Mr. SponsorPants

my real sponsor

Over the years, I've been guided by many fine people in the role of sponsor.

They made great suggestions, some of which I actually took.  (More so as time went by, of course.)

On those occasions which I didn't, however, I discovered an interesting thing.

Sometimes pain is my real sponsor.  (That sponsor will school you.)

Which is actually good news, because Lord knows, after I visit with him for a while I get right into action.

 

2010 One Day At A Time

New Year's Eve was never my holiday.

It is the evening of unmet expectations -- all fuse, no boom. 

Amateur night in the bars (and on the roads).

When I was drinking I was always sure that the next party was the outrageous one, the next bar was the hot one -- and in sobriety I still feel like New Year's Eve doesn't quite live up to its reputation, whether I wear a tux or a t-shirt.  Don't get me wrong, it's fun ... you dance, you hug friends, the countdown happens and you kiss someone (or you don't) -- but to me it's always the tiniest bit of a let down at 12:01am. 

But New Year's Day?

Aaaah, now that's my kind of holiday.

It's the one day a year when I feel like the whole world has some insight into one of the greatest tools Alcoholics Anonymous gives us: One Day At A Time.

New Year's Day is the day when anyone in the world who wants a blank slate, a fresh start, embraces the idea that they can have one.  Sure, it's all wrapped up in pledges bound to the tick of the clock, the turn of the calendar page -- but at heart, it is about the now, the today, the in-the-moment power of not doing things this day the way you did them yesterday.

New Year's Day, when all the little birds with broken wings and broken dreams look up and say, "Ok, today I'm going to try limping up into the sky one more time."

Is there any other day that so beautifully captures, for the rest of the world, the essence of AA's "one day at a time"?

New Year's Day, when the memory of all the defeats, all the disappointments, all the times you look at yourself in the mirror (or in the inventory) and think, with such crushing despair, "how did I get here?" (or the even more cruelly disheartening, "how did I get here again?") loses its power to make you weep and think you should give up ever trying to change.

New Year's Day -- which, in truth, is just. any. other. day.

The transformative power of Alcoholics Anonymous is that the energy, the buoyant hope, the opportunity to change and lift ourselves up, to be different and better no matter how many times we've fallen down -- to be the miracle that says "No! My past is not my future, what I did yesterday will not dictate what I do today!" -- that power comes with every sober 24 hours, with every morning you wake, with every commitment made to stay clean and sober, one day at a time.

Truly, no matter what your faith, regardless of your philosophy, all we have is today.  The future is no more (or less) uncertain than it ever was.  All we have is today.

And today, New Year's Day, is filled with whatever promise you choose to give it. 

Just like every. other. sober. day.

Giblet and Dumpling consider Cargo Cults and Negative Consciousness. A Play in 47 Lines.

As the curtain rises, Giblet sits at the kitchen table downstage left, looking morose and drinking a cup of coffee.  After a few moments Dumpling enters, upstage right, and crosses to the counter, where a coffee maker sits, with several mugs on a sideboard.  Dumpling grabs a mug, fills it with coffee and stands, considering Giblet for a few moments before crossing downstage and joining them at the table.

DUMPLING:  What are you doing?

GIBLET (sarcastic and exasperated): What does it look like I'm doing?  I'm sitting here drinking a cup of coffee.

DUMPLING:  Actually, it looks like you're sitting, drinking a cup of coffee and thinking angry thoughts.  And scowling.  You're a great scowler, you know.

GIBLET:  Whatever.

DUMPLING:  What are you thinking about?

GIBLET:  Some guy at the meeting last week shared something that I can't get out of my head and ... it's really messing with me.

DUMPLING:  What did your sponsor say?  Oh, that's right, you don't call your sponsor.

GIBLET:  That's what's great about you, I don't really need to work my program, since you're always so ready to step in and work it for me.

DUMPLING:  That is an infantile evasion to an astute observation -- my remarking that you don't call your sponsor is not very different from saying you don't take your insulin, or you don't take your vitamins, or whatever.

GIBLET:  Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.

DUMPLING:  Wow, you are really a piece of work today.  So what is it that this guy shared which has your snark turned up to eleven?

GIBLET:  He was talking about having a hard time with his faith -- faith in God, faith in AA, recovery, his ability to "get" it -- and he compared the whole thing to a Cargo Cult, and the comparison is so apt it's kind of freaking me out.

