One of the most fundamental things I have learned is to pass on our message to other alcoholics.  That means I must think more about others than about myself.  The most important thing is to practice these principles in all my affairs.  In my opinion, that is what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about.

AABB – pg. 199 (“Gratitude in Action”)

Slow Growth in Character

In the long run, the only permanent way by which an individual can be helped is to help him help himself ….  But it must be his own slow growth in character that is the final and determining factor in the problem.

When I was recently on the Sudan I heard a vernacular proverb, based on a text in the Koran, which is so apt that, although not an Arabic scholar, I shall attempt to repeat it in Arabic: “Allah ma el saberin, izza sabaru” –  God is with the patient, if they know how to wait.

Roosevelt, Theodore – An Address before the National University in Cairo (1910)

My Take on It …

I’ve been getting a little more sober everyday for five years now, and it really feels terrific.  I see some evidence that have seen some slow growth in character that is doing me and those around me a world of good.  I’m just not the jackass that I used to be; at least not so much of the time.

I participated in an anniversary celebration today at one of my support groups.  It was kind of neat that I was one of the ten or so celebrants with the least amount of time on the wagon.  Eight of the ten have been sober longer than I have been – most a lot longer.  Nash marked twenty years, Kent twenty one, Joan eighteen, and so forth.  What this tells me – and what I hope the newbie sees is that this Program works.  Other things may work, too, but here is some pretty good evidence that this one works just fine.

Nash told us that he has “hated” a lot of meetings that he’s been to over the years and that he “hates” a lot of the people he meets in the rooms.  But he has kept on coming back and hasn’t picked up a drink in twenty years.  I guess even bad medicine can save people.

My mentor surprised me by trekking across town and being there to celebrate with me.  Matthew is a fine man with two or three years on me in the sobriety department.  He’s taught me a lot, mostly just through example and staying sober and acting like a gentleman and a grown up even under often trying personal and professional circumstances.  Matt passed me his “used” five year coin, which I will treasure because I like goofy, sentimental tokens.  Since the group also gave me a new token, I’ll have one to pass along to a protégé who reaches the five-year mark.

I’m committed to focusing a lot on helping newcomers in my second five years.  I hope that I can rise to the occasion and do something, say something, act somehow, that will help the next guy to help himself.  One thing I’m really going to have to work on is patience.  This whole thing has (knock on wood) come pretty easy and fast for me, but that’s not going to be true for everyone.  Young Ransom has flown the coop, but there’s every reason to believe that he may yet return.  (I engaged, of course, in a fantasy that would have him showing up in the church basement today to celebrate with me and to renew his commitment to growth, sobriety, and maturity.  Curses, foiled again.)  Others haven’t even found the rooms for long enough for their future drinking to be ruined.

Carry the message.  Practice the principles.  Attract those who want it.  Be patient.  That’ll keep me busy for a few years.

Please go to:

WAY BEYOND ZERO

https://waybeyondzero.wordpress.com/

The Year’s Final Daily Reprieve

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels.  We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.  We are not cured of alcoholism.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

AABB – pg. 85 (“Into Action”)

The Customs of Savages

It is hardly surprising that in these conditions humanity should always be involved in suffering.  We are born under a layer of superstition and false ideas; we grow up under it, go on living under it, and say to ourselves that we shall die under it, without ever, for one single day in our lives, having lived otherwise than in subjection to the ideas of idiots and the customs of savages, which we cannot infringe or even denounce without danger to ourselves.

De Montherlant, Henry – The Notebooks (1930)

My Take On It …

Alcohol is not, and never was, strictly speaking, my problem.  In fact, alcohol was a handy, effective solution to my problems.  Lord, how it worked to eliminate my problems.  Of course, it created loads of new problems and, in the end, really let me down as it ceased to solve more problems than it created.  But still …

So, my problem was, and remains, this pesky condition that we’ve decided to call alcoholism.  I’m belted in on the water wagon and looking for alternatives to alcohol to treat my alcoholism.  My strain of alcoholism wants me to turn everyday pain and suffering (and joy and contentment, for that matter) into rock-bottom misery at the earliest opportunity.  Then, well aware of my slothful propensities, I will latch on instinctively and rapidly to the easiest, more sure misery-eliminating potion that is found in a pretty – or plastic – bottle.  Game, set, match.

It’s always a good day to remind myself that pain is natural part of the deal called existence, whereas misery is entirely optional.  My little program, the AA program, diligence in work, and caring comrades have worked pretty well throughout the past year to keep misery at arms’ length.

And, for this, I am exceedingly grateful.

Now, borne resolutely into the future, my prayer is that I can somehow continue to summon the courage to persevere in attracting – cajoling if necessary – those who know deep within that they want a shot at being fully present for life’s rewards.

Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means.  It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who, like us, are suffering from the pains of growing up.

12 && 12 – pg. 92 (“Step Ten”)

That’s Not What I Meant

My father and grandfather had ‘words’ with [my uncle] of a violent order; as I learned indirectly.  A few days later, passing my uncle in the street as he drove by in an open carriage, I felt at once all the grief, the gratitude, the remorse which I should have liked to convey to him.  Beside the immensity of these emotions I considered that merely to raise my hat to him would be incongruous and petty, and might make him think that I regarded myself as bound to shew him no more than the commonest form of courtesy.  I decided to abstain from so inadequate a gesture and turned my head away.  My uncle thought that, in doing so, I was obeying my parents’ orders; he never forgave them; and though he did not die until many years later, not one of us ever set eyes upon him again.

