Mr. SponsorPants

Sometimes I think about how much time I spent drinking

 

 

Sometimes I think about how much time I spent drinking,

stuck in the bar, stuck in the bottle; trapped in the infinity doomloop of self-obssession and chemically altered thoughts.

But I don't think of it as time wasted

(see what I did there?)

though it does occasionally take my breath away when I think about the sheer volume of hours days weeks years spent in sickness.

 

The AA literature suggests that we "do not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it."

Sometimes when people reference that bit of the lit they sound as though they are following (or issuing) an order.

But it's not.

Not regretting the past, nor wishing to shut the door on it, is not an order to follow -- it is a result.  Specifically the result of working the 12 Steps (and, not to put too fine a point on it, a particular result promised before you are "half way through" Step 9.)

 

For me, this result is also rooted in the beginning of the 12 Steps, and understanding the disease concept of alcoholism.

To express how I understand this with a metaphor:

Someone who spent the first 20 years of their life in a wheelchair may think wistfully about what it might have been like to grow up free from that confinement -- but they probably don't get angry with themselves for not having spent their childhood in ballet or track -- because it's not that they didn't do those things (and thus "wasted" that time/opportunity), it's that they couldn't do those things.

The same is true for me when I understand the disease concept of alcoholism, and when I take the first step in understanding how powerless I am over it.  It's not that I didn't do healthier, better things -- it's that at that time in my life I couldn't do them.

 

And finally,

I had to have been who I was to be who I am.

And if I like who I am now, then nothing that happened before is really worth regretting.

 

Doctor Bob's 3rd Step Prayer

Bill W. and Dr. Bob were the two co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Bill is perhaps slightly better known, but Bob was certainly as instrumental as Bill in helping to set the stage for what has become AA as we know it today.

Regarding the 3rd Step ("Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him") what the Big Book says about this Step (and by extrapolation -- for me -- all prayer) is that "The wording was, of course, quite optional so long as we expressed the idea, voicing it without reservation."   And so while I have come to find the 3rd Step Prayer printed in the Big Book to be just about perfect, I think it's well worth reflecting on Bob's more personal version.

I'm particularly fond of the line: "I'm not sure I want You to, but do it anyhow." 

On many some days I can only say to that, "Amen, Bob.  A-frickin'-men."

 

 

Dear God,
I'm sorry about the mess I've made of my life.
I want to turn away from all the wrong things I've ever done and all the wrong things I've ever been. Please forgive me for it all.
I know You have the power to change my life and can turn me into a winner. Thank You, God for getting my attention long enough to interest me in trying it Your way.
God, please take over the management of my life and everything about me. I am making this conscious decision to turn my will and my life over to Your care and am asking You to please take over all parts of my life.
Please, God, move into my heart. However You do it is Your business, but make Yourself real inside me and fill my awful emptiness. Fill me with your love and Holy Spirit and make me know Your will for me. And now, God, help Yourself to me and keep on doing it. I'm not sure I want You to, but do it anyhow.
I rejoice that I am now a part of Your people, that my uncertainty is gone forever, and that You now have control of my will and my life. Thank You and I praise Your name. Amen.

 

 

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

 

immunity

 

"Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other  alcoholics.  It works when other activities fail." -- Alcoholics Anonymous (AA's Big Book) pg. 89

 

It is the cosmic punchline:

I sponsor not to save others, but to save myself.  Thus, every single experience I've had with a sponsee -- whether they drank or recovered -- has been a success; because I've stayed sober.

I started sponsoring people because it was what I was told I needed to do.

Then I did it because I wanted to look good.

And then I did it because I believed in what I was doing, and I started to care.

And so the spoiled, terrified, self-centered, drunken boy who stumbled into AA thawed, grew up, and discovered first hand what many wise people from hundreds of cultures over thousands of years already knew:  Selfless service, with as little ego involved as is humanly possible, is the most potent and miraculously transformative agent in the Universe.

 

In my experience...

 

 

In my experience, people who fancy themselves as the kind of person who "tells it like it is," (and they are always describing themselves that way "You know, I'm the kind of person who tells it like it is. It's just who I am!") are rarely the type of person who can ever actually hear it like it is.

