If We Are Painstaking....

For me, the most important words of the so-called "AA Promises" are the first four: "If we are painstaking during this phase of our development...". Sometimes I think this "being painstaking" is prerequisite to the Promises and is either ignored or given too little weight by me. A deadly or critical error to be sure.

Painstaking is an unusual word, not often seen or heard elsewhere. One definition I found helpful is "The act of taking pains...". In the broad context of recovery, I take that to mean that to the extent I am able "to take" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.
Other ways of saying the same thing would be:

To the extent I am able to "embrace" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.

To the extent I am able to "accept" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.

To the extent I am able to "feel" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.

To the extent I am able to "acknowledge without judgment" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.

"Taking" can be done so many different ways though and I'm not sure all of them have the same level of effectiveness in terms of dealing with pain and suffering. I doubt that a "begrudging acceptance" that one is an alcoholic will have the same effect as someone who "fully concedes to their innermost selves" that they are an alcoholic.

I think there's a difference between "pain" and "suffering". Pain seems to be more of the objective reality that we're experiencing. Suffering is more our subjective or personal response to that experience of pain. I can (and will!) experience pain. I may or may not experience suffering as a result of this particular experience of pain.

All this means a great deal to me in the context of my ongoing recovery from alcoholism. Before I got sober, pain was bad and to be avoided at all costs. Alcohol, among other things and techniques, was a means of escaping and/or avoiding pain. And for a long, long time: it worked wonderfully! And then, it didn't. In between the time when it worked and the time it didn't, alcohol never really worked. All it did was anesthetize: it prevented my mind from knowing that the body and soul was hurting. But the hurting or injury continued even though I wasn't "feeling" it.

Anesthesia is good in limited situations where the use of anesthesia permits a doctor to perform work that's necessary (even though it causes pain) and would be impossible if the patient was actually feeling the pain. But self-prescribed anethesia via alcohol/drugs is ultimately a disaster for those addicted to alcohol/drugs. The medicine (alcohol) both medicates the pain and causes the pain. In the beginning, alcohol causes a smaller percentage of the pain, while it medicates a much larger percentage of the pain. In the end, the alcohol is unable to medicate or relieve any of the pain. In the end, it's almost "pure" cause of the person's pain.

The process of learning the skill or tool of "painstaking" does not begin when someone starts working the 9th step and making their amends for past harms done others. It begins with the first step where we experience (yet another synonym for "take") the physical pains caused by "withdrawing" from the use of alcohol. It continues though the 2nd step where we begin looking beyond the pains of withdrawal and begin looking toward the possibility of life without alcohol by means of some thing ("higher power" if you like) other than pure willpower/effort. And through the 3rd step where we let go of our death grip on trying to be other than who we are (alcoholics). And through the 4th step where we began a self-inventory, without fear, judgment or condemnation (all of which cause needless pain). And through the 5th step where we share with our most trusted "others" (those being: ourselves, God as we understand God and another human being...) the exact nature of our wrongs (that is, that there's absolutely NOTHING wrong but our long standing attempts to not be who we really were!). And through the 6th step where we began loosening our grip on the mistaken idea that we were "bad people" and becoming more aware of the fact that we were and are "sick people trying to become weller". And through the 7th step where we asked for help letting go of all the (painful) false images of who we were/are. And through the 8th step where we, finally, began to list (to see...) the inevitable reality that all of our attempts to hide from who we were (alcoholics) hurt not only ourselves, but those around and about us: especially those close enough to love us, the real us.

So, by the time where we began the active process of mending the damages left in our wake, it was not the beginning of "painstaking." It's the culmination of a long and gentle process, begun at the beginning. And it's certainly not the end of the process.... The remaining three "maintenance" steps each keep the importance of painstaking "front and center" of our living life on life's terms.

Take care!

Mike L.

Limited Safety of and within Meetings

I recently had a powerful experience of how the AA meeting is not safe in all respects and all circumstances. In addition, this same experience taught me an important lesson about the power of storytelling and how it can be used both for good and for evil.

Two weeks ago, I attended a meeting wherein a man, in an obvious state of agitation and distress, disclosed to the people at this meeting that the night previous he had "snapped" and had "beaten the shit" out of his 8 year old daughter and his wife. He explained that he had not "punched" his daughter with a fist, but had spanked her --- hard. He even acted out the severity of his spanks. He didn't describe the form of beating that his wife suffered, but he did say that at the end he'd told his wife to go into her room and lock the door. He then left the house and spent the rest of the night driving around town.

When he reenacted the spanking he'd given his daughter, I knew immediately that he'd crossed a line between "disciplinary" and "abusive." What he was demonstrating was abuse, clear and simple.

Present in the meeting was a nurse with 20 years sobriety. There were also at least three women and one man who I know from their stories have each suffered various forms of physical and/or sexual abuse from men in their past.

I left the meeting and struggled for at least an hour with the ethical dilemma presented by what I'd experienced at that meeting. I felt a strong ethical mandate to report this information to the police and/or Child Protective Services: primarily because I believed that this man's daughter and wife were both in imminent danger of further abuse from this troubled man. At the same time, I felt some obligation to protect this man's annonymity and his right to privacy in terms of what he'd shared in the context of the meeting. In the end, after consulting with several other AA members and my wife (who had been responsible for the "Safe Enviroment" program in our local Catholic diocese for several years (the department responsible for ensuring that children in Catholic institutions were protected from such abuse, whether it be from priests or others) --- and I ended up convinced that I had an obligation to call the police. And I did.

The police did go to the man's home and question him about what happened, as well as interview his wife and then his daughter. I'm not sure exactly what was said to the man by the police and the only one talking about what supposedly happened is the man himself. His story is that the police agreed with him that what he'd done to his daughter was permissible disciplinary action. I'm not at all sure that's true, but that's the story he's spreading in and out of the meetings ever since as he is on a intense search for "the snitch in AA" who called the police on him. As I have been listening to him, I'm coming to realize that "story" can be used for both good and evil. Stories, even untruthful and deceitful ones, can be very powerful and effective.

