Mr. SponsorPants

Lots of disappointments?

 

Lots of disappointments? 

Ummm...

maybe that's because you have lots of expectations.

 

(You might want to look at that.)

 

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.

accepting/giving help

 

 

If you cannot accept help with an open heart, then the sad truth is that you probably cannot give help with an open heart.

However we judge ourselves when we ask for or receive help, it is very likely we consciously (or unconsciously) attach that same judgment to those we are helping.

Perhaps the best way to address this is to practice asking for help, since that is often the harder and more humbling thing to do -- that, and pray for a more open heart.

(I suspect -- though it may be just a fancy on my part -- it is this prayer which God is most glad to answer.)

 

black ink

The book "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (more commonly called The 12&12), in the chapter on Step 4, states:  "The sponsor probably points out that the newcomer has some assets which can be noted along with his liabilities."  Elsewhere it says, to paraphrase only slightly, that a business which takes inventory only in red ink is not going to get a very accurate idea of the stock on hand -- meaning that, literally, if you were taking inventory of stock in a store you would count what you did have, not what you didn't, if you wanted a clear picture.

With many of my sponsees, especially if it is not their very first 4th Step (I like to keep that simple and stick squarely to what the Big Book lays out for that one), I draw their attention to this idea of assets and suggest that they make a list of their "good" traits (or healthy qualities, or strengths, or gifts, or whatever suits).

In many cases you would think I had asked them to pound a dull nail through their hand.  Until I learned to suggest a specific number of things to try and list (I like 20, personally) even the most willing would return, sheepishly offer a piece of paper, left largely blank except for two or three broken phrases scribbled at the top, and mumble a sorry "I couldn't think of anything."

Generally we are people who think about ourselves a lot, rather than people who think a lot of ourselves.

I would submit that there is a tremendous, healthy, sober freedom in being able to say out loud, "Oh, yes, I'm very good at ________."

If you do so and then must rush to qualify, or equivocate, or apologize, you're not quite on the mark.

Saying "I'm good at ______" is not the same as saying "I'm better than _________ at _______." 

(Anyone who hears it that way is in fact engaged in a struggle with their own ego -- and I wish them the best of luck in that fight -- when I get in the ring with mine I'm continually chagrined to discover what a superb and sneaky fighter he is -- like a ninja with a hangover:  Dangerous and mean.)

As we work the 12 Steps and develop the habit of self examination, in my opinion its very important that we are writing in black ink as well as the red -- if you find you really, truly can't ... well, you might want to take a look at that.

Connecting a few dots with a chronic relapser...

He came up to me after the meeting, as we were all folding up the metal chairs and placing them on the racks in the back of the room.  After the usual pleasantries he got down to it.

"I have a resentment against this meeting."  He said.

"Okay."  I said.  I have a very small service commitment at the meeting, but I knew that's not why he was telling me this.  He stood there, waiting for me to ask about his resentment, but I am way too wily an old fox to be suckered in that easily.  The silence played out and I looked at him with what I hoped was an expression of pleasant patience (but for all I know made me look like I had gas.)

"Do you want to know what my resentment is?"  He finally asked.

"Well," I said, "Alcoholics Anonymous suggests you write your resentments out in an inventory."

That certainly wasn't the answer he was looking for.  And that wasn't why he was telling me this.

"Yeah, but my resentment is..." and he went on to tell me his resentment anyway.

"Okay," I said, "AA suggests that you write your resentment out in an inventory, then you can take a look at your part in it before doing anything about it."

"But I'm telling you my resentment." 

"Yes, I know.  But what AA suggests you do is write out your resentment in an inventory."

"But I'm telling you so that you can..." and he outlined the course of action he wanted me to do about his resentment.  For that was why he was telling me about his resentment.

"Have you ever done a four column inventory?"  I asked 

"Yes, yes ... " he waived his hand dismissively.  "But I'm telling you about it."

"Yes.  I know. I'm standing right here."  This dry jibe sailed right over his head, so focused on delegating his resentment and what he wanted done about it over to me.  "But what AA suggests you do is write your resentments out in a four column inventory, to get clarity on the who and the what -- and then you can look at your part in it."  And then you can see that it's you who has to do something about it, I added to myself.

