Talk or sleep...?

My home group volunteers for Night Watch on Mondays.  Night Watch is when the phones from the local central office are forwarded to your phone from 7 at night until 7 in the morning.  The thought being that it's better for a real drunk to answer the phone than to have callers have to deal with an answering machine or service.

With those of us that rotate this commitment around our group, about every 2-3 months it's my turn to take the phones.  Not to put too fine a point on it, I'm old and I really enjoy my sleep.  A lot.

So, it's with no small reluctance that I accept this shot at martyrdom for the service of AA.  Many weeks, nobody calls.  Last night we had 3.  One was a guy who related the "...I have a friend who I think might have a problem..." saga we often hear, another call was, I think, his friend who was probably really trying to call but seemed to just want to hang up rather than talk, and then there was the guy who called about 11:15 - just as I was thoroughly asleep.

After I finally got myself fully awake (not an easy feat last night), he was asking about: "...but does anyone really find a God in this life?"  The philosopher/reluctant drunk/lonely guy/"I'm gonna die if I don't stop"/"I have all the answers"/"AA doesn't work for me..." - you probably know the guy.

Our Night Watch process suggests the "right" way to handle a 12-step call of this nature is to get the guy's number, find someone else on our list and, pass the call to them - rationale being that we don't want to tie up the Central Office line in case another call comes in.  Sometimes I do that but, more often, I either just work them off the phone with a commitment to show up at a meeting or I indulge them and just "chat" with them wherever their sometimes befogged consciousness takes us.  I figure I have call waiting in the unlikely event someone else would call and I'm already awake so why spread the pain of a midnight call if you don't have to.

Last night, for reasons I never really understand, I decided to indulge him for an hour or so and we had a really amazing conversation.  Turns out, he's really had a pretty good experience in and around AA.  He just can't stop drinking.  I assured him that part really sucks.  We opined about the nature of willingness and what may or may not be working for him.  We discussed what had seemed to work for periods of sobriety for him.  ...about our thoughts and feelings around meetings.  He said he hadn't yet drank last night (my guess he was lying, what's yours?) but we both recognized the familiar thoughts and feelings that were leading him in that direction, one more time.

We talked a lot about the nature of "God as we understood him" and the broad spectrum that folks use as a concept for God in AA.  We also talked about not believing in God and still getting drunk over and over.

After an hour of this conversation, it was time to hang up and I was truly grateful.  He said he was too.  I suggested some things he might "do", rather than "think."  He thought that a novel idea and said he was going to try.

I woke up completely sober.

What could be better?

Tom...

Last night I pitched a lead at a meeting that I don't normally go to on Tuesday nights.  My 15 minutes went fine.  The topic was the 11th step.  I love the 11th step and have some experience that seemed useful.

After my lead, the discussion started and, after 2-3 people had shared, Tom shared.

You probably know Tom.

Tom has probably visited your meeting.  Maybe Tom is there most every day.

Tom started out sharing about how he was new in town and that he was on his way back to Afghanistan and was in more pain than was humanly possible to conceive and (now sort of dancing around the back of the room) was tired of sleeping in the cold but he got here from Louisiana by way of Selma and Chicago and St. Louis and got a bus ticket from Kansas City to Denver where he had a job but then his tools got ripped off because he was a great stone worker and then he was headed on the bus to work at a stone quarry where they were going to give him new tools in the south but because of some behavior problems on the bus he was pulled off and hassled (not his fault, mind you) and told that he had to wait 24 hours to continue his trip because they wanted to see him less manic and then he realized that he'd left his grandfather's wallet and other valuables on the seat of the bus and...

Tom would occasionally slip and swear and then he'd catch himself and apologize and then congratulate himself about not swearing much.

After he'd gone on for about 8-9 minutes (I was deeply engaged in meditation with my eyes closed when I realized one of the members of the group was nudging me and asking me "what should we do?"), one of the members of this group interrupted him and asked him to wrap up and sit down.  After another 2-3 minutes and increasingly stern requests, Tom shut up and found a chair in the middle of the room where he remained twitchy and, with great flair, picked items off the literature table and went for coffee 2-3 times.

Tom may or may not have been high or loaded and, it was clear, he might have had problems other than alcoholism.

I was so proud of this group, I could have just hugged them all...

It was a good meeting.  Several folks shared useful insights, experiences and, perspectives on the 11th step in their lives.

Many of us shared after the meeting that "...there but by the grace of God go I..."

About 2/3 of the way through the meetings, Tom interrupted again and said "...I just want to say I love AA..."

Me too...

Rosie...

