Easy Does IT Living Sober One Day At A Time

Beginner's Meeting: Hope Blossoms

2008-04-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

Today I was ready. Today was going to be the day. When opportunity struck, I was going to raise my hand and speak. I sat and I waited, listening to everyone else share their good and bad times. And, just as I thought the moment was going to come, I froze.
From theAudioGrapevine... Listen to this storyon the AudioGrapevine[MP3, 5.4MB]
All I was able to do was sit there, smile, and listen to the next speaker, and ended up again waiting for the perfect opportunity to raise my hand. But no matter what I did, I just couldn't say a word. I have been coming to the same meeting for quite some time now, so I'm no longer surrounded by strangers. I've seen their faces and I've heard their stories, time and time again.
Believe me, I have plenty to say. I have tons of stuff going through my mind that I'm just dying to get out. But saying those things out loud is something I just can't bring myself to do. An annoying voice in the back of my head continuously says that my story is not worth sharing; that it has been told before. Why would someone want to sit through another repetition? I have no life worth talking about, nothing of interest has happened to me. I was never arrested, I never got pulled over, I didn't go to rehab or become homeless. So how can I say that my life has become unmanageable and that I cannot drink?
Simple: Once I start drinking, I cannot stop. I knew this from the time I took my first sip. The taste was overwhelmingly gross. I gagged at every sip. But for some strange reason, it felt great going down. I would often convince myself that the next taste would be better and, for a drink that made me feel so good, I would just have to get used to it. It was a simple price to pay. I enjoyed the feeling at fourteen years of age, and as I grew older, I began to love the feeling so much that I actually started to plan my life, my days, and my moments around the opportunity for me to get that feeling again.
At first, it was once in a while, then once a week, then twice a week, then just about every other day, with a day in between (swearing to myself that this is it; I've had enough; I'm not going to drink anymore).
But then a three-day weekend would come up, or a holiday, or a "just because life sucks" event, and that would send me right back to the store for another long night.
Then the week came when my partner and I hit our bottoms. We both had events take place in our lives that forced us to look at ourselves and see how destructive we had become. There was no escaping it -- we were alcoholics, and it was time to stop.
During our time trying to get sober, he was attending AA meetings and I was forced to stay at home and take care of the household, kids, and sobriety on my own. When I did attend the meetings, on special occasions, I felt I was on the outside looking in. I did not do the ninety-day meeting plan, I did not get a sponsor, and I couldn't pick a home group -- because I did not know where I belonged. I felt that since I did not raise my hand and introduce myself the first time I came into the rooms, I missed out and now had lost my speaking privileges. My partner, however, jumped headfirst into the program. I was only able to get my feet wet.
I felt lost, abandoned, and alone. Although I was trying to be supportive of his work in the program, at the same time I resented it. I resented him, because I wanted to go and be a part of it, and inside I felt I could not. It's not easy when both parents are in the program at the same time. I guess the worst of it is the feeling of having to put my program on hold. I had to deal with my alcoholism on my own.
This put me in familiar territory, because being alone was something I did well. You see, when I drank, I was never one to go to the bars and hang out, never one to mingle in parties. I drank alone. I have always preferred to drink alone. It allowed me to be myself, in my head. The crazy thing about it was that I often would wallow in self-pity because I was alone. I had no friends to hang out with, no one to talk to. I would fi nd myself sitting by the door drinking, listening to the commotion going on at the bar across the street, and wishing and wanting so desperately to be a part of it, a part of them. But I was too afraid to venture out, too afraid to be a part of them. I felt I didn't belong and I had no right to become a part of them.
And I hated my partner for it, because here I was drinking alone, and he was out there with the guys at the bar having a jolly good time. I constantly felt abandoned and rejected. For he would rather drink with them than with me.
So, of course, to pay him back I would drink some more. I would think, I will hurt him by drinking some more for leaving me here alone. That will show him. Boy, was I an idiot. I would end up drunk out of my mind, sitting by the window and burning cigarette holes in the sofa when I blacked out. I would be so drunk that there were many times the cigarette just tumbled out of my hand, often behind the sofa, and I would frantically have to pull the sofa back and get the smoldering cigarette before it burned a hole in the carpet. Sometimes I would wake up wet because I'd passed out and spilled beer all over myself. Then there was my long walk to the bathroom, where I would throw up, then make my way back to the living room. I would fall flat on my face, getting rug burns, then sit back on the couch and say to myself, I'll have another. So, while I was puking and passing out, he was out cold in bed. I really showed him.
When we started to get sober, I had this insane thought. Things were going to change; things were going to get better. He was finally going to hang out with me and be with me and life was going to be just great. Boy, was I wrong.
For the first two years, he was working the program and I had no idea what that entailed. But you can only imagine that while I was begging him to running off to a meeting. When I was desperate for some conversation, I was brushed aside for another member. I would be crying by myself at the window for feeling so alone. He was dashing out the door. This was not easy, not easy at all. I couldn't believe that my life was going to be this way. This feeling of loneliness keeps following me, I thought. I was tired of crying and I was tired of being alone. The thought of picking up a drink crossed my mind many times.
Often, I would say to myself, Oh, to hell with it all. Nobody cares whether you're sober or not, so why should you? I wanted to hide myself in a bottle -- that was the only way I knew how to deal with things. Drinking was the only thing that gave me a voice to speak up and say, out loud, what was on my mind and what I truly felt inside. So, when I put the drink down, in one sweep I lost my courage, my voice, and myself.
The funny thing is that I never truly had these things. My courage was an illusion because if I had any courage, why was I hiding behind a bottle? Why did it take a bottle of wine and a case of beer to loosen my tongue?
The truth is, I hated myself. There were many times I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I was ugly inside and out. I often walked with my head down. I was scared all the time and ashamed. I can still hear my father telling me that I'm useless and that I'm no good, can remember when I was twelve and he would beat me up and down the block, flinging me around like a rag doll, calling me a bitch or a whore -- loud enough for everyone to hear. I drank to forget about those times. I did not want to remember when he used to beat me with a wiffleball bat. I sure did not want to remember when he played the sweet, loving dad so he could touch me.
So, when I put down the drink, I felt life on an intimate level was over, because in order for any man to come close and touch me, I had to be drunk, drunk enough to the point of passing out and where my mind would reach a point of forgetfulness. I would stay away from everyone because I honestly felt I was unworthy to be near anyone. Why would they want to know me? I'm nobody. I'm nothing.
Things didn't start to change for me until I was reaching my second year in sobriety. An AA friend realized that I was handling my sobriety on my own without any sponsorship. She took me under her wing, started to work the Steps with me, and guided me through the literature. Slowly, I started to understand the Twelve Steps and began to believe that I could overcome this. That if I worked the Steps, my life and my train of thought would improve and things would get better. It took a lot of work; my self-esteem was down the toilet. I felt completely worthless.
I did not understand why she took an interest in me, why she even cared, but I'm grateful that she did.
Every day, I can feel a change come over me; I am more supportive of my partner's work in the program and we are seeing one another in a new and brighter light. When I enter a room, I'm no longer looking for a corner to hide in. I'm actually looking at the many faces and saying hello.
I don't know what the future holds. All I know is that I don't want what I used to have. I no longer take comfort in isolation. I now have friends in my life, and that grows stronger every day. I have hope, where I had no hope at all. And every day, I see myself evolving slowly into a person I have always wanted to be. I have learned a lot from yesterday, am grateful for today, and look forward to tomorrow.
Yesenia V., Long Beach, New York
What kind of help did you receive when you first came to AA? How do you and your group help newcomers today? Post on the Grapevine Forum at i-Say.
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A Businessman's Recovery
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2008-04-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

July 1946

Closet Skeletons

2008-04-05T02:32:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online January 1950 Vol. 6 No. 8
THIS is one of those pieces where you have to leave out the names. The central character is a businessman--a middle-aged guy--who had trouble with his mother-in-law for years because he had a habit of having a glass of beer on the way home from work.

The mother-in-law lived with this guy and his wife and if he wanted a bottle of beer at home, he had to sneak it into the icebox and then wait until the old gal retired for the night.

Every time she caught a whiff of brew on his breath, the mother-in-law would read the riot act.

Well, the other day, the old lady passed on to her reward and was duly buried. After the funeral our hero and his wife were inspecting the mother-in-law's room. In the closet, among other things, they found 157 empty whisky bottles.

Cartoon

2008-02-28T22:53:00.000-08:00

December 1946

Beginnings of Serenity

2008-02-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online January 1980Vol. 36 No. 8
AA provided the tools to use soberly, one day at a time
AFTER A few months in AA, I am asking myself, "Why do I go? What's in it for me?" I didn't really have a problem--I hadn't ended up on skid row or in jail or in a clinic. As I near five years of sobriety, I still need AA, but I no longer ask why.

I think the beginnings of serenity came with the shattering, emotional awareness that I was in a room full of understanding people. My story is my own, but the feelings I had can be shared.

Tonight, for instance, someone's reference to rye and water made me remember that I never drank rye and used to con myself into believing I was okay because I stuck to a specific brand, drank only on social occasions or under severe stress, and never went to a bar by myself. Of course, I was drinking at home alone, thought I was functioning as a wife and mother, and so I couldn't have a problem.

Never mind my sister's needling me about the amount I was consuming--I just considered her not with it. Never mind that a member of AA broke his anonymity with me because he knew about me what it took me another two years to know. Never mind that my behavior while drinking was far from what it would have been sober. Never mind that my divorce was a consequence of my drinking.

Why did I feel drawn to AA? I went to my first meeting with my defenses up. I had not had a drink in ten months, and I had done it on my own. From my very first meeting, the spirituality so hard to verbalize about AA transcended my thoughts and my motives. Just when I would think nothing was being said that could help me, the power of AA sharing--if not the words themselves--would overwhelm me.

For me, with a very strong spiritual background that I had turned away from in college, coming into my first AA meeting was like coming home after fifteen years.