I have no regrets or shame about what I've done. I'm troubled by the fact that it appears I may have been the only one who felt obligated to call the police. I'm troubled by the fact that those four people who had prior experiences of being abused may be thinking to themselves that this group is condoning what this man did to his daughter and wife and that by their silence they are supporting an abuser and ignoring two co-victims of abuse. I'm troubled by the fact that I've been silent to date as to what happened and what was the right thing to do --- because to do so would expose the fact that I was probably the one who called the police.

But is my "silence" buying into the myth of this guy's power as an abuser? I personally don't believe this guy would attempt to harm me should I disclose to him, either privately or in front of the group, that I called the police and why I did that. I believe that he's a good man who's battling cancer and in conjunction with that battle, is taking a variety of medications that are probably messing with his whole sense of well-being and sanity.

I'm now looking for a good "story" that will convey to the group and to this guy the limited safety we have in AA meetings, but more importantly, some sort of truth about acceptable and unacceptable ways of dealing with stress and anger. When I find it, I will tell it. AA meetings are safe primarily in the sense that anyone should be able to come in and share their struggle with alcohol/drugs and not be ashamed of who they are or what they have done in the context of that struggle. AA meetings are not a safe haven for people to disclose unlawful acts, nor are the statements made in AA meetings somehow privileged from disclosure to law enforcement or legal deposition. As one group warns with a plague in their meeting room: "Notice! What you say here can be used against you in a court of law." Not only that, AAer's are particularly bad about keeping things private. To pretend otherwise is stupid and dangerous. That's why we don't share our 5th step from the podium.

So, until I do come up with this story, I am privately approaching the four people who have histories of abuse in their lives and sharing with them what I have done and that I am there for them should they want to talk.

Take care!

Mike L.

Why We Laugh...

I got sober in the month of October, so I naturally came to see the month of November to be a special month where I focused on Resentment. Resentment primarily over people talking about Gratitude and that this was "the" Gratitude month! That used to just really bother me. I mean, Thanksgiving was not an AA holiday and it seemed inappropriate to the legalist and purest in me that we were infecting the rooms of AA with some outside celebration.

The focal point of my Rehashment of Resentment (the anti-matter of AA's Attitude of Gratitude) was the laughter that I began hearing in the rooms of AA from Day 1 until now. When I was first sober, the laughter caught me off guard. What was so funny about someone talking about something quite painful, shameful and/or downright scary? And why would people in these rooms typically react to these most painful of stories with very brief moments of quiet, followed by what appeared to be spontaneous, honest and sometimes uproarious laughter! What was that all about? I remember the first time I laughed, I immediately put my hand over my mouth because it seemed wrong to laugh at someone else's misery and pain. But I did laugh, almost from the get go.

I didn't think any of this was really all that funny. I had accepted the truth of my being alcoholic and that to live, I needed to focus not so much on stopping drinking as I needed to focus on staying sober. But staying sober didn't really seem that joyful or funny. It seemed quite serious and therefore, I needed to figure it out. It was the only thing I thought about. I was scared that I would drink again. I went to 10 to 14 meetings a week (and still do) and read everything I could get my hands on about AA, recovery and alcoholism...still do.

Now, seven years later, the topic of Gratitude does not bother me at all. When the topic does come up, I do like to share that for me, Gratitude was not a feeling, but an attitude. A decision made now and regardless; not an emotion following something good. Feelings terrified me all my life and alcohol was my primary tool in dealing with feelings, good or bad. But my sponsor taught me (and I slowly learned...) that feelings were neither good or bad. They just were what they were and I didn't need to be all that worried about them. They came. They went. But Gratitude wasn't a feeling. Grateful was a feeling; gratitude was more or a decision, a habit or an attitude.

Gratitude was something that had to be learned and practiced and developed. Some people made lists and wrote them down. I made lists of things I was grateful for in my head as I was driving to work (writing them down was clearly unsafe!) and as I did this more regularly, there would times where I'd become aware of some gift I'd received and I would be flooded with emotions of gratitude, joy and being loved. My eyes would tear up and I'd have to stop thinking of more things to be grateful for....I couldn't take any more. I was full, if not overflowing. The day I cried tears of joy over the fact that "I am and always will be an alcoholic" was one such overwhelming moment.

Now I have begun to understand the laughter in and around AA. It's not the laughter you hear at social gatherings where people are purposely telling funny stories or jokes, or, my personal favorite, making fun of someone else. No, the laughter heard in AA meetings or between two suffering alcoholics is a much different kind of laughter.

It's a laughter shared only by and with other survivors.

When we share a most pain-filled memory of our past within the context of an AA meeting or with another alcoholic, we share something that every single one of us can relate to and identify with. We often nod unconsioucly with deep understanding as we listen to another's story. Even if we've never been divorced, or arrested, or abused---we've been there. We know what that feels like because we've felt that same feeling, if not in the context being shared by the speaker, we've felt that same feeling in some other context. And we all had a common solution for such feelings and experiences: we looked outside ourselves and we looked at alcohol or some other substance that would take us out of that painful experience: fast! immediate! easy!

So, why do we laugh? We laugh, consciously or not, because we share a common past and a common disease: and we survived. By the fact that we're here telling our story of woe to another alcoholic, we know that we have both survived. Someone once said that "Religion is for those who fear going to Hell; spirituality is for those who've already been there." That spirituality is what I found and continue to find in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and with other suffering alcoholics, be they wet, dry or joyous, happy and free.

Take care!

Mike L.

Once Again: It's an Inside Job

Last night, I'd made a commitment to meet with a sponsee after work and before heading over there, I realized I'd really not let my wife know about this commitment I'd made. This issue of being considerate and communicative was more important this week: the last week or so has been rather difficult --- she's been in a particularly bad spot emotionally right now for a lot of reasons. That never bodes well for me. Anyway, a few nights ago she informed me that large part of the proposed solution to her problem was that I needed to change. I needed to change to solve her problem. God Love Her. ;-}

And part of the way I needed to change was to be more present and connected to her, spend more time with her, etc.

