She delivered the news rather matter of factly. When she had gotten sober eight years ago she and her beau had had a hard relationship; hard drinking, hard sex, hard loving and hard knocks.
But she felt that had she not sobered up she would have gradually plunged down the hole of despair, desperate drinking and debauchery, she dragging him down and him returning the favor, pounding down drinks, drugs; using hard and living hard and fast.
So she cleaned up her act eight years ago and never looked back. And every now and then she would try to bring him along, each time tentatively testing the waters and then scurrying away as if bringing the sober word to him were the bogey man of his life.
Eight years passed. Last Friday she invited him to dinner and she made another cautious attempt to bring him into the fold and at last he seemed to finally get it and made a promise to try ever so hard to approach a sober life. Today would be the day.
She went home with some nervous trepidation but hopeful at the possible breakthrough until she heard the message on the answer machine. He had thought it over and he could not see himself honestly in sobriety and was sorry that he could not breach the rift of those years of pain.
And this morning she received a phone call that he was dead.
Just like that. Dead. The rift was too great the Stygian waters too swift and deep. What he was saying was that it was too late for him, for salvation and he was checking out.
She told us this so matter of factly because death, of late in the rooms has become rather matter of fact. But life for her and the rest of us requires these precious daily reminders to keep us coming back; reminders that it takes no time at all for death to claim us - only the time it takes to go out to dinner.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Slips, Inevitablity or Part of the Growth?
It is Labor Day here in the United States and if the typical course of events is to play out today, there will be much celebration, family and friend get-togethers and the usual holiday libations. If memory serves well those festivities will tend towards the over zealous and more inebriated and therefore are to be avoided or stood apart from by those of us in AA. And of course this morning's AA meeting, which was attended by at least sixty bright eyed drunks focused on the perils of holidays and the dangers of "slips".
The meeting was a beginners meeting and there were many in their first week of sobriety, some recently returned from 'experimenting' after periods of sobriety ("maybe I can have just one drink"), and others just joining the fellowship in order to achieve a modicum of peace in their lives trying to pick themselves up from the wreckage of some former existence. And the moderator turned the discussion to the topic of trying to avoid slips because, (and he quoted another AA from a few days before, "a drink isn't just a slip, it is a disaster"). And Emit shot his hand up to tell his story how he had after two sober years found himself romancing a drink in the most peculiar set of circumstances.
Emit had been two years sober, tidied up a previously codependent relationship, steadied his financial footing and generally regained years of whittling away of his physical and social life till he was well on the way to recovering a new life. So when he went on a date he felt he had his sobriety under control. She offered some wine and he felt he had this whole thing under control and would be able to take a glass of wine.
Two days later in jail, having committed a crime in a blackout, his fiscal and social equanimity in a shambles he now learned that he cannot trust himself with one glass of wine. Because, he now knows that that led to 4 liters of vodka, blackouts, violent behavior and the lock up.
There are those who maintain that slips are not a requirement for growth in the program and others who warn that there is no guarantee that if you go out you will ever come back in. My experience has led me to believe that for myself, I could not convince myself of the severity of my disease until I "slipped" once, twice, three times, each time the recovery being more difficult, each time the fall even farther, each time hitting bottom even harder. But for me, and for most others sobriety does not come without a spiritual awakening and until that point sobriety only means not drinking and that is just being a dry drunk.
Until I began to see that I needed to cleanse my soul, to look into the center of my being, sobriety meant and would mean very little to and for me. Until this last time when I saw the reason for being sober. Actually I did not "see" any reason at all but rather "felt" the need for sobriety... the "need" to live. And until that happened, I would have never appreciated or understood life without a drink.
So as to whether slipping is the 'organic' way that one achieves sobriety, there are many who will attest to the fact that it is not a requirement.But for those lost souls like myself, if we are lucky enough to find our will and need to live before alcoholism claims us, then slips probably are an organic and inevitable part of the cycle of recovery.
Because one can try to adopt the steps with all one's heart, but actually believing them to the point where you can save yourself is where the promise of AA meets that desperate hope for life.
