Mr. SponsorPants

Questions via Email: 90 meetings in 90 days?

 

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

hello im a sober member of aa. i have a conflicting issue though. The whole 90 meetings in 90 days thing...ive read the big book which contains the steps and haven't seen it anywhere...ive also noticed that people hear that and walk right out of meetings ..its re occurring where i live...the reason i ask you this is because i had someone call me and say that if i don't do 90 in 90 will i relapse...thanks ur website is really great.

 

 

 

Well thanks for the kind words, Sober Member.

First off, you're right, the suggestion for someone to do '90 meetings in 90 days' is not in the Big Book -- nor is it in the 12 and 12 nor any other AA lit that I'm aware of (nice loophole, Mr. SP!).

As my first sponsor told me -- and I've told other people I sponsor -- that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is defined in the book from which our Fellowship takes its name.  What people in AA suggest you do, or try, should always be held up against what's mapped out in the book.  So your habit of checking input with the text is a good one.  If I were to make any suggestion at all to you it is to carry on with that good practice.

This whole 90-in-90 is, however, a common suggestion, made often to new people, or done by AA members with some time (one of my sponsees with double digit sobriety decided on their own to do it again) to either help establish a foundation, or to turn up the volume on the meeting experience; get a "booster shot" if you will, of AA medicine.  And there is much wisdom in the fellowship, based on our collective experience, outside of what the Big Book says.  So yes, check and see if something's in the book, but just because it's not doesn't immediately mean it's not helpful or worthwhile.  Common sense and feedback from others is a good filter for all AA direction.  (In my case of course, when I was new, I had zero common sense -- and I'm not sure I have much more today -- so I generally stick close to AA principle and direction from trusted spiritual advisers -- both in the form of sponsors and sober friends.)

(I have to confess to having a bit of an argument over this suggestion.  Some feel it means strictly that one goes to a meeting every day for 90 days.  That is the spirit of the suggestion, yes -- but if you've got a conflict on one day and making a meeting is especially difficult, going to two on another day can sort of "make up" the missed meeting.  I think it is unhealthy to be didactic about AA -- one should embrace the spirit of AA's suggestions, not just the letter of them.)

If you "don't do 90 in 90 you will relapse."  I can't say one way or the other.  There is more to sobriety than meeting attendance (though my sobriety isn't much without it, either.) 

People who hear that suggestion and "walk right out of meetings" would find a different reason to walk right out if they didn't hear that, I suspect -- some people are just looking for a reason to leave.  And that's out of my/your/our hands.  Do I think coming on too strongly can turn people off? Yes -- and in a number of places the Big Book addresses how that is not a helpful way to be in the context of 12th Step work (and what is a meeting if not always that, eh?).   

In your specific case, I would consider the source of the suggestion.  Is this a person who generally offers you good, calm, sober input?  Or are they perhaps a bit rigid or militant in their AA?  I often think of what the Big Book says when talking about how we should frame our sober sex lives -- that we should "avoid hysterical advice" and to (paraphrasing here) watch out for extremes of thinking.  That's a good way to process a lot of things, actually.

But alcoholism is serious business.  People may call AA a kind of self-help group, but that's not what it is to me.  It is a life-saving dose of medicine against my alcoholism -- it is a 24 hour reprieve each day which keeps sick thinking and profoundly self-destructive impulses at bay.

No matter who made the suggestion, or what you feel about them, maybe the universe is giving you a nudge?  What harm can it do to hit 90 meetings in 90 days?  Certainly it will be the aforementioned booster shot, and more importantly, rather than doing something for your sobriety, maybe it will give you the opportunity to do something for someone else's... and THAT is the best protection against relapse I know.

Good luck!

Mr. SponsorPants

 

few things more uncomfortable

 

There are few things more uncomfortable,

more irritating,

more distracting,

more enraging,

than an itch you cannot scratch.

 

Alcoholism

is like an itch you can't scratch;

in your brain.

 

Thank God that,

for me, an AA meeting

is like a spiritual

back scratcher.

yeah, but it's not so easy to switch

 

And for many alcoholics, when we're lonely, our best thinking is to just keep buildin' those walls higher.

For me it took the relentless example of loving acceptance in AA meetings to help me start pulling those walls down -- and if not immediately begin to build a bridge, then at least stand there on the shore and wave.

"... sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly..."

 

metaphor for a meeting

 

 

 

one reason

 

 

So strange

so strange

sometimes

how much I want

the very thing I try not to want.

