Mr. SponsorPants

9,999 days

 

 

 

 

 

 
 My sober odometer is about to roll over. (Soberdometer? Nah. Too clumsy.)

Today, July 17, 2015, I am 9,999 days sober. (There's an app. on my phone that tallies it all up.  What, you thought I had a stack of calendars and a calculator? Child, please.)

But as anyone with some time sober will tell you, "Time is not a tool."

(Or that other chestnut: "I am not my time.")

Because although I'm 9,999 days sober (and to be fair, that is a loooong time between cocktails) all I have is today.

When I was newly sober and counting days (five... thirteen... thirty - chip! - forty-two...fifty-seven... sixty - chip!...) and people would say that "I only have today" stuff I usually thought, "Yeah, easy for you to say, you've got blankety-blank time sober and your life is looking pretty good." or "They're just saying that so the new people don't feel bad. Inside I bet they are crowing. Crowing!"

And maybe they were. Maybe that was true for them. I can't say (but I doubt it about the crowing).

In my experience, as the days accrue, not quite unnoticed but eventually not greatly noted (like loose change in a jar or all those days in the middle of February) the solidity of AA recovery and the fragility of sobriety become equally apparent.

All those days (it was too weird to type "all those thousands of days" and consider I'm talking about myself) don't mean shit if I don't still, today, do what I did (well I guess now I have to say it) thousands of days ago.

You don't stay clean on yesterday's shower.

You don't stay fit on last month's workout. (This one is a theory-based example for me. I would have had to have worked out last month to be able to write it with real integrity.)

I don't stay sober today on what I did when I was 4,999 days sober, unless I am doing today what I did when I was 4,999 days sober. (Or whatever day. Pick a number.)

Balancing that is the obvious truth that (obviously) the last thirty days of my sobriety are in many ways a substantively different experience than the first thirty days of my sobriety. With practice anyone can become fairly fluent in anything.

With enough utilization of the spiritual toolkit AA lays at our feet a selfish, self-centered, self-deluded and self-destructive Pinocchio of an alcoholic can actually become a real live sober boy.

But there is no way in hell this puppet, so tied by the strings of my addiction to alcohol and drugs (wow, that metaphor really took off for me once I threw it out there in that last sentence. Nice!) could have any kind of grace or sobriety or recovery at all without the help of the great extended 12 Step family accessed through going to AA meetings.

I do not believe I would be sober and happy (and grateful -- which is pretty much Happiness's somewhat quieter twin sister) without AA's 12 Steps and suggestions for living.

I'm probably supposed to thank God for my sobriety as well -- and I do, sincerely -- but God's always worked on me most directly through other people, and so I know that I absolutely would be a far poorer example of a sober man without the sponsors I've had along the way: Roger C., John P., Linda B., Michael S., Robert K.... and most importantly, John S., whose fingerprints are all over my Program and the memory of whom can make me either chuckle or choke up with very little provocation -- and whose wise counsel I still miss every single day. The time and experience and love and guidance and patience (oh dear God, the patience those people had with me) still serves to humble and inspire me.

And there is no doubt at all in my mind, as I am as predisposed to self obsession as any alcoholic (I might tentatively suggest perhaps even more predisposed than most, but then I can easily imagine John S. laughing at the ego and grandiosity of such a statement) that without the people who have allowed me the privilege of sponsoring them I would absolutely not be here and sober today.

Milestones -- big and public or small and private -- prompt in me reflection made up of both comparisons and sentimentality.

So with both in my heart (but no crowing. Honest.) I will watch the odometer roll over and be profoundly grateful to have had those sober days. I sure as hell wouldn't want to repeat some of them, but I sure as hell really am truly grateful for every single one of them.

And most especially of course, coming full circle -- cliche but it couldn't be more true -- I'm grateful for today.

