Mr. SponsorPants

Fear

Fear is in the air.

As an alcoholic in recovery I am good friends with Fear.  We go back a long   way.  Certainly Fear is part of the Human Condition, but beyond that it is both ingredient and accelerant for the disease of alcoholism.  As I've said before in this blog, Fear is to alcoholism like gasoline is to fire -- a dangerous, combustible and potentially lethal combination.

Often Fear bullies my Ego into stepping up to the microphone and making a little speech, but really, it's always Fear in the background, pulling the strings, setting my thoughts spinning, chilling my heart, filling my stomach with acid and my spirit with shadows and doubts.

AA has taught me that there are two kinds of Fear:  Survival Fear and Ego Fear. (I am not saying that AA invented this concept, I'm saying that AA put it in a way that I can understand.)

I smash through my Ego Fear when I share with a sponsor or with a group ("Oh no! What will they think of me?").  I smash through my Ego Fear when I am honest and vulnerable in conflict, when I say out loud the things about myself that are difficult to face, when I say "I'm afraid" or "I screwed up" or "I wish I were a different/better/stronger man but today I am not."  That ego-smashing muscle is easy to let atrophy unless you are diligent about practicing it, but when ego-smashing becomes a way of life the freedom it brings -- and the power born of integrity and humility (yes, there is power in humility) is a deep well of strength.

  But Survival Fear -- that's what's in the air right now.  And Survival Fear is catching.  It's like an airborne virus, it's like an electric current, it's the way animals' heads whip up in instant alarm when they hear a predator or smell smoke -- the animal part of me responds to the alarm of the animals around me, and they to mine, and we panic (and that's where mobs come from, boys and girls).  Things are bad.  They may get worse.  People fear for the survival of not only of a particular way of life but for their personal security, both immediately and in the future.

What can AA offer me now, today, in a climate such as this?

Good question -- to answer it I must first ask another:  What, in fact, does AA offer?

I think if you boil it all down, distill it to the absolute essence, AA offers a way to connect with a Power greater than yourself.  AA does not try to define this Power, although some helpful hints get made along the way, but it does suggest that to address first my alcoholism, and then pretty much every other problem I have, a connection with and a reliance upon some Power greater than myself is the heart of the solution.  How I go about doing that is the "plan of action" outlined in the 12 Steps, but that's what I'm doing when I follow them through.

Thus, what AA offers me now, in a climate of mounting panic, is a bigger perspective than any immediate crisis because I have some sort of HP connection, that is, some sort of faith.  NOT a false optimism, not a denial of troubles and challenges, not some bullshit dodge where I pretend a problem is not a problem because I am afraid to look at it as such -- but a faith springing from that connection to a Power greater than myself, and through that faith an ability to meet "calamity with serenity." 

There can be an unconscious feeling after being in AA for a little while that  if you do everything in AA "right" you will get to avoid calamity and thus live in serenity.  And buried underneath that of course is the nailbomb that if I am doing everything "right" and I still encounter calamity then either AA is a lie or God is a lie, but either way somebody's been lying to me, so fuck AA.  Sure, when you say it out loud the falseness of the logic is clear -- but out loud and clear is not where those kinds of thoughts live.  They lurk under the surface, waiting for the right calamity so they can burst forth in a spray of angry jagged panic shrapnel and "I told you so's."

Unfortunately it seems that avoiding calamity is not the deal in life.  Shit happens.  Is it a lesson?  A test?  That's between you and your understanding of a Higher Power -- but my reliance on Something greater than myself is my anti-panic lifeline through scary things -- through these very real calamities.

This faith is not rainbows and unicorns.  This, like all of what AA suggests, has been worked out through practical experience.  Consider this, from the book "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions," in the discussion of Step 3 on pg. 38:

When World War II broke out, this spiritual principle had its first major test.  AA's entered the services and were scattered all over the world.  Would they be able to take discipline, stand up under fire, endure the monotony and misery of war?  Would the kind of dependence they had learned in AA [meaning a dependence on a Higher Power] carry them through?  Well, it did.  They had even fewer alcoholic lapses or emotional binges than AA's safe at home did.  They were just as capable of endurance and valor as any other soldiers.  Whether in Alaska or on the Salerno beachhead, their dependence on a Higher Power worked.  And far from being a weakness, this dependence was their chief source of strength."