 

"When a person offended we said to ourselves, 'This is a sick man.  How can I be helpful to him?  God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.'"  -- Big Book, pg. 67

 

"What an order! I can't go through with it!" -- Big Book, pg. 60

"You can say that again."  -- Mr. SponsorPants, about 2:45pm, earlier in the day.

 

Cheers!

Questions via Email: Too literal

 

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

"But what about where the book says..."

"You said X, but 'The Doctor's Opinion' says Y but then in Chapter 5 it says Z..."

"I find the following pages to be contradictory in that..."

"The Big Book says 'we know only a little...' how can I trust..."

-- from a half dozen or so emails in the last couple of months.

 

People!  People!  I applaud your eagle eyes, your combing the literature for guidance, your... wait, are you combing the literature for guidance?  Or are you indulging some contrary impulse to find a way to prove to yourself that this information doesn't work, or doesn't apply to you?

Individually, each point raised has some truth to it, and merits discussion.  Absolutely we should look at AA literature with a critical, questioning eye.  What better way to fully understand what it suggests we do to get sober, so we can then apply those ideas throughout all the ups and downs of our daily lives?

Balancing that, however, and what has worked best for me over the years, is to make sure I eventually take my eye away from the microscope and view the entire picture.  To grasp the spirit of a point, rather than argue one specific element.

The Big Book is a map, or like a cook book, in that it gives clear instructions -- in this case, though, instructions on how to get from your sucky, blackout-ridden (or blackout-impending), downward spiral of an alcoholic life to something much brighter, higher functioning and more fulfilling -- not just released from alcoholism's terrible choke hold on the mind but actually joyous and free (most days).

You wouldn't get very far in a recipe if you set out to make a cake and when you get to the part that says "add two cups of sugar" you stop everything and go, "But what about diabetics?  Or what about people on a diet?" and then use that as a jumping off point: "If this recipe includes sugar, yet doesn't address diabetics and dieters... why, it makes me doubt the value of this whole cookbook!"

I mean, come on.

Yes, think critically and ask questions -- but watch out for indulging in hypotheticals which might obfuscate (good word!) the spirit of whatever larger point is being made.

Read with a questioning eye, but don't get too literal.

A Higher Power as you understand them...

Recovering Jezebel posted this in the comment section recently:

So I've been wanting to ask you this anyway -- everyone keeps telling me, about my crappy Higher Power, "Fire that Higher Power and get a new one!"  But *how* do I do that?  Because I get it that I can't take Step Three with my current God [Mr. SP edit: Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him] with my current God, who is, I'm pretty convinced, just in it to screw me over six ways from Sunday, and then hide behind the proscenium laughing into Their sleeve.  But what's the technique or practice for making up a God I like?  If I just make up a pretty and kind and friendly God, how will I ever be able to believe in Them, since they're patently nothing more than a mere creation of my own little pathetic pea-brain?  So confusing.

Great question, R.J., one I think most people who embrace/try/reject/mock/love/hate the 12 Steps ask in one way or another -- that is, it's nearly impossible to come across the phrase "as you understood Him," and receive AA's blank check when it comes to a concept of God, and not puzzle over how to make this process real.

Let me tell you up front that this essay is probably going to let you down.  That is, I can pretty much guarantee that the feverish metaphysical musings of one relatively crackpot middle-aged alcoholic is unlikely to achieve any spiritual insights greater than those already mused by most of humanity, which has been tilting at this particular windmill since we first crawled out of the cave and began to wonder at the world around us (and within us). 

To state the obvious for a moment, many people subscribe to a particular religious doctrine which supplies a ready-made definition of God -- you may not like it, but at least it's there, clearly defined, complete with rules and conditions, do's and don'ts.  Against this specific picture, AA's carte blanche is baffling to many.

Though I've walked this road myself, and I sincerely want to help, it may be that not all of my experience in this will work for you -- I offer it freely, though, and remind you that the one sure-fire way to have an open mind is the word "maybe."  Maybe something here is right, and will work for you if you try it. 

("Whatcha doin'?"  "Building my Higher Power."  "Really?"  "Yeah."  "Wow!  Well, ummm, be sure and lift with your legs.  I can't even begin to imagine what a spiritual hernia would look like.")

