January 10, 2012 (this day)

I’m waiting to take my mother to the airport.  Carole and I will be on our own for the first time since her surgery.  She’s getting around really well, but she can’t do everything and she can’t drive.  After I take my mother I’ll go to the supermarket.  Of all the things Carole did before, I miss her shopping the most!  That, and her going into the basement for any reason.  I hate the basement.

I didn’t walk the dog this morning because some women were just attacked in my area, doing just that, at just the time that I do it.  I walk the dog every morning before work.  I had a traumatic dog walking experience several years ago, and I swore I’d never walk a dog again.  Well the dog is here and I can’t accept that she doesn’t need to be walked, so I do it.

Physically, I have never ever intimidated anyone, except when I am walking this dog.  She’s big and black and she acts anxious, what could be seen as aggressive, on the leash.  I would not walk her if I felt there was any danger she’d hurt anyone.  She even calmly accepts the occasional aggression of little dogs.  But people approaching me don’t know that, and once in a while someone will cross the street to avoid me.  It boggles my mind that someone is attacking women who are walking dogs.  I have no idea what my dog would do if I was attacked.  I’m able to walk her because I think that she is an unlikely target for attack, and that she’d be able to defend herself, whereas my little dog that was killed didn’t have a chance.

So today I will walk her in the broad daylight when I get home from the airport and the supermarket.  Tomorrow, I don’t know.  I have to work and I don’t like to walk her after work, at least not by myself.  Carole can’t come with me.  Often the weather keeps me from walking at this time of year but that’s not the problem this week.  I’ve been very fortunate to be able to walk her pretty much every day up until today.  I have to choose between my fear of the attacker and my fear of facing a later walk.

What would Dr. Bob do?

Trust God, Clean House, Help Others

This synopsis of the Twelve Steps is, I believe, attributed to Dr. Bob.  The first three steps involve trusting God, four through eleven show me how to get my “house,” my mind, my life, in order and keep it that way, and Step Twelve tells me to help other people do the same.

I think catchy summaries like this are helpful when, sometimes, the Twelve Steps can seem like lots of complicated words and not-very-precise instructions.  They are precise, and I’m very grateful, but there are a lot of words involved.

When I read some AA history (which I love to do) it seems to me that in early AA, a belief in a higher power was a kind of prerequisite.  On the other hand, I’ve heard Bill W say in recordings of talks he gave that we can pray to a higher power as, if we need to, only an experiment.  Belief was not a prerequisite.

I needed to believe that the collective wisdom of the sober people of AA was a power greater than me.  That made sense and to me, it was obviously true.  I can personally right here, right now, on my back porch on this summer morning, testify to the fact that I was an alcoholic of the hopeless variety.  I was.

Now it has been twenty-six summers since I took my baby daughter to the gazebo pictured here.  I brought her there when she couldn’t walk or talk or protect herself from anything, including her alcoholic mother.  She didn’t need protection from me and I helped bring her to the place where she wants to travel back there and she can navigate it on her own.  This is a “miracle.”

I was talking to someone yesterday who believes in the “meant to be” kind of universe where what is meant to happen, happens, and what isn’t, doesn’t.  My own understanding of “a” or “the” higher power doesn’t work that way, and it doesn’t need to.  My friend and I can have radically different beliefs and we can both stay sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Another young woman I know has started on her Ninth Step.  She’s cleaned her house as far as making and sharing her list, considering her defects and asking to have them removed.  I’m so excited for her to experience all of the Ninth Step and to walk away from it having finished it.  Like when they read the “promises,” it is a phase of development and there will be a different phase after it.  The maintenance of the new way of life comes with instructions that, for me, have prevented it from becoming old or boring or finished or dull.  I will never completely understand and know how to do daily inventory and prayer and  meditation.

Helping others.  One of the awesome, unique (I think) aspects of this program of recovery.  I’m sure it serves different functions for different people and the same functions for all of us.  For this introvert, it keeps me out there.  Sometimes (oldtimer confession) I feel like it’s a great service I do, just showing up in my third decade of recovery to say with my presence that it works.  Most of the time I understand that it’s important for me to do that, but it’s truly not all that’s required of me.

Helping others makes sure we all continue to learn as we seek to teach and explain.  The social aspect of this program of recovery is one of the reasons I believe that it succeeds when all else fails.  A paid professional cannot, I don’t think, impart the understanding and experience that I need to enable me to stay sober one day at a time.

Trust God, clean house, help others.

Cultish Aspects, Part II

More from Antonahill:

>Second, AA does NOT encourage members to leave society, but rather encourages them to become contributing members of it.

True (to some extent), but Scientology doesn’t encourage people to leave society completely either. This is a question of degrees. Is it possible to be in AA, be an active member, and have “normal” friends outside who engage in behavior that AA looks down on? Sure. But the fact of the matter is that the level of encouragement or discouragement that AA and its members levy upon certain behaviors is very much in a cult mindset.

“Normal” friends who engage in behavior that AA looks down on.  Well, being an active member, I would also then look down on those behaviors, wouldn’t I?  The truth is that many sober people, and speaking for myself, I find absolutely no fun or enjoyment in hanging out with people who are drinking or taking drugs.  Really it lost all its charm for me when I stopped.  At the beginning, I may have been vulnerable to relapse and so well-informed AAs would encourage me not to hang out with people who are doing the thing I seek to avoid.  This only makes sense.  Now, most days I am well beyond the danger of relapse and I have no desire to be around people who are engaging.  Once in a while, an occasion demands that I be around them, and this shows me again from time to time that this is not where I want to be.

At this stage of my life and my recovery, there really isn’t anyone who’s concerned about it if I should decide to go to happy hour with the people from work.  No one views this as dangerous for me and they neither encourage nor discourage me.  When someone is new in the program, it’s important that the newcomer experiences some sober time, to see if this will work for that person.  In that case, it’s very human to be tempted and to succumb, and so I, along with many other AAs, would discourage it and expose it as potentially dangerous.  We also suggest that the newcomer bring phone numbers and maybe another sober person along for support.  And you know what happens when someone doesn’t follow those suggestions?  Not a darn thing.  No cultlike behavior here.

>There are some lesser points that show to me that AA is not a cult in the negative sense. AA does not take financial control of a person, and is actually free to members, and discourages large donations made by individuals. There is not a charismatic leader.

I’ve already addressed this point, but yes, there are two. Any figure who is lifted onto a pedestal over the “regular” people can be considered a charismatic leader. In my experience, Dr. Bob and Bill W were treated as saints. Every word they had written was held aloft as divine wisdom. And so what of criticism? Plenty of cults, such as the Chabad movement, employ self-criticism.

OK so we’ll ignore the financial aspect, since AA is decidedly not cultlike in that way.  And that is not to be minimized.  Much of what we fear and dislike about cults, much of what is dangerous, is the way they take what ultimately matters, the money and property, of their adherents.  AA does not do this.

As for the sainthood of the founders, what they have written is certainly held aloft as wisdom, divinely inspired or simply divine.  Much more so Bill W than Dr. Bob, and personally I am always astonished and eternally grateful that the man had such a gift for writing.  I’ve heard plenty of criticism of Bill W and of some, admittedly few parts of what he has written, both in and out of AA.  It’s also been my experience that some AA members revere and try to interpret the AA literature literally, and try not to deviate from what they see as the exact written word.

I’m not like that, and I have had no problem getting on in AA with my liberal point of view.  To me, people who try to do this are like people who try to literally interpret the Bible, and I think both camps are missing the point.  Just as there can be fanatic and rigid Christians, there can be fanatic and rigid AAs.  In my experience, there are not many AAs like this.  But the fact that they exist does not negate the fact that there are many more moderate, thinking, questioning, practicing AAs than there are fanatics.  Extreme Christians would not make me suggest that Christianity is a cult.  Extreme AAs do not make me see the point that AA is a cult.

I thought I could wrap this up but there’s too much here.  More to follow.

Keep coming back!

Let Go and Let God

This past summer I traveled to Akron, Ohio, to revisit the birth place of AA.  It’s in Akron that Bill W met Dr. Bob, and that together they formed the beginning of the program.  A woman of Akron, Henrietta Seiberling, introduced the two, and she remained instrumental in the founding and success of AA.  I don’t know if she came up with the saying, but I learned there that Let Go and Let God was a favorite saying of hers, and that she has it on her tombstone.

I’ve been exposed to the saying ever since I first went to AA, but hearing that it is on her tombstone revealed another layer of it to me.  Like any person, I suppose, I can get caught up in a fear and dread of death.  I guess it can be the ultimate Let Go and Let God situation.  Many people fight it, but none win.  And it does seem that God made us this way, to die and, to a certain extent, to fear and fight it.

There are so many letting go situations.  I have to let go of people, things, places, times, outcomes of situations.  At times it’s very hard for me to see when to let go, dealing with my children jumps to the front of my mind in that case.  Too much letting go of them is negligent, even at their advanced ages, I would think.

It’s hard for me to know what’s right in work situations.  To a certain extent, again, I am called not to let things go.  Remembering the phrase of Let God and Let God, I hope I’m better able to back off when I should without being harmful or negligent.  I’ve actually put the phrase on my bulletin board where I hope it will remind me.

I’m trying to use it as a big phrase, something that resonates beyond the tiny details of whatever situation I’m dealing with.  In general, God will handle or fail to handle our human existence and that of the planet and the universe.  Sometimes, the things I wrestle with will matter in five or ten years, but usually not.  Also, I cannot cannot control other people.  Sometimes I can be a bit of an influence, but that’s it, and it’s mostly by my example that I influence anyway.  What I do is more important than what I say.

Honesty

Honesty is one of “The Four Absolutes” of the Oxford Group, which was the precursor to Alcoholics Anonymous that touched both Bill W and Dr. Bob seperately before they met.  Initially, the “meetings” they held were part of the Oxford Group, so it is there that AA had its begininngs.  This photograph is from Dr. Bob’s grave.  It is part of his headstone.

While purity, unselfishness and love are certainly worthy characteristics to have, I haven’t heard them touted as part of the AA program.  Honesty, though, is central to AA.  It appears in one of the slogans – HOW – honesty, openness (or open-mindedness) and willingness – HOW it works.  Honesty makes many appearances throughout the literature and to my understanding, I can’t really work the program without being very very honest.  Dishonesty will lead to drinking.

It was one of the first benefits of AA that I experienced, and I experienced it in a big way.  Each time I stopped drinking and put a few sober days together, the fact that I did not have to cover anything up gave me immediate relief.  Not only was the there the dishonesty of drinking and all that entailed, there was also the fact that in my particular character, I think I lied when the truth would have done just as well.

I lied about drinking and being drunk, to be sure.  Many times I went to a meeting messed up and lied in the faces of the people there who were so kind to me and such good friends.  More than that, they could spot a drunk a mile away, and my lying was stupid and shameful.  I lied to teachers and people who went to school with me in order to excuse away my insane behavior.  I’m sure my lies weren’t very convincing.  There’s also the fact that I was living a lie in the relationship I was having with the married man across the street.  I lied to everyone about that, including his wife, who thought I was her friend.

Not drinking, a whole group of lies were no longer meaningful, and I did always realize what a relief that was when I experienced it.  Much more than that, though, is the fact that AA tells us and teaches us to be as honest as possible with all people in all situations.  There are some drastic circumstances, I suppose, when honesty would be more hurtful than helpful, but I can’t really think of any.  All this to say that so many alcoholics will still try to justify hiding things and being untruthful since they do so for the good of others.  This is hardly ever true.

My thoughts about the deeper, more complicated aspects of honesty aren’t clear to me now.  I’ve heard it brought up as a topic, even, should we avoid all white lies for the sake of honesty?  What if you think the baby is ugly, the hair cut is unfortunate, the painting is bad?  Happily, as  members of Alcoholics Anonymous, we have infinite resources to check these things out.  There are always people to talk to and literature to read, so we can check on our particular cirumstances and motives.

