Mr. SponsorPants

dysmorphic

 

I suppose that if a wildly distorted view of your physical self can be termed body dysmorphic disorder, then it might be said that alcoholics have a kind of social dysmorphic disorder, since our view of ourselves in relation to others is also often wildly distorted and flawed.

An alcoholic mind is no picnic -- there can be a lot going on there.

you feel special

 

 

part

of

what

makes

playing

the

victim

so

seductive

is

that

it

makes

you

feel

special.

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...

 

 

here's a truth for you

 

 

A comment, copy/pasted in its entirety from yesterday's post:

Here's a truth for you.

If you're young and female and you show up at an AA meeting, you will immediately have a "team" spring up around you, be showered with sympathy, and receive 100 phone numbers from people who insist you call them if you feel the slightest bit blue. This will be doubled if your voice quavers and tripled if you cry. You'll leave feeling great.

If you're a middle aged man, however, you'll get lectures on working the program, admonishments for being selfish, and demands that you clean the coffee filters and put away the chairs, because that's "service".

 

While I'm not a spokesman for AA -- no one is -- I think I am going to reveal one of AA's great secrets right here, right now, in this blog:

We're human.

 

We can be weak, lecherous and shallow.  I know I can be -- though usually my arrogance kicks in and the last newcomer I will go up and speak with is the "attractive" one -- not because I am above such base or shallow impulses, but because I don't want people to think I'm like that.  So I am as shallow as anyone, just acting it out in the opposite way.

Isn't insight wonderful?

Frankly, if you're a middle-aged man, and you want that kind of attention in an AA meeting, you should go to a gay meeting in a retirement community (think Palm Springs) -- you don't have to be gay to go -- and you can be as objectified as any ingenue taking her first dainty steps onto life's grand stage.

If I may respond to some points directly (and if I sound a little bitchy, I apologize -- I worked a double today, as my boss went home sick, so this is Mr. SponsorPants after being on-the-clock from 7am to 9:30pm -- "a little bitchy" is going to have to stand for being a freaking model of restraint right now)... shouldn't one be admonished for being selfish?  I mean, do you want to be lauded for being selfish instead?  "Hey, from what you said you pretty much just thought about yourself and put your wants ahead of everyone else's all day.  Way to stay in the disease!  Good one!  We used to give chips for that, but... no one wanted to give 'em away, they just kept them for themselves.  I'm sure you understand..."

I cannot speak for the commentor's experience of AA -- there are certainly all kinds of meetings out there -- but I do have a hard time believing that the word "demand" quite fits whatever way the conversation went, regardless of how salty the mean old AA was... And, I hate to drag another dark secret into the light like this, but... cleaning coffee filters and putting away chairs actually is service.

 

An embarrassing anecdote. 

When I lived in another city, some time ago now, I was seething with resentments I didn't even know I had, and they were all around my being single.  I had some pretty strong expectations of what was "supposed to happen" when I got to this town, and it just wasn't bearing fruit, romance-wise. 

I was also, at the time, pretty overweight (I've been up and down in my weight so much I could open my own damn Gap outlet, what with having owned a pair of their khakis in practically every damn size they come in).  Now, lots of people who are overweight find great partnerships, but because of my feelings about how I looked I was really shut down (that's a big oversimplification, but I'm barrelling along trying to get to the point here, so let me have that one as a "gimme."  Thanks.) and thus, in retrospect, I know that was the reason things weren't all Rolph and Liesel in the rainy Gazebo for me.    

(You have no idea how many pictures of earnest high schoolers mooning over each other in their Senior Year production of "The Sound of Music" I had to scroll through to find the genuine article for that line.)

What I now know was that I was expecting the force of my personality to compensate for my lack of physical fitness.  And if I'd been more open, not so self obsessed and shut down, it might well have...

Walking home from the video store (this story is ancient history, Poppets... loooong before Netflix and downloads and such) after renting an errr... educational video **cough** about ... errr... intimacy... (you with me here?  I'll go there if I gotta, but you've always struck me as a sharp group) it hit me like a ton of bricks:

I was the biggest freaking hypocrite going.  Because I was not renting educational videos about intimacy based on the personalities of the people in the videos.  I was renting them because of how the people in the videos looked.  (This all came out in some brutal inventory writing shortly after this light-bulb went off).  I was thunderstruck to realize that the very value system I was so resentful of everyone else having (so I thought -- shut down, remember?) I myself had a heaping, steaming pile of too.  Once again I caught myself thinking I was better, different, exempt... once again I discovered my thinking twisted into artificial categories defined by extreme, black-and-white thinking and no small amount of delusion.

No, really, isn't insight just wonderful?  **cough cough**

Most human beings are drawn in one way or another to youth or beauty or sexual charisma.  I think it's fair to observe that a lot of the time it is a conscious act for people to look beyond those things.

The people in AA, just because we're sober, and trying to work a spiritual program, are in no way exempt from that inclination or that challenge.

In fact some of us, feeling raw and vulnerable without our best coping mechanism (drinking), are sicker for a while before we get better -- because of the profound fear being so raw and vulnerable will engender -- and we will absolutely act that out in all sorts of ways.

AA is not a hotbed of lascivious predators (spare me the stories, I know, I know, some meetings and some people have behaved very badly -- the overwhelming majority have not -- that is the false logic of "some X's are bad therefore all X's will be bad," i.e.,  some women are bitches therefore all women will be bitches.  Some men are sexual predators therefore all men will be sexual predators.  Some AA's in meetings have taken advantage of newcomers therefore all AA's in meetings will take advantage of newcomers...)

 

Another embarrassing admission:

I actually used to resent the fact that I hadn't been 13th Stepped.  (Yeah, for me, low self esteem was great progress.) 

It's just a fucking warm bath of wonderful insights I'm sharing with you in this, isn't it.

 

Yep, sometimes a pretty young girl will get some extra attention solely for the fact that she is a pretty young girl.  Hate to break it to you, but she's going to get better customer service and fewer speeding tickets than you will too.

But she'll have to struggle to be taken seriously, and be on her guard against people with mixed motives, and hopefully have the resiliance to rise above the weird messages about what women should look like which our culture continues to spew out in subtle and sophisticated ways... so it's a mixed bag for all of us, Bucko.

Meanwhile, I admit that although we try like hell in AA to extend the hand of fellowship to everyone in the same way, we screw it up pretty good on occasion... and yes, some extend the penis of fellowship instead of the hand, it's true.

