Mr. SponsorPants

The Tired Prayer

Dear God,

I'm just really tired.

Tired of the "Road to Happy Destiny."  Tired of self-examination, and reflection, and looking at "my part" in things, and cleaning up my side of the street.  I'm tired of trying to be a good person -- or even just a better person, actually.  (I sort of stopped aiming for "good" a while ago, as You no doubt know.)

I'm just really tired.  Sad and tired.

I know there are many people who would find my life a paradise.  People starving and sick and oppressed and incarcerated.  People who's daily struggle to merely survive makes my life look like I've already died and gone to Heaven.  If they knew my life and heard my prayer they would have every right to curse me and wonder at You -- how could You have given so very much to such a very sorry fellow.

It doesn't help that I'm painfully aware that all my problems are pretty much of my own making.  I would thank You for the insight, but I don't like what I in-saw.  All of that wonderful, terrible awareness of my own wonderful and terrible character -- too much, thank you.

(You know, God, between you and me, I think sometimes people drink because they saw too much when they looked inside.)

As I make this prayer, I feel the pull to apologize for whining.  The reflex, well learned in 12 Step School, to scold myself for being in Self Pity.  I'll get around to that in a minute, I'm sure -- right now though, I just don't have it in me to scold or bully or cheerlead or cajole.

So I bring this to You, as I bring everything to You.

On my own I don't think I can overcome this today.  On my own what I come up with is that I should probably just "buck up" should "get my shit together" should "get busy" should "get out of myself" should "get back on the horse" should "get a clue" should "get into service" should get should get should get get get.

All those "shoulds" -- they're like rocks on my chest, holding me under the water.

I will be ashamed of this prayer tomorrow, probably.  Or the next time I see someone in real need, with real problems -- which, given the state of the world, should be in about five minutes.

I'm not asking for Your forgiveness, God.  I'm asking for mine.

God, please help me feel the same compassion towards myself that I often feel for others.

God, help me remember that even to this, there is a point, and that I have real evidence time and again that You are at work in my life, and the "universe conspires on my behalf."

God, help me see that the seasons turn, and all things need rest, and tired isn't weak and sad isn't selfish and confused isn't a fuck up -- and from these darker things inside me You still make roses.  Beautiful things grow in the night, too.

Thank you, God.

Shooters -- Quick shots from Meetings

During some discussion about resentment, a very wise woman, when talking to someone about his frustration in trying to understand the idea that other people aren't actually assholes, but are in fact spiritually sick, put it this way:

"Yes, yes, they did it -- but they didn't do it to you."

Ocean's 11 and Relapse: For my friends out there struggling with it right now.

Ocean's 11 -- 1960  -- starring most of the famous "Rat Pack", Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.  The coolest men of their time, by most accounts.  Oh yeah, and (a very young) Angie Dickinson was "the girl."

   

Ocean's 11 -- 2001 -- starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Mat Damon, Don Cheadle, Andy Garcia and Elliot Gould (with other notable costars).  And Julia Roberts was "the girl."

   

In the 1960 version, a group of former WWII airmen decide to use their military training to rob three casinos on New Year's Eve.  Through a series of clever ruses they place men on the inside, and using their technical training from the war rewire the electrical system of the casino, so that when the back up generator kicks in during a blackout it opens the cashier's cages rather than turning on the lights.  The gang grabs the loot, and posing as garbage men drive the cash right past the police barricades.  Complications ensue, and they are forced to hide the cash in a coffin, which is cremated before they retrieve it, so they succeed in robbing the casinos but they lose the money.  The final shot of the film shows the gang walking down the Strip, empty handed, but the epitome of cool regardless.

In the 2001 version a group of con men decide to use their grifting skills to rob three casinos worth of cash during a hugely publicized prize fight.  Through a series of clever ruses they place men on the inside, and using sophisticated scams reroute the security camera system of the casino, so that when the generator kicks in during a blackout the monitoring system is switched to a phony security recording.  The gang grabs the loot, and posing as a SWAT team walk the cash right out of the casino.  Complications ensue, but had been planned for, and the final shot of the film shows George, Brad and Julia driving off into the sunset, presumably to eventually enjoy their many stolen millions, the epitome of cool.

41 years is a long time between movies.  It's interesting to note changes in our culture, technology and how the story is told between two films that were both wildly popular and very emblematic of their times. 

But there's been one thing that I've never been able to let go of when I think about the original and the remake:

In 2001 you're cool for winning.  In 1960 you're cool for trying.

Relapse is not inevitable. Relapse is not inevitable.  Relapse is not inevitable.  But let's face it.  A lot of people relapse a lot.  Looking at it from a different perspective, there are a lot of people trying to stay sober who aren't really "winning" at it.