For me right now, I’m wondering about the very deepest meaning of honesty.  When at work (where else?) I stay quiet rather than speaking up.  I don’t know if it’s right or wrong.  There are a few people who know my situation in depth, but the answer isn’t clear.  So here I am, considering these steps and these principles again specifically, and in depth.

Still More Akron

Dr. Bob and his wife are buried in a cemetery near his house.

Next to their headstone, a marble urn type thing is inscribed with these words. These are the “Four Absolutes” of the Oxford Group. It seems to me that the Oxford Group and the concepts of it get a lot more attention now than they used to. I just don’t remember hearing much about it in the past. A few months ago, there was even a special study of the group that went on in my area. I have no problem with it at all, I just honestly wonder what ‘absolute purity’ would look like. Not enough to look into it this time, though.

People leave sobriety coins at the grave. Last time I was there, I left my current coin, whatever that was. Here we left a “man on the bed” coin. One of our group left her 9 month coin. I left my 24 year coin.

I know some of this can seem cult like and bit spooky. I don’t mind. These people were real, and what they did, long before I was born, changed my life for the better and really gave me life.

We also visited the Gate Lodge, but didn’t take pictures this time. It’s where Henrietta Seiberling lived. She is the woman that got the call from the pastor that got the call from Bill W looking for an alcoholic to help. She arranged for Bill W and Dr. Bob to meet, which they did, in her Gate House.

I like the way my coin looks on that grave stone. The credit for my 24 years goes to him.

Akron continued

A room in the ……. I’m drawing a blank! This is the house next door to Dr. Bob’s house, which is also dedicated to AA history. At the left of the picture are some artifacts from Dr. Bob’s medical practice. Within the room are many many books, some photographs and other things.

This is me looking at some of the pictures of some of the first hundred members. Most of the books within these cases are not AA books, but rather are books that the early members used to study and actually develop the steps.

More of the first one hundred, as well as letters and other documents that were saved and preserved.

It amazes me when I think for minute what recovery must have been like for those early few. I struggled so, even with the vast network of people and meetings and books that were and are available to me. I owe an awesome debt to those people and their courage.

A painting of Bill and Bob.

The Mayflower Hotel, now a personal care home. It is where Bill’s business deal fell through, and where the bar and the pay phone both beckoned him. He called a random pastor, asking for a drunk to help, and from there was lead to Dr. Bob.

From there the series of coincidences is amazing, and goose bump producing. The personal care home allows AA visitors to enter the lobby where Bill made that phone call. There is a replica phone and phone list, and we sat for some time in that space. This time, with five of us on the trip, I really couldn’t think about it as much as I did seven years ago, when there were only two of us. I suppose it is a form of meditation to sit there and imagine the scene, and try to imagine myself in such a position, and to imagine all that needed to transpire in order for me personally to recover from alcoholism through the program of AA.

I have more pictures and I’ll continue with these next time. Now, though, something presents itself to me that I want to write down. It happens to me almost daily that coincidences occur that make me wonder if this is a higher power’s earthly influence. Surely the coincidences that occurred to result in the meeting of Bill and Bob seem to be just too handy to be real. It truly does seem as if there was a benevolent, guiding hand in all of it, making it happen.

OK fine. Let’s say that’s true. I just can’t wrap my mind around the pitiful drunks who died the day before this miracle. Why didn’t the higher power make this happen much, much sooner in human history? Why?

I understand this is a perennial question of human existence, and that I will not know the answer in my lifetime. And I do so appreciate the depth of what went on before me, and the fact that I benefit from it every single day. Even in the midst of my cynicism and doubt, I do get goose bumps at times. My emotional reaction is so strong, it causes my body to react.

I feel bad, in a way, putting these thoughts down together with pictures of that incredible, miraculous history. But I am, after all, trying to work the program in the 25th year of my recovery, in some new and deeper way. If nothing else, I hope this is at least honest.

Akron!

Carole and I and some friends went to Akron, Ohio the other day. Carole and I had first been there seven years ago. The others had never been. Akron is where Dr. Bob lived, and where he and Bill W met. Dr. Bob and AA #3, Bill Dotson, got sober in Akron, and thus began the program as we know it. I’m going to try posting my thoughts around the pictures that we took that don’t show any members of AA clearly. I may change my mind about this method after I see how it goes.

First we went to the archives. In this picture, you can sort of see Carole’s reflection as she takes the picture of the symbol in the window. The archives has tons of stuff. There are books, letters, photographs, drawings, paintings, coins, signs. There are many letters written by Bill and Bob and other early AAs as well as notes and manuscripts. Mostly these items are on paper that is sealed in plastic or in display cases. They do not allow photographs of those things.

Stained glass of the man on the bed. The circles that are in the light blue strip that goes around the piece are sobriety coins.

The front door of Dr. Bob’s house. This is where Bob and Anne Smith lived, and where Bill W went to stay after they met. The sign on the top says “Welcome Home,” and a volunteer says this when you walk in. A potential goose bump moment!

Dr. Bob’s kitchen. Here Anne read from the Bible for morning meditations.

The dining room table. Here they wrote, first in long hand, the first hundred stories of the first hundred members.

This is me standing on the seventh step.  There are twelve!  Seven years ago, I had Carole take my picture on the sixth step.  I felt I had been there for years.  So nice to move on to the seventh!  I also think it’s cool that I’ve recorded my sixth step work here, and that I am recording the seventh.

To be continued …………..

The Man on the Bed

This is my favorite AA symbol.  “The Man on the Bed,” “AA #3″ also known as Bill Dotson.  To my understanding, once Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob had shared their stories and outlined the program of recovery, they knew they had to “pass it on” as the only way to keep it.  It’s that element of AA that enabled me to recover.  It’s not like reading a book or going to a therapist or doctor for treatment.  The resource of the real people who share my space, listen to me talk, comment on my life, ask me for advice, makes it work for me.

I’m an introvert.  Totally.  This isn’t the way I would choose to do it, given a choice.  Well actually, I would choose to do it this way now.  It’s not what I would have chosen at the beginning.  This, to me, is the miracle of AA I reference when I say, “Don’t quit before the miracle.”

Last night I got to celebrate my 24th anniversary with my group.  I understand that 24 years in not fathomable to some people.  That’s OK.  It’s still important for me to be there to show that it works.  I was able to articulate something with more clarity for myself, at least, as to what has helped me.  Through the years, when I’ve had upheaval in life situations and/or my mood and thoughts, I’ve turned to the program.  I’ll detail that more further along in “my story,” but what I can see is that when I’ve felt something wrong, I’ve been able to understand and believe that there’s something wrong in me, not in the program.

It’s become clear to me that this is one key to my long time sobriety.  I drank and relapsed many times before I got it.  I thought that AA wasn’t working for me.  That attitude, over the years, varied all the way from me just being too bored with sobriety not to drink all the way to thinking I was one of “those unfortunates” who, born that way, could not get it, and many places in between.  When I accepted my alcoholism, accepted that over any period of time it gets worse, accepted that drinking wasn’t an option, I really had no choice but to work the program or kill myself.

I figured and figure I’m going to die eventually anyway, why not give this a go?  Twenty four years later I’m considering the problems and opportunities of an oldtimer.

I’ve had the opportunity over the past two years to introduce someone to the program in a formal way, and that friend told her story for the first time at a meeting (she “lead,” or “spoke,” or “qualified” depending on how you say it) last night for me.  It’s an awesome experience to see her evolve and slowly pick up all the benefits and rewards of the promises of the Twelve Steps.  That’s why I like the symbol of the “man on the bed” best of all the symbols.  Really, if Bill and Bob had not shared it with Bill, I don’t know if I’d be or where I’d be but the miracle of the program is that I wouldn’t trade here and now for anything.