If you are alcoholic, struggling in any way, remember: All you have to do is not pick up the first drink, no matter what. And then, if by the time your head hits the pillow you haven't had a drink, or a drug, or tried to kill yourself, then YOU WIN, and the rest of that shit -- whatever is torturing you right now (which is really just your alcoholism working on you, but more on that another time) -- will just have to work itself out till tomorrow. Today, just for today, I don't pick up the first drink.

I did that, just for today, 9,999 times, yes.

But one of the Great Truths of AA is that if I can do it for just ONE day, then so

can

 you.

 

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants.

 

 

 

 

whatever it takes to get out the door

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you feel like your HP connection is on the fritz,

this is not a bad way to face the day.

Works for me, anyway.

 

 

Cosmic Perspective

 

 

This series of images helps me keep my perspective when something that I know intellectually is not that important somehow still seems to eclipse my better thinking and drag me down to ego and fear.  As I work outward through this cosmic perspective I do not feel smaller or "less than."  What I actually feel is connected, and a part of something vast and unfathomable and miraculous.

After all, the evidence is very strong that every atom in our bodies was once out there, part of the stars... thus, this is not a reductive perspective for me.  It is, instead, evidence that I am more than a speck, suffering with a speck's problems.  I am -- as are we all -- a unique part of an incomprehensible creation... and more will be revealed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

home again home again jiggity-jig

 

 

Wow!

A wonderful weekend of AA and Alanon speakers, meetings and workshops at the Convention (or Roundup, depending on what part of the country you're in) I was lucky enough to go to this weekend.

Much like a gust of wind to a becalmed sailboat, the Roundup was a true boost to my somewhat flagging spirits.  If you've never been to one I urge you to go.  The speakers generally have a great message, and the workshops provide special focus to things every person in recovery should be mindful of.  This convention was especially warm and charming and full of energy, sobriety and affection, and I am deeply grateful I had the opportunity to attend and participate.

 

Something I thought about on the plane home (and I didn't get patted down by TSA at either end of my journey -- is it wrong to feel slightly rejected by that?):

So often, even in sobriety, it can be negative energy which prompts us to action.  The fear, the resentment, push/pulling us out of our complacency and into forward motion.  It's not for nothing the expression is: "Pain is the touchstone of our spiritual growth."

But sitting on the plane (I can still buckle an airplane seatbelt without doing severe injury to internal organs, so there's that, too!), looking out the little window at the clouds and turning the Convention over in my mind -- savoring the various recollections of a weekend spent with a community of sober alcoholics, addicts and alanons coming together in love and service --  I felt reinvigorated and it really struck me that if we remember to open ourselves to it, the positive energy can be as motivating, as much a call to action as the negative.

So if you'll forgive the brush with grandiosity it is for me to amend a classic quotation (just a brush, Mr. SponsorPants?  My, you are doing better!):

 

Pain is the touchstone of our spiritual growth.  Yes.  But not pain alone.

Love too can call our spirits to rise and flourish and move forward with real purpose on our path;

in short, Love is an equal touchstone to our spiritual growth in recovery.

 

 

And if that sounds like pap, like treacle, to you... well, maybe it is.

Or maybe you're just afraid to believe in good things because it's safer to stay in the comfortable, stagnant, boring land of sarcasm and faux sophistication and hide behind the mask of cooler-than-you.  "Cooler-than-you" is at heart a child's evasion.  You might want to look at that.  There is courage in being willing to embrace a message of positivity and hope.  There is courage in being willing to be mocked or minimized for that -- even if the mocking and minimizing is mostly in your own head. (And could that be your alcoholism talking? Using a pitch-perfect impersonation of the voice-in-your-head which will most intimidate you, to keep you from raising your eyes to the next great place of healing for you to achieve?)

Be brave, and keep the faith in good things.

Sober Texting 12

 

 

FORMER SPONSEE:  I don't believe in God anymore.

MR. SPONSORPANTS:  Man, you have a helluva way of saying 'hello.'

FS:  Well I don't.

MR. SP:  Ok.

 

A few minutes go by.

 

FS:  Don't you want to know why?

MR. SP:  No.

More minutes pass.