World War II seems almost quaint now, something in a (boring) documentary on the History Channel you flip past on your way to something more relevant and titillating.  But when it was real, when it was a War practically the whole world was engaged in, there was no guarantee that the good guys were going to win.  In fact, for a while there it looked like they wouldn't -- and their fear was as real and terrible and immediate as what we feel when facing any of the monsters in the world today.  The connection they had with a Higher Power, and their reliance upon it, actually worked for those soldiers then and it can be as potent an antidote to panic for us today as it was for them, then.

Consider the 3rd Step Prayer.

I offer myself to God, and I commit to (try to) be ok with whatever comes my way because it comes from God (God either is, or is not) --  and I'll spin every bit of lead into gold, fear into faith, turn every scary, sucky thing into an opportunity to (try to) trust God and demonstrate how harmonious that way of approaching life can be.

When your Survival Fear is starting, when you're thinking it's all fucked anyway so why bother to live by spiritual principles, hell, why bother to stay sober, why bother to live at all ... before those dominoes in your head start falling, consider the 3rd Step Prayer.  Don't just say it, consider it.  Really listen to what it says -- breathe in the idea it expresses: That I am not running the show, that I am ok, and whatever difficulty comes my way will be removed (although maybe not in the manner I at first think it should).

And that voice in your head, that says this all sounds nice but isn't very practical, the world doesn't really work that way and this is all just quasi-religious bullshit?

That's just the Fear talking.

Creating an alcoholic

The speaker at my meeting this morning was wonderful, and very funny, talking about his childhood and feeling "different" and alien from the rest of the people where he grew up  (and in some ways, he actually was -- I think it's safe to say that it takes a special kind of little boy to twirl a baton in a town of less than a thousand in pre-1960 America).  This is a common theme in the backgrounds of alcoholics, and it's reflected in shares by how often people talk about trying to be "a part of" or how AA now helps them feel "a part of something."

Alcoholics talk about it so much, in fact, I think we lose sight of the fact that we don't "own" feelings of loneliness or isolation.  (Just like we don't "own" feeling resentment or having a problem with attitude and authority -- after all, there's a reason "Take This Job and Shove It" was a number one hit for Johnny Paycheck in 1978 -- everyone wants to say that now and then, not just alcoholics.  The problem is, we sometimes actually do.)

The sharing in the meeting of course resonated with how many people felt different and "less than" as children, and how alcohol helped them deal with that.  (Though no one else came out as a childhood boy-majorette.)

I think that's the key point it's important not to lose.  It's not feeling alien that marks someone as an alcoholic -- it's the fact that alcohol helps them deal with feeling alien which is the marker.

Alcohol "fixes" those broken thoughts and feelings.  Other people knock a few back, feel a normal reaction to the alcohol, and while they may continue to medicate (numb) some anxiety by drinking through their youth, are not driven by cravings to continue beyond all sane boundaries and behaviors.  Drinking may help them, but it doesn't "fix" them.  For some people, early childhood maladjustments -- and traumas -- actually motivate them to achieve, rather than fuel addiction.

In that regard I sometimes think about Billie Holiday and Oprah Winfrey.  Now, obviously they are women who's personal challenges and professional paths were very much shaped by the era in which they were born, yet there are striking similarities in their backgrounds.

Both were born into extreme economic hardship and suffered traumatic sexual abuse before the age of 12.  Both had pregnancies, lost their child before the age of 14, and were running the streets by the age of 16.  Both got involved with drugs because they were in a relationship with a man who introduced them to it.

For Billie, that led to a spiral of increased drinking, drug use and abusive relationships, eventually leading to her death from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 44.

Oprah has clearly had a very different path.  I'm sure there are other circumstances which influenced both women along the way, and again, the times are very different -- yet their early experiences line up so closely as to really highlight what struck me when listening to the speaker and the sharing this morning. 

It's not the tough times, the isolation, the abuse, that make an alcoholic.  Those things may exacerbate or accelerate the illness, but they don't create it, anymore than a childhood living over a bakery creates diabetes or never being allowed to go to the beach creates albinism. 

So if that's the case, what then actually does create an alcoholic?

