pain. My heart beat returned to normal. No more whirring. No surgeon's urging insistence on only a few more moments of pain and it would all be over, because it was.

Like my sponsor saying that all I had to do was get through the hard part and it would all be over.

But was that it?

But after another year and a half I know that isn't it.  I know there is stuff that I missed.  How did that happen?  Well I know how that happened! There were some lesions left in there that the surgeon left in there! 

We knew that!

So we got to George who was concerned about his sister who is terminal and he rambled about not being available enough, about being too self centered, about not being ready to help.

It's all about us isn't it? Isn't it?

And then Crystal who is fifteen days back wondering if she just did not do her program well enough the first time or was she just fooling herself or just what was she thinking buying that single malt scotch for her cousin at the duty free shop on her only vacation in the past year? Not ready for prime time or what?

We sure do test our sobriety to the limit and don't we know it each and every time?

But there was Norton, who by his own admission has stretched his belief in a higher power to the limit.  He doesn't know what to believe and where to turn.  Last week was out of the ball park.

On Tuesday his father died.  And since he is the only sober one in his family, dealing with the family homestead has become a real strain. But four days ago his friend loaded up on some drugs and OD'ed. Then three days ago his boss went out for a run and ran down a ravine and never came up, cutting his throat at the bottom.

"How should I think about this?" queried Norton to us in the room.

Norton is not religious, but if nothing else, he has a strong tie to his wife and children and if anything is going to keep him going, it will be his connection to his family and his friends in the program.

Drinking or drugging, that is not an option.  Too much darkness down that defile.  Go to meetings, talk to people, speak his feelings even if he has a very tenuous belief in God. For now he has a higher power in the others in program. Had he not done a step four he would be at sea right now.

These troubled waters could irrigate fertile seed for a bad crop of jitters and woes. Or with the pruning techniques learned through the Steps this could just be another solid harvest for this New Year, a New Year with an indigo sky, tawny soil with a whiff of chanterelle on the air.

 

© res 9/16/2012

SEASONS

SEASONS

 

I read a blog from someone in recovery on the other side of and underneath the world in South Africa.  Right now Spring is beginning to warm some of the days there just as we are feeling the creeping chill of Fall trying to sneak up behind us and catch us unawares.  But the Fall can't fool me because Louisey tells me that Spring is there around Capetown and so my guard is up, ever aware that these warm days are just a fool's show  trying to put my attention at bay until Winter arrives to astonish me with its sudden arrival.

Louisey likes to share propitious regional or national events that occur in her village and town during these months, what meals and foods are served, flowers that are in bloom, smells that dominate the landscape and most of all the reaction of her Great Dane puppy, the goings on and how many of the people he pushes over in his excitement.  And occasionally she will remind me, by way of a quote or two, of what a fantastic musical heritage we in America have, by quoting some composer from the American song book or Bob Dylan or some rock star or other on either side of the Atlantic.

But her blog gives me a firm sense of one person's sense of being in a place, in time, and space.  Along the way she shares the highlights of the difficult lives of people in recovery in her corner of Africa, the difficulty of living in general in her corner of Africa which is hard enough for sober people alone but could drive anyone to drink! And it reminds me of how good life is here in the United States and of all the things we have to be grateful about when she describes some of the lawless rampages that happen particularly against women.

She describes in the most poignant terms, the circle of her life that I have been reading about now for more than a year, in the most wonderful prose and poetry. And now, one year after returning to living with my wife, another circle has been completed and I look back and see that many other circles are in the midst of being completed as I observe the various life circles going on about me and among the circle of friends and family who I love.

So when Steve finally reached thirty five years this year working in the postal service as a letter carrier, he had already been thinking of retiring for three years and had filled out the paper work two years ago. But taking that last step, well that was a long way down.  It was not so much that he did not have enough money to retire as much as that his life was defined by the daily grind of getting up, getting on the train and going to the city and to work.

 

It wasn't as if his intellectual capacity wasn't far above his pay grade at the USPS. Steve coulda' been a contenda' for any number of things. And now that he could be at that first step, to stop working, that was hard!

But in July he stopped and suddenly he had re-defined himself. He was suddenly retired. And for a good month it was difficult to get a handle on what that actually meant to his self image.

