Don’t Drink and Don’t Die

I was thinking about the revelatory nature of AA and they way we are encouraged and supported and urged to share on the deepest level. There are lots of aspects of this that interest me. I have said and heard so many things over the years, it makes me pause.

On the very deepest level there is probably the fifth step. Where I live now, many people choose to do their fifth step with an anonymous clergy person. There’s a religious organization that supplies such people to listen, and I guess you can look at it as a bit of a tradition here. It’s not anything I heard much about in the other places I’ve lived. I’m sure people did it, but it’s a common experience here.

An anonymous fifth step must certainly be better than no fifth step, and I can understand that sometimes some people feel the only way they can possibly do it is with someone they don’t know and won’t see again. Still, I wouldn’t do that or recommend it unless there truly is no other way.

But THE fifth step is a very small part of the revealing that goes on at AA meetings. I’ve heard people admit to just about every sin except for murder, and I have known at least two people well who did kill someone with a car by driving drunk. I knew someone for some time who lost a baby to fetal alcohol syndrome. I’ve heard people say they have stolen and cheated and lied. People have been unkind to their pets and their children and their parents and their neighbors. People have wasted money and resources and opportunities.

I took this topic from As Bill Sees It, and the section is titled something like “We can’t do it alone.” The chairs pictured are from my home group, and after the picture was taken people sat in the chairs and talked things over together.

I’m an introvert. As I’ve written before, I believe this makes it tough to work AA in a way that someone more extroverted wouldn’t experience. It is by its very nature a very social thing, a self help group. I always hesitate to say that because I know that now and in the past, people in some very extreme situations have stayed sober without other AAs around to help. But in general, when people and meetings are available, it is vital to recovery to go socialize. One of the awesome aspects of the situation is that within the AA program, there are lots of other people who have trouble socializing also. And even the friendly outgoing people are used to being with and helping the loners.

I think the social aspect of it keeps some people out of the program. I read blogs written by people who know they could benefit so much from going to AA, but who don’t go and continue to suffer. Others make up their minds to stop drinking and do so, but they don’t go to meetings and they don’t share with other alcoholics. I don’t count either of those groups of people as being successful at dealing with their drinking problem.

I’ve also seen the culture where the only sharing a person does is with his or her sponsor.  I’ll have to write about “back in the day,” but when I started AA, in the late 1970s, it was sort of required at the beginning that a person get phone numbers and call and talk to people in addition to their sponsor.  Personally, I’m extremely grateful that this is how I started.  I hated it, and I would not have done it had there been another way.  I believe I would have stuck with just a sponsor and maybe another friend or two, and that would have been it.  Because it was expected I would call and speak to another person every day, because it was required, I did it, and it broke a huge hole through my wall of isolation.

I also imagine that for those lucky extroverts, the socializing and sharing that goes on in AA is of an excellent quality and the content is supreme.  Whether we like it or not, every day we have a chance to hear about the very humanness of those around us, and to know we’re not alone.  I have no doubt too that all I’ve said and all I’ve heard has made me more tolerant of and patient with the people outside the rooms, in the rest of my life.  Almost anything anyone can tell me I have heard already, and I’ve known someone who has gone through it, whatever it may be.  I know that the people who seem arrogant and all together are not.  I’ve heard their counterparts describe it and explain it many times over.

After all my medical drama of the past two weeks, I’m simply nauseous and headachey.  And I’m such a baby about it!  I hate to not feel well.  I left work for the first time in years.  I’d go to bed (I was in bed), but the kids walked to the supermarket and I’m waiting to pick them up.  I just hate this so much.  It dominates my thoughts and I can’t enjoy the internet or a book or anything.  I’m such a baby.

Today I had a mammogram and breast sonogram.  Aside from telling me I’m lopsided (seriously), it looks like all is well for the year.  I still haven’t heard from the gynecologist regarding the pelvic sonogram, but the tech said all looked well there.

Since I’ve been having and waiting for results of these tests, I’ve been sort of on hold.  I haven’t walked the dog, gone to extra meetings, or gone to the gym.  I’m going to try to get back to normal (such as it is) tomorrow.  It’s been a long time of abnormal.  Two days after I got home from Disney, all these tests began.

