Month: August 2008

Anger, Buddha, and gems along the road

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. – Buddha

How many gifts are we be blessed with in our sobriety? One of the many I enjoy is finding little gems of insight as I trudge the road to happy destiny. They are right in the middle of the road I am traveling. I never saw these things before. I was to busy, to distracted, to drunk, to depressed….

When I was drinking I did not find gems. Instead I found the crap that lined the ditch. After veering off my path and ending up there I would get up, brush myself off, and discover turds sticking to me.

Go out for a drink to the bar? End up arrested for drunk driving 10 hours later.

Afraid to face a situation I need to deal with? Go get drunk, end up not taking care of business; lose respect, friends, etc.

You know the deal. There was a never ending supply of “surprises” in store for me as I kept off the straight and narrow. And then there is today. The here and now. It has been a long time since I have ended up in a jackpot. Instead I get to experience many good and positive things.

The other day I spoke to a friend that is having to take care of his ailing mother. His mother’s newly diagnosed cancer is well developed. Her lack of going for tests she should have gotten could have made her current prognosis much better. Through all of what is going on, one of the lessons my friend has taken from this situation is that maybe he should be a little more proactive about his own health. He says he realizes that taking care of himself is more important than ever. My friend is happily married and he has a grandchild that he adores. He figures that giving himself the best chance he can to stay healthy will allow him the greatest opportunity to both enjoy his life and to let those who love him have him in their lives as long as possible.

These are things coming from a man I once new as someone who could not stand to use or not to use. His anger was landing him in jail, keeping him from having any kind of loving relationship, and causing him endless grief. He has worked hard at his sobriety for a long time. It was amazing to hear about the fruit of his labor – he has loving people around him and is thinking from the mindset of a loving person. He is quite broken up about his mother’s condition but is walking through the situation with love, compassion, and dignity. The emotions he feels and is trying to deal with are not deterring him from being there to care, as best he can, for his Mom. I am amazed by his strength and the example of caring he presents.

Why did I get to see and experience this person’s transformation and how powerful we can be in practicing love? I think one important element was my showing up at meetings regularly – staying in the middle of my path. In doing this I was there when this fellow was looking for a sponsor. I gave him an opportunity to invite me into his life.

Another gem along the road. Another joy in my life.

Death and No Glory

A tale of the past………

When I was first getting sober I was full of fear. So much so that I was afraid of people and hardly ever spoke at meetings. One day someone came up to me after a meeting and asked me if I wanted to go to coffee. This question brought up two opposite reactions – one of wanting to go so badly and the other of wanting to run away. I took a chance and said of course. I followed this fellow to the Marietta Square where we went into a local restaurant and ordered some coffee. It was fun, or at least as fun as anything could be for me while I was literally shaking in my shoes.

After we were there a little while this fellow’s girlfriend showed up. She sat down with us, the conversation lasted for about another 5 minutes, and then she started crying. And not just a few tears. I mean she was sobbing uncontrollably. My friend nonchalantly said that they had to go, more or less scooped her up in his arms, and left with her sobbing away. I was bewildered. One minute I was sitting there trying my best to act normal – I was out at coffee with someone else in AA – how exciting and scary. Then before I barely knew what happened this strange woman who had just shown up had broken down uncontrollably and I was left sitting there by myself.

The fellow that I went to coffee with soon became one of my closest friends. We got sober together and were very close for over a decade. For whatever reason we were just real comfortable around one another. I tended to be kind of quiet and he loved to talk. Whenever we got together it was like walking into a meeting. I relaxed and felt at ease.

When I was thirteen years sober and living in the northeast my friend, whom I had been inexplicably drifting away from for a few years, ended up drunk. Another mutual friend of ours called me one day. We talked about how, for a number of reasons, we were not surprised this guy drank again. His path in life had diverged sharply his last year or two sober. He was not going to meetings, was studying esoteric spiritual things, and was generally pushing himself away from a lot of things that were really good in his life.

My friend was not a good drunk. His going back out was a mess. Thankfully, and in many ways surprisingly, he eventually made it back into the rooms. Yet he was changed and not for the better. He was distant, a little sharper with people, and never regained the warmth and Joie-de-vivre he had once exhibited. He bounced in and out of AA a few times but he did finally stick with sobriety again. Unfortunately we never rekindled our friendship. We did have some strange conversations and meetings together these past few years. The best I can describe it was it seemed like the old him was gone and we both new it. That pink elephant in the room made us both uncomfortable.

and the current news of my day…….

I received a call a few hours ago and was told my old friend committed suicide. He was found this morning in a seaside town in Mexico. He left a note. I do not know what he had to say. Apparently he took a hundred or so xanax. He also shopped around for his own casket a few days ago and told the salesman (undertaker?) he wanted to be buried in Mexico when he died.

This fellow was always cooking up crazy schemes. I guess this was his last big idea.

I pray that he has found the peace he was always seeking.

Goodbye my friend.

