Mr. SponsorPants

home again home again jiggity-jig

 

 

Wow!

A wonderful weekend of AA and Alanon speakers, meetings and workshops at the Convention (or Roundup, depending on what part of the country you're in) I was lucky enough to go to this weekend.

Much like a gust of wind to a becalmed sailboat, the Roundup was a true boost to my somewhat flagging spirits.  If you've never been to one I urge you to go.  The speakers generally have a great message, and the workshops provide special focus to things every person in recovery should be mindful of.  This convention was especially warm and charming and full of energy, sobriety and affection, and I am deeply grateful I had the opportunity to attend and participate.

 

Something I thought about on the plane home (and I didn't get patted down by TSA at either end of my journey -- is it wrong to feel slightly rejected by that?):

So often, even in sobriety, it can be negative energy which prompts us to action.  The fear, the resentment, push/pulling us out of our complacency and into forward motion.  It's not for nothing the expression is: "Pain is the touchstone of our spiritual growth."

But sitting on the plane (I can still buckle an airplane seatbelt without doing severe injury to internal organs, so there's that, too!), looking out the little window at the clouds and turning the Convention over in my mind -- savoring the various recollections of a weekend spent with a community of sober alcoholics, addicts and alanons coming together in love and service --  I felt reinvigorated and it really struck me that if we remember to open ourselves to it, the positive energy can be as motivating, as much a call to action as the negative.

So if you'll forgive the brush with grandiosity it is for me to amend a classic quotation (just a brush, Mr. SponsorPants?  My, you are doing better!):

 

Pain is the touchstone of our spiritual growth.  Yes.  But not pain alone.

Love too can call our spirits to rise and flourish and move forward with real purpose on our path;

in short, Love is an equal touchstone to our spiritual growth in recovery.

 

 

And if that sounds like pap, like treacle, to you... well, maybe it is.

Or maybe you're just afraid to believe in good things because it's safer to stay in the comfortable, stagnant, boring land of sarcasm and faux sophistication and hide behind the mask of cooler-than-you.  "Cooler-than-you" is at heart a child's evasion.  You might want to look at that.  There is courage in being willing to embrace a message of positivity and hope.  There is courage in being willing to be mocked or minimized for that -- even if the mocking and minimizing is mostly in your own head. (And could that be your alcoholism talking? Using a pitch-perfect impersonation of the voice-in-your-head which will most intimidate you, to keep you from raising your eyes to the next great place of healing for you to achieve?)

Be brave, and keep the faith in good things.

Sober Texting 12

 

 

FORMER SPONSEE:  I don't believe in God anymore.

MR. SPONSORPANTS:  Man, you have a helluva way of saying 'hello.'

FS:  Well I don't.

MR. SP:  Ok.

 

A few minutes go by.

 

FS:  Don't you want to know why?

MR. SP:  No.

More minutes pass.

 

FS:  It's because of everything that happened.

I consider several responses and decide on short and completely honest.  I suppose the word "blunt" is not entirely inaccurate.

MR. SP:  Maybe.

FS:  Maybe?  What the hell does that mean?

MR. SP:  Look, I don't want to play, ok?

FS:  No, tell me what you mean.

MR. SP:  You want to make a speech about God and fairness and ask 'why' a lot and then when I say what I always say -- which is that logic alone will not get you to faith, and if a rigid logic is all you have in times of doubt it will fail you -- then you'll argue with me saying "yeah but..." a lot.

FS:  Wow you sure think you know it all.

MR. SP:  Then you will want to use all of that as a rationalization to do whatever you decided you wanted to do before you ever picked up your phone and texted me.

FS: You know what you are?

MR. SP: Besides fat, middle-aged and tired?

FS:  Funny  Always so funny.  You're arrogant, that's what you are.

MR. SP:  You know, this little back and forth has been great, but I'm going to say goodbye now.