My breasts are killing me right now, and I’m goopy and gloppy from the the gel.  After I bathe tonight I will start anew for real.

I’m not feeling particularly guilty, but I wanted to write about something that is not my story and not Step Six. No doubt this will come in handy if I make it around the steps and back for Step Four. I found this on a list of prompts to help with Step Four. Is guilt a character defect? Probably. The question that was asked as a prompt is looking back over your life, what do you feel particularly guilty about?

My adult life has been spent in AA. I have not, since I’ve been sober, done things like drive drunk, steal, cheat, lie on a big scale. I’m trying to think of things that bring to mind guilt from before I was sober. The essence of guilt, I think, is feeling that I’ve done something wrong while knowing better, having caused harm even though I knew it was harmful, or having been very negligent. I’m coming up empty for thoughts from before sobriety. That may just be where my head is, or it may be that a lifetime of AA plus raising my own children has made me see most of what befell me as normal and fallible.

The biggest guilts of my sober life have to do with my children. They are minor, really, but they effect me. AA has given me such an excellent platform to stand on. It’s given good people to turn to and rules to live by that have made for a good life experience.

I have to give more thoughts to writing the particulars about what I feel I’ve done wrong regarding the children. A few instances come to mind that would probably invade their privacy. As I said, though, these aren’t huge things. Today when I feel guilty it’s usually because I’m trying to help and support two people at once, or because there are certain helping aspects of my job that I’ve abandoned, more as a way to keep going than anything else.

As I was writing that, a good example of my current state of guilt came to mind.

This is Xandra. She is my death row doggie. Carole and I adopted her last year from a kill shelter. Xandra was four years old (So they said, but they also called her a labradoodle. Um, no), unspayed, filthy, with awful teeth. She sat in the corner of the pen barking nonstop. We were out to find a different doggie. Through circumstances I’ll have to write about at some point, we were looking for a dog to add to the household (which had another dog and three cats - still does). I set criteria at 30 pounds or less (Xandra weighs 64), between 3 and 5 years old (she was 4, so that worked), female (yes) and from a shelter (yes). One way that Carole and I are often bad for each other is that neither one of us can say no often enough to the animals, and we end up having just one too many, just enough to make things unmanageable.

I will come back to this topic because it has sent my mind sort of racing. My character defects do come into play big time around this dog.

For now, I think that considering what are the things we feel guilty about can show us either where we need to improve our conduct, or where we need to shrink our ego and be our right size concerning what we can and should do in situations, or both.

So very many things about living in the “now” come up when I’m frightened about something like a medical test. I started looking through my pictures to find one that might illustrate something about this predicament. My pictures folder is filled with pictures of my pets, and pictures of the people I work with, many of whom have severe intellectual disabilities. One of the things I contemplate about living in the now is that many of these beings, the pets and the people, don’t worry about dying or being sick or disabled.

Now I should explain that I cannot profess to really know what any person (or animal for that matter) thinks about. It’s an extremely important concept to keep in mind that all people have to be respected fully, no matter what their abilities or disabilities are, and we have to assume that each and every one has every thought and feeling that all others do, too. And of course living things from people to pets to bugs fight death and try not to die.

This picture is the view out of the front of my house to the church across the street. This is the church where Carole and I and her sponsee started our meeting. The congregation is more than 100 years old, and the building is getting there too. I love old things, buildings and antiques. I think if I had to start a career completely unrelated to what I do now, I would go into historical preservation. You can see the lighted cross in this view, and I see that every time I look out my bedroom window, unless there’s very thick fog.

I wonder about the other people who have looked at this view through the years. I wonder about the people who founded the church and built the church and attended the church. I wonder about all the thoughts and prayers and words that have gone on in that building. So many of those people have died.

I understand that all I have is now. It’s false to think that I know what will happen in any case. Lightening could strike my house now and kill me. I may survive many medical situations or other life threatening catastrophes. From what I understand of the program regarding things like this, there is a universal vulnerability to being human, and ultimately the more I accept that, the more serene I will be. Also I understand from the program that each and every day I’ve had since my first day of sobriety has been extra, a gift, something I did not earn or deserve, something many other people fail to receive. I am so privileged among people to be healthy, to have enough money and material possessions, to have children and pets and a home and a spouse and a career.