The meeting was a beginners meeting and there were many in their first week of sobriety, some recently returned from 'experimenting' after periods of sobriety ("maybe I can have just one drink"), and others just joining the fellowship in order to achieve a modicum of peace in their lives trying to pick themselves up from the wreckage of some former existence. And the moderator turned the discussion to the topic of trying to avoid slips because, (and he quoted another AA from a few days before, "a drink isn't just a slip, it is a disaster"). And Emit shot his hand up to tell his story how he had after two sober years found himself romancing a drink in the most peculiar set of circumstances.
Emit had been two years sober, tidied up a previously codependent relationship, steadied his financial footing and generally regained years of whittling away of his physical and social life till he was well on the way to recovering a new life. So when he went on a date he felt he had his sobriety under control. She offered some wine and he felt he had this whole thing under control and would be able to take a glass of wine.
Two days later in jail, having committed a crime in a blackout, his fiscal and social equanimity in a shambles he now learned that he cannot trust himself with one glass of wine. Because, he now knows that that led to 4 liters of vodka, blackouts, violent behavior and the lock up.
There are those who maintain that slips are not a requirement for growth in the program and others who warn that there is no guarantee that if you go out you will ever come back in. My experience has led me to believe that for myself, I could not convince myself of the severity of my disease until I "slipped" once, twice, three times, each time the recovery being more difficult, each time the fall even farther, each time hitting bottom even harder. But for me, and for most others sobriety does not come without a spiritual awakening and until that point sobriety only means not drinking and that is just being a dry drunk.
Until I began to see that I needed to cleanse my soul, to look into the center of my being, sobriety meant and would mean very little to and for me. Until this last time when I saw the reason for being sober. Actually I did not "see" any reason at all but rather "felt" the need for sobriety... the "need" to live. And until that happened, I would have never appreciated or understood life without a drink.
So as to whether slipping is the 'organic' way that one achieves sobriety, there are many who will attest to the fact that it is not a requirement.But for those lost souls like myself, if we are lucky enough to find our will and need to live before alcoholism claims us, then slips probably are an organic and inevitable part of the cycle of recovery.
Because one can try to adopt the steps with all one's heart, but actually believing them to the point where you can save yourself is where the promise of AA meets that desperate hope for life.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
LOOKIN’ GOOD
They said "You know you're looking good"
I threw back a querying glance. "In what way?"
And Jack said "Well you look good".
"Yeah, I heard that but I don't quite understand".
"Well you have to see you as I see you. I've been looking at you for the better part of ten months and I don't know how much you may have noticed you in the mirror, but I remember. I remember a tired looking, ring-eyed, furrow-browed and sad looking guy who hauled his ass in here every day. Every day I hoped I would see a smile, hoped to see some physical evidence of a mood lift. I was looking for a lift to those drooping shoulders, a straightening of the gait, a bit of a spring in the step, less of a shuffle. Some outward sign that things were changing. But you seemed to shrivel even more from the Fall to Winter.
I was thinking about what Jack had said and recalled that Roger had said something similar just last week. And Big John said at our agonizing sponsor meetings that he saw more of a spark in my eye, more eye contact and that even though our meetings were sometimes contentious, at least they had life in them, that I was not letting life roll me over, that I was standing up to it and facing it, challenging, it meeting it on its terms and dealing with it. And Roger's observation was that I looked fit, lost weight, looked healthy and rested and that I was dealing with the challenges that he and I had discussed and I was gradually solving the problems of employment and what I wanted to do with myself when I grow up, that we had been talking about for months.
And it was then that I understood what others had been observing that I only recently began to be consciously aware of myself. And this is quite astonishing to me, because this is the first time in forty years (that's a broad statement) that I can say this. I have been changing my self-image of myself. Sounds redundant. But I have actually been changing my image of my body image. For the first time in the past forty years (because the last time this occurred was when I was in college doing body building) I have looked at myself in the mirror and not been disgusted with the image that I saw. Rather than see a fat schlubby figure, I stand tall, such in the gut, actually acknowledge that the gut is less present than it has been for years, and throw my should back and try to look like a better image of me. And I haven't done that in forty years and certainly not during my marriage.