 

I turned off my phone.  It had been a long day and I was tired.  I reserve the right to be totally wrong about every thing I texted.  Ultimately, in my experience, they are an angry individual and I pray for them, but I did my time.  I don't have to dance with them anymore, and I have no more answers and as many doubts and questions as anyone, most days.

Especially these past few days.

But I know that no matter what happens in the world, there is a part of me, beyond the parts of me which are griefstricken or awestruck or amazed or disgusted, which will genuinely use anything at all to justify doing what I secretly really want to do.

And that part of me is the part which is infused with my alcoholism, and whatever doubts or questions I may have on any given day I must guard against that part being the only part making decisions about my actions.

So I guess that, then, is also evidence of something Greater than myself -- some sort of Grace -- since on my own that part is indeed calling the shots, since in the darkest corners of me it's what I want.

This all may read silly but it feels messy and it lives real.

 

to keep people from seeing

Just

because

you

know

a lot

about

sex

doesn't

mean

you know

anything

about

intimacy.

 

In fact, for me, one of the things I learned in the sexual inventory of my 4th Step was how I used sex to avoid intimacy -- in other words, to keep people from seeing Me.

And to keep me from seeing Me, too.

In my experience, when it comes to how alcoholism takes good, healthy things and twists them to its own service in a never-ending drive to isolate the alcoholic, physical intimacy is not about closeness or truth -- or even fun, really.  It's about walls or masks.

 

 

okay, let's try this again

technical difficulties yesterday. let's try this again.

 

It meant going back to work, essentially.  You see, the AA meeting was literally downstairs from where I worked, in the Utility Room of the parking garage of the plaza where the restaurant I manage is located.  After yet another in a long series of long days, the idea of basically turning around and heading back... well, let's just say it pushed at the boundaries of my willingness a little. 

I had some pretty good reasons for begging off, too, although ultimately I knew they were all bullshit.  I just wasn't willing to let go of them right away.  So I sat down on my sofa while the new kittens (Evil Old Cat's ghost lingers, but I'm afraid The Universe would not allow the vacancy to last forever) gamboled about the living room, occasionally deciding that toes in socks needed to be stalked and pounced upon and nipped into submission (Ow! Ow! Take the damn socks then! Ow!) and let the Quiet Voice which knows what's right have a chance to get a word in.  With rather less grace than I'd like to admit I made a few calls about getting a ride to the meeting and texted the Secretary back that of course I would be there.

I was mildly curious about what I'd find -- 10:30pm of a Monday night in a parking garage is an interesting set up for a meeting (though God knows I've spoken in stranger places).  The fact that it was literally under my feet at work and I didn't know about it wasn't that strange -- after all, it's a big city, and there are many meetings to choose from now.  Many orbits along which you can travel -- two people in AA, neighbors, can both go to many meetings in a week and never run into each other anywhere but the laundromat or the mailbox.

All of which is to say that I half knew what to expect:  Likely a small-to-medium sized group, populated by a mixed bag of folks -- some with maybe more issues than just alcoholism -- but an AA meeting none-the-less.  And as my dead sponsor used to say between deep dreadful drags on the cigarettes he loved so much, "all your little get togethers with your sponsees, your fellowshipping, your AA birthday parties, your service, etc. is good.  It's important.  But it's not a meeting.  A meeting is a meeting."

(And it is as true today as it was the first time I wrote it:  I miss his wise counsel, his salty humor, his wry wit, his seemingly endless patience with me and his sharp, helpful insight every single god damn day of my life.)

So a meeting is a meeting and there I sat in front of this one, and my guess as to who would be there and what it was like was pretty close to the mark.  The room was no surprise.  I've spoken there before at other meetings in the past few years.  No matter what people try to do to soften it up a (Christmas Lights festooned across the exposed pipes, the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions hung up on the wall) it still feels like you're in the utility room of a parking garage -- a meeting space with all the comfort of a bucket of gravel.  But a meeting really is a meeting, and it's neither the chairs nor the space which make it happen, it's the program and the people that transform it into a place where people who want to stop drinking, but cannot on their own, may find a solution.

