ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM

ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM

The room was fairly crowded with about twenty five adults sitting practically knees to chest at desks built for seven year olds. The room was intended to teach the gospel to children whose greatest desires would have been poking carrots in the middle of some spheroid meant to serve as a head.

Or barring the presence of snow, at least to be bounding about the woods of Fairfield county chasing the wild snipe or some other equally fictitious but fun animal; perhaps a bandersnatch or two would do, but certainly not assimilating the teachings of one good man from the early Common Era instead of applying oneself to the kind of things that children do, which are of course, child things.

While here are some twenty uncomfortable looking adults laughing and joking but waiting to start a pretty serious meeting reviewing the twelve steps of AA. And this is a serious business. So serious that everyone gets to read a paragraph of the "Twelve and Twelve" and comment on that paragraph and what that step and paragraph means to him.

As I said, a serious but often amusing business. Because our paths are so varied and our styles so different that it is often a joy to listen to each of us presenting our "take" on our own experience. Yet there is nothing unfamiliar about anyone's share that would seem in the least alien to anyone else unless we should be witnessing the ramblings of some deeply disturbed individual or schizophrenic.

In fact and along those lines, I once had the peculiar experience of leading a Living Sober meeting in a detox unit and the shares seemed routine until one young man started to talk about his role as the central figure in the Sinaloa drug cartel. He called himself the Jefe,(the Boss), the Hombre grande del noreste del  Estados Unidos (the big man of the northeast US).

I started listening to this as if he were serious but when I realized that he was rambling about in some flighty ideation, and I tried to pull him back to the reality of why his Sinaloan bosses seemed to want him in a drug detox center, he got most confused and left the meeting.

It turned out that he had not reached the appropriate levels of his antipsychotic medicine yet and the value of the meeting would not serve him particularly well until he no longer was having disorganized thinking. This episode served to remind me that in detox institutions about half of the patients have a dual diagnosis and before they can get sober by the methods of AA, they need to be medically (by which I mean psychiatrically stable on their medications) treated. AA cannot do much for the unstable depressive, bipolar, and schizophrenic. They need treatment before they can get our help. And then they need to stay on their medication. Nor can AA do much if the person is still detoxing or still on alcohol.

But I digress.

But sharing is the basis for a great deal of learning in AA. You share with the group, you learn from your sponsor by sharing with him, and he learns from you by doing the same. We keep each other sober. So we do not take the sharing experience lightly. However, there are some ground rules.

Bill W. said that anyone who cannot say something in three minutes or less is being ego driven (I'm paraphrasing). And whereas I think that is being a bit constrained, for most people, most of the time, that is a pretty good time limit. Beyond that goes into self pity, why me-ism, poor me-ism and a lot of self involvement without resolution. And it breeds a lot of resentment among people who may have things that they need to share about their own experiences.

The question is often asked why don't we just spend more time at meetings? I don't know the answer to that other than that some meetings are an hour and a half but most are one hour. And they are that length because that is what the "group conscience" agreed that they should be. So it is the group that also agreed that shares should be of limited length and one must learn to develop the skill and agility to learn to express oneself within that time constraint. One of the many new skills that one has to learn when one gets sober. Surely not the most difficult.

So when Nora came into our meeting significantly late and sat down in the little squat chair, looking like a shriveled old woman it was not expected that she would be saying much. After all she was new to this meeting, had never been here and to boot had come late, and until she opened her mouth we had little idea how long she had been sober.

And with fifteen minutes left to the meeting the chairperson asked the familiar question "we have fifteen minutes left and we may not get to everyone, are there any people with burning desires who need to talk?" And Nora thrust up her hand and blurted out "I do", and before anyone could even respond she proceeded...

"I'm not normally at this meeting and I could hardly get away because I am taking care of someone who is dying...And it was by sheer luck that I could get someone to spell me for a few minutes because I have come from out of town to take care of this friend who is dying and I cannot get away. I am with her twenty four hours a day, day in day out, I hardly get any sleep, she moans all day, she hardly sleeps and when she does I barely get any rest and I was lucky to get away just for a little while and I am only sober for four months and I am barely holding on and..."

At this point her voice faded away from me since I wondered what is going on with this woman? No help? No visiting nurses? No visiting nurse's aids? No family, no friends? And my speculation just went rampant when all of a sudden I heard...

"Ma'm you're going to have to stop now and let someone else share, you have taken up more than the usual three minutes of time and now it is time for someone else to have a turn."

At which this Nora blew up, and started slinging foul language and accusing the group of all kinds of malfeasance and not being sympathetic and at least two people from the regular group walked out in sympathy.

I was somewhat flabbergasted. Not because I haven't seen this before, because this happens from time to time and typically with this type of person who is operating on the edge and is looking to blow off steam in, frankly, the wrong venue.  She needed a sponsor, a friend, a bunch of phone numbers but not the venue that she thought she was in for.

Newly sober people in AA, or should I say, new non drinkers in AA, mistake the meetings for places where they can dump everything that is wrong in their lives and think that that is the appropriate venue. What these venues are for, to put it stereotypically is to share our "experience, strength and hope", some of your frustrations and exasperations but not every last bit of angst that you have. That is why you have telephone numbers and a sponsor.

The rest of the room does not want to hear a lot of your woes particularly when the details show that a lot of the problems are self inflicted and self perpetuated (as in this case). A quick talk with a sponsor would have solved many of the difficulties which this woman was complaining about.

But what of the other members who got up and mumbled that they would not sit in a meeting that was so mean to this woman?

Well, they also needed to learn what meetings are for. And perhaps they found out that one of the reasons that this Nora was having so much trouble in managing her life was that in getting close to her they would have been able to determine that she was still drinking.

And as we know, when we drink, our lives become unmanageable.

© res 2/29/2012

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

WHY SHOULD I CARE

"Why should I care more about you than you care about you?" decried our resident theologian as his contribution to our discussion about pushing, prevailing upon, exhorting, persuading or otherwise inducing our alcoholic friends, family or employees into treatment. As profound a statement of concern as I ever heard in the annals of either AA or any form of therapy of neurotic disorders.

After all, the patient must desire to get better. And for the alcoholic, it is a matter of stated truth that in order to be relieved of the obsession to drink one must accept the fact that one is alcoholic and then want to have the obsession lifted. That is, it requires your participation.

When we consider the disease model of alcoholism we do not throw up our hands and say that since it is a disease it is not our responsibility and we have no part in the development and course of the disease. That is patently not so in the case of most disorders. Take heart disease. If we smoke or indulge in excess saturated fat intake we are sure to make things worse despite the fact that we are heritably predisposed to coronary artery disease. And similarly, if we are aware of such a predisposition we can guard against its occurrence by eating a low fat diet, and avoiding smoking. And should the markers for the disease, (high cholesterol, high triglycerides) be found, we can take preventive medications to ward off the onset of the disorder.

In the case of addictive disorders, although the signs or history may be more subtle, the family history may be very prominent and so avoidance is a sure way of preventing the onset of the disorder. But clearly if we find ourselves in the throes of the disease, cessation is the treatment of choice.

This is no secret. To blame our alcoholism or drug addiction on the fact that it is a disease is beside the point. What are you going to do about it? Don't ask me what I am going to do about it for you. There is nothing I can do about your disease. I cannot care more about your disease than you are willing to care about it yourself.

This is the hard lesson that families often have to learn. Also, well meaning employers have fallen into this trap too. They often get so caught up in wanting to bring the cure that they cannot extricate themselves from the problem of the disease of addiction. Often they become part of the problem; the more they push the more they are rejected. The more they accommodate the more they are taken advantage of.

This leads to the trap that families fall into time and again. There is almost an inevitable cycle that occurs in which the family and perhaps a few close friends exhaust themselves in trying to "cure" the afflicted individual of their problem and all that they serve to do is to enable more rounds of bad behavior and broken promises and inevitable further bouts of debauchery.

It may seem like a cruel choice to, early on in the decision making process, select the course that is less obviously softer and gentler, but may ultimately force the "sufferer" to come to some realistic if painful decisions about his own life which is the question I asked at the outset. Does he care about himself less than you care about him? Because if he does, you should not be wasting any more mental or physical energy on him or her. It is a losing battle.

The nature of addiction at best is that it is going to be a recidivist situation. And the sooner that the sufferer gets started on the long road the better. If he is lucky, the "cure" will take without any slips. If he is lucky still only a few slips will occur.

The alcoholic/addict can only count himself unlucky and bereft of hope if he never starts on the road to treatment. The best gift that any family or business can give to an alcoholic or addict is the impetus to seek treatment. That may require the tough love and stamina that only those who have sadly stood by and watched  can understand.

And the first step on the road to recovery for the addict/alcoholic is for him to answer that all important question, "do I love myself as much as they love me."

© res 2/16/2012

A CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH IRONY

A CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH IRONY

Where has the appreciation of irony gone? In the rooms of AA perhaps they never were there. Sometimes I think, when people get sober, they start to take themselves so seriously that subtlety and delicate reference tend to be techniques that are akin to so much haute cuisine, not enough salt to taste the food.

So it was with a discussion about prayer and meditation and its value in one's daily affairs as the eleventh step promotes; "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."

It was my turn to read my paragraph and it fell to me to read the St. Francis prayer, a lovely petitioning for people to act selflessly on behalf of their fellows, abjuring personal gains and needs in favor of those of others in their needs. As I said, a wonderfully selfless and poetic prayer.

I had difficulty in admitting to my adherence to daily prayer and meditation even as I regularly practice much daily contemplation and self examination. But the people sharing were admitting that as they aged in the program they were growing nearer to "a conscious contact with God" even as I was remaining at arm's length or greater to this concept of a God as I understand him.

And I explained that much of my resistance was formed during my youth when my rabbi announced in front of my Hebrew class that, after determining that my father worked on the Sabbath, that god would grant him special dispensation because he was a doctor; and that was when my religious belief tanked. And any relationship that I may have had with god was immediately terminated by the preposterous notion set forth by the rabbi that a god could possibly care or in fact give him specific dispensation because of his profession and that a rabbi in fact would have entree into that mysterious knowledge was outrageous to me.

Even at that young age this seemed ridiculous.

But all that I did mention at the meeting was that the rabbi thought it within his purview to let me know how blessed my father was to be in the line of work that he was and he was conveying that message to me.

And in telling that story I was expressing the irony of how I had trouble believing in god, leaving plenty of room for many other reasons big and small why I might have doubts as to the existence of a higher being. But it was all with good humor... I thought.

But after the meeting a woman came up to me and quite seriously said to me "I want to assure you that Jesus was a Jew and he worked on the Sabbath. Did you know that?" And I said that I did and scurried away sensing that this could be a very bad lead in to a non ending and wrong minded discussion (at least from my point of view).

"You did? Oh. Good."

And I quickly turned on my heel and left the woman in my wake hoping that she would not follow me.

In an organization that professes to be non sectarian and non religious I was surprised to see someone so struck dumb by the notion of god, yet here she was and I am sure that she wasn't the only one in that room. The fact that we do not allow religious discussion in the rooms does not prevent accostings like this one outside the rooms from happening and this was the second time that this woman did this to me.

Without sounding like I am generalizing, even though I am, I find that people who are stricken with 'Godism' whether by religious proclivity or by deism through a real belief in the "fact" of the existence of god, there is, at least in my experience, a tendency to proselytize their beliefs to the "non-believer"; even if the non believer is trying very hard to attain the level of faith and spirituality that they proclaim to evince.

I chalk it up to a general lack of a sense of humor. For I do not see these people smile. They are so tied up with being enraptured that they do not have time for a good belly laugh.

That's why I will never find their god. Their reasoning will always be beyond my understanding. I will find my own road to spirituality but I doubt that this woman and those of her ilk will be able to recognize it.

© res 2/5/2012

HOW DO I KNOW?

HOW DO I KNOW?

On Monday January 30,2012 I received my two year token acknowledging two years of continuous sobriety. And now, more than 750 daily meetings later it seems a strange question that I find posing to myself, and that is how do I know that the program of AA works?

I could use my personal experience as a demonstration of its efficacy and that works well for me. That convinces me about me to me. But I could not see the changes, if there are any, in myself. All I know after all this time is that I remain sober and that some of the things that used to bother me about my life no longer seem so pressing. I can wait for some "critical" issues to resolve without me "persuading" it along. But one of the ways I judge  progress now is just as others tell me how I changed by watching how others develop in the program.

About seven months into the program some friends told me that I was "lookin' good".  And by that they meant that I no longer was dragging my attitude around with a slumped posture, a long face and a beaten temperament. I was now smiling, joking, I walked with a lighter step and I looked healthier than when I had come into the rooms seven months before.

I was unable to see this for myself unaided, until this was brought to my attention. It was only then, after I was made aware of those changes  that I finally was able to see how I had metamorphosed. Prior to that time I was so wrapped up in what I thought were such important goings on between my ears that I had not taken the time to notice the physical, mental and spiritual changes in me. 

And with the physical changes came behavioral changes  with the people I interacted daily. I was more cheerful, more mindful of others. I volunteered for more things, talked more, went out with the guys and shared at meetings. All signs that whatever the traumatic emotions were churning between my ears, they were demonstrably healing despite what I may have personally believed. So today, after more than 750 meetings I can observe when the new members are improving.

Today I sat between two fellows whom I had initially seen at the detox facility that I gave lectures at for the past year. One was a three time recidivist and the other himself was a chronic relapser. But both made an effort to attend these men's meetings every day. And it is clear that they may not have been able to see early on how they improved.

Initially one kept having trouble not returning to the bottle. But each time he he stayed honest and came back to the rooms and admitted that he was powerless but still willing. And not yet willing to be swallowed by this disease.

So he kept coming. Because he realized a few things. He hadn't spoken to his family in six months. He had alienated them to such a degree that there was no more wellspring of goodwill there and he could not return there until he got clean and sober. And he could not just tell them that he was sober, he had to demonstrate it. And he was not there yet.

But the men did not reject him. We told him every day to just keep coming even if and when he drank over and over again. As long as he returned to us he was welcome.

And he came. And it stuck. Finally he now has eight days and it took him a month to get these eight days. And there is every expectation that this will grow to eight weeks. Maybe not in a row yet; but if he remembers who his friends are and where he needs to come every morning he will be sure to recall that there are people who truly care about him. Something he readily admits that he never thought he would find.

And then there was the other guy who is now seventy days sober, who initially thought he was doing this so that he could see his newborn. He thought he was staying sober for some reason other than himself. Finally after a month and a half he began to realize that the only person he needed to stay sober for was himself. If that was the only thing he accomplished then all of his other needs and wants would fall into place.

He realized that putting anything else before his sobriety was just another roadblock on the way to another slip. It would become just another excuse to go out. But if he just paid attention to not drinking or drugging, by example he would demonstrate his fitness to his ex-finance, his parents, and to any prospective employer.

So now he is seeing his son regularly, his parents are back in his life and he is working where a month ago he was asking for handouts from his father. He now has his car back and he is purchasing a phone tomorrow.

Is this Nirvana? No! But compared to where he was more than two months ago he is well on his way to recovery.

But best of all I can turn to him each morning and say to him "you're lookin' good", and he has a pretty good idea of what that expression entails.

So the evidence that I have for the program of AA working is in the metamorphosis of the faces of the new members going from  looking dirt smudged and down trodden with misery written all over, to smiling, washed and walking with a spring in their step. And I see this week after week. "First we recover physically, then mentally then spiritually". And that happens each and every time in the people whose sobriety lasts.

The Big Book appeals to the reader to:

"Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows, Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us..."

In our group we have achieved a way to make the newly recovering alcoholic understand the love and warmth and support available in the program. It is theirs for the taking. All they need to do is reach out and grab onto it for dear life.

© res 2/1/2012

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