I have written before,(not here), that as a kid I had an awful body image, a fat, rolly kid, one which was at odds with pictures that I saw of myself when I later looked at myself when I was older. And I would look at those pictures wistfully when I "truly" was a rollier and pollier me looking back on a svelter me. But now I do recognize the new me; I know the me that Roger, Jack and Big John are referring to.
That person is someone I have gradually been getting used to and growing into this summer, first quite tentatively then enthusiastically. At first, I was afraid when my underwear felt too large, but it was a cheap enough investment to replace some with a smaller size. And when that worked to my delighted comfort, I decided to explore new avenues of personal hedonistic gratification. I swapped out some excessive large T shirts for more closely fitted ones that would have been embarrassingly revealing of an ample gut in years past but which now reveals just a nicely flattened belly. We are not talking Charles Atlas, (Arnold Schwarzenegger for those too young to know Charles), but just a better proportioned guy for 62 years old. Two years ago I thought that I was going to look like a fat version of Family Guy!
So when someone, especially someone in the program comes up to you and says he thinks you look good, you pay attention. Because you know that he is paying attention. These guys are not just giving out compliments. They are making observations. Jack could have said that he notice that I was glum and could he help and he may have actually done that. But he also noticed that I was looking well and by that observation he also helped, and he knew that.
We know that help is parceled out or distributed differently, sometimes as a friendly, how are you doin'? Or a " you sure are looking well rested" to "you look like you could use a hand or could speak to someone or ..." you name the need. That is what we do, and depending upon the effect, that is why we do it.
And this morning, I am grateful to Jack for letting me in on his casual and off the cuff observation. It may of been casual to him, but as you can see, it had a more than casual effect upon me.
I threw back a querying glance. "In what way?"
And Jack said "Well you look good".
"Yeah, I heard that but I don't quite understand".
"Well you have to see you as I see you. I've been looking at you for the better part of ten months and I don't know how much you may have noticed you in the mirror, but I remember. I remember a tired looking, ring-eyed, furrow-browed and sad looking guy who hauled his ass in here every day. Every day I hoped I would see a smile, hoped to see some physical evidence of a mood lift. I was looking for a lift to those drooping shoulders, a straightening of the gait, a bit of a spring in the step, less of a shuffle. Some outward sign that things were changing. But you seemed to shrivel even more from the Fall to Winter.
I was thinking about what Jack had said and recalled that Roger had said something similar just last week. And Big John said at our agonizing sponsor meetings that he saw more of a spark in my eye, more eye contact and that even though our meetings were sometimes contentious, at least they had life in them, that I was not letting life roll me over, that I was standing up to it and facing it, challenging, it meeting it on its terms and dealing with it. And Roger's observation was that I looked fit, lost weight, looked healthy and rested and that I was dealing with the challenges that he and I had discussed and I was gradually solving the problems of employment and what I wanted to do with myself when I grow up, that we had been talking about for months.
And it was then that I understood what others had been observing that I only recently began to be consciously aware of myself. And this is quite astonishing to me, because this is the first time in forty years (that's a broad statement) that I can say this. I have been changing my self-image of myself. Sounds redundant. But I have actually been changing my image of my body image. For the first time in the past forty years (because the last time this occurred was when I was in college doing body building) I have looked at myself in the mirror and not been disgusted with the image that I saw. Rather than see a fat schlubby figure, I stand tall, such in the gut, actually acknowledge that the gut is less present than it has been for years, and throw my should back and try to look like a better image of me. And I haven't done that in forty years and certainly not during my marriage.
I have written before,(not here), that as a kid I had an awful body image, a fat, rolly kid, one which was at odds with pictures that I saw of myself when I later looked at myself when I was older. And I would look at those pictures wistfully when I "truly" was a rollier and pollier me looking back on a svelter me. But now I do recognize the new me; I know the me that Roger, Jack and Big John are referring to.
