Month: November 2006

Truth and Dare

It is difficult for a newly sober alcoholic to be honest. Doing so is a real act of courage. For me dishonesty was a way of life and an ingrained habitat.
I often lied whether I needed to or not. I thought it was best to hide who I was, from others and from myself. Even if I did not need to take advantage of someone at the moment, if they did not know what I was really about this might put me in the best position take advantage of them at some future time. Lying was part of who I was, a strategy to survive, and a mechanism to keep me from not seeing how insane my drinking was.

Being honest was plain scary…

-I could not drink safely? I did not know how to live without drinking. What was I going to do now?

-I was not able to manage my life as well as I thought? With my poor ability to seek counsel about my affairs, I could only wonder as to what was to become of me if I could not figure out what to do on my own.

-How I lived and acted played a large part in that foreboding gloom that hung over me when I was not drinking? A tough blow, considering I always wanted to blame anything or anybody for all of my seeming misfortunate and bad luck.

An interesting thing about becoming more honest was that every truth that came up and out provided an opportunity. I was daring to challenge my bad habitats, faulty logic, and shaky rules I had lived by. If I believed I could not safely drink – what then were my real options? If I was the author of my own misery – what could I do to start to contribute to my creating a better life? AA showed me there were answers to these questions I had and problems I faced.
Most of this daring honesty started by looking at my self deception. As I began to face up to the reality of what I had become, and let a few people I came to trust help me, I was then better able to apply my honesty to my dealings with others.

When I was drinking I had learned to be a con, a liar, and a cheat. Not all the time with everybody but my psyche was definitely imbued with ideas about how I could get by, over, and through obstacles in the way that was easiest for me. This generally did not include considering anyone else in my plans other than in how they could help me. Today I can plainly write these words and know that was the truth. Thankfully I do not live that way anymore. Working the steps and not drinking has worked wonders on bringing my thinking around to wanting to be honest, rather than a deceptive jerk that disregards who and what is around me. My life has also been changed by my seeking out the companionship of healthy people who are striving to live a principled, good life.

It took a lot of honesty back then to dare myself to change large parts of my life. This process still continues today. Alcoholics Anonymous has provided me with many tools and the support I need to continue living this way. At first it was really hard to be honest and it probably took the most courage when I was just starting out. Today it is may be more challenging to be honest when it comes to looking at my own life, rather than just being hard to do, because my life is not such an obvious mess. Fear still plays its part in holding me back in looking at certain areas of my life but I do have my faith to fall back on. Even so, my quirks and shortcomings are more nuanced, my life is more comfortable, and in some ways I don’t feel the pressure of desperation pushing me to change like I once did. One day at a time I keep trying to be honest and dare to root out those things that hold me back from being happy, joyous, and free.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

My first AA meeting

Alcohol and drugs had been a great way to avoid dealing with my emotions for a long time. After being dry for a few days I was not that good at figuring out how I felt. With what I know today, and having had similar feelings for a long time both in and out of meetings during that time in my life, I now know that I was very anxious, scared, and uncomfortable at my first meeting (and for many more meetings after that!).

There were some other things going on with me besides being nervous and scared. I was desperate to have some things be different in my life and I also felt horribly beaten. The latter was a sense of dejection that I could not take care of my own life. I finally knew that I could not control my drinking or drugging – and – that my lack of control was becoming increasingly dangerous.

My desperation and dejection left me with a pervasive, oppressive gloom that hung over me almost all of the time. My attempt to get help was to check myself into a treatment program. This was what the doctor had suggested, my first day sober, as I lay in intensive care (which is a whole other story).

As a newly admitted out patient I started going to a treatment facility during the day, five days a week. This was all new ground for me as I did not know anything about treatment or AA or the 12 steps of recovery. The staff strongly encouraged everyone to go to meetings. Since they were taking the inpatient folks to meetings every evening all I had to do was go back to the treatment facility at night and I could ride along with the other patients. It seemed it was worth a shot, especially since I had no idea what to do myself.

The first meeting I was taken to was a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I experienced no great revelations but it was Ok, besides the fact I felt like I was ready to crawl out of my skin. I was a smoker then and you could still smoke in a lot of places in 1987. I sat there, said nothing, and smoked. It was a big comfort to me that I could follow my treatment friends around when we got there and when we left. I did not have to think about anything, just follow their lead.

The next night I was taken to a Cocaine Anonymous meeting. Because I lived in a large city there were a lot of, and all kinds of, recovery meetings in the area. Who knew? Not me because I had never really heard of AA or any of these other recovery fellowships. This time I had some idea of what to expect from a recovery meeting. I listened, followed my friends around, smoked cigarettes, and did not say much.

The next night it attended my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Nothing remarkable happened. My feelings and actions were similar to the previous evening. The one difference was there were more people talking about sobriety relative to the previous two meetings. This was something that quickly became important but I will have to talk about that in another post.

In just three nights I had covered a lot of new ground. I was introduced to three recovery fellowships. By the time I got to my first AA meeting, my being scared and nervous had not subsided much but I did know that I could easily go back to more meetings. I did not feel threatened or bothered by anything that I had seen or heard. There was nothing about the meetings per se that was scaring me. I just felt that way as a part of how I reacted to most situations, especially something new. Nothing was required of me at the meetings I attended. That was good because there was a part of me that thought I should know everything. I did not want to look bad, or look like I did not know what to do. Just showing up, sitting down, and listening was fine. I could handle that Ok. I also had a sense that it would be good for me to go to meetings. Like the treatment program I was attending, people were talking about recovery and sobriety. Much of what was being thrown at me did not make much sense yet but I could perhaps learn more if I kept attending.

What happened after these first few meetings? One thing I had done well was listen. While I did not want to say much, I was adept at observing what was going on around me and paying attention to what people were saying. Between what I was told at treatment and what I heard at meetings I became convinced that it was a good idea for me to go to a meeting every day. This was not that hard to do. My drinking had helped make me into a loner so I had no social life. Since I wasn’t drinking or working I had a lot of free time.

It got easier for me to get around to different meetings fairly quickly. I was able to drive my wonderful drunkmobile – dents everywhere, junk strewn about the interior, lots of quirky mechanical problems – to meetings. Although my use and abuse of both alcohol and drugs qualified me for being a member of NA, CA, and AA I quickly decided I was not attracted to NA. I began a steady diet of a meeting a night, either AA or CA.

The most shocking thing I did in my first month of meetings was to get a sponsor. I managed to ask a guy that had five years of sobriety to sponsor me. He said he would if I would agree to go to a meeting every day for a year, to call him every day, and to commit to working the steps. I said OK and that was that.

I ended up being true to my word. I believe following through on those actions is a big part of why I am still sober 18 years later.

Part of what my agreement with my sponsor meant was that I went to a meeting every night for what seemed like forever. There are lots of things I remember about that first month or two about the meetings. I’ve gone on long enough for now though. I will save those reflections for a future post.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

The follow up this post….My First AA meeting Part 2