Saturday August 9, 2008

In one week I will be getting married. I’m forty-three and so glad I waited this long – first I needed to find God, then find myself, and then find the person that I will spend the rest of my life with. I don’t see anything wrong with having things be different for other people. For me this is what had to happen. I simply could not see me with someone as wonderful as my wife to be is had I thought I needed to get married – in essence, forced my hand – sometime before it was time for me to meet her. I do believe I needed to become so much better and healthy to be able to attract someone with her personality and qualities.

I’m reaping a lot of benefits from pushing myself to go to more meetings (and why should this be any kind of remarkable revelation?). I am meeting AA people around where I live, getting phone numbers, speaking up and out about what I think and feel about AA, and even getting some surprises. Yesterday I man that seemed vaguely familiar. In other words I know I have seen him a few times around the rooms. He came up to me after the meeting and said “hey short timer.” I was puzzled and said so. He said, well you are getting married next week, right? I was stunned. I had only mentioned my upcoming marriage once in meetings around here and it was weeks ago. This man not only remembered but he kindly, in a friendly sort of teasing way, wanted to acknowledge this big event in my life. I did ask him his name and I am sure I will not forget it.

Here I am sober twenty years. And it touches my heart that someone remembered me, had listened to what I said, and was thoughtful enough to say hi to me in the way he did. I have felt for a long time that it is so important how you act and treat other people. It is none of my business how I help or do not help someone. It is important that I try to be kind, thoughtful, considerate, and so on. My now new friend had no idea that I was going to have such a positive reaction to his being nice to me but he was just being nice anyway. And in doing so he made my day.

Be well,

AA Blogger

AA 101 – prayer

I had a big problem. My uncle has been dying of cancer for awhile. A few weeks ago he was told he could not be treated anymore as there was no use in doing so. My father talked to me the other day and told me I should call him. The unspoken part of the conversation, which I only recognized a few minutes after I got off the phone, was that my Uncle does not have long to live (this post is not about how no one in my family ever talks directly about things, as if it might keep something bad or sad from happening if it isn’t stated).

I feel fortunate I had seen this uncle about out a month ago even though he lives hundreds of miles from me.

The next day I agonized over picking up the phone. I can’t recall the last time I called this uncle on the phone so the whole thing was strange to begin with. I of course was mightily uncomfortable with the idea of what to say to someone who is not far from death. Goodbye? Sorry? I hope your Ok? I talked to my fiancee about my dilemma. I was fishing for someone or something to save me from something I was scared to do. It was this last thought that saved me and helped me to dip into my AA toolbox.

There is nothing I need to be ready to say, or can say, to deal with the real enormity of what is going on with him. I simply needed to ask God for help to have the courage to pick up the phone and to ask for guidance in saying whatever was appropriate.

I picked up the phone right away, dialed his number (my Uncle’s of course, I don’t have God’s number in my speed dial), and he answered the phone. We talked for about 5 minutes. During our conversation I was able to tell him that I had heard he was not doing well and that he was in my thoughts and prayers. It was a surprisingly light conversation. I of course felt much more comfortable than I would have thought. I got off the phone and cried. As I am doing in writing about this phone conservation.

I am grateful to have been graced with the courage to call. I felt better for having had this experience. My uncle was sincerely happy to hear from me and seemed touch that I called.

It still amazes me that I can so easily tap into a power that can have me go beyond my simple set of conceptions that set off fear, retreat, and shying away from doing the right thing. Left to my own devices I used to always miss my chances to act responsibly. I lacked the wisdom and self assurance to reach out to others with love. Such behavior, I have come to learn, is living in a way that is like trying to grow a plant without water.

The strangeness of feeling grateful for being able to handle dying, death, and sad events is something I have gotten used to over the years. There are many situations that come up as part of being responsible adult that leave me and plenty of others feeling like “what I am supposed to do here!” and “I don’t want this to be happening!” Getting through those situations – by facing up to them, feeling humbled by playing my part and role in whatever I am supposed to be doing, and even feeling grateful since I know I never would have been able to do such things before – is a much better way to live.

Wishing you the best in sobriety,

AA Blogger

Friday August 1, 2008

Why not.

Joe Pool Lake I think I need to just start writing a bit more freely to allow me to post more regularly. Don’t even waste any mental energy on coming up with some catchy title to the idea I want to expand upon. Just hammer out the date and go from there.

A few weeks to go until my wedding date. Man, it is just so exciting. I’m not so nervous about getting married as much I am purely filling up with a lot of pent up wanting-to-have-it-all-happen. I generally have it come up in my thoughts before I fall asleep and as soon as I wake up. What is all this going to be like a week from now? How about the Wednesday before the big weekend?

I spoke to one of my old sponsees for a long time on the phone last night. I had to ask him if he would read the Prayer of St. Francis during the ceremony. It was great to talk to him about so many things but a lot of it was of course about the wedding. It was a great conversation and I realized, in blabbering so much on the phone, that I have more nervous energy than I would have ever imagined.

After talking to my friend I realized we need to try to have a meeting the Saturday morning of my wedding day. There will be at least 7 AA folks by then at the place we are having our weekend wedding party.

And that’s that. Some random thoughts for a Friday evening.

Ciao