After the fact I know that prayer can help

but in the moment

sometimes

it's hard to remember.

 

That's one reason I keep going to meetings.

It improves my memory.

 

a moment sublime

She shares pretty much every week.

Every.  Single.  Week.

Now, let me state right at the outset that I think people should share as often as they feel the need to, and to hell with what anyone else thinks.  For me a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous is medicine, and sometimes to get my full dose I need to raise my hand and speak to the topic, or share something that's going on with me, or in general open up and smash through my ego-fears of what other people will think of me.  And I support fully, totally, any alcoholic's right to do so, within whatever format a group has decided upon.

But passionately believing that doesn't mean I always enjoy it.

We're only human after all, and on any given day those pernicious defects of character which dog every step of our spiritual growth are in full bloom.

And such was the case with me this last time she raised her hand to share.

You see, it's always the same thing.  There's a lengthy wind up, in which every identifiable group in the room is praised,  "You know, I really love X people," -- not praised in a condescending way I hasten to add, but week after week after week it starts to become a little twee -- and then pretty much one of two stories gets told, ending with a last little stroke for the people in the room.  

Listening to this a dozen or more times has awakened the worst of my qualities.  I am intolerant and judgmental and impatient.  I have barely been able to keep myself from tossing off a few withering comments at her expense to a few friends at the meeting. 

So this past week, up goes her hand, and the speaker, who had never been to the meeting before, called on her.  There was that almost imperceptible rustle in the room, people shifting in their chairs or catching someone's eye -- I fear much of the group is in the same place I am.

I kept my eyes down as she spoke, listening without really hearing, and feeling that awful/comfortable/toxic/pleasurable judgmental thinking wheeze into life in my head.  I was afraid if I looked at one of my friends my poker face would break or my eyes would give me away, and that is wrong, to editorialize in such a way when someone else is sharing -- well, wrong for me anyway.

She was working towards the end of her roster of groups of people she liked, (we'd been through the heritage of the speaker, the dominant demographic in the room, and were taking a quick lap around people raised in a certain religion, "And you know, I just love the X's.  It's just so special to spend time with...")  and as sometimes happens to me -- though I'm hard pressed to believe I deserve it -- I get a sudden, subtle gift:  A better thought, something from a what I suspect is a much better place, comes into my mind like a clean breeze through the open window of a sick room.

"What happened to her, that before she can speak her mind she is driven to do this placating behavior?  How old was she when she got Taught A Lesson that it's not safe to open up until you mollify everyone around you?  What a hard thing to have inside you.  What a fearful way to be, in a room that is supposed to be so safe.  Who did that to her, and when?  And how?"

Just like *that* I felt a moment of sublime compassion for her.  This pattern she is in -- which she likely isn't very aware of -- driving her to do this verbal curtsy to everyone around her before she dares to speak up.  How hard and sad.  That's a tough thing to carry, I thought.  It will probably be difficult to break through for her, if she even perceives it...

Is it too much to say that suddenly I was able to look at her with love?  Roll your eyes, it's the kind of statement which deserves it, even though it feels like the truth.  Certainly compassion is love, and it swept up through me, sitting in my dinky folding metal chair, having just moments before been a bitter, judgmental little pig, roasting on the slow turning spit of my resentment.

Such a profound shift inside leads to talk of God, and quiet miracles, and the healing power of staying in 12 Step rooms and letting that message wash over you day after day...

Grace can come in an instant.  One moment I can feel nothing but contempt, the next... I am full of compassion.

I've been at this too long to predict how I will feel the next time she raises her hand and gets called on, but I suspect I was given a gift that will stick, and pay dividends I'm still yet unaware of.

To be clear:  She is right and fine.  I hope she keeps raising her hand and doing what she needs to do to get her dose of medicine.  It didn't -- and it still doesn't -- matter a flying fig what I or anyone else in the group thinks of that.

I just know that one more time I got something unexpected and somewhat miraculous from simply sitting in a meeting and listening.

okay, let's try this again

technical difficulties yesterday. let's try this again.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the Quiet Voice spoke up.

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

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

"I know that can be true."

and

"Man, my head is a weird place."

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

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

And the readings concluded and I started to speak.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Blogging from a phone

Writing this post on my phone, which, given my experience tonight is HIGHLY ironic. Just got back from speaking at a Meeting. 10:30pm AA Meeting. On a Monday night. In the Utility Room of a Parking Garage.

