Beginner's Meeting: Hope Blossoms

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.
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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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Beginnings of Serenity

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

An Old-timer Says: We Forget to Duck!

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

Charming Is the Word for Alcoholics

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

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

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.

Change to Spare

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
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