 

FS:  It's because of everything that happened.

I consider several responses and decide on short and completely honest.  I suppose the word "blunt" is not entirely inaccurate.

MR. SP:  Maybe.

FS:  Maybe?  What the hell does that mean?

MR. SP:  Look, I don't want to play, ok?

FS:  No, tell me what you mean.

MR. SP:  You want to make a speech about God and fairness and ask 'why' a lot and then when I say what I always say -- which is that logic alone will not get you to faith, and if a rigid logic is all you have in times of doubt it will fail you -- then you'll argue with me saying "yeah but..." a lot.

FS:  Wow you sure think you know it all.

MR. SP:  Then you will want to use all of that as a rationalization to do whatever you decided you wanted to do before you ever picked up your phone and texted me.

FS: You know what you are?

MR. SP: Besides fat, middle-aged and tired?

FS:  Funny  Always so funny.  You're arrogant, that's what you are.

MR. SP:  You know, this little back and forth has been great, but I'm going to say goodbye now.

 

I turned off my phone.  It had been a long day and I was tired.  I reserve the right to be totally wrong about every thing I texted.  Ultimately, in my experience, they are an angry individual and I pray for them, but I did my time.  I don't have to dance with them anymore, and I have no more answers and as many doubts and questions as anyone, most days.

Especially these past few days.

But I know that no matter what happens in the world, there is a part of me, beyond the parts of me which are griefstricken or awestruck or amazed or disgusted, which will genuinely use anything at all to justify doing what I secretly really want to do.

And that part of me is the part which is infused with my alcoholism, and whatever doubts or questions I may have on any given day I must guard against that part being the only part making decisions about my actions.

So I guess that, then, is also evidence of something Greater than myself -- some sort of Grace -- since on my own that part is indeed calling the shots, since in the darkest corners of me it's what I want.

This all may read silly but it feels messy and it lives real.

 

to keep people from seeing

Just

because

you

know

a lot

about

sex

doesn't

mean

you know

anything

about

intimacy.

 

In fact, for me, one of the things I learned in the sexual inventory of my 4th Step was how I used sex to avoid intimacy -- in other words, to keep people from seeing Me.

And to keep me from seeing Me, too.

In my experience, when it comes to how alcoholism takes good, healthy things and twists them to its own service in a never-ending drive to isolate the alcoholic, physical intimacy is not about closeness or truth -- or even fun, really.  It's about walls or masks.

 

 

okay, let's try this again

technical difficulties yesterday. let's try this again.

 

It meant going back to work, essentially.  You see, the AA meeting was literally downstairs from where I worked, in the Utility Room of the parking garage of the plaza where the restaurant I manage is located.  After yet another in a long series of long days, the idea of basically turning around and heading back... well, let's just say it pushed at the boundaries of my willingness a little. 

I had some pretty good reasons for begging off, too, although ultimately I knew they were all bullshit.  I just wasn't willing to let go of them right away.  So I sat down on my sofa while the new kittens (Evil Old Cat's ghost lingers, but I'm afraid The Universe would not allow the vacancy to last forever) gamboled about the living room, occasionally deciding that toes in socks needed to be stalked and pounced upon and nipped into submission (Ow! Ow! Take the damn socks then! Ow!) and let the Quiet Voice which knows what's right have a chance to get a word in.  With rather less grace than I'd like to admit I made a few calls about getting a ride to the meeting and texted the Secretary back that of course I would be there.

I was mildly curious about what I'd find -- 10:30pm of a Monday night in a parking garage is an interesting set up for a meeting (though God knows I've spoken in stranger places).  The fact that it was literally under my feet at work and I didn't know about it wasn't that strange -- after all, it's a big city, and there are many meetings to choose from now.  Many orbits along which you can travel -- two people in AA, neighbors, can both go to many meetings in a week and never run into each other anywhere but the laundromat or the mailbox.