(There is a whole other post to be written about the other side of this too.  I have never met an alcoholic who, even through their real and sincere tears, didn't know how to work the angles -- we're perfect children of God, but we're sharks, too -- pretty and weepy sharks or middle-aged and bitter sharks, but calculating either way.)

I've been to a lot of AA in my day -- in lots of different cities.  We get it wrong sometimes, but we get it right a lot -- and dear God, when we do, it is pretty fucking beautiful.

Now get back in the kitchen and scrub those pots, you selfish thing!  Chop chop!  You think those chairs are going to put themselves away?

No, I can't help you, don't be ridiculous!  I have to take Hotty McBangbang to the Big Book study.

this entire site turns my stomach

 

 

An anonymous comment, dated February 15th, on my posting "Is AA A Cult?" has given me food for thought for the past week or so since I read it.

Here it is, copy/pasted in its entirety:

 

Whatever happened to the Traditions, Mr. Sponsorpants? Eleven protects us all, and Twelve states that anonymity is the, "spiritual foundation." Those words are not chosen lightly. This entire site turns my stomach and gives me the hee-bee-geebies. Thank Heaven this fellowship is self-correcting, but I have to shake my head at this entire endeavour of YOURS, MR. SPONSORPANTS. People might start to think you speak for the Program. uh.... Please, pray on it, and consider taking it down, and keep it in the rooms. "What you hear here and whom you see here, let it stay here when you leave here!!!" I sincerely feel this site violates the spirit of our sacred fellowship.

 

I've had enough turmoil lately -- and enough fatigue from working some crazy-ass long hours at work now -- that I needed to really take some time before I spoke to this comment -- but I knew I would, since it raises a larger and important question about sobriety, anonymity and the internet.

In thinking about this, and the blog in general (as I close in on almost three years of regular blogging on AA and sobriety), I can see where someone might be very troubled by what I've done here.  (And I am going to limit this to what I've done -- what others have, are, or will do is not something I have control over.  AA has taught me to try to take responsibility for my side of the street, and although I do it imperfectly, I can say that I do consistently try to do it.)

Out of a combination of laziness and a desire not to be repetitive I do not always state, with every entry in which I discuss other AA's in any way -- or anyone else, for that matter -- that, to preserve anonymity, while everything I write here is, to the best of my ability, 100% true, it is not 100% factual.

That is, I work hard to be true to the spirit of a conversation or an exchange or a person or a share or whatever, without giving identifying facts which would break anonymity.  I know I've mentioned before that, to my credit (and the occasional sponsee's chagrin) I have an excellent auditory memory -- that is, I remember what I hear very well.  Thus when I talk about conversations, etc., I believe I am telling the truth -- my quotes are fairly accurate, given a margin for human error.  I may not get something word-pefect, but I fairly provide context and capture meaning.

But what I write about others is purposely, to preserve anonymity, not factual.  That is, if I say I had a conversation with someone (a sponsee, a friend, a co-worker) it might actually (for example) have been two people, blended into one, to convey a point or paint a picture.  Or specific descriptives about someone are not at all factual, but are in fact altered to keep the person anonymous -- though I still try to convey to the reader the sense of a person or situation's dynamic.  (A crude example of that -- and one I've not used in any story which is why I use it here -- is that I might describe someone who had terrible, terrifying table manners as a person who spoke too loudly, and spit a bit when they spoke, over dinner -- you get the sense of a potentially uncomfortable social dynamic over a meal, but the facts have been changed to preserve anonymity.)  I always in some way blur or omit gender, age, time sober, location, etc. (at the cost of some clumsy syntax, but that's the price required to do that.)

If that hasn't been said as often as it should, or been made clear when I've tried to address it, I'll link this entry to the "Who Are You, Mr. SponsorPants?" heading on the right of the site, and hopefully that will feature the information more prominently for anyone who has questions or concerns.  I think it a reasonable assumption that a blog reader, if curious about authorship and/or content, clicks around a little bit. 

As for people thinking I speak for AA, I feel like my conscience is pretty clear on that front.  I've repeated the fact that I do not -- and that in fact no one does -- speak for AA in any way, shape or form on any entry where it is germane to the point(s) being made.

The whole Mr. SponsorPants blog started as an act of service born of my sincere prayer for help.  (And one is always in danger, when thinking that they're acting on an answer to a prayer, of being at the least foolish and at the most dangerous, I think that's important to acknowledge too.)  As with any act of service I have done in sobriety, my ego has occasionally wormed its way in.  At the same time, God gave us gifts to use, and if we're using them in a sincere effort to be of service then using them -- and enjoying using them -- is the right thing to be doing (the "proper use of the will" as the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" says). 

My first sponsor had a beautiful singing voice.  He was, in fact, a professional singer.  Early in my sobriety I told him I was worried that I was "performing" when I shared.  That I was "trying" to be funny.  He asked me if I thought of things to say before I shared, and I truthfully answered 'not very much.'  He asked me if I was trying to be funny on purpose, or it sometimes just came out that way, but I was also just trying to be honest.  I said, again truthfully, that I wasn't entirely sure, but it mostly just came out that way.  Then he asked me if he should purposely sing off-key when we sang "Happy Birthday" to someone taking a cake for a sober anniversary.  Caught off guard by the question I'm sure I said something like 'of course not!'  He said that if he was trying to sing louder than everyone to show off, then that was ego, but if he was singing loudly to help the group's song then that was service -- that he was using the gifts God gave him in service to the meeting.  He put it better than I am now, but the spirit of that idea has always helped me in sorting out using our abilities for service or for ego.  I crack wise when I write to entertain myself more than anything else (also it's just the way my mind works) -- and sometimes it helps people take information in -- or just brighten a day, for God's sake.  (And if I'm occasionally taken too literally rather than in the spirit of fun which is intended... well, half on me for not being clear, and half on the literal taker for having a stick up their ass losing their sense of fun.)  So although sometimes my ego has stepped in, on the whole I think "the spirit of our sacred fellowship" is as much about service and carrying the message as it is anything else.

And while I do not advocate in any way a change to the Traditions or the customs and principles which the fellowship of AA has developed over time and which serve us so well, in the 21st Century how people find and take in information has most definitely changed.