Beats me.  I'm no doctor.  Genetics, certain environmental factors, birth order, food allergies, brain chemistry imbalances, weak moral fiber, evil spirits, gypsy curses, too strict/too permissive an upbringing... all these things have at one time or another been attributed as causes of alcoholism.

One of the very first written discussions of the "disease concept" and the cause of alcoholism -- "drunkenness" -- was actually a pamphlet written in the 1600's in Colonial America, so people have had plenty of time to come up with ideas as to what and why some people are and some people aren't alcoholic.

But I now believe that one other important factor should also be considered:

Baton twirling.

Where my alcoholism lives today...

Sorry about the late posting time today, kids.  My internet went kablooey for a bit.

The speaker at my meeting last night was eloquent in describing the desire for immediate relief -- instant escape -- even though in sobriety you know full well what a price that can exact.

As I was listening I thought that's really where it can be for me today, at this time in my sobriety, 20-some odd years down "the Road to Happy Destiny."  I've done the inventories, said the shares, heard the speakers, seen the heartbreak and loss and even death of friends and sponsees when they drink again... but ...

Are there thoughts so painful, regrets so acute, feelings so overwhelming that I can't sit through them?  "Of course not!" is what my intellect (and pride) want the answer to be... but...

Who would put their life at risk just for the chance to check out for a while?  Who could possibly think that the certain consequences which follow drinking again, if you're a real alcoholic, won't be there -- and be there with a vengeance -- after your run concludes... but...

What kind of mental math is that, anyway?  That algebra of entitlement in which this pain plus that fear divided by so much ego equals the "right" to drink... but...

That is the heart of it.  I have absolutely no doubt what would happen if I were to drink again.  I believe the overwhelming evidence that alcoholism is a progressive disease, and that if I drink today it would be as if I never stopped.  And considering what I was like at the end of my drinking, the vision of the Mr. SponsorPants  I would be if I pick up is an honest-to-god nightmare.  Vodka for breakfast and then downhill from there.  There is no reason good enough, "right" enough, to justify or allow a drink... but...

And that's where my alcoholism lives today -- in the word "but."  Intellectually I know whatever discomfort I have -- be it from an extreme of depression or elation (a high can be as unsettling as a low for people who are wired with an alcoholic mind, I've found) will not be relieved if I pick up a drink.  Intellectually I know that.  Alcoholism tries to balance those thoughts -- no, maybe "balance" isn't right -- twist might be a better word -- with rationalizations which sound ridiculous in the light of day, but in a mind where alcoholism lives in the shadowy corners can carry a frightening -- even hypnotic -- power.

(If, as you read this, you think I wax melodramatic, well, maybe I do sometimes.  I find that writing about what alcoholic thoughts are like is not a dry process. D'oh! Accidental pun!  In my attempt to convey what it genuinely feels like to have your thinking seduced by the desire to pick up a drink, to have the facts of your disease smudged and obscured by a mental process both intimate and cunning, well, if I lapse into melodrama chalk it up to a limited talent for expression and a sincere attempt to portray this phenomenon in as real a way as I possibly can.)

So today I believe alcoholism lurks not in the front of my thinking, but in the middle.  In the word "but."

"I know, I know, I know!  I know things will go all to shit if I drink, but..."

"Recovery isn't about being rewarded for staying sober, but..."

"Look, temporary relief is just that, temporary, but..."

Some days my sobriety hangs on my ability to remember that the word "but," and everything that comes after it, is my alcoholism talking.  And to type it, to say it aloud, exposes it for the sick sham that it is -- but in my mind...

In my mind alcoholism uses my pride, my fear, my ego, my imagination, and mixes them together in a dark alchemy that sounds, in my head, like a truth bigger than every thought that comes before the "but."

THAT'S why I need to keep attending AA meetings.  Why I need to share, to write the inventories, to speak with sponsors, sponsees and friends, to keep throwing a light into those mental dark corners where the alcoholism sits, crafting another argument as to why I have earned my "reward" or deserve to be destroyed.

THAT'S why I need to work my recovery on a daily basis, because the truth of my alcoholism is that it seems to be a constant presence, even when I've put together many sober days -- it's there in the corner of my mind with the same small but irritating presence as that little bit of food caught between your back teeth.  It may not be doing anything at the moment, but you certainly know it's there -- and it requires a conscious decision to leave it alone till you can do something about it.