DUMPLING:  How apt is it?  Remind me again what a Cargo Cult is, and most especially what it might have to do with a crisis of faith.

Giblet rises from the table while speaking, and goes to the counter, grabbing the coffee pot and returning, pouring more coffee into each mug.

GIBLET:  Well, he told the story of the Cargo Cults -- it's part history and part fable, so don't get worked up about how accurate the history bits are -- it's the larger point that's working me.  Okay, so during World War II the Allies' planes couldn't carry enough fuel to make it all the way across the Pacific Theater, so the military selected small islands along the way to build posts with fuel and supplies and such.  Some of these islands were actually inhabited, and so basically one day, as far as the natives were concerned, this big silver bird comes down from the sky, and out of its belly comes men, with materials and things, and the men build a long flat road and hang lights, which then makes for other, even bigger silver birds to land, and from those issued all sorts of things -- not just men and supplies, but things that the natives had never seen before.  Matches, chocolate, flashlights, cameras ...

DUMPLING:  Okay, sorry to interrupt, but my God, could this fable be any more condescending to indigenous peoples?  It's the typical Western arrogance manifest destiny thing which ...

GIBLET:  You are everything I hate about highly educated people, did you know that?

DUMPLING:  And yet you keep sleeping with me.

GIBLET:  Congratulations, you are part of my cycle of dysfunctional relationships.  Do you want to hear what's bothering me, or do you want to lecture me about western culture and crap like that?

DUMPLING:  Sorry, sorry -- go on.

GIBLET:  Okay, so the natives, they have no understanding of the war, or the world outside of their little island.  They're just grooving on all the stuff that is coming along with the men who come out of the big silver birds.

DUMPLING:  Chocolate and nylons.

GIBLET:  Will you stop?

DUMPLING:  Sorry, I really do want to help.  Please, go on.

GIBLET:  So the war ends, but that's all an abstract to the natives -- yet with the war over the military eventually closes the base and flies away.  No more silver birds with stuff coming out of them.  So the natives sit down, and with their best thinking try to figure out how to get the big silver birds to come back to the island so they can get the stuff again.  So they think about it, and they think about it, and they hit on a perfect solution:  Build another long road for the big silver birds to land on.  After all, that's what happened before, right?  So they tear down some trees and flatten a long stretch of land and line it with torches and congratulate themselves on their good thinking and their hard work and they sit down and wait.  But of course no planes come, because although they mimicked what it took for planes to land on the island before, they were completely ignorant of what was really going on. From their limited view they took the right action to get the result, but in the big picture they couldn't have been more off the mark.

DUMPLING:  Okay, wow, and this guy said all this in his share?  Where does the crisis of faith come in, and what about all that has gotten your knickers in a twist?

GIBLET:  What if we in recovery are like the natives on the island -- what if anyone seeking a conscious contact with a Higher Power in general is like that?  We have our little rituals and our writing and we pray and we this and that, but what if we're just performing a dumb show, and are as empty and misguided as those natives and will get an equally empty and dismal result.  What if it's all bullshit stage business completely divorced from a real ... well, a real anything?

DUMPLING:  You certainly like to torture yourself.  All this is a just a ridiculously complicated way to simply ask "What if there is no God?" or "What if AA is bs?"  Not to mention, there is so much needless drama, (conveniently ignoring the results we get from AA, by the way) with that line of questioning anyway.  And that interpretation of the story.  Personally, I can see a whole different point to your Cargo Cult fable.

GIBLET:  Not everyone gets results from AA you know.

DUMPLING:  I have.  And you have, when you're not throwing yourself around the kitchen, wringing your hands and wondering when it will stop working or if it's all pointless.  Not everyone treating their cancer gets results from chemotherapy, either.  Does that mean that no one should use chemotherapy?  It's a simple Program, sure, but addiction is not a simple problem -- so to reduce it to such a simplistic level is doing yourself, and your program ... and AA ... a disservice.  Because it's such a reduction that it becomes a distortion.

GIBLET:  Okay, maybe ... but the Cargo Cult story is still a good analogy for a group of people doing an empty ritual to no avail.  They built a landing strip, but they didn't get what they wanted.

DUMPLING:  Ah, but what did they get?

GIBLET:  What are you talking about, they didn't get anything, that's the point.