That person is someone I have gradually been getting used to and growing into this summer, first quite tentatively then enthusiastically. At first, I was afraid when my underwear felt too large, but it was a cheap enough investment to replace some with a smaller size. And when that worked to my delighted comfort, I decided to explore new avenues of personal hedonistic gratification. I swapped out some excessive large T shirts for more closely fitted ones that would have been embarrassingly revealing of an ample gut in years past but which now reveals just a nicely flattened belly. We are not talking Charles Atlas, (Arnold Schwarzenegger for those too young to know Charles), but just a better proportioned guy for 62 years old. Two years ago I thought that I was going to look like a fat version of Family Guy!
So when someone, especially someone in the program comes up to you and says he thinks you look good, you pay attention. Because you know that he is paying attention. These guys are not just giving out compliments. They are making observations. Jack could have said that he notice that I was glum and could he help and he may have actually done that. But he also noticed that I was looking well and by that observation he also helped, and he knew that.
We know that help is parceled out or distributed differently, sometimes as a friendly, how are you doin'? Or a " you sure are looking well rested" to "you look like you could use a hand or could speak to someone or ..." you name the need. That is what we do, and depending upon the effect, that is why we do it.
And this morning, I am grateful to Jack for letting me in on his casual and off the cuff observation. It may of been casual to him, but as you can see, it had a more than casual effect upon me.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Anonymity
We live our lives as if they were all a secret - nobody watching what we do. Why would the package store clerk notice that every week I would buy a fifth of McAllen Scotch? Even if I spread the wealth and came around every fourth week by the time I returned, wouldn't he have noticed that I like Mrs. Jones and Mr Malden come round regularly for the same stuff? Clockwork really. Why would the Deli man notice that after years of ordering three beers and a cookie for lunch, that when I ordered a pastrami sandwich and coke should I have expected anything but the query "what no beer"?
What makes us think that our behaviors are so insubstantial? And again, did you think that they aren't? Do you care? If you didn't then why do you behave as if you did by acting as if this were just a routine purchase?
We think we live furtive lives because we are ashamed of ourselves. That's the plain and simple of it all. We are not hiding from others we are symbolibcally hiding from ourselves. Because that is why we isolate, we do not want to face painful feelings, issues and facts. I can't name all or even some of them. They differ from individual to individual. One man's fear is another's fodder. One woman's shame is another's glory. But the arch of the act, the feeling of shame that the drink causes is usually the same and we all travel that same route.
This morning in the municipal parking lot behind the church I was sitting in my car smoking when I noticed Gary thundering up in his Harley, his slight figure practically enfolded by the immensity of the machine, the noise swallowing his form in a gulp. But as he passed in front of the rising sun his silhouette traced an image akin to a comic book character, chiseled jaw, German WWII troop helmet covering his head as he gently nestled the bike into the parking space. Harleys don't sputter when you turn them off, they KACHUNCK, KACHUNCK with a percussive vibration that you feel in your toes until the deep throatiness KACHUNCKS to a halt. And I thought to myself how in the world could I ever have imagined myself becoming friends with this tattooed motor biking chiseled jawed, German-helmeted, comic book character out of an Easy Rider extras call, had I not been in AA. It would have been an extra ordinary circumstance to have met him. Yet he is just an ordinary guy. Sure, he's been in jail for two felonies, but what the hey, he still has artistic tendencies. And not for nothing, his four year old daughter is the most charming kid this side of the Saugatuck River. And this guy's greatest fear is that he will do something stupid that would keep him from seeing his little girl. There is real growth in that guy, and I've seen this over the two years I've known him when he has remained sober and I have not. He did something more righter than I did!
I'm trying the draw the measure of myself against the model of these men, friends that I have made in the rooms. And they are friends. I don't know them all by name but I know them by sight. And if I were to ask any of them for help I no doubt would get the same response "always say yes to a cry for help" or "never say no". We do that because we never know when we will need that helping hand ourselves so in a sense it is a call for the behavior of self preservation. "Do unto others for your own selfish ends and you will feel good about yourself. It always works that way, you know."