All of which is to say that I half knew what to expect:  Likely a small-to-medium sized group, populated by a mixed bag of folks -- some with maybe more issues than just alcoholism -- but an AA meeting none-the-less.  And as my dead sponsor used to say between deep dreadful drags on the cigarettes he loved so much, "all your little get togethers with your sponsees, your fellowshipping, your AA birthday parties, your service, etc. is good.  It's important.  But it's not a meeting.  A meeting is a meeting."

(And it is as true today as it was the first time I wrote it:  I miss his wise counsel, his salty humor, his wry wit, his seemingly endless patience with me and his sharp, helpful insight every single god damn day of my life.)

So a meeting is a meeting and there I sat in front of this one, and my guess as to who would be there and what it was like was pretty close to the mark.  The room was no surprise.  I've spoken there before at other meetings in the past few years.  No matter what people try to do to soften it up a (Christmas Lights festooned across the exposed pipes, the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions hung up on the wall) it still feels like you're in the utility room of a parking garage -- a meeting space with all the comfort of a bucket of gravel.  But a meeting really is a meeting, and it's neither the chairs nor the space which make it happen, it's the program and the people that transform it into a place where people who want to stop drinking, but cannot on their own, may find a solution.

So there were a couple of rows of chairs in front of me, and maybe fifteen or so people in those, and then a row towards the back but off to the side, with another eight or ten people sitting there.

I was tired, and had a little bit of a dirty diaper, spiritually speaking, about the whole thing.  Would that I could walk my talk all the time but

wait, that's totally not fair to myself.  I was there, as I said I'd be.  If I didn't feel as willing as I usually do... well, that's just being human.  "No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints..."

Thus I sat there, feeling less than great or gracious, with maybe just a low grade level of self pity and perhaps a teeny dash of resentment.

"What a fucking waste of time.  I wish I was home.  This won't move anyone much more than an inch towards any kind of solution."  Writing these essays can be a curious blend of striving-for-accurate-recall and trying for worth-reading-story-telling, yet for some strange reason I can tell you clearly that was the exact, strangely-worded thing I thought.

And the Quiet Voice spoke up.

Sometimes that's all it takes.  Just one more inch to get someone to something bigger, or that they needed to reach.  An inch can be all a body needs.

And on the heels of that, in my "own" voice, I thought two things almost at the same time:

"I know that can be true."

and

"Man, my head is a weird place."

So the meeting began, and there were the usual readings to start with, during which I could not help but notice that literally the entire back of the room appeared to be completely engrossed in their cell phone displays, thumbs doing their agile, text-typing dance.

(It just occurred to me that I bet the sport of thumb wrestling has, at the start of the 21st Century, gotten a whole lot more interesting, what with how dexterous everyone is in that regard now.)

And the readings concluded and I started to speak.

I wrote it before and I think I'm sincere when I say it (I think so...) at this point I don't have a lot of ego left to burn off when it comes to speaking at a meeting -- sure, some still, but not a lot.  I've just done it too much, felt good about it and bad, indulged my ego and had it smashed, felt like I was carrying the message or felt like I had just taken off my pants in front of a room full of strangers and was not well received... now it's just an act of service and I'm usually happy to do it but not too wound up one way or another.  People get what they get, hear what they need to, whether it's what you said or not. 

But as I continued to speak, I started to get angry at the people in the back texting.  I don't know if this will make sense, but I was not angry for me, I was angry for the meeting.  And angry for the texters.  It was just... the healing in an AA meeting happens in a number of ways, but whether its through the process of identification or the process of finally feeling like you're being heard by people who really understand and might actually care, the channel along which this medicine is delivered is the act of listening.  And when someone is texting -- not knitting, not staring off into space or holding their head in their hands or staring at the ground -- it's ... it's just different.  Isolative.  Dismissive.  Very much not listening.