I was asked to give a guest lead on the 12th step at a meeting the other night. It wasn't my best share (I was tired) but I got through it in about 15 minutes and, before the chair could open up the meeting, Rosie called from the back of the room. She just yelled "help!".

She was drunk, belligerant, bad attitude: "AA doesn't work", "you people" this and "you people" that. It happens.

She was fairly brief. Interrupted the next few people as they tried to share and then she left the room (2-3 folks followed her out). Not all that unique in an AA meeting. I had heard of Rosie but had not seen her in a meeting and didn't notice her when I came in (come to think of it, she might have come in after I'd started).

What caused me to think about writing an article, though, was that I got 3 different phone calls yesterday about "what should I do about Rosie?" I'm really not that wise counsel in the program that people generally call. One call was from a sponsee and the other 2 were from folks who were just calling around working out what to do with "the situation".

Rosie's life is a mess and she's actively working to burn the rest of it down. Suicide slowly.

All 3 calls basically led to the same place (for me). Help if you're able and you're heart tells you to. We all see all sorts of stories. I'm not one who believes the alcoholic has to ask for help themselves. I was lucky enough to do that but I've met dozens of folks in our program who basically were intervened with or had other experiences. One of my favorites is the guy who was beat to crap, hospitalized even, by his sponsor during his last drunk. Not my style or experience, but it worked for him. The sponsor stayed sober too...

Anyway, there may be nothing less lovely than an alcoholic in their cups.

But Rosie is a loved child of a caring God. She can find him. She never has to have that pain again.

Now, if we could just find the injection that would place that sure and certain thought in her head an soul.

...if only...

AA Celebrity

We had a special sort of man in our area a few years ago. At the time I first got to know him, he was an At-large Trustee for our AA's General Service Board. At that time, he was traveling the world over - he was gone from home more than 50 weekends a year at one AA function or another.

So, when he agreed to speak at my home group one of the few Saturday nights he was in town, I was in awe and we were honored.

I was then about 6-7 years sober and was a co-founder of my home group so it was sort of a big deal for me when I went to the church to open up and meet him.

When he came down the stairs, I introduced myself and expressed what a great honor it was to have "someone of his celebrity to speak to our group".

In the 15 years that I got to know him after that (quite intimately), that moment was the only time I ever saw his eyes flash anger at me.

He said "Don't EVER refer to me or treat me as celebrity!!! It will not only be harmful to me, it might diminish a chance for me to be effective in my message."

I gulped and agreed and, as I've already alluded to, a special, spiritual bond of friendship was begun.

Over the years, I saw what he meant. Against his admonitions to me and others, I saw him treated as a celebrity and "guru". (I'm sure, in his heart, he sometimes appreciated his special treatment and position) But, we do diminish the chance that some of our best have to reach those with such a gift to reach others when we create something out of them that they really neither ask for or want. It costs them deeply at several different levels.

I've sometimes wished it were my problem (I've never really been all that popular in any of my AA or life circles), but my friend and others on this path have given me a view of what a price can and is paid for making one of larger than life.

Today, my anonymity might be my greatest gift.

Philip 6 ...

I marvel at how AA is with our newcomers.

Some people just show up and the room swarms to them and embraces them. Others, AA people are more tentative and aloof. Myself, when I showed up in my 3-piece suit and money hanging out of my pockets was pretty much left alone until people could notice if I was going to land anywhere soon or if I was always going to be "better than" until I just died. For the most part, people still leave me to myself 25 years later, but that's a different story...

I marvel at Philip and peoples reaction to him.

In the 3 months since he was delivered to me as a new newcomer (btw - when you search Google images for newcomer, you find that there are lots of people named Newcomer - imagine! All the gravestones for Newcomer bring interesting ideas in AA...), he's been seduced twice, picked up as a "project" a few times by well meaning men and women, gotten job offers (bogus and real) - i.e. he can't seem to show up in AA and just be left alone. This is good. But, it's interesting watching the over-all impact with him.

As the aftermath of his latest relapse of ~10 days ago subsides, he's found new willingness and I think ready to set aside some of the drama of life in early sobriety and start into working the AA program of recovery.

As I've written before, I've struggled trying to figure out how to be helpful with him. I've not done with him what I've done with new sponsees for the past 20 years - start at the beginning of the Big Book and go through it, line by line. Partly because of the peculiar nature of his situation (on a tight leash at the recovery center with lots of time on his hands and unavailable to regular meetings with me) and more because of changing perspectives I've had in my life and AA program.

But now, I think we're going to start at page 0 - you know, the blank cover leaf to the book that has nothing on it - which is all you know about alcoholism and living as an alcoholic when you start into this process...