This wasn't going the way he wanted at all, and his frustration began to rise, masked by a gigantic smile worthy of any glad-handing politico on the campaign trail.

I won't detail the rest of our circular conversation, but it will surprise no one reading this that I am not going to be doing anything about his resentment, and it is a sucker bet to think he went off to write out a mini-inventory and actually possibly learn something about what was running him in this.

But here's the thing.  This gentleman is a semi-regular at one of the meetings I think of as my Home Group (to the new kids, your "Home Group" is a casual designation one makes about a meeting, equal parts affection and commitment.  I, greedy so-and-so that I am, have decided that I can have as many Home Groups as I want, so I have three.  I am, after all, the man who, when a child, was told the expression "You can't have your cake and eat it too" responded with a tart, "Well then, bake two cakes."  But as usual, I digress.)

And this gentleman has been coming to AA for many years now, and is, yet again, in his "first" thirty days or so.  He has a very difficult time with relapse.

All the way home from the meeting my mind has been turning the conversation he and I had over and over, worrying at it like you do with your tongue when you have that bit of food stuck between your teeth.  There was something there that I wasn't seeing ...

And it hit me, not moments ago, in one of those grand, cliche, light bulb inspirations:  The dismissive hand wave when I asked him about having written an inventory before.  I am not going so far as to say that he did not actually ever write one, but the way the suggestion was treated, it struck me just now that he doesn't see any value in it.  That is to say, he doesn't believe it will actually accomplish anything worthwhile -- he doesn't believe writing an inventory will work.

And maybe that's a key element in his relapse cycle ... because believing that the Steps, suggestions though they are, can help you, while not required, is perhaps the essence of the Second Step.

If Step One, to paraphrase very broadly, is "Drinking has me beaten, and it has ruined/is ruining my life" then Step Two could be, at heart, "But I believe that doing these Steps, trying what AA suggests, will help me."  (And then of course Step Three, to complete my paraphrase trifecta, would be something like "So I have decided to do them.")

I think the 12 Steps can work if you don't believe in them at first, but eventually...  you come to believe, yes?

So ... and I'm connecting these dots almost as I type this ... maybe for some people who are deeply chronic relapsers, part of why they cannot stay sober is not that they are stuck at the First Step, but that they are somehow stuck, through a kind of lack of belief in the process, at the Second.

Hmmm...

Of course, if you're brand brand new to AA, I know in my heart that the process will work for you whether you believe or not -- that is to say, don't worry about understanding the process or let some intangible belief criteria stand in the way of actually doing the Steps.  This is more about those tragic and challenging people who blessedly (and often very bravely) keep coming back but are unable to stay sober.

IF I am right in this instance, now the question becomes ... do I invite him out for coffee and share this line of thought with him in an effort to be helpful, or do I just sit back and see if the Universe offers me a cue.

Hmmm...

.33

I spoke this past Friday at a meeting with more newcomers attending than I'd seen at any one meeting (that wasn't physically located inside some kind of institution) in a long time.  The meeting was a step study, sort of a "dealer's choice" thing, where the speaker picks something from the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (AA's 12&12) to address.  I had chosen the 3rd Step, specifically the last page, in which it talks about how, on our own, we must develop the quality of willingness.  But sitting there looking out at all those new people (Sweet Jesus, have they gotten younger or have I gotten older?  Sadly, both, I guess) in the moment I took some liberties with the format and gave a bit of a run up to Step 3 through 1 and 2.  Personally I think it's generally important to respect a meeting's format, but hey, I also have faith that my intuition, when it's being used in the service of carrying the message, can be trusted.

After the meeting a young man approached me.  He'd not been one of those who identified as a newcomer, but proceeded to tell me that this was his very first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.  We got him set up with a Meeting Directory and a Big Book, and I chatted with him a bit and got his phone number.  (Intuition again.  Had I given him mine I sensed he would never have called).  In the course of our chat I had to give him my heartiest congratulations.  He's one of the few people I've met who had a higher blood alcohol level than I did when he was arrested.  I blew a .31 -- generally a robust and impressive blood alcohol level.  But he, the rat bastard, topped me by a whole .02 and blew a .33!

