The anti-promises

What happens when an alcoholic is actively caught up in their disease, drinking like there is no tomorrow and beyond all human aid? On page 52 in the Big Book is a passage that some refer to as the anti-promises:

“We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn’t control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people…”

I wasn’t seeking this stuff out when I was drinking but it was part of what I was getting. And the longer I gave into my obsession and activated my craving, the more “side-effects” I experienced.

The point of this passage in the Big Book, as a part of the chapter to agnostics, is to raise a simple question. If these are the results we are getting by running our unmanageable life on self will, shouldn’t we at least consider that spiritual assistance might be something we could try? The spiritual approach is something that others say works. Could it possibly be worse than the anti-promises?

Of course the answer for most alcoholics, most of the time, to trying the spiritual approach is no. Most drunks either believe they are not quite down for the count and can somehow manage their drinking or are so far gone they feel it is hopeless to try to stop. The spiritual approach is as easily pushed aside as anything else that gets in the way of our drinking.

I am blessed to be one of the fortunate recovering alcoholics that is able to spend some of my life sober. No booze put in = an end to the anti-promises. For today at least I am willing to allow God to intercede. I can let him help me to pursue more promising actions and enjoy the fruit these efforts produce.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

The Good Life

Yesterday morning I went to see my doctor about a number of health problems. Individually my physical challenges generally do not ruin my day. Some of these problems are more serious than others though and I do have to be careful with how I deal with how my health influences my mental, physical, and spiritual state. One easy check against my getting into self-pity or fear about this stuff is to recognize that the only reason I am able to get older and face some of these physical problems is because God and AA were able to help me quit drinking. I could be dead and not be blessed with an opportunity to experience any part of my life, good or bad.

Anyway, in seeing my doctor I had to deal with all my big and small health issues all at once. Then I went to work and dealt with my responsibilities there. It was a little bit of a stressful day but nothing extraordinary. In the early evening I left work, riding my bicycle, and got on my way to my step study meeting. It is my longest ride of the week, about 45 minutes. I ride right through downtown Houston and through a lot of different neighborhoods. Run down, downtown, upscale, you name it. After riding for awhile I was able, without really thinking about it, to shed my more harried work state-of-mind and get more in tune with being in the moment. I was able to just observe the traffic, smell whatever odors were wafting through the air, and notice the trees that I was riding past.

Getting more in tune with the here and now, I became aware that I seemed to be feeling a bit glum. In thinking about why this might be I realized that seeing my doctor had made more worried, which in turn had led me to be fearful. I had also been diligently working hard on a project at work that had been keeping me very busy for days. This was becoming increasingly problematic because the project I was working on only had a small chance of bearing any useful fruit. The more time I was spending on that task, the more aggravated I was becoming.

Both of these insights into my mental and emotional life were somewhat surprising but I saw them in more of an abstract rather than emotional way. With this detached point of view I was able to see that my work problem was kind of like an extension of my spiritual life. I had been operating on faith that my work of the last few days was what I needed to be doing. I simply needed to finish it, let it be what it would, and not be attached to the outcome. I instantly felt much better about that situation.

The problems concerning my health were just as simple. It was clear to me that going to the doctor and talking about my health had stirred up my emotions. There are fears I can easily fall into when I am not careful about dealing with issues surrounding my mortality, well being, and everyday comfort. In the end I can either give into the fear and let it get the best of me or I can decide my sense of what I see as my suffering is something I can choose not to dwell on. Faith or fear, the choice is always mine to make. I choose to recognize and be grateful for: my doctor being very helpful, that I have health insurance, that there are actions I can take to try to improve my situation, and that right now my physical problems are relatively minor. They might be worse tomorrow, when my jobs end in June I may no longer have health insurance, etc. but I should deal with those things when they happen.

For now I think I am just glad to be sober.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

Virtue

I needed to learn a lot about discipline and courage when I was first getting sober. It was not that I did not know anything about these two things, I just had no notion of being virtuous. The same could be said about what I knew and acted on in regards to many other things like respect, responsibility, etc.