...and then, we'll just see what happens...

Liberty...

(In the course of writing this, it occurred to me that some readers may not be familiar with AA's 6 Warranties. These Warranties, sometimes referred to as AA's "Bill of Rights" are contained in Concept 12 - Warranty 3 states: "that it (the General Service Conference of AA) place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others)

At a workshop the other day, someone mentioned the principle of "liberty" as being aligned with our 3rd warranty. This sort of surprised me - I don't think of terms like "liberty" or "democracy" as a part of AA (even though the founders certainly did...) so it came as a bit of a mind cramp for me.

I think I take the liberties offered in our program for granted - one of the many things that has come for me with longer term sobriety is I forget how comfortable those early meetings were for me. It had been a long time since I'd had someone really listen to what I'd said and understand me. Not my many problems or my drinking history or the consequences I was facing for living the life of the active alcoholic. They seemed to have "read my mail" and had way more understanding than I would have thought possible about how I ran my life and the pain that came as a consequence.

This understanding affected me at my very core.

Of course, that's not exactly the liberty expressed in warranty 3 - it expresses that there be no "dictators" in AA - that there should be no unqualified authority. This comes along with the "right of participation" that is expressed in another of the 12 Concepts.

What does that have to do with my sobriety today?

The way this outfit is set up, no one can tell me they're right and I'm wrong. I can't do that to others as well. As generous and patient as those folks were with me in early sobriety - listening to my aches and pains and problems and offering their experience and the suggestions - I can offer the same generosity to let folks run amok until their done or what they do is no longer my affair. As much as I'd love to tell them to "shut up and get with the program", what I get to do instead is offer my experience, if they want it. If no-one wants my experience (has not happened yet), I can bring it here and offer it to the blogosphere.

The promise of our Big Book and our program is that I can be useful somewhere today. That's true freedom.

Lists...

I started working with a new sponsor about 2 years ago. This was after my sponsor for ab0ut ~15 years fired me when I was at one of my lowest points in sobriety but, hey, I'm over all that now...

Anyway, since he's a long distance sponsor (not recommended but how it worked out for me), it took us several months to develop much of a rapport or comfortable way of checking in on the phone.

During this time, my life was aflame and I was (nearly) completely frozen and unable to show up in any way I thought was responsive to the pack of wolves who seemed to be constantly howling at my door. I was working my program as best I could, showing up as best I could, doing all the stuff I know to do but was absolutely stuck - if you've been around a while, you probably know the place: "...yes, I know I said I would do 'X' and had every intention to do 'X' when I got up this morning and, well, it's now the end yet another day and 'X' is still not done..." What 'X' is, really doesn't seem to make much difference in my life - could be write a 4th step, apply for a job, make a phone call, take a walk - stuck is stuck.

It was a bad time...

So, I went to an inspiring AA conference, got my legs under me and had a new spiritual experience and great enthusiasm and decided what I needed was a new "accountability". I would make myself wholly accountable to my sponsor (actually, a surrogate since he was too busy at the time to commit to multiple phone calls a day...). I created a list of goals and pinned them down to dates and was ready to begin my life anew.

I remembered that phone call yesterday when Syd made a comment about lists on my blog article of yesterday...

Me: "I called to make sure you got my emails of goals and accountability for the next few days"
Sponsor: "um, yeah..."
"So, I know it seems sort of simple but I just thought I would start out slow and as I get my stride back, I can expand my goals and commitments as necessary..."
"(silence)"
"So, I will create a web site where I've got all these tasks lined out and you and ____ can verify what my progress is each day..."
"(silence)"
"...so, as I see it, each one of these tasks will be traceable and I can see my real progress on the several area where I've been stuck for the last few months..."
"(silence)"
"...eventually, the web site could look sort of like a project management system where the critical path of my life can be progressed as each task is completed..."
"(longer silence)"
"........so, I'm really excited about getting my life back into some kind of shape..."
"(really long silence)"
"(silence)"
"(indefinite but probably infinite silence...)"
"So, do you have any sort of thoughts about this...?"
"Well, I'm thinking about what we talked about the difference between a spirit-led life and 'trying to wrest satisfaction from life by managing better...' "
"Yeah, but..."
"I was thinking about the difference between being spirit-led and ego driven..."
"OK..."

A little further in the conversation...

"So, there's not going to be a list of tasks, huh?"
"nope."
"There's not going to be a daily check in for accountability?"
"Only with you and God in your nightly review..."
"Probably not really a need for that web site or anything like that..."
"nope."

He might have saved my life...

Ed