As I understand my AA history (and I have absolutely no doubt that someone will gently correct me if I am mistaken on this) the motivation for writing the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" was two-fold:  First, to accurately record and present AA's 12 suggested Steps and plan for recovery to anyone who might need it, and second, to reach people who might not find their way into an AA meeting -- either from not having one near them or from a fear of being seen at one or whatever.  Also, the personal stories in the back of the Big Book (AA's nickname for the book "Alcoholics Anonymous") were so that people could "hear" other people talk about their alcoholism and recovery and possibly identify. 

I think virtually any writing about AA and sobriety on the internet has the opportunity to do those same things: Accurately quote and present AA's plan for recovery, and share personal experiences about drinking, practicing AA's principles, and living sober, for others to identify with.  (And as anyone with some sober miles under their belt will tell you, the need to identify with other sober AA's -- and be comforted and inspired by them -- does not vanish over time.)

So hopefully this blog can be a part of that larger purpose.  While I want to take personal responsibility for anything here that is problematic regarding AA's traditions, etc., I also want to laud the great extended spiritual family of recovering bloggers -- in every 12 Step fellowship -- who share their experience and wisdom in this fashion -- whether it's every day or only occasionally.  If someone Googles anything 12 Step related they will find a lot of help out there now -- and that's a moving and wonderful thing.

Again I am certain that someone will be glad to correct me if I am greatly mistaken, but I think that carrying the Traditions forward and applying their spirit to a new and ever-changing world of how people find and take in information is not the same thing as violating them.

 

_____________________________________________

 

Hopefully this post has been more demonstrative than defensive -- I gave the comment, the questions it raised for me, and this writing a lot of thought before I brought it to the table.

10 Things I Did Not Say At Lunch

I am, of course, incredibly moved and grateful for the outpouring of support and overwhelming number of comments yesterday.  Thank you all so much; words fail me.  (Mark the date!  That sure as hell doesn't happen often.  Or often enough, a few friends might say.)

My deepest thanks.

________________________________________

 

Today I had lunch with the Big Boss.  The one who, as detailed in yesterday's post, made some comments to my boss about my weight.

Irony alert!

(I have come to believe that I've been blessed with a prodigious sense of humor just so that God could share all these little jokes with me.)

When I realized that we would be eating together, my mind, as you can imagine, began spitting out suggestions as to what I might say.  But I have learned (the hard way) the value of AA's wise, wise admonishment:  Restraint of pen and tongue.

Thus, what follows is a list of

10 Things I Did Not Say At Lunch With the Big Boss

10.  Hey, this isn't what I ordered!  Where's my cheesecake and pizza?

9.  You know, before I started working here I was going to go on a diet, but now that I can eat for free, and the food's so good, I think I'm going to be packing on the pounds!

8.  You know what would make this salad better?  A stick of butter.

7.  Damn it, I asked them to put some melted cheese on my melted cheese!

6.  I'm on kind of a health kick.  Only brown sugar for me.

5.  You know what would make these phony bacon bits better?  A stick of butter!

4.  Listen, I wanted to talk to you about the Dress Code.  How do you feel about Caftans?

3.  I'm going to be working as a Santa next Xmas, so I'm on a strict diet.  I only have to gain another 75 lbs. to reach my goal weight!

2.  I'm going to be entering an eat-a-thon next week to raise money for an organization called The Fat Liberation Front.  Can I count on you for a donation?

1. Oh my gosh!  I think I felt the baby kick!

 

To be honest, we had a very pleasant lunch.

Here's why:

I got to work early, and sat down at the Starbucks across the street, and wrote out an inventory of my resentments and fears about the job in general, and the whole "have they talked to you about your weight" thing in particular.

And, as is always, always the case, even though I think I'm so smart and so very clever, things came out the end of the pen that I could not see by thinking (or blogging) about it alone.

I got clarity.  The fact of the matter is, this man may (or may not) have had the concern my boss assumed he did.  It's all hearsay and her interpretation of events. I wasn't there -- Big Boss might have been trying to tell her something completely different from her interpretation.  He might actually have been trying to show her, by mentioning it, that they're not as appearance driven as she has accused them of being in the past.

And/or, Big Boss is trying to do his job to the best of his ability.  I have no idea what pressures he is under.  IF what he said meant what my boss thought, while it is about me, it's not about me.  He's just a guy trying to make rent like anybody else.

I might feel a little differently about what kind of image I wanted my company to project if it were my money at stake. 

Blah blah blah, I went on for some time on the inventory.

The point I want to make is that I sat down and wrote out the four column inventory structure for my resentments, and then also wrote about my fears, and I felt about a hundred thousand percent better by the end of it.  I gained perspective, and I was free from the angry red fog I'd stumbled into.  (Well, red and purple, maybe.  Resentment and victim by turns.)

So I could have a nice business lunch and not seethe inside, nor did I have to address something which didn't need to be addressed -- at least not then and not there, if ever.

I could turn my attention from my own wounded pride and look at work in the manner which has always served me best and eventually led to my most happy job experiences:  As a way to be of service.

Writing out an inventory doesn't necessarily change a bad comment or a bad day -- what it does is change how I view them. 

I was able to sit across from this man and see him as a really hard working guy who wants to get it right, who is trying to help this little company pop, and saw in me something that he thought was worth hiring -- yet left to my own devices, what I want to do is walk around boo-hooing over a second hand report of a comment which, if you look at the words that were said ("He's a big guy, but he carries his weight well."), is actually a compliment!

Look, I'm not trying to minimize how hard that all was, what a wrenching and brutal day it became -- especially with that final K.O. punch.  But the hard truth is that what made it such a difficult day was, at heart, my worries about what other people think of me, my feelings of entitlement, and my ego.  The Unholy Trinity of Career Unhappiness.

After lunch -- which was delicious, I'm certainly not working for a company that doesn't have a shot -- I got back to work and was actually grateful to be cleaning the refrigerator again.

It gave me a chance to stick my head inside it so no one could see me get all emotional as I thought about how lucky I am -- not just to have the job -- but to have the tools AA taught me.

What a weepy old thing I've become.

Cheers!

 

  

the inevitable progression

Ring

Ring

Ring

I checked the caller ID as I grabbed the call.  It was them, and I was relieved, as it had been a bit since I'd heard from them.

Me:  Hey, how's it going?

Them:  Not... not so great.

Me:  Uh oh ... I don't like the sound of that.