"Did you have to go to jail?"  he asked.

"Well... my original sentence didn't include jail time, but I screwed up and they came and took me in on a warrant.  I wound up doing a week in County and then they moved me out to a work farm for a month."

He brightened when I said that about my original sentence.  "So for a first offense..."

"My arrest was more than 25 years ago, and the laws have changed.  You need to get a good lawyer, and follow their advice to the letter."

We chatted a bit more, and I asked him if he had any booze in the house, or drugs, he said no, and he lived alone.  I pointed out some meetings in the directory and, looking every bit the scared bunny, off he went to another meeting later that afternoon.

I called him the following day, and true to form with any alcoholic, the ego had, like the mighty phoenix, already begun to resurrect itself from the ashes of his fear and humiliation.  Gone was the scared bunny, and in its place was a bit more of the fox, sniffing around for holes in the chicken coop.

In telling me about himself on the phone I got the usual mix, he gave me his resume and described himself with the kind of bravado that only an overpaid mid-20-something alcoholic can.  Turns out he works in the financial industry, and at one point said to me, "You know, I am the kind of man who gets what he wants."  Fortunately I don't have any kind of video phone set up, so I am free to roll my eyes with impunity.  And I knew my job was to carry the message, not to voice my opinion about certain professions and certain personality traits and certain attitudes of entitlement and certain financial debacles in certain countries in which certain middle-aged alcoholic bloggers reside.  If I want to blow off steam and rant at someone, a brand newcomer to AA is not the appropriate recipient of said ranting.  The conversation went on and he described all of his blessings as the terrible burdens he felt them to be, and he played at being the existential victim of his ambition and success.  "I don't even know who I really am!  I've just done what I was told to do in school and in work my whole life!  I started working right out of college and now I have this great house and when I'm fifty I'll have a big 401K, but ..."

"Okay, stop please."

He stopped.  I felt so clearly my responsibility in this exchange.

"Let me throw something out there, and maybe I'm right or maybe I'm wrong -- it's just something for you to consider."

"Okay."

"Your life is exactly the way you want it to be.  There is not one thing you have going on that you don't like or don't want, other than this arrest hanging over your head right now.  And your life has been ordered that way for some time.  Not five minutes ago you described yourself as the kind of guy who 'gets what he wants.'  Your whole life is oriented towards giving yourself what you want, and overcoming obstacles to those things.  That's all fine, actually, but if you're an alcoholic, you have a problem that's not going to respond to the same kind of drive."

"okay."  The bunny wasn't back, but the bravado was starting to fade.

"And there is a pretty huge body of evidence that if someone is an addict of any kind, things get worse."

"yeah.  I've seen that show, 'Intervention' and stuff.  Well, some of it, I couldn't watch much actually."

"Hey, you may not be an alcoholic.  Some people just abuse alcohol.  But no one who blows a .33 is an amateur abuser."

"I know!  But ... how do I know... ?"

"Well, one thing Alcoholics Anonymous suggests is that you try to control your drinking, and if you can't, you're probably an alcoholic.  But I bet you already know deep down if you are or you aren't."

(Kids, he blew a .33.  I know -- .31, remember? -- I know what kind of drinker is that drunk and, rather than be unconscious, or too sick to move, is up and out and mobile -- albeit not coordinated -- and gets behind the wheel of a car.  Of course the other word for that kind of drinker is FELON but let's stick to the point at hand.  In the moment I did not think I was selling to him, and in retrospect I still don't.)

Silence on the line while he pondered this question, and then:

"Yeah, but ..."

(God, if you are there, and there is any kind of Heaven at all, and if I get to go to it, I hope that I can spend the rest of Eternity and never have to hear "Yeah, but..." ever again.  Thank you.)

He went on to describe -- again -- his many achievements and stellar accomplishments and fat bank account and big job title.

"Stop please."

"Okay."

"Let me ask you, if you had been diagnosed with diabetes, would any of that help with treating your illness?"