What keeps me going to AA? The warmth, the understanding, the sharing, the acceptance of me as me, the reminders of what drinking did to all of us. Am I better than someone who can be just a social drinker or who has never a drink at all? No way--but I am a better me, and AA meetings give me the reassurance that this better me is worth it even on the days when problems appear to be totally overpowering and unsolvable.

At least, I can now face the problems and can often solve them easily and calmly with the tools that AA provides, as long as I am willing to use them soberly and one day at a time.

Anonymous
Malvern, Pennsylvania

Music...Soft Lights...Romance

2008-02-14T00:47:00.000-08:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online August 1947

Count-the-house Charlie

2008-02-13T02:43:00.000-08:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online February 1970 Vol. 26 No. 9
He found his place in AA and served faithfully in his own way
HIS NAME makes him sound like a character Damon Runyon might have created, one of the Guys and Dolls gallery.

He was a fixture of the Plummer Park meeting, a Sunday-night get-together where the motion-picture folk used to assemble. The first Sunday night I got there, back in 1955, I arrived late and was fascinated by the opening speaker, who was already airborne. Trying to find a scat unobtrusively, I listened as he soared to dizzy heights of eloquence, leaving vapor trails of beauty and spiritual splendor behind him in his humility. Suddenly, he pounded the lectern and shouted, "Now this is an honest program, so I might as well come clean. Yes, I did join the program four years ago, but six months later I had a slip. I was subjected to a severe emotional shock. The woman I was living with went back to her husband."

I knew these were my people. I knew I belonged.

In this congress of kooks, Count-the-House Charlie had found his niche as self-appointed head usher. Everyone loved him. We might not have understood him, but we certainly realized that he was doing his thing. He wore dazzling checkered vests, and it was not long before I learned how he had' come by his Runyonesque moniker.

If you happened to be the speaker of the evening, there would inevitably come a time when Count-the-House Charlie would sidle up to you officiously and whisper, "Two hundred and fifty-two." Then he'd smile and walk away.

On a weeknight, you might be attending a less prestigious gathering, and our walking computer would steal up and murmur, "Thirty-two." Maybe a week later, you would be at a somewhat larger group, and Charlie's voice would be more jubilant as he made his earth-shaking announcement sotto voce: "One hundred and forty-seven!"

We all loved the numbers game as Charlie played it.

When I went back to Plummer Park to celebrate my twelfth AA birthday, I didn't see my charming friend as I surveyed the crowd, and I decided I'd inquire when the meeting was over. In the confusion, I forgot, drove thirty-five miles back home, and didn't get the information until Thursday morning.

I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang and a voice said, "Walter, this is Ray."

"What goes, Ray?" I asked him.

"Did you know that your friend Count-the-House Charlie has been sick a few months? He wants to see you."

Within minutes, I was racing over the freeways to the Motion Picture Home in San Fernando Valley to visit the ailing Charlie.

I looked down on the bed to see a terminal case of cancer, a victim who, in a day or two, would be facing the God he loved so much and served so well. The eyes were still big, still gay, still gallant. In wonder, I asked him, "Charlie. . .how long have you been on the program?"

Excitedly and with justifiable pride, he showed me the graphic answer on the table at his bedside, a handsomely crafted plaque only recently given him by one of those groups he served so unselfishly:

AWARDED TO COUNT-THE-HOUSE CHARLIE for 20 years of faithful steady service to ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 1948-1968

Three days later he was dead, at the age of eighty-one. Almost a hundred of us gathered to do him honor at Forest Lawn. When I looked at the quiet, calm face in the casket, I thought to myself, "This guy was a saint."

Not until he was sixty-one years old did he understand clearly what God wanted him to do--but from that day twenty years before until the end, these words accurately described his life: "What a man should say, he said! What a man should do, he did! What a man should be, he was!"

Not once did I ever hear Charlie make a talk, but he will continue to educate me as long as I live.

W. O'K.,
Palos Verdes,, California

Christmas. . .In the Place for Drunks

2007-12-24T00:37:00.000-08:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online August 1954 Vol. 11 No. 3
Christmas. . .In the Place for Drunks
Selected for reprinting from December 1949 Grapevine by Al S., editor Dec. 1948-Dec. 1951

ON Christmas morning the man woke up in the Place for Drunks and his wrists were tied down by the bed. His soul turned over with a retch and shrank away from any certain knowledge of time and place that waited beyond his closed eyes.

Overhead he knew without looking {for the man had been here before) was a spreading stain in the plaster. Lath would be showing through like broken bones--and a single bit of mortar dangling by a hair. He had filled his eyes for two days with that sight only, last visit. That was in springtime. It was winter, now. Sleety rain had turned to snow last night. The window glass would be frozen in saloon mirror designs behind the iron bars.

In a few minutes doors would begin banging in the hall, announcing the new day. Water taps would squeal and sing; toilets flush one after another. Then the trays would come--cereal bowls clinking rims with coffee mugs in witless joviality. Ah God! He was back in his old room in the Place for Drunks and it was Christmas Day. His clothes were gone, he knew; his wrist watch, his ring, his pocket book, papers, keys, glasses. The man locked these little images in his mind to shut out the picture of bigger things.

Memory began to work behind closed eyes.

"For God's sake don't come home drunk on Christmas. Don't do it!" Year after year the same bitter refrain from the mother of his children. As always, the man would mutter an angry promise and push out of the house.

But this year everything was going to be different. His faith had been pinned on two little initials; two words. Alcoholics Anonymous. Yeah--AA. Bitterness welled up and choked the man. He wanted to pound his head against the gray iron bedpost in a futile rage.

Three months ago neighbors from the nearby AA group came to call. Sick, scared and shaken, the man was an easy convert. Sure he was alcoholic; ready to admit it, why not? The man went to meetings, read the pamphlets, made new friends. Slowly, he began the build-back to an alcoholic's "normal." No miracles happened except the daily one that lasted twenty-four hours. He didn't' drink. Sobriety stretched for weeks; then months. Thanksgiving came (holidays were always big drunk days for him)--the man sailed through it!

Confidence grew as Christmas approached. Even the family felt it. "Pa, this year c'n I have the skates, like you promised?"

"You bet you can have the skates, boy!"

Oh, it was going to be a good Christmas, this time! New ornaments to replace the broken ones; tree lights that all lit; safe again to ask the relatives over! Come back, you lost years; gather 'round the green branches!

Christmas Eve day, the man awoke with a strange tension. It was a hangover from a senseless argument. Always with anger, a confusion stepped in between the man's hearing and mind. Speech and action were in subtle conflict.

The man "hung-on," doggedly. He sat through a boozy lunch that started the office party without taking a drop. Everyone (it seemed) was passing a bottle. When the party grew so noisy he wouldn't be missed, the man sneaked his coat and parcels and hurried out the back way.

A light snow was falling. Cold air hit the man with a heady exhilaration. Thoughts spun faster than swirling snow. Unreasonably, now that he was safe, the slush of self-pity welled up. Everybody was privileged to celebrate a glorious holiday except him! "Mix Yourself a Bowl of Merry Christmas," begged gorgeous lithography from every saloon window. The man's mind began stirring a bowl of resentments, spiced with the fruit of imaginary good times. A compulsion gripped him, tight as fingers around a glass. He felt he had to drink or die. A saloon beckoned from across the street. He hurried to it.

Blocking the way stood a woman with kettle and bell. The man swung out to avoid the charity and bumped into a sidewalk sign, waist high. It was a Navy recruiting poster. His bare hand touched the icy metal frame. Then the man gripped tight, for sickness of soul swept from head to foot and held him there.

With a clarity never known before, the man saw the beginning and the end of what he was about to do. A hopeless panic shook him. He grinned fatuously at the woman and fumbled for a quarter, hoping that no one would speak to him. Warm air came from the saloon door, opened. Juke records spun 'round and around. The bar was packed four deep; singing gushed fitfully from the rear. Tiny glasses quivering with amber light slid down the bright mahogany.

Crystal sharp now came his vision of the wrecked Christmas! The fragile ornaments spinning, smashed on the tree, and every one had mirrored a bright promise. A dustpan full of pine needles. "Skates for the kid--don't make me laugh!" Tears came into the man's eyes because lie knew the compulsion to drink was stronger than he. When his hand stopped trembling and his legs were safe, he would push his way to the bar and set the terrible cycle in motion.

Suddenly, he remembered a way out! That first meeting his sponsor had said: "If you're ever hanging on the ragged edge and you haven't strength to light off getting drunk, stand right where you are and pray."

The man held tight to the sign and breathed into his woolen muffler, "Our Father, who art in Heaven." It was the prayer at the end of every AA meeting, but it didn't seem quite right for now. "Christ," he whispered, "take me home on your birthday. Help me home for Christmas. Amen."

The words swirled away on an updraft of snow that was rising instead of falling. It was dark in the sky. . .the man couldn't remember what happened, then. His deep, vivid impression of Christmas Eve ended there.

Now consciousness was returning. It was another day.

Wondrously, the man who had awakened so many mornings in the Place for Drunks lifted his arms from the side of the bed. He folded his hands together, eyes still closed.

Was his prayer and the answer a dream?

"Thy Will Be Done," whispered the AA man, accepting the thing he could not change.

The dream faded. He opened sober eyes on the wallpaper and windows of home.

It was Christmas Day and Christ was born again.

Les D.

An Old-timer Says: We Forget to Duck!

2007-11-29T20:29:00.000-08:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online September 1948 Vol. 5 No. 4
THE question of persons, who after two, three, even five or more years of continued sobriety in A.A., "having trouble," came up in a discussion meeting recently. How to avoid the "trouble" is an important question.

It seems to boil down to something like Jack Dempsey's reply to a questioner, after Gene Tunney had flattened him, who asked, "What happened?" The "Mauler" answered, "I forgot to duck!"

We, too, forget to duck. We get out of practice. We learn early in A.A. that we should practice the Program continuously. That slip doesn't occur when we take the first drink--it may have happened a day, a month or a year before we take the first drink. Indeed, I have observed cases where everyone but the chap himself saw it coming. Strangely enough, no one can talk to the "slipper." Usually he has been on the Program longer--dry longer and has all the answers.