There is a price for anonymity, it is called notoriety. Hide as we may from our own worst behaviors we are tattlers on ourselves in the worst possible ways. We don't mean to be. We didn't mean to throw up in all those taxis or fall down all those stairs. Or mean to break all those bones, or noses, or dent all those bumpers. We didn't mean to do all those things. And if those things were done quietly and nobody knew who the culprit was then we "got away with it." We try so hard to remain anonymous and we are befuddled and angered when someone suggests that we may be at fault (rightly or wrongly) for some mishap, as if we could not possibly have been the perpetrators and sheepishly ask "who me"?
I have a friend who was used to tying one on just about every night. He had enough to drink one winter evening and on driving home he stopped for gasoline having noticed that he was low. After he filled up, he noticed that an hour had gone by since his last drink at the tavern so he decided to find a late night liquor store to cap off the night with some vodka. This added an additional hour to his evening's sojourn and when he reached home he entered the house and his wife immediately quizzed him about his whereabouts. He had lame this's and that's but the reason for the third degree turned out to be that she had been visited by the police who claimed that a car registered to their address had broken a gasoline pump! The police had left a half hour before his arrival home but my friend was required to go to the station in the morning to clear things up.
Nobody notices us hmmh? Well apparently he had driven away from the pump with the pump nozzle still in his gas tank, resulting in his ripping the hose from the filling pump. The oil company eventually billed him for the $500 of damages but strangely his was not charged with any crime.
So we want to be invisible and think we are until we aren't and we wish we had been.
The point, not to put too fine of one on it, is that we have isolated ourselves so much in our heads that we believe we exist in an opaque bubble and so are invisible; we don't want anyone to pay attention to us so we wishfully think their attentions away whether it is paid or not. Our invisibility is a figment of our imaginations and only when confronted by harsh reality, usually having to do with the law, or a restraining order or lawsuit, do the blinders come off.
res
What makes us think that our behaviors are so insubstantial? And again, did you think that they aren't? Do you care? If you didn't then why do you behave as if you did by acting as if this were just a routine purchase?
We think we live furtive lives because we are ashamed of ourselves. That's the plain and simple of it all. We are not hiding from others we are symbolibcally hiding from ourselves. Because that is why we isolate, we do not want to face painful feelings, issues and facts. I can't name all or even some of them. They differ from individual to individual. One man's fear is another's fodder. One woman's shame is another's glory. But the arch of the act, the feeling of shame that the drink causes is usually the same and we all travel that same route.
This morning in the municipal parking lot behind the church I was sitting in my car smoking when I noticed Gary thundering up in his Harley, his slight figure practically enfolded by the immensity of the machine, the noise swallowing his form in a gulp. But as he passed in front of the rising sun his silhouette traced an image akin to a comic book character, chiseled jaw, German WWII troop helmet covering his head as he gently nestled the bike into the parking space. Harleys don't sputter when you turn them off, they KACHUNCK, KACHUNCK with a percussive vibration that you feel in your toes until the deep throatiness KACHUNCKS to a halt. And I thought to myself how in the world could I ever have imagined myself becoming friends with this tattooed motor biking chiseled jawed, German-helmeted, comic book character out of an Easy Rider extras call, had I not been in AA. It would have been an extra ordinary circumstance to have met him. Yet he is just an ordinary guy. Sure, he's been in jail for two felonies, but what the hey, he still has artistic tendencies. And not for nothing, his four year old daughter is the most charming kid this side of the Saugatuck River. And this guy's greatest fear is that he will do something stupid that would keep him from seeing his little girl. There is real growth in that guy, and I've seen this over the two years I've known him when he has remained sober and I have not. He did something more righter than I did!
I'm trying the draw the measure of myself against the model of these men, friends that I have made in the rooms. And they are friends. I don't know them all by name but I know them by sight. And if I were to ask any of them for help I no doubt would get the same response "always say yes to a cry for help" or "never say no". We do that because we never know when we will need that helping hand ourselves so in a sense it is a call for the behavior of self preservation. "Do unto others for your own selfish ends and you will feel good about yourself. It always works that way, you know."
There is a price for anonymity, it is called notoriety. Hide as we may from our own worst behaviors we are tattlers on ourselves in the worst possible ways. We don't mean to be. We didn't mean to throw up in all those taxis or fall down all those stairs. Or mean to break all those bones, or noses, or dent all those bumpers. We didn't mean to do all those things. And if those things were done quietly and nobody knew who the culprit was then we "got away with it." We try so hard to remain anonymous and we are befuddled and angered when someone suggests that we may be at fault (rightly or wrongly) for some mishap, as if we could not possibly have been the perpetrators and sheepishly ask "who me"?
I have a friend who was used to tying one on just about every night. He had enough to drink one winter evening and on driving home he stopped for gasoline having noticed that he was low. After he filled up, he noticed that an hour had gone by since his last drink at the tavern so he decided to find a late night liquor store to cap off the night with some vodka. This added an additional hour to his evening's sojourn and when he reached home he entered the house and his wife immediately quizzed him about his whereabouts. He had lame this's and that's but the reason for the third degree turned out to be that she had been visited by the police who claimed that a car registered to their address had broken a gasoline pump! The police had left a half hour before his arrival home but my friend was required to go to the station in the morning to clear things up.
Nobody notices us hmmh? Well apparently he had driven away from the pump with the pump nozzle still in his gas tank, resulting in his ripping the hose from the filling pump. The oil company eventually billed him for the $500 of damages but strangely his was not charged with any crime.
So we want to be invisible and think we are until we aren't and we wish we had been.
The point, not to put too fine of one on it, is that we have isolated ourselves so much in our heads that we believe we exist in an opaque bubble and so are invisible; we don't want anyone to pay attention to us so we wishfully think their attentions away whether it is paid or not. Our invisibility is a figment of our imaginations and only when confronted by harsh reality, usually having to do with the law, or a restraining order or lawsuit, do the blinders come off.
res
Friday, July 23, 2010
Is there an alcohol cure
When I think about my alcoholism I think of worry, trouble, depression, lies, deceit and lots of skulking around but not a lot of fun. I think of years of lost sleep, lost love, lost trust lost personal treasure. So when I think about a "cure" I think in relative terms and usually in cures as 'freedoms from' somethings like freedom from lost sleep, lost love, lost trust. A cure for me means I no longer have to lie about things, no more hiding liquor around the house and no more making up of stories to cover - up what I was doing when I did not show up to a function that I had promised my presence at.
I know that others would like to hope that there is a cure for the craving of alcohol or the need for putting an addicting substance in your body. And if you are reading this and truly have a continuing interest to participate in this forum I will share with you all that my experience has shown me. I do use medication to suppress cravings and I would like to say that it works very well. But I cannot say that unequivocally. And that is because that by the time that I truly surrendered to the program, I was so out of breath and mentally exhausted from all the tribulations, that I still do not know almost nine months later, whether my lack of craving is the result of medication or the result of emotional exhaustion. Only time will tell. And of course I cannot say that there are no times that I have not had at least a small desire for a nip, just not that overwhelming need to have slug, right now not later just now here and all other things be damned!
So I start the blog hopeful that there are other experiences out there, other opinions, other life stories. I do not intend to have great debates but in true AA fashion we can only bring our experience strength and hope to our own recovery and the rest is up to us. We can take what we need and leave the rest.
I await with interest the future.
Dr. Bob
I know that others would like to hope that there is a cure for the craving of alcohol or the need for putting an addicting substance in your body. And if you are reading this and truly have a continuing interest to participate in this forum I will share with you all that my experience has shown me. I do use medication to suppress cravings and I would like to say that it works very well. But I cannot say that unequivocally. And that is because that by the time that I truly surrendered to the program, I was so out of breath and mentally exhausted from all the tribulations, that I still do not know almost nine months later, whether my lack of craving is the result of medication or the result of emotional exhaustion. Only time will tell. And of course I cannot say that there are no times that I have not had at least a small desire for a nip, just not that overwhelming need to have slug, right now not later just now here and all other things be damned!
So I start the blog hopeful that there are other experiences out there, other opinions, other life stories. I do not intend to have great debates but in true AA fashion we can only bring our experience strength and hope to our own recovery and the rest is up to us. We can take what we need and leave the rest.
I await with interest the future.
Dr. Bob
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