"Well, it could get me good care."

Great.  He's a literalist.

"Yes, fine, but would it actually treat the illness?  Can you use your bank balance to adjust your insulin levels?  Could you, through drive or ambition or willpower or earning potential treat that condition?"

"No, I guess not."

"Okay. Then if you are an alcoholic, you have a medical condition that is no more going to respond to those things than any other disease would."

"You think I should do AA."

"I think that if you are an alcoholic then you have a problem that you cannot solve on your own.  And it is a problem that's been documented to get worse over time."

"But you think I should go to AA."

"What I think isn't important, really. You showed up in an AA meeting and you came up to me remember?  This isn't some cold call trying to sell you anything.  Why did you do those things?  Don't answer that, I can answer it for you.  Your pride will say, at worst, you were 'worried'... but the truth is you are scared, and not just about the arrest.  But you're a little less scared than you were yesterday, and you'll be a little less scared tomorrow, and in my opinion you should look at that.  Because maybe that's alcoholism at work.  Maybe not.  But you're the one that blew a .33, not me.  Can you honestly say you think there's nothing wrong with your drinking?  And that less than a week after what you described as a scary and humiliating night you're suddenly a little cocky and doesn't that strike you as ... odd?  Crazy?  Suspicious?  Any of the above?"

We talked a lot longer, I'd only meant to call and suggest a meeting and then the whole thing turned into this big long conversation.  While the he said/he said above is certainly not word-for-word, I think I'm close and I certainly have the spirit of the exchange, as I remember it.

I suggested he check out some more meetings before making any decisions, and to feel free to call me if he didn't want to drink but he was afraid he was going to, or with any other questions.

Then I hung up and thought about how amazing it is that I haven't blown a .3-anything in a long, long time.

And by amazing, I mean, miraculous.

Some days there are no words for the breadth of my gratitude.

An amazing resource

THIS is an amazing resource.

Many thanks to those who put it together.

trying to solve the problem with the problem

"If hundreds of experiences have shown him that one drink means another debacle with all its attendant suffering and humiliation, why is it he takes that one drink?" -- "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) Chapter 2 'There Is A Solution,' pg. 22.

We get beaten, robbed, shamed.
We lose relationships, property, jobs and sanity.
Time after time we start drinking "just to have fun" and disaster occurs.
Yet no matter what happens -- or how often it happens -- we can't see, or we deny, the relationship between our drinking and the state of our lives.  We still believe drinking is okay, or even that we deserve it.  We act like we're from Alcoholadonia, and as citizens of that great nation it is our God Given Right to get hammered.  Defiant and entitled, despite all the hell, we still "choose" to pick up that first drink.

"We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop." -- Big Book, Chapter 2, pgs. 22 - 23

Right.  Once we take that first drink we're like a car with two pedals:

An accelerator and an accelerator.

"These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion.  Therefor, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than his body." -- Big Book, Chapter 2, pg. 23

So the heart of the problem is far less what happens after we start drinking, but rather that we keep deciding to have that first drink.

We have a "curious mental blank spot."  We can't -- or won't -- remember what happens when we start drinking.  Which means the problem is in our thinking -- the problem is in our mind.

Thus, if you're trying to figure out on your own how not to drink, or if you have admitted to yourself you have a problem but want to deal with it "in your own way..."

Then you are trying to solve the problem with the problem.

I'm no expert, but that just doesn't look like a good plan to me.

A syrup transport system.

Pancakes are not the point.  

There they sit, casually stacked like giant golden poker chips, round as a smiley face, letting the pat of butter slide sexily across their surface ... but it's all a sham.

On their own, they're worthless.

Their real value is as a syrup transport system.  That's what makes a pancake worthwhile.

Sure, it looks like the point of the meal is the pile of giant dough Frisbees, center stage in the middle of your plate, but they're only the pretense -- the ploy to enjoy syrup's sticky-sweet sugary goodness.

The other night, I was racing to the store to buy some snacks to watch a DVD.  Thanks to a comfortable desk chair, a great monitor and DVDs-by-mail I have lately developed the habit of sitting and watching a movie (or TV show -- love those special features) while snacking at my desk.