Them:  Yeah well... the other weekend...

Their story of the other weekend could be likened to a truck with no brakes hurtling down a hill.  A little beer and pot became... which became... which became...

Me:  So... you shot up?

I sounded calm, but in my head it was more like "OH MY GOD YOU SHOT UP?!?"  Not that I'm any stranger to stories which include that act, but no matter how many times I've seen it, the deathward momentum of the inevitable progression of addiction can still startle and frighten me.

Them:  yeah.

Me:  I don't remember well from your story, is that very old behavior for you or very new?

Them:  Kind of both.

I let figuring that answer out go for the moment.

Me:  So... what can we do?

Them:  We?

Me:  You don't have to do any of this alone -- you know that.  There are rooms full of people -- sincere, loving, flawed, messy, often irritating people...

They laughed, which was what I was going for with that.

Me:  ... who will do everything they know how to do to help you get sober.  And I will too.

They were quiet for a couple of minutes.

Them:  Thank you.  I ... I still have some pot at home and ... and beer ... I'm ... I'm going to finish that off and then I'm going to come back.

I took a long, slow breath.

Me:  Do me a favor right now.

Them:  What?  Are you going to tell me to throw it all away?

Me:  No.  Just do me a favor.  Hold the phone far away from your ear for a moment.

Them:  What?

Me:  Just do it.

Them:  Okay.

I waited a moment for them to hold the phone away.

Me (bellowing into the phone):  CAN YOU HEAR HOW FUCKING INSANE THAT IS?

Another moment goes by.

Them:  Yeah.. but ...

Me:  Sorry, sorry I just ... It's just like I feel like I don't know how to help you right now, what to say to...

Them:  Look, talking helps, but I've got to be honest with you.  I'm just going to finish this off and then I'm really... I know how it sounds but I'm not willing to...

Me:  Okay.  Okay... I do understand ... but also... okay.  I am not judging you, but I have to be honest with you too -- that is a terrible plan and that thinking is rife with denial and alcoholism and I wish you would let me come over right now and we can dump it then you can come back with me and crash on my couch till you go to work tomorrow.

Them:  I get it ... I know... thank you ... but ... no.  I just...

I'm not proud of this next part.

Me:  Okay.  Okay.  Then let me just ask you one quick question.

Them:  Okay, shoot.

Me:  At the service, who do you want to give your eulogy?

Them:  Oh fuck you!

They hung up.

Yeah, I snapped.  And I kind of blew it.  I let my frustration with addiction become frustration with the addict.  God works through our character defects as well as our assets, that is, through my frustration as well as my patience, but I don't feel good about how I handled that.  We have enough history that I believe we'll get past that sour moment, but it was not my best, that's for sure.

 I know, I know, I KNOW ... it's not up to me anyway, it's in God's hands.  But please understand it's the frustration talking when I say that some nights it feels like God's not taking those calls -- it's my phone that rings.  And I know there's some ego involved when I think that if only I can come up with the "right" words I might find a way to get through to someone.  It's not all ego, there is a sincere desire to help, but when my frustration gets the better of me I need to look and see what's out of balance at my end.  As it says in the 7th Step in the 12&12, just because we know we can't ever achieve perfection doesn't mean we don't try like hell to move in that direction -- that is, even when I do okay I can look to see how I can do better.  And when I don't do okay, well then, I'd better look even harder.

Detach with love.  Carry the message not the mess.  Love and tolerance is our code.

Some nights I fly.

Some nights I trudge.

Each night, I pray -- and then I try to do better.

many of our fears come from

 

 

 

Another visit with our friends on the other side of the aisle... (oh dear. this one REALLY got out of hand. this post is ridiculous! way too long to read. Come back tomorrow when I've regained my senses. Really.)

Back in September of 2009 I visited Stinkin' Thinkin', a blog which "muckrakes the 12 Step Industry." 

To say that they are not fans of Alcoholics Anonymous, or anything 12 Step, is putting it mildly.  Still, they had some nice things to say about Mr. SponsorPants, and as I am shallow enough to be seduced by any crumb of praise or flattery always interested in a spirited debate, I read through some of their postings, found one called "The 12 Rights for Newcomers to 12 Step/AA" which I especially admired, wrote a bit about it and posted it here.

The other day, when perusing the "who's visited the site" blog thing (it doesn't show you as an individual person, but if someone has visited from another blog or website sometimes that address will show up) I noticed that there had been some recent visits from the Stinkin' Thinkers to Mr. SP again, and, hoping to find more nice things about myself curious to see what might be the current topic, I swung over to take a look.

They are as passionate in their views as ever, and without any silliness I want to say that I respect that, and would remind any AA who either visits their site for themselves or encounters those opinions in the world that "love and tolerance is our code."  It's not much of a program of attraction if we cannot keep a civil tone (as they have with me, for the most part, I hasten to point out -- and by 'for the most part' I mean that some turns of phrase are less flattering than others, but that is hardly being abusive, or even discourteous) when disagreeing with people about addiction in general or Alcoholics Anonymous in particular.

One of their contributers posted a video with several provocative questions, the one on the title screen being:

"I would like to pose a question to all members of AA:  Would you allow anyone that has managed to get their lives back on track again without using AA to chair one of your meetings?"

I confess my first reaction was kind of a "what would the point of that be?" -- not in a refusal to allow differing viewpoints (I've been to meetings where some peoples' entire share was basically "AA sucks and I hate all of you."  My experience in those meetings is that they have their say, they finish, people clap politely -- if it's a clapping meeting -- and the meeting goes on.  No one is ejected or censured for "disagreeing" with AA) but more along the lines that it would be like having a representative of the beef industry speaking to a vegetarian convention.  We're just not on the same page is all.

Here is a link to the video and the blog itself.

And, for whatever reason, most likely equal parts a desire to have a true dialog and probably some bit of ego as well, I posted a comment there in response to the video.

There were then comments in response to my comment.  So I responded to them, they responded to me and ... oh never mind, here is the heart of it:

 My comment to the video:

You *do* ask provocative questions. In a few instances you then go on to answer them with what “people in AA would say” — which is kind of a zero-sum game I think. Just as many people who don’t like AA, or have had bad experiences there, might give a variety of answers to a provocative question about why “AA is bad,” so, too, would many AA’s offer a variety of responses to the question of someone who stopped drinking without AA, beyond just the one you model here (I’m really thinking of the response you offer “from AA’s” that if someone can stop without AA then “they weren’t really an alcoholic.” A paraphrase, but I think a fair representation of what you said.) Sure, SOME would say that, but others … not. I wouldn’t. The longer I’m sober in AA the more open minded I feel I’ve become about addiction treatment.
People in AA can be very reactionary when they think Alcoholics Anonymous is being “attacked.” (And the general level of literacy in comments across the internet on every and any topic is depressing, frankly. For every anti-anything commenter who gets ‘to, too and two’ wrong I’m sure you can find a pro-the-same-thing commenter making equal gaffs.)
People get reactionary generally because they are afraid. For some people in AA it feels like Alcoholics Anonymous is the first thing that has worked for them, and they are perhaps overly protective. That’s no excuse for being rude, I offer it only as a consideration.
*sigh* Already this comment is longer than I’d intended, your larger question about chairing meetings would mean I might go too long in a comments section, so I will only add that I believe some of your issues are a matter of interpretation or context, BUT I encourage you, and anyone, who feels AA is not right for them to keep searching for whatever they might need outside of or instead of AA. AA has worked for me, but as with all diseases and treatments, there can be a lot of factors involved in what makes a particular “medicine” work, and what is the right course for one may not be the right course for another.
I hope you keep questioning, and making your videos. (As a bit of a codger, I would offer that a music track with lyrics as background for something I am reading does tax my synapses a bit, but I’m not the sharpest mind on the planet. It’s probably an excellent cognitive exercise!) Obviously we have different philosophies, but we’re all trying to use this medium to help people who might need it — how can that be a bad thing regardless of whether we are on the same side of something or not?

A response to my comment:

AA is not a treatment nor is it a treatment for disease. Any medical treatment that has you praying for a daily reprieve to keep a disease in remission is not a medical treatment. You might as well insert your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye. AA is a religion and until I hear its members tell me that it is a religion I will take no prisoners.

Me again:

I use the word “medicine” metaphorically, and perhaps I should do a better job of making that clear. It feels like medicine to me, so the metaphor is apt. To speak in clinical terms (though I am not a clinician) AA’s suggestions are a course of treatment which combine suggestions for practical behavior modification, peer review and support, and yes, a spiritual component which includes prayer and meditation. Any picture of AA’s overall plan for recovery which does not include all three is perhaps somewhat skewed. In addition, AA is pretty clear that if you’re dealing with what the literature and the fellowship generally refer to as “outside issues” that you should get busy finding “outside help” i.e., prayer is a good way to become willing to go to a trained psychologist or psychiatrist and address past trauma or brain chemistry imbalances, but prayer alone is likely not enough.
There’s a lot of interesting research now on what they’re calling the “neuro-plasticity” of the brain (not sure if the scientific “they” hyphenate that or not). Prayer AND meditation, whether there is an actual Anything out there or not, seem to have a positive impact on brain chemistry and can even change the actual physical structure of the brain to SOME degree. (Obviously only after sustained practice). What I personally got from AA was a message of “pray, but get busy.” I’m not comfortable with the word “religion” but I can see how to some it looks that way. As with anything, AA can be used well or abused, and while there will always be problems within it — rampant ego, abuse of custom or tradition, etc. — I personally have found much good there, too.
I yield the field on further commentary on this posting, it is not my intent to visit here and incite acrimony of any sort.

Another response from the other side of the aisle:

Several US Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal have ruled that AA is religious in nature, and AA cannot be mandated by a governmemt authority on that basis.  As  far as I am concerned, that settles the matter.
“pray, but get busy”  is very interesting.   The important part is “get busy”. 

First is to quit drinking :  no matter what happens, do not drink.
Second, busy doing what?   getting your life in order — determine what you want to do with yourself and set about doing it.
Third, get professional help if need be.

I have no difficulty with anyone who joins the church of AA.  I have no reason to have any difficulty.

And another response from a contributor to their blog:

Hi Mr. Sponsorpants, I am really happy to see you here. We appreciate the dialog — and it doesn’t happen often. (Usually, we get serenity bombs or real hardcore nutbags.) You’re definitely welcome here. We can be civil… I think.

I am interested to know what you think about the fact that 12-Step has become institutionalized in this country… about the fact that most addictions treatment is based on AA’s model; that people are sentenced to attend AA, that people who attend AA are treated as though they had somehow mitigated their crimes.

If you know that it’s not for everyone, do you think maybe we should be doing more in this country to treat addictions?

And another thing, you are a really really good writer, and your blog is so engaging, and so it drives me crazy that I disagree with everything you write.

This same commenter went on to add this:

Ben, I am with you on this: AA is a religion and until I hear its members tell me that it is a religion I will take no prisoners.

Specifically, what I want is for AA to acknowledge that it is not treatment. It is a path to a spiritual awakening, and, as such, it should occupy a different niche than it does. Whether or not prayer or mediation has been shown to have benefits, that is not enough to justify it’s current position as the only game in town, or to justify the fact that when someone is coerced into treatment (say, via an intervention or through the courts), they will end up in this spiritual program, which acknowledges that sobriety is just a benefit of it’s actual purpose, which is a spiritual awakening.

Also then this from another commenter there:

FTG says: “ Specifically, what I want is for AA to acknowledge that it is not treatment. It is a path to a spiritual awakening, and, as such, it should occupy a different niche than it does.”
 

Exactly. If AA was honest about its being a program whose main aim is to find God and achieve a spiritual awakening, I don’t think anyone would argue with that – or care much. They could even say that some addicts (albeit a tiny minority) might have incidentally found that finding God has helped them overcome addiction, just as, say, Buddhist meditation or Islam, or a physical exercise regime, might help others.
 
It is the way that it is presented first and foremost as a program for treating alcoholism that is so scandalously deceitful. People seeking help for an alcohol problem want just that – help in overcoming an alcohol problem. They should not then be subjected to attempts to convert them to a religion and be told that this is the only way they will ever recover (or indeed, that they will never actually ‘recover’). It is hugely immoral that a fringe religious group should recruit vulnerable and often desperate people in this way. And it is much worse, and what my grandmother would have called ‘a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance’, to tell people that they will inevitably fail in what they are desperately and sincerely trying to do if they don’t conform to this very weird religious program which has nothing whatever to do with overcoming addiction.
 