Doing this is, of course, deeply sacrilegious to some people in the world, and in keeping with AA's general spirit of "no controversy" I apologize if anything I write here offends anyone.  To borrow one of my favorite lines from the Big Book, a discussion like this "... immediately precipitates us into a seething cauldron of debate."  (It's so dramatic and a little poetic - I just love it).  But that is not my intent -- this is just a recollection of what has helped me excavate a lot of tired old ideas about God (which I didn't even know I had and ran deeper than I realized), and what I did to begin to embrace new ideas which have brought me much peace and guidance, and sometimes a feeling of blissful connection with a power greater than myself, over the years.

First, though, a story about my dead cat.

(And let me apologize for this, too, as we come perilously close to too too twee when we bring pets into writings about God and such.)

Baxter was a dog-cat, and I had him for many years.  A dog-cat is a cat that comes when you call, let's you rub their tummy without incident, is friendly to strangers who come over, might even play fetch, etc. etc.  (Words cannot begin to describe the disdain Evil Old Cat had for Baxter while he was alive.)  Sitting and reading one time, I watched Baxter engage with a dribble of water from the bathtub faucet.  It occurred to me then, watching him, that he could experience that water with his cat senses in a way I could not -- that is, he had a particular way of understanding the water.  But then I thought about how I understood the water: How I knew about the fact that it could be liquid, solid or gaseous, how it was comprised of two hydrogen molecules and one molecule of oxygen, that it came into my home via a system of pipes handed down from the ancient Roman aqueducts ... etc., etc., etc.   Baxter had an understanding of the water, but his brainpan just wasn't big enough to grasp 1/1000th of what there was to know about it.

I keep Baxter and the water in mind whenever I try to wrap my mind around the Divine.  While I may have a particular way of understanding it, my brainpan just isn't big enough to grasp more than the most limited conceptualization -- at best I will only come to an understanding so finite as to be almost a distortion of the Ultimate Truth.

So relax -- we're never going to really get it -- the best we can do is find some crude analogies which open our hearts to a new understanding  of spiritual principles and maybe clear away some old ideas planted by lots of other people and things (the religion of our childhood, books, movies, TV shows, friends and enemies, billboards and greeting cards) which maybe don't apply to us at all (regardless of how much conviction those other people may have about their beliefs for themselves).

Now, for me, if I want new ideas, then I need new words and images.  I need a new language to describe the thing I've been thinking about -- especially when it comes to God.  I've written before (here and here) about Daniel Ladinsky's translations of (mostly) eastern poems about God, found in the book "Love Poems from God" (which, when you're frightened and seeking spiritual solace is a title which you embrace eagerly, but when you're feeling cool and on your game is the kind of thing you roll your eyes at). I am not saying this book alone will help you re-define your understanding of God -- I'm saying that it helped me.  It might not speak to you -- the bigger point here is that if you want to find new ways of thinking about God go to new sources and see what resonates for you.  That's all.

But since I got my copy of that book down, let me share two things from it which have always stayed with me.

The first is from Meister Eckhart, a monk who lived around the 12th and 13th Centuries.  It is a small thing, and it comes back to me often:

It is a lie -- any talk of God that does not comfort you.

That's it.  A small thing.  A small thing which rocked my world one day.

And then this, from Hafiz, the Persian poet who lived in the 14th Century, entitled "Two Giant Fat People":

God

and I have become

like two giant fat people living

in a tiny

boat.

We

keep bumping into

each other

and

laughing.

What a jolly, poetic, ridiculous image!  What a wise metaphor to illustrate, when I have eyes to see it, all the tiny moments in my day when I feel some Divine Hand guiding me.  To think of the moments when I "bump into God" with silliness and joy -- to think of God feeling silliness and joy -- that's the way I needed to start thinking about my Higher Power.

Also, something which sounds twee (there's that word again) but was very helpful to me for a while, is to stop giving God a penis.  I cannot escape the influence of the culture in which I have lived my whole life.  And this culture, Western culture, has a particular set of qualities which it values as masculine, and a particular set of qualities it thinks of as feminine.  Without getting into a debate about gender dynamics or cultural norms, I think it would be fair to say that if you listed a bunch of characteristics on a page, most Westerners would be in agreement over certain ones being masculine or feminine.  I'm not suggesting that, when people in a meeting say the Lord's Prayer, you make a big deal out of saying "Our MOTHER who art in Heaven..."  For me, though, thinking about God in the feminine was a good way to begin to think of a loving God, as opposed to a more judgmental one.  (Today I do not ascribe a particular gender to God at all, but you can mostly blame the Hubble Telescope for that -- after looking at those gorgeous pictures of the universe and beyond, the idea that Whatever made all that has a particular gender seemed, for me, quite ludicrous.)  But for the umpteenth time I want to stress that I do not think you should or should not believe what I believe.  I'm just saying that, silly as it sounds (and I know it does indeed sound very, very silly), looking at how I felt about male vs. female archetypes helped me begin to deconstruct some of my fears and negative ideas about God.