So there were a couple of rows of chairs in front of me, and maybe fifteen or so people in those, and then a row towards the back but off to the side, with another eight or ten people sitting there.

I was tired, and had a little bit of a dirty diaper, spiritually speaking, about the whole thing.  Would that I could walk my talk all the time but

wait, that's totally not fair to myself.  I was there, as I said I'd be.  If I didn't feel as willing as I usually do... well, that's just being human.  "No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints..."

Thus I sat there, feeling less than great or gracious, with maybe just a low grade level of self pity and perhaps a teeny dash of resentment.

"What a fucking waste of time.  I wish I was home.  This won't move anyone much more than an inch towards any kind of solution."  Writing these essays can be a curious blend of striving-for-accurate-recall and trying for worth-reading-story-telling, yet for some strange reason I can tell you clearly that was the exact, strangely-worded thing I thought.

And the Quiet Voice spoke up.

Sometimes that's all it takes.  Just one more inch to get someone to something bigger, or that they needed to reach.  An inch can be all a body needs.

And on the heels of that, in my "own" voice, I thought two things almost at the same time:

"I know that can be true."

and

"Man, my head is a weird place."

So the meeting began, and there were the usual readings to start with, during which I could not help but notice that literally the entire back of the room appeared to be completely engrossed in their cell phone displays, thumbs doing their agile, text-typing dance.

(It just occurred to me that I bet the sport of thumb wrestling has, at the start of the 21st Century, gotten a whole lot more interesting, what with how dexterous everyone is in that regard now.)

And the readings concluded and I started to speak.

I wrote it before and I think I'm sincere when I say it (I think so...) at this point I don't have a lot of ego left to burn off when it comes to speaking at a meeting -- sure, some still, but not a lot.  I've just done it too much, felt good about it and bad, indulged my ego and had it smashed, felt like I was carrying the message or felt like I had just taken off my pants in front of a room full of strangers and was not well received... now it's just an act of service and I'm usually happy to do it but not too wound up one way or another.  People get what they get, hear what they need to, whether it's what you said or not. 

But as I continued to speak, I started to get angry at the people in the back texting.  I don't know if this will make sense, but I was not angry for me, I was angry for the meeting.  And angry for the texters.  It was just... the healing in an AA meeting happens in a number of ways, but whether its through the process of identification or the process of finally feeling like you're being heard by people who really understand and might actually care, the channel along which this medicine is delivered is the act of listening.  And when someone is texting -- not knitting, not staring off into space or holding their head in their hands or staring at the ground -- it's ... it's just different.  Isolative.  Dismissive.  Very much not listening.

I felt a terrible tug of war happen at the start of virtually every sentence.  Go there, or don't go there.  Say something or don't say something.  I have before, in other meetings.  I spoke at one giant Young People's meeting with a somewhat sassy crowd, and whipped around and asked two girls sitting immediately to my right if they would either choose to be quiet or choose to be outside since I was trying to be as honest as possible in a scary situation and their whispers and titters were really distracting.  I've addressed texting at other meetings before too; once when I was speaking and a guy in the first row pulled out his phone and started and I... barked?  snapped?  scolded? that it was going to be hard to focus on sharing if he was going to text right under my nose like that.  And then I apologized to him and the group since the lectern is not a bully pullpit -- another factor at play in my do-I-or-don't-I dance. (And in that instance, when he then got up to share -- since he raised his hand and I called on him right away, figuring that I'd had my shot from the lectern he deserved his -- it became spooky as all hell, since he confessed he had, at that moment, decided to text his dealer, and being called out let the moment pass)...  And the fact that I have before made the tug-of-war all the more intense.  On the tip of my tongue, with almost every breath, trembled a "Seriously?..."  Consequently, what I did share sounded... well, I don't know and that's none of my business -- it was what it was -- but how it felt was that putting so much energy into not saying something left a strange emptiness around what I did say.

What prevented me from going there -- the tiny bead on the scale that kept me tipped into Let It Go -- was the memory of the Quiet Thought I'd had at the beginning of the meeting.  I just knew that if I Went There I would not come back from it -- the whole tenor of what I was talking about would shift, and a somewhat confrontive and possibly ugly vibe would enter the room.

So it became about ignoring my anger (that smoldering coal in the middle of my chest, ready to ignite a much larger fire) and an exercise in paying attention to the people who were listening.

You don't have to have spent much time at the AA Rodeo to know what is at the heart of all this for me:  Fear.  Fear about the meetings being a safe place.  Fear of a tidal change which feels like it could erode something very important to me.  Fear that people aren't doing things the way I think they should do them.  

And I can recognize the fear and strive for acceptance and still also legitimately feel that sitting in an AA meeting and texting away while the person literally sitting next to you is sharing about going through their cancer treatment (which actually happened that very night during the sharing portion of the meeting I am writing about in this essay) is not just rude, or selfish, or insensitive, but actually bad medicine.

Some meetings (as were pointed out in the Comments yesterday) include a statement about texting during the meeting in their format.  That's a good idea I guess... though I wager it wouldn't have made a dent in those people in this group.

  And I'm no fan of meetings having "cops" to enforce very much.  We are not a glum lot, but we are not a well lot either, and to have the openness and acceptance we must to be as inclusive as we are means that when you get down to it there are some messy, messy meetings out there.  But I also know -- as most of you reading this do, too -- that one person's mess is another person's safety and freedom.

Ultimately what this is about is I walked my talk.  I said yes to an AA request, as I had been taught to do by my first sponsor and which has been echoed by every one since that one.  And I have no idea if I helped anyone move even a fraction of an inch along their spiritual path -- and I don't need to.  That's seriously none of my business.

Because even though it can be messy or uncomfortable, and I can have a spiritual dirty diaper or all the grace of a pig on a pogo stick, by saying yes to AA I continue to inch along mine.

 

do nothing for 2 minutes

 

 

 

 

Do Nothing for 2 Minutes

 

 

 

a little nudge

 

 

I was wandering down the aisle at Target not really paying attention to my surroundings, lost in thoughts about work and the terrible behavior of certain customers.  I was tired, having gotten up way too early for a day off, and it was all too easy to drift into resentment colored fantasy.

"Oh! It's you!"

I looked up, and it was one of the regular customers from work -- but not one I had been dwelling on and resenting thinking about.

(The Universe plays cute with me sometimes but not that cute.)

I smiled reflexively, if not entirely sincerely.  "Well hello there."  I said.

"Hello!  You know, I'm glad to run into you... I know you're not at work right now... unless are you working here now too?"

While there is nothing wrong with working at Target -- not one damn thing -- I felt a little flash of irritation.  "Nope."  I said, "Just the restaurant." 

"I just have to tell you..."  And she did.  She spent the next ten minutes telling me how much she liked me, my team, our restaurant, and the food -- in that order.

The friend I was out shopping with wandered up about halfway through this glowing tribute, having gotten lost in the socks section a few aisles back.

"Wow!" he said, after the guest wound down and moved on.  "What the hell was all that?"

"That?" I smiled.  "That was a little nudge from the Universe reminding me that my thinking -- especially when I'm tired -- is usually utter and complete bullshit."

 

 

 

Questions via Email: 3 Part Disease?

 

 

Dear Mr. SP,

I'm new. I hear all the time that it's a 3 part disease but I'm not sure I know what that means. Please don't tell me to look in the Big Book.  Can you please just tell me?

 

Wondering

 

Dear Wondering,

You know, I sponsored someone once who just couldn't understand the Big Book.  It's not that they weren't smart, nor did they lack for willingness.  It's just that they weren't much of a reader, English was their least favorite subject in school (actually, I think school was their least favorite subject in school) and then to top it all off the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (the aforementioned "Big Book") was written in 1938/9, so it's full of early 20th Century slang (like "... the goose hung high..." and "... lest I burst through my window, sash and all..." and "the remonstrances of my friends terminated in a row, and I became a lone wolf."  That last one, by the way, is important if you're new and beginning to identify with some of what you hear in meetings...)  They wanted to read the book, but they needed me to sort of translate it for them.  As intelligent as the were -- and they were -- they couldn't take that writing in with any real comprehension themselves.