And it hit me as I was running to make it before the store closed that the DVDs had become pancakes to the syrup of my snacks.

I had become less interested in watching the DVD than I was in snacking while doing so.  There had been a shift in fix, if you will.  The entertainment (escape) was no longer what I was watching, but what I was eating.  In fact, I was hurrying to the store because on a (till then) unconscious level, if I didn't have my snack, I was a lot less interested in watching the DVD.

This is not a post about being powerless over food.

(Ummm, are you sure, Mr. SponsorPants? I hear you ask.  And I would respond to that with something pithy if I hadn't been brought up not to speak with my mouth full.)  I have had my messy (very) times in that arena, but that's not the point here/now.

The point is that, even in sobriety, under the level of conscious thought, for an addict, the fix can shift.  Or, to try and express that in such a way as to reflect what happens in my head, What I think it's about might not be what it's about -- what I think it's about can become the cover, the excuse, for what it's really about.

There's a passage in the book "Alcoholic's Anonymous" (AA's Big Book -- and what I'm referring to here is on pgs. 35 and 36 in Chapter 3 'More About Alcoholism') where a man who struggled with relapse stops one day at a cafe, ostensibly to get a sandwich, but what he winds up doing is getting drunk.  The Big Book uses his experience to illustrate that we alcoholics have a "curious mental blank spot" when it comes to remembering the fact that when we take that first drink our life goes to hell.  The man describes all the various reasons (rationalizations) he gave himself as to why it was a good idea to stop at this cafe, and then, when ordering a drink, how his thinking became fuzzy.  He says " ... I vaguely sensed I was not being any too smart, but felt reassured as I was taking the whiskey on a full stomach ... " (pg. 36)

In reading this over with a sponsee the other day I saw a note I'd made in the margin about the idea of rationalizations, and how sometimes they may start much earlier than people realize.  Perhaps we collude on some level with our disease to actually build the blank spot.  And as the road gets narrower I believe that our "curious mental blank spot" can manifest in the face of our sober fixes, too. 

Consider, if a key factor in whether or not Alcoholics Anonymous can work for me is spelled out on the first page of Chapter 5 (pg. 58), 'How it Works', in the Big Book:  "...Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves..."  then this business of seeing when the sober fix shifts, when something becomes the pancake, is actually pretty serious.  The passage in Chapter 5 goes on to say that these people "are not at fault, they seem to have been born that way" -- but I believe it's worth a think to wonder if the seeds of being "constitutionally incapable of being honest with myself" might exist dormant inside an addict, and can come to flower after we stop drinking, if we are not vigilant about these things.  Looking at it from this angle I believe I have known people in AA who eventually became constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves after they'd stopped drinking.  To draw a very odd parallel, sometimes clinically depressed people are at greater risk for suicide after their depression begins to lift, since they are no longer quite as debilitated by the depression and can then find enough motivation to do themselves real harm.  So -- just a theory, but based on my observations -- I wonder if something similar might be the case when it comes to drunks drying out.  Maybe after the chemical fog clears we can develop an even more ruthless potential for self deception?

Certainly for a sober alcoholic, in my humble opinion, if rationalizations become habitual then self-deception will take root -- and once it does I'm not at all sure it remains limited to one "spot."

Obviously, those of you who have worked the AA Program (or any 12 Step Program for that matter) to any degree at all are muttering at your monitor as you read this, "Umm, Mr. SponsorPants, hello?  That's what the 10th Step is for.  That's one of the things that a regular review of our behavior on a daily basis specifically prevents -- self deception taking root."  Fair point, and I agree.  Mostly.

I would suggest that it's also what a sponsor is for.  Someone who hears my "stuff" on a regular basis and is committed to helping me apply AA's principles to "all my affairs" can be the outside voice to assist in my "inside job" of self examination.

It's an inside job, but it's not a solitary one.  On my own when the fix slides over and I'm starting to kid myself I might miss it.  I need an experienced "second opinion" -- someone who knows me -- to help catch what I might miss.

Sorry, but, am I the only one right now thinking, "Mmmm. Pancakes ..."?