I really love my life, and I selfishly want another 46 years. I realize that I am right here right now, today, and I’m grateful.

I’ve commented before (OK, I’ve complained) that more and more often these days, I have the most time in the room when I’m at an AA meeting.  This problem will only get worse.  I’ve also been in a bit of an oldtimer funk, and that’s actually why I started this blog, among other reasons.  I know that many of the people who got sober with me and before me have died, they’ve gotten drunk, they’ve stopped going to meetings.  However, I also guess many of them are around, but they go to day time meetings.  They are retired, and/or they may have issues with driving at night or being out at night.  Maybe they congregate to be with more of their own kind.

If all goes according to plan, and if it’s God will (blah, blah), I’ve got about 20 working years ahead of me at least.  And the work that I choose to do happens mostly in the day time.

I had a doctor’s appointment today, so I took the opportunity to work from home and go to a day meeting.  Lots of what I do also takes place on the computer, and that part could theoretically be done anywhere at any time.  First, at the doctor’s, the doctor told me that what I hope are mild signs of an approaching menopause could be cancer.  She doesn’t think that it is cancer, but she sent me for three more tests to make sure.  As I was telling Carole, tests to make sure things aren’t cancer will probably be more and more frequent as we get older, if we are lucky.  I had a blood test today, to see if there are any menopausal hormones in my blood.  I need to have a sonogram and a biopsy (OW) along with the usual mammogram (which probably won’t be such an ow after the biopsy).   The doctor told me that for my age, the risk of uterine cancer is 5%.  I don’t quite understand that, since does that mean that 5% of 46 year olds have uterine cancer?  Doesn’t seem right.  Regardless, I think she meant the risk is there, but it’s small.  It doesn’t matter in the long run since I have it, or I don’t.  No gray area here.

But, it’s frightening.  Aside from all the regular reasons why this is frightening, Carole’s mother died from this, and it was awful.  So, of course I resolve to eat better and exercise more and not ingest so much artificial sweetener.  Really.  Even if I’m fine.  Because I really like being alive, and I want to continue as long as I can.

AND I resolve to enjoy life more and let little things pass and be grateful upon grateful for my buckets of blessings.  No matter what the outcome of this is.

After the doctor and the blood test, I went to a meeting.  Just as I expected, there were a few oldtimers there.  Although this meeting is nearby, I didn’t know anyone there well, and I only knew a few people by sight.  I think it really is true that lots of people go in the day, or at night, but not both.  There was a woman there who has 34 years, 10 more than me.  Others had more than 10, 15 or 20.  There were also some newcomers.

The topic was taking other people’s inventories.  In my opinion, the level of discourse was different.  I truly think that the presence of the oldtimers raised the discussion, at times, to a higher level than the usual basic stuff we say about this topic.  After everyone had had a chance to speak, there was still time, and some people spoke again.  During the whole meeting I had thought on and off about speaking about my desire to start an oldtimer’s meeting, but I didn’t say anything.  Then, with still some time left, the chair person asked if we would quickly comment on complacency.  Finally, I said something about the problems of oldtimers and the idea of the meeting.  One person took the CD I had brought, and another took my name and number and email.  They both reacted very positively, and the more I share about it, the more I know there is a need for this thing.

Honestly, I wish someone else would start it.  I’d like to just attend it.  I cannot leave my home group, because we only have a very few members, and I don’t want to leave it.  I wish someone with more time (retired, maybe?) would do it.  And someone may.  I think it will work best with an actual meeting.  If that doesn’t work out, I’m personally more dedicated to interacting regularly with people who have more time than I have.  It’s fairly easy for me to take a day off to attend a day time meeting.

I also wish those oldtimers would attend night meetings some times, if for no other reason than to show the people there that people can achieve 34 years and be happy about it.

It was interesting being at that meeting with my health scare on my mind.  I was in the zone where I was loving life, loving AA, loving being there, and wanting to show up, retired one day, with 44 years of sobriety to share.