I felt a terrible tug of war happen at the start of virtually every sentence.  Go there, or don't go there.  Say something or don't say something.  I have before, in other meetings.  I spoke at one giant Young People's meeting with a somewhat sassy crowd, and whipped around and asked two girls sitting immediately to my right if they would either choose to be quiet or choose to be outside since I was trying to be as honest as possible in a scary situation and their whispers and titters were really distracting.  I've addressed texting at other meetings before too; once when I was speaking and a guy in the first row pulled out his phone and started and I... barked?  snapped?  scolded? that it was going to be hard to focus on sharing if he was going to text right under my nose like that.  And then I apologized to him and the group since the lectern is not a bully pullpit -- another factor at play in my do-I-or-don't-I dance. (And in that instance, when he then got up to share -- since he raised his hand and I called on him right away, figuring that I'd had my shot from the lectern he deserved his -- it became spooky as all hell, since he confessed he had, at that moment, decided to text his dealer, and being called out let the moment pass)...  And the fact that I have before made the tug-of-war all the more intense.  On the tip of my tongue, with almost every breath, trembled a "Seriously?..."  Consequently, what I did share sounded... well, I don't know and that's none of my business -- it was what it was -- but how it felt was that putting so much energy into not saying something left a strange emptiness around what I did say.

What prevented me from going there -- the tiny bead on the scale that kept me tipped into Let It Go -- was the memory of the Quiet Thought I'd had at the beginning of the meeting.  I just knew that if I Went There I would not come back from it -- the whole tenor of what I was talking about would shift, and a somewhat confrontive and possibly ugly vibe would enter the room.

So it became about ignoring my anger (that smoldering coal in the middle of my chest, ready to ignite a much larger fire) and an exercise in paying attention to the people who were listening.

You don't have to have spent much time at the AA Rodeo to know what is at the heart of all this for me:  Fear.  Fear about the meetings being a safe place.  Fear of a tidal change which feels like it could erode something very important to me.  Fear that people aren't doing things the way I think they should do them.  

And I can recognize the fear and strive for acceptance and still also legitimately feel that sitting in an AA meeting and texting away while the person literally sitting next to you is sharing about going through their cancer treatment (which actually happened that very night during the sharing portion of the meeting I am writing about in this essay) is not just rude, or selfish, or insensitive, but actually bad medicine.

Some meetings (as were pointed out in the Comments yesterday) include a statement about texting during the meeting in their format.  That's a good idea I guess... though I wager it wouldn't have made a dent in those people in this group.

  And I'm no fan of meetings having "cops" to enforce very much.  We are not a glum lot, but we are not a well lot either, and to have the openness and acceptance we must to be as inclusive as we are means that when you get down to it there are some messy, messy meetings out there.  But I also know -- as most of you reading this do, too -- that one person's mess is another person's safety and freedom.

Ultimately what this is about is I walked my talk.  I said yes to an AA request, as I had been taught to do by my first sponsor and which has been echoed by every one since that one.  And I have no idea if I helped anyone move even a fraction of an inch along their spiritual path -- and I don't need to.  That's seriously none of my business.

Because even though it can be messy or uncomfortable, and I can have a spiritual dirty diaper or all the grace of a pig on a pogo stick, by saying yes to AA I continue to inch along mine.

 

do nothing for 2 minutes

 

 

 

 

Do Nothing for 2 Minutes

 

 

 

a little nudge

 

 

I was wandering down the aisle at Target not really paying attention to my surroundings, lost in thoughts about work and the terrible behavior of certain customers.  I was tired, having gotten up way too early for a day off, and it was all too easy to drift into resentment colored fantasy.

"Oh! It's you!"

I looked up, and it was one of the regular customers from work -- but not one I had been dwelling on and resenting thinking about.

(The Universe plays cute with me sometimes but not that cute.)

I smiled reflexively, if not entirely sincerely.  "Well hello there."  I said.

"Hello!  You know, I'm glad to run into you... I know you're not at work right now... unless are you working here now too?"

While there is nothing wrong with working at Target -- not one damn thing -- I felt a little flash of irritation.  "Nope."  I said, "Just the restaurant." 