Rarely have I felt so blocked when speaking. It's because I had to keep pulling myself back from starting every sentence with the phrase: "Put the fucking cell phone down." small meeting but the cool kids in the back couldn't be bothered to stop texting -- I'm a long way from the idea that you have to listen to ME in the meeting. But I do believe you have to LISTEN in the meeting.
There's more to this story, but the technology is working against me tonight.
Suffice to saythat by the end of the meeting I was glad I didn't go there...
More tomorrow.

Questions via Email: AA makes me want to drink (I think)

 

 

Hi Mr. Sponsorpants,

I just came back from a very lovely, cosy AA meeting in my home city in the UK.   Nice people, comfy chairs.  I am definitely an alcoholic.  No doubt.  Stayed sober for 3 months without much hassle.  Relapsed 2 weeks ago for a few eventful days, most of which I can’t remember.  When sober, 90% of the time I don’t even think about drinking.  After an AA meeting, listening to people talking about drinking, drinking, drinking, Alcohol, as soon as I get home, I have a huge urge to drink.  I am scared not to go to meetings because according to the old timers, I will drink.  I am scared to go to the meetings because from experience, after  meetings I want to drink.  (not always but more often than not I think about it)

 Maybe I am making my sobriety much tougher than necessary thinking that it depends on AA.  We are all made of different components.  Could it be counter effective for some of us?  The truth please!

 Regards,

 T

 

Dear T,

First off... comfy chairs?  What the hell?  I've been sitting on dreadful folding metal chairs (about as comfortable as something purchased at a waterboarding equipment after-market sale) for all these years!  You have comfy chairs in your UK meetings?  Damn you, Sir or Madame!  Damn you and your comfy chairs all to hell!

Now then, about AA being "counter effective" for some of us.  Us as in "real alcoholics" us?  And you want the truth?

The truth is that I am not an expert.  I have no idea.  I'm not dodging your question nor am I trying to conceal some Hidden Truth we long timers in AA learn after getting our 20 year chip (God, it would be so cool if AA had some kind of cabalistic Hidden Truth you get to after a while.  I imagine it would be concealed in a Codex entitled "The Secret Writings of Lois Wilson" and to access it you must face Akron, Ohio at 12:12am and place your 20 year chip against the indentation at the top of the ... no.  Wait.  Isn't that a scene from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"?)

The truth is... maybe.  I suppose it's possible.

As I'm sure you know, one of the things about the mental component of alcoholism is that it seems to cloud our thinking to the point where drinking, regardless of what has happened to us when we drank before, appears to be a good idea again.  So in my experience, when people say "if you don't go to AA you're going to drink" that is because that has proven true for them -- or they believe it to be true for them.  (I believe that is true for me.)  In other words, AA helps them (me) remember what happens when I drink (that's only one facet of course, and a bit of a simplification, but it will do for now).

But the spirit of this idea is that, if you have the disease of alcoholism you will not be able to stay sober on your unaided willpower alone.  Without something to help you stay sober the consequences of what happens when you pick up a drink will not be present in your mind with enough force to deter you from going ahead and picking up a drink again.  Just like if you had any other chronic medical condition you would need help and medicine to treat it -- you couldn't just conquer it with your will.  "It seems that I have asthma.  But you know what?  The next time I feel an asthma attack coming on I'm just going to decide to breathe normally!  That's all.  I mean, I'm breathing normally now, right?  In fact, I breathe normally 90% of the time."  Yeah, good luck with that plan. 

So... is there "something else" which can help you stay sober, other than AA?  There are certainly lots of people who are anti-AA out there, and they make for a strong presence in some corners of the Internet.  I confess I've not read every single word of what they've written (and saying "they" is painting with a ridiculously broad brush, I grant you) but while there is tremendous intensity and a lot of detailed critique in their negative feelings about AA, in my cursory examination I've not seen a lot of actual, specific suggestions about how to stay sober beyond "just don't drink."  And again, I want to stress that information may be there and I just haven't really seen it.

For me there are degrees of thinking about drinking.  The thought of a drink can occur, but I don't have to invite it to sit down (in a comfy chair!) and put its feet up, serve it a cuppa and chat it up for a while.  Thinking is not necessarily the desire.  And the desire is not the same as the obsession.  Are you indulging these thoughts, T?  When you get home from the meeting and you start thinking about drinking do you call anyone?  Write?  Pray?  Jog?  Eat?  Anything? 

AA works for me.  When I hear people talk about drinking in meetings it is not a glorification so much as a description which I can identify with -- and not just with the drinking but with the inevitable slide downwards which accompanies it (in whatever form that takes).

But AA is a lot more than sitting in a comfy chair (damn you!) and listening to people's stories. 

Big Book?  Steps?  Sponsor?  Hello?

The general consensus from an awful lot of corners (medical, psychiatric, religious, 12 Step, etc.) is that some kind of ongoing assistance is pretty important for an addict if they want to stay clean.

All I have is your email to work from, but you seem to minimize the fact that you were pretty much in a blackout for 72 hours.  I wouldn't presume to agree with you that you're an alcoho -- oh, the hell with that, I certainly will presume it.  A 72 hour blackout, T?  A few "eventful days" as you so coyly describe it?  Just puttering around the garden shed were we, and lost track of time?

Please.

It is good -- no, it's great -- that you say "I am definitely an alcoholic.  No doubt."  That certainty is a solid beginning.  But there's a reason there are 12 Steps.  It's not a one step program.  Or, to drag that damned Big Book into it again, "self knowledge avails us nothing."  Knowing you're an alcoholic is not nearly enough to help you stay sober.  Just like knowing you have fair skin and sunburn easily will not actually prevent you from getting a sunburn.

There are 12 Steps because it is a process.  Just like to make a cake a recipe might have 7 steps, to make a spiritual experience of the AA variety requires an alcoholic to take all 12 Steps.  And without a spiritual experience -- a "psychic upheaval" as Dr. Jung called it -- (be it gradual or the more rare thunderbolt kind) according to AA, and the personal experience of many people who have come to AA -- and my own personal experience -- staying sober is a bit of a longshot for a real alcoholic.

I would urge you to try all of the AA program before you decide it's not for you.

I would urge you to bring an uncomfortable folding metal chair to your meetings and sit in it.  I doubt it will do anything to help you stay sober, but why should I be the only one suffering.

Are you "making your sobriety tougher than necessary thinking it depends on AA?"

I have no idea.

I don't know if AA is counter effective for you.

All I can tell you is that it has definitely worked for me.

Try going without it, and if you're fairly happy and don't have any more 72 hour blackouts then I guess you were right, and we'll both have learned something.

You'll forgive me, I hope, if I let you learn that lesson on your own, rather than join you.

 

Good luck,

Mr. SponsorPants

 

 

Questions via Email: Unwanted attention from an "older" (long term sobriety) member

 

Dear Mr. Sponsorpants,

I have been attending AA since late 2010. As of today I am working towards six months of sobriety and the obsession has been lifted. I look forward to AA meetings and attend at least one a day. I am a woman and lately I've been finding myself not going to certain meetings in order to avoid certain men. One in particular. He has long-term sobriety so I thought I could trust him. But when I took a chip recently he bought me jewelery. I accepted the gift in the moment because other people were around, but I have no intention of keeping it and am waiting for a good time to return it - but I don't want to see him in a social situation so it is looking like returning them after a meeting is my only option. I don't know how to do this though. I feel like by taking them I have led him on. My sponsor said just to return them and to tell him that his gift was inappropriate. While that is true, it is easier said than done for me - especially since weeks have gone by. He texts me almost daily (I know - how did he get my number? my sponsor asked the same question. All I can say is that he caught me off guard and in that moment I thought that since he was a respected member, I could trust him) and he waits for me after every meeting to give me a hug. It makes me really uncomfortable - both because what he is doing is completely inappropriate (I'm far too early in my sobriety and he knows that and is likely preying upon it on some level) and because the thought of having to tell him to leave me alone (I've tried just ignoring him, but it hasn't worked) causes me great anxiety. My sponsor has offered to ask one of his friends to speak with him, but I think I have to do it myself. I have a great home group which I am very comfortable at, but I am thinking of trying other meetings around the city simply to avoid this situation (how alcoholic of me!).....any advice would be much appreciated!

 

Thank you for your time,

C.

 

Dear C,

You did a great job outlining a difficult situation, and it sounds to me like you have a good head on your shoulders.  An alcoholic head, sure, or meetings might not click for you the way they do, but a good one none-the-less.

You already have your answer, C -- and you know it.  And while I do not think God gives us "lessons" like some pinch lipped prarie school marm, I do believe that we are presented with situations which are actually opportunities to do what we need to so we can grow as we're meant to.  So this: "My sponsor has offered to ask one of his friends to speak with him, but I think I have to do it myself" positively shouts to me that the Little Voice inside we all strive to tune in to is, in this case, being received loud and clear by you.