All of which is to say that, in my humble opinion there are two kinds of people who have a problem with the Big Book:  The Wont's -- who have issues with sloth, willingness and rebellion (hello... er... almost everybody) and the Cant's (hello... er... almost everybody else). 

So today I'll think of you in the Can't camp and I won't parse out a clever, snarky little anecdote which ultimately scolds you and then tells you to go to the Big Book...

...

...

...

>>>Mr. SponsorPants makes Herculean effort to restrain himself<<<

...

...

...

...(dear God, I think I just pulled something)...

since that's probably not very helpful to you (but damned fun to write, I must confess).

 

In an effort to not drown you in words and information I'll try to keep this bare bones.  I'll just give you what I understand this 3 Part business to mean:

 

Alcoholism is a three-fold disease:  Body, mind and spirit.  Physical, mental and spiritual is how it is also often spoken about.

When an alcoholic ingests alcohol, there is a physically rooted craving for more which is triggered. That's the "body" part of the disease.  Today's medical technology can map brain activity and give a diagnosis around addiction which talks about "serotonin production" and "serotonin uptake" and some other cool stuff, but for you and me, the word "craving" can serve as a perfectly accurate label for the hard science.  And just to be clear, a "craving" is not just a fancy way of saying "I want" -- we're not talking about the desire to keep your buzz going once you start drinking.  We're talking about a literally physically driven reaction to the alcohol separate from the high and different from just the generally lowered inhibitions alcohol engenders.  The difference between a desire and a craving is like the difference between a wave and a tsunami.  There are some similarities, but one of them is always going to be irresistible.

And no matter how horrible the consequences of their drinking becomes, an alcoholic is not able to use the idea, or the memory, or the thought of those consequences to influence our decision making enough to prevent us from eventually picking up a drink all over again -- and then triggering that physically rooted craving.  On the most basic level that's the mental part of the disease.

The spiritual part of the disease refers to the staggering level of self-involvement (bordering on narcissism) that most alcoholics have.  Life is not all about us; life is all about us. Every relationship and event is viewed through a backwards and distorted lens -- like how in ancient times people thought the Sun revolved around the Earth, alcoholics believe everything revolves in some way around us.

Thus it is the one-two punch from the self-centeredness of the spiritual aspect and the (sometimes-but-not-always-willful) blind spot of the mental element which keeps most alcoholics on a cycle of drinking which, in both my observation and personal experience, never seems to lead to a healthy, happy, fulfilling life.

 

That help?

 

Cheers!

Mr. SponsorPants

 

The World According to an Alcoholic

 

 

via http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/

 

 

"I'm afraid I have to let you go..."

"I'm sorry, ________, I'm afraid I have to let you go."

After I sit them down in the office, when I have to fire someone, that's what I start with.  No "I hope you know what a great person we all think you are..." or "I realize you've made a real effort here but..."

Just... out with it.  I have come to believe that when it comes to bad news, it's best to rip the band aid off quickly.  Be direct.  No dancing.  Then, after I lower the boom, I sit quietly and give their brain a moment to go "Wait, what did he just say?" and replay it to themselves.

"I have your final check here."  I hand them their check -- although it's sealed I always make sure the math is right; that payroll didn't accidentally add insult to injury.

I terminated two people today, one right after the other.  One of them -- the first one -- didn't take it well. 

At all.

After he collected himself he asked me if he could "go out the back way" so he didn't have to see everyone.  I said of course and walked him to the back door.  I always walk people out.  I hope that it feels like a kindness.  I try to be calm and gentle, but it's also because I have a responsibility to my employers to make sure that there aren't any incidents as they leave.

I never feel good about it, no matter what the cause.

Today I felt like hell.

If I make it to that point with someone I assure you I've done everything in my power to help them straighten out and get on track.  It quietly kills me to see how for some people they just aren't capable of taking the help in, whether it's from a crappy attitude or a lack of aptitude. 

I flash back to when I was a foolish, drunken boy, fumbling and burning my way through educational and career opportunities.  I think about the many people who tried to help me, to reach me -- and I just couldn't hear them.  Sure, some of that was just stupid, careless youth... but in my case it was also the air raid siren of my alcoholism shrieking in my head, drowning out the possibility of hearing anything else but its driven, destructive, seductive song.

To make it worse, one of the kids I fired -- the one who didn't take it well -- phoned me earlier in the day to confirm their shift, and asked if it was a mistake they were being called in early, and wondered if their shift would be short enough for them to catch a ride home with a friend after.  Feeling like the fraud I had to be in that moment, I did my best to be honest and still honor my responsibility to the job:  "Yes, I need you to come in early.  And yes, it's likely going to be a shorter shift today..."

("As in, fifteen minutes long," I thought, the glib betrayal like bile on my tongue.)

"Why?" he asked, genuinely clueless as to what was coming.

"Jesus" I thought.

"I have to make some changes to the schedule today."  Also true, but still deliberately misleading.  It's never good when I begin parsing the spirit of the truth from the letter of it.  Dangerous for an old compulsive liar like myself.

I remember in one of my very first AA meetings a woman shared who, in talking about something else, almost as an afterthought said "It was in AA I learned how to stop lying."  It was one of the first times I felt that electric zing in my gut when someone shares a truth about themselves in a meeting which until that very moment I hadn't been able to see in myself -- what an amazing place an AA meeting is, to give the chance to hear such things; freely shared, offered (mostly) via personal experience and in the spirit of helpfulness and recovery.  I hope I never really take that for granted.

I keep a termination quick.  I gently refuse to be drawn into debate about the grounds for termination.  I just broken record whatever brief reason I have to offer them.  Most people, once it sets in, aren't interested in prolonging the experience.  My boss happened to be there today (though he didn't sit in on the terminations), and was, he said, quite impressed with how quickly I dispatch these conversations -- and one right after the other, no less.

I just shrugged and told him I've found that's best for all parties concerned.

I'm the boss now.  It's my job.  I can tell myself that it's almost a form of enabling to let people stay on and keep screwing up -- and it's not fair to the other people working there, as keeping someone who can't pull their weight  in one fashion or another can make the rest of the team's jobs that much harder -- not to mention undermining morale.

I can tell myself that and on the days I don't fire people it sounds really good and healthy, like the Mission Statement at a Recovery Center's HR Department.

But on the days I fire people -- blessedly not that often -- I just kind of feel like an asshole.

In AA I've learned not to make things all about myself.  I can be clear about how I feel of course, but comparatively speaking I'm not the one who had a bad day, when you tally up the score for this 24 hours.

It's still a tough job market, so even though I shouldn't have, I told them each that they could use me as a reference.  I told them I would say they were let go because we didn't have enough hours to give them.  What the hell, no one will know, those calls will come right to me.  And with all the second chances I've had, who am I to not do what I can to give someone else the opportunity to get it right on their next gig.

That's not rigorous honesty, I know, to tell their next prospective employer such a thing.  Oh, I could write here that the full sentence in my mind is "We didn't have enough hours to give them because if I gave them all the hours in the world they'd still not have had the aptitude -- or the attitude -- the job requires" but that's just playing a game.  I wouldn't offer to be a job reference to someone fired for stealing, or a grievous offense along those lines, but... this is different.

To me, anyway.

And maybe this is their wake-up call, job-wise.  Maybe they will do better in their next gig.  If I believe in God -- and today I do -- I know they have a Higher Power and this is part of what they need to grow in the way they need to grow.  In AA I have seen countless examples -- including my own -- of people who were able to eventually experience real change in themselves.  But we 12 Steppers don't own that.  Maybe a lot of stories don't go that way, but some do.  Who am I to say I know how the next chapter of someone else's story will unfold? 

Regardless, with all that said I'm still willing to lie and be a neutral job reference for them.

Maybe it's a mark of recovery that at least I'm not kidding myself about what I'm doing.

Being a grown up is hard sometimes.

AA helps me manage it more gracefully, I know that down to my bones.

But, with grace or without, some days have more of the suck to them than others.

In rereading this I want you to know that I see the contradiction.

I talk about how it is dangerous for me to parse the truth, about feeling terrible for having to be untruthful, and then turn right around and decide to lie.

It is a contradiction, yes -- yet it feels clean to me.

And what the hell, I'm a drunk who doesn't drink.

By definition I AM a contradiction.

It's just one day at a time, I try to keep moving in the right direction.

Disciplined but not rigid,

finding my way by listening to the little voice in my heart

and not the alcoholic one in my head.

Questions via Email: Part 1 - How do you make the group your "Higher Power?"

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

After [more than 25] years of drinking, I have been attending AA since [last fall] but other than [a couple of weeks over the holidays] I have not been sober consecutively. I am currently [in my first week]. I really struggle with this higher power concept. I know that I can use the group, but really, how do you turn your life and will over to a group of people. I like the meetings and doubt that I could get sober alone, but these steps seem so strange to a logical thinker like myself. Can you share anything that might help me?

J

 

Dear J,

Remember, what defines the quality of someone's recovery is not that they drank, or drank more than once, it is that they got sober again.  We each have today, and being sober today is your miracle and your triumph.  I can tell from your email you're willing and you have a great attitude -- the only two things you have to manage on your own -- so I have absolutely no doubt if you stick close you'll make it.

But your questions are good ones, and not the first (and certainly not the last) I'll hear them either on the blog or in person, so I'm very glad you brought them up.

They're so good in fact, I'm gonna make you a two-parter.

First one first:  How do you turn your life and will over to a group of people?  Or, to refine that a bit, how do you make an AA group your Higher Power?

To best answer that, I need to show you some things.  Take my hand, we're going to travel through Time and Space for a few minutes.  Ready?

**BAMF!**

J:  Where are we?

Mr. SP: Ummm, my aim isn't as precise as I like but if I ...

looks up at the night sky, checks the constellations

Mr. SP:  Yes, this is roughly the early 1800's, and we're somewhere in Texas.  See that old guy over there?

J:  By the campfire? 

Mr. SP:  Yes.  He's got something to tell us.

J and Mr. SP wander over.

Old Guy by the Campfire:  If you need space by the fire, I can share.

Mr. SP:  Thank you kindly.

Old Guy by the Campfire:  You two look a might new at this.  Remember, if you get up in the middle of the night to take a pee, shake out your bedroll before you get back into it.

J:  How come?

Old Guy:  Scorpions.  They crawl in when you get up, attracted by how warm and toasty you left the blankets.

Mr. SP:  Thanks, we've got to get going though.

Old Guy:  Suit yourselves.

**BAMF**

J: Holy...

Mr. SP:  Speak up, I can't hear you over the engines!

J:  Where...?

Mr. SP:  We're in a plane over France in... if I got it right, 1942...

J:  What the hell...?

Mr. SP:  Hang on, we need to listen to this guy...

Points to airman in camo and blackface

Airman:  I've done a hundred jumps, and you guys are new, right?  Remember, after you jump...

J:  We're going to jump?

Airman:  Pay attention!  After you get your 'chute on, we'll do some recon over the landing site and you can jump when we see the signal.  No matter how fast you think you're falling, make sure you do a slow count to 20 before you pull the ripcord... otherwise, your 'chute might tangle in the props, got it?

Mr. SP and J nod.

Mr. SP:  Got it. Uh, I mean, Got it, Sir!

**BAMF!**

J:  This is getting... where are we now?

Mr. SP:  Florida Keys.  Sometime in the '70's I think.

