Tuesday I took the day off to apply for a passport and clean the house.  I have an “invisible” friend visiting this coming weekend.  Someone I’ve known for years through message boards but never met.  I have online relationships with many people.  They have nothing to do with AA or recovery, though the people know that’s important part of my life.  I like relating to people through writing, I think, is why it appeals to me and why I keep it going for so long.  It is a bit nerve-wracking to actually meet these people.  More so because she’ll be staying at my house for two nights.  Though I have many online relationships, I’ve only met a total of I think five people, and Carole is one.  So I’m spending more time than usual cleaning.  This is how we do it.  It would be better if I was retired, I truly think so.  But for now we have to clean especially for visitors.  We should have more people over while it’s not good, but better than usual.

We went to a meeting a bit out-of-the-way on Tuesday, just because I like to do that.  We did run into some people we know because we didn’t go that far away, but most of the people there were strangers.  I have a pet peeve and I’ll record it right here right now.  If you’re going to talk to a room full of people, and if you expect them to listen, please, speak up!  It doesn’t matter how brilliant something is if I can’t hear it!!  And, for the record, we read the part of the Big Book about resentments being futile and fatal.  So there!

Tradition Eleven:  “Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.”

When I hear people discuss the concept of “attraction rather than promotion” in meetings, it usually doesn’t have to do with the tradition it comes from.  People talk about these words in relation to how we try to give AA to people we know who need it.  We’re told to tell our own personal story, to tell how the program changed and saved our own life, what it all means to us, instead of telling others why we think they need it, how we know it could help them.  I’m supposed to live my life, and share my life, in a way that makes a struggling alcoholic want what I have.

Hard and sad experience has shown that there really is no other way, and that often even that way isn’t sufficient.  But so many of us balk at a promoter.  A hard sell is certainly not the way to spread the good news.

The history of the tradition is written about in the AA literature.  In the early days, some people became AA spokespeople and all kinds of bad things happened as a result of that.  I honestly admire the way Bill W tried to not take over and stay in charge.  I see how someone from the past could have derailed or ruined AA from personal association.

Today, it seems to me like it’s celebrities who threaten AA with breaks in anonymity.  Not that AA would or could be ruined by any of them, but that they can make a bad impression, especially when they slip and slide or engage in psychobabble on talk shows.  That is not AA.  I also disapprove (I almost wrote resent) the fact that they break this tradition in that way.  There are famous folks who are well-known members of AA, not because they say they are members, but because it is known.  There’s no helping that, and that’s different.

As for the day-to-day attraction of real people in real life, there are several on my prayer list, and I keep hoping that AA will be attractive enough to them before it’s too late.

We actually have a plan, and tickets, to see Pippin on Broadway.  It was the first play I saw on Broadway (I think, and my mother isn’t helping me figure it out) when I was 12, so around 1974.  Carole and I took the kids to a farm-theater production of it many years ago, and the kids are going with us this time.  It’s a very long distance for all of us, so lots of time and money.  But my daughter said she’d go without us if we didn’t go and honestly, it seems like it might fun.  Expensive fun.  I keep reminding myself to appreciate the times when the kids, now aged 27 and 25, will still do things with us, just the four of us, because inevitably that arrangement won’t last forever.  It does seem to go on and on, though, and I truly treasure it.  By the time I was their ages, I had them.  They are doing much better than I was.

May 1st I marked 29 years sober.  I think I lost my ability to comprehend these numbers somewhere after 25.  Like, if you’re a billionaire, does it matter if you have 29 billion dollars, or 30?  These years are more precious than billions of dollars.

I haven’t been sick more than briefly in years.  I’m going to appreciate my good health as soon as it gets back here.  I promise that I will.  Right now I’m grateful that what I have is not serious and not permanent.  Very grateful.  That is the attitude I have today.

Carole and I read this book together in the morning on days that I went to work.  We read just for a few minutes, so it takes us a long time to get through a book.  I chose this book because I truly enjoy learning more about AA, and I enjoy history.  Books like this can make me just a little bit nervous, because I don’t want anyone to get turned off of AA and also because I don’t want to learn things I’d rather not know.

I have to say that the author is a Bill W fan, and so am I.

Most of it is familiar territory.  The book covers a bit of Bill W’s family history before he was, and continues until his death with a few anecdotes about after his death.  Although the tone is very positive toward Bill, it does include negative things like his infidelities, his love of niacin and his inability to quit the thing that ultimately killed him, smoking.

What was new to me or more in-depth to me than I’d gone or understood before is the way Bill W stepped down from the head of AA and created a structure that has stood the test of time until today.  It’s amazing, but it’s dry stuff, and I needed every ounce of it to happen in order for AA to be there when I needed it.

One of the last paragraphs says ” . . . we can hardly imagine what the world would be like without him . . . “  I can’t be anything but a fan because without him, I wouldn’t be.  I’m afraid my objectivity gets swamped every time by my gratitude.  And for that, I am grateful.

It’s completely amazing and incomprehensible, good beyond belief even though I’ve lived it one day at a time.

We had the privilege of trying to help someone sober up the other day.  This is someone we’ve known for years, and have tried to help for years.  She’s had periods of sobriety followed by not.

She spent part of that night on our couch, and it reminded me so strongly of one of my more colorful drunken escapades (story here).  Yet after I almost died, could have died, should have died, I drank again.  I so hope that our friend does not.  Anniversary time makes me reflective and grateful and incredulous.

These little studies of A.A.’s Twelve Steps now come to a close.  We have been considering so many problems that it may appear that A.A. consists mainly of racking dilemmas and troubleshooting.  To a certain extent, that is true.  We have been talking about problems because we are problem people who have found a way up and out, and who wish to share our knowledge of that way with all who can use it.  For it is only by accepting and solving our problems that we can begin to get right with ourselves and with the world around us, and with Him who presides over all of us.

As I was writing that I heard someone on TV talking about he Boston bombing.  He said that he lives by spiritual principles and basically wakes up and asks God to show him how he can be useful that day.  Carole wasn’t paying attention, but I said to her, “AA?”  Because that’s what we do!  When we remember.

I’ve heard it said as a criticism of AA that we dwell on problems.  Even the way we introduce ourselves, “My name is ___ and I’m an alcoholic,” or some version of that.  I’ve heard people say that this focus on the problem, this giving it priority, keeps us sick.  But I disagree.

” . . . we are problem people . . . “  We are.  That’s why we go to AA.  No one goes there because everything is good.  And when people go to AA and don’t accept and solve their problem, their problem gets worse, and the havoc they wreck gets worse.

Even so, I don’t think the majority of the talk I hear in a meeting is negative.  I’m curious and if I remember, I’m going to try to keep track for a while.  I hear lots and lots of positive things and so many of us feel that we wouldn’t change our alcoholism even if we could, because the solution is so wonderful.  I never want to be without it.  Waking up and asking God how I can be useful that day is a wonderful way to live.  But I wouldn’t have even tried to live that way had I not been forced to by alcoholism.

There are a few more lines of Step Twelve and I’ll be at the end of the steps.  I’m going to start at the beginning because I began writing at Step Six . . . several years ago now.

But I didn’t.  It’s too late now for me to die young!  Instead I’ll mark 29 years without a drink on May 1, God willing and the creek don’t rise.  My sobriety is not bullet proof.  I’ve been watching The Walking Dead, just a few episodes a year.  We just saw the one where Hershel goes back to drinking and I have to say that in the zombie apocalypse, I might also.  Since that hasn’t happened, I’ll go on.

I’ve had really really really good changes at work.  Really good.  The past few years have been good and getting better.  Mostly I think due to the person who is presently my boss.  I’m enjoying it.  It makes the hard times easier and I’m really optimistic for the whole thing.  It’s nice.

Tonight I’ll go to a meeting I hope to go tomorrow also.  Then on to another week of work and it’s ordinary and it’s good.

AA taught me that almost every single thing in my life is good.  AA taught me that if I can’t see the truth in that, I’ll have a hard time and may not be able to stay sober.  AA taught me that when I can have that attitude, that almost every single thing in my life is good, I will want to stay sober and actually want to live.

There are terrible tragedies and great suffering in life, and I really haven’t had these be a part of my little life.  The Big Book talks about serenity when bad things happen like losing a child in a war, which is surely one of the worst things I can think of.  I haven’t been tested like that, and I don’t know if I’d pass a test like that.  I might not.

I didn’t make it through raising two teenagers unscathed.  There were times I worried for both of their lives.  They have truly been in that much jeopardy, but those experiences were short-lived and even as they took place, I had some of the most advanced medical technology and psychological help available, and since these things turned out OK, the bright sides I was trying to cling to came to pass as true.

For the more mundane things that test my ability to stay positive I looked back through the blog and I came up with this list:

• people at work coming in late or not at all
• I am not the perfect dog mom
• I am often afraid to drive in the snow
• politics in general, and people who want to deny me the right to marry in particular
• people commenting on the way I look (only positive comments, mind you)
• people in my vicinity expressing negativity (!)
• missing people and situations from the past

Something in Step Eleven (I’m not sure what) says that we bring light to bear on the negative aspects of our personalities.  Something like that.  Here I’ve got a list of things to bring to that light.  I hope the light makes them shrivel up and die!  Or at least get a little smaller.

On to some search terms that brought readers here:

• what does humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings mean  It means that after doing a moral inventory, and identifying character defects, we become ready to have them removed and then actually ask our Higher Power to do so.  To me this means doing the work and suffering through the experience of giving up my bad habits, and using the wisdom that’s out there in other people and other resources because I can’t or won’t or don’t do it on my own.
• restraint of pen and tongue  One of my favorites!  Sleep on it.  Don’t react.  Take time and think and talk to other people and then respond.
• how to find a higher power  Look for one.  Acknowledge that you are not the most potent force in the universe.  Any group of people in AA is a power greater than you.  They have solved their problem with alcohol.  They have wisdom and experience beyond what you can ever hope to have.  Look into religions that appeal to you.  Read about spiritual experiences.  Ask other people how they did it.  Be open and even just a little bit willing.
• why is people pleasing a defect of character  Because it’s dishonest and self-serving.  It’s like trying to trick someone into liking you.  It’s all about you and your desire to be liked, not about the needs of the situation.

And finally

• do women 13th step me in aa  I don’t know, do they?  I hope not, and shame on them if they do.  But hey, that’s a terrible thing, taking advantage of a newcomer.  As much as women should not do this, newcomers also have to be aware and look out for themselves.  AA is not a safe place.  It just isn’t.

Thinking about it today, I really have spent the past 35 years almost completely devoid of road rage, and if that’s all AA ever gave me, that might be enough.  Through the years I’ve added the thoughts, depending on the situation, that

• the person could be ill, or upset, maybe having just gotten very bad news
• I too have once every year or so made a mistake in traffic myself (and it’s really funny how, when I try to apologize, I usually get the finger rather than forgiveness)
• having raised two kids from when they were pups I also remember that the person behind the wheel in the other car may be learning (and I did, from time to time shout, when some wonderful motorist was being impatient that “We’re learning!” and comment to the other learner that I guess the other driver was born a perfect, experienced driver)

Bottom line is that I haven’t had a car accident, ever, and so all the terrible drivers around me have not caused me to be in an accident and that this, more than their poor driving, is the most important point to dwell on and feed.  Over 35 years of driving I’d say that this attitude has given me several whole days of gratitude and serenity.

In thinking about “attitude” now, I searched for it through the big book and through this blog.  There’s a lot, so I thought I’d write about several times.  For me it’s a basic concept because my attitude was something that had to change so that I could remain sober.  The attitude I had before and while I was drinking isn’t compatible with sobriety.

To be continued.