However, just now, Steve is not so eager to hop back into the work environment.  After a month of well deserved rest, he is finally beginning to enjoy the time of leisure and is finally sorting out what it means to have time on his hands. And he is taking his time in figuring out how to use it.  Using the AA adage "Time takes time" he is harnessing the time to its best advantage.

 

As the end of September approaches, Jill will face a hearing to get her pilot's license back.  It's been a year. She has done everything by the book; random drug testing, monthly shrink visits, regular AA meetings. And although she was never an alcoholic in the truest sense of the word, we are talking about her livelihood and she is not fooling around with this. So if it means not drinking again, that's OK with her. A small price to pay for the privilege of flying.

 

Frank is moving into a small apartment after being forced out of his mother's home. That abode houses a schizophrenic brother and elderly mother and she cannot manage having Frank there too since the mentally ill brother does not get along with Frank too well and the mental illness gets worse while he is there.

 

Frank wanted to help his mom since the brother does not do that, he destroys the maintenance equipment and the house among other things, and then blames Frank for the deeds. So when Frank leaves, these issues will become more acute.  Meanwhile during the past year while this was going on Frank had to fight a lymphatic cancer, a really serious and typically terminal form which he appears to have beaten.

 

So this season, Frank is moving on, starting afresh. And perhaps it is better. He can no longer be accused of instigating the incidents of which he is now being accused, and he no longer has to deal with the constant threat of being thrown out of the house under a court order. Now he can concentrate on his sobriety and leave the Stürm und Dräng to other people and other occasions.

 

Then there is Jo, who has decided to leave a liaison after ten years. And this is painful because Jo has thought long and hard about this; it has been at least five years since there has been any sex and three years since there has been any acknowledgement of any respect. Just, you clean up this, and cook the food, and wash the clothes and go shopping and...

 

Jo finally has had enough and is moving out...Moving out from an old stultifying life into a free and oxygen rich new life. A life that celebrate diversity, fun and sobriety.

And in my circle the changes have not been particularly radical. But my daughter, having found a job that she really enjoys, and found an apartment that she loves, in the city that she adores, has moved aided and abetted my me and my wife and a truck and an AA friend. A friend who must have had sardines as close relatives since his packing abilities are second to none.

 

I am proud of my closer relationship with my daughter and a new found trust that I believe that we have for one another. And I am glad for the affection that we have for each other.

As for cementing marital relations, well at least they are not getting worse. They need work, but then to quote Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter" "What family doesn't have its ups and downs?" Avanti! More work for the next year.

 

As the High Holy Days approach and a New Year approaches it is time to take stock of the year gone by and to assess what I can put in the column of good things that I have done, what were the bad things and what do I still have to do. And though I cannot claim spectacular or even small success in any pecuniary fashion, I guess I can say that at least I did no harm. And perhaps I may have done a bit of good.

 

Maybe even enough to be written in the book of life once again for another year.

 

© res 9/10/2012

 

 

 

 

NEW MAN

NEW MAN

One of the preliminary formalities of an AA meeting is to ask if there is anyone new to AA or to that particular meeting.  Homer raised his hand and admitted that today was his first day sober. This usually brings a hearty round of applause and today was no different; but Homer was no spring chicken and for today's meeting it seemed like a qualification was a minimum age of forty.  So the applause was warm, deep felt and sincere. And it was surprising how for the remainder of the meeting this was to set the tone for how people would shape the tenor of their sharing.

We don't always come in on wings of Angels. Kicking and screaming for me was my path as I recall. I was not a happy camper and the first time I came into AA it was under threat of a divorce. So were the second and third times. The final attempt was much more serious and it had to do with health, life and death.  I had a craving for life so I had to finally want to give up the fight to have everything my way and compromise with life's exigencies.

Today this was a theme that was repeated over and over again.

Charles, a man I had not seen before, told a story of things that I had seen as a physician but chilled me to the core since he is the only person who I have seen to live to speak about them. All my patients are dead. Of course, I saw them twenty years ago when we did not have the techniques to keep people alive as they do today.

But Charles drank until people stopped wanting to be around him. But that didn't stop him from drinking. He then noticed that his liver was getting large and his doctors said that he had to stop. So he stopped for a few months and slowly the liver recovered; but he returned to drinking - again hard.  Still refused AA - not for him - he thought AA was for losers.

Then he noticed that his eyes were getting dark yellow, his skin developed spider angiomas and he bruised easily, his palms got blood blisters, his belly swelled to four times normal size and he had to go into the hospital and get twelve liters of fluid tapped from his abdomen.

His liver was a mess, his doctors told him he would die if he kept up this pace.  He said he would stop. He didn't. He just kept drinking until one day he vomited blood and he had to have the esophageal varices sclerosed through an endoscope. But even as the varices were healing Charles was sipping his vodka. Until all hell broke loose and all of the bursting varices almost caused him to bleed out. Twenty units of blood later and there was little change.

Even then that wasn't the end of the descent into this personal hell but it gets dreary even for those of us who have been battle scarred either by profession or by avocation. I got exhausted listening to him and wondered why he wasn't dead and frankly just how long he had to live given what I know about the level of permanent damage he must have caused and yet remains even as he has sobered up.

Yet Charles seemed grateful that he had finally arrived at this meeting on this day to tell his story to this new arrival to let him know about the "yets" that were waiting for him, if he thought that he had not had fallen as badly as some folks in the program and that perhaps he might not be an alcoholic.

Jasper confessed that he was 50 years old and first came into the program at age twenty six. Yet he was today only 15 years sober and that was because he thought he could get sober his way.  First he had gone to rehab and read the big book in one and a half days and finished the twelve steps in four days. And it was only 48 hours after leaving that rehab facility before he was making his next score thinking what losers all of us suckers were!

 

Behind all of this was the haunting specter of his industrialist father, captain of industry who drank most of his life and it never got out of hand. Why couldn't he drink that way? And yet, and yet...

And yet there was Martin whom I have never met before but who shared that he goes to a meeting in another town off and on, and in between the off and the on he was informed that one of the members who had been a struggling chef who had been coming in and out of the program first succeeding and then getting off the beam, had died.

Committed suicide.

Shot himself.

Could not get his act together and in desperation shot himself.

His mother had come to the group to ask to address them for just ten minutes to let them know that he had spoken very highly of the group, that they had kept him as sane and as sober as possible during his struggle. But that he, in his meticulous fashion, had bought a shotgun and rented a room in one of the ritziest hotels in Manhattan and took his life.

His mother took this to mean that she thought that he did not want any of the family to have to clean up after him and he was so fastidious that way.

Mel nodded concurring " Yes, I know that for myself, I'd rather that people know that I died  than that they know the person that I was when I was alive."

"Mad, sick"! said Ed, whose army days in the seventies  allowed him to see any number of suicides from drugs, alcohol and officer fragging. It was a time of madness and his only solace became the trees, the river and the earth.

"You may call me crazy for speaking to the trees and the river, but no crazier than holing up in the Ritz Carlton or other fancy hotel and shooting myself because I couldn't or wouldn't get sober. When you don't have a higher power to turn to you think you can solve the problem yourself. And that kind of solution does not seem helpful to me!"

Ralph then talked about gentler pleasures, those that are the gifts of the program if you pay attention once you have discarded the detritus of the past.  He said that his wife had been complaining that their sons never call, to which Ralph suggested that sons never call parents, sons being naturally wayward with low expectations of continued family connection. But his secret fear was that they did not call because of his early alcoholism and their recollection of it. 

But to his surprise about a half hour after the comment, his son did call and the conversation maundered for hours into the night like a normal family discourse about normal familial "palaverables". No hint of any antipathy. He punishes himself in his head more than his children ever can remember to do. Why? Because he is the alcoholic, not them.

So if Homer felt as if in entering the room today he was approaching Hades, the conversation certainly had a stygian tinge to it. But it is better that he should hear the worst now. He knows that what got him his ticket to the room this morning was not his stellar display of citizenship. So what he heard either confirmed his determination that he was in the right place or convinced him that he needed to do some more 'better living through chemistry'.

I hope that he does not have to cross this river before he has witnessed the best things that life has to give.

 

© res 9/1/2012