Crossing the Line

I have been talking a lot lately with others about crossing over into the world of alcoholism. For me doing so involved adding alcohol to my body. I am certain I am a natural born alcoholic. My body was never able to process booze like a normal person. Other people may not be born that way but do nonetheless reach a point where they drink their way into this state.

Just my layman’s perception of this of course.

Our literature explains that once we have reached this place we can never drink safely again. We have crossed a line where we can never safely use alcohol in any form. The only solution to our drink problem then becomes to practice total abstinence.

Today I read this interesting line that I thought related to all of this. It basically said that someone reached a stage of their drinking where their problems were no longer their problems, their drinking was the problem.

It occurred to me this is a part of crossing that line into alcoholism.

Trying to come out of the other side of this, in other words quitting drinking and chasing sobriety instead of a drink, leaves us screwed up. Most people can’t reason their way out of this confusion:

Instead of realizing that stopping drinking will help us to begin to work on our problems, we instead think that drinking is our real problem and that if we stop we can handle all the rest. Handling all the rest, in some regard, means at some level we (not God) should be able to handle not drinking. It can be a fatal mistake to think this way.

I needed to stop drinking so I could stop creating more of the problems that drinking was causing. With that out of the way, at least on a day to day basis, I could then begin to “clear away the wreckage of the past.” This meant I could start to figure out what my real problems were and learn how to handle them in a way that did not destroy me.

Alcohol was but a symptom.

The solution to the problems that were behind my drinking, not the many stupid problems that drinking too much for too long were causing, was to trust God, clean house, and help others.

Bill Wilson Quits Proselytizing

When Bill Wilson had his spiritual experience some immediate and profound changes took place. His obsession to drink was removed and he become open to seeking spiritual help. He soon was following the plan of the Oxford Groups that his friend Ebby Thatcher expounded. Bill then took to working with other alcoholics, trying to help them get sober. This was first done within the context of the Oxford Groups and their methods. In New York, where Bill was living, there was a contingent of sober drunks in the Oxford Group movement. The approach they used in reaching out to drunks was the Oxford Group approach – give yourself over to God and change your life. Bill initially was unsuccessful in getting anyone else to stop drinking or in staying sober.

During a conversation with Dr. Silkworth Bill expressed his dismay at not having any success with his prospects. Months of hard work seemed to be an utter failure. Dr. Silkworth asked Bill how he was approaching his prospects. He learned that Bill was telling the men he worked with that they needed to get God. Bill after all had a spiritual experience and this is what had changed him. It was also consistent with the Oxford Group methods. The doctor suggested this was too much to push onto a drunk right at the start. Most alcoholics were just not the type that liked being told what to do. Maybe Bill should start by talking about alcoholism. The Oxford Group movement was not unusual (for the times) in believing drunks were immoral, rather than sick. Dr Silkworth felt otherwise. He suggested that Bill talk to his prospects about their mental obsession and physical allergy. They were sick, not bad, and their illness was progressive.

Maybe God was the answer but strictly proselytizing to a drunk might not be best. First suggesting why a drunk might need God would perhaps be more helpful.

Bill left for Akron a short time after this conversation with Dr. Silkworth . The trip to Akron was for business. Bill was heading a delegation that represented a collective trying to assume control of machinery company, via a proxy takeover. Bill was appointed to head the delegation, and the fight, with the expectation that Bill Wilson would assume the presidency of the company once it was securely under the direction of the new owners. Everyone involved was confident they would win. The proxy battle originally went well. Bill and his delegation were able to delay the annual shareholders meeting and were convincing some key stock holders to vote for the new group to assume control of the board. Bill then had to return to New York for a few days and when he returned, things were shifting out of their favor. The situation quickly devolved and it was clear they had little hope of winning. The delegation with Bill left and he was left alone in Akron to try to discover more about why some folks had switched their allegiances.

All of these circumstances led to Bill Wilson finding himself alone in the lobby of the Mayflower hotel. What he thought was a promising opportunity for his first real job in many years, and the chance to  make some good  money, appeared to be gone. There was a bar just off the lobby and for the first time since he had his spiritual experience, Bill experienced a real desire to have a drink. Bill did not know any sober alcoholics in Akron. His many friends in the Oxford Group, some of them sober drunks, were far away. Bill also did not know any Oxford Group members in Akron. His good friends Sam Shoemaker and Dr. Silkworth, also key in his new found way of life, were also back in New York.

Instead of walking into the bar and instead of trying to contact an Oxford Group Bill did something else. He really wanted to talk to another drunk. Short of finding a sober one he figured he should try and find one he could try to help. He walked over to the phones. There was a church directory there and he began calling clergymen to ask if they knew of any drunks that needed help getting sober. He got a Reverend Tunks on the line, who was an Episcopalian minister, just like Bill’s friend Sam Shoemaker. Tunks also shared something else in common with Shoemaker, as he was also a member of an Oxford Group. From the Reverend Tunks Bill was given the phone numbers of a number of different people that could potentially put Bill in touch with  someone that needed help with a drinking problem.

Bill eventually got Henrietta Sieberling on the line and she invited him over to her house right away. She said she had a prospect.

When Bill arrived he was told about Dr. Bob. He was the husband of someone that Henrietta was friends with and they had all been attending Oxford Group meetings together. Dr. Bob was apparently a reluctant participant, with his attendance coming as the result of the insistence of his wife.

After Bill arrived Henrietta Sieberling called the Smith home. She was going to invite the Smith’s over so Bill could meet and talk with Dr. Bob. Unfortunately she learned that Dr. Bob had recently left his home to buy his wife a plant for the following day’s Mother’s Day holiday, only to return home drunk. A meeting was instead scheduled for the following afternoon.

Bill met with Dr. Bob and for the first time approached an alcoholic with the intent of first talking about the disease of alcoholism. This was different than jumping all over his new prospect with his need to give himself over to God. Bill talked about how his own drinking was an illness, not a moral problem as the Oxford Group members had constantly tried to tell him. He explained how he knew what Dr. Bob was going through in not being able to stop drinking. And, as Dr. Silkworth had shared with him, he told Dr. Bob how it was almost certain hew would die of alcoholism or need to be permanently locked up.

The answer to this problem, Bill told him, was not to fight but to give in and realize his own will power was useless. Much of what Bill was talking about was familiar for Dr. Bob. The Oxford Groups talked about giving up in order to win. Dr. Bob had not ever been presented with the idea he was sick though, and Bill did seem to know what he was talking about when it came to drinking troubles.

Dr. Bob later said, after he was sober, that it was the way Bill talked about what he did, rather than the specifics of what he said, that made the strongest impression on him. Bill “spoke his language” and it was clear this Bill was a man that knew what he was talking about when it came to alcoholism.

Some of the important lessons that came out of their meeting formed some important cornerstones of AA. Carrying the message to another drunk can help you stay sober. An alcoholic sharing his experience strength and hope with another can make an important difference in how a drunk sees his plight. It is important that we realize the hopelessness of our alcoholism.

Ebby Thatcher was the first alcoholic to connect with Bill in the way that Bill later connected with Dr. Bob. Ebby’s original talk with Bill about his conversion made an impression on Bill. He simply could not dismiss the real change he saw in a man that he knew was once just like Bill – unable to stop drinking. Dr. Silkworth formulated the idea of the disease concept of alcoholism. It is perhaps not unexpected that he would tell Bill that he should talk to his “prospects” about these ideas. What did work out nicely was their having their conversation when they did and, with Bill being open to hearing this strategy, was able to succeed in making an impression on the very next drunk he tried to help.

I’m grateful that all of those circumstances came together and am especially glad that Bill turned his back on the doors of the Mayflower Hotel bar. A decision to make those few phone calls led to the creation of AA, which has saved my life.

Sponsee Sponsor

I make the conscious choice to be free, and to hold my freedom as a priority, not to be compromised.

Passing it on. Three related bits of my sober life.

1. I asked someone to sponsor me last night. Thank goodness. I woke up today feeling much freer than I have in a long time. I’m going to a number of meetings every week, having a better sense of spirituality, am sponsoring a few guys and now have a sponsor. Is that the final piece that has lifted the weight of the world off of my shoulders? It feels like this is how things are going. And that perhaps I am on the cusp of having the weight of the world stay off. I have lived like that in the past in my sobriety. It has been lost for awhile. I would love it if it is back.

2. About a month ago I had a guy (lets call him Jim) ask me to sponsor him. He has been around AA for 15 years, a bit back and forth, and has been clean for more than two years. Here were the most significant things I found out right away. His five year old son and his fiance were killed in a car crash about three years ago. They were hit by a drunk driver. He is still struggling with this. And he is just getting over surgery to remove cancer in his bladder. He was still not physically well. Physiologically his white blood cell count had not yet bounced back from some just finished radiation treatments.

It took me a few weeks to figure out he has never worked the steps, in order. He has dabbled but the best thing would likely be to start from the beginning. He was game for this approach.

Yesterday this guy told me the cancer was back. Its aggressive and spreading fast. The doctors are not that hopeful. Essentially he could be dead in months or perhaps by the end of the year. He just called me and we talked for close to an hour. I am not sure I have the fortitude to handle all of this. I’m devastated and I cannot begin to fathom how this person feels or can deal with things.

I am completely humbled. I can only pray. For him and for me, so that I can have the strength to be the best I can to help this guy.

3. I had another guy (Don) ask me to sponsor him last week. He is fresh, just getting clean. We are starting from the beginning. So far so good.

All of this puts me firmly in the middle of AA. All of this is many things: difficult, exhilarating, challenging, exciting and right where I need to be.

Don’t Worry

There is a fairly lovable gal (lets call her Nancy) in my home group that is pretty nutty. Everyone thinks she is a hoot because she says a lot of really funny things. There are also occasional bits of insight. So the other day, Nancy is going off and she says

I never heard someone say that they really worried a lot about something and that it ended up making all the difference in the world

Brilliant.

My experience has taught me that I need to  stay out of my own way. When I have had faith and relied on guidance from my higher power, I end up getting led to great places that I would not have chosen on my own. It seems so illogical. I try to make my way through the day and my life, making plans and hatching up schemes. In the end, it is the unexpected things in my path, the things I could not imagine, that have made the biggest difference.

All this tells me that my thinking and planning is not as important as I like to think. It can be helpful but in the end I there is just so much that is out of my control that has such a large influence. Sober, these things tend to be good. They are not jackpots but bounty of God’s grace.

So I do realize I don’t need to worry. Yet I still do. And it does not amount to a hill of beans, other than  to set me into fear and waste my time.

Being Responsible

I have a new sponsee as of yesterday. I find this to be a momentous occasion, as it marks me as being back to where I need to be. I have been going to a few meetings a week again. It was a struggle to get back to that point! Now I am familiar with people around the place I now live.

I even went to a different meeting this Saturday morning (in part due to my new pigeon). I was surprised and happy to see many of my new found regulars at my noon meeting at this place. It was also a lot easier to hang out and talk after the meeting, as it emptied out into a large parking lot in back of a church. My noon group empties out into a busy street.

I also can just tell things are way different in where I am at today with my AA community than I was just a few months ago. I am starting to hug people again. I hadn’t noticed I wasn’t until I was doing more of this. I guess that was part of being and feeling like I was outside rather than in the middle of things.

Funny thing my new pigeon is feeling isolated. It was what caused me to reach out to him. I spent a few hours with him and the next day he asked me to sponsor him. He has been sober for a few years, which is nice. I will call him Don on this blog. He is a real talker and he does listen too, but it is tough for him to listen for long. At least this is what it seems so far.

I need to make an appointment with him to tell him my story. This is something I like to do as a way of getting introduced to someone that wants my help. They need to understand I’m hardcore. Serious. And am responsible.

And for that: I am NOT responsible


photo by redjar

Anyone who is involved in getting sober in AA, and by getting sober I mean is working the steps with a sponsor and is involved in service, is familiar with our Responsibility Declaration. “I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.” This was first introduced at the 1965 International Convention. Bill W. did not write this but he did discuss it in an Grapevine article written at about the same time. The responsibility statement now shows up in every issue of the Grapevine. My purpose here today is not to get into what this concise and elegant statement means for the sober drunk. Its clear call to action, and its ability to bring together a good bit of stuff involving how we should be taking care of our business of staying sober. Instead I want to point out some things I should not worry about. Because they are none of my business and out of my control. To turn the aforementioned phrase on its head “I am Not responsible” for these things.

The ultimate outcome of any attempt I make to help someone.

I strongly believe it is important for me to try and help others. This means, for  and to me, that I take actions and have a mindset geared towards getting out of myself. There are a lot of ways I can do this but I must say I was confused for a long time about one important aspect of trying to help others. I have no say over the outcome of my actions. I really need to understand that statement.

I can have some form of what you might call expectations, provided these are useful and fit with wanting to help. For example:

  • I want to be loving because I think love has the power to change people and situations in positive ways. I can act like love has the power to create change, kind of in the same way I have faith in a higher power. This to me is a form of an expectation but it is a generalization, not a fixed thing that works when and how I want.

  • Prayers can include hopeful “wishes” for how I want things to turn out. I can pray that someone feels safe, experiences joy, is prosperous, etc.

  • I can take actions that I want to have a positive outcome. If I spend time with a person and try and help them, it may make a difference and help them to not drink. Then again it may not.

The distinction about my responsibility is that while I can work for what I think are good things, their coming to pass are simply out of my control. Love can change things but it may not, my prayers are good but I can only put them out there and making a difference in someone’s life includes their being receptive to change. And I am not responsible for seeing that my “will” in these matters comes to pass. I can only dance my dance and whatever arises from this is largely out of my grasp.

I just heard this put in another way today.

We can’t count on happy endings.

Anyone’s Actions but My Own

This is a tough one for many people. It is especially problematic in the realm of our personal relationships, particularly with non AA folks. My non alcoholic wife, a child of ours, our parents, a boss or coworker, etc. A lot of my daily problems arise from me being judgemental about how other people act. How they treat me, how they treat others, what they say or don’t say and more such things along those lines. One of my character defects is my judgement of others. My internal dialogue includes a lot of attention to this:

  • Why don’t they stop doing that to so and so
  • If they weren’t such a jerk they would not do that
  • How can he treat her so badly
  • She just doesn’t understand how much that hurts me

All of this is just self centered ego getting the best of me. And who am I to walk in my shoes and project my perspective on life onto another person? Why not instead see someone else as a person and realize they are perhaps fearful when they are not at their best. Or maybe they are struggling with themselves and others as badly as I am with myself.

In some ways the best attitude I can adopt is one of not caring, to a large degree, what others are doing (this is not always appropriate or useful). I am not responsible for them, their current situation or their actions. Again, I need to try to maintain putting my best foot forward to try to help but a lot of my mental energy in regard to others is largely wasteful and selfish.

Interestingly enough, the better I treat other people the better I get treated. The Prayer of Saint Francis, when put into action, has great potential for a lot of positive change. Acting the way the prayer directs  is not a promise for improving any particular situation though. It helps but the outcomes and changes it produces, well, “I am not responsible” for what it gets to improve. If my mindset were less on judgment and more on Saint Francis’ prayer things would be better. I’m just not able to decide how they will be better when it comes to others.

Most Things That Happen in My Life

My wife cut her finger yesterday and she needed some stitches. It took over five hours to deal with this accident. I had a bunch of plans for my day and for the most part that was not what I spent my day doing. I was not responsible for her accident but I did have a choice as to what I could do. I choose to support and take care of my wife. I was not resentful, or put off, by this turn of events. My responsibility, as I saw it, was to help take care of her and I did that.

My character defects, had they reared up, would have been to act a little pissy about the time it took to deal with what came up. What an ego I have. My pride, part of the whole ego trip, even hates to admit that I could be this petty and self centered. Yet I was able to keep away from those feeling yesterday.

It was not my fault that I was not able to carry out my precious plans yesterday. The part I could control (take care of my wife) I did and the part I could not control (I am not responsible for deciding what I will or will not be presented with in any given moment) I had to accept and just deal with.

Clarity is the Key

Humility. Gaining some perspective as to my power, influence and place in the world is tough for this alcoholic. On my own I don’t have a chance to do well in this area. The steps have helped me to learn that I can gain in my understanding through enlarging my spiritual life, helping others and by being honest with other people. It is especially important that I talk with people I trust concerning my ideas, reactions and emotions to those around me. Through this I have learned to waste less energy on things that are none of my business. How I tried to help others twenty years ago is different than was ten years ago, which in turn is different than how I do things today.

I have seen some amazingly positive changes materialize for myself and people around me.  In some cases, I have even played a role in bringing this about. I have also seen a lot of less than great results, or at least that was my reaction to what I saw, heard or experienced.

I have no idea about how I have played a part in other situations that are removed from my previous involvement. Maybe I should tell the story sometime about the man under the bed. It explains how I need to try to help others and that you largely never know what you might do to help someone else.

I can try to help others, I can try to improve my own conditions and actions, I can work to enlarge my own spiritual life – those are the kinds of things I am responsible for. All the rest is not up to me and is largely none of my business.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

Opportunity, Alice and the Queen

A quote from Alice in Wonderland

“There is no use trying,” Alice said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice, ” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Getting sober opens up a new realm of possibilities. The impossible becomes the what if, and maybe or, even, reality. Time for a (long) story…..

When I was about a year sober I traveled out west with a friend that I has met in the program. We had been fishing in the North Georgia mountains together a few times before. Our trip to Montana was like a dream come true. Trout streams filled with native (not stocked) fish. The Rocky Mountains, not the comparatively small Appalachians. And just the fact that we were going to do something we wanted to do that was good, and good for us, was a novel thing. To say we were excited was an understatement.

A whole other story, which I won’t get into now, is that I had discovered as I was getting sober that I really loved being outdoors.  It felt right to me and made me feel better spiritually. Hence Montana was a really cool idea of a place to get to go. So that too was working on me as our time to leave approached.  I built up a lot of positive expectations of what this trip was going to be like.

It turned out our trip was far, far better than we could have possibly imagined. The fishing was better. The scenery was way better. All that we saw while we were there just boggled our minds. Things like moose, elk and an eagle catching a trout right out of the water. We also did things I would never have imagined. One day we hired someone to take us miles into the mountains, on horseback, to some high elevation lakes.

The place we stayed for most of the trip out west was fairly remote. We did though fly into a larger city and we had to return there to fly home. I decided to stop at the local university there and check it out. I had drank my way out of college when I was 19. With my life starting to get somewhat back in order in sobriety, I had been thinking I might want to go back to school. This was the first time I visited an actual school, and most of what I did was just walk around a bit and go pick up a catalog and application. Really I just did it on a whim.

As we were boarding the plane later that day, I had a quick series of thoughts pass through my mind that changed my life. The first part was that I thought how cool it would be to live in Montana and go to school at the place I just visited. My next thought was that I couldn’t do that, followed by “why not?”

Why these thoughts? What else was behind them?

The first thought, moving to Montana, was something that had been building in me during my visit. I realized if I was able to live in a place like I just experienced that it could really help me to develop spiritually. There is a lot to this (another story to tell at another time) but I knew it would do me a lot of good to be able to live in a place that was not so busy and full of so many people. It was more peaceful, less disturbing somehow, and I surely was learning that I felt a lot closer to God when I was out in nature.