I have some specific suggestions (of course!) and some things you might want to consider (don't I always!).

This guy is in the wrong.  What he is doing is absolutely not good AA -- bad for you -- and terrible for him  Ultimately the harm he does himself in this is far greater -- but there's no fool like an old fool.  In no way am I minimizing your uncomfortability or what is clearly a level of attention that has mixed and murky motives, but it's worth reminding ourselves that people can be chatty and social on the outside and very lonely inside.  While it's possible for any person to be blind to their real motives, alcoholics are especially skilled at "hiding a bad motive under a good one" as it says in the 12&12 -- and quite often hiding them from ourselves, first.  Life is rarely a Lifetime movie, and one sorry, besotted old fool does not a full-on stalker/predator make.  (Yes, I know it could make one.  But that doesn't mean it will make one.)

So if you try and bring some compassion to bear in how you view him and what he's doing -- and this is NOT an excuse for him, merely something to consider -- seeing these actions as born of loneliness and fear might help you in speaking up to him and drawing some boundaries.  I understand fear because I have dealt with it so much -- thus, when I need to deal with someone who at first makes me uncomfortable, if I can identify what about their behavior is driven by their fear, it makes approaching them a little easier, as they go from kind of scary-bad to a little sorry-sad.

I don't see any error on your part when it comes to him having your phone number or you not being quick to return his gift.  Dear God, girl, you're a walking miracle, in the beginning of your sobriety, going to meetings and trying to build a foundation in recovery!  A little foot dragging on something that would be difficult for anyone to handle is completely natural.

But... now you are clear in what you need to do.  You need to return the gift and tell him that the level of attention he is showing you is not okay with you.

The time for the dragging of the feet is over.

So you bring the jewelery to the meeting and tell him you need to speak to him.  No more dithering about when you're going to do it or how to meet him.  Part of the problem is he's around more than you want.  Meeting him is hardly the issue.

You return the gift and you say "Thank you, but I cannot and I will not accept this gift.  It is too much and I am not at all comfortable keeping it."  Rehearse it a couple of times so you can say it with some force.  Gentle force, but force.  No err or um between the words and no apology in your tone.  When he tries to insist you keep it just play the  broken record and repeat it until he "gets" it.  And if he doesn't, then set the gift on a chair or table and let it go.  If it becomes a game of "I won't take it so you have to keep it" just opt out, and set it down.

And now comes the leap of faith.  One of the best things I learned in AA was that the truth will protect you.

So tell him the truth.

"I'm not comfortable with the amount of attention you're giving me.  All the texts, all the waiting for me after meetings -- it's starting to affect my comfortability in the rooms.  I know the hand of AA will always be there for me, but as far as 12th step work goes, I need it to be a woman's hand for right now."

Yes, you feel anxiety over saying this, but it will be fantastic for you if you take a deep breath and do it.

You don't have to do it alone.  Ask your sponsor to be there, as quiet support, if you like -- or some other gal in the rooms.  Ask them to let you be the one talking, you're not asking them to speak for you, just to be there -- or nearby even -- as moral support. 

And, as they told me when facing a scary situation, bring God with you.  God will give you the words and handle this interaction if you invite God into it.  Remember, this guy has a Higher Power too.  He may be embarrassed or angry or confused.  He might feel this way or that.  None of that is your problem.  This is your opportunity, not your lesson and not your problem:  To speak up for yourself in an environment which it is safe to do so and with ready support at hand. 

Just because AA's can be a huggy group doesn't mean you are required to hug everyone -- or anyone.  Just hold up one hand when someone comes in to give you a hug and say "wait.  I'm in a handshaking place today." 

If some people are offended or give you flack, that's on them.  Most people will not.  And you can hug some and not others. 

Claim your Home Group, claim your meeting, as yours.  (Not yours exclusively, obviously, but yours for sure.)

There will be some anxiety.  Some awkwardness at times for a bit, too.

But your sobriety, your life, is more important than his -- or anyone's -- feelings.

You can do this with grace and do this well.  It's the right thing for you to do, and his unwanted attention has in some ways made him a great spiritual teacher for you.

C., if you can stay sober for as many days as you have then there is nothing in this you can't handle.  You don't have to rely on your own power -- just rely on your Higher Power and all will go as it should.

Faith.  Courage -- I know it's a lot easier for me to rattle these things off than it is to look someone in the eye and say them, but you can do it.

Good luck, and please, by all means, let me know how it goes.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants