We should be experts at "one day at a time" when we come into the program

Newcomers often balk at the idea of "one day at a time."  After all, it's a trick -- we all know we're really talking about the rest of our lives, right?  But, as a speaker at this morning's meeting said, we all drank one day at a time.  I know for me it was always "well, OK, I've had a rough day (or it's hot, or I'm thirsty) so I'll have one tonight and tomorrow I'll stop - or at least cut down."  I never thought 'Yippee, I'm going to get polluted every night for the rest of my life!!"  

It went beyond just the drink itself, too.  I knew I was screwing up my life and my future, but it was always 'this is what I'll do today; I'll deal with tomorrow when it comes.  I should have come into the program as one of the world's formost experts at living in the day and, yet, it's still a struggle.  As a former sponsor liked to say, I have a strong tendency to live in the wreckage of the future, sacrificing today's joy to my fear of tomorrow.

 

The need for approval destroys our capacity for happiness.

In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Thomas Merton points out that we are given all we need to be happy and yet "we are ashamed to do so. For we need one more thing than happiness: we need approval. And the need for approval destroys our capacity for happiness."

I think this is profoundly true.  I know that I daily damage my capacity for happiness by looking to the approval of others rather than to the values I actually value.  I find it especially distressing when I seek the approval of people whose values I despise and I allow the quest for that approval to make me ashamed of -- or at least embarrassed by -- the things that can make me happy.

If I were to list my addictions in order of preference, I think 'addiction to approval' would probably come in last.

An unexpected problem

Recently I got a call from a close friend, a sponsee in fact, who indicated he was in real distress.  We spoke for a while, I expressed sympathy and we discussed how his difficulties relate to the program.  I then more or less let it go.  After all, this guy has 13 years of exceptionally solid sobriety, he's sponsored a bunch of people... Sure he has problems but he can handle it.

In short, my reaction was awful.  Just because he's sober double digit years and is very solid, I actually undervalued his pain.  We later made it right -- well, less bad -- but the incident made me think again about how many people with 10 - 15 years relapse.  Perhaps we as a fellowship tend to make the mistake I made.  Just because someone has been around a long time doesn't mean he can't hurt.  I forgot that and from what I've seen I don't think I'm alone.

I got better before I got well

I heard this at a meeting the other day.  The speaker was explaining his recurrent relapses over a period of 24 years.  Every time he stopped drinking things got better.  He felt better.  He was able to get a job.  He acquired material goods.  He developed relationships with women.  In other words, his sobriety was exactly what I imagined mine would be before I entered AA:  his prior life and values minus the booze.   The result, of course, was unhappiness and relapse.  

 AA is not about not drinking.  It is about living in such a way and following such values that you don't have any reason to anesthetize yourself with booze.  AA is about getting well.  I'm tempted to say that when you get well you can handle things getting better and in a way that's true.  The kicker is that the definition of 'better' changes.  You may get your job back or even get a better job.  You may end up in a nicer house with a nice car, etc.  But when you've gotten well, those things matter a LOT less.  Your goals and values change fundamentally.  To cite my favorite Flannery O'Connor quote: You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.

Why do we get sober?

For the last little while I've been thinking about the AA slogan "You can't get sober for someone else - you have to do it for yourself" and, well, I'm not sure it's all that simple.

My bottom came when I collapsed with alcohol induced heart failure and was expected not to make it.  I certainly felt that if I let go I would die and, in fact, I thought that was a pretty good idea.  Primarily I thought my wife would be better off with a second husband.  The thought then occurred to me that I could become that second husband and if I did I could make a lot up to her, so I decided to fight to recover.  The next day my wife and I agreed to launch a project we still call "Brian 2.0".  So, I can certainly say (as I usually do when I tell my story) that I started my recovery for someone else.  For myself I was pretty content with the thought of dying.  If I had decided on the basis of living for myself I would have just let go.

Now I know a lot of people who started for themselves, usually saying they just wanted the pain to stop.  "Sick and tired of being sick and tired."  Yet as they grow in recovery they talk about living for others.

I think we learn that to live for ourselves we have to live for others and in order to live for others we have to learn to care for and about ourselves, sort of to do unto ourselves as we would do unto others.  If we're going to love people, the cosmos, God.... we have to love all people, the entire cosmos, all of God and his/her universe and I guess, uncomfortable as saying it makes me, that means we have to love ourselves.  However, the crucial point is that self-love is not the goal, it is just a small but essential part of our spirituality.

So, the reason we decide to get sober, to enter recovery, is generally not the reason we continue on the spiritual path.  We may start for ourselves and grow to live for something greater, we may start for one person and grow to live for all.  Whatever direction it takes, it is a process of growth.

Anonymity

Last Sunday the New York Times published an article ‘Challenging the Second A in AA’ (http://xrl.us/bkhnum (Link to www.nytimes.com). I have the impression that we get this kind of attack on Anonymity about once a year. However amusing it may be to find it in the Fashion and Style section, the article still bothered me. If focuses almost exclusively on anonymity as a protection for the individual alcoholic from social abuse. Now, I personally think the author is nuts for claiming that there is no longer any stigma attached to drug addiction or alcoholism, but that (like most of the article) is beside the point. First, the author never touches on anonymity as a protection for the fellowship against the potentially damaging publicity from a famous self-proclaimed member going out.
Far more importantly, it is only at the very end that the author mentions the connection between anonymity and humility, yet this connection is the central point. It is critical that when people come into AA meetings they leave as much of their reputations behind as possible. I got sober in Cambridge MA and one of the local mottos there is “when you walk into a meeting you leave your degrees at the door.” It is very important that we enter AA as equals in our illness. We are there because we are sick and flawed, not because any accomplishments or disgraces on the outside. As sick and flawed people we want to heal and grow spiritually. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions and that fact is not changed by the social status of any particular alcoholic. The point is not protection from gossip or backstabbing; the point is maintaining an important spiritual tool.

Questioning the norm

What happens when AA meetings begin to lose their luster?

When a member begins to question the "norm" in AA?

Not so much the process itself (the step work, prayer, meditation, carrying the message), but the series of rituals that have become our meetings?

What happens when this process begins to set in and the member finds more and more reasons to avoid the actual meetings, but tries hard to stay current on the other things (see above)?

What happens when slogans become platitudes, and ritual becomes dogma?

Does the member require help? Do we smirk at their folly? Distance ourselves and treat them as lepers? Is there a way to help them?

I would love to hear some suggestions or comments

Return Good For Evil

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal:
For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal:
For a simple penny pay thou back with gold:
If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold.

Thus the words and actions of the wise regard;
Every little service tenfold they reward.
But the truly noble know all men as one,
and return with gladness good for evil done.

Today I turn 60

Today I turn 60 years old. A good time for feeling old, a failure  -- after all, I did drink myself out of a good career and any possibility of material success.

But 4005 days ago I collapsed from alcohol induced heart failure and was pretty much expected to die.  That was my bottom after 25 - 30 years of daily blackout drinking and the beginning of my new, sober life.  So, at the very least I should celebrate the fact that I'm still here, 4005 days past my sell-by date.  Beyond that, recovery and the life it has given me make me actually happy that I'm still here.  I am a happier, nicer, even wiser person than I was when I was drinking.  As I heard someone say, I was young once and I wasn't very good at it.  I'm pretty good at being post-young and when I decide I'm actually old my bet is that I'll be good at that, too

So, today is a day of celebration.

Got a job and some lessons in humility

I have been absent from this blog for a couple of weeks because after a year of unemployment I have finally found work.  It feels wonderful, but does come with some challenges.

The big issue is that old problem:humility. I am on staff "term of project" (i.e. a temp) and therefore pretty much ignored. It's good training but it takes some real getting used to. Bottom line: I have some real work to do