Tuesday, November 25, 2008 -- Evening
I often get together with someone before my regular Tuesday, 7:30pm meeting, to go through the Big Book, or just talk about whatever issues are on the table for them -- we try to see those issues through a 12 Step lens, not through what is our first inclination, a perspective vulnerable to (at the least) ego, and sometimes fear.
But the holidays can make it easy to get signals crossed, and in this case after looking at the clock I realized belatedly that's what had happened -- no one-on-one tonight -- and made the (extremely rare for me) decision to stay home rather than hustle across town, arriving half-way through the meeting. I decided to do a little (much needed) housework before the holidays began in earnest. The recycling had piled up, the litter box could use a major change (not just a scooping) a swiffer/vacuum run around the place was long overdue ... when it comes to "Trust God and Clean House" I know that saying is mostly metaphor, but in a more practical sense I'm often one-for-two on that. (As an eccentric, crusty, middle-aged bachelor I really let that stuff slide sometimes.)
But it was odd for me to decide not to go to a meeting, and odder still to feel okay with the decision, but -- *shrug* -- there it was.
So there I am, arms full of cardboard and plastic wraps and such, dutifully smooshing everything down to make more room in the recycle bin for the next eco-warrior who comes along, and up wanders one of my neighbors. Nice young man, his front door is very near mine. Lives with his girlfriend. He seemed to be a lover of books and cats and small kids (the girlfriend does work sometimes for a street-youth outreach of some sort, and the young man occasionally seems to have little kids in his charge -- nieces perhaps.) He's ex-military, a considerate neighbor, unfailingly polite. Smokes, so I see him perhaps more than other neighbors as he's outside having a cigarette sometimes in the evening when I'm heading out or coming home.
"Hey." He says.
"Hello." I say. "Where's that rain we were supposed to get?" I ask.
We talk weather and bitch about the traffic and congratulate each other on recycling for a few minutes.
"Can I ask you a personal question?" He says.
"Sure." I respond. "Ask me anything. But be careful, I'll tell you the truth."
He laughs. I expect him to ask about the parade of different people that visit me, coming and going at strange times and with no obvious similarity to link them. I'm prepared for, "Um, are you some kind of drug dealer or internet hooker or something?"
Instead he asks me about a recent ballot initiative in the past election, rightly surmising that I would have an opinion or two on the matter. We discuss these current events, he's thoughtful and asks intelligent questions, especially about some of the conflict being discussed in the media about church donations to political causes -- clearly the subject troubles him.
He tells me that there's some "stuff" going on with him, some weird stuff with a family member, plus other stuff ... just ... he trails off. Starts up with "So I've been reading the Bible a lot, and going to church." We talk about the Bible, and he asks me if I've read it, and I tell him that I've read books about the Bible maybe a little more than I've read the Bible itself, and that I think on the one hand it is a profound text that helps the human spirit rise above its lowest impulses, but on the other its words have been abused throughout history to advance all sorts of agendas -- but ultimately it is one among many great books for anyone seeking some fuller connection with a spirituality of any kind. He keyed in strongly on the words "rise" and "seek" and our conversation went on from there. Finally I offered to lend him a book I like about the Bible, the eminently entertaining and readable "The Harlot By The Side of the Road" by Jonathan Kirsch, a study of some of the lesser known Bible stories (no one would make a Sunday morning claymation out of any of them, I assure you.) He told me about a book he'd like me to read. I invited him over so I could find the book to lend him.
He came in, and had a gleeful time pouring over my bookshelves, then sat down and we continued to chat. He told me more about the church he goes to, sometimes two different ones on a given Sunday. He asked me if I went to church.
Without really deciding one way or the other, I just said, "Well, I'm sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, so I'm pretty much standing in a circle, holding hands and praying quite a bit."
He looked stunned. Sat there for probably a full minute, I kid you not, just looking at me. My sponsor-sense was tingling, and I did one of the most valuable things I've learned to do in AA: I sat there quietly, calmly, looked him in the eye and didn't say anything, just waited -- let the minute pass, and the silence gather weight.
And then out it all came.
The binge drinking, the fear, the anger, the trying to control the drinking, the inability to make it more than twenty-something days without getting drunk, the broken promises to the girlfriend ("Hello? Lois? Call for you. Yeah, Line 1.") The going to where he knew there were AA meetings (near where we lived) and standing outside, unable to go in. He told me a very funny story about his girlfriend (now fiance, I learned) bringing home a bottle of liquor that he can't stand -- cannot stand it -- hated it -- never liked it -- there he was, three a.m. that morning, mixing it with Mountain Dew to make it more palatable. Next day the bottle was empty. ("I don't know, was she testing me or something?" "Probably not, but, if she was, you failed.")
I told him that it's not my business to tell anyone if they're an alcoholic or not, but if I saw a character in a movie do that I would think, "Wow, that character is a real alcoholic."
He asked me how long I'd been sober, and I told him 20 years, which floored him, since he said he thought I was in my early thirties (which says nothing about how I look and everything about how alcoholism warps people's perception -- I am laughing so hard as I type that).
I talked some about the impulse to drink, the powerlessness, the "curious mental blank spot" and I do not exaggerate when I say he seemed to take it in like a plant absorbing the sun -- you could literally see the "yes! yes! that's me! yes!" happening.
I told him about some meetings that I was going to be going to, and that I would be glad to take him along -- but that if tomorrow, or whenever, he changed his mind, no problem, no weirdness, no harm, no foul, my door was always open to talk about AA or I would go with him to any meeting he wanted to, any time, day or night. He's going to come along to a couple of meetings with me this weekend -- said, "Please, be sure and knock on my door, I want to go." We'll see, but I believed he meant it when he said it.
He got up, and out of the blue he asked if he could hug me -- I really wasn't expecting that -- and he went along home.
I closed my front door and I got very emotional, which is what a man says when we don't want to say "started to cry a little bit." I was so grateful, so overwhelmed to have been able to be helpful in that way -- I was humbled and so happy to have the chance to do my job -- to be ready so that, as it says in the AA credo:
When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that, I am responsible.
For me that night it was not a responsibility, it was a profound and moving privilege.
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