Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: sobriety

  • Twenty-Seven

    Twenty-Seven

    If everything goes according to plan, this Saturday, May 8th 2021 I will celebrate 27 years of continuous sobriety.

    I spent 22 of those years in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), attending a meeting at least once a week. Raising my hand to volunteer, reaching out my hand to newcomers and reading the literature. I would even pray at least once a day, usually I’d recite the 3rd Step and 7th Step prayers each day, and as the day would progress I might say an extra prayer here or there. At night I might thank the sky for the day and ask for certain people to be watched over. I was a Big Book Thumper! I quoted the book, practiced the book and preached the book. I was a hawker or the 12 Traditions and their importance to making meetings and AA work.

    As an atheist I struggled with the concept of a “higher power” and or “god” and despite what the book or the traditions say, most meetings I went to pushed a need to believe in something greater than you to achieve and keep sobriety. I did as I was told, I ‘faked it til you make it’ til I was blue in the face, but I seemed to get sobriety without ever achieving a belief in a higher power. Made me kind of a hypocrite when I would preach the steps and not believe key parts were necessary.

    In 2016 I had a bad depression cycle and was in a dark place for several months. Nothing AA had taught me was helping, I was stuck. I didn’t know how to get out of it and didn’t know if I wanted to get out of it, it became comfortable and the new normal. I was actively planning my own death and looking forward to it.

    My primary care physician listened to me and prescribed some medications that helped me. I got out of the dark place and started to feel better and started to think that I didn’t want to go to AA any longer. I don’t know that they were connected thoughts I just know they happened around the same time. So I came to a decision to leave meetings. I’ve been to two meetings since and they didn’t inspire me to come back to the groups or give my heart aches.

    It’s interesting, my sponsor at the time noticed I was moving away from AA before I did. He mentioned one night after we met that it seemed like I was pulling away. I was having issues with the service structure of AA and not enjoying any part of meetings, not the people, the time or the activities. I was moving away and didn’t know it. When I told him I was leaving he wasn’t surprised and thankfully he didn’t cut me out of his life or anything, I still chat with him on occasion and count him as a friend.

    So what’s different if you don’t go to AA meetings any longer Jamez? – well not a lot. I still believe getting out of self and helping others is a key role in sanity and sobriety. I still meditate on occasion. I still don’t drink or do drugs. Basically I took the meetings and readings out… and doing ok, as far as I can tell.

    AA gave me a great foundation, tools to live a normal life and now I’m living it. AA is a great resource if you’re looking to find a new life and they can help you get there. I appreciate what AA gave me and how far it got me, changed me for life I hope.

    So Saturday, I’ll be 27. I’ll be spending time with an old friend for the weekend in Philadelphia, I don’t anticipate attending a meeting, just doing normal things that normal people do. Hope you have a great weekend too.

    Organizations that help you find sobriety:

    Alcoholics Anonymous

    Narcotics Anonymous

    LifeRing – Secular Recovery

    SMART Recovery – non deity based recovery

  • The Trap

    I recently enjoyed a book by Lawrence Block called – A Drop of the Hard Stuff.

    It’s a story about a former cop turned unofficial private eye who also happens to be in his first year in AA. It centers on one of his childhood friends whom took a different path than he did and ended up in a life of crime and even serving time for something. That friend is also in AA, with a little more time than our hero and he’s out there making amends for the wrongs he has done (Steps 8 and 9) when he’s killed – shot once in the head and after once in the mouth – a clear message, shut up. Matthew, our hero of the story, goes out at the request of the dead guys sponsor (a gay jewelry designer) to see if any of the names still on his eighth step list would be viable suspects for the murder – it’s actually quite interesting.

    One of the suspects sets a trap for Matthew – when he returns to his room at the hotel he finds a glass of scotch sitting on the table staring at him – and a full opened bottle next to it. Not only that but the smell of that glass seems overwhelming. There are moments when we think this guy’s going to relapse right there the way the author is describing his mind. Seems the bad guy also dumped an entire bottle of the stuff on his bed too for the smell. That’s just not nice at all, but the killer knew if he could get Matthew drunk he’d win, knew the alcoholic obsession and a good bender would get him off the case.

    The whole book was good, but I found that particular scene really good and frightening.

    Reminded me of a comic book story that I read a while back – Flash Thompson is Spider-man’s biggest fan, but a bully to Peter Parker. He becomes friends with Spidey over the years and it becomes known. Flash is also a recovering alcoholic (so is Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man in case you didn’t know). Well bad guys decide to use Flash against Spidey and tie him up in a chair, force his mouth open and pout alcohol down his throat until he’s drunk enough to want to drink on his own again – I can’t recall how much time sober Flash had at the time, but it was a frightening scene for me when I read it. Damn that’s not a nice thing to do to an alcoholic.

    I have a wicked mind I guess and often think of horrible things – I think that spiking a punch bowl or the like at an AA round-up would make a great story, lots of little stories would crop up as a result of that one event and many lives stand the chance of being ruined for good – but there is also the chance for change and growth for people that were spiked. I wouldn’t do that, today, but it would make an interesting story and maybe someday I’ll write that.

     

     

  • David

    I found out that my first sponsee, David R, passed away yesterday. David was a real alcoholic, he struggled to find the answer in AA and was the kind of drunk who’d been in treatment centers and involved with the courts countless times. He was, for all intents and purposes, hopeless – that’s the kind of drunk you don’t think is going to make it and then BOOM they get it and their whole life is changed… but that didn’t happen for him. He had brief moments of sobriety when I knew him, and then the crushing fall back into the disease – it was hard to watch for me, probably a lot harder to watch for his family. I feel guilt – maybe I didn’t read him the right part of the book, or show him how good it would be or … I don’t know, a million things, but it’s not about what I did or didn’t do, I tried – I reached out my hand and offered a way out, the same way that was shown to me, that’s all I was bound to do.

    David is the guy I wrote about and got published in the A.A. Grapevine – ( Read story here ). I was working over nights at the Fahrman Center, a treatment center/halfway house, when David called and was suicidal. I talked to him for a good long time and eventually had the police get out there to get him – he was taken to the psychiatric unit at the local hospital, but not before he made me promise to come up and see him there and bring my fellow AA’s with me. That morning, likely before the sun came up I called all the guys on my list and a bunch of us went to see him. That phone call and follow up visits by AAs to him opened up an avenue for that hospital and the District to talk to one another, we started a pager program and started to carry the message to drunks up there – it changed things.

    But David didn’t stay sober, I don’t remember when he got drunk after that – but I know he was sober for a while and he seemed happy. He kept focusing on getting his family back and how he could get sober if he had them, but I knew from the book that wasn’t the case…

    “Let no alcoholic say he cannot recover unless he has his family back. This just isn’t so. In some cases the wife will never come back for one reason or another. Remind the prospect that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God. We have seen men get well whose families have not returned at all. We have seen others slip when the family came back too soon.” Alcoholics Anonymous, pp 99-100

    He wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t hear that and he got drunk.

    The last time I saw David he had called me and was really drunk, he was staying at a little motel down the highway and I went to see him. He looked pretty bad, was still drunk as hell and was hard to understand. He started to talk about bad things that had happened to him as a child- but then he just passed out.

    I’d get reports once in a while from friends who work in the Drug and Alcohol treatment field once in a while – and I always hoped he’d show up one day at a meeting I’d get to when I was visiting, but it didn’t happen.

    I’ve cried a bunch of times today – a few times for happy reasons before I heard this news – but mostly for David. I so want to grab a slipping newcomer and just slap him silly

    “Don’t you see, can’t you see this will happen to you to”

    “just do what we’ve asked, and you’ll see, it’ll all get better”

    but I know that won’t work… I used to hear in meetings “You can’t see until you can see and you can’t hear until you can hear” and it’s sadly so true. For some there’s nothing I can do to help them until they’re ready – and some sadly will never be ready.

    I was at my current sponsor Flo’s house when I heard about David today, I was helping him prepare a memorial for his first sponsor who passed a few weeks ago. And it was just the right place to be at the right time – I find it hard to cry in front of people, even my sponsor, and he left the room. Here we were, preparing to honor the man who had reach him only to hear about the loss of a man I couldn’t reach. That’s AA for you, I was where I was supposed to be today.

    The old-timers and the book say that even though David didn’t stay sober, I did and that’s a good thing – that doesn’t make me feel better at all. I want it all, I want David to be next to me at a meeting grinning at newcomers who can’t pronounce anonymity and shaking hands at the door. I want them all to get it and to have a better life and to see how a few simple rules can change the world.

    I believe in Alcoholics Anonymous, because it worked for me when I worked for it – I didn’t get it when I just stayed on the outskirts and watched others participate. When David was participating and shaking hands he seemed happier than I’d seen him before – I saw change in him. But our book says others are likely to see the change in newcomers before they see it in themselves, that may have been the case with David, I’m not sure.

    There is a solution, I’ve found it, it was shown to me by sponsors who had it shown to them by sponsors who had it shown to them by sponsors… it’s been working for over 75 years now. We have a lot of people to try to reach out to, I want to be the helping hand to show them the way out, I want to see them help others and watch a marvelous fellowship grow up about them. I wanted that for David, I want that for all my sponsees – the fellowship I have around me is so vast now, reach across continents, internets and handshakes – I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

    Rest in Peace David

  • 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.