Mr. SponsorPants

theydidtheirbest

 

 

 

Saying

"they did their best" 

is as much 

(if not more) 

about comprehension

as it is about

compassion.

 

Too often 

"they did their best" 

is said all in one breath,

like it's one word:

theydidtheirbest!

 

But you know what?

Just because you 

acknowledge that,

just because you 

understand that hey,

theydidtheirbest

doesn't mean you can't also

stop

and acknowledge that

their best

sucked.

 

I don't want to live in that place

but I don't want to blast

past it,

either.

 

They did their best means

I see their limitations.

I see how hopelessly 

unprepared or 

overwhelmed or 

outmatched or 

unable they were.

 

It's not that they wouldn't do better.

They couldn't.

 

Through their own

warped ego or

fear induced rage

or baffled depression

they really did

do their best.

 

Their poor choices were driven by

their sickness

just like my poor choices were

driven by mine.

 

Which means that

when I say --

and understand --

they did their best

I don't have to take it personally.

 

It means

I'm not a  victim.

 

Which means I can

let go

and

move on.

 

 

 

 

It's not enough to have lived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just by sheer coincidence, that's kind of a key ingredient in how we stay sober, too.

 

 

Call from a newcomer: 41 Days and Counting

 

 

 

 

 

 As regular readers know I am always very careful to blur identifying details for anyone who appears in these little online essays with me -- but I assure you the crux of this call is practically verbatim.

 Put another way: You think I could make this stuff up?

 

 Call from a newcomer.

I'm not sure how they got my number, but I've been speaking a lot lately so I probably met them then. Or maybe they just put their finger down randomly on a phone list from some other meeting I've been to. It's really not important.

When I first answered the phone they cycled through the usual, "Oh, wow, I expected to get voice mail" and "I'm sorry to call" and "I hope I'm not bothering you." (I have sponsees who still, after a couple of years, are worried that they're bothering me. You're not.)

 

Mr. SponsorPants: ...making calls to people you don't know that well in AA always feels a little weird... like you might be bothering them or something, but I swear that's not the case. Think of it as you helping me not be self obsessed. You're helping me get out of my head.

41 Days and Counting (doubtful): Well... okay.

Mr. SP: You said you had something like... 50 days?

41 Days: 41 Days. And counting.

Mr. SP: Well that's pretty freakin' awesome. Congratulations! So how's your day going, anyway?

41 Days: Not good.

Mr. SP: What's up?

41 Days: Today's my day off.

Mr. SP: Oh, well that can be... 

I stopped myself from immediately asking if they'd planned to go to a meeting, or maybe had already been. 'Chill out, Mr. SponsorPants' I told myself.

Mr. SP: Are you... I mean, what are you going to do with the rest of your day?

It was maybe mid-afternoon when they called me.

41 Days: Well... I was really bummed about the weather.

Mr. SP: Oh? 

I look out the window and what had been a pale, dove gray sky earlier in the day had given way to a cliche, robin's egg blue, as far as I could see. The only clouds visible did look a little more silver than white, as if they might have a shower or two left in them, but they didn't seem too serious about it. The only sign of the brief shower we actually had -- maybe all of 30 minutes long -- was that the shrubbery looked a little perkier. There weren't even any puddles on the asphalt.

41 Days: Yeah. You know, on my day off if it's not nice I feel like I'm getting ripped off.

Mr. SP: Well I...

41 Days: Like I deserve... I dunno. Like since it's crappy out I deserve to do whatever I want. 

Mr. SP: Well I... I mean it sprinkled for like, all of 20 minutes. Now it's...

It was like he was talking to himself now, as much as to me.

41 Days: Like I deserve to... I dunno, like...

I could practically hear the shrug through the phone.

Mr. SP: But... it sprinkled for all of 20 minutes. It's all blue sky that I can se...

41 Days: Like I should get to shoot up.

Mr. SP: Wait... what?

41 Days: Yeah, I stole some Ketamine from work and I...

Mr. SP: Wait... WHAT?