However, he has fast grown away from the very simple Program he learned when he first came in. That is kindergarten stuff to him. Through the habit of not drinking, he feels that he is safe.

In spite of his knowing, "once an alcoholic always an alcoholic," he is forgetting the 10th Step. Envy has slipped into his thinking. Jealousies and resentments lurk within him--The fellows at the office or shop are picking on him again--The wife doesn't understand him anymore--Other A.A.s are running, or trying to run, the group--The speakers are boring--He resented the fact that he couldn't drink with the other fellows at the company outing--People don't appreciate his staying sober.

These and a thousand other little things may be the slip he didn't catch soon enough.

We are never going to reach perfection. The above-mentioned things are insidious, but we can strive to keep them out of our thinking. They are our weeds. Unless we remove them, they will choke out our correct thinking to a point where we will get into trouble.

Years ago I was taught by those who preceded me that I must ever be on guard--that I'd always be an alcoholic--Thank God I've always remembered it.

When we find envy, jealousy, resentments, creeping into our thinking, let's weed them out. The simple way, it seems to me, is to review our actions each day. Check where we could have been a little more understanding, or tolerant to someone else--whether the time we blew up was really as important as we tried to make it. Let us try to recapture the wonderful feeling we had when we first came into A.A.

We'll usually find, as always, that the fault is within us. So let's talk the misunderstandings out. Let's give the other fellow the word of encouragement that he needs. It is good to get away by ourselves and think things through, honestly, humbly, as we'd advise a newcomer to do.

I'd like to see the ideas of others regarding this subject published in The A.A. Grapevine. It will help you to write it. It may help someone who needs it and certainly it will help the newcomer to realize that this is a continuous Program. To get full benefit out of it we must live it continuously--not just give lip service.

Dick S.
New York, New York

Interview With God

2007-11-28T03:19:00.000-08:00

A Time to Put Up. . .

2007-10-31T00:13:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online January 1960 Vol. 16 No. 8
IT is no wonder that so many of us have said that in coming to AA we have found exactly what we have been looking for all of our lives. I think I might alter this to say that I have found just exactly what I had heatedly professed was needed by the rest of mankind and, in some weird sort of way, what I believed that I, myself, already possessed.

Almost everyone, at least in the western hemisphere, comes into contact with some of the principles of AA during the early years of his life. At around seventeen years of age I remember quite clearly thinking about ethical principles and coming to the conclusion that, although they were undoubtedly fine and true, they were simply unworkable in this hard competitive world. Furthermore, I remember making a decision that I would always believe in these principles, but that it would be foolishness to try to follow them. It took just a shade more than twenty years of lumps to force me to toss that decision out the window.

I can at this point thank God I am an alcoholic. I know people, non-alcoholics, who are just as misguided and blind as I have been, only they haven't the least chance of realizing it or doing something about it. Their troubles don't smell like old booze and therefore they can go more or less undetected. They have no AA or the equivalent to help them.

It was Lincoln Steffens who said that this is a country of petty privilege. Everyone complains about the corruptness of government but if Joe Doakes hasn't a friend in the City Hall who can fix a parking ticket he will darn well vote the administration out next election.

Joe Doakes believes, as I did, that he is a basically honest and upright citizen. By God, if he parked in a no parking zone, he was a busy man, he had things on his mind, and besides, look at all the other cars; what the hell, after all, it's no crime. If he's caught, well, if he has to he darn well will pay the fine.

After some years of this kind of thinking, coupled with the drinking and the fact that as time went on I almost always was caught and had to pay the fine, what with losing jobs, family, driver's license, clothes, self respect, money, freedom (and on and on, ad infinitum) I finally was up against a kind of put-up-or-shut-up proposition. The put-up this time was my life and my will. Well, I didn't want to lose my life and my will, but so far in this gamble with booze I had never picked up the bets. I think this was where I stood when I came to AA this time. My choices had about run out and I was. . ."Willing to go to any lengths." This meant turning my will and my life (which I had almost lost) over to the care of God, as I understood Him. What safer hands could I have chosen?

I remember a quotation from Albert Einstein: "God does not play at dice." I think he might have known better than most people.

A. L. P.
San Francisco, California

Great Momments In AA History

2007-09-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

Cartoons © AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online

Why the Recovering Community Deserves to be Tobacco Free

2007-09-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

This was posted in May of 2006. You can read the entire post and the pros and cons of this post here

Following story as told to me in the first person.
With permission to post.

My name is Julius, I'm an alcoholic.
My first drink was at the age of 12 as was my first cigarette.
However, it all started in earnest when I entered the Navy at age 17.
From that point on I smoked and drank alcoholically for the next 40 years.
I continued to smoke for the next 15 years.

A pain in my right shoulder prompted an Orthopedic clinic to order an x-ray of the shoulder. The x-ray showed the problem as arthritis. The x-ray also showed a shadow in the right upper lobe of my right lung.

A CT (CAT Scan) was ordered.
It showed a mass a little smaller than a golf ball.
A needle biopsy showed small cell cancer.
Surgery is rarely used in small cell lung cancer.
Chemotherapy was ordered.
Chemotherapy is treatment with anticancer drugs given into a vein or by mouth. These drugs enter the bloodstream and reach throughout the body, making this treatment useful for cancer that has spread (metastasized) to organs beyond the lung. Chemotherapy is usually the main treatment for small cell lung cancer. Several drugs may be given at the same time.

Chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells but they also damage some normal cells, causing side effects. These side effects depend on the type of drugs used, the amount given, and the length of treatment.
You could have some of these short-term side effects:
nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, hair loss, body pain.
These are the side effects I now have after my first chemo infusion.
Chemo is not fun. I lost 30 lbs because I can't eat due to what is called taste blindness caused by Chemo. Stinking Thinking
To combat the pain Vicodin is prescribed.
My pain got so bad I succumbed to the Vicodin.
It worked, I was able to sleep. No more pain.
Then stinking thinking returns.
Maybe I should take another Vicodin just in case the pain returns. This is what chemo does.I know it's very difficult to stop smoking.
Do yourself a favor and get a chest x-ray. American Cancer Society

I know, this is A.A. I stopped drinking to save my life.
I stopped smoking only because I had too. I pray I wasn't too late.

F.Y.I. only. Nicotine Anonymous

Bill's Wife Remembers When He and She and the First A. A.s Were Very Young

2007-08-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online December 1944 Vol. 1 No. 7
As the wife of an early A.A., some of our experiences and my reactions to my husband's changed life may be interesting to other wives. Bill was an alcoholic, I believe, from the first drink he ever took, just a few months before our marriage. From then on, for seventeen years, I did everything I could think of to keep him away from liquor.

I will tell a little of our life before A.A. to help explain some of my later emotions. Bill and I had no children, so I soon felt that my job in life was to help Bill straighten himself out. As time went on, he earnestly tried to stop drinking. He was always very remorseful and perplexed the mornings-after. We would then resolve to lick this liquor situation together, launching off on some new tack.

As his drinking got worse, all decision and responsibility had to be taken by me. It was lucky that we were companionable, for gradually as our social contacts were broken we were thrust back on each other for company. In order to get away from alcohol over the week ends, I used to engineer some sort of outing, as we both loved the outdoors. If our pocketbook was flat, we might take the subway to the Dyckman Street ferry and hike along the Palisades to some scenic spot where we would nibble our sandwiches and gaze at the view. Or we might ferry to Staten Island and walk there; perhaps broiling a steak over a campfire. We have hired a rowboat at Yonkers and, using a bath towel as a sail, floated up the Hudson, to a spit of land near Nyack, where we camped and tried to sleep. We once went so far to get away from alcohol that we both gave up our jobs and took a whole year off. This we spent motorcycling and camping over half the United States.

These trips, although good for Bill's health, did nothing towards his permanent sobriety. In fact, his alcoholism grew steadily more serious. He lost job after job until I became entirely hopeless about him.

And then suddenly and finally Bill straightened out through the help of an old friend. At once I was convinced of his complete change and was of course extremely happy. Bill began to go to religious meetings and to work feverishly with alcoholics. I would go to meetings too and would try to share his newfound enthusiasms. He always had some drunk in tow and would work all night or get up in the middle of the night to go to the suburbs if one called him. We had drunks all over the house; sometimes as many as five lived there at one time.

One drunk committed suicide in the house after having sold about 700 dollars worth of our clothes and luggage. Another slid down the coal chute from the street to the cellar when we refused him the front door. Two others took to fighting, and one chased the other all around the house with a carving knife. The intended victim was saved by a third drunk, who delivered the knife-minded one a knockout blow. An alcoholic who was living in the basement was invited up for a pancake breakfast. After eating his share, he suddenly put on his hat and started out of the door remarking that he was going to Childs for PLENTY of pancakes.

Bill had found himself a job about this time; and it used to take him away from home a great deal and I was left with one or more alcoholics to look after. Once one of these boys lay in the vestibule all night and screamed invectives at me because I would not let him in. He was so loud the passers-by all stopped, looked and listened. Another time it was 4 a.m. before I succeeded in towing a drunk home. He was anxious to be at his job the next morning and we had gone out around midnight to look for a doctor, having been unable to get one to come to the house at that hour. I helped his shaky steps up and down stoops, lit his cigarettes for him and finally, when we could not rouse a doctor, held a drink to his lips in a bar. When I asked him how he then felt he said, "Well, a bird can't fly on one wing." After a few more drinks I managed to get him home, but he did not get to his job the next morning. I was once suddenly taken sick, and when my sister arrived to nurse me she found five men milling around in the living room, one of them muttering, "One woman can look after five drunks but five drunks cannot look after one woman."

Now to describe my reactions to it all. When Bill first sobered up I was terribly happy but soon, without my realizing it, I began to resent the fact that Bill and I never spent any time together any more. I stayed at home while he went off somewhere scouting up new drunks or working with old ones. My life's job of sobering up Bill with all its former responsibilities was suddenly taken away from me. I had not yet found anything to fill the void. And then there was the feeling of being on the outside of a very tight little clique of alcoholics into which no mere wife could possibly enter. I did not understand what was going on within myself until one Sunday, Bill asked me to go with him to a meeting. To my own surprise as well as his I burst forth with, "Damn all your meetings," and threw my shoe at him as hard as I could.