Anyway, I called her last night with the intention to be up front about wanting to go meet with a sponsee for a little while at the end of the day. Or course, I didn't realize until too late that this wasn't that honest because I'd already made my plan to meet with the sponsee before running it by her.... But that gets me ahead of my story. Her response was surprising in that it seemed quite positive: "Sure, I'm on my way home and I'll email you with a list of things we need from the store and you can pick those up for me after your meeting..." Sounded great to me! Maybe this "honesty" thing is something I should try more often.

Unfortunately, later that evening when I got home, there was a chill in the air and it didn't take long to discover that she really wasn't all that "fine" about my decision to meet with a sponsee earlier in the evening. Now I learned that when she was on the phone earlier, she'd felt hurt by my decision to meet with this stranger (her term for sponsees or anyone else in recovery...) but that she didn't feel she really had a choice to do or say anything other than pretend to be supportive of what I had already decided to do. That is, she pretended (quite well!) to be supportive even though she actually felt abandoned....once again by me. She'd been hurt.

I felt like the jackass that I am all too often and I tried as best I could to make amends. And we worked through that by the end of the night. Mostly.

The next morning, I got up early and for the first time in awhile, I got back to my normal morning routine of stretching exercises (face it: I'm old) and then 15 minutes or so of quiet meditation. Sitting and being attentive to my breathing in and breathing out. Then I went to an early 6:30 meeting at the Concord Fellowship. I walked in feeling quite content and proud of myself for getting back into my spiritual routine that morning, successful at compartmentalizing my wife issues, and went over to the counter to grab a cup of decaf and try to resist getting a donut before sitting down with friends before the meeting.

I poured a cup of coffee and then went to grab a packet of Equal from the basket of artificial sweeteners on the counter. I sorted through all the crappy Sweet 'n Lows which I hate, looking for the cherished but rare Equal packets that always seem always to be hiding in the bottom of the basket. The first packet I found turned out to already be opened and 1/4th full. Shit! How inconsiderate of someone to do that! The second packet I found turned out to be fully empty. Shit x 2! plus a Fuck!....I whispered to myself and this was overheard by two friends nearby. They took great glee in the fact that St. Mike was finding life on life's terms not quite so easy and even more glee in sharing that insight with me. While I laughed off their biting judgment, I left them to their new past time (making fun of Mike) and sat down at the "my" table.

Once there, a friend of mine with maybe two or three years asked me what was wrong...I seemed troubled. Rather than admit that I was troubled by two defective Equal packets (or more honestly, my difficulties with my wife), I pushed down my real feelings and upset and said that I'd been struggling with some work issues related to the worsening economy and the possibility that I was going to be asked to lay off one or more of my employees before year's end. He then shared with me 3 to 5 suggestions of how I should handle that unbeknownst to him "unreal" problem of mine. I tried to project 7 years worth of humility and openness to someone with less time than me (arrogant asshole that I was!), all the while wanting him to shut up and allow me to share with him the real problem facing the Concord Fellowship and all of AA: the audacity of some fucking alcoholic to open up a packet of Equal, take only 3/4s of the substance and then leave the remainder in the basket....only to be outdone by some other (or the same) fucking alcoholic leaving a completely empty packet of Equal in the basket instead of throwing it away in the trash can. Luckily for him and for me (and the Equal offending asshole who might be somewhere nearby...), the meeting started.

After the chair, the topic was Acceptance. The topic pleased me only because it wasn't Gratitude, topic du jour of many November AA meetings. I thought about sharing some bullshit story that I always share about when Acceptance is the topic, but I was too humble to raise my hand... What I really wanted to talk about, no "to instruct" about, was the unwritten but important ethics of AA and the proper disposal of trash which includes partially consumed and germ infested Equal packets. But, I refrained. Restraint of pen and tongue and all that. Made all the more difficult by my two supposed friends who kept asking me if "Love and Tolerance" was my code! Arrrgh!

I left the meeting when it was over without an explosion and began my 65 minute drive to work. Before getting too far, I knew that something was bothering me and I decided that it was time for me to do what I call my Acceptance Inventory (I've blogged about it previously...it involves asking a series of 50+ questions that I memorized from a book called The Tao of Sobriety...) and wouldn't you know it, I only had to recite the first inventory question to have my whole life turned upside down:

"1. Do you accept that ordinary people are often cruel, INCONSIDERATE, and heartless?"

99% of the time, my answer to this question would be "Sure!" and I'd then move on to the really more challenging questions like "Do you accept dying?" or the following question, "Do you REALLY accept dying?". But this morning, my honest and immediate answer to question #1 was: "Apparently not!"

I realized in short fashion that my early morning visceral reaction to the discovery of the two defective Equal packets gave clear and convincing evidence to the fact that I do not in fact accept that people are not what I want/expect them to be. Even though, in reality, ordinary people are often cruel, inconsiderate and heartless. My failure to accept that reality led to my emotional outburst before the meeting.

This morning, I never really got past that first question in the Acceptance Inventory. Instead, I accepted a guilty verdict and I laughed at my self.

Then I began to recollect all sorts of examples from my "his-story" where I displayed the same or equal level of inconsiderateness (e.g., using the last bit of toilet paper and not restocking the bathroom with a new roll, taking almost the last drop of milk out of the carton and leaving a meaningless drop for my wife, if I left any at all, etc.). And I laughed at my self again....

And then when those reminences down memory lane peetered out, I hooked on to the most meaningful truth of my own inconsiderateness when the day before I'd not honored my love and commitment to my wife of 27+ years and her needs and wants before I made plans to meet with my sponsee. THAT was inconsiderate, selfish and self-centered. THAT was ordinary old me.

I didn't laugh so hard that time. I needed to begin planning on demonstrating my love and my commitment toward my wife in such a way that respects my own needs to foster my recovery, but also puts into action my love for my wife. In addition to honesty, I needed to work on some basic acts of consideration and kindness.

Oh well. Progress....not perfection. I've got work to do. No better time than now.

Take care!

Mike L.

Checking In...

Just a quick check-in to report that the office move which I've been working on for 2-3 years has begun and we're over most of the move now and there's been no deaths or bloodshed. I've missed blogging a great deal and look forward to returning to my normal routines. While I cut back on blogging, I didn't cut back on meetings at all. Those have always been a constant for me. Last week, I celebrated 7 years of sobriety and I continue to go to 10-14 meetings a week. I'm addicted.

Take care!

Mike L.

Walking Through An Anxiety Attack

Two weeks ago, my eldest daughter got married to a young man who in addition to being a really great guy, has the added distinction of being 9 years clean and sober. Nice having two sons who both have more sobriety than I do: a son who's over 7 and 1/2 years sober and now a son-in-law with 9 years. Anyway, it was an absolutely great day. Got to dance the second dance with my daughter and I didn't embarrass her or myself in the process. Toward the end of the dance, my wife and son came dancing up next to us and my wife asked me if we could switch places... I agreed and then let her dance with my daughter and I danced with my son Pat. It was great.

What does all that have to do with my having an anxiety a little over a week after the wedding? I really can't ever remember having an anxiety attack before in my life. I'd heard my wife talk about her experiences of having anxiety attacks at various times in her life, but I never could understand why they were such a big deal to her and why she didn't just "snap out of them". But last Tuesday, I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. I woke up with the realization that I'd neglected to do one of the several hundred "mission critical" tasks that I was responsible for implementing before our office move later this month. Somehow, this particular task had fallen off my radar and I woke up panicked at the fact that I hadn't done what I was supposed to do.

What was weird is that I got up and went into the living room and sent off a couple of emails to members of my staff letting them know that we would need to move forward with this neglected task first thing in the morning. That was all I needed to do and the task was going to get done. But the anxiety didn't go away. It lasted for about 12 hours... I was aware of it remaining with me all during that time. But I didn't stay stuck in that anxiety. I went back to sleep for a couple of hours and then went to an early morning meeting before going to work. I was anxious during the entire meeting. Talked to a few friends before and after the meeting, but the anxiety remained. Went to work and did what I needed to do, but the anxiety was still there. It was gradually lessening in intensity, but it was there.

I went to a noon meeting and the guy who chaired the meeting talked about how when he was 10 years sober, he'd stupidly prayed to God saying that he was finding life way too boring and asked God to give him something interesting to deal with. Within a month or two, he was diagnosed with cancer. I knew this guy when he walked through his cancer treatments and recalled how I admired his courage and perseverance during that difficult period of his life. As he recounted his story on Wednesday, I thought how silly it was for me to be so filled with anxiety about a stupid office move when this guy walked through and continues to walk through a recovery from a second deadly disease. When called on that day, I didn't have much time to share, but I did let the group know that I was really struggling with an anxiety attack from hell that day and that today's chair gave me the knowledge that what I needed to do was simply walk through this anxiety and that it would eventually pass. And it did, slowly.

Then two days later, I went to an early morning meeting and the chair that day talked about her father who was also an alcoholic who died having stopped drinking for some years, but without ever having discovered a sober way of living. As she talked, it dawned on me why I had the anxiety attack and it turns out that it had nothing to do with my job. It had to do with my dad...

A few days after my daughter's marriage, I was looking through hundreds of pictures taken during and around the wedding. Each time I came to a picture of me, I was struck by the fact that I looked like my father who'd died around 15 years ago from his alcoholism. Some pictures were of me from the back and all you could see was my back and my gray hair: it could have been my dad. One picture was of me and my hands: they were his hands! The face with glasses: his face, his eyes, his glasses! And each time I saw my dad in me, there was a palpable sadness, regret, shame and/or anger. Why wasn't he there for this celebration! Why didn't he stop drinking when I asked him to?

That was the source of my anxiety attack. Or was it?

At a subsequent meeting, I was recounting this journey through anxiety and how I'd seen my dad in the pictures of me....when it dawned on me that I wasn't really angry or ashamed at my dad: I was sad over the fact that I'd never fully forgiven my dad for being the alcoholic that he was. And even more, I was sad over the fact that I'd never fully forgiven myself for being the alcoholic that I was, that I am. That I'd hadn't been able to stop either when my son's therapist asked me to stop in order to be supportive of my son's attempt to deal with his drug addiction. That I'd drank secretly for almost ten months as he struggled mightily with his disease.

I'm grateful for all of this today. I continue to revel in the joy surrounding my daughter's wedding. I'm sitting here at work on a Sunday afternoon finishing up several more of those "mission critical" tasks needing to get done before our office move. I feel closer and more connected to my father, proud of him for all that he was able to do in his life, including loving me in a way that made me always know in my innermost being that I was indeed loved and lovable. Thankful for him being who he was because ultimately, that led to me being who I am, a sober alcoholic, an a father of one, now two sober sons in recovery.

What's wrong with this picture? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Take care!

Mike L.

The Mystery of the Big Book's Missing 2nd Step

Not sure if anyone has noticed this little detail of the Big Book: Chapters 3 through 7 are a narrative journey through all 12 of the steps and at each point in the journey, author highlights the point in the journey when each steps occurs in this narrative:

Step 1: p. 30: "We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery."
Step 2: ???
Step 3: p. 60: "Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him."
Step 3: p.61: "We were now at Step Three."
Step 4: p.64: "This was Step Four. "
Step 5: p. 72: "This brings us to the Fifth Step in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter."
Step 6: p. 76: "If we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at Step Six. "
Step 7: p. 76: "We have then completed Step Seven."
Step 8 & 9: p. 76: "Let's look at Steps Eight and Nine."
Step 10: p. 84: "This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along."
Step 11: p. 85: "Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation."
Step 12: p.89: "This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics!"

What's interesting to an obsessive person like me is that not only is there no similar statement about Step 2, but there are two such references to Step 3. Where's Step 2? Did the first of the two statements re: Step 3 contain a typo? Did they mean to say, "Being convinced, we were at Step 2..."?

After chewing on this puzzle for some time, I've come to believe first, that the writers of the Big Book were slightly less obsessive as me and, second, that Step 2's statement is actually hidden in the line found on page 59: "Being convinced, we were now at Step 3....".

The phrase "Being convinced" seems awfully similar to the summary version of Step 2 found on page 58, "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." "Being convinced" seems synonymous to "came to believe."