It can take a very long time to break that cycle and stay sober.  I've heard speakers with ten, twenty or even thirty years of continuous sobriety talk about slipping around for five or ten years before they "got it."  That doesn't mean that slipping is always part of the process, but it does mean that multiple relapse does not equal an inability to stay clean and sober (one day at a time) for a very long time.

So many people who've struggled with relapse talk about feeling ashamed.  About how they feel judged by other people in meetings (and I know human nature is at work in AA meetings, of course, but I would challenge anyone dealing with relapse who may read this to look inside and really see how much of that is judgment of yourself that you're projecting onto others).

Shame has no place in the consideration of recovery from a disease.  (Shame has no place, period, but I think we've blogged about that here on Mr. SponsorPants at length in several other posts.)  Self-judgment has no place in looking at a pattern of relapse.

Self assessment has a place.  Rigorous honesty with yourself has a place.  But the shame and judgment is a form of ego, self obsession and grandiosity, and that's just fertile ground for your alcoholism to continue to grow.

For myself, when it's really bad, I have a mantra:  "As long as I don't drink or use or kill myself by the end of the day I win, and the rest of this shit will just have to work itself out."

Ok, it's a little long for a mantra, I'll give you that.  I guess it's more of an affirmation.  Or a declaration.  But when things have been really tough it helps me keep my perspective on what's truly important.

But regardless of whether that works for you, regardless of whether it's your very first 30 days sober or you're 30th first 30 days sober, when the people in an AA meeting say "keep coming back" they are the three truest words in the room.

Recovery is not a contest. You're not in a race with anyone.  No one (but maybe you) is keeping score.

I wrote about this because I love those movies not just for the merits they each hold, but for how they show, as with many things in life, while the second take on something is often wonderful, the original usually holds an important truth:

You're not cool for winning.

You're cool for trying.

And continuing to try.

Because if you do, then you win.

Keep coming back. It works.

It really does.

Mr. SponsorPants: 8 Things About Relapse (that I talked about with other alcoholics today)

1. Relapse is not uncommon, but it is NOT inevitable.  Put another way, just because some people relapse doesn't mean that everyone will relapse.  Relapse is nothing to be ashamed of, but... don't kid yourself.  Not everyone makes it back in one piece.  Or at all.

2.  When it comes to relapse, fear can be your friend.  The more fearful I am, the more willing I can be.  I do not suffer from fear in the way I used to when alcoholism ran my life -- but I do have a healthy and powerful fear of what it would be like if alcoholism ran my life again.  That fear is like the fear of a loaded gun -- I know just how dangerous it is.  And in many ways that fear keeps me willing.

3.  If you have a chronic illness, then in a very basic way the equation goes: Treat the illness and get better -- Stop treating the illness and get sicker.  The thing about the illness we identify as alcoholism is that it has not only a physical root -- what AA calls "the phenomenon of craving" and what doctors call a bunch of other things to justify their funding (and also I think they like to confound the rest of us sometimes) -- but it has a mental component as well.  In the most general terms, one aspect of that mental piece is that alcoholism tells you to stop treating the disease of alcoholism.  It does this in a hundred ways, but as it does so it uses your own talent, intelligence, imagination and ego against you.  So for a while, especially when you're newly sober, some of your best ideas might actually be some of your worst ideas.

4.  AA doesn't really say if you leave AA you'll drink.  What the spirit of the program suggests is that if you are a "real" alcoholic and you try to handle your alcoholism on your own, then you'll probably drink. 

5.  Alcoholic thinking suggests that the best way to treat your alcoholism is on your own.  Alcoholic thinking suggests that if you drink and use you'll be in the middle of things, in the stream of life, at the center of the action, the big deal at the party, you'll feel relief from what is troubling and frightening you, and you'll just have a better time of it than you're having now.  The experience of almost every real alcoholic is that alcoholic thinking lies, and the truth is you eventually always wind up alone, and in more pain than ever.  But the more you listen to the alcoholic thinking in your head the more reasonable it sounds -- which is one reason why AA meetings are so important.  It's there where the thinking gets spoken out loud, and thus shown for the insanity that it is.

6.  AA was inspired by Dr. Carl Jung in identifying that part of the solution to alcoholism -- that is, the way to prevent alcoholic thinking from dominating a person so that they continue to drink and use -- is to have a "psychic upheaval" (sounds so thrilling! and kind of 1940's movie star nervous breakdown, too:  "What happened to her? Why didn't she finish the film?"  "Oh, she had a psychic upheaval."  "Jesus! Do they let you out of your contract for that?"). More commonly this is called a "spiritual experience."  This experience is not mysterious and remote -- it is available to anyone who walks into AA.  The way to create a "psychic upheaval" is to go through all 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Much like putting together a bicycle, or assembling furniture from IKEA, it's just a series of steps you perform in a logical and sequential order that, when followed as suggested gives you a particular result.  Unfortunately it is just as easy to go through a process like that backwards, and disassemble the very thing you took the time to build.  You can withdraw from a spiritual awakening by working the Steps backwards just as easily as you can disassemble your bicycle or pull apart your snappy IKEA furniture (named after some remote city in Sweden that sounds like a word Dr. Seuss would make up:  Goofendorp.  Frenkymaff.  Thwurp.)  So maybe every so often, if you're in AA, you should ask yourself, "Hmmm, have I begun to work the Steps backwards?"