Proust, Marcel – Swann’s Way (1924)

My Take On It …

How often do I give so much credence to my own analysis and conclusion as to other folk’s words and actions that I end up, well, cutting off nose to spite my face?  And what percentage of the time am I just flat wrong?

This whole judgmentalism thing can really get out of hand and not only is it unjust to those on the receiving end, but it also, at least as often as not, doesn’t do me a bit of good either.  Just gives me a perceived slight to chew on or comes back sucker-punch me when I least expect it.

Since I am unable to do so with predictability and uniformly positive results, why should I conclude that everyone else out there chooses their words with OED precision, circa today?  Perhaps when someone tells me (or indicates via inaction) that they forgot to do such-and-such or were just too busy to call or write or whatnot, I should simply let it go at that.  How often do I let days or even months go by without communicating with a terrific, trusted friend when all that means is that, sadly, I didn’t think of it at the “right” time and intended not the even the hint of a slight?

In case he does stumble, even once, you will have to decide whether to let him go.  If you are sure he doesn’t mean business, there is no doubt you should discharge him.  If, on the contrary, you are sure he is doing his utmost, you may wish to give him another chance.  But you should feel under no obligation to keep him on, for your obligation has been well discharged already.

AABB – pg. 147 (“To Employers”)

What Might Still Work

I have thought about returning to you, assuming that I could, but I don’t think it would work out on either side.  You’re not the forgiving kind, and I’m not penitent anyway.  I’m reasonably confident that you don’t want me back, just as I’m reasonably confident now that you didn’t want me in the first place. … At the heart, or feeling level, I don’t deny some resentment; I’m sure you nurse a good deal of it for me.  With just such a little effort, on both sides, it would have worked.  It kind of worked anyway.

Koffend, John B. – A Letter … (1972)

My Take On It …

It’s an odd sort of day here on the East End of Long Island.  Twenty-three degrees or so, but sunny and clear.  The wind is just shy of tornadic and clouds of dust and snowy crystals are being borne southward across the few remaining potato fields toward the ocean.  I just left a meeting in Wainscott and the windows of the Friends’ Chapel were rattling as if ghosts were wanting a bit of shelter from the elements.

Alcoholism is like that; it will keep looking for a sneaky way back in to my life if it looks as though there is even half a chance.

Pity the man who thinks himself cured after only a few short weeks or months on the water wagon.  He’s combed back some cobwebs, work is on an even keel, he’s sleeping in the bed more often than not, and his drinking friends are entirely understanding of his new life without alcohol.  And he sees a lot more of those friends and of his family now that he doesn’t have to waste time going to meetings, reading some sort of stale Program literature, and considering his path and plan with pen set to paper.

I’m sure my little buddy Ransom is doing splendidly this afternoon.  He’s made it safely through Winter holiday parties and family gatherings, never once succumbed to any fleeting fantasy that a nice, neat dram might cap off the evening nicely.

In that respect, his earlier work has paid off in spades.  He is safe; home free.  With just the slightest effort, it all worked.  Or kind of worked anyway.  If I’m wrong at all about any of this, I’m still available.  Or I’ll find someone else who is better-suited.

There have been some wonderful things too.  My new wife and I don’t own any property to speak of, and the flashy successes of another day are no longer mine.  But we have a baby who, if you’ll pardon a little post-alcoholic sentimentality, is right out of heaven.  My work is on a much deeper and more significant level than it ever was before, and I am today, a fairly creative, relatively sane human being.  And should I have more bad times, I know that I’ll never again have to go through them alone.

AABB – pg. 387 (“Me an Alcoholic?”)

Necessary, Parallel Tracks

At this time, then, I became vividly aware of an ambivalence in my attitudes toward men and women.  Love for a friend expressed a need for self-identification.  Love for a woman, the need for a relationship with someone different, indeed opposite, to myself. … As I understand Goethe, he defined creative human energy as the action of male force, energizing, intelligent, constructive, upon the receptive body of that which is outside it – das Ewigweibliche – the eternally feminine.  I could not develop beyond a certain point unless I were able to enter a stream of nature through human contacts, that is to say, through experience of women.  Yet I never lost the need for camaraderie also, my desire to share my creative and intellectual adventures with a man, whose search was the same as mine.

Spender, Stephen – World Within World (1951)

My Take On It …

The crazy patchwork of somewhat-unhinged people that have become part of my life’s fabric in sobriety is something of a wonder.  And the way that I am better able to incorporate normal Earth people into my world as a result of my own sobriety is a measurable improvement as well.

Looking back just a few years ago it would be fair to say that my circle was comfortably predictable.  I was really only capable of genuinely accepting of people who looked pretty much like me and I certainly wouldn’t have considered that those in a “lower” station than mine could really contribute much to my well being.  (I have no doubt that I then whistled a much more democratic tune, but really.)

(Here it is worth noting that in my salad days social standing didn’t really count for much when it came to chicks offering sex or affection or both.  Nor was I ever shy of seeking favors from or acceptance by those residing in a more desirable neighborhood.  But these are different stories.  Stay tuned.)

These days, however, I am much more attuned to the thoughts, views, and even, for crying out loud, guidance of folks to whom I would have scarcely given the time of day while active.  I am even able to call as friends certain people of whom I actually know very little.  Their inherent value is wholly independent of their zip code, academic credentials, or genealogy.

This being said, however, I have also become more (and sometimes painfully) aware of my need to develop and foster intense, bona fide friendships, primarily — though not at all exclusively – with other men and, generally, with other sober men.  I’m really starting to learn that slogging through this world alone (or insulated) or in only the company of those similarly situated in only the most superficial ways is just that — lonely and superficially rewarding.