  

"... and I'm still angry!"

First, some background, for the new kids:

Most Alcoholics Anonymous meetings offer chips to mark varying lengths of sobriety. Generally they include a chip for anyone in the room with less than 30 days (known as a Newcomer Chip), then chips at 30, 60, and 90 days -- followed by chips for 6 months and for 9 months.  (Different parts of the country vary slightly on the demarcations of sober time acknowledged this way.  One sweet super-overachieving meeting I know of here in my town offers a chip for every single month, from 1 to 11, in the run up to a year sober.)  It is also a custom where I live to then acknowledge yearly anniversaries (the first year being especially significant to many) not only with a chip, but to have a cake as well, akin to a birthday cake.  Usually people close to you in the past year "give" you the cake, which means sort of standing with you in front of the group and presenting it while the meeting sings "Happy Birthday."  (And in my experience morning meetings seem to be better singers, though that observation is both completely personal and totally useless).  The person celebrating the annual anniversary usually speaks for a minute or two ... or three or four or five.  (The best advice I've heard on what to say when taking a cake in an AA meeting is this:  Be grateful,  be brief, and be seated.)  To someone outside the 12 Step world this all may sound equal parts corny and creepy, but I assure you it's really sweet -- in fact it's one of my favorite parts of a meeting.  I've often been moved by what the people taking a cake say about their past year staying sober, and how the people giving them the cake have helped them.

So, we all clear on the cake thing?  Good deal.

The other night at one of my regular meetings, a young woman I know only through 12 Step relationships "took a cake" for two years sober.  She is striking and very physically fit, with no small amount of personal charisma.  I even find her Some might even find her a bit intimidating.  While she has never been rude to me or anyone I know, she is not given to smiling very easily or very often.  I believe if one were to choose an adjective to describe the expression I've seen her wear most often it would be "fierce."  (As in amazon-warrior-hunting-a-wild-boar fierce, not "Project Runway/Tyra Banks" fierce.)

Over the past couple of years she and I have had a sort of dotted line connecting us in various ways through AA.  At one point I sponsored her sponsor's sponsor ... she changed sponsors a little while ago, and by coincidence I sponsor her new sponsor -- and for the past year I've sponsored one of her very close friends. (Hmmm ... there's just no gettin' away from me in this town.  Might be time to move.)  Thus, I've been aware of her not just from the meeting we both attend, but through the extended fellowship that AA creates.  At no time did anyone talk about her to me in the sense of gossip, but occasionally there would be a "my friend seems troubled by X, how can I help them?" or "my sponsee seems stuck about X, how can I help them?" discussions.

All of which is to say I have a passing insight as to what has troubled her over the past couple of years, and I am thrilled to see her still sober, two years from the night she first walked into that very meeting she took a cake at this week.

We sang Happy Birthday, her sponsor and a friend gave her the cake, and she stepped up to the lectern to say a few words, remarking on some of the challenges she's faced in staying sober this year -- many, I think even she would admit, of her own making.  (As has most certainly been the case many times over for myself over the years.)

She ended with a defiant grin and a roar:  "I came in angry, and I'm still angry!"

Whoops and cheering from many in the room.

Who doesn't identify with such a rebellious spirit -- hell, who doesn't want to embody such a rebellious spirit.  As has been noted in many places smarter than this foolish blog, one of the chief characteristics of the alcoholic is defiance -- of course when you get to AA this translates into a rebellion against an authority that doesn't exist -- but this lack of authority in no way dims our defiant natures.

After the meeting, going out for frozen yogurt with another sponsee who'd been at the meeting, he said, "I saw your face when The Fierce One took her cake."

"Oh?"  I said, hoping I'd remembered to park my expression in neutral.

"Yeah," he said.  "You disapproved?"

"No!  God, no... nothing like that.  It made me sad, is all."

"How come?"

"Well, imagine if we were at an OA meeting.  Imagine someone standing up there and crowing, 'I came in 500 pounds, and I'm still 500 pounds!'  You think there would be a lot of whooping and cheering for that?"

"No," he responded, "I guess not."