This bad display of temper woke me up. I realized that I had been wallowing in self pity; that Bill's change was simply miraculous; that his feverish activity with alcoholics was absolutely necessary to his sobriety; and that if I did not want to be left way behind I had better jump on the bandwagon, too! ~ Bill W.'s wife, Lois Wilson

Editorial: The Shape of Things to Come

2007-08-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online June 1944 Vol. 1 No. 1
In the book Alcoholics Anonymous there is a chapter called "A Vision for You". Wandering through it recently, my eye was caught by this startling paragraph written a short five years ago. "Someday we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination. To some extent this is already true. Some of us are salesmen and go about. Little clusters of twos and threes and fives of us have sprung up in other communities through contact with our two large centers-----" Rubbing my eyes I looked again. A lump came into my throat. "Only five years," I thought. "Then but two large centers--little clusters of twos and threes--travelers who hoped one day to find us at every destination."

Could it be that only yesterday this was just a hope--those little clusters of twos and threes, those little beacons so anxiously watched as they flickered, but never went out.

And today--hundreds of centers shedding their warm illumination upon the lives of thousands, lighting the dark shoals where the stranded and hopeless lie breaking up--those fingers of light already stretching to our beach heads in other lands.

Now comes another lighted lamp--this little newspaper called
"The Grapevine". May its rays of hope and ex-perience ever fall upon the current of our A.A. life and one day illumine every dark corner of this alcoholic world.

The aspirations of its editors, contributors and readers could well be voiced in the last words of "A Vision for You". "Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find, and join us. We shall be with you, in the Fellowship of The Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. May God bless you and keep you--until then."
Bill W.

Charming Is the Word for Alcoholics

2007-07-26T20:20:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online July 1944 Vol. 1 No. 2
Down at the very bottom of the social scale of A.A. society are the pariahs, the untouchables and the outcasts, all under-privileged and all known by one excoriating epithet--relatives.

I am a relative. I know my place. I am not complaining. But I hope no one will mind if I venture the plaintive confession that there are times, oh, many times when I wish I had been an alcoholic. By that I mean that I wish I were an A.A. The reason is that I consider the A.A. people the most charming in the world.

Such is my considered opinion. As a journalist it has been my fortune to meet many of the people who are considered charming. I number among my friends stars and lesser lights of stage and cinema; writers are my daily diet; I know the ladies and gentlemen of both political parties; I have been entertained in the White House; I have broken bread with kings and ministers and ambassadors; and I say, after that catalog, which could be extended, that I would prefer an evening with my A.A. friends to any person or group of persons I have indicated.

I asked myself why I consider so charming these alcoholic caterpillars who have found their butterfly wings in Alcoholics Anonymous. There are more reasons than one, but I can name a few.

The A.A. people are what they are, and they were what they were, because they are sensitive, imaginative, possessed of a sense of humor and an awareness of universal truth.

They are sensitive, which means that they are hurt easily, and that helped them become alcoholics. But when they have found their restoration, they are still as sensitive as ever; responsive to beauty and to truth and eager about the intangible glories of this life. That makes them charming companions.

They are imaginative, and that helped to make them alcoholics. Some of them drank to flog their imagination on to greater efforts. Others guzzled only to black out unendurable visions that rose in their imagination. But when they have found their restoration, their imagination is responsive to new incantations, and their talk abounds with color and light and that makes them charming companions, too.

They are possessed of a sense of humor. Even in their cups they have been known to say damnably funny things. Often it was being forced to take seriously the little and mean things of life that made them seek escape in a bottle. But when they have found their restoration, their sense of humor finds a blessed freedom and they are able to reach a god-like state where they can laugh at themselves, the very height of self conquest. Go to the meetings and listen to the laughter. At what are they laughing? At ghoulish memories over which weaker souls would cringe in useless remorse. And that makes them wonderful people to be with by candlelight.

And they are possessed of a sense of universal truth. That is often a new thing in their hearts. The fact that this at-one-ment with God's universe had never been awakened in them is sometimes the reason why they drank. The fact that it was at last awakened is almost always the reason why they were restored to the good and simple ways of life. Stand with them when the meeting is over, and listen as they say the "Our Father"!

They have found a Power greater than themselves which they diligently serve. And that gives a charm that never was elsewhere on land and sea; it makes you know that God Himself is really charming, because the A.A. people reflect His mercy and His forgiveness. ~ Fulton Oursler

Central Office Notes

2007-07-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online June 1944 Vol. 1 No. 1
May 1st was moving day for the Central office into larger quarters on Lexington Avenue near Grand Central Terminal, a much more accessible spot to out-of-town visitors. (New address--P.O. Box 459, Grand Central Annex, New York 17, N. Y.) We are already national in scope and certain to become world-wide. Hence this seems a most appropriate time to explain what the Central Office has been doing, and how well the Trustees and its staff have managed. Being somewhat responsible for the creation of the Central Office, I feel I have never made enough effort to let everyone know just how much it does.

Actually the Central Office belongs to all Groups everywhere; it is your good-will and financial support which makes it possible; it is one of your main contacts with the general public and it is one of your principal means of carrying the 12th step of the A.A. program to untold thousands of alcoholic sick people who don't yet know they can get well. In matters pertaining to the office, the Trustees are your Service Committee; its Secretary is your National Secretary.

In the month of March alone, for example, the work turned out by the secretary and her three assistants (including some overtime) was as follows: 1--They wrote 2,695 personal letters. Approximately 2,000 of these were answers to first inquiries of alcoholics and their families averaging 100 words each. About 400 letters were written to the groups, mostly group problems. The balance was miscellaneous. 2--Six hundred telephone and telegraph messages. 3--About 100 out-of-town A.A. members visited the office. 4--Something like 400 bookkeeping entries. 5--Over 5000 A.A. pamphlets and 672 A.A. books, about a ton of material, were wrapped and shipped. 6--A detailed monthly report was made to the Trustees. 7--In addition, the Secretary participated in several conferences on future publicity and spent a week on the road visiting six of the A.A. Groups with which she corresponds.

A small but very willing staff of four turned out this large volume of work. Our Central Office has nearly always been understaffed. Our condition right now is such that a good piece of publicity would throw us weeks behind on those vital first inquiries. We should have more help--perhaps two more typists before long.

About the offer of A.A. pins to the membership--those pins supposedly designed and approved by me! The offer was made by Royal Incentives, a perfectly reputable firm, which was sold a "bill of goods" by an alcoholic who has had a rather hectic A.A. career. Of course I knew nothing whatever of this deal. Royal Incentives, recognizing the mistake, is sending all groups a letter of explanation and apology.
Bill W.

YESTERDAY...TODAY AND TOMORROW

2007-07-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online July 1945 Vol. 2 No. 2
(Editor's Note: Several readers of The Grapevine have expressed particular appreciation for a short article which appeared in an early issue,
and have written to ask about its authorship. The Grapevine editors do not know, and so we reprint the piece which has proved inspiring to many already. Do you know who wrote it?)

THERE are two days in every week about which we should not worry, two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.

One of these days is YESTERDAY with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. YESTERDAY has passed forever beyond our control.

All the money in the world cannot bring back YESTERDAY. We cannot undo a single act we performed; we cannot erase a single word we said. YESTERDAY is gone.

The other day we should not worry about is TOMORROW with its possible adversaries, its burdens, its large promise and poor performance. TOMORROW is also beyond our immediate control.

TOMORROW'S sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds--but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in TOMORROW for it is as yet unborn.

This leaves only one day--TODAY--. Any man can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities--YESTERDAY and TOMORROW that we break down.

It is not the Experience of TODAY that drives men mad--it is remorse or bitterness for something which happened YESTERDAY and the dread of what TOMORROW may bring.

LET US, THEREFORE, LIVE BUT ONE DAY AT A TIME.

She Said

2007-07-02T03:22:00.000-07:00

Impact at Acapulco

2007-07-02T03:16:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online Volume 26 Issue 10 March 1970
TWO DAYS alone in Acapulco had been fairly successful. I had sold a couple of small paintings, had had some sun and swimming, and was eager to get home to my Mexican wife and our nine-year-old daughter. It was just dark, and I hoped to be home in an hour. I rounded a curve, going about fifty-five. Suddenly, a huge bull stepped into the road less than 100 yards away. Gripping the wheel and braking hard, I braced myself for the impact and dove into darkness. . . .

I learned later that several cars stopped, but the drivers thought I was dead and drove on. The 1.000-pound bull was killed and thrown thirty feet. Without a seat belt, I had a fracture of the fourth lumbar vertebra and cuts and contusions on the head from broken glass.

I've now had seven weeks to think about the accident, and to learn to accept it. (There was no guilt or feeling of inadequacy involved, since anyone can get clobbered hitting a cow around any curve in Mexican mountain driving.) In the first couple of weeks, as I stared at the wall or the ceiling, the Serenity Prayer was of great help. I did not indulge in such hindsight as "If I had not stopped for a hamburger, I wouldn't have hit the bull." No, just as I had accepted and learned to live with hepatitis seven years before, when I was in bed for two and a half months. I lay quietly and took this.

Actually, the hepatitis had been harder to take. I'd been sober ten years, and it seemed hardly fair for my liver to give out and almost kill me now. Of course, I had almost died twice of cirrhosis when drinking, so my liver had had a bit of mileage on it.

This time, friends were wonderful. An AA phoned from Mexico City offering money if I needed it, and a man I'd sponsored a year before drove my wife to the scene of the accident and helped with the insurance adjuster. On the But for the grace of God side, a Mexican alcoholic with six small children was in the hospital with me. He was not there for drinking; both legs had been amputated because of a circulatory ailment. (An old friend who helped start the Cuernavaca AA Group with me eleven years ago is trying to get a wheelchair for him.) Also in the hospital. I met a French missionary priest, who was delighted when I told him of AA and that a Spanish-speaking group was available. He had been one of that group of worker-priests in Paris who were widely known about ten years ago for helping drunks and derelicts.

A couple of weeks later, the padre came to visit me in my home. He brought two Mexican alcoholics looking for help, and then occurred one of those miraculous "coincidences" we learn to expect in AA. I decided to call Eddy, the Mexican-American who was keeping the Spanish meetings going, and just as I was dialing his number, Eddy himself walked into my bedroom with his wife. Then and there we had an informal AA meeting for the prospective members.

At the hospital, acceptance had been made easier for me by the example of a Carmelite nun, who radiated health and joy in life and service. We had good talks, even though I communicated in splintered Spanish. She showed me again that when one has a sense of dedication and vocation, life is given an extra dimension. Her serenity and goodness made this Presbyterian minister's son thank God that he was an artist who had come through the valley of the shadow of death and alcoholism, and now was not only doing what he had always wanted to do with his life, but was able to pass along a message of life and freedom to the still-suffering alcoholic.

I've had to learn a lot about acceptance in many areas. Two other men and I started AA in Cuernavaca in May 1958. I've worn the hair shirt of trying to keep it alive for more than eleven years, and have had to learn to live with neglect and misunderstanding and with my own misery at seeing alcoholics die in this international resort center, because they wanted no part of our life-giving program.

My Mexican experience has been wonderfully ego-deflating, changing me from a New York AA hotshot and popular speaker to a Mexican peon in the vineyards of the Higher Power. The record of my sponsorship is often depressing, but it is lightened a little because one of my pigeons did start the Spanish-speaking groups in Mexico City, and there are now about sixty. My personal life has been increasingly good, however. My oils, watercolors, prints, and sculpture are now in many museums and university collections.

Out of my hopeless alcoholism, with acceptance of my continuing limitations, has come the gift of the life I've always wanted. The fractured spine is very temporary, but the blessing of this Fellowship goes on and on, with, for me, special emphasis on the First, Third, Eleventh, and Twelfth Steps.

Zorba the Greek put it very well: "When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage. An invisible and all-powerful enemy. . .seems to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.

"Each time that within ourselves we are the conquerors, although externally utterly defeated, we human beings face an indescribable pride and joy. Outward calamity is transformed into a supreme and unbreakable felicity."

W. C.
Cuernavaca

Maybe Unwilling, But Ready

2007-06-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online November 1966
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
THE Sixth Step makes no sense at all except in the light of the preceding two Steps--Four and Five. Facing our load of psychic garbage and getting it out in the open is not an end in itself. It could be so only for one who enjoyed looking at his own filth. Rather, it is a means to the end of getting rid of enough of that garbage to enable us to endure sobriety in our worst moments and to derive progressively deeper joy from it at all other times.

If, as the Big Book says, "alcohol was but a symptom," and the root of the trouble is to be found in character defects such as selfishness, dishonesty and resentment, it follows that the issue is the removal of these defects. Two questions present themselves here: first, who does the removing, and, second, just how far do we have to go with the Step--obviously all sober people in AA are not perfect people.

The answer to the first question is a shocker to some people because, according to the Sixth Step, God is to be the one who does the removing of character defects. I have heard some strong arguments against this point. A friend of mine with twenty years of sobriety insists, "God didn't remove my character defects--I did!" Naturally, this man is welcome to his opinion; if it works for him, fine. But the point is that it is not the opinion of the first 100 people who recovered in the Fellowship. Their opinion is clearly and strongly stated in the Sixth Step, and it is not that I remove my own defects alone, and it is not that God helps me to remove my defects. It is that God removes my defects.

What the Step requires of me is readiness. Readiness and willingness are often confused in talking about this Step, and they are not the same. My AA sponsor often uses a comparison which I find useful in clarifying my thinking here. I may hate hospitals and be scared to death of the idea of surgery. But if my appendix is about to rupture, when the ambulance comes by, I get in and go. I don't want to go; I am unwilling to go; but I am ready. The Sixth Step works like that. It is possible to be ready to have these defects removed at many times when it is impossible to be willing.

Even readiness is a difficulty with some of the defects--usually the ones which are the most dangerous. For example, how many of us have had the attitude: God, you can take away all of my defects, but leave my love life to me; or, you can take away all of my defects, but I still have to lie in business to succeed. The way to handle such difficulties is not to justify them but to acknowledge them as blocks to taking the Sixth Step and ask God for strength to become ready in these areas.

As to the question of how far do we go with the Sixth Step, in view of the fact that this is a program of spiritual growth rather than spiritual perfection, two words in the Step hold the key. They are "entirely" and "all." My experience with the Step has been that as long as I was pretty much ready to have God remove most of my defects, nothing happened. When I became entirely ready to have Him remove all of them, things changed in my life for the better. I did not become perfect. But I did get enough relief to enable me to get sober and stay sober. I think that, as much as any other single Step, the Sixth Step taken on a thoroughgoing and continuing basis makes the difference between just staying dry and getting the strength to sustain a happy and meaningful sobriety.
T. P., Jr. Hankins, New York

Wake Me Early Mother. . .For I'm to Be Queen of the May

2007-05-14T22:06:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online May 1950
May. . .The Merry Month of! Season of Poets! For me it used to be an in-between time of indecision on how I wanted my gin! Should it be in the winter's Martini--or switch to Tom Collinses?

Also, for me personally, the calendar makers should have called it May-hem! For it was a month of arguments, of the skull-cracking variety! I got crowned all right--often and with force! In my personal campaign against commercialized holidays, the second Saturday night in May was always a critical time. It was Mother's Day eve!

Mother's Day, in my book, remains the most cowardly of all the trumped up holidays. In Mother's Day the high pressure publicity genius has fashioned, with diabolical cunning, a little gem, foolproof! Raise your voice against it -- and you're blaspheming motherhood itself! In my desire to protect the masses against itself, I'd open my yap and wha' happened? Some monkey down at the end of the bar immediately decided I was reviling his mother -- and wham! Crowned again! And not Queen of the May either!

Philip Wylie it was who said this nation is degenerating under a self inflicted disease more subtle and devastating even than alcoholism. He calls it 'Momism', the unbridled worship of woman for performing perfectly normal physical functions.

My own mother would buy Wylie's theory. She ran our household with an iron hand just as surely as my pop thought he ran it! Surrounding my mother with a lot of sentimental, gooey, and useless trappings on a certain day would seem to me like helping Joe Louis cross a street.

If there was one member of our family who was thoroughly capable of taking care of herself, it was my mother. And I have a notion that this is pretty generally true in all families.

Yet tradespeople have put the arm on us and nobody, except misguided individualists like me dares say them nay! To them, Mother is a quaint old Whistler-type dame in a knitted shawl, helpless unless we ply her with flowers, candy, nylons -- and mink coats!

All this is pretty terrific material for a saloon soliloquy. I remember one M.D. eve in my favorite bar. I thought 'Let's have some excitement!' I put my views in re M.D. on the air. Even Gus the bartender who shared my views on the Brooklyn Dodgers, the 4th dimension, Einstein's theory and the sanctity or vice versa of marriage -- even Gus turned on me like a wounded stag. Ma started celebrating 'her day' by bailing me out of the hoosegow!

Where others may have had a 'mother fixation' I seem to have acquired a 'Mother's Day fixation'. It was the one commercial holiday I could never do anything with. Valentine's day was as easy for me as 'Prevent Foot Callous Day.' But Mother's Day, Ha!

In fact, one of the biggest drawing powers of AA was when I was told that it was on Mother's Day 1935 that Bill first met Dr. Bob; that the good Doctor, nicely plastered, arrived home with a gift, an outsize rubber plant suitably potted. His entry into history and posterity was accompanied by a fall which busted the rubber plant -- craaash!!!

"There," I said, "is a man who knows what to buy for Mother's Day. Something durable. Something that will bounce! There's a man who knows how to combine a good drunk with a proper gift. This must be the outfit for me, this AA!" And it is, too -- up until now!

How an "Oldtimer" greets a "Newcomer"

2007-05-03T21:26:00.000-07:00

His name is Bill. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it, jeans, and no shoes. This was literally his wardrobe for the past four years of life. He is brilliant. Kind of profound and very, very bright. He became a alcoholic while attending college.
Things have only gone down hill since.

Across the street from the campus is a well-dressed, very conservative A.A. club. They want to develop a meeting for the students but are not sure how to go about it.

One day Bill decides to go there. He walks in with no shoes, jeans, his T-shirt, and wild hair. The meeting has already started and so Bill starts looking around the room for a seat.

The room is completely packed and he can't find a seat.
By now, the well dressed people are really looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one says anything.
Bill gets closer and closer and closer to the front of th e room, and when he realizes there are no seats, he just squats down right on the carpet.

By now the people are really uptight, and the tension in the air is thick. About this time, the evening's speaker realizes that from way at the back of the meeting, an "old timer" is slowly making his way toward Bill.

Now the "old timer" is in his eighties, and has silver-gray hair, and a three-piece suit. A spiritual man, very elegant, very dignified, very courtly. He walks with a cane and, as he starts walking toward this boy. Everyone is saying to themselves that you can't blame him for what he's going to do.

How can you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some college kid on the floor?

It takes a long time for the man to reach the boy.
The meeting is utterly silent except for the clicking of the old man's cane. All eyes are focused on him.

You can't even hear anyone breathing. The speaker can't even continue the meeting until the "old timer" does what he has to do.
And now they see this elderly man drop his cane on the floor.
With great difficulty, he lowers himself and sits down next to Bill and welcomes him so he doesn't feel outcast and alone.
Everyone chokes up with emotion.
When the speaker gains control, he says,

"What I'm about to say, you will never remember.
What you have just seen, you will never forget."
"Be careful how you live. You may be the only Big Book some people will ever read".