It is so full of mindfuck, it’s difficult to step back from it and take a cool rational look at what’s really going on. If the 12-step program and the big book were introduced today as any kind of approach to treating addiction, it would be laughed out of court. No-one would take it seriously at all. But because it’s somehow managed to establish itself, undeservedly, as the only answer, it has been allowed to go largely unchallenged. It is appalling.
 
The worst thing is that people get into AA’s clutches when they’ve already recognized they have a problem and want to do something about it. And then AA exploits that very real desire on the individual’s part to stop drinking or using to literally put the fear of God into them and threaten that if that person doesn’t conform and become a believer, all their genuine efforts to overcome their addiction are doomed to failure. I really can’t think of anything more cruel and self-serving.
 
But obviously I’m preaching to the converted here. The main challenge is to expose what the real agenda of AA is to society generally so that people can make informed choices about it. 12-step practitioners, especially those in the rehab centres, take great pains to conceal what they are really about – presumably because they know that most people would avoid them like the plague if they knew that the ‘treatment’ they are selling is completely bogus. It’s unlikely that AA will ever voluntarily be publicly honest about what its program really entails, so I guess the rest of us will just have to try and do what we can.
 
(Despite this rant, MrSponsorPants, I’m glad to have you here on this forum. But I really hope that you don’t tell your ‘sponsees’ that if they don’t become spiritual, don’t follow the 12 steps, etc. they will inevitably fail in their attempts to stop drinking and stay stopped. This is really not very kind.)

And one more from yet another:

MrSponsorPants-

I too would like to thankyou for your comments. As I hope you have noticed, the forum is treating you with civility, as I will.

I do have some questions though.

Do you think  the 12 step organization has been hijacked? There is a 17 BILLION dollar industry out there, made up of AA members, that promote, MARKET, and prosylitize for the AA faith professionally. This is done in direct violations of the organizations stated traditions. Do traditions become suggestions when there is a dollar to be made?

How do you, as an AA apologist feel about the forced and coerced participation in the AA faith with regard to incarceration, loss of child custody, loss of employment, and at the demands of organ transplant teams?Do you feel that AA has become a dumping ground for the judicial system and social services?

Do you think that AA headquarters should do something about this? In the 70’s and 80’s AA high command sent notifications out to the rooms to request people not to tell newcomers to stop taking prescribed medication. Do you think this was the proper thing to do? Do you think it was a suggestion  or does anything from the head office matter?

And finally, would you support the idea of AA publicly accepting and recommending actual medical treatment for addiction, such as the wonderdrug naltrexone, that the AA faith has been very outspoken against?

So, since I had been specifically asked, it seemed like I should address some of those questions, and I tried to:

Please remember that I am only a member of AA, there are no official spokespeople, and anyone who represents themselves as such should be viewed with deep skepticism. All of my responses are solely from my own experience, be it direct or observational.

Wow! Okay, where to begin…
Firstly, thank you for the civility in the exchange. It’s clear from all of your writings (the all of you and the all of the writing) that you are as passionate in your beliefs as I am in mine — I appreciate the ability to talk about these things — even if neither of us move one jot towards the other position I believe everyone is helped in these exchanges.
Secondly, thanks very much for the kind words about the blog and my writing — if the people that disagree with you vehemently speak well of how you put things, well, that’s high praise indeed, so again, my thanks.

Regarding the “institutionalization” of AA:
As I understand it, when the courts started sending people to Alcoholics Anonymous there was a strong reaction within AA that this should be “fought.” That is apocrypha, but my sources are pretty credible (Well, they were. They’ve passed on now.) While there was a tradition from the very beginning of AA to send members to the courts and offer assistance to people who wanted it (and that’s the key there) a “sentence” flies in the face of the foundation of AA, that is, we offer help to people who ask for it. AA itself is not selling anything. And I don’t think it is splitting hairs to delineate between an organization saying “we are here if you need us” and one which says “you should try us.” AA has done the former over the years, but assiduously avoided the latter, imho. Ultimately this fight was abandoned shortly after it was begun, in part because AA had no real influence over the judges and a core Tradition is that AA does not engage in public controversy, nor do we “fight” for or against things. Ultimately, I’m not sure that there is anything other than economics and an overburdened court system at work when it comes to this issue. The courts found a cheap (free) short term solution for the glut of alcohol/drug related offenders, and sometimes it even worked! And please, let’s note that the people standing in front of a judge have (generally) committed a very serious crime — I’m not talking about the casual pot smoker here, I’m talking about people who drive under the influence. This is not a scenario of hapless innocents being rounded up and force-fed AA. I have no doubt that if you said, “No, Your Honor, I object to both this system and being forced to attend these free 12 Step meetings at a time that works best in my schedule, that is, before or after work, and would rather you just send me to jail” that the court would indeed accommodate you. (Yes, yes, you may also be sentenced to “classes” and there is money involved, but that’s not AA.) Personally, I have deeply mixed feelings about it. I count among my close friends people who came to AA on a court card and it turned out, by their estimation, to be a life-saving thing. No doubt those that didn’t think so merely counted themselves lucky that they didn’t have to do time.

Are “most” rehabs based on a 12 Step model? I guess. I know (and wrote about on the blog) a rehab that’s whole advertising angle was that you *don’t* have to go to AA. People who have an intervention done on them and are “coerced” into treatment are generally people that are in a lot of trouble, and need SOME kind of help. No one is rounding up happy innocent atheists who just enjoy getting snockered on occasion and forcing them to do anything. If you watch the show “Intervention,” as one example, these are people in real trouble, a danger to both others and themselves. At least someone is doing SOMETHING. If anyone offers a better solution I am open to it. PART of this debate is the question which is represented by the Motorcycle Helmet Laws. Does the government (or an enlightened society) have an obligation to protect people, in essence, from themselves? Regardless of your answer to that question, the issue becomes more complicated because of the diminished capacity of the addict (thanks “Law and Order”!) And then there is the issue of minors in the care of active addicts… no one in our little discussion is anywhere close to saying the issue is a simple one, I know that. But (to me it seems that) some of the language you are using paints people who find themselves in the court system, or on the receiving end of an intervention, as the victims of some horrible miscarriage of circumstance or justice, while I would offer that very, very rarely does one find themselves arrested for using, dealing, driving under the influence, or standing in the HR office of their company, as part of some baroque plot to force a spiritual program upon them.
Phew! Long answer to just a start of the questions. Please forgive me for having to break my answers up into other responses I will get to in a short while.