 

A few more thoughts and a concrete suggestion or two.

R.J., you wrote, "...If I just make up a pretty and kind and friendly God, how will I ever be able to believe in Them, since they're patently nothing more than a mere creation of my own brain..."

With respect I submit to you that you are already doing that.  You've made up a mean and unjust God who's out to get you -- but that is merely a creation of your own brain.  Don't tell me it's from this Sacred Text or that Learned Elder.  It's your brain, you're the one thinking it and dwelling on it.  The tough question to ask yourself (and I'm afraid it begs another even tougher one in a moment) is this:

Do you always assume that the negative voice is inherently more true than the positive one?  That is a mistake many people make.  Because I am sure that, in AA, you have met people who have suggested a definition of God which is quite, as you say, "pretty and kind and friendly."  But since they're describing a "nice" God you don't believe them, but when someone/something else describes a "mean" God you do believe them?  Believing the negative voice is inherently more true than the positive one, is, I assure you, merely a trick of perception.  The existence of the half of the glass which is empty does not negate the truth of the half that is full.  They are equally real.  It is only our mind which dismisses one and values the other.

And I am sorry, it is not my intent to imply anything nor am I trying to be snarky or offend, but that question does beg this one as well, offered only for your consideration, feel free to dismiss it as I do not know you personally, so I could be way off base: 

Is investing in the belief that God is out to get you ("...screw me over six ways from Sunday...") a device to perpetuate some kind of victim role, cosmically speaking?

Because another way in which I have been able to redefine "God as I understand God" was to pull the camera back somewhat, and not evaluate each individual twist of Fate as a Good thing or a Bad thing per se, but try and take a longer view.  This is a little hokey, but is a good illustration of what I mean.  Yes, sometimes bad things happen -- but sometimes things happen and I decide they are bad, which can feed the victim-loop in my head.

Now, if you're really serious about this trying to "fire" your old Higher Power and begin to find a new one, here is what you do:

Get a notebook, a highlighter, a pen and your Big Book.

Read Chapter 4, "We Agnostics," and after each paragraph, write in the notebook what you think the book was saying, and then what you think and how you feel about what the book was saying.  Then use the highlighter to mark all of the things which particularly strike you -- either that you especially like or you especially hate (cause I learn from both).  Don't let this suggestion overwhelm you -- it doesn't have to be this dreadful, arduous homework assignment.  Try a page a day.  There are 14, actually (if you count not the leaves in the book but each side of text).  If you do that, and sincerely ask God to open your eyes and your mind, in two weeks you will have a beginning -- maybe a very strong beginning -- on a path towards a Higher Power of your understanding which is indeed one you can come to trust and even feel a deep and powerful love from.

Sorry, one last thing:

Remember, if, by the end of the night, you don't drink, or use, or kill yourself, YOU WIN.  There is no "wrong" way to do any of this spiritual pursuit -- you aren't in a contest, you aren't in a race, your path and your process need not satisfy anyone else's measure or criteria.  For each 24 hours you just don't pick up the first drink, and if you do that and keep going to meetings the rest of this stuff will absolutely work itself out.

R.J., I hope some of this was helpful, and as always, thank you for reading and your wonderful comments.

Cheers!

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

It used to be on page 449

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today." -- "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book), pg. 417, from the story "Acceptance Was The Answer"

It used to be on page 449.

And the story used to be called "Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict."

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

For the new kids, AA's Big Book is in its 4th Edition.  The first 164 pages have been virtually unchanged from the book's first printing in 1939.  Following that are "personal stories" from a variety of people who found they could not control their drinking and discovered a solution in AA.  At the most practical level these stories are included so that if someone has the book, but there are no meetings available, they have the chance to hear a variety of people share about their drinking and recovery, and perhaps that will help them determine if they, too, are alcoholic, and then help them decide if there might be something in AA for them as well.  As time has passed it was deemed necessary to replace some of the personal stories in the back of the book to reflect both a new audience reading it and the broader membership of AA as a whole.

The story "Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict" was added in the 3rd edition (the one I got sober with) and was written by a man who became known as "Dr. Paul."  He and his wife Maxine were regular attendees of a meeting I went to when I was newly sober, and I often heard one or the other of them speak (more Paul than Max, unless it was a double-bill at a convention, as she was Al-Anon).  Although one facet of our principle of anonymity is that we are all equal in meetings, we're also only human, and as his story in the book became more of a focus for people Dr. Paul was sometimes quietly lauded to a degree which I think made him a little uncomfortable.

People became so fond of the sentiment and the story that in the 4th edition the title was changed to "Acceptance Was The Answer" (just in case you somehow missed the point on your own some helpful alcoholics decided to underscore it for you).  Of course with changes in which stories were included -- some few were removed and some added -- the page numbers in the story section of the book changed, thus the acceptance quote is now found on 417.

Dr. Paul was a very funny speaker; smart, self-depreciating, wise... I don't think I ever did more than go up and thank him for speaking when he chaired a meeting, I was too shy to do more than that.  At first the inclusion of his story in the Big Book was apparently a bit controversial in some quarters, as he discusses a good deal of drug usage in it, but over time its wisdom and message won many fans, and it became one of the most often quoted stories in the book:  "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today." people would say.  A lot.  I even saw vanity plates and bumper stickers which said "Page 449!" and the like.  (I assume they all had to run to the DMV and get new plates when the 4th edition came out).

It drove me bonkers.

As with any spiritual axiom, there is a profound truth at its heart, but the more people throw it at you the easier it is to "yeah, but what about..." yourself into a kind of contrary madness.

"Acceptance is the answer to all my problems?  Oh, am I supposed to accept the Nazi's?  Am I supposed to accept domestic violence?  Am I supposed to accept the exploitation of children?  Elder abuse?  Am I supposed to accept ..." 

Oh for God's sake shut up.  Of course not.

There's only one spiritual axiom I know of which can survive the avalanche of hypotheticals from a person determined to be closed-minded and contrary.  But I'll get to that in a minute.

What drove me bonkers about this bit of spiritual wisdom, aside from the low grade pious schmuckery of the people who would sometimes try and slather it all over everything you shared with them, was how easy it was for me to abuse this sentiment.

After many (many) mistakes and a lot of inventory work, this is what I have learned:

Yes, on a spiritual level, acceptance is key to balance and serenity, and as such it is a principle which is an excellent touchstone for hyper-sensitive, melodramatic, resentment-prone alcoholics.

But...

Stuffing how you feel is not acceptance.  ("Fine!  I'm fine with that!  I'm in total acceptance!")

Low grade denial is not acceptance.  ("You know what?  It's really not that big a deal, I'm cool.")

Avoidance is not acceptance.  ("I just need to let this situation be, and practice acceptance.")

To leave it at that without offering an idea about how to discern (for example) when I'm stuffing versus accepting makes the above nothing but a cheap word game.

So I must tell you that, for me, first it has been inventory writing (especially many 10th Steps), then sharing with friends and sponsors, and then listening for that Little Voice inside -- so wee and soft sometimes it's very hard to hear beneath the clamor of my ego and the charming banter of my addiction -- which has helped me find my way to some insight on acceptance.

If you think you can't write your way into some clarity via an inventory because you're not sure on how to do it, then ask for help.

If you secretly think that there's nothing which will be revealed via writing that you don't already know, then you better pray for help. 

Acceptance is an answer to many things for alcoholics -- it is a powerful, profound spiritual tool.  Just make sure what you're doing is accepting.

Oh, and that one bit of spiritual wisdom which can withstand any amount of hypothetical bombardment?

Breathe.

My 4th Least Favorite Paragraph in The Big Book

Honest-to-God, I hadn't planned on this becoming a series.

Plus, I'm hedging some in the title of this post.  Really, it's about my 4th least favorite paragraphs -- it's more than just one little paragraph.

 

This is all in Chapter 9 of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book).  Chapter 9 is entitled 'The Family Afterward' and the bulk of the chapter is a discussion of how the newly sober "Dad" and his family -- scarred by Dad's drinking -- is going to handle things as Dad tries to work the 12 Steps and live the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous in his home.

First, some context:

As I've said before, for me personally I think it's important to consider the era in which this was written.  For the most part I find the Big Book to be overwhelmingly inclusive and open minded -- amazingly so for something written by a bunch of straight white middle-aged Midwestern men (for the most part) in 1939 Ohio.  But for me where the age they lived in really colors the language is in the discussions of family dynamics -- expressed in very specific gender roles -- and dear God, the hokey slang is no help either.  Here's a great example of some of this, from pg. 131:

"... his drinking placed him constantly in the wrong.  Mother made all the plans and gave the directions.  When sober, father usually obeyed.  Thus mother, through no fault of her own, became accustomed to wearing the family trousers.  Father, coming suddenly to life again, often begins to assert himself.  This means trouble, unless the family watches for these tendencies in each other and comes to a friendly agreement about them."

Yowza!

I like to look past the specific gender phrasing to the spirit of what that says, which (to me) is something along the lines of:

When one partner in a family is completely debilitated by their alcoholism, all the responsibilities and decisions fall unfairly on the other partner's shoulders.  A pattern is then set, which, when the sober alcoholic begins to come back to life, will need to be renegotiated -- and both partners will need to watch themselves and each other, committing to keeping their cool and talking things through, now that the drunk is in recovery and the old, sick dynamic no longer fits.

Again, that's just what it says to me -- I make no claim as to being an official translator of 1939 colloquialisms or Big Book philosophy.

But we're not even up to my 4th least favorite paragraph yet -- this is just clearing the ground some.  It's important for me to say that this chapter has real wisdom in it, but in its discussion of family dynamics and the alcoholic, the language is what one might expect of those people in that time, and thus, to find the wisdom and how it applies to us in 2010 one must look past the old timey allusions to whatever point they were trying to make.

Okay, here it is.  Pg. 135, the last page of the chapter in fact:

"Here is a case in point:  One of our friends is a heavy smoker and coffee drinker.  There was no doubt he over-indulged.  Seeing this, and meaning to be helpful, his wife commenced to admonish him about it.  He admitted he was overdoing these things, but frankly said that he was not ready to stop.  His wife ... nagged, and her intolerance finally threw him into a fit of anger.  He got drunk.

Of course our friend was wrong -- dead wrong.  He had to painfully admit that and mend his spiritual fences.  Though he is now a most effective member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he still smokes and drinks coffee, but neither his wife nor anyone else stands in judgment.  She sees she was wrong to make a burning issue out of such a matter when his more serious ailments were being rapidly cured."

The point here is about priorities, and also perhaps that AA is not about becoming perfect.

But that's not what troubles me about this.

Every time I read it with a sponsee or hear it in a book study I flash on my dead sponsor, the late, great John S., who would, after hearing whatever dramatic tale of triumph or heartache from me, often take a long hit on his cigarette, unconsciously smooth his toupee a little bit, kind of squint one eye and say, "Yeah, but what are you getting out of it?"

Which is to say he had -- and instilled in me -- a deep suspicion of the alcoholic's ability to manipulate.  (The book "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" puts this beautifully, calling it "hiding a bad motive under a good one" -- though in that discussion its about self-deception more than anything else.)  It's not my intent to make any non-alcoholics cynical or paranoid when dealing with alcoholics (really? well, too late, Mr. SP!).  But I have a deep respect -- and real fear -- regarding the insidious nature of alcoholism and its ability to blind alcoholics to our own deeper motives, or, worse yet, rather than hide them from ourselves, justify them.

In this story I can't help but notice that at the end of it, the alcoholic got what he wanted.  Funny how that happens sometimes. 

Now, in Chapter 8 of the Big Book, "To Wives" and also in many places in this chapter, the point is made that some alcoholics are not going to "come to Jesus."  For example, in "To Wives" it says (pg. 108):

"There is an important exception to the foregoing. We realize some men are thoroughly bad-intentioned, that no amount of patience will make any difference.  An alcoholic of this temperament may be quick to use this chapter as a club over your head.  Don't let him."

In other words, for all its talk of healing, hope and Higher Powers the Big Book is not naive about alcoholics or human nature. 

And if there's one thing I've learned from blogging its that sometimes to make a point well you must make only the one point, and set aside, in that particular bit of writing, all the additional "on the other hands" and "sometimes though"... so in the story of the nagging wife and the smoking coffee drinker just the one point is made, about perspective and priorities.