Learning to carry out my actions in accord with what I have come to understand as being moral, or good, or righteous is one of the most important lessons the steps have taught me. To put some of what I will be writing about in context I should
start by presenting an explanation of what virtue means to some:

1. What is virtue? A virtue is the habit of doing good.
2. Why do we say virtue is a habit? It is a firm attitude. It is a way of life. It governs our actions. It guides our conduct by thinking and by faith.
3. How does virtue help us? Virtue brings joy. It helps us govern ourselves. It brings comfort and peace.
4. How do I learn virtue? I pray for the virtue. I learn about virtue. I practice virtue. I follow through and I stick with it. I am not a moral quitter.

These ideas offer an interesting counter to how I practiced, say, courage and discipline in my life before I got sober.

First in regards to courage. It is said that courage is not an absence of fear but a willingness to walk through your fear. I would do a lot of things I was really afraid to do in order to get, or to make sure I would have the means to get, alcohol and drugs. I don’t need to go into a long drunkalogue about all that other than to say that my actions included doing some things that were obviously foolish and dangerous. At times I literally risked my life to get what I so strongly desired. My actions were at times courageous but they were not virtuous. Little of what I did was carried out with any intent to help others nor would it enable me to gain anything that was truly good. I got some relief but little else.

I also became increasingly craven in facing situations that were much more important than finding another drink. These other situations were no less scary to me than those “gotta-get-that-drink” actions I courageously walked through. I would do what it took to get another drink but would run as far and fast as I could from real life. For instance I found it increasingly difficult to have honest conversations with others, let alone be proactive and take simple steps like asking someone for help with something I did not know about. The proverbial “they” might think I was dumb, or weak, or not able to take care of myself. So I would drive through a snowstorm to get to the liquor store or walk through a bad part of the South Bronx but I was afraid to let someone I knew help me with even the most trivial thing.

I could also go on about how much discipline I could sometimes muster. This was of course usually directed towards my slavish desire to be able to drink and drug like I wanted to. I could wait for hours for a dealer, would be obstinate about getting my way if it meant I could drink like I wanted, and would do all kinds of things that only made sense to a deluded fool like myself.

Things changed when they absolutely had to for me. Self preservation was a big part of this, for sure, but I finally acted out of (my normally bad) character and did something good for a change. I did not want to get over on anyone, have someone take care of things for me, or any of that when I asked for help on that first day I started on this journey of sobriety.

I learned about being less self-centered and more virtuous out of necessity. This came to me through an experience called working the 12 steps. Not that I wanted to learn these lessons….as it says in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.’s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn’t care for this prospect – unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself.

I was told I should work the steps and by taking the actions they required I began to experience how my life could be different. Low and behold acting virtuously held rewards that my immoral, unrighteous mind would not have thought possible. I learned to apply some of the courage and discipline I had used to get another drink to other actions. Doing what the steps called no matter what, for instance, and instead of running from facing my life being courageous and walking through my fear.

I had no idea that I was learning to be virtous in those days but boy how things have changed. The clueless, spiritually-bereft person that I once was now only exists as a small withered part of me. That fool that I once was could become strong again if I start drinking again, I am sure, but today he is overshadowed by other parts of me that I have nurtured through practicing being virtuous.
Today I am guided by spiritual principles and understand that striving to live right can be both challenging and rewarding. I can read about virtue and want my life to be more infused with morality than to want to protect and staunchly defend some of my less noble motivations. Even so, I still have plenty of the latter, despite a lot of effort taken over the past nineteen years. Fortunately I can also see that I have come a long way in my life, in how I understand myself, in how I handle myself, in what motivates me, and in how I act. One day at a time I can work at being full of things such as hope, faith, and love, with an understanding of what these actually mean, and move closer to person I want to be.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

I should mention the numbered bullets above that I used to define virtue are borrowed from “A Brief Catechism on Virtue.” While I do not belong to the Catholic church, I find the information on this page to be profoundly helpful in working the eleventh step.

My First AA meeting Part 2

Following up from an earlier post My first AA meeting

My new AA sponsor had me commit to saying I would go to a meeting every night for a year. This was way beyond what I often heard said in meetings – “90 meeting in 90 days” – for someone who is new to sobriety. No one in AA can tell anyone what to do…..but I was sure open for all the advice I could get at about that time. I had become convinced that I had few good ideas about how to live my life or get better. I had, after all, only succeeded in tearing my life down by putting forth my best efforts.