I asked the Lord to bless you as I prayed for you today.
To guide you and protect you as you go along your way....
His love is always with you, His promises are true, and when we give Him all our cares, You know He will see us through.
Pass this to People you want God to Bless with sobriety.
I DID
Submitted By Colleen M.
*

Slips and Human Nature

2007-05-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online Volume 20 Issue 5 October 1963
This article is reprinted from the January, 1947, issue of The Grapevine, because it seems as timely and useful now as it was then. The late Dr. Silkworth was for many years medical chief at Towns Hospital and Knickerbocker Hospital in New York City, where he treated more than 40,000 alcoholics, including Bill W. in the last stages of the co-founder's active alcoholism. Some of the great contributions to AA made by "the little doctor who loved drunks" are described in the books "Alcoholics Anonymous" and "AA Comes of Age."

THE mystery of slips is not so deep as may appear. While it does seem odd that an alcoholic, who has restored himself to a dignified place among his fellowmen and continued dry for years, should suddenly throw all his happiness overboard and find himself again in mortal peril of drowning in liquor, often the reason is simple.

People are inclined to say: "There is something peculiar about alcoholics. They seem to be well, yet at any moment they may turn back to their old ways. You can never be sure."

This is largely twaddle. The alcoholic is a sick person. Under the techniques of Alcoholics Anonymous he gets well--that is to say, his disease is arrested. There is nothing unpredictable about him any more than there is anything weird about a person who has arrested diabetes.

Let's get it clear, once and for all, that alcoholics are human beings, then we can safeguard ourselves intelligently against most "slips."

Both in professional and lay circles, there is a tendency to label everything that an alcoholic may do as "alcoholic behavior." The truth is, it is simply human nature.

It is very wrong to consider many of the personality traits observed in liquor addicts as peculiar to the alcoholic. Emotional and mental quirks are classified as symptoms of alcoholism merely because alcoholics have them, yet those same quirks can be found among nonalcoholics, too. Actually they are symptoms of mankind!

Of course, the alcoholic himself tends to think of himself as different, somebody special, with unique tendencies and reactions. Many psychiatrists, doctors and therapists carry the same idea to extremes in their analyses and treatment of alcoholics. Sometimes they make a complicated mystery of a condition which is found in all human beings, whether they drink whiskey or buttermilk.

To be sure, alcoholism, like every other disease, does manifest itself in some unique ways. It does have a number of baffling peculiarities which differ from all other diseases.

At the same time, many of the symptoms and much of the behavior of alcoholism are closely paralleled and even duplicated in other diseases.

The "slip" is a relapse! It is a relapse that occurs after the alcoholic has stopped drinking and started on the AA program of recovery. "Slips" usually occur in the early stages of the alcoholic's AA indoctrination, before he has had time to learn enough of the AA technique and AA philosophy to give him a solid footing. But "slips" may also occur after an alcoholic has been a member of AA for many months or even several years and it is in this kind, above all, that one finds a marked similarity between the alcoholic's behavior and "normal" victims of other diseases.

No one is startled by the fact that relapses are not uncommon among arrested tubercular patients. But here is a startling fact--the cause is often the same as the cause which leads to "slips" for the alcoholic.

It happens this way: When a tubercular patient recovers sufficiently to be released from the sanitarium, the doctor gives him careful instructions for the way he is to live when he gets home. He must drink plenty of milk. He must refrain from smoking. He must obey other stringent rules.

For the first several months, perhaps for several years, the patient follows directions. But as his strength increases and he feels fully recovered, he becomes slack. There may come the night when he decides he can stay up until ten o'clock. When he does this, nothing untoward happens. Soon he is disregarding the directions given him when he left the sanitarium. Eventually he has a relapse.

The same tragedy can be found in cardiac cases. After the heart attack, the patient is put on a strict rest schedule. Frightened, he naturally follows directions obediently for a long time. He, too, goes to bed early, avoids exercise such as walking upstairs, quits smoking and leads a Spartan life. Eventually, though, there comes a day, after he has been feeling good for months or several years, when he feels he has regained his strength and has also recovered from his fright. If the elevator is out of repair one day, he walks up the three flights of stairs. Or, he decides to go to a party--or do just a little smoking--or take a cocktail or two. If no serious aftereffects follow the first departure from the rigorous schedule prescribed he may try it again, until he suffers a relapse.

In both cardiac and tubercular cases, the acts which led to the relapses were preceded by wrong thinking. The patient in each case rationalized himself out of a sense of his own perilous reality. He deliberately turned away from his knowledge of the fact that he had been the victim of a serious disease. He grew over-confident. He decided he didn't have to follow directions.

Now that is precisely what happens with the alcoholic--the arrested alcoholic, or the alcoholic in AA who has a "slip." Obviously, he decides again to take a drink sometime before he actually takes it. He starts thinking wrong before he actually embarks on the course that leads to a "slip."

There is no reason to charge the "slip" to alcoholic behavior or a second heart attack to cardiac behavior. The alcoholic "slip" is not a symptom of a psychotic condition. There's nothing "screwy" about it at all. The patient simply didn't follow directions.

For the alcoholic, AA offers the directions. A vital factor, or ingredient of the preventive, especially for the alcoholic, is sustained emotion. The alcoholic who learns some of the techniques or the mechanics of AA but misses the philosophy or the spirit may get tired of following directions--not because he is alcoholic but because he is human. Rules and regulations irk almost anyone, because they are restraining, prohibitive, negative. The philosophy of AA, however, is positive and provides ample sustained emotion--a sustained desire to follow directions voluntarily.

In any event, the psychology of the alcoholic is not as different as some people try to make it. The disease has certain physical differences, yes, and the alcoholic has problems peculiar to him, perhaps, in that he has been put on the defensive and consequently has developed frustrations. But in many instances, there is no more reason to be talking about "the alcoholic mind" than there is to try to describe something called "the cardiac mind" or the "T. B. mind."

I think we'll help the alcoholic more if we can first recognize that he is primarily a human being--afflicted with human nature.

William Duncan Silkworth, M.D.

It's No Game

2007-04-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online Volume 59 Issue 12 May 2003
I am sitting here in my jail cell thinking that I better put this down on paper for the sake of someone else who may be thinking of going back out there.

I was doing well as long as I was attending three meetings a week. However, I never made a commitment to a home group. Half-measuring, I was on AA but not in AA. I gradually went from three meetings a week to two and then none, and I still can't figure out why, for I like going to meetings. I had almost a year of sobriety, and I threw it all away.

One day, I decided that I could drink just as long as I mixed the booze with some vitamins. Then, I proceeded to wash my vitamins down with whiskey at night and with vodka in the morning--a couple of swigs, that was all. I guess that in the back of my mind, I had doubts about whether or not I was an alcoholic, and I thought that maybe after a period of abstinence I could drink normally. Well, I proved that no alcoholic can drink normally.

One morning, January 7, 2001, I took two extra big swigs of vodka with my vitamins, and I went down to my parents' house half drunk. A big mistake, for my dad had said that if he ever caught me drinking again he would call the police. My folks were fighting when I walked in on them, and my dad was calling 911 on my mother. This left me in a state of shock. When my parents saw that I was drunk, my dad hung up the phone real fast and proceeded to dial 911 on me. In a drunken stupor, I proceeded to club my precious seventy-eight-year-old father over the head multiple times with the barrels of three different rifles while he was on the phone. The police and the ambulance came like lightening, and my dad was life-flighted to Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh, with a fractured skull. I was immediately taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, and harassment. It all happened so fast that I still can't believe it. My dad spent a few weeks in the hospital and was sent home. The hospital should never have sent him home. On February 1, his brain began to bleed. Again he was life-flighted to Mercy Hospital, suffering brain damage, which has left him unable to walk without a walker and half blind. I have been in custody ever since in the state mental hospital and in jail. As I write this, I do not know what will happen to me or whether or not I will ever draw a free breath again.

If you are neglecting important parts of the program, or if you are in jail, I just want to say to you, Don't play games with the program! When you get out of jail, jump into AA with both feet: Go to ninety meetings in ninety days, get a sponsor, get a home group, keep coming back, do what is suggested. Don't let this disease gain the upper hand, for if you give it an inch, it will take a mile! Get all the way in AA, not on AA. Don't give this hideous disease a chance to wreck your life.

Greg K.
Pennsylvania
*

Man dies after recording own addiction

2007-03-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

A former trucker whose documentary chronicled an agonizing descent as methamphetamine ravaged his body has died, optimistic to the end that his story would keep others from the highly addictive stimulant.

"He was extremely satisfied, wanting to do more in getting the word out and showing kids what meth harm does. We didn't get to that point," his father, Jack Bridges, said shortly after the 35-year-old died Monday at a hospital in Cape Girardeau.

"He didn't want anyone to go through what he did," his father said.

Shawn Bridges drew global attention last year for "No More Sunsets," a 29-minute film shot by a former southern Illinois television videographer at Bridges' request.

By his family's account, Bridges already had died at least twice, his heart so damaged by years of using meth – a concoction that can include toxic chemicals such as battery acid, drain cleaner and fertilizer – that it stopped and had to be shocked back into beating.

The documentary shows Bridges mostly bedridden, his constant companions a catheter and feeding tube.

"I'd say he's got a 34-year-old body on the outside with a 70- to 80-year-old man on the inside," his father told The Associated Press last May.

Roughly 28,000 people sought treatment for meth addiction across the country in 1993, accounting for nearly 2 percent of admissions for drug-abuse care, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Just a decade later, the meth-related admissions numbered nearly 136,000 – more than 7 percent of the national total for drug-abuse treatment.

Family members have said Bridges had been haunted by the dreary day in 1976 when his younger brother Jason, barely a year old, died in a car wreck. Shawn was 4 and nowhere near the accident but still blamed himself, wanting to trade places with his dead sibling, his father said.

A lenient upbringing set Bridges on the road to becoming "a little monster," his father said. "By 16, the kid was a high school dropout and partier."

At 26, Bridges had a heart attack that his father blamed on meth's ability to damage a chronic user's heart and other internal organs. Bridges learned he had congestive heart failure. Twice, he tried to kill himself, according to family members.