After all these years, I admit I don’t meditate in a formal fashion. Prayer and meditation is something I am going to spend renewed effort on now. I’ve been doing the prayer thing at work, and that’s good. To summarize, I printed up a few “new” prayers from http://www.worldprayers.org/ and I try to read and write them in order to memorize them. I do this at lunch time (I really don’t have a lunch break) and sometimes during difficult meetings. I know I’m learning the prayers, but I’m not doing it well or quickly. I also read an AA meditation book first thing every morning at work. I keep it where I stow my cell phone, so it’s something I don’t forget to do ever. I also have longer meditations, poems and sayings I’ve collected, and I hang one over my desk each week and try to reread it, contemplate it and apply it to my week. The nature of these things is such that they all apply to so many situations. I try to concentrate on one at a time as it applies to my work week or my home week. In this way I learn it better and incorporate it more over time.

At home, I have a flipping photo thingy from when I was in junior high. Instead of photos, I inserted short sayings and poems that appeal to me. I flip it weekly, and try to contemplate the saying there through the week. I have a Christian meditation book I try to read each morning. I have other AA-inspired meditation books I’ve read at different times. Right now, As Bill Sees It is in the bathroom.

I want to start the prayer thing at home as well as at work, and I think I’d like to work on it and do it as part of this blog.

Before I start with the prayer today, though, I want to expand a bit on what Hillary said and why I like it and how I’ll use it. She said

When you hear people saying or think to yourself, If only, or, What if, I say, please, don’t go there. Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.

Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be.

This applies to all of my situations, of course, but it resonated most strongly for me with regard to my work situation. Briefly, I lost a boss who meant a great deal to me at work. Henceforth she will be known here as Edith. She tried hard to do good things for my workplace, but for various reasons (and I surely don’t know them all) she was not able to continue. I miss her there daily. Outside of work, she’s become a friend, so I lost her in the work capacity only. My work partner and friend, Irene, has come back to work with me after a time away. Irene often, probably several times a day, mentions one or another thing that is wrong with our program, and these are all things that Edith was taking care of. If only weighs on my mind often.

Of course I know the concept of not looking back, either to regret or to celebrate. All that takes time away from today. Hillary said it in a way I was able to heart right now (That is a Freudian typo that I’m going to leave.  Of course I meant HEAR). That’s added to by my highly emotional state over Hillary’s campaign. So I’ll write these words down for my rotating meditations, at home and at work, and try to learn them and live them.

As to prayer, I’ve chose a new one for home, and I’ll record it hear and try to learn it here.

Holy Spirit,
Giving life to all life,
Moving all creatures,
Root of all things,
Washing them clean,
Wiping out their mistakes,
Healing their wounds,
You are our true life,
Luminous, wonderful,
Awakening the heart from its ancient sleep.

hildegarde of bingen - 12 century

This appeals to me because it seems basic, as in bringing me back to the base of things, which is God.

Here’s a Mickey within a Mickey behind another Mickey. The whole thing is crawling with Mickeys. There’s something new at Disney since the last time I was there. The “hidden” Mickeys which, we are told, there are maybe several hundred of. These are images of Mickey Mouse which have been hidden within other things. They aren’t new, but the hype is new, at least to me.

An easy one to spot is on the banquet table in The Haunted Mansion. At the end of the table, three plates are placed so as to create a likeness of the mouse.

Sometimes, many times, I fail at fun. “Fun” is not something I often seek. Many things that others find to be fun, I do not. Part of it is that I can be stoic and unemotional. Part of it is that I really feel dumb doing things that get a laugh. I don’t like attention.

Sometimes I wonder how much of this I should accept about myself, and how much I should try to change. How much is just me, and how much is dysfunctional.

I only looked for one other hidden Mickey while I was at Disney. There’s supposedly another in The Haunted Mansion that is formed by some guy’s cloak. I read about it quickly on our way out the last morning. I looked for it, as did Carole, but we didn’t see it.

Does it take enjoyment and fun away from the experience to look for hidden Mickeys? To me it’s a bit like a puzzle I have only a few seconds to solve. The chances of me seeing a hidden Mickey in Disney World using no clues is just about non existent. I could look for years, I’m sure, without finding any. And even following clues, the time on a ride like The Haunted Mansion is so short. One could try and follow the clues to find a hidden Mickey that isn’t part of a ride, like one in a mural, but what would that time be spent doing otherwise? Does this add to the fun, or does it take some away?

We’re home, and I made to my meeting, where the topic was gratitude. Honestly I have too much to mention. There were people at the meeting who were, of course, struggling with trying to be grateful. Mostly AA meetings are full of very grateful people. Or at least they say they are grateful when asked. What happens to that gratitude when someone goes out and drinks? One of the synonyms for gratitude is appreciation. Is it that they fail to appreciate what they have? Or do they stop appreciating it for a time?

Today Hillary Clinton officially suspended her campaign and said that she supports Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. As much as I am heartbroken, disappointed, and even bitter (I understand she may have actually gotten more popular votes than he did), I can’t help but be amazed and grateful that I got to see this and participate. I actually can’t hold gratitude back at this time in my life.

I’ve had to practice through the years to get to this place. I didn’t enter AA feeling grateful. I understood the concept of gratitude pretty early on though. An oldtimer told me to “say thank God instead of God dammit.” I understood this when I got cut off in traffic. I was able to say “thank God I didn’t have an accident,” instead of God damming the other driver. That was the phrase that clicked for me, and the picture I’ve held on to. I had to be in that place at that time to receive those words. I had to be open and willing to try. It amazes me today that when something doesn’t go my way, I’m still able to thank God and to mean it. Often.

And oh my goodness, how could I forget? The lady herself said today that we should not waste time with if only. I know the time we spent on her campaign was not wasted, not a minute of it.

If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. And if I know all knowledge and prophecy all mysteries, and if I have faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I offer up my body so I may boast********

This is where I lost it. I’m still trying to memorize it, but I guess I’m not trying very hard.

So, as is my custom, when all else fails I think about following directions. I prayed for the first time on this vacation yesterday, the seventh day of the odyssey. I should know better. I went to one meeting on this vacation on I don’t know which day. I have even put this blog on vacation. Though I’m writing a lot, I left the disciplined format I had developed.

I feel like I have failed at having fun. Now this is nothing new. Which makes it worse. And of course I’ve had fun, tons of it, days of it. Why isn’t it OK to admit that I don’t like vacation? Why isn’t it OK to admit I don’t like heat?

The ultimate ideal, I think, would be to like and be serene in all situations. It would be to recognize and appreciate God’s grace as expressed to me through this vacation. I would really like to get into and love the whole Disney experience. I’ve actually come a short way toward doing that recently by letting go of some of the thoughts I have that involve the evil of Disney. Ideally, I would remain serene in the face of the distress of my family members. I would be the calming, loving example for them to admire and follow. Maybe I’d also accept my humanness.

We went to a show explaining animation, and the announcer guy said that on the third day of Disney, someone in the family snaps. He said he wouldn’t single people out, but advised everyone to be nice to mom. So maybe I’m just totally average, although I want to be better.

I’m heading out for my last day at Disney for this trip.  I wonder if it will be my last time.  Not to be morbid, but you never know.  Maybe I’ll try to live it as if it is my last.  Maybe I’ll try to live it as if I had been practicing AA for 24 years.

So, I’m still here, at the happiest place on Earth. Today we did MGM for the second time. Having six day passes, we need to repeat two parks. The Magic Kingdom, the hands down favorite, we saved for tomorrow. I should say this is all at the whim of my daughter, Erika. This is her present, and so we go with what she decides.

This vacation is very difficult at times. Today was another hard day, and for me again I think the ultimate factor is the heat. I hate to say I’m just a heat wimp who can’t take it so please don’t take me south in the summer. But maybe that’s what I am. I hear others around me complaining about the heat a lot. I don’t know how close they feel to the edge. I’ve even thought that maybe I’m just being a baby, that everyone feels like death is not a bad option to escape the heat, and they are just soldiering through. I don’t know.

In any case, today most of my difficult moments involved my wife, Carole. As I’m writing this, it is 11:35 at night, so in less than half an hour it will be our 11th anniversary. We count that anniversary as the day we met. That may not be fair in comparing the length of our relationship to straight couples who met and married on different days. Hopefully they did that. It is legal, I believe, for straight people to marry strangers. But we won’t go there.