And THAT'S why I need help in treating this condition -- to connect with some kind of power greater than myself -- whatever that might mean at any given time.  If alcoholism is using my own thinking sometimes to get me to drink again, then relying only on myself to address that is like treating a sunburn with sunlight -- I'm using the cause of the problem to try to treat the pain the problem causes.

There's help.  There's hope.  It's not a grim fight, but some days it is a very real one.  And as ridiculous as it may sound, the opening salvo in that engagement can be found in the simplest of things, the word  "but."

Are you free for coffee?

         

Sometimes when people at an AA meeting say "Are you free for coffee?" they mean  "Are you free for coffee?"  And sometimes when people at an AA meeting say "Are you free for coffee?" they mean "I don't know how to ask for help but will you please, please help me."

I've found looking into the eyes helps you tell the difference -- but even so, if you're not sure, the answer to both kinds of coffee invitations from someone at an AA meeting is "Yes."

Being convinced ... of what?

The section quoted below is from the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book), Chapter 5, "How It Works."  The first few pages of this chapter, pgs. 58 thru 60, are often read at the beginning of a meeting, and they are a terrific, succinct introduction to the program in general, the Big Book, and the 12 Steps in particular.

The passage I'm looking at here is at the end of that reading, and just a bit past where people usually stop, and is located on pg. 60.

"Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

(c) That God could and would if He were sought.

Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him."

Ok, now let's break it down.

Our description of the alcoholic (that's referring to the information outlined in "The Doctor's Opinion," a sort of Foreword in the Big Book, plus Chapter 2, "There is a Solution" and Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism"), the chapter to the agnostic (That's Chapter 4, "We Agnostics") and our personal adventures before and after (referring, I believe, to the stories in the back of the Big Book, which begin on pg. 165 and outline a number of different people's struggle with admitting they were alcoholics and the solution they found in AA) make clear three pertinent ideas (meaning that among the information outlined in those sections there are 3 main things to focus on at this point in the Big Book):

(a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. (That's merely Step One almost word-for-word.)

(b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism ("b" and "c" here break Step 2, "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity" in half -- "b" is the first part of Step 2, sort of coming at it from the opposite direction, that is, if I believe that no human power can help me, then it must follow that if I believe there is help in AA, and it is not from a human power, it must be from some power greater than myself -- and that power will make me sane in regards to alcohol/ism. )

(c) That God could and would if he were sought. (That's expanding on the idea in the second half of Step 2, "Came to believe ... would restore us to sanity.")

Being convinced we were at Step Three...

Ok, being convinced of what, exactly? Being convinced of a, b, and c -- which is Step One restated and Step 2 broken in half to clarify the ideas it suggests.

So if you are convinced that you have no power over alcohol, that is, you acknowledge that you cannot stop drinking even though you may/mostly/deeply want to, and also acknowledge that the consequences of this inability to stop drinking are that your life is in free fall -- and then also you are convinced that you need help to address this problem, that is, you need something other than you, something "more" than just you, your willpower, your bright ideas, to deal with this insane behavior around alcohol, and thus bring you to sane behavior around alcohol -- being convinced of those things by the information you read/heard in Chapters 2 and 3 and from what is written in The Doctor's Opinion and comparing it to your own life and drinking/using history -- being convinced of all that you are at Step 3.

And also, then, it follows that if you're not convinced of all that (of a, b, and c on pg. 60) then you're not at Step 3.

You're not behind.  You're not bad, you're not (necessarily) unwilling -- but you're not convinced.  When you are, then you're at Step 3 -- and until that time, I guess you're at Steps 1 and 2.

You have more choices than you think you do.

As a child, I never really trusted "The Wizard of Oz."

Not the man so much, though he was shady enough, but the story -- specifically the way it ended.

Yes, yes, very happy Dorothy made it back home.  Glad that the (very) scary witch was now a puddle in a mop bucket somewhere (one might surmise that it was a bucket rudely used by the flying monkeys as payback for having been the witch's personal Luftwaffe, but that's really just speculation).  Wonderful that the dog and all were safe and sound, great that the lion and the tin man and the scarecrow got what they thought they wanted.

But what put me off was this, Dorothy's final line, and really the "moral of the story" in the MGM film:

"Well I -- I think that it -- it wasn't enough to just want to see Uncle Henry or Auntie Em -- and it's that -- if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard.  Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with."