Now when I hear "How it Works" read at a meeting of AA, I always think about the next line that follows: Being convinced (That it Works!), we were now at Step 3. And if we're now at Step 3, what did we just finish? Well, Step 2 of course!

For me, Step 2 does not really deal with the issue of God or my belief/non-belief in God. It really had nothing to do with God: Step 2 happened for me around the time in my recovery when I realized that I had become convinced that this process actually could work for me and allow me to stay sober. For a long time prior to that point in time, sobriety had simply been impossible. Then, quite by accident it seemed, I woke up after my last drink and realized that the reason "stopping drinking" was impossible for me was the fact that I was an alcoholic. That's why it was impossible for me to stop drinking. In fact, that's why "I" am still incapable of "stopping" drinking. What I discovered that morning, almost 7 years ago, was that while I couldn't stop drinking, I could start staying sober, one day at a time.

Some months after that morning, after many many meetings of AA and watching the miracle occurring in others lives, I gradually became convinced that sobriety and recovery were possible. When I realized that, I knew that the 2nd Step had been completed and I was finally ready to move on to Step 3.

Take care!

Mike L.

Entirely Ready: Seems I Know It Only in Retrospect

It doesn't seem that I ever know how to become entirely ready. It always seems that I notice that I've become entirely ready only after the fact, only in retrospect.

In terms of my getting sober, I never saw sobriety coming. Sobriety was a seeming impossibility. I just couldn't stop drinking and I'd really stopped trying. All I was really trying to do was drink without getting caught or in trouble. But "stopping" wasn't something that seemed at all possible for me and I'd given up hope that I could ever do it.

Then one morning, something happened. I woke up thinking the exact same thought that I'd woken up thinking for some months, ten to be exact: "I just can't stop drinking!" Nothing really substantially "bad" had happened the night before. I'd had "only" two drinks while I was waiting to go back and pick my son up after his Friday night NA meeting... Two drinks was just perfect for that hour and a half waiting period. True, my son almost caught me that night...almost discovered that I was drinking and that I couldn't stop. But he didn't. I'd lied and he seemed to have believed me. And I'd gone to bed totally demoralized with myself and who I'd become. I just couldn't get myself out of the hellish life I found myself confined to living.

And then, I simply woke up the next morning and after thinking the same "I just can't..." thought again, for some reason, that morning, that hopeless thought led to another thought or awareness: "This inability to stop drinking is what they call 'alcoholism'." Wow, where did that come from? Actually, I know where it came from (I'd heard them talking about it many many times over the last ten months of my son's treatment program...) what I don't understand is why was it that morning, it all of a sudden "made perfect sense." Ah, a disease! That's it! I have a disease! Everything I'd been doing for years and years all of a sudden made perfect sense! I wasn't crazy or immoral or selfish, I was sick!

With the realization that I was sick, came the next thought that, well, that's not my fault. It's just the way things turned out to be. It's no one's fault. It's just the way it is. But now, I understood that "I could do something about this.... I could do what my son was doing, one day at a time. I could do that. While I couldn't "stop" drinking, I could begin trying to "stay" sober. All of a sudden, I had a glimmer of hope.

All this leads me to believe that "entire readiness" is something that I know only in retrospect. I didn't will it to happen. I didn't choose it in the way I normally think of "choosing" or of free will. It just seemed to happen as the result of a convergence of a wide array of seemingly disconnected but connected things and events. My son's recovery. My alcoholic father's death. Seeing several young kids, including my son, get and sometimes stay sober. Seeing people fail miserably at their attempt to get and stay sober: but seeing many of them get back up after falling down and starting over. Seeing these struggling sober alcoholics/addicts disclose their inner most truths and fears....and walking through them with a level of courage and integrity that seemed totally out of my reach or capability.

Today, almost 7 years later, I'm discovering this "entirely ready" state of being is also outside my willpower in terms of more than my recovery: it's ever present in my efforts to let go of habits and behaviors that clearly cause pain and suffering for me and for those I love. I want soooooo much to be ready to let these things go and have them drop away like lead weights. But they don't. It seems, rather, that they fall away like leaves from a tree: they fall when their time to fall away comes. When they've served their purpose. When I've embraced them for what they are: neither good nor bad. Simply what they are. To the extent I love and accept them like I did with my dis-ease of alcoholism, to that extent will they blossom into something beautiful and to that extent will they eventually die a grace-filled death.

Take care!

Mike L.

Annotated Version of the First Step

A sponsee's beginning his 1st Step and that means I'm working it too. In fact, this is really the only time I ever plan on reworking the steps: as I help others work them. I have no real desire to formally go through the steps again. At least, that's my thinking now.

Many people believe that the 1st step is formally and singly stated on the second page of Chapter 5 (How It Works) of the Big Book ("We came to believe we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanagable.") and then explained in more detail in the book "The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (12x12). I've actually come to believe that the first and, in fact, all 12 of the steps are contained several other places in addition to what I call the Reader's Digest version of the Steps contained in Chapter 5 on pages 59-60. Those other places are not limited to the following: (1) in the first chapter of the Big Book, "Bill's Story" contains a summary of how Bill went through the process of the steps (it's sort of hidden, but if you read the story carefully, you'll find his working rendition of the steps...), (2) in Chapter 3, "More About Alcoholism" (which covers the first step) through Chapter 7 "Working with Others" (where it talks about the 12th "suggestion" and, lastly, (3) in most all of the stories later in the Big Book.

Below, I'd like to focus on the first page of Chapter 3, More About Alcoholism. I consider that page to be the "long version" of the first step. The short version is the last paragraph of Chapter 3 (I'll talk more about that in another blog) and the shortest version, the one everyone recites when they are called on to talk about the first step, is the one found on page 59 in How It Works.

While I agree with the value of going to the 12x12 for more information about the 1st Step, I first suggest that my sponsee's or others dealing with this step focus first on Chapter 3 of the Big Book, "More About Alcoholism" before going to the 12x12. This third chapter of the Big Book, specifically, the first three full paragraphs on the first page, represent what I consider to be the most complete expression of what it means for an alcoholic to take the first step along the path of recovery.

When I heard this section of Chapter 3 read at the beginning of an AA meeting in Southern California (they read this page rather than How It Works...) the words seemed to scream out to me as being very very important and as a result I began memorizing this page. As I've mentioned before, the process of memorization has helped me get to the core of some written words/passages in the Book and elsewhere.

The repetition allows me to savor and meditate on every single word of the passage. I end up almost having a conversation with the writer as I'm doing that: I sometimes ask myself (standing in for the writer..) "Why did the writer choose this word?" "Why didn't they use another word?" and even, heretical as it may sound, "Wouldn't this statement or sentiment be more accurate (at least for me) if it was reworded to say...." Anyway, I did this process with the long version of the 1st step and have recited it to myself quite regularly on my way to work each day... Here, I thought that it might be helpful to others, especially my 1st step working sponsee, to share this long version of the 1st step, along with all my questions / thoughts / meanderings inserted into the text. The result, I suppose could be called an annotated version of the 1st Step.

Most of us were unwilling to admit that we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think they are bodily or mentally different from their fellows.

Most, but certainly not all, of us have spent considerable time resisting, denying, fighting, and fearing the idea that we might be alcoholics. We knew that if that were true, then we'd have to stop drinking. For me, I handled this challenge by routinely proving to myself over about a 29 year period of time that I wasn't an alcoholic because I could stop. In fact, I successfully stopped thousands of times!! I would stop for various periods of time, the time wasn't really that important to me, it just to had to be long enough to convince myself (or my wife) that I had "really" quit. The problem with this strategy from the very beginning was that the first thing I would do once I'd become convinced that I had indeed stopped....would be to drink!

I also had a problem when I looked at other people's drinking routines and practices and compared my drinking routines and practices with theirs. Especially other people who were clearly not alcoholics. For example, we have a friend of ours who's about my age and who's an attorney. He and his wife have been friends with us for probably our entire marriage. As far as I know, he's not an alcoholic (although his brother is). He drinks, but he doesn't appear to drink like an alcoholic. I've seen him drunk one time in the entire time I've known him (his 40th birthday party...). Oftentimes, when we arrived at their house for a visit, he'd say if you're thirsty, grab yourself something to drink in the refrigerator. I'd open the refrigerator and look inside to see all sorts of sodas, waters and juices. And there in the back corner of the refrigerator was one beer. All by itself. Lonely. I don't remember ever opting to take his one beer. I didn't like having one beer, so I would choose a soda or a water. But know that it bothered me a great deal that this guy kept one beer in his refrigerator.

There was a part of me that wanted to be like John. To be able to have one beer in my refrigerator. Because I suspected that only a non-alcoholic could do something like that. Me? I always like to keep a twelve pack on the bottom shelf with a hole just big enough to pull one bottle out of the case....I didn't like opening it all up because the beers could be counted that way and others would know how many I drank. I didn't like people counting my drinks. That's why I started hiding my drinks from a very early part of my drinking career. Anyway, what's curious about my envy of non-alcoholics like John is that wanted to be able to take on certain behaviors of theirs so that I could prove that I wasn't an alcoholic, but what always prevented me from taking on those "normal" behaviors was that it would keep me from drinking like I needed to drink!

Therefore is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by constant vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people.

This is one of the lines in the book which I believe is factually incorrect. I was able to drink like other people! The only problem was the "other people" that I could drink like were those of you who join me regularly in AA meetings! Oh well.

But the important truth is, I really spent a lot of energy and time trying to think and to drink like non-alcoholics like John and others. Ultimately, there came a time for me when that simply wasn't possible and then the games and the lying and the deceit began to characterize more and more of my daily behavior and actions.

The insanity of this became utterly clear to me a couple of years ago when I read one of those research articles which seem to come out annually reporting that someone has discovered a "cure" for alcoholism. As I was pondering whether I'd take such a so-called cure, I realized that while a part of me would love not to be an alcoholic, the truth is that if I were able to start drinking again, I certainly would not want to drink like a non-alcoholic! While I want to be a non-alcoholic, I would only want to drink like an alcoholic! Non-alcoholic drinking seems very very painful to me---truly, if there was ever alcohol abuse, it's what non-alcoholics do to alcohol when they drink it!! I mean "sipping"!! Or leaving an unfinished drink! Or getting half way through a drink, saying "Wow! That hits the spot!" and then leaving the rest of the drink untouched. No, I think I'll remain content at being an alcoholic who tries to remain sober one day at a time. Much easier and certainly less painful.

The idea that some how, some day, he could control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

Never was the word "and" so important: Alcoholics are people who can either control or enjoy their drinking. They can't control and enjoy their drinking. Non-alcoholics can do both...although I don't really think they exert enough energy or effort to really qualify their actions as "controlled". The alcoholic insane obsession seems to be essentially one of wanting to be a non-alcoholic but, at the same time, to drink like an alcoholic.

We learned that we had to fully concede to our inner most selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

Here's the crux of the first step spoken by those who had experienced their first step: We learned.... This isn't a statement made by a medical doctor or a scientific researcher or a priest. It's a statement made by a recovering alcoholic who learned, most likely the hard and painful way, that they were, in fact, an alcoholic. Recovery from this disease means recognizing and letting go of the delusional thought that we, as alcoholics, could be non-alcoholics. Such a thought, even if lingering or fleeting, is oftentimes a prelude to a first drink: Maybe I could have "just one" --- I mean, a non-alcoholic can have just one, why can't I?

Well, the answer follows...

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control. But such intervals, usually brief, were inevitably followed by still less control which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

I suspect that I was an alcoholic well before I lost the ability to control my drinking. I think the fact that I began drinking with the clear intent to drink "without becoming an alcoholic like my father" was an indication that drinking was more important to me than "not being an alcoholic like my dad." I mean, if it was really important not to be an alcoholic like my dad, the easiest and sure fire way to do that was to not drink!! Case closed. But that's not what happened. I drank in spite of the knowledge that this disease was a part of my family history and as my drinking progressed, I noticed each time I experienced something very similar to something that happened to my alcoholic dad. Usually, I'd react to those events by deciding to quit drinking. And I would quit. But then there always came a day when I would realize that "I'd quit!" --- therefore, I'm not really an alcoholic and I was off to the races again.

We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period of time, we get worse, never better.

Here's the closing argument: These folks were convinced not only that they were alcoholics, but that alcoholism was a "progressive" illness or disease. And just in case the deluded newcomer wanted to run with the idea that this disease got progressively better in a "good" way, they nailed the last nail in the coffin of denial with, "over any considerable period of time, we got worse, never better."

I've come to believe that this last line brings "good news" to the recovering alcoholic who's completed their first step, but for those who are still harboring doubts about whether or not they've "crossed the line", these words are the worst possible news! However bad their life has gotten to this point in time, it's the collective opinion of these AAs that things are only going to get worse if I keep or resume drinking. No doubt about it.

I suspect this is the jumping off point for the fence sitting reader of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: am I going to welcome this reprieve from the hellish prison I've been experiencing or am I going to continue to fight a battle against the idea that I'm an alcoholic? Surrender or Fight?

For me, it was to give up the fight and welcome the truth that I was indeed an alcoholic. I suspect that came easier for me because I'd seen my own 15 year old son come to his own sense of peace with this issue and begin a process of recovery that began ever so slowly to change his life for the better. I saw hope in him... I saw hope where only 5 months before, there there was no hope at all. And I'm eternally grateful that someone else was able to model that same hope for him when his father wasn't able to do that for him.

Take care!

Mike L.

Humility and the 7 Steps

As I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, I'm not a big fan of the Defects of Character Chorus in AA. In fact, the biggest challenge for me in recovery has been letting go of a habit of "self-hatred" that I picked up during my lifetime and all this supposed recovery talk of one's defects of character has been a somewhat of a dangerous experience for a sensitive one like me.

That said then, when it came time for me to deal with the 7th step--Humbly asked God to remove these defects of character--what helped me the most was how Dr. Earle defined 'humility' for me one day while we were waiting for a meeting to begin. Earle taught me much in those brief meetings before the meetings...

On that particular day, when I was only a few months sober, Earle told me that humility was not something to be possessed or "had" -- humility was simply a moment in time when we were willing to learn. In Buddhism, I think it's referred to as "beginner's mind". It's said that once we think we know, we've moved past humility....and oftentimes for me, that entails moving into some sort of "teaching" moment where I'm trying to convince others about what I think I know (but don't). I sometimes joke that it's almost impossible to talk about humility without violating it's basic essence. Humility seems to be more comfortable or possible in silence.

Anyway, that time before the meeting began, Earle said that humility was just a moment in time where we were willing to learn, where we were open to learning. I liked that insight and wanted to talk more with Earle, but the "real meeting" began...

Months later, well after Earle's death, I was able to apply Earle's definition of humility to my own work on the 7th step, a step which interestingly enough begins with the word, "Humbly". The 7th step begins then from a stance of humility, a decision to be open to learning more about who we are as human beings.

Humility seems to be vitally important in this particular step. In fact, I wonder if the previous 6 steps could really be successfully worked without such a humble approach. Without an attitude of humility, we might have blindly worked through the previous six steps with the mistaken ideas (1) that we had some choice about being/not being alcoholics and that as a result there was something "immoral" about us and our drinking problem; (2) that we were somehow mentally deficient, if not downright insane and that such insanity was the cause of our alcoholism; (3) that some Higher Power "out there" had some preset agenda about what we should/shouldn't do ("God's will") and about what we needed to go "if" we were to be worthy of that Higher Power's full albeit conditional acceptance and love; (4) that our inventory was an "immoral" one; (5) that freedom from the past involved confessional-like acts of self-hatred and self-judgments practiced through repetitive expressions of shame and guilt about the same prior acts and emotions again and again; and, finally, (6) that freedom would be achieved by some sort of outside Higher Power/Surgeon cutting out evil, pride, lust and all sorts of other darknesses within.

For those who do see these as their accomplishments from Steps 1 thru 6, then it is likely that you will then see Step 7 as a continuance of purification rite which involves some sort of outside and powerful force coming into your lives and removing something from you that was wrong, dirty and evil. Step 7, in such a scheme, involves us trying to let go of these "wrongs" so that God will be able to take them away. Hopefully, permanently.

That was not my experience of the 7th step, nor were those my experiences of the prior 6 steps. What I learned in the first six steps was (1) that I just happen to be an alcoholic and it's perfectly OK...now I just need to focus on staying sober today; (2) that my insanity was the result of trying with all my might to be something in was not: I was an alcoholic trying to be a non-alcoholic; (3) that when I let go of my death grip on the idea that I could force myself to not be an alcoholic or to escape any other realities of my life, that I would be OK; (4) that with this understanding of "me as alcoholic" my whole past life became clear: that's why I did what I did!!!; (5) that when I disclosed this "truth" to myself and to others I found and experience freedom to be me, today; and finally, (6) that this same healing process which first happened to me in terms of discovering my own truth as it relates to alcoholism, could happen in all other areas of my life where there was darkness, guilt or shame. Despair/Hopeless led to Awareness. Awareness led to Acceptance. Acceptance led to Self-Disclosure. Self-Disclosure led to Freedom.

For me then, the key was a willingness to learn. To be humble. When I listen other other people's stories, their bottoms involved "humiliation" which is similar to "humble" except that it is where the learning happens when we weren't really quite yet ready for the learning to happen in a softer gentler way. Humiliation happens when we discover Truth by falling flat on our face into that Truth of who we are. The so-called "pitiful incomprehensible demoralization" experience talked about on the first page of More About Alcoholism.

The 7th step then begins for me by continuing with an attitude or predisposition of "not knowing," of not having set and strongly held beliefs about who I am or what and why I've done what I've done. It begins with wonder. It begins with a willingness to learn. And it takes time. Ever so much time. In fact, if there ever was a step which I believe in reworking on a daily basis, in addition to Step 1, it would be Steps 6/7.