41 Days: Since it was shitty out on my day off I felt like I deserved to shoot it up.

Mr. SP: IT SPRINKLED FOR 20 MINUTES. 

I took a deep breath.

Mr. SP: I'm really glad you called. This is exactly what you're supposed to do if you think you're going to use.

41 Days: Yeah, I guess. But it doesn't feel like I'm going to use exactly. It just feels like... I dunno.

Mr. SP: Well some part of you wants to stay clean -- because you called, right?

41 Days: Yeah, I guess.

Mr. SP:  Do you have a Big Book?

41 Days: Yeah. Somewhere I guess.

I reached for mine, handy from a meeting with a sponsee early that morning.

Mr. SP: Can you find it?

41 Days: I... hang on...

I waited.

41 Days: Yeah. Okay. I've got it.

Mr. SP: Okay, open it up to page... oh hell, let me find it. Okay, here. Page 37. See where it says...

41 Days: I lied.

Mr. SP: What?

41 Days: I lied. I couldn't find my book I just said I did so you would go on.

I laughed a little.

Mr. SP: Okay. Okay. just... just let me read you this one little bit, okay?

41 Days: Okay

I read...

Mr. SP: "...but there was always the curious mental phenomenon that parallel with our sound reasoning there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink... " Do you see?

41 Days: Yeah, sure. Sorta.

Mr. SP: This is what is happening to you! 

41 Days: What is?

Mr. SP: The insanely trivial excuse!

41 Days: The... insanely trivial excuse.

Mr. SP: Yes! Come on! YOU WANTED TO SHOOT UP BECAUSE IT SPRINKLED FOR 20 MINUTES!

There was a minute or two of silence.

41 Days: Okay. Yeah.

Mr. SP: Do you... do you still have the ketamine?

41 Days: Yeah.

Mr. SP: I've never worked anyplace where there was just some ketamine lying around to slip in my pocket or whatever, but... usually something like that goes missing it's... missed. Don't you need to... aren't you going to...

41 Days: Yeah, I guess, but... anyone could have taken it.

Mr. SP: Anyone could have but you did. People like us, we kind of reek of shady behavior you know, no matter how smooth we think...

41 Days: Oh no. There's no way anyone could...

I made the very conscious decision to abandon that point. They'd get caught or they wouldn't.

Mr. SP: You know, usually I would suggest someone flush their drugs down the toilet.

For the first time they sounded genuinely alarmed.

41 Days: What! Down the toilet?

Mr. SP: Yeah, actually, I suggest that I come over -- well, it doesn't have to be me, it can be any sober person you know -- and they help you flush it down the toilet.

41 Days: Oh no. No. My place is a mess and I don't... I mean...

Mr. SP: Well in this case I'm not sure if the better idea isn't that you put it back at work so it was only "temporarily misplaced" rather than gone.

41 Days: Yeah. Maybe... yeah.

My sponsor sense was tingling like crazy.

Mr. SP: You're not going to flush it, and you're not sure you're willing to put it back at work, are you.

41 Days: No, no, I am...

Mr. SP: Okay. It's no big deal if you want to admit you're lying again.

41 Days: I don't really lie a lot.

Mr. SP: Ummm... you stole drugs from work and you've lied twice to me in this brief conversation. Maybe... maybe your self assessment skills aren't so good?

They actually laughed at that.

Mr. SP: Look, do you have a sponsor or a good sober buddy or...

41 Days: Yeah, I have a friend who brought me to my first meeting.

Mr. SP: How about, if you don't want me to come over, you call them and maybe they come over and together you flush the...

41 Days: I thought you wanted me to put it back at work.

Mr. SP: I want you to come out the other side of this foggy mental I'm-thinking-about-using thing you've got going on right now. However we get there isn't that important, actually.

41 Days: But if I flush it and there's trouble at work...

Mr. SP: Okay, so now look at THAT thinking: You're not worried about getting in trouble at work until it comes to flushing the drugs, then suddenly you're worried. That's the addict in you. That's your addiction first working to hang on to the drugs, and then working to get you alone and then... 