Like my experiences in group counseling at the treatment facility, I was often surprised by what people were talking about in meetings. I had not know that other people had such things happen to them, or felt the way I did, or held some of the same strange beliefs as me. There was also laughter that went along with some of the things people said. Both the laughter and the how I was connecting with what people were saying were a big help in getting me to keep going back to meetings.

I was still scared to say much myself and that was just fine. I could still show up at the same meetings week after week. People would say hello or strike up a conversation before and after the meeting, especially if they had seen more before. Nobody was pushy, seemed to want to take advantage of me in any way, or really did anything that I could find objectionable. I was by no means effusive but I was starting to get to know some people. All of these things also helped me to be able to keep going to meetings night after night.

I did not understand that much about the steps but clearly God was all through them. A lot of people also talked about a higher power when they talked about their recovery. I did not believe in God at that time but fortunately nobody was pushy about this either.

One odd things for me at the time (akin to the fact that I knew I needed help, that I was willing to go to meetings, that I asked someone to be my sponsor, etc.) was that I was calling my sponsor every day. I did not always talk to him because he traveled for work and was not always around (no cell phones back then) but when I did I would often tell him a lot of stuff and also listen to what he had to say. I seemingly had no good reason to open up to him yet I would regularly tell him things that I was thinking about or how I was feeling. This type of information was the shit I would never talk to anyone about in the past. He had plenty of pointed advice and suggestions. Some of this was in response to what I was telling him and some was part of what he wanted me to do in order to move towards getting sober. He seemed like a genius to me at the time, in part because I was so screwed up that many of my ideas were truly stupid. I would even, oddly, do what he suggested most of the time. This whole process got reinforced by the good results that happened when I did what I was told. Going to meetings, taking my sponsor’s direction, and beginning to work the steps were all working having a lot of positive effects.

One of my sponsors suggestions was that I should go to more Alcoholics Anonymous meetings than Cocaine Anonymous meetings. Being a drunk and having abused cocaine it did not seem to matter that much where I went. I did actually feel more comfortable in a CA meeting than an AA meeting. This was part of why AA was a wiser choice, as my sponsor explained. CA had not been around that long so there were not a lot of people with long term sobriety. In a CA meeting, compared to an AA meeting, there was not as much of a focus on how to work the 12 steps and hence how to get and live sober. I was not so intimidated being in a roomful of people like that – they were just like me. Instead what I needed was to be around more people that were once like me. AA had a lot more people going to meetings that had gotten sober and were different. They had their life together like I needed to get mine together.

I am not knocking CA, this made some sense to me and I was also just doing what I was told would likely be best. That was also 19 years ago and CA had not been in existence very long back then.

I just about did go to a meeting a day for a year. I think I may have missed two days. By the end of that first year I had worked the steps, my life totally changed, and I was living my life sober. Enough of my fear had gone that I could interact with people a lot better. I would regularly chair meetings and speak to lead a meeting if I was asked. AA had become so much a part of my life that I wanted to go and enjoyed meetings most of the time.

It is hard for me to believe that it was almost 20 years ago that I went through those experiences. I had heard so much about the good things that could happen if you stayed sober. It has been true for me and most days I can easily realize how blessed I am. For today and for all of those sober yesterdays. I don’t ever want to be that scared person I was, afraid to even talk to people that could potentially help me.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

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

Over and over

My sobriety seems to be dependant on me doing simple things over, and over, and over again. Sometimes this might mean every day, or it might mean on a regular basis, or it could even be that over the years I have had to consistently fall back on the same set of crutches when the going gets tough.

Why?

I think it is because I am human. Part of the human condition is that I am what I think about and what I do on a regular basis. Giving my life over to the care of God as I understand him, for instance. When I do that regularly I seem to feel better, in the same way it does for others. When I go to meetings I often discover that I am usually doing much better than I like to give myself credit for. If I go often enough I can have that realization that I am fine be a larger part of my day. When I read the 11th step prayer I have taped to my bathroom mirror, I am less inclined to be a self centered butt-head as I make my way in the world during any given day.