My immediate question in response to all this, though, is would anyone involved in this (excellent) back-and-forth object to my copy/pasting our exchange onto the Mr. SponsorPants blog? (and if you do object, I certainly will continue to respond, and also respect your wishes…)

Other answers to the other questions coming up — forgive me if I am going on too long, these are questions that deserve considered responses, and I am trying to give you that.
Again, I’m not here to hijack the comments section, or cause any problems… but you *did* ask… <chuckle>.

Response to my comments:

Sponsor P. – I also appreciate you willingness to openly dialogue.  As a matter of perspective, I am not an atheist and I was never harmed while in AA.   I don’t consider myself an AA hater and strongly support the right of AA members to peaceably meet and practice their religion.   However,
1.   AA members routinely (i.e. daily) troll the detox wards of hospitals (with the approval of hospital administration) and patients are coerced by hospital staff into attending AA meetings in these wards (in fact, attendance is sometimes taken).  Thus, AA members are actively supporting coercion by chairing AA meetings that are mandated by hospital staff.  It is certainly not attraction.
2.  AA members (often the secretary) routinely sign slips (both court and rehab) attesting that the person has attended an AA meeting.  Providing proof that a person has attended a meeting is a clear violation of their central principle of anonymity, even if a person requests a signature.
A simple solution to these issues consistent with AA traditions/principals would be for AA members to stay out of hospital wards and stop signing slips to verify attendance.  This will never happen voluntarily.
As to the issue of the government having an obligation to protect people from themselves the answer is simple – No.  One could fill volumes on this issue.  Plus, helmet laws suck.
Please feel free to put this response on your blog..

I go on, and now I am trying to be clever.  Often a mistake for me <sigh>:

To the use of the word “religion” as in, “AA is a religion…”:
I’m not familiar with the court rulings sited, that “AA is religious in nature…”
To that I would respond that a penguin is aquatic in nature, but it’s a bird, not a fish.
I do not consider it a religion in the “classic” sense, but certainly we could construct a definition which encompasses traditional, organized religion and also the happy anarchy which is Alcoholics Anonymous.

If, by religion, you mean an organization which has a text which records its core beliefs, meets regularly, incorporates prayer in those meetings, suggests its membership consider that there is some kind of Higher Power, then yes, I guess AA is a religion.

However most religions assert one particular belief system, one particular definition of god, and many go even further and condemn other religions’ beliefs. Most religions require ceremony and/or “certification” by a church authority of some sort to consider oneself a member. In AA you don’t even have to say you’re an alcoholic, only that you have a desire to stop drinking, and you can consider yourself a member. AA is non-profit. It is completely voluntary. It is open to anyone who wants to explore it. If, by religion, you mean an organization which dictates one particular way of thinking, I would dispute that. Saying “this is what we think” is not the same as saying “this is what you should think.” Saying “Why don’t you consider things in light of this information” is not the same as saying “If you don’t agree you are wrong.” Some members of AA may speak in absolutes, or take AA’s suggestions and treat them as dogma. Okay.
Some phrases in the Big Book can be pulled out of the text and offered as proof that AA has a specific belief, or warns people that they will die if they “leave AA.” I think that is a distortion of the spirit of what AA says. I think the Big Book suggests that if someone is a real alcoholic, trying to address the issue on their own is dangerous, and if they don’t get help they could die. That’s a very different thing from saying “if you leave AA you will die.” The Big Book also says stuff like, “… we realize we know only a little…” and “… God will constantly disclose more to you and to us…” and “… we can only clear the ground a little bit…” (and if you don’t believe in God, fine, but the point here is that AA literature mitigates what it says with statements offering room for asking questions and for critical thinking.)

To the point that we, as a country, should be doing more to treat addictions:
Well, as a country we have an awful lot of challenges. Here’s what I think has been happening which is pretty good: Institutions have been trying to understand and treat addiction from a medical standpoint, rather than a moral one. Different forms of treatment are being evaluated in different ways. Just throwing addicts in jail and using a solely punitive model has been replaced with an effort towards prevention, education and treatment. Even if you do not agree with the content of those efforts, I would propose that this represents a form of progress beyond the “just put ‘em in prison” model. I believe, after many years of sponsoring people and staying sober in AA, that saying “addiction” is akin to saying “cancer” — and by that I mean there are many, many types of cancer, some of which can be treated with the same medicine, and some of which does not yet respond very well to any treatment we currently can offer. Already there is research (for example) into the idea that there are “chemical” addictions (alcoholism, addiction to heroin, crystal meth, etc.) and “process” addictions (eating, gambling, shopping…) and that sometimes some of this overlaps. Can/should we do more? Absolutely, but I think we are still learning.

And then this person comes along and gives it to me right between the eyes.  D'oh!:

Mr. Sponsorpants – You seem to be under the impression that a multi-deitistic religion is not considered a religion, which is not the case. So, if your AA is the “pick any god you like” AA, then that is still a religion. Even the court (I cannot remember which specific case) cited this particular argument as lame. Now, if you are of the old-school belief that there is a specific AA God, which is what the ‘Big Book’ teaches – “God as we understand Him”, not “god of our understanding” – then that is also religion.

Your penguin analogy is a good rhetorical device, but it is just another way being insincere about what AA really is. AA is not “religious in nature”. It isn’t even “religious”. AA is religion in itself, and its teachings are specific. Because there are some in AA who choose to rationalize their way around the teachings – i.e., the “take what you want and leave the rest” crowd – does not make it less a religion; anymore than the fact that some Catholics, Jews or Muslims choose not to follow the teachings of the Bible or the Koran to the letter. It simply waters down, bastardizes or rationalizes (as you are doing here) the teachings from the ‘Big Book’. An atheist may attend mass regularly, and may not ever come to believe in the teachings of the church, but that does not make the church itself a “non-religion”. There might be AAs who don’t believe in the higher power hocus pocus, and who rationalize their way through the steps or never really drink the kool-aid. Many readers here fall into that category. Just because they don’t buy what you are selling, does not mean you aren’t selling religion.

So I respond to the above, and maybe start to get a little defensive passionate, but hopefully end well:

You are correct. A multi-deistic religion is still a religion. You are also very correct that an atheist in church does not make the church any more [SIC: I MEANT TO SAY "LESS"] religious, as an institution.

Also, your logic is excellent overall, and you have given me some food for thought. I will not argue that AA’s teachings are not specific, I concur, they are. AA offers a specific viewpoint, and “clear cut instructions” as to how the people who wrote the Big Book recovered from alcoholism, as an example to anyone who felt they had a problem and wanted to try what had worked for the book’s authors

Honestly, I feel like this has become a “storm of words” over the question of whether or not AA is a religion. I guess I got all caught up in the implication that a religion is a negative thing, along the lines of the famous “opium for the masses” and something which limits someone.

All I can really offer is my experience. My life as a drinking alcoholic was very limited, and after coming to AA and trying what it suggested I have found relief from my active alcoholism and a “design for living” which usually puts me in harmony with the people and world around me.

I can assure you there is no vast conspiracy on the part of the 12 Step world to dominate treatment options. Many meetings can’t even get their act together to donate money to their central office, let alone carry out such an agenda. As for the “billions of dollars” in the recovery industry, I can only say that if that number is accurate (billions? Okay. Maybe I should put the advertising back up on the blog… hmmm…) that speaks as much to how big the problem is than anything else.
I don’t know about AA members “trolling recovery wards daily.” Dear God, who’s got time for such a thing? And have you been to one? Not fun. (And often smelly. Pee-ew!) I again come back to the idea that these are people in a recovery ward! They weren’t plucked from their church choir, or nabbed out of a changing room at the Gap, or snatched from their cubicle at the offices of Amalgom Incorporated. Even if you don’t like AA, and even if we *were* trolling daily, at least it’s someone trying to help.

Let’s say all of AA got together and chipped in and decided to take out ads in all the papers — wait, no one is reading newspapers anymore — okay, we bought time on “American Idol” and said, “You know what? It’s been brought to our attention that AA is a religion, and we just wanted to clear that up with everyone” and the courts stopped “sentencing” people to AA meetings (the court cards that are signed, in my experience, are not full name, just first name and last initial, and attendance is generally taken by a hospital program, not the meeting itself, and in any case, again, these are not poor innocents brought up on sham charges, some supervision and consequence is in order by the court or hospital, isn’t it?) — if those two things happened, what, exactly then, should addicts do?
Throw themselves on the mercy of the pharmaceutical industry, hoping that today’s pill isn’t tomorrow’s liver tumor class action suit, and medicate for life? Or just “stop, no matter what!” ?
If I could have stopped no matter what, I wouldn’t have had to go to AA.

My tone has become argumentative, and I’m sorry for that.

We come back, I suspect, to agreeing to disagree. There are many examples of people in AA behaving badly. You site many of them here. There are many examples of people in AA behaving amazingly — I have coffee with them all the time. Your bad examples are your evidence that AA is a sham. My good examples are my evidence that AA is a force for good and of real help to people who struggle with addiction. *shrug*

My experience of AA has been overwhelmingly positive. I appreciate the many comments here that do not quarrel with AA in general — I think some of the points of contention lie more with the courts and the “rehab industry” rather than AA itself — though it can seem they are more enmeshed than I have found them to be, I admit.

I’ll keep working to have an open mind, and will certainly mull this all over as the days roll along.

(And I really liked my penguin analogy — I didn’t think I was being insincere at all. Oh well.)

Cheers!

I'm not trying to cheat it by having the "last word" here on my own blog.  That's where it's landed, though no doubt more will be posted.  It's probably best if I chill out on this now, though in the big picture I really do feel like it's good to read viewpoints very different from my own.

I know, I know, this post is ridiculous.  What can I say?  I'm still a man of excess. <sigh>

my grace note came at the end

I spoke at a meeting tonight.

I've been better.  Truth be told, all during my share my head was really loud.

There had been a lot of chatter before the meeting which made me a little nuts around expectations -- sometimes when people say too many nice things it can feel like more than you can possibly live up to -- and then (for me) I note the process in my head that's happening, and then I judge the process, and then I ask God to help me set all that aside, and then ... and then ... like I said, my head was really loud.

After the fact, I do pretty well at giving the whole thing to God anyway.  I trust that whatever I said someone needed to hear, and the work is to be an open channel and try like hell to keep the ego right-sized.  I've spoken a lot in the past couple decades, so I'm actually fairly adept at letting it go, afterward.

Fairly adept, but far from perfect.

It is a custom at meetings in my part of the world for people to thank the speaker.  At a meeting like this, that means there are about 200 people lined up to give you a hug or shake your hand.  I tried really hard not to notice a few people who where there at the meeting but who decided not to do this.  (I tried really, really hard.)  I told myself that they likely had to run home and let the dog out, or pick someone up at the airport, or ... or... or ...

But it surely didn't help that a few of them have always been among my greatest spiritual teachers.

So... I noticed.  And then I judged myself for noticing.  And then judged myself for judging myself ... and off down the hall of mirrors we go yet again.

But all that went away, when my grace note came at the end of the night.

I had noticed her sitting in the back.  She identified as a newcomer, and was with a bunch of women who I believe were together and on a pass from a local Recovery House.

Her eyes were so haunted.  Every so often you look at someone and see a particular phrase brought to life.  Despite looking relatively well put together (she was clean and combed and such) her eyes truly made me think of the word haunted.  I know how poetic and hyperbolic that sounds -- but there is no other phrase I can summon to express it better.

She shook my hand and I thanked her for being at the meeting.

She told me she'd been sober a good while before, but relapsed, and had been out for a year.  Sober one day now.  She said it had been a hard year.  "A hard, hard year."  She started crying.  "I lost everything.  Everything..."

It felt like I didn't really have the words tonight standing at that stupid lectern, with that damn microphone in my face. 

But thank you God, I had them right then.

"No, no...  You have your life, and you are sober today.  Today.  That's the important thing.  That's everything.  Relationships mend, people eventually forgive, money can be re-earned, there are other jobs, other houses, or cars, or whatever.  That's not the "everything."  That's just the other things.  "Everything" is your life, and your sobriety.  And today you have those.  And because you do, today, you have everything."  She cried (okay, okay, I got choked up too) and I gave her a hug.  She went to join the other women who were waiting for her.  The other folks in line thanked me for speaking and that was that.

So, as usual, tonight I got just what I needed:  A little bit of a polish on my humility (rather than my ego) at the lectern ... and then a chance to experience God's grace, in one alcoholic talking to another.