I've been to probably 5000 or so AA meetings in my life.
I tell you this only so you'll have some context when I say that, in all the meetings I've ever been to, I've only twice seen someone use a prop when they were speaking. (And thank God for that.)
Speaking in an AA Meeting is an impromptu thing -- the only guidelines offered from the AA literature are that we share our experience, strength and hope with each other -- and it is commonly held that when we speak we share "what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now." That's a good rough guide, and while there's no "wrong" way to share it is definitely very different than making a speech. People do not prepare notes, nor do they memorize anything -- pretty much they just take a deep breath and talk, with only those two broad suggestions as to how to organize their thoughts.
So when I was sitting in a 7am meeting once, some years ago now, and the speaker got up to the lectern, I was puzzled when someone next to me whispered to their friend, "Oh, it's The Pencil Guy." You could hear the caps when they said it.
It wasn't a meeting that was in my usual orbit, but at the time I was sponsoring someone who needed some moral support in changing their meetings around, so I agreed to meet him there for a while. The great thing about those early morning meetings of course, is that everyone who is there made a real effort to be there -- not a lot of Court Cards at a 7am meeting, believe me. The not so great thing is that it is 7 in the freakin' morning. But I digress ...
So The Pencil Guy got up and shared, and I regret to say that nothing in what he said really stayed with me over the years ... except the bit with the pencil.
Towards the end of his speaking, he pulled a regular #2 pencil out of his pocket, and held it up for us all to see. "This is how I think of myself and alcoholism." He explained. "I'm the pencil. And alcoholism broke me." He held the pencil out in front of him and, one end in each hand, bent it slowly until it broke -- when it snapped the break was very jagged, and strangely I remember it broke with a little "pop" rather than a "snap." (There's a breakfast cereal joke lurking inside that sentence, but I can't quite dredge it up.)
"Now, you can actually put this pencil back together," he held a broken half in each hand, and almost like an amateur magician, showed them to us before demonstrating that by carefully fitting the two halves together -- the jagged edges of the break fitting fairly securely -- you could in essence "fix" the pencil. "You even have to look pretty carefully now to see the break in it." He was right of course, the seam of the break was hair thin now. "And, if you hold the pencil carefully, away from the break, you can even write with it." He held the pencil near its point, and scribbled on a piece of paper from the Secretary's notebook. "So, now that it's put back together, it pretty much looks like any other pencil. It even works more or less like any other pencil. But it has this weakness ... this structural flaw. And if you apply even the slightest pressure to it in the wrong way, or if you aren't careful when you're using it, the pencil breaks apart again." He held the pencil higher on the shaft, tried to write, and the halves buckled in his hand and the pencil came apart again. "That's me, and my alcoholism -- that's what I try to remember. AA put me back together, and I go out into the world walking and talking and looking pretty much like any other shmoe out there -- but I have a structural flaw -- my alcoholism. And with just a little pressure in the wrong place... " he over did it by breaking the pencil again to make his point right there.
The meeting's reaction to this performance was mixed, as you can imagine. Some eyes rolled, some seemed intent on his point, some were clearly lost in their own head... not that different from the reaction to any other speaker actually, prop or no prop.
Speaking at meetings isn't a performance, it's not teaching, we don't use visual aides or power point to illustrate what we're trying to say.
But I've always been glad I saw the pencil guy, it made such an impression on me. For years in fact I kept a broken pencil on my desk to remind me of the idea -- it got lost in a move somewhere along the line, and now all I have around me is pens -- but the image, the idea, that my alcoholism is like a structural flaw I need to always be aware of, has stayed with me...
That's a cool analogy. I think I would remember that too.
Posted by: Syd | December 23, 2008 at 05:07 AM