In our case, we didn’t rush our ceremony, mostly because it isn’t legal. I had to get divorced. I had been separated for seven years, so a divorce was a formality, but it took time. Then Carole’s father was dying, and it wasn’t clear when that would happen. We ended up having a ceremony in church in August, 2005. So we have two anniversaries.

We count the day we met as our anniversary. Lots of gay couples do. I’m sure that if we were straight and of opposite genders, we would say something like we met in 1997, moved in together in 1998, and got married in 2005. Tomorrow we will count it as our eleventh anniversary.

We know three lesbian couples who have been together longer than we have. Every other lesbian couple we know have been a couple for a shorter time than eleven years. We know lots of straight couples, including lots of family members, who have been together longer. These are mostly our aunts and uncles, people like that. I’m afraid those couples are dwindling, though.

Carole has been step-mother/other-mother to my children for all that time. Much longer than their bio father had anything to do with them. My son, Nicholas, has had her as a parent for more than half his life. Carole has lived with them since they were 12 and 10, and at times it has been very, very difficult.

Carole and I are opposite in many ways. We may not seem like a likely couple. We met on the internet, at a gay AA meeting. Our first communications were online, and so we fell in love at first through writing.

This has good and bad aspects, and since we’re together, I think we might as well concentrate on the good. In writing, we fell in love with no physical aspects involved. We didn’t know what the other looked like. Before we met, we talked on the phone and exchanged photographs. This was in the days before digital cameras and fast internet. The context of our communication was at first AA. I was 11 then 12 years sober. She was no years than one year sober. AA was the foundation of my life. When we finally did commit to one another, I told her that she had to continue in AA in order to be with me. It was a non-negotiable. It’s that important.

So the ways we are different. She’s an extrovert who loves to meet people, I’m an introvert who hates to meet people. She likes to dance and sing, I won’t dance or sing. She likes to watch and play sports, I don’t like to watch and I won’t play. She likes vacation, I don’t. She likes to talk things over right away and until they are resolved. I like to deny and ignore the fact that something is wrong, and hope it will go away.

Our similarities are more important, though. Beginning with AA and all that entails, it is awesome to be in a relationship with someone who is trying to work the same program. We speak that same language in that respect. Our politics are similar too, and that’s very important to me. I have a hard enough time with friends who disagree with my politics, I can’t imagine my partner disagreeing. To a certain extent we share spiritual beliefs enough to belong to the same church. She participates at a much higher level than I do, but we can belong together and attend together.

As I’m writing this, midnight has passed, and we’ve been together for eleven years. Just like long time sobriety, it causes me to wonder from time to time what we have that has enabled us to make it this far when so many other fail to do so. It is, honestly, often, wonderful to be with her, very much like at the beginning. Most of the time it’s just comfortable and at times it’s very difficult. I’ll give most of the credit for keeping us together to her. If something is wrong, she won’t ignore it or deny it, like I probably would do until it was too late. She makes sure we work on it, and for my part, I usually cooperate with the work eventually. I think we both understand that the intoxicating, falling in love feeling doesn’t last. I accept that more than she does.

Speaking just for myself, I love the comfort of the history we share as it gets longer and longer. At Disney, people travel for the most part in families, and I wouldn’t trade mine. Sometimes I actually fear what we have as we become more and more comfortable, because that would make it more unbearable (and I do know that isn’t a correct construction as things are unbearable or they are not, there aren’t degrees) for it to end, which it will have to, at least by death. I look at old couples sometimes and wonder how long they’ve been together and if we will make it that long. I want her to be the one I hobble into church with, the one I take the grandchildren to Disney with. I can look at those old couples (and really for all I know they just got together last week) and I picture a nice new phase of life as a couple.

We actually are in a transition to a new phase as the kids finish college. I know some couples fear this and fall apart when it happens. I’m looking forward to it. As much as I have loved actively mothering these two for all these year, the time coming of simple couplehood will be something we haven’t experienced yet. I’m so glad that we get to do it with all of that mostly nice history behind us.