41 Days: Listen, I have to go. 

Damn. I came on too strong or not strong enough or... damn.

Mr. SP: Okay. Are you going to call your friend?

41 Days: Yes. Yes I will.

Mr. SP: Okay. Are you being honest with yourself? Don't even worry about if you're being honest with me, but are you being honest with yourself?

41 Days: Yeah. I am.

If I came on too strong then I might as well go the distance. After all, as dramatic as it may sound, potentially there was a life at stake here. And if I somehow hadn't come on strong enough -- a rare occurrence, I suspect -- then this probably couldn't hurt.

Mr. SP: Okay, I know this is going to sound kind of... well, it doesn't matter how it sounds. What if we said a prayer together, now, on the phone.

41 Days: Uh... well... uh...that's not really my thing...

Mr. SP: I know, that sounds weird and awkward and very... Bible Camp.

He laughed, which was good.

Mr. SP: How about, after we hang up, you try saying a few prayers on your own. You know, the ones you hear at meetings, stuff like that. Or just maybe... kind of put it out there to God to help you stay clean for the rest of the day. And night. To help with your thinking.

41 Days: Okay.

Mr. SP: I know how strange it can seem, to hear that as a suggestion. It felt that way to me. Just try to see it as a way to redirect your thinking -- if you aren't too clear on the God thing.

41 Days: Okay.

A silence played out that moved rapidly from slightly uncomfortable to fairly awkward. I decided to end the suffering -- but I'm still not sure if I meant theirs or mine.

Mr. SP: Well okay then. Hang in there. Are you going to a meeting today? Or tonight? Or like, right now maybe would be good?

41 Days: Yeah, tonight.

Mr. SP: Okay then. Maybe... when you go, maybe it's a good idea to share about this.

41 Days: Yeah, okay.

Mr. SP: Well... I'm glad you called. Call any time. Seriously.

41 Days: I will. Okay. Thanks.

 

Man, I really, really hope they make it to 42.

Gotta be honest, I don't have a good feeling about it.

AA calls our alcoholism (our addiction) cunning, baffling and powerful. Conversations like that one always bring the phrase roaring to horrific life for me.

With all the criticism of AA I feel like I've been reading and hearing lately, often I think critics might be coming at it from the wrong direction: Sometimes I think that people's own bias twists their approach to the issue. Because after a conversation like that, maybe it's not that AA's solution doesn't measure up.

Maybe it's just that addiction is so huge and powerful and insidious that occasionally AA seems like a parasol in a hurricane.

I would have said candle in the wind, but that's such a tired image.

Still and all, tend that little flame and it will stay lit, regardless of the storm.

I just hope with all that I was able to help light 41's candle too.

And so it goes... 

 

 

J.D. makes sense - a good thing to remember on a Monday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

too often what they really mean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The negative voice -- or the negative scenario -- is not inherently more "real," i.e., more realistic, than the positive one!

Too often we give credence to negativity solely because it is negative -- without even realizing that's what we're doing.

We absorb other people's fear and self-protective cynicism and reflexively shout down (in our heads) the idea that things are just as likely (or even more likely!) to go well as they are to go poorly.

(For sober members of AA, much of this, of course, is dependent upon the "as you understand God" part of the 3rd Step. When I was new -- and when I was not so new, but in doubt and despair -- it kept coming back to this.)

 

 

God, I feel so strongly about this.

 

 

5 Quotes by Kathleen Norris

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.

 

 

Not money, or success, or position or travel or love makes happiness -- service is the secret.

 

 

But in order to have an adult faith, most of us have to outgrow and unlearn much of what we were taught about religion.

 

 

... in fleeing from a relationship with a loving God, we are also running from being our most authentic selves.

 

 

If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.

 

 

you would be amazed how hard this is for some people

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...mostly, against all odds, they do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the real voyage of discovery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you make yourself a victim