During his final months in a hospital bed, Shawn's words slurred to guttural sounds when he tried to talk. At times, he spit up blood, and his weight fell dangerously when he couldn't keep food down.

"I don't think people will forget what got him to this point," said Chip Rossetti, who filmed the documentary. "But what he did with his condition is really the amazing thing."

Rossetti said 500 to 600 copies of the documentary have been sold, some going as far as Australia. Bridges was also profiled on German television. Rossetti said Monday he plans a sequel, chronicling Bridge's final year and testimonials by people touched by his awareness effort.

"We wanted to keep him with us a lot longer, but we appreciate God's good grace," Jack Bridges said after his son's death. "We'll still be trying to drive home the point that these drugs are poison, and that people using them are heading the same place Shawn has gone."
*

Scottish DUI Test

2007-03-03T20:45:00.000-08:00

Change to Spare

2007-02-16T00:47:00.000-08:00

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online February 2007 Vol. 63 No. 9
The best things in life aren't things
When I was still drinking, longtime friends would sometimes ask what I was up to, and I'd answer that I was in transition. I was a musician and a carpenter who couldn't find enough work, so I bounced from job to job. "It's never boring," I assured anyone who asked. "And everything changes, right?"

Vain about my detachment from career, financial security, or any real focus, I touted what I thought was freedom Ñ that is, until I heard a sober alkie speak about it at a meeting. Until then, I didn't know I suffered from terminal restlessness. "Self-will run riot" is never boring. Neither are fear and chaos and skirmishing through life. I knew nothing about true happiness, not even that I didn't know.

When I got sober and started working the AA program, old drinking friends offered condolences and chemical substitutes while I cleaned up my act. "Don't wanna change too radically, do you?" someone asked. My family wanted to know "what is he into this time, and how long will this fixation last?"

The loss of a small business, a ten-year marriage, and all my property and money kept me bound to a steady paycheck during my first few years of sobriety. I had a sponsor and a weekly home group, but I also traveled, visited, and test-marketed many other meetings. I was also single, so I kept an open door to relationships.

There was always the next new thing to try, a new page to turn, a new chapter to start, or something else just down the road that would be better than what I had. It would be different this time, too, and it would give me that satisfied feeling that I remembered from the few times when booze got my brain chemistry just right. Drinking taught me that getting to the next level required burning some bridges. So, for years I prepared myself to drop everything, walk away, and start over when the next new thing called.

I didn't see myself trying to locate myself at the center of the universe, searching for just the right intersection of job, relationship, friends, possessions -- a magic geometry of people, places and things that would let me love myself. Given sobriety, a patient sponsor, the willingness to work the Twelve Steps, and eventually some professional help, I slowly came to understand. Now, I've come to believe.

After twenty years of drinking and eighteen years sober Ñ twelve of those investing time, money, and talent in work that I love, but work that has yet to yield a balanced livelihood Ñ I'm on the threshold of yet another major change: a two-year graduate program that will open a path to a well-established career. This new direction is not something the fly-by-night, under-employed, stoned musician would have been willing to think about, much less act on.

Working the AA program has given me the faith that opportunity, understanding, and growth are inherent to mistakes and misfortune. And success is more a state of heart and mind than a sum total of material assets. I've learned that the best things in life aren't things, so today I pray for my Higher Power's will to be done, and for the power to carry that out.

I'm not burning any bridges this time, either. I'm not leaving behind any baggage, unfinished business, or unfulfilled promises. This change has grown slowly from my sober encounters with risk and adversity. My decision comes after years of prayer and meditation and long talks with other sober alcoholics. This time I'm bringing everything I've learned and most of the people, places, and things that I cherish along with me.

I'm not uprooting myself, turning a corner, or shooting off in a different direction. Rather, I am following an outgrowth and extension of the central fact of my life. Sober emotional stamina and patience give me a sense of continuity that I never knew existed when I was drinking and new to AA. I understand now why Bill W., in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, considered prayer, meditation, and self-searching to be "intensely practical" and "would no more do without [them] than we would refuse air, food, or sunshine."

With this great set of tools to bring to a new career, this change isn't a magic bullet or a departure. It isn't the solution to all my problems, and it isn't going to fix me. But man, is it ever gonna be fun!
Anonymous
*

What Drinking Problem?

2006-10-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

In Ogden, Utah, a single guy lived in a townhouse for 8 years. The owner thought that he was a great renter because he never called or complained, and was never late with his rent payment.

What you don't know... These pictures don't even come close to showing what the house really looked like. Before these pictures were taken, the real estate company had already moved some of the beer cans out, which had inadvertently caused tunnels that were made through the beer cans--so that he could get to the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen--to cave in.

And the strangest thing of all is that this renter was basically a very clean, well-organized person. Other than having a "minor" drinking problem, the house was not dirty. There wasn't much dust or dirt, nor any scattered clothes, or dirty dishes to speak of.

Moreover, he was obviously health conscious. This statement is easily proved by the mere fact that he drank only "Coors Light" beer.
See for yourself:
Ed. Note: This has not been snopes-ed yet.

CHUCK CHAMBERLAIN

2006-10-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

WISDOM AND GEMS FROM THE INIMITABLE CHUCK CHAMBERLAIN

Every alcoholic I've ever known is a perfectionist, an idealist. It is this drive for excellence that brought about statements like this: "He was the best, but...." It makes us set goals for ourselves that we can't attain. We're forever disappointed in our own performance and we demand more of those around us than they can put out. It's a beautiful attribute, but it's a killer until we learn how to live with it.

Twelve Steps To A Slip

2006-09-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

Every Slip Has A Beginning, and every slip has an ending.
Know Your Danger Signals!

Make the ending of your slip Recovery not death!
Relapse is a serious and sometimes fatal reality.

1. Start missing meetings for any reason, real or imaginary.

2. Become critical of the methods used by other members who may not agree with you in everything.

3. Nurse the idea that someday, somehow, you can drink or drug again in a controlled manner.

4. Let the others do the 12th step work in your group. You are too busy.

5. Become conscious of your AA/NA "Seniority" and view every member with a skeptical and jaundiced eye.

6. Become so pleased with your own views of the program that you consider yourself an "Elder Statesman"

7. Start a small clique within your own group, composed of only a few members who see eye to eye with you.

8. Tell the new member in confidence that you yourself do not not take certain of the 12 Steps seriously.

9. Let your mind dwell more and more on how much you are helping others rather than on how much the program is helping you.

10. If an unfortunate member has a slip, drop him at once.

11. Cultivate the habit of borrowing money from other members, then stay away from meetings to avoid embarrassment.

12. Look upon the 24 hour plan as a vital thing for new members, but not for yourself. You have outgrown the need of that a long time ago.

Most importantly always remember we can all have a another relapse, but we cannot be guaranteed another recovery.

Recovery Zone

Signs

2006-09-26T02:18:00.000-07:00

NO TIME

2006-09-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

I knelt to pray but not for long,
I had too much to do.
I had to hurry and get to work
For bills would soon be due.
So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,
And jumped up off my knees.
My Christian duty was now done
My soul could rest at ease.....
All day long I had no time
To spread a word of cheer
No time to speak of God to friends,
They'd laugh at me I'd fear.
No time, no time, too much to do,
That was my constant cry,
No time to give to souls in need
But at last the time, the time to die.
I went before the Lord,
I came, I stood with downcast eyes.
For in his hands God! held a book;
It was the book of life.
God looked into his book and said
"Your name I cannot find
I once was going to write it down...
But never found the time"

IT PAYS TO DRINK?

2006-09-15T04:45:00.000-07:00

People who drink alcohol earn 10 to 14 percent more at their jobs than nondrinkers, say researchers who studied drinking's "social capital."

"Social drinkers are out networking, building relationships and adding contacts," said Edward Stringham, study co-author and San Jose State University professor.
The findings appear in The Journal of Labor Research. Source

Twelve Steps of a Relapse

2006-09-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

I decided I could handle any emotional problems if other people would just quit trying to run my life.
I firmly believe that there is no greater power than myself and anyone who says differently is insane.
I made a searching and thorough moral inventory of everyone I know, so they couldn't fool me and take advantage of my good nature.
I sought these people out and tried to get them to admit to me, by God, the exact nature of their wrongs.
I became willing to help these people get rid of their defects of character.
I was humble enough to ask these people to remove their shortcomings.
I kept a list of all the people who had harmed me, and waited patiently for a chance to get even.
I got even with these people whenever possible except when to do so would get me into trouble.
I continue to take everyone's inventory and when they are wrong, which is most of the time, I promptly make them admit it.
Sought through the concentration of my willpower to get God, who didn't understand me anyhow, to see that my desires were best, and He ought to give me the power to carry them out.
Having maintained my emotional problems with these steps, I can thoroughly recommend them to others who don't want to lose their hard-earned status, but wish to be left alone to practice neurosis in everything they do for the rest of their days. Victor Valley March Newsletter page 2.

Riddle

2006-09-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

You are driving in a car at a constant speed.
On your left side is a 'drop off'
(The ground is 18-20 inches below the level you are traveling on),
and on your right side is a fire engine traveling at the same speed as you.
In front of you is a galloping horse which is the same size as your car and you cannot overtake it. Behind you is another galloping horse.
Both horses are also traveling at the same speed as you.
What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?

For the answer click and drag your mouse from star to star.
* Get your drunk ass off the merry-go-round. *

The Value of a Drink

2006-06-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

The Value of a Drink
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." ~ Benjamin Franklin
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a retard.
More Drink Value

Sure, it isn't politically correct, but still, it's timeless wisdom.
Contributed By John H.

Cunning, Baffling and Powerful

2006-06-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

That's my disease

I am a recovering alcoholic addict, and until this past weekend I had 12 years of sobriety. I had reached a point where the desire to drink had finally left me, or so I thought. To put it honestly, I went to the wake of a friend and drank almost a whole fifth of tequila in far too short a time. My friends did not take me to detox, which they should have done. That is the only thing I can fault them for. They are to blame for none of it, I for all of my actions, and the disease for the substance. I had a choice, and I made the wrong choice.

My understanding is it's not about how much you used or not, or where, or the reasons why. The point is that from the moment I chose to pick up the glass and take that drink, my recovery was halted and my addiction proving the fact that the addict in me still exists, whether sober or not. And that this disease is baffling. I had no reason to do as I did. I can rationalize forever, but the plain truth is I had forgotten those three words. And that I had a choice, today. That is what counts. I'm not afraid to come back.

Anonymous
From Recovery Zone

The Man In the Glass By Dale Wimbrow 1934

2006-06-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

When you get what you want in your struggle for self and the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself and see what that man has to say for it isn't your Father, Mother or Wife whose judgment upon you must pass...

The fellows verdict that counts most in your life is the one starring back from the glass.

Some people might say your a straight shootin chum and call you a wonderful guy but the man in the mirror says your only a bum if you can't look him straight in the eye he's the fellow to please never mind all the rest for he's with you clear to the end and you've passed your most dangerous test if the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years and get pats on your back as you pass but your final reward will be heart ache and tears if you've cheated the man in the glass....

By Dale Wimbrow 1934
From Recovery Zone

More Humor Because Of Recovery Community Apathy.

2006-05-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

Recovery Jones Cartoons

Drinking Lesson
A professor of chemistry wanted to teach his 5th grade class a lesson about the evils of liquor, so he produced an experiment that involved a glass of water, a glass of whiskey, and two worms.

"Now, class. Observe the worms closely," said the professor putting a worm first into the water.

The worm in the water writhed about, happy as a worm in water could be.

The second worm, he put into the whiskey. It writhed painfully, and it quickly sank to the bottom, dead as a doornail.

"Now, what lesson can we derive from this experiment?" the professor asked.

Little Johnny raised his hand and wisely responded:

"Drink whiskey and you won't get worms!"

Why the Recovering Community Deserves to be Tobacco Free

2006-05-05T05:49:00.000-07:00

Posted By macontobac

A Little Humor

2006-05-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

A man and his wife were sitting in the living room and he said to her, "Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

His wife got up, unplugged the TV and threw out all of his beer.
------------------------------------------------
There's an old guessing game we heard about the other day. Three drunks go into a bar, sit at a table and order a quart of rye and a jigger glass each.

When all three have finished their bottles, one of the men staggers out . . . and the other two try to guess who left.
Grapevine Volume 15 Issue 4 September 1958

You May Be An Alcoholic If

2006-04-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

Will Power
Have you ever used this phrase in your conversations with loved ones?
“I can stop anytime I want to!”
Don’t really do this, but think about it. Just think about it.
Swallow a bottle of Ex-Lax and then 'WILL' yourself out of the consequences!

13th stepping....
Steps 1 + 12, "My life is unmanageable and I want to share it with you!"

You May Be An Alcoholic If:
You buy your morning drink with a roll of pennies.
-----------------------
You celebrate getting out of jail by getting drunk.
-----------------------
The toilet seat keeps hitting you in the back of the head.
-----------------------

Central Office AA Speaker Ken D.

2006-04-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

Central Office sponsored a sold out fund raiser last night.
The speaker was Ken D. from San Diego.
Great Line: Why are you scratching your head?
Because I'm the only one that knows it itches!
Give a him a listen.
Ken D.

Powered by Castpost

There appeared to be more than 1,000 people there all talking at the same time and eating roast beef before the meeting started.

Getting to the event was slow going due to President Bush's arrival at Palm Springs Airport and motorcade. Many roads were closed by local authorities and the Secret Service. Like all good alcoholics we all arrived on time. After all, we wouldn't have let this stop us from getting to the liquor store.

Contributing Editor

2006-04-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Sober In the City as a Contributing Editor to this blog.
Your posts are great. Thank you for your input.

Sober Dating

2006-04-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

I had a date this weekend. Met a guy for coffee. He was funny and charming and handsome and smart. And best of all, he seemed totally into me. Coffee turned into brunch, brunch turned into more coffee. We sat in an outside cafe in Georgetown for about five hours, talking. Then, he asks me why I don't drink.

We are comfortable at this point so I say, "I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for thirteen years. So where did you grow up again?"

He thinks for a minute. Takes a sip of coffee. Looks at me and says, "I've been thinking about doing something about my drinking."

Mother fucker. I think, but don't say.

So I tell him my story. He encourages me to go on. I switch from flirty possibility mode to twelve step call mode. I tell him what it was like for me, what happened and what I'm like now. I tell him about meetings in the area. He asks questions. A lot of questions. He tells me he wants to stop but he doesn't know how.

I walk him to the closest clubhouse and we pick up a meeting schedule and a big book. He gives me a quick hug goodbye and tells me he wants to try out meetings. He calls me this morning to tell me he went to his first meeting and it was great. He knows he belongs. And he is so grateful.

Great.

This marks the fourth date in the past year that went something like this. Just call me the Mary Poppins of recovery. At my firm, you get a bonus for every new employee you recruit.

Can I get my toaster oven now?

Blue Easter

2006-04-18T06:57:00.000-07:00

So there I sat on a lonely Easter holiday. Separated from my family. Separated from my Manhattan. The patterns of my previous relationships staring back at me.

It was my day to complete my fourth step. In AA's twelve steps, step four is taking a personal inventory. You make a list of all the people you resent, you write out why, you try to assign what part of your basic instincts that person triggered, and then you write your part. You try to focus on yourself and figure out what actions of your own set the wrecking ball in motion.

Sure, that guy yelled at me in the street. But, I did run over his dog when I was riding my bike on the sidewalk. It’s not okay for him to tell me I’m a nasty ho-bag who mustn’t have had a mama to teach me manners, but it’s not okay for me to be riding my bike on the sidewalk either.

You get the picture.

After this painful exercise in self reflection, you isolate resentments that relate to the men you’ve dated or slept with and you make a separate list of all the ways you harmed these men. It's called a sex inventory.

I call it 'dangerous'. An excuse to sit in self-pity and think you are the most horrible person in the world. In black and white, I'm reminded of how I meet men, how I get into relationships with them, when and why I sleep with them, what I expect from them, and how I run away from them. It’s a sloppy collage of repeated patterns, insecurities, frivolous fears and utter self-centeredness.

At the end of this exercise, I’m left wondering: Have I have ever really loved a man?

Because to me, true love does not have expectations. And my patterns show me that I’ve rarely entered into a relationship with a man without a hundred pre-existing measuring sticks of how things should look, how I should feel, how they should feel and how they should express it.An insurance company won’t pay for your pre-existing conditions. But I somehow think it is fair to ask a man to enter into a relationship with me based on pre-existing expectations.

I called my father.

We talked about the weather and then I asked him when he knew he was in love with my mother. If he was like me, it would be love at first sight. But what he said, surprised me.

“It must have been about two years after we started dating."

Two years? Two years?? I wouldn’t date a man for more than three months if he wasn’t ready to profess his love. Two years? Are you snorting mom's cancer meds?

“Well, keep in mind. We didn’t have sex on the third date back then.”

That made sense.In my mind, sex almost always equals expectations. Sex, or even the highly sexualized act of flirting, signals that a friendship has passed into a new category and now has guidelines for behavior. Is it possible to date without sexpectations?

And in this modern dating scene, who can date without sending out sexual signals. Perhaps this was possible in High School, studying late at night with that boy that sat behind you in Spanish class for two years, when suddenly your friendship dissolveds into a clash of intertwined braces.

Today, the mere act of ‘going on a date’, sitting at a table with another person, grabbing someone’s arm when you are walking down a cobblestone street, brushing up against one another in a bar, is all heavy with the anticipation of sex. It’s nearly impossible to get to know someone without the hint of sexual promise. I live in New York City, where competition dogs your every designer shoe step. If you don't throw it out there, you might lose them to the red head standing in line behind you.

“It took some time.”

In Manhattan, time is your most precious commodity. Who has time to stop and get to know someone? See past their immediate flaws. There are hundreds of eligible men in this town, ready to step in as soon as I pick one off for using the wrong shampoo. I don’t have to be patient when there is more than enough supply for my demand.

My father went on, “How could I have been in love with your mother any sooner. It took me two years just to get to know her. And how can you really be in love with someone that you hardly know?”

And how can you really get to know someone once you begin weighing them against a lifetime of built-up expectations? And where do these expectations come from?

"You love your brother, Jane. Now whether or not he constitutes a man, I don’t know."

I love my baby brother. Does that count? One day, I just knew. He was visiting me and were playing racquet ball and he had a grand mal seizure on the court. I called 9-1-1 and lay on the ground next to his strong 22 year old frame to hold it still. Lying on the ground with him, calming him as he came around to consciousness, I clung to the image of an eight year old boy with gangly arms, a bloated belly, red galoshes and Dad’s old army helmet. I remembered making him laugh in the car by making funny faces over the back seat. There are few pains that a back scratch and ill-tuned lullaby wouldn’t temporarily relieve. But while he struggled with his helplessness, his eyes betrayed fear and I saw a pain that I could not make better.

I couldn’t leave his side for the next 36 hours. I had the nurse bring a cot into his hospital room and bought him six different kinds of Ben’n’Jerry’s ice cream that I watched slowly melt on his bed side stand while he slept. I would have traded places with him and taken any and more pain just to save him the humility of his body’s weakness. After that day, he could scream obscenities at me, eat off my plate, talk with his mouthful, chew three pieces of Bubblicious at a time and blow bubbles in my face, show up three hours late to dinner and loan my favorite pair of shoes to his girlfriend without ever threatening my affections.

That’s love.

Dad told me to put down my pen. He told me to go outside.

“You’re right, you’re right.”

“I have to fix lunch for your mother. Jesus, that woman never gets enough grilled cheese.”

“Thanks Dad. I appreciate this. Happy Easter. I Love you.”

“You too."

This Blog (Web Log) is for those in recovery.

2006-04-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

This Blog (Web Log) is for anyone in recovery.
This a place for you to post your experiences and short stories by clicking the comment link. All interesting comments will be re-posted to this front page with your by line if you so desire or you can just sign it anonymous.