Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: recovery from alcoholism

  • Walking Away from AA

    After being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 21 (almost 22 years) I’ve made a decision to walk away from AA.

    I don’t have a desire to drink – really I don’t.

    This is really about the AA programs “suggestion” that you believe in a power greater than yourself that will help you to stay sober. The Big Book itself states about itself:

    “Well, that’s exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.” We Agnostics p.45

    That idea and notion don’t work for me and I’ve tried.

    (more…)

  • Keeping the Spirit Quiet

    “There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it all. I suppose some would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity. But just underneath there is deadly earnestness. Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish.” Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill’s Story, Page 16

    “So we think cheerfulness and laughter make for usefulness. Outsiders are sometimes shocked when we burst into merriment over a seemingly tragic experience out of the past. But why shouldn’t we laugh? We have recovered, and have been given the power to help others.” Alcoholics Anonymous, The Family Afterward, page 132

    People in Alcoholics Anonymous and many of the other 12 step programs, millions if not billions of people, have escaped certain death. We reached a point in our lives the way we were living it where there was no hope – many lost friends, family, spouses and careers as a result of addiction.

    There was a vision in my head of what an AA meeting must look like –

    old men, white t-shirts and overalls on – the smell of cigarettes and bad coffee waft through the room and man after man shares about his tragedy and how horrible life is…

    That was the vision, and in truth I’ve been to a few meetings like that, you can switch out old men for young men or black women or what have you – there are meetings that resemble my old vision all over the country if not the world. Fortunately for me, and people like you, there are many more meetings that aren’t like that at all.

    I had been in the background at meetings my mother attended when i was a child – they seemed pretty somber to me and I didn’t see many people happy, smiling or laughing – maybe the rose-colored glasses were covered in dirt, which is likely. So I entered my first meetings as an alcoholic myself expecting much the same. Instead I found a Pacific Group.

    The Eau Claire Pacific Group in Eau Claire WI was a different kind of meeting for me. There was applause, laughter, oohing and aahing. I saw genuine smiles and people who talked about getting better. That first night I decided to stick around, because obviously these people didn’t know what AA was all about (I was a little over 1 month sober and thought I had it all figured out already).

    I don’t stick around at meetings that aren’t fun with people talking about the joy of living now that we’ve escaped certain doom. I “don’t want what they have” as we say… I want more, I expect more. The Big Book even promises more – there are promises all over the book that I seek during my journey. One of my favorites that has come true again and again in my life is:

    “At once we begin to outgrow fear.” Alcoholics Anonymous, How It Works, page 68

    and most other people like the promises after Step 9 (I think they are over read personally)

    “…We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us…” Alcoholics Anonymous, Into Action, Pages 83 and 84

    So we want to shout it from the rooftops, we have found a solution – we found a way to resurrect the dead… a speaker I like says it “I’m looking at a room full of dead people sitting upright” or something like that. We were the dregs of society that no one really wanted around anymore, but here we are – recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body… “miracles” they say.

    We are loud though… I guess. My home group meets at a church and we are probably 50 strong each week. We have fellowship before and after the meeting and we catch up with friends we might not have seen for a week or more. We laugh, we hug and give one another a hard time. During the meeting when we celebrate birthdays (1 or more years of continuous sobriety) we sing loudly and horribly off-key – on purpose. This is a big deal – someone who at one point couldn’t go a single day without a drink of alcohol has found a solution (most people call that solution God) and is now a contributing member of society… that’s a BFD. We have a “Rule 62” which tells us not to take ourselves too seriously – so we try to enjoy life.

    But the church says we’re being too loud during the music lessons. Now as a functioning, contributing member of society – whom, according to the big book, ceased fighting anything or anyone… I’m supposed to just leave this be. But it’s hard… I would think a church would be happy that a group of men have found the spirit, the joy of living that the church talks about (or at least I figure that’s what they talk about) and would be happy to hear us laugh love and live in their basement each Wednesday night… it should be the great news that is spoken of on Sundays  “Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights and Saturday mornings the hopeless have found hope – here in our house of worship” I’d sell the shit out of that and encourage members of my congregation to attend and find the power greater than themselves that will lead them back to the church…

    But I’m not the guy in charge there or anywhere, no matter how many times I think I am – The Director job has been taken by someone else and my job is just to help others. I have to stop and think about what would happen to the alcoholics that needed a meeting if we were asked to leave? What if all the groups were asked to leave the church as a result of my meeting being loud (and happy, joyous and free).

    Each AA group is autonomous except in matters affecting other groups of AA as a whole. (Tradition 4) So there you have it… I have to be responsible again and try to get my fellow members to be a little more quiet before and after the meeting. Because we have a home here and we still have many other alcoholics to show the way out – it’s the only thing we have to do to stay sober – help another alcoholic, and to do that we have to have a place to share our message. This will be hard, but we’ll find a way to make it work.