It is clear too that the steps and our literature makes this point about having to do things again and again. Practicing these principles in all our affairs, not resting on our laurels, and many other such references. It is funny to me now that there are times when I get rather miserable and even realize it is the direct result of forgetting to do simple little things on a consistent basis….as if I don’t know better! Fortunately I have also been taught that I will not be able to raise myself above the level of being human. I am stuck with me and my human condition, at least until my time here in this form is ended.

One nice thing that has resulted from my being careful about doing the work I do, and then at times forgetting, is that my bad days are actually pretty nice. Compared to that old sot I was many years ago, I can manage to get irritated with my own bad behavior fairly quickly these days. This often gives me a dose of humility, can show me I have a lot more to be grateful about than I have been realizing, and can then start to do things to have my perspective move in a more positive direction. A simple prayer, trying to help or do something nice for someone else, go to a meeting, call someone and tell them they are loved.

Simple things. Over and over.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

Shoe Polish

I was listening to a radio show (Bob Dylan’s theme time radio hour) and heard this awful tale of crazy alcoholic behavior. I am paraphrasing but essentially…..
Delta Blues legend Tommy Johnson was not only a great musician but was also a bad drunk. He was known to drink “sterno and also shoe polish strained through..bread” when he did not have any whiskey.

I never drank sterno but do know people who have. Shoe polish is a new one to me. Yet as crazy as it sounds I guess it is possible. If it works – that is it contains some alcohol and it produces the effect we are after – some alcoholic, somewhere, at some time, will use it. Especially if we have no other supply of booze.

In the southern U.S. bible belt region there are still dry counties and plenty of restrictions on how and when alcohol can be sold. Local laws protecting the good folk from the evils of alcohol were even more widespread in the past. If you lived somewhere in the south where alcohol could not be sold or you traveled around, say playing music, getting your hands on some alcohol often must have been like trying to get illegal drugs is today. And I thought I had it bad when I couldn’t buy liquor on Sunday.

It is never easy being a drunk. It must be doubly awful to need to drink and be in such a mentally twisted state (and probably so damn broke) that your options come down to things like sterno, kerosene, or shoe polish. There are plenty of health problems and deaths occurring in some places today, like Russia, that are connected to people regularly imbibing bad booze or alcohol products that were never meant for human consumption.

The few people I know who drank sterno said it was awful going down and had some nasty side effects (the human body breaks down the methanol in sterno into formalydahyde and formic acid). Sterno can even make you go blind or outright kill you. I can’t imagine shoe polish, strained or not, would be much better for you.

Tommy Johson would supposedly talk about, and be seen publicly practicing, his nastier drinking habitats. The downside of using industrial products to satisfy his alcoholic craving was ironically the subject of one of Johnson’s more famous songs – “Canned Heat Blues.” Part of this title was also the inspiration for the name of the blues band Canned Heat.

Canned Heat Blues
by Tommy “Snake” Johnson
recording of December 1929, Crafton, Wisconsin
from Complete Recorded Works (1928-1929)
Crying,canned heat, canned heat, mama, crying, sure, Lord, killing me
Crying, canned heat, mama, sure, Lord, killing me
Takes alcorub to take these canned heat blues
Crying, mama, mama, mama, you know, canned heat killing me
Crying, mama, mama, mama, crying, canned heat is killing me
Canned heat don’t kill me, crying, babe, I’ll never die
I woked up, up this morning, with canned heat on my mind
Woked up this morning, canned heat was on my mind
Woke up this morning, with canned heat, Lord, on my mind
Crying, Lord, Lord, I wonder, canned heat, Lord, killing me
Jake alcohol’s [ruined me, churning] ’bout my soul
Because brownskin women don’t do the easy roll
I woke up, up this morning, crying, canned heat ’round my bed
Run here, somebody, take these canned heat blues
Run here, somebody, and take these canned heat blues
Crying, mama, mama, mama, crying, canned heat killing me
B’lieve to my soul, Lord, it gonna kill me dead.

I have been told time and time again that my drinking experiences include those horrible things I have already done and those things I just haven’t done yet. When drinking, anything is possible for me. Since I do not want to end up with the Canned Heat Blues…….I think it might be a good idea for me to try to keep following the straight and narrow path I’m on. Trust God, clean house, and help others.

All the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger