One theory regarding Poe's death was that it was caused (or accelerated) by Delirium Tremens. The above sentiment adds a bit of credibility to that one, in my humble opinion.
Alcoholics don't own the idea of a hungry heart, (nor are we the sole proprietors of melancholy, hyperbole or being flat out drama queens) but... whatever he is or was, however it all played out, I read that and I think "Poe gets it."
It is a beautiful thought, cummings.
And an image I like very much.
I hope you don't mind if I offer one additional thought;
I am here to tell you that
(for an alcoholic),
not all birdsong
is beautiful.
(Which is why we must learn to listen
differently.)
and in my experience, I've often found them at a meeting...
but it's important to add, that I've never found them
by sitting at home, alone,
isolating,
obsessing,
bathing in self pity
and not answering the phone.
(as much fun as that can be sometimes.)
Without AA this can be my cycle.
With AA, I can break it.
And I meant it. I meant them both. But the latter completely eclipsed the former.
Boom BOOM.
The first thought is me. Just human. An understandable knee jerk reaction and certainly not very terrible.
The second thought is me + AA.
Me, but just a little better.
And that's pretty much the story of my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Me,
better.
Sometimes I think about how much time I spent drinking,
stuck in the bar, stuck in the bottle; trapped in the infinity doomloop of self-obssession and chemically altered thoughts.
But I don't think of it as time wasted
(see what I did there?)
though it does occasionally take my breath away when I think about the sheer volume of hours days weeks years spent in sickness.
The AA literature suggests that we "do not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it."
Sometimes when people reference that bit of the lit they sound as though they are following (or issuing) an order.
But it's not.
Not regretting the past, nor wishing to shut the door on it, is not an order to follow -- it is a result. Specifically the result of working the 12 Steps (and, not to put too fine a point on it, a particular result promised before you are "half way through" Step 9.)
For me, this result is also rooted in the beginning of the 12 Steps, and understanding the disease concept of alcoholism.
To express how I understand this with a metaphor:
Someone who spent the first 20 years of their life in a wheelchair may think wistfully about what it might have been like to grow up free from that confinement -- but they probably don't get angry with themselves for not having spent their childhood in ballet or track -- because it's not that they didn't do those things (and thus "wasted" that time/opportunity), it's that they couldn't do those things.
The same is true for me when I understand the disease concept of alcoholism, and when I take the first step in understanding how powerless I am over it. It's not that I didn't do healthier, better things -- it's that at that time in my life I couldn't do them.
And finally,
I had to have been who I was to be who I am.
And if I like who I am now, then nothing that happened before is really worth regretting.
As the day goes on, we can pause where situations must be met and decisions made, and renew the simple request: "Thy will, not mine, be done." If at these points our emotional disturbance happens to be great, we will more surely keep our balance, provided we remember, and repeat to ourselves, a particular prayer or phrase that has appealed to us in our reading or meditation. Just saying it over and over will often enable us to clear a channel choked up with anger, fear, frustration, or misunderstanding, and permit us to return to the surest help of all -- our search for God's will, not our own, in the moment of stress. At these critical moments, if we remind ourselves that "it is better to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood, to love than to be loved," we will be following the intent of Step Eleven.
-- "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (AA's 12 & 12) pg. 103
Cracked me up.
But I was reminded recently of when I was newly sober, and people would come back from a relapse and list -- either in conversation or when they shared -- "why" they drank. My dead sponsor (he's who's wise counsel I miss every single day) would lean over to me and whisper, "Bullshit. They drank because they're an alcoholic." Needless to say I would be scandalized and hope that no one heard his rude remark. He was wise, but towards the end he was extra salty.
I was then (and am now) of two minds on that subject. On the one hand, I think it can be useful to perform an "autopsy" on a relapse. (Apt choice or words; if you don't perform one on the relapse someone may perform one on you, eh?). If, when people come back, rehab counselors and well-meaning AA's will ask "what are you going to do differently this time?" then it's fair to say that one should identify what they did/didn't do which let alcoholism roll that "curious mental fog" back in -- which fuzzes our thinking to a degree that makes picking up a drink acceptable (regardless of all the horrible things which happened before).
On the other hand, I think my dead sponsor was dead on. At the end of the day, we drink because we're alcoholics. We come up with a smoke screen of reasons either trivial or artificial, fueled by resentment or insanity (often both), but we pick up a drink because we have a disease which seduces and compels us to do so.
A disease from which I have only a daily reprieve -- and that only if I take regular doses of my AA "medicine." (That's my truth. If you have a different truth, that's great. Just because you're not on my path doesn't mean you're lost -- but if you're really an alcoholic, be careful. Sometimes our thinking is not to be trusted, and going it alone is like telling your doctor "Cancer? Ok. Thanks, but I can take care of it myself." Serious illness needs serious assistance in treating it).