My second thought, about how I couldn’t move to Montana, was just a reflex. Drinking had taught me that I could dream all I wanted but I couldn’t accomplish much. At just 23 I had largely been beaten down enough that I had pretty much given up on thinking things could or would work out for me. Good stuff was just beyond my ability to have happen. So this thought of “no way” was just a natural thought pattern of mine whenever I would think of something good I wanted for my life.

The next thought was a direct result of living sober and doing what I was told to do to recover – Why not? What would stop me from moving to Montana? I did want to go back to school and there was what seemed like a fine school there. And why shouldn’t I have the opportunity to nurture my soul by living in a place that would support my spiritual growth?

Why not. Those two words rang through my head on the plane trip home and for days to come. It was like something had been altered in my pysche. A new part of being sober had tripped on inside me. Instead of slowly dying by giving up on so many things I was awakening to living. The idea of moving to Montana at first blush seemed like an impossible thing. Being sober and having good reasons for wanting to go, well that made it somehow begin to seem like it might be an alright thing to do.

That simple series of thoughts I had as I was leaving Montana set me on a path that took me on an amazing journey in sobriety. I did eventually move to Montana and I stayed for six years.  The journey was not entirely smooth or easy. I had to leave my home group and all that I got sober with behind. I had to try to understand if I was supposed to go, and how to make it happen and pull a lot of things together once it was clear I could and should head west. I was happy – and scared – when I moved.

So much of that time in Montana was just magical. I earned a degree. I held a number of exciting and fun jobs. I stayed sober. I made friends there, over twenty years ago, that were in my wedding party last year. My spiritual life expanded and grew tremendously. And I grew up.

I remember literally sitting on a mountain side one day about a month before I was set to move from there (yet another story, my leaving there and why). I was thinking about life. Why it was right to leave, even though in so many ways I did not want to go.

Moving does of course make you reflective in helpful ways. I thought about  all I had accomplished while I was living there. And I suddenly had the realization I was no longer the scared boy that had arrived in Montana. I had arrived two years sober, unsure of myself in so many ways, but willing to be adventuresome and full of faith that all would be fine.

Everything had changed in the six year adventure that had just unfolded. I had succeeded in school and earned a degree. I had also literally fought forest fires in the mountains. I held that job for five summers  and the last few years I was in charge of the fires I was sent on. That meant I had to get the job done and keep the people that were with me safe. People had given me responsibility, relied on me and respected me. I had learned to honor such trust and to respond well by doing what was expected of me.

I also knew I had grown spiritually in ways I never would have imagined. I was also coming to realize my time in Montana was a period of necessary introspection. I did live with and around people but I also spent a lot of time by myself, and by myself outdoors. Many damaged places inside my soul had been healed by the time I spent in the mountains. An intense period of going inward is fine and can be productive but it proved to not be what I, nor most people, need for the long term. So this time was over and it was time to go.

I had believed that the impossible was possible, six years earlier, and it changed everything.

I guess I want to end by reiterating that last point. If you are sober and can’t seem to believe that things can’t get better for you, that is it just impossible, I would say that you need to believe in the impossible. I did, way back in 1988, and I know it to be true today. This shift in my thinking changed my life and it can change yours.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

Self Esteem

I really need to start a post page where I can add those great little one liners folks in the program share with me. Here is one I heard today:

If you want to raise your self-esteem, do esteemable acts.

Pretty simple really. Yet I found that to be a pretty profound statement. I also went to the dictionary:

esteemable – is just something worthy of esteem, so we have to go and check that out….

esteem:

v. to regard with respect, prize

to have great respect or high regard for (someone)

n. Favorable regard

admiration and respect

I hope this simple statement “If you want to raise your self-esteem, do esteemable acts” will stick in my head for a little while. I like the idea of thinking that I should work a little harder at doing the right thing in order to make me feel better about myself. This is not a difficult concept and surely I do know this is true. Yet somehow, and this is why I keep telling myself I should collect these things in a written form, this little phrase motivates me when I hear or read it. It brings clarity, and makes me want to keep me on the right track.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Hope you are all well and staying sober.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,

AA Blogger