    (I thought this was just going to be a rant about asking us to be quiet, but once I started writing I saw my own defects and those of my group and that we needed to change… it’s interesting to see different results come out then I expect)

  • Happy 80th AA

    I was thinking today

    About the 80th birthday of AA

    How much has changed from the days of old

    When they’d lock us up or leave us in the cold

    Back in Akron is where it came from

    Two men started a journey

    a movement that changed the world

    one alcoholic talking to another

    one hand reaching out to the hopeless

    how more than one hundred men have recovered from alcoholism

    that’s what the cover page on our book read all those years ago

    now the hundreds are men and women and millions more

    Once, a lifetime ago for some of us,

    we didn’t care about anyone but ourselves

    now we seek out others to help, only giving of ourselves

    A power greater than yourself

    Your own conception of “God”

    That’s all that is necessary to make a beginning…

    Well, and maybe an open mind

    I have 21 years of sobriety

    It doesn’t seem a possibility

    That the man I am today

    Could even be alive this way

    Today, and every day

    I reach out my hand

    Think about the other man

    Share what was so freely given to me

    So another might be free

  • Like Passengers of a Great Liner

    I attended the SRI Roundup this weekend – well as much as I attend roundups: I went to the Friday night speaker, the Saturday banquet and Saturday night speaker. I would have attended the Sunday morning speaker which I normally associate with the “spiritual” talk, but they do it differently here – here it’s a local person on Sunday’s and I figure I’ll hear them ranting eventually in a meeting so I can stay home and do chores.

    Friday nights speaker was the energetic Katie P from Austin, TX. She told a very powerful story and it hit all the right points, I really appreciated her talk. She was funny at times, told of tragic happenings and stressed the importance of the Big Book, the Steps and even the Traditions. During her talk she talked about having “meeting based sobriety” which is different than “solution based recovery” and it was just right.

    “The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.” Alcoholics Anonymous, page 17

    The fellowship is not sufficient on it’s own for real recovery from alcoholism was what she was relaying to us. In her experience she spent decades going to meetings for the sake of going to meetings before she needed something more. When she finally hit a spiritual bottom while sober for quite a while she found real solutions in the Book.

    I myself never found a need to go to more than a few meetings a week, it would seem odd to stop going to bars and hangouts only to now to to AA houses and fellowship things. To be recovered we become a part of society again and that’s all society not just the rooms of AA.

    Here in Phoenix I hear people say they are going to meetings two times a day, seven days a week and it just baffles me, these people have 20+ years and say they have to do that to maintain their sobriety… I say, there is a real solution in the book that will show you precisely to recover from alcoholism – and that solutions doesn’t mention 4 hours each day in AA. Going to meetings every day is “meeting based sobriety”, going every day to get a small spiritual fix in a meeting when a real solutions is in the action described in the book is insane.

    The AA program is threefold: Recovery, Unity, Service – we need all three.

    The Saturday night speaker was a “slogan slinger” he had a lot of slogans and stories to tell, most of them not his. It brought lots of laughs and claps, but it wasn’t his story really and that would have probably been a better talk.

     

  • Responsible

    I want to talk about Tradition 3: “The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.”  All you need to become a member of A.A. is a desire to not drink anymore, that’s it. The long form of this Tradition goes on to say:

    Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.

    That just gets you in the door, that’s it. You have a desire to stop drinking? That’s great come in have a seat We have a solution for you. Once you become a member you have certain responsibilities.

    What!? you say These are just “suggestions” you cry.

    “On the other hand—and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand—once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.” Alcoholics Anonymous, page xxv

    “Further on clear-cut directions are given showing how we recovered.” Alcoholics Anonymous, page 29

    “If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us.” Alcoholics Anonymous, page 85

    Once you’re a member I suggest you have a responsibility to follow the program as laid out in our basic text, Alcoholics Anonymous. In there you will find detailed directions on how to find a solution. It states on page 20: “What do I have to do?” It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically.” And once you have followed the directions spelled out in our book then I think it’s your responsibility to share that solution with others.

    “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.” In short, when newcomers walk into our meeting rooms, we want A.A. to be there for them as it was for us— something we can do continuously only if we function as a group.” The AA Group Pamphlet page 18

    Essentially I think that also means that as groups and individuals we need to study and practice the Twelve Traditions.

    I’m a black and white person, it’s either this way or that way, usually there is no middle of the road where I’m concerned. However I realize that groups filled with strict Tradition following naysayers, like myself, would probably be very unpopular.

    At present we have a tip in the scales the other way, we have so many groups that have little to no practice or understanding of the Twelve Traditions that entirely too many A.A. meetings are group therapy and not the program of action that was shown to me in our basic text.

    On Sunday morning I was the lead at a meeting and shared my experience strength and hope. That experience includes watching others go to A.A. meetings and complain about how life had dealt them a bad hand again, and how there problems were the reason they drank or the reason they came to A.A. – to share them. My experience has taught me that A.A. is not a place I come to complain about my problems – if all I needed to get better was a place to complain about my problems I’d still be sitting on a bar stool drinking, but all my problems would have taken care of themselves. After I expressed that AA was for talking about solutions as found in our program of action and not for complaining about todays issues – six men, some with more time without a drink that I, disagreed with me.

    There isn’t anything I can do for those who think that A.A. is their group therapy, except be responsible (see the quote above). If I want the real recovery, the real message of hope to remain for millions of alcoholics to come then I have to be responsible. I don’t want a watered down solution for others, I want the one that was given me for free and for fun. I want others to be able to experience the entire psychic change that has happened for me and for countless friends like me.

    Friends of mine have suggested the reason we have such watered down A.A. in places is because of hard drinkers or moderate drinkers that weren’t true alcoholics, but needed to escape a bad problem and stayed. They’ve suggested those people don’t have to do those things we had to do to feel better.

    “Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation.” Alcoholics Anonymous, page 25

    Almost none of us liked it, but all of us have to take the steps as outlined in our book, and all of us are responsible to make sure AA is here for the man or woman suffering after we’re gone. Take a look at your meeting and think back to when you were new – is that the solution you were taught or is it the group therapy you remember from the treatment centers?

    The AA Group Pamphlet has a Group Inventory that I think most would find helpful in looking at their group. Often people who have been going to these same meetings for years see little reason to look at their group, they are comfortable resting on their laurels and don’t want change to rock the boat. But I say to you who have been shown the solution in our book – rock the boat! Talk about the solution, live the solution and be responsible.

  • Share in a General Way

    I’m a fan of round-ups, it’s a good place to hear experience, strength and hope from all over the world – usually.

    About 15 years ago I went up to the Upper Peninsula (the UP) of Michigan for a round-up with a bunch of folks from my Eau Claire AA meetings. I was looking forward to it, I think a few people that I’d heard before were to be speaking. The first night an American Indian woman was the speaker, I’d never heard her story before. Around the 40 minute mark of her talk I’d heard all about the oppression of the American Indian and how that affected her growing up into adulthood – but I don’t think she’d even taken a drink at that point. I walked out – I was followed by several other people who were as frustrated as I was.

    I’m sorry but I came to hear experience, strength and hope about alcoholism and how to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. That’s why I’m here. Did I come to the wrong meeting?

    A few years back I went to a “gay” round-up in Miami, I had scoffed at it for years without ever going until I thought hard about “contempt prior to investigation” so that year I went. The majority of the speakers at the round-up, and especially the Saturday night speaker, talked about being gay, coming out and their relationships more by far than they talked about alcoholism, recovery from alcoholism or struggling to stay sober. Except when the Saturday night speaker mentioned her sobriety date I don’t think she talked about the program at all. I remained hopeful and tried to be respectful to this woman with over 40 years in the program, but I left that night convinced I was right about “gay round-ups” all along. Perhaps the organizers tell the speakers of this round-up to really stress life as a gay.

    I’m not here to recover from being gay, I’m not here to talk about that or learn how difficult it was for you to come out of the closet to your parents, your friends, your co-workers. I’m here because I have a desire to stop drinking and live life being of maximum service to God (or what have you) and my fellows.

    I was asked to share my experience strength and hope at the end of 2011 in Minneapolis. I never practice sharing my experience or know what’s going to come out of my mouth when I do share, I just open my mouth and try to keep it honest (I remember once at the Eau Claire Pacific Group at the podium where I lied and immediately stopped myself and called myself out on it, I was pretty new). During my talk I mentioned that when one of my best friends moved out to the East Coast she said “You have to come with, Eau Claire is no place for a gay boy to be” and later on I talked briefly about getting engaged and dumped in the last year and wanting to drink over that. I didn’t dwell on being gay, I didn’t focus my talk on coming out of the closet or about how wonderful it is having gay sex.

    I shared in a general way, what it was like, what happened and what it’s like now as it relates to alcoholism, recovery from alcoholism and the joys and tribulations that I’ve experienced in sobriety. I think that’s what we’re supposed to talk about.

    When I met with my sponsor last week I told him that one of the members, a friend, of the group I spoke at expressed gratitude that I spoke in a general way about being gay. She said that typically when gay people come to speak they spend most of there time talking about the coming out process and how difficult it is being gay. She appreciated that someone could come and mention it without making it the focus of their talk. I thought that was interesting. My sponsor said that he thinks as society comes to accept the gay lifestyle more and more the coming out process will be less of traumatic experience to our young people and he thinks its already started to change to reflect that in meetings. I hope so.