Huh?

Really?

If you think there's something important missing from your life, like your heart's desire, don't really search for it -- if you don't find it at home then you're just wrong -- there's nothing missing at all.  Just stay home.

Even as a child, though I didn't have the ability to put it into words, this was deeply emotionally unsatisfying and didn't make any sense to me at all.  So, budding nerd that I was, I went to the source and read the original book by L. Frank Baum, which of course led to reading all the rest of the series, "The Oz Books."  (Since when was an alcoholic satisfied with one of anything?)

Totally trippy.  Bizarre for any age, but mind blowing when you realize these were written between 1900 and 1920 (there are 14 books by Baum in all.)

I'm happy to report that Baum's Dorothy was a lot pluckier than the one written in the 1939 film.

For example, in the first book, Dorothy isn't nearly as disturbed by her relatives' failure to believe her as her movie counterpart is -- and Oz is a real place she visited and returned from, not a fever dream resulting from a head injury and maybe Em's questionable cookin'.

The subsequent books tell of Dorothy swept overboard by a tidal wave and swallowed up in an earthquake, among other things -- I'm telling you, that child was positively disaster prone -- but she's pretty much back on the farm, foregoing a land of music and magic for life in Kansas, and she's determined to make that work.

And although it took her a while, by the time we get to the sixth novel "The Emerald City of Oz" Dorothy changes her mind.

By book six Uncle Henry is going to lose the farm, since he can't pay the mortgage he had to assume after the tornado in the first book destroyed it (Take a moment with that -- go ahead.  No outside issues are really appropriate in this blog, keeping as close to the spirit of AA as I can here, but go ahead) so Dorothy decides to contact her old friend Ozma of Oz and move back to the Emerald City for good, taking Uncle Henry and Aunt Em with her.

(Ozma is both royalty and a good witch, but back in the second book had been transformed by a wicked witch -- there were a number of them running around in the series -- from a Princess of Oz into a little boy -- and then back into a princess when Dorothy and Glinda rescue him.  Her.  Possibly making for the first transgender protagonist in any literature of the 20th Century, let alone something considered classic children's literature.  See what I mean?  Totally trippy.  Should MGM have made a sequel to the original musical based on the second book, one can only imagine the song they'd have had to come up with to explain that little bit of character development.  "I've Got a New Kind of Wand!" might have been a good working title.)

So Dorothy tried to make Kansas work.  For Em and Henry's sake.  For the sake of what she thinks she's supposed to do -- but eventually things just aren't working out, and she changes her mind.  She makes a different choice.

When I first got sober there was this great gal who came into AA shortly after I did.  We were about the same age, had similar stories -- we clicked.  I will always remember her laugh, a great whooping thing that was absolutely impossible to resist.

She got sober for a while, found love, got too busy and fabulous for AA, drifted from meetings, drank and committed suicide.

Too abrupt?  Too neat?  Too simplistic to link the "drifted from meetings" to "committed suicide"? 

Actually, no, it's not.  I knew her well.  I was around.  I read the note.  I'm not saying that every person who drifts from AA meetings will drink, nor am I saying that every alcoholic who drinks will commit suicide (directly, anyway), the issues are too complex for pat answers and logic that's reverse-engineered to prove a pet point -- but I am saying that I was there, and in my (informed) opinion that is what happened in this case.

She was a true blue, real alcoholic, and when she drank her depressive side was running the show -- and although her sober friends sensed she was in real trouble and tried to intervene, apparently she decided that she had no other choice but to take her life.  This all happened many years ago now (if you stay sober long enough and have enough alcoholics in your life you may come to know a disproportionate amount of suicides and early, preventable deaths -- which will make you really fun at parties) but that's what I remember so clearly:  No choice.  She felt like she had no other choice.

At the beginning of my drinking I felt like anything -- anything -- could happen.  I had all the power to shape my destiny and I was completely free -- I could choose to be anybody, go anywhere, sleep with anyone, try anything... a million fun and exciting choices.  It was like being a character in a movie -- with a drink in my hand life went instantly from black-and-white to Technicolor, and I felt like any dream could become a reality.  Drinking made me feel like I had accomplished something without ever having to get up off the barstool.

I think that's the most clever and terrifying trick that alcoholism performs -- and it's as crafty a trick as poison poppies of flying monkeys.  It makes you feel as if you have every choice in the world at your disposal while it slowly, surely, removes them.

You feel like you can go anywhere -- but you always seem to wind up a at a bar.  Until you wind up never leaving the house.  You believe you can be anyone -- except you're too afraid and obsessed with what people think of you to be yourself -- and eventually you look in the mirror and have no idea who you are.

And for one girl I knew when you're drinking and using you feel like you have lots of choices -- until suddenly you really only have two, and you're sitting at home alone with a drink in one hand and a gun in the other, and you don't even realize that you could choose to put one of them down and pick up the phone.  Alcoholism made her believe that the only choices were the drink and the gun -- and when you can't stand to choose the one then you must choose the other.

I found the readings we had at my friend's service while I was cleaning out an old box today in an aborted attempt to bring order to my hall closet.  She hadn't been much for churches so we just had a little memorial in a park she liked.  Printed some things up to read, sang (badly, as I recall, which she would have found hilarious), told a few stories, said some prayers and said goodbye.  Sweet and sad.  It was so long ago now I'm not sure I could put names to everyone who was there -- but I remember how over and over people kept talking about how sad it was that she didn't feel like she had any other choice.  I suppose some of that is the reaction one always has to suicide -- there's often a "why?" and an occasional angry "how could you?" floating over every suicide memorial service I think, even when the cause is plain and the note clear -- or clear enough, anyway.

And then there's the unspoken "if only's" -- if only they'd said something, done this, tried that, gone there, asked for help... all the "if only's" are the choices they didn't see -- they couldn't see, or they could see but felt they couldn't make.

What AA has done for me is show me that not only do I have many more choices than I at first might see, but that I can choose, try, and if I need to, change my mind and choose again.  I'm shown my choices when I share in meetings and air my sometimes crazy, limited, black-and-white thinking out loud, so I can see it for what it is.  I'm shown that often it's not a question of the "right" choice and the "wrong" choice -- but rather that for every choice there will be comfortable stuff and uncomfortable stuff that goes along with making it, and I learn that by listening to other sober people walk through their stuff, practicing these principles to the best of their abilities in all their affairs.  I have clarity to choose how I want to behave in difficult confrontations by having learned to pause when agitated, and not to respond without thinking first (mostly).

The real adventure is sobriety, since a sober alcoholics has the tools to actually try anything they can dream up, while a drinking alcoholic lives in dreams and thinks they can try anything but hardly ever actually does.

It's in my sobriety when I look around my life and feel like, "Hey! Who turned my life Technicolor?" and realized how much my drinking and my alcoholic thinking had bled my life of any color at all.

As I wrap this up I'm bravely struggling against a cute conclusion about not being in Kansas anymore or going over the rainbow, just to pull it all together thematically.  I guess I'll simply close with a salute to the memory of my friend, who I wish had seen that she had more choices than that terrible, final one she thought she had to make all those years ago now, and a wish that anyone reading this today can see that, beyond whatever choices you think you have are perhaps even others.  You can choose, or even change your mind and choose again -- and if you can't see those choices, or can see them but think you can't make them, ask for help -- for me, I've always found that help in AA.

You have more choices than you think -- even if you choose to move to Kansas.

Cheers!

            

Accountable

      

I hold myself accountable for

treating my alcoholism,

not for having my alcoholism.

Oh no, I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. I'm not here to be a better person. That just happened by accident.

At my men's stag meeting tonight the topic of discussion was "forgiveness" and some of the sharing turned to how hard it can be to accept and forgive other people in AA, since we tend to hold each other to a higher, more difficult standard (expectation).  Sort of a "Hey! We're both supposed to be doing the deal here, how come you're still acting like such an asshole?"

Along those lines someone spoke about talking with their sponsor, and telling them that he was surprised at how many people in AA can be ... difficult.  (Not the word he used, but it will do.)

"Didn't we all come here to become better people?" he asked.

To which I answer:

No.

I'm terribly sorry, but that's not why I'm here at all.

I am in AA as a treatment for my alcoholism.  Part of that treatment is a certain amount of ego-smashing, a certain commitment to principles which might generally be regarded as "moral" and a certain degree of altruism.  This makes me look like I'm trying to be a better person, but that's actually not accurate.

What's really going on is that I'm trying to behave in a way that doesn't foster alcoholic thinking, which so often leads to alcoholic drinking. 

At no time did I wake up and decide, "Hey, you know what?  I need to be a better man."  Wouldn't it be nice if I were the kind of guy who wakes up and says that sort of thing?  I wish.

I'm afraid, however, that I'm the kind of guy who wakes up and says "I'm sick of suffering I hate how I feel I'm miserable and I'll do anything not to be miserable anymore."

And the punch line is that the "anything" I have to do to "not feel miserable" is the behavior of someone who's trying to be a better man.  I do selfless things but for selfish reasons.

Ironically, if you act like a nice guy long enough you might actually become a nice guy -- but that's certainly not what I came to AA for.  (Though if people wanted to mistake me for a nice guy while I was out there drinking that was fine with me.  I usually could pull that illusion off if you didn't get too close for too long.)

Why is this an important point for me?  I understand how someone new would get confused and assume that's what this is all about -- so why not just smile and nod and agree that AA is about trying to be "good" people?

Because I think it's slippery for me to think that I'm trying to be a "good" person -- that's viewing my alcoholism and my recovery through a moral lens.  And it is then by logical inference assigning the label of "bad" to my alcoholic drinking and using.

Are you "bad" if you have an epileptic seizure?  Are you bad if you break out in hives from a bee sting?  Are you bad if you go into anaphylactic shock from eating peanuts?  Of course not, and anyone would look at you like you were nuts if you went around talking about those conditions in such a way.  Thus it would also be wildly inaccurate to say you're "good" for not having a seizure, breaking out in hives or going into shock.  What that's about ultimately is that you've taken whatever steps you may need to take to prevent those consequences from occurring when the medical condition you have goes untreated.

That's the point of the "good" behavior AA suggests.  Not to be moral, but to be free from the things that trigger alcoholic thinking ... which so often leads to alcoholic drinking.

We just sort of wind up as better people totally as a side effect.

Cheers!

The Elephant Fable

No doubt you've heard this one before:

The three wise elders of the village had grown blind with age, but still retained their keen mental faculties.  They could no longer see, but they could reason better than men who were half their age and twice as educated.

One afternoon they heard of a marvelous beast, called an "elephant," unfamiliar to the residents of their village (as it came from a jungle far to the east) which had been brought to a city nearby to assist with some heavy labor.  Curious, the elders decided that they would go to the city and meet this animal themselves.  The journey was long, but not arduous, and they traveled with many of their fellows, so they were in no danger and made good time.

Arriving in the city, arrangements were made, and each of the elders were led into the holding pen where the elephant rested after its day's labors.  When the first elder approached the elephant it hoped he might have some treats, so it raised its trunk and nudged the blind man, who felt the trunk's length and strength and flexibility.  When the second elder approached, the elephant stood facing away from him, hoping for a scratch on its backside after working in the hot sun all day.  The second elder, feeling around to examine the animal, encountered one of its rear legs, and encircling it with his arms felt its girth and solidity.  By this time the elephant had grown thirsty, and turned to drink from its water trough, so the third elder was presented with its side, and wound up running his hands along one of the animal's great ears.

On the way back to the village, one of the young men accompanying them asked what the elephant was like.  The first elder exclaimed, "Oh, it is amazing! Like a snake, long and sinuous!"  The second replied, "No, you are wrong, it is like a tree trunk, solid and powerful!" The third interjected, "You are both mistaken I am sad to say, the elephant is like a bat, with great wings covered in skin, not feathers, that flap back and forth!"

They argued all the way back to the village (making the young man sorry he had come, and even sorrier that he had asked). Each wise elder could not convince the others that he was right and they were mistaken, as each of them was absolutely certain of what they had experienced when meeting the elephant.

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I think of this fable a lot, actually.

Here's what I take from it:

There is no right or wrong in each of the elder's experience of the elephant, where there is an error is in the conclusion that they draw from it.

This applies to my life in several ways.

The first is when I am in an argument a spirited discussion with someone. They, and I, may actually be right in what we've experienced -- or rather, there is no right or wrong in what we've experienced -- our memory or idea about what we've experienced is accurate -- it's the conclusion that might be drawn from that, what we think it means -- that can be where there is error.  Yet many spirited discussions seem to focus on convincing the other person that what they experienced was wrong.  This will never work.   After all, each of the elders in the fable was certain of what they felt, because they actually felt it.  What it meant though ... all wrong.  So it is futile for me to try to convince someone that what they experienced isn't what they experienced. 

Or, to come at it from another direction, it's usually not in describing what happened that I have conflict, it's talking about what I think it means where I get into trouble.

The second is:

My evidence about something might be absolutely right but also absolutely wrong.

Each of the elders in the story was absolutely right, given the limited information they had.  Within those limits, they were correct -- but the limits were so narrow, the information they had was so finite, as to make them wrong when measured against the larger "ultimate" truth about an elephant.  So whenever I think I am right, I might actually be right -- but in the larger sense totally wrong, since what I know may be narrow and limited against a larger truth.

This is important for me to remember when thinking about God.

The third is this:

I think of this fable and these points when I encounter people of different religions.  The book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) has this to say about organized religion in the chapter entitled "We Agnostics":

"We ... beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion.  We have learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions..." -- Big Book, pg. 49

I imagine that every religion has some real truth in it about the nature of God and the universe and how these things interact with, and influence, human experience on Earth -- and each religion's truth might be totally right in its way -- but there may be a larger truth beyond that -- thus no particular understanding, including my own at this very minute, should be considered so absolute as to close my mind against other, different ideas about a Higher Power, given the limited information we have, and how little we can "see."

Finally, whenever I hear this story I also think that while an elephant is a wise and beautiful creature, you should probably wash your hands after you squeeze its trunk, hug its hind leg or stick your hand in its ear.

Paying your part of the bill

Imagine:

Under great duress you sit down to a truce-lunch with your most hated rival.  The spirit of fair play has never existed within him, you believe -- and you've got plenty of evidence to support that belief.  When you got sober your sponsor suggested you pray for him, and your first question was if it was okay to pray for him to get run over by a car. ("Missing the point." Was your sponsor's response.)

This lunch was his suggestion, and although it took everything you had, you said yes -- after all, if you've changed perhaps he has too -- though you doubt it.

You order a salad, he has the soup.  Every time he has a spoonful the slurping is like nails on a chalkboard, but you struggle to "rise to the occasion" and honor the terms of the truce.

The conversation limps along, and then he starts in with changing facts and altering history to suit his own version of the truth.  You can barely believe your ears, and you tell him so.  By the time your pasta arrives you're both trying not to shout, and you look down to find you're gripping the table so hard your knuckles are white.  You decide you were right, he hasn't changed, and you're going to leave, screw a doggie bag, you want out of here ... you get up from the table and ...

Tell him that because he was such an asshole you're not going to pay for your salad and pasta?

Of course not.

No matter how angry you were, you would pay for what you ordered -- even if it did involve throwing the money down on the table and storming out.

His behavior, either in the past or in the present, doesn't mean you're not responsible for paying for your share.

The same is true when it comes to looking at "my part" in a resentment, the fourth column on the inventory suggested by AA's 4th Step (Step 4: "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.")  You may have a good and legitimate reason for resenting someone.  They may have done you grievous harm -- that's what the first two columns of the inventory are for, to put that down in black and white.  The book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) doesn't suggest that to look at your part in something you have to pretend that something bad -- what someone may have done to you -- is something good ("The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong." Big Book, pg. 66.)

It suggests that you put down what made you angry or hurt you, ask yourself why you were angry or what in you got hurt, and then set all that aside for a bit and look at what your part in the equation may be.

So often people -- not just alcoholics -- will use other people's bad behavior as a justification for not looking at their own part in something.  Other people can get away with that and not go crazy -- they may never rest easy, but they won't self destruct.

But if you have an alcoholic mind, and you're not drinking, then not looking at your part in things will eventually make you nuts.

So just as you take a look at your part of the bill for lunch and pay it, regardless of how toxic or twisted your lunch partner may be -- their behavior does not exempt you from paying for what you ordered -- so too in an inventory you take a look at your part of the "bill" in whatever relationship you have with whomever you resent -- regardless of how toxic they may have been -- and eventually prepare to settle your share.

And although it seems like a paradox, following through on the 12 Step process when it comes to the people you resent will eventually, actually set you free.