DUMPLING:  No, they didn't get airplanes with chocolate and trinkets, but that's not to say they didn't get anything -- they just didn't get the specific result they thought they wanted.

GIBLET:  Right -- they didn't get what they set out to get.

DUMPLING:  But that's not the same as them not getting anything.

GIBLET:  If you are about to say they didn't get what they wanted but maybe they got what they needed I am going to throw up right here and now.

DUMPLING:  Well go stand over the sink, because that IS what I'm saying.  Your little fable ends too soon.  It needs a Second Act, a Chapter Two, a ... a ... an epilogue!

GIBLET:  And what would that be?

DUMPLING:  Well, did they get airplanes full of crap?  No.  But in working towards that, maybe they learned other things, got other things.

GIBLET:  I'm going to be sorry I asked, but ... what other things?

DUMPLING (shrugs):  A greater sense of community.  A new understanding of engineering principles.  An insight that their leadership was screwed up -- the specific what-they-got isn't the point -- the point is that just because they didn't get what they set out to find doesn't mean they didn't get great stuff -- stuff that was ultimately of much greater value to them than chocolate bars and trinkets.  Thus, it doesn't even matter if there's something at the other end, it's the doing that's worthwhile anyway.

GIBLET:  I thought you said there was nothing on earth worth more than good chocolate.

DUMPLING:  Shut up -- I'm making a great point.

GIBLET:  Yeah, if you live in the Pollyanna Universe.

Dumpling slams their coffee mug down on the table and Giblet jumps.

DUMPLING:  No.  No, no no no NO.  I hate that and I reject that.  Just because something is a positive or uplifting interpretation doesn't make it any less valid or possible or important or substantive than your piss-all-over-everything negativity.

GIBLET:  I'm not negative.  I'm realistic.

DUMPLING (suddenly furious):  My God!  Have you met you?  You are nothing BUT negative!  You love to be negative!  It's bullshit, is what it is, because you don't have the balls to feel hope and embrace optimism and look for the sunlight!  It's easier and safer to just keep dragging around, acting cool and saying everything is crap -- then you never have to risk disappointment or rise to a challenge or actually do anything!  It's much easier and more fun to ponce around the house talking about how life sucks, AA sucks, God's a fantasy -- and every time I say anything positive you just make fun of it!  You know what, I don't need that!  Being negative is easy, any child can stomp on a sandcastle.  You know what's hard?  Building the sandcastle!  Keeping faith, even if you think it's silly or stupid or... or ... Pollyanna.  What's so stupid about looking for the good, anyway?  What's so unrealistic about that?  It's such a cheap trick, equating the negative with realism.  But you know what's really hard?  Constantly listening to your faux sophisticated cynicism...

Dumpling stops abruptly, suddenly hearing what they've said, realizing they've gone too far, and covers their face with their hands.  Giblet opens their mouth to respond, and then closes it.  Slowly Giblet rises from the table and stands, looking down at Dumpling.  Dumpling lowers their hands from their face, looks up at Giblet and seems about to say something.  With a roar Giblet whirls and throws their mug against the wall, where it shatters with a crash.

Blackout.

Curtain.

one thing alcoholics have in common

One thing that alcoholics have in common with each other is the deep seated belief that we are each terminally unique.  I believe this makes us secretly feel both a little superior and somewhat inferior, all at the same time.

It is an odd mixture of relief and sorrow when we discover just how similar (and often mundane) we truly are.

Take heart!  There is still room for feeling special when you let go of terminal uniqueness.  It's called self esteem -- and while some days it still feels like a high wire act to value myself without making myself "different than" (i.e. unique) from the rest of the world (or at least the rest of the meeting) -- the longer I've stayed sober the more it has come to be as easy and familiar as an old sock.

Self esteem did not come to me as the result of a mental exercise, however.

To develop self esteem I had to do esteemable acts.

Or, more simply, old behaviors bring old feelings, and new behaviors bring new feelings.

Setting aside my terminal uniqueness was actually a part of the process towards self esteem that I didn't recognize till after I'd done it.  And self esteem was important not just as an exercise in feeling good (which of course it does), but as a part of a larger healing process in my recovery.

It's easier to stay sober if you begin to believe you're worth saving.

If you're reading this today and you don't believe that, it's okay, there are lots of people in AA who do -- and our belief in your worth and your ability to recover can carry you along till you believe it yourself.

But you have to keep coming back for us to have the chance to show you.

Shooters -- Quick shots from Meetings

Pay less attention to how you feel and more attention to what you do.

(If you read that as "pay no attention to how you feel" then maybe you've got your black-and-white-thinking hat on today?  It's hard to find shoes to match that -- you might want to reconsider.)

other people's "me too" does not equal "not you"

Alcoholics Anonymous helps me keep my ego in check -- "right sized."  One result of this is a freedom from interpreting other people's wish to be included as a "threat" to me.  To put it another way, other people's "me too" doesn't equal "not you."

The world is a less hostile place from that perspective.

Their abundance is not my lack (because they don't have my stuff -- their stuff has nothing to do with me).

Their success does not diminish me (because their accomplishment or good fortune is not a comment on my abilities or fortunes).

Their faith is not an indictment of my belief -- or doubt, for that matter (even if they think it is).

Whenever I think someone else's anything is a comment upon me, whether overtly or covertly, I've slipped back into an ego based world-view.  I'm deeply grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous for giving me the tools to recognize that -- and change it.

Peace.

you to you

Do not compare yourself to other people (which is really just what you think other people are, anyway.)

Do not compare yourself to who you think you're supposed to be.

Compare instead who and how you were when you came to AA against who and how you are today.

Compare you to you -- whether you have only a few weeks to look back upon, or many, many years.

That is the only measure worthy of reflection, as it will show you the unbroken line of spiritual healing we so easily lose sight of on any given scary day.

And really, isn't that what you need to see, when you're unsure?

" ... am I being Punk'd?" Part 1

"Excuse me.  Do you live around here?"  She was well dressed in an expensive/casual look for the weather -- a little L.L. Bean, a touch of Banana Republic -- middle-aged and trim.  As she flagged me down and asked if I was a local she had that no-teeth-showing courtesy smile which may communicate a lot of things, but warmth isn't typically one of them.

I'd been huffing and puffing up the hill back to my place from the market -- the huff-to-puff ratio cycling higher as I'd splurged on the Extra Value sized box of cat litter, and while my little hill isn't San Francisco grade it's steep enough that they'll ticket you for not turning your wheels when you parallel park.

"Yes, I do."  I answered, smiling and trying not to look -- or sound -- out of breath.  The little vanities never leave us, I suppose.

"Oh, good.  I live down there," gesturing vaguely down the side street, "so we're practically neighbors."  she said, smile remaining perkily fixed, widening slightly but not really warming despite this newfound zip-code-based bond between us.

"Um.  Okay."  I said.  The side street she'd gestured down was nice -- lots of stylish houses with well-appointed yards.  I, a good half dozen blocks farther up the hill, am but a humble renter, and my little plot of sod, while charming on its own, wasn't American Dream material like her street.  Still, if she was big enough to forgo economic classism then by God so was I.  "Can I ... is there something ... can I help you?"

"Well, we're canvassing the neighborhood to see if we can get volunteers to go door-to-door on their own block and get a petition signed to stop the Rehab from going in.  Would you ..."

I shook my head, probably doing a fair imitation of a dog trying to get water out of it's ears.  "Wait ... the WHAT?"

"The rehab.  Over there, in the old _______ bed and breakfast.  The _________ company is trying to sneak a rehab in on that property.  They're trying to circumvent zoning laws by using the American's with Disabilities Act and ..."

"Wait."  I interrupted.  "Wait wait ... there's a rehab planned for right over there" I pointed to the bed and breakfast, out of business for a little while now, right across the street,  "and you're asking me to get signatures for a petition against ... am I ... is this some kind of practical joke?  Am I ... am I being Punk'd?"

"I beg your pardon?"  The smile went from mild courtesy to mild disbelief.

"Am I being Punk'd or something?  Is this a joke?"

"What? Oh!  Oh no, no.  I mean, I couldn't believe it myself, either, when I first heard, and we only found out because ... "

She went on to describe the ways in which things at City Hall are discussed among neighbors and how information travels, smoothly segueing into the home owners' concerns about what a rehab would do to property values and the 'general tenor of the neighborhood.'

"You know, if a rehab goes in then there will be drug addicts and dealers and alcoholics up and down the street all the time."  She looked at me gravely when she said this.

I thought of all the sponsees and AA friends who come and go from my place, zipping up and down our street all the time.  A more motley crew of addicts and alcoholics, charlatans, former hookers, ex-cons, more than a few failed dealers, and a colorful smattering of low grade mental illness you'd be hard pressed to find, I wager.  It's just that we clean up nice -- pun intended -- so now we don't spook the natives.  Add liquor to that lot though and I wager we'd make Custer's Last Stand look like a tea party.  Tenor of the neighborhood indeed!

I suppressed the five sarcastic comments which popped into my head, the first of which, a saucey "Oh, honey, there already are!" the only tame one among them.  I couldn't fault this woman for her concerns, as unfounded as I believed they might be -- and what do I know?  Maybe a rehab does lower property values.  If I were leveraged up to my clavicle and possibly upside down mortgage-wise in an uncertain economy I'd spook easily, too.  And no one has to tell me that not all rehabs are the same...

"Ummm, I'm sorry, but I'll have to learn more about this and think about it.  Do you have a card or something?"

This seemed to stump her for a moment.  "No, I'm sorry, I just saw you and recognized you from the market and thought I'd ask ..."

"Okay, well, let me give you my number, and call me in a few days after I've had a chance to find out more."  I pulled out my wallet and gave her my card -- ironically, of course, it's the card I give to newcomers at AA meetings.  Nothing on it identifies it as such, but I kept the giggle at this realization stoppered in my throat rather than letting it bubble up out of me.  (Something about a big middle-aged man giggling makes people nervous, so I try to stick with chuckles when they come -- more manly, reassuring -- and avoid giggling where others can hear.  Just my little way of making the world a more comfortable place.  No, no -- don't thank me.)

"Oh.  Well.  Thank you."  Courtesy smile back in place she took my card and turned to walk down her tony side street, and I picked up my groceries for the final assault on my hill.

Of course, I thought, hefting the cat litter up to my shoulder, I actually was being Punk'd -- but not by TV.

By HP.

A rehab opening in the old bed and breakfast on my street, maybe six short blocks from my front door.

"Very funny, God."  I muttered.

to be continued

a moment of restraint.

Chatting with friends earlier, one of them -- whom I have known for some years -- was talking about something I feel strongly about.

He knows this.

He did not ask my opinion, since he pretty much knew it, and didn't want to open the door for perhaps a disagreeable few minutes as I spoke my mind -- if not contradicting him exactly, certainly not agreeing, either.

And as he did not ask my opinion (though I generally feel strongly about the issue) I did not volunteer it.

In some ways it was a testament to how we've both grown.

Perhaps that is a wisdom which comes from age, but I know many people who seem no wiser as they've grown older -- and a few who seem even more foolish, truth be told.  Thus, if that discretion cannot wholly be attributed to Alcoholics Anonymous, certainly a good portion of it can be -- for me anyway.

As AA literature suggests, and is often quoted, "... nothing pays off so much as restraint of tongue and pen."

That may not be the right course for every situation I find myself in -- sometimes I believe the Universe does give you your cue -- but in a way it's almost never the wrong one.

Things I learned (or was reminded of) this week(end). An ongoing series.

• In observing alcoholics (myself included) this weekend, it struck me how readily our ego and defiance work together (at lightning speed, and virtually unseen) to perceive a criticism or sleight from someone when none is offered -- that is, someone is talking literally about themselves, but what we hear -- and react to -- is a comment about us -- a comment they were not making at all.

• People make up a lot of rules in their head about sharing in AA meetings that do not exist.  While some sharing is more productive than others -- and some meeting formats request people abide by certain suggestions (no cross talk, for example) -- there is really no "wrong" sharing.

• Alcoholics Anonymous does not try to explain God, it only suggests we seek one, as we understand them.  Being angry or doubtful or cynical or critical of a belief in God is absolutely no barrier to working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

• Serenity is learning to live with unanswered questions and unresolved issues.

• As it says in the Big Book, when discussing our inventories, "the world and its people are often quite wrong."  Looking at my part in things -- so crucial for my peace of mind and continued sobriety -- is not the same as saying that a wrong thing is not, in fact, wrong.

• Anonymity helps me remain teachable, as well as to hear peoples' shares in meetings with a minimum of filters.

• Listening to a 5th Step is, when done with real attention and a true intent to be of service to another person in recovery, actually very hard work -- well worth it, but hard work nonetheless.