But -- even though the book is quick to label the alcoholic "dead wrong" for using the anger from being nagged as justification for drinking -- it rankles me a little that, at the end of the day, he got what he wanted, which was to smoke and drink coffee with impunity -- and not only that, one could extrapolate that he did set up a bit of an invisible club over his wife's head when it came to further nagging feedback.

I'm grateful to my dead sponsor, he whose wise counsel I miss every single day, for giving me such a jaundiced eye regarding alcoholics and our ability to somehow, after all the dust settles, get our way.  I think it's helped me guide some sponsees to the heart of a few issues, and most definitely its led me to be ruthless in regularly asking myself "what am I getting out of it?"

Because in so doing, what I'm getting out of it is sobriety.

My 3rd Least Favorite Paragraph in The Big Book

For a book I credit with laying out a road map which transformed my life, there are a few paragraphs that, for whatever reason, drive me nuts.

I've already written about my Least Favorite Paragraph, and about my 2nd Least Favorite Paragraph ... so now it's time for my 3rd:

"The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others.  Hearts are broken.  Sweet relationships are dead.   Affections have been uprooted.  Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil.  We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough.  He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined.  To his wife, he remarked, "Don't see anything the matter here, Ma.  Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?"  --  "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) Chapter 6, 'Into Action,' pg. 82

Oh, if only they hadn't said the word "Ma" in talking to his wife.  That, followed so closely by "ain't," is just ... most modern readers get lost in either eye rolling or giggles.

I'm not being critical of the Big Book for using language which was commonplace in their region and their time.  That's like judging Shakespeare for not having Hamlet say "Should I chill, or should I just kill myself?  That's what I'm obsessing over." instead of "To be, or not to be.  That is the question."  Language changes.  And there are many places where I find the way the Big Book puts something to be not just illustrative, but moving.

For example, I will always love:

"It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness.  To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while."  --  Big Book, Ch. 5, 'How it Works' pg. 66

How evocative, how apt, how brilliant is both the point and the way it's made.  Truly, "squander" in this context gives one pause to think back on all the times when we could have been enjoying life, but instead were lost in our heads, gnashing our teeth and rehashing old fights, or worse, making speeches during imaginary new ones.  (A personal favorite of mine.  I always know I'm not on the beam when I am in the middle of a huge fight -- that never happened.)

There's nothing "wrong" with the way The Big Book is written, but the point in my 3rd least favorite paragraph on pg. 82 is so important, so critical, and the storm analogy is so perfect (not like in my least favorite paragraph, where the analogy really hijacks the point they're trying to make), that it's a damn shame the antiquated phrases in use here have the double whammy of being particularly old/hokey.

Take the corn-pone dialog away for a moment and (maybe when they were writing this they'd just come back from seeing "The Wizard of Oz" and had Uncle Henry and Auntie Em in their heads -- if I'm not mistaken, the timing lines up on that.  But I've already done a Wizard of Oz rant) what this paragraph is really talking about is amends -- and in my humble opinion is the jumping off point for the idea of Living Amends.

"We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough."

Ya think?

I believe that what the Big Book is expressing here is that just getting sober, just not drinking, does not even come close to balancing the scales for all the horrible toxic behavior we pulled when we drank.  The people close to us may be so relieved that we've finally stopped getting worse that we may get a bit of a pass from them on things past -- but if we do, we can't take it.  We have to make the rest of it right -- not just because it's the right thing to do -- and it is -- but because if we don't we'll drink again.

(Some alcoholics will use newfound sobriety as a way to subtly blackmail people into not holding them accountable, since if we get too upset we might drink again -- which is bullshit, in this context.  Kind of like the resentment fueled con:  "I'll show you!  I'll hurt me!  Then you'll be sorry!" Using someone's love for us as a way to punish them is one of the oldest alcoholic tricks.  We're not bad people getting good, we're sick people getting well... but that's a very fine distinction, on occasion.)

Just because the storm of our active alcoholism has passed -- just because those winds have stopped blowing (and there's a full-of-hot-air joke in there somewhere) -- that's only the start of making things right.  In no way is it enough on its own.

To me, that's what the paragraph is suggesting, "aint's" and "Ma's" and all.