7. The way working the Steps of AA backwards begins is by failing to go to AA meetings, since it's there you can be assured of a chance to practice the 12th Step.  It is highly unlikely that the barrista at Starbucks needs or wants to hear about a spiritual solution to his problems.  It is very probable, however, that someone in an AA meeting might.

8. If you really want to drink, feel free.  There is nothing more cliche than an alcoholic who goes back to drinking.  It is tragic, but it is boring and common, and really not even interesting enough to be an ABC After School Special (if they still made those.  Now I suppose it would be "A Very Special Episode of Hannah Montana".)  And, if you really want to drink, there is no one in AA who will stop you.  That's not what we do.

If, however, you really want to stay sober, but you're afraid you'll drink, and you open your mouth and ask for help, there's not a person in AA who won't help you.

Chang and Eng got nothin' on us.

Having the mind of an addict

is like having a conjoined twin

who's trying to kill you.

My Annual Drunken Phone Call

   

'bout once a year I get a call from a guy I used to sponsor.

He's usually really loaded.

His condition is very obvious.  He was always lousy at hiding it.  His words slur and the thread of the conversation gets away from him.  He thinks he's sneaky, and long experience has taught me that if I confront him he blows up and accuses me of ... oh, any number of things.  Projecting.  Being intolerant.  Being insulting.  (He stops short of "How dare you!" but he's come pretty darn close on occasion.)  I stopped telling him not to call if he's drunk since, if he won't admit being drunk, then I suppose in his mind it's ok to call.

And let's face it, Drunk Dialing is an ancient and time honored tradition among alcoholics.  (I once, in a blackout, called one of my siblings and left them a message three times in a row. The exact same message, almost word-for-word.  They said it was pretty creepy.  It didn't surprise me that I didn't remember calling them -- I didn't remember a whole evening by that point, so what's a few phone calls among family members -- but apparently I didn't remember calling them about five seconds after I set the phone down.  Three times in a row.)

The conversation with my former sponsee always starts nicely enough  He's all happy to catch me at home, and I pretend not to notice the slurring. 

"Maybe he had a stroke" I think to myself.

"Or maybe this is some sort of last desperate outreach call -- he's got the bottle in one hand and a gun in the other!"  I make a really conscious decision to hear him out, see how he's doing, determine if there's any way I can help him after all these years.  And to be clear, "all these years" is about twelve of them.  (I haven't changed my phone number in a while.)

Pretty soon we start talking in circles, and everything I say he takes extremely personally.  (A sober alcoholic has a tough time with ego -- a drinking alcoholic is nothing but ego.)  I begin to lose my patience, and he pounces on that, as, in his mind, since I'm sober and used to sponsor him I'm supposed to be some sort of super spiritual creature who makes no mistakes and is always serene.  (I think super spiritual creatures who make no mistakes and are always serene are called "dead people" -- but I'm not sure.)

This part of the conversation usually breaks my heart a little, since I know him well enough to understand what this mechanism is.  It's a part of the whole tangled mess that everyone in recovery needs to sort out:  The difference between sick and "bad," healthy and "good."

Generally, if you pursue with real vigor a 12 Step Program, practicing the principles of such in all your affairs, you become a pretty Stand Up Guy. Or Gal.  But by no stretch does that free you from difficult emotions, or working through your messy character defects, or generally having your crappy, "King Baby" days.  I know my former sponsee views all of his alcoholism related things as "bad" parts of himself.  There's no room for forgiveness or understanding or acceptance in that world view, I've found.  And isn't understanding that it's not about being "bad," but rather that alcoholism is an illness, really the jumping off place for taking the 1st Step?  If you let go of the idea that you're "bad" and wrap your head around the concept that you have a disease then I think you're just a tiny bit away from acknowledging that you can't address that disease on your own -- that you are in essence without the power required to treat it.

It makes me really sad when he jumps on me for offenses real or often imagined, because I know he's still living with the idea that I'm supposed to be "better" than he is because I'm sober -- and in my humble opinion, the reaction that almost every alcoholic has to someone that they think is "better than" themselves is usually not admiration -- it's hostility.  So after we talk in circles and I lose my patience he ascribes motives and emotions to me that genuinely aren't there, and then seizes on them with a triumphant "Ah HA!"

Then comes the insulting part, where he tells me what an asshole I am.  Really, I'm telling you, we've had this conversation many times over the years.

As I wrote a couple of posts ago, I'm not really on my game right now, and so this was an even more difficult call than usual.  I'm just feelin' a little raw lately.  So I said what I always say to pretty much anyone, family, friends or not-friends, when I'm going to do my version of hanging up on you:  "Sorry, I'm going to end this call.  I'm not willing to have this conversation anymore.  Good luck with _______ (whatever they're calling about) I sincerely wish you the best with that, but I'm going to end the call now. Goodbye."  And I hang up the phone.  I've had lots of practice, even with family, so I've got that down.

He called back another six times that night.  I took the phone off the hook after the first two and just let him roll into voice mail.

But in about a year, I'll take the call again.

Maybe that time I'll be able to help him with something.  The truth is, even though by the end of the conversation I've got my Irish up and my heart is beating pretty fast, I would rather he call than not.

It's not for me to filter out the people who come my way as to those I like and don't like, those I think I can help or can't (since that "can" is just "want to" in a clever and sophisticated disguise, and all that business about "like" is just bullshit ego-based fearful snap judgments).  It's for me to simply pick up the phone, stick out my hand, smile and say hello -- whatever the occasion and the connection requires -- and put myself in the way of the opportunity to be of service to another alcoholic.  And if sometimes the opportunity feels more like a punch than a hug, so be it -- truthfully, that's rare.

Doesn't make me a hero, nor a saint.  It makes me someone who really, after all this time, fears and respects my alcoholism.  There is nothing special about being a person who practices the 12th Step -- and that's what I'm talking about here, ultimately.  I think as alcoholics we need to guard against polishing our resume for sainthood.

But being willing to practice the 12th Step, carrying a message of recovery to another alcoholic, is the most important work a sober member of AA can do.  As I'm fond of observing, anyone can give out blankets to the homeless on a cold night -- I wish more people would -- but only an alcoholic can really help another alcoholic.  The cosmic irony is that I'm the one I'm helping, by being willing to help other people.

If I stop practicing the 12th Step, how long before I stop practicing the 11th?  And the 10th?  And so on.

I think after you've been sober for a while you don't lose your sobriety with a crack of thunder and a tidal wave of events -- you lose it an inch at at time.

And me?  Now more than ever I'm deathly afraid of giving that inch.

AA Slang: Denial

DENIAL:  Don't Even (K)now I Am Lying.

(No Egyptian river jokes, I promise.)

Heard this in a meeting the other day and I thought it was brilliant -- in my mind when I heard it I added, "to myself"  -- as in Don't Even (K)now I am Lying to myself.

Denial, as a concept, was first postulated by Sigmund Freud.  Loosely paraphrasing what Sig said, he termed it a defense mechanism which activates when a person is faced with information too uncomfortable (painful/overwhelming) to accept -- the person in denial cannot (will not) admit that something is true, despite a compelling body of evidence, even their own experience, which proves otherwise.

Forms of denial include the outright statement that a particular fact or conclusion is not true (called "simple denial"), admitting the fact but denying its importance ("minimization") or admitting the fact and how serious it is but denying any responsibility ("transference").

Looking back over my life I can see that I have had each of those three things operating at one time or another, both when I was drinking and yes, even in sobriety.

Yes.  All three.

Woo! Trifecta!  High Five me!  (And that Guidance Counselor said I was an underachiever. Ha! Showed him.)

Interestingly it was Anna Freud, Sigmund's sixth and last child, who did deeper study on the various defense mechanisms people use and contributed a significant body of work on the subject.  While her father's studies were focused primarily on the id, Anna broke off and came from pretty much the opposite direction and worked to understand the ego.  (No father issues there, eh?  Boy, I bet dinner at their house nobody would ask you to pass them the pickles.)

If you throw the word "denial" into a Google Search you get 42,900,000 results.  Narrowing it down with the phrase "dealing with denial" yields 22,300 hits.  Short answer:  There's a lot of good information out there -- or, rather, there's a lot of information out there, some of it is probably very good.

Alcoholics by far are not the only people plagued by or prone to denial in all its myriad forms, both when we're drinking and after we get sober.  But if there were a denial Olympics, well ... I don't want to say we would automatically get the Gold, but I'm pretty sure we'd Medal.

Affirmations -- "You want me to look in the mirror and do WHAT?!?"

I hate Stuart Smalley.

Al Franken created the character of Stuart Smalley for "Saturday Night Live" during his run on the show during the early/mid-1990's.  For those of you that don't recall, Stuart was an upbeat, effeminate man who used 12 Step affirmations and slogans -- albeit slightly twisted -- when talking to himself in the mirror and when trying to help other people. (Effeminate? Upbeat? Trying to help other people? Hilarious!  Oh my God, how did the Emmy people miss this?)

I think SNL pokes fun equally at everyone and everything.  I want to guard against being oversensitive about my own personal "sacred cow," recovery, being in the line of fire for typical sketch comedy satirization.

And although what I recall Mr. Franken saying about the creation of the character was troubling to me at the time -- something about going to "the appropriate support group" to deal with "an alcoholic in his life" (and what makes that troubling for me is using the very people that helped you as a punchline -- as the butt of a running gag.  Ummm, that's a "Thank You"?  I think it's a "Something" you, but I'm not sure it's a "Thank" you.  But again, I worry I might be oversensitive) I always felt that the character was displayed with some affection for him in the sketches.  And book. And audio book. And movie (which was crushed at the box office that year by "Dumb and Dumber" -- which says only that America will laugh at an effeminate man in a pastel sweater set when it's free on their television, but will only pay good money to watch a modern "Three Stooges" slapstick at the movies.  I don't have an opinion in saying that -- it's just an observation.)  But "some affection" seemed to get pretty overwhelmed by other elements within and reactions to the character.

I'm not too sure about the whole "addicted to 12 Step Programs" angle in the character as well.  That was another part of the sketch that developed.  Stuart was "addicted to recovery."  I always felt that was like saying a diabetic is addicted to their insulin treatments.  A blind man is addicted to using his seeing eye dog.  Is AA a crutch?  Yes!  Frankly I need a crutch, since without one my spirit tends to limp around in pathetic little circles.

But really, the reason that I hate Stuart is that he is a perfect incarnation of all my derision and doubts and fears about affirmations.

Affirmations are silly and stupid and sometimes I feel ridiculous saying them.

Here's the amazing thing about that:  When most people say affirmations, they're alone.  So exactly who are you afraid of looking foolish in front of?  What phantom audience of critical Jr. High School classmates still has power over you?  What invisible camera is recording your audacity at saying nice things to yourself in the mirror for later review and ridicule? 

You fool! Everyone knows that positive, nice things are weak and stupid!  Real information -- the stuff you can use -- is gritty and negative and tough!

(Never mind the implied misogyny:  Positive and supportive is "soft," meaning feminine and thus... laughable and useless?  That's not only a blog post for another time, that's probably a blog post for another blog.  Still, I think there's something up with that.)

It's so easy to mock that it's almost too easy to mock, and I wonder at the impulse to do so.

Here's the thing, speaking for myself, I don't need any help in speaking negatively to myself about life, me, God, the universe, everything I've ever done and every dream I may ever have for the future.  In fact, a common element I have found in many alcoholics I've worked with over the years is that we are extremely fluent in the language of self loathing.

Now, alcoholism is a disease of self obsession.  It's not the "loathing" part that is evidence of my alcoholism, it is the preoccupation with self.  However it's important to note that AA is about growth and change (with the help of a Higher Power as I understand HP) too.  It is about letting go of old ideas (old ideas like "you suck you suck you suck").   It is about living in the sunlight of the spirit, and believing that God might actually want you to be "happy, joyous and free."

When an alcoholic is in enough pain we want out.  To the point where when faced with a drink we will say, "Yeah, I know it'll ruin my life, but I'll feel better right now, and that's all I want..."  so we act out by checking out -- either with chemicals or some more drastic self-destructive option.  Thus addressing the "loathing" part of self loathing (or low self esteem, or whatever label/diagnosis fits you best) is very much a part of what AA is all about.

Via the Steps this is done with Steps 3 through 9, with a dash of 11 and just a pinch of 12.  But there are many tools in the "spiritual tool kit" and it behooves us to try them all...

And so we come back to our own personal Stuart Smalley moment, and the idea of looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror, smiling at yourself and saying positive things.  Possibly even repeating positive things.  For more than fifteen (excruciating) seconds.

Because in the classic interpretation an affirmation is a series of positive statements you say, possibly looking at yourself in the mirror, or possibly as a sort of meditative chant.  (If you want to get all clinical about it go look up Neuro Linguistic Programming -- NLP for short.  I'm not a clinician, so I won't be getting into that here, but it's amazing how when you slap a scientific label on something people are interested and open minded, but when you use spiritual terms suddenly there's a whiff of condescension in the air.)

The best thing I ever read about affirmations is from Emmet Fox (1886 - 1951) the author, essayist and revival tent lecturer, who believed strongly, among other things, that all thought is a form of prayer, and if you pay attention to what and how you're thinking you turn up the volume on your connection with a Higher Power.  Mr. Fox didn't express it that way of course, but that's the spirit of what he had to say, as I understand it.

He makes great use of the analogy of an architect's blueprint for building a house when it comes to describing how affirmations work, and I hope he will forgive me the liberty's I've taken in retelling it here:

There you are, standing and looking at yourself in the mirror and saying words to the effect, "I feel great! I feel great!" (or whatever).  But there's a voice inside that says, "This is bullshit.  I don't feel great, I feel terrible.  I don't feel great at all -- that's a lie."

Naturally you wouldn't look at an architect's blueprint for a house and say, "That's a lie! That's not a house, that's a blueprint!"  Do that in the wrong office and people will look at you funny.

Of course it's not a house -- it's a plan for a house.  And by paying attention to it and consulting it regularly and putting energy into it then eventually the house will come into being, based in part on the time and attention paid to the blueprint.

Affirmations are the blueprint.  In the very moment that you say them they may not be true -- but as you give them time and focus and energy change can occur based on those "blueprints" -- those affirmations.

Even though sometimes I feel like Stuart Smalley, foolish and afraid that if anyone saw me they would laugh, I still try to give time and attention to affirmations.  They can be an incredibly powerful tool for breaking through some pretty serious negative thinking.  And the more resistance you have to them the more there might be something about that resistance which bears examination, kids.  What exactly is so foolish, so awful, so terrifying, such a waste of time, about saying positive things to yourself about yourself?

I do affirmations because, well, as Stuart said, to much laughter on the TV, (but today I find it sort of sweet and poignant): I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.

And I would like to add: I'm worth saving.

Every time you go to an AA meeting that's the statement you make to yourself: My life is worth saving.

Ok, now that you're working on saving yourself, what about a little time spent working on loving yourself?

Sponsor. Sponsee. And maybe when it's time for one to let go of the other... and then the post gets all messy and weird and possibly maudlin, I'm not sure and now this title is too long anyway.

First, let's get the terminology straight:

A Sponsor is someone who generally takes you through the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and assists you in applying the principles of AA to your daily life, mostly by sharing their own experiences with similar problems or their knowledge of what the Big Book of AA suggests as the way to handle a particular situation.  If you're very new to sobriety and/or AA then a Sponsor might also help you build a good foundation in Alcoholics Anonymous itself, and demonstrate what an active member of the program does to handle life's little curve balls on a daily basis.

There are two places in AA literature that speak to what a Sponsor is:  There is a chapter in the book "Living Sober" and there is an excellent brochure called "Questions and Answers on Sponsorship" which should be free at any AA meeting that happens to have it on hand.

A Sponsee is the person a Sponsor is helping.  Other terms for Sponsee are "Baby" or "Pigeon."  ("Pigeon" seems to be more East Coast in origin.  I don't care much for the term "baby" and I think the word "pigeon" invites a lot of misunderstanding and distrust.  I know when I showed up in AA if that's the word I heard being used to describe the sponsee end of a sponsor/sponsee relationship then I would have viewed the whole thing with deep misgivings and no small amount of distrust.)

The "relationship" is a completely voluntary thing from both sides.  There is no right or wrong way to sponsor someone, although there are some rough guidelines that seem to be commonly agreed upon.  People in AA talk about "firing" a sponsor or a sponsee but that's just shorthand for ending the sponsorship.  After all, you can't "fire" a volunteer.

Generally you ask someone to be your Sponsor, although sometimes people offer (I'm not really comfortable with that, but I know it's worked out great for some people).  AA is a happy anarchy -- although there are many customs there are almost no rules of any sort.  (Which gives us both great freedom and great responsibility.  Like Spiderman.  No. Wait. That was power and responsibility.  We don't have much in the way of power.  Nevermind.)

Loosely speaking it's suggested that you find someone to sponsor you that "has what you want" -- a phrase ripe for bad puns and biased interpretation, I know.  In general that alludes to their insides, and how they move through the world, not the cash and prizes sort of thing.

When it comes to sponsorship, or all of AA, no one can compel you to do anything of course, but some sponsors demeanor is such that people are uncomfortable not following their "suggestions" (direction).  Certainly a Sponsor can set out some boundaries around giving their time to work with someone, and if those boundaries aren't met then they can choose not to work with them -- many AA's find that the fear of losing their sponsor in that way can be a good motivator when willingness is in short supply.

Eventually I've found that there is a mutual trust that develops -- most sponsees find that most sponsors have their best interests, that is, their sobriety, uppermost in their minds, and whatever suggestions are being made are in service to that purpose.

There is no debt between Sponsor and Sponsee.  The Sponsor gives their time freely and without any obligation incurred by the Sponsee so that the Sponsor stays sober.  AA's 12th Step is all about carrying the message of recovery to another alcoholic, not to get them to "join up" but so that the person carrying the message gets out of themselves and grows in their recovery.  (In that light a Sponsee is really helping the Sponsor by giving them someone to help -- but it takes a bit for people to really see and believe that.)

I've been pretty much every kind of sponsor you can be over the years ... too involved, too aloof... learned a lot about myself along the way.  People bring unconscious baggage to the sponsor/sponsee relationship from both sides of it, and it can take quite a while, and several different sponsors and sponsees, to sort through it all.

I remember one time, years ago now, when I caught myself madly picking up my place before a sponsee came over.  Way beyond the "tidy up" so someone is comfortable sitting at your kitchen table or what-have-you.  I realized in that moment that I had an assumption about being a sponsor -- that I was supposed to be "more" than the sponsee:  Cleaner, smarter, bigger... not "better than" so much as "ahead of" -- which is, of course, bullshit.  And I didn't even know I thought that way until that moment.  (Thus is insight found through our defects of character.)  Any of my sponsees who come to my home now could assure you that I've really gotten over that "pick up your place" thing.  People say to trust God and clean house.  I'm one-for-two on that, most days.

This is such a dry post.  I'm being academic and dusty (and most likely a little boring) because I'm avoiding writing about the thing that's troubling me.

Full disclosure first:  I'm not on my game right now.  A death in my family, another family member in the hospital unexpectedly... what I know is that I should go slowly in making any major decisions till I regain my equilibrium a bit.  My AA friends have, as AA friends always do, circled the wagons, and I'm pretty much ok -- I mean, I'm not incapacitated, sitting and staring out the window, unable to shower or eat (oh, I can always eat) -- but I'm still not quite myself.

So I'm very aware that being a little raw is coloring some of my thinking.

Speaking candidly, I have a lot of experience as a sponsor and I'm really clear that, off my game or not, my primary responsibility in that relationship is to help someone get and stay sober.  I can't do it for them, but I can help them do it.  Since I didn't give them alcoholism I can't take it away -- but I can help them make good use of the tools of AA, which I personally have found to be pretty powerful mojo -- and apparently thousands of others have found that to be true as well.  This stuff isn't theory based.

Ok. Here it is:

I've been working with someone, sponsoring them, for a little while now.

I was very moved by their story, and as we've started to go through the Big Book together I became even more moved as they opened up about how they've tried to stay sober, and about their alcoholism, and their past.  They've had a tough go of it.

Shortly before they asked me to sponsor them they had relapsed.  This relapse was not their first, and they were genuinely frightened about whether they could stay sober and if AA would work for them any more.  That's the scariest, saddest, most horrifying thing when working with people who've relapsed a number of times over a period of years -- the deep seated fear that they are somehow too broken for AA to fix.  Miracles and magic for everyone else in the meeting, but they used all theirs up and so God says, "Sorry. No more for you."

When you hear someone express that fear honestly to you, and you look them in the eye when they say it, well... that moment is always a real test of just how much do I believe in God anyway, and how much do I believe in God's ability to change people and AA's ability to save lives?  Not what do I hope is true -- not what do I want the truth to be -- what do I really believe?

And my best answer in that situation is the one that I have literally seen to be true with my own eyes:  Every person's story, everyone's experience, is valuable and potentially helpful -- even life saving -- to someone else in the rooms of AA.  Our experience sober and our experience dealing with relapse can be of immense value to someone else who is struggling.

It is not for us to judge our experience, it is for us to share our experience -- and in so doing we save each other's lives -- and thus alchemize our pain and fear into something worthwhile and important.

But... things are not going well with this sponsee.  I have grave doubts about my ability to be helpful to them.

As is often the case with people, certainly not just alcoholics, they're very willing when they're very scared, but as the fear fades so does the willingness.

Last night the sponsee didn't show up at the AA meeting they'd committed to attend.  Today they didn't show up at my place to go through the Big Book together as was our standing commitment, and they didn't call, email or throw a brick with a note tied around it through the front window. 

Nothing.

I know that people are messy, and fear can look like unwillingness sometimes.  It's easy to really want to take action one moment and the next to be lying on the floor of your living room, staring at the ceiling and thinking back over every stupid thing you've ever said in your whole life.  "What's the point" can sneak up on you in a thousand different clever disguises with a hundred different beguiling or bewildering raps.

I understand all that -- but my fear now is that I am "understanding" someone right back to relapse.  My brand of sponsorship isn't very "tough" anymore.

Is the kindest thing I can do for them -- is the most help I can be to them -- to free them up to find a sponsor that will be tougher on them?  Or will doing that feed feelings of rejection and isolation and helplessness and reinforce the idea that they are beyond AA's ability to help them?

I searched my heart as to whether I should call them tonight when they failed to show up or contact me -- people have to ask for help, I know that -- but to not call... is that punishing?  I've called this sponsee, and others, under somewhat similar circumstances before -- it can't always be on the sponsee to pick up the phone.  But I also deeply believe that AA isn't selling anything. And neither am I.  (Seems like I'm writing that a lot lately).

This is what they told me at one of my very first AA meetings:  If you want what we've got, do what we did.  If you don't, then good luck and godspeed.  Try it for ninety days, and if you don't like it then your misery will be cheerfully refunded.  (They were a salty band, those old curmudgeons at my early AA meetings.  I think sometimes now I'm in the curmudgeon seat, and I'm not sure I care for that.)

Am I enabling someone to put their life at risk by not holding them more accountable?  I am not responsible, but I am responsible, if you follow me.  (And if you don't, I'm sorry, but I don't have it in me right now to sort that out any further.  Ask a friend.  Or go read that blog here on Typepad about Marrakesh.  She's got pretty pictures.  Plus you get to say the word "Marrakesh" a lot when you talk about it, and that is so fun.)

I believe, and have said to people, that everyone deserves a sponsor that calls them to action, and if my suggestions don't call you to action then you should find someone whose suggestions do, because if you're really an alcoholic then your alcoholism really is trying to kill you.

But...

I'm not on my game.  I'm overwrought and prone to wild swings of emotion lately with my family stuff swirling around.

It's good for me to get out of my own head and think about other people and their lives and turn my will and talent and attention to being of service, but I have to tell you (and I know I'll be embarrassed when I post this but right now, late at night, with my fingers clicking along over the keyboard and the cat snoring away, a warm limp lump in my lap, this writing feels intimate and especially confessional) when my sponsee didn't show up and didn't call I became really worried, and it started to work on me.  The usual loving detachment was in short supply, and I sat here dithering about calling them or not, and whether I'm of any help to them... which of course, if you're an alcoholic and not on your game the thinking goes like this:  No help to them no help to anyone no good to yourself you should just quit everything and stop bothering the world.

Here's the good news:

(ok, I'm literally laughing out loud as I type that, since right about now this post could use some good news.  Jeeze, why not start to call this blog "DebbyDownerPants".)

The good news is that even when you're not yourself, if you've got some sobriety under your belt -- and that's not about time sober, that's about recovery -- you recognize those thoughts as lies when they show up, and you know that those feelings are not representative of the truth of your life at all.

But knowing that does not free you from the effect of the feelings -- it just prevents you from acting on the feelings.

So its been a rough evening here at Casa SponsorPants, kids.

Of course I feel better for writing this, and I'm not going to delete it, tempted as I am.  What's the point of doing this if I don't share all my mess along with my recovery? Display my insecurities and my solutions, my ego and my occasional bouts of low self esteem --   That, in fact, is the whole point of sharing.

My God, I italicize a lot.

The advice I like least from AA (and that's saying something, since AA offers me a great deal of wise, effective advice that I do not like at all) is this:

When in doubt, do nothing.

I have a friend who is 34 years sober (and let me tell you when we have an argument a spirited discussion they're happy to throw that in your face) and those are words they put a lot of stock in.  When in doubt, do nothing.

I would say "all I am is doubt tonight" but that sounds just over-the-top, so let's go with "I have too much doubt tonight to make any decisions for a bit."

Besides, what can I do? For me? For my sponsee? I mean, really... Write. And pray.  Realistically that's pretty much it.

I've written -- so now I'll pray.

But at times like this it's hard to not feel like prayer is just speaking into a dead telephone.

I still do it though -- because it's the doing that changes me, not whatever's listening (or not) at the other end.

 

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 There are more writings like this in "Mr. SponsorPants: Adventures in Sobriety and The 12 Steps for AA's and Others."  Available as an eBook via Amazon.

 

 

Near Beer

At a question-and-answer meeting tonight the subject of non-alcoholic beer, or "near beer," came up.

Fresh from a rehab, less than 40 days sober, a newcomer asked the Speaker what was so wrong with drinking non-alcoholic beer.

The Speaker responded with a terrific answer:

"It's a little like putting tobacco in my crack pipe.  Eventually after I do it enough I'm going to put crack in my crack pipe."

I've always liked this analogy as well, which I heard at a meeting a long time ago:

An alcoholic sitting around drinking non-alcoholic beer is a lot like a junkie filling his rig with water and shooting up with his old using friends "just to be sociable."

I think it's important to point out that the reason it's probably not a good idea -- wait, scratch that -- the reason that it's a terrible idea for an alcoholic to drink near beer is not to maintain some sort of hypothetical "clean ideal" but so that we don't trigger the phenomenon of craving, which, once activated, can literally drive an addict to relapse and death.  (Sure, it's dramatic to read.  It's dramatic to write.  But I suggest if you think I'm being overly dramatic you hang out in AA for a while and see what I've seen.  Relapse is a brutal struggle, and not everyone makes it back.)

In addition, most non-alcoholic beer has a slight percentage of alcohol in it, so concerns over activating the physical craving to use are not rooted solely in a behavioral domain.

The last word on the subject should be given to the late, great Yvette S., a woman who passed with many solid years sober in AA under her belt, and who in the course of her recovery loved a lot of people sober.  Yvette said: 

"Non-alcoholic beer is for non alcoholics."

She always did have a way with words.