"I just have to tell you..."  And she did.  She spent the next ten minutes telling me how much she liked me, my team, our restaurant, and the food -- in that order.

The friend I was out shopping with wandered up about halfway through this glowing tribute, having gotten lost in the socks section a few aisles back.

"Wow!" he said, after the guest wound down and moved on.  "What the hell was all that?"

"That?" I smiled.  "That was a little nudge from the Universe reminding me that my thinking -- especially when I'm tired -- is usually utter and complete bullshit."

 

 

 

Questions via Email: 3 Part Disease?

 

 

Dear Mr. SP,

I'm new. I hear all the time that it's a 3 part disease but I'm not sure I know what that means. Please don't tell me to look in the Big Book.  Can you please just tell me?

 

Wondering

 

Dear Wondering,

You know, I sponsored someone once who just couldn't understand the Big Book.  It's not that they weren't smart, nor did they lack for willingness.  It's just that they weren't much of a reader, English was their least favorite subject in school (actually, I think school was their least favorite subject in school) and then to top it all off the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (the aforementioned "Big Book") was written in 1938/9, so it's full of early 20th Century slang (like "... the goose hung high..." and "... lest I burst through my window, sash and all..." and "the remonstrances of my friends terminated in a row, and I became a lone wolf."  That last one, by the way, is important if you're new and beginning to identify with some of what you hear in meetings...)  They wanted to read the book, but they needed me to sort of translate it for them.  As intelligent as the were -- and they were -- they couldn't take that writing in with any real comprehension themselves.

All of which is to say that, in my humble opinion there are two kinds of people who have a problem with the Big Book:  The Wont's -- who have issues with sloth, willingness and rebellion (hello... er... almost everybody) and the Cant's (hello... er... almost everybody else). 

So today I'll think of you in the Can't camp and I won't parse out a clever, snarky little anecdote which ultimately scolds you and then tells you to go to the Big Book...

...

...

...

>>>Mr. SponsorPants makes Herculean effort to restrain himself<<<

...

...

...

...(dear God, I think I just pulled something)...

since that's probably not very helpful to you (but damned fun to write, I must confess).

 

In an effort to not drown you in words and information I'll try to keep this bare bones.  I'll just give you what I understand this 3 Part business to mean:

 

Alcoholism is a three-fold disease:  Body, mind and spirit.  Physical, mental and spiritual is how it is also often spoken about.

When an alcoholic ingests alcohol, there is a physically rooted craving for more which is triggered. That's the "body" part of the disease.  Today's medical technology can map brain activity and give a diagnosis around addiction which talks about "serotonin production" and "serotonin uptake" and some other cool stuff, but for you and me, the word "craving" can serve as a perfectly accurate label for the hard science.  And just to be clear, a "craving" is not just a fancy way of saying "I want" -- we're not talking about the desire to keep your buzz going once you start drinking.  We're talking about a literally physically driven reaction to the alcohol separate from the high and different from just the generally lowered inhibitions alcohol engenders.  The difference between a desire and a craving is like the difference between a wave and a tsunami.  There are some similarities, but one of them is always going to be irresistible.

And no matter how horrible the consequences of their drinking becomes, an alcoholic is not able to use the idea, or the memory, or the thought of those consequences to influence our decision making enough to prevent us from eventually picking up a drink all over again -- and then triggering that physically rooted craving.  On the most basic level that's the mental part of the disease.

The spiritual part of the disease refers to the staggering level of self-involvement (bordering on narcissism) that most alcoholics have.  Life is not all about us; life is all about us. Every relationship and event is viewed through a backwards and distorted lens -- like how in ancient times people thought the Sun revolved around the Earth, alcoholics believe everything revolves in some way around us.

Thus it is the one-two punch from the self-centeredness of the spiritual aspect and the (sometimes-but-not-always-willful) blind spot of the mental element which keeps most alcoholics on a cycle of drinking which, in both my observation and personal experience, never seems to lead to a healthy, happy, fulfilling life.

 

That help?

 

Cheers!

Mr. SponsorPants