J:  How do you know it's the '70's if you're not very good at this? 

Mr. SP: All the paisley.

J:  What is this place? 

Mr. SP:  It's a dive school.  Shhh, here's the instructor.

Instructor walks up with a class in various scuba gear

Instructor: ... bends, which is basically when nitrogen bubbles, created by pressure at the depths we'll eventually dive to, enter the liquid in your body, and should you rise towards the surface too quickly will be forced out... very painful and possibly fatal.  What you need to do is rise at a measured pace, via a schedule which...

Mr. SP:  Okay, let's get back.

**BAMF!**

J:  What was the point of all that?

Mr. SP:  Okay, if you'd stayed by the campfire that night, back in the 1800's, and you'd gotten up to pee in the night, would you have followed that Old Guy's advice? 

J:  Well... sure.

Mr. SP:  Why?

J:  Well, he knows what he's talking about... I mean, I've never camped in a bedroll by a fire and he has so...

Mr. SP:  What about the Airman and his slow count instructions?  Would you have done that?

J:  Sure, although I'm not sure how slowly I can count when I'm jumping out of a plane. 

Mr. SP:  Me neither, actually.  But why do you believe him? 

J:  Well... he's like, a trained air force guy.  He said he'd done like a hundred jumps and so, you know, he's... he knows how to do it.  Don't think I can't see where you're going here...

Mr. SP:  Indulge me.  What about the Dive Instructor, if you were in that class, would you follow the formula he was going to lay out to avoid the bends?

J:  Yes.

Mr. SP:  Why?

J:  The bends is painful, I know that without all this rigmarole.

Mr. SP:  So you would make those guys your Higher Power?  Like you'd worship them and stuff?

J:  No, not... not worship them, that sounds weird and creepy.

Mr. SP:  So in those situations you're turning your will and your life over to them -- meaning you'll seek their counsel and follow their suggestions -- because they have experience in how to survive where you find yourself.

J:  Yeah.  Okay, yeah.

Mr. SP:  So it's not really the individual people you're turning your will and your life over to -- it's not specific people, it's their knowledge and experience of how to survive something. That's what you're surrendering to.  It's their experience which is your "Higher Power."

J: ... well... yeah.

Mr. SP:  So that's how you do it then.

J:  Do what?

Mr. SP:  Turn your will and your life over to an AA group.  You find yourself in a position equally fraught with danger and potential for pain and fatality today as you might have been in any of those other scenarios.  Only instead of scorpions and tangled 'chutes and the bends you're facing addiction and fear and ego.  And the people in the meeting have survived those same things... so what they have to tell you has value because it's based on experience -- even if the way some of them say it is colored by their own ego and such.  Just because someone's been sober a while doesn't mean they stop being a work in progress.  If the Diving Instructor turned out to be an unmitigated ass, it wouldn't invalidate the truth of what he was telling you about what the bends are, how they can harm you and what you need to do to avoid them, right?

J:  Yeah, I guess.  Yeah.

Mr. SP:  Same in an AA group.  It's not the people that you're turning your will and your life over to (they're messy and flawed as individuals, and in one way or another they always will be -- the best we get is progress)... it's their practical experience of how to stay sober, and how to apply this recovery and 12 Step information to your life, day in, day out, one day at a time.  That's what you are turning your will and life over to.  So you simply live your daily routine the way AA suggests you do, and when you hit a snag or have a question or a problem, share about it in the group and take in the suggestions which are offered.  Some people might be easier to listen to than others, but on the whole, you'll get good orderly direction.  And God knows, when I was newly sober, that's what I needed.  What my mind came up with as how to handle things was usually NOT a good plan to follow.  The only experience I had to offer myself was how to live a drinking life in active addiction.  I needed to follow the plan laid out by people who had experience NOT doing pretty much the only way I knew how to do anything.  Following their plan, and asking them for input when I was stuck, was how I first "turned my will and my life" over to AA.

J:  Oh.

 

Part 2 tomorrow...