As I've said before, my 7th step process was helped a great deal by means of a line from Maya Angelou which has been greatly responsible for my coming to be kinder and more gentle with myself and what I've done in the past: "We did then what we knew how to do; when we knew better, we did better." In my 6th Step, what I became entirely ready to do was to treat myself with the kind of unconditional love and acceptance that many attribute to their understanding of their Higher Power. What I was becoming entirely ready to let go of was not "parts of myself" but rather, the labels and judgments about me that condemned and ridiculed me. Nothing was removed per se, the labels/judgments just fell away from disuse. Like the tree leaves in Fall. They'd served their purpose.

For me, this stance of humility in the 7th step was one of learning more about the Mike of my past and why he did what he did. What happened was that the labels I placed on my past actions, what others like to call "shortcomings" or "character defects" --- began to lose their damning edge and flavor. Selfish and self-centered really don't shed any light on who I was or who I am. I personally don't share the belief that these or other such neat and tidy labels were the underlying foundation of my drinking problem.

The underlying foundation of my drinking problem, and I'm just talking about and for me, was not character defects. The source of my problem was that I was physically different from non-alcoholics/drug addicts in terms of how my body processed certain chemicals like alcohol, pot and all the other mind altering drugs I didn't partake in before I got sober. Once I accepted that fact (my first step), I experienced a freedom to be me: an alcoholic. For me, that freedom released me from the obsession to drink that had plagued me on an ever increasing basis for a period of about 30 years.

That being true, then, why work anything more than the 1st Step? Well, for me, I kept going in part because I wanted to be a full member of this weird organization, but also because being "dry" didn't hold much attraction for me. I'd seen dry drunks and suicide was a far more attractive option than that. The rest of the steps presented me with the possibility of going beyond "non drinking" dryness: it held out the possibility that there was life above and beyond both drinking and simply not drinking.

And in terms of the 7th step, that came in the form of embracing my imperfect, wounded, "torn-to-pieces-hood" (thanks Ernie Kurtz, author of my favorite book, The Spirituality of Imperfection!) humanity.

For my entire lifetime, I thought I knew what my defects of character were: all the bad things about me, including my alcoholism. But I was truly ignorant. On the day my 7th step happened to me, I realized that all the things I thought wrong with me were simply one side of a coin: the so-called "bad" side.

For me, the 7th step involved looking at both sides of these coins, including the one called "alcoholism". Alcoholism was a dis-ease, but it was not a death sentence that I thought it was. It has in fact been the primary reason I have achieved the level of happiness and serenity that I've been able to achieve by this point in my life. Were it not for this "defect" I wouldn't be the wonderful, kind, and loving father and husband I've started to become over the last six years... And if that's true, why would I refer to alcoholism as a "defect" of mine?

For 30 years, I attempted to avoid my potential and actual alcoholism by trying to keep my drinking and my behavior outside of the definition of alcoholism. For most of those 30 years, the definition was that an alcoholic was someone who couldn't stop drinking, even when stopping was required in order to be the kind of person, the kind of father, I so wanted to be. That definition worked for me for most of those years, until the day came when I couldn't stop drinking when I was asked to do just that to be supportive of my 15 year old son's recovery from this same disease.

Looking back, I wasn't interested in the truth behind the question, "Was I an alcoholic?" No, I was only interested in the answer being "No!" Ultimately, I couldn't keep my drinking within the bounds of what I knew to be non-alcoholic drinking -- but by then, I'd lost the ability to stop drinking "on demand" or by willpower. And then, I woke up and realized that the inability to stop drinking was a disease called "alcoholism" and that that was just a physiological disease and that I had it. Luckily, after seeing my son begin his recovery, I knew there was a solution and I began going down this path. Alcoholism wasn't a defect of character for me, it was part of who I was, who I am. It's not something that God or anyone else took away from me: it's still a real part of me. What happened, and I think this was by means of a sliver of humility, is I became aware of the truth about who I was and that truth gave me freedom.

Ok, this has gone on way too long. I suppose that my worst fear, Blogger's Block, has gone the way of most feared things.

Take care!

Mike L.

Ahhh, The Good ol' Days....

An AA friend passed on to me an email that's circulating around the Internet by some AAer going on at some length about how AA has gotten corrupted as a result of treatment centers and the influx of their graduates into the rooms of AA and that, as a result, our proven "success rate" (whatever that is and however anyone could ever measure that!) has dwindled to unacceptable levels. The email basically concludes that the only solution is to get back to the basics, go back to doing it that way they used to do it in the good ol' days of early AA. Ahhh, then things will be as they should be!

I think not.

The email resulted in my own counter-rant email to my friend --- a rant against the position espoused by the forwarded email's anonymous author. I even forwarded my AA friend a link to a previous blog of mine on this dangerous theme of some old timers that we need to get back to the way it was done when they were getting sober. I mean, why not get some more mileage out of that previous rant of mine? Anyway, apparently, I've still got some steam in me over this, so I thought I'd let it go here.

First of all, one of the cornerstones of early AA (at least as I read it...) is their humility. They didn't claim to have found a conformist or dogmatic cookie cutter kind of a program that would work for everyone in exactly the same way. They knew that such a dogmatic approach wouldn't work for alcoholics like them. I suspect if the early timers in AA heard the dogmatic "back to basics" chanting of some of the folks I hear in AA meetings today, they'd stand up and tell these "I Know the Way" gang of folks to sit down and shut up. They want to hear more about what happened to these folks who found part of their answer by means of a treatment center....

They might remind us to re-read that paragraph toward the end of the first part of the Big Book, on page 164, where they closed this section with the most clear statement of their humble, not know-it-all approach to a program of recovery: "Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us."

Why is it these "Beware the end of AA is near-sayers" don't consider that treatment centers are part of this "more" that would be disclosed to us?

Why is it they don't consider that the reason AA stopped doing things like they did in the good ol' days---like having newcomers get down on their knees and saying/doing their 3rd step prayer before ever being allowed into an AA meeting---is that this shit didn't work? They adapted and looked for ways that worked more effectively at allowing people to come into the rooms of AA and to stay as long as they wanted.

Why is they seem to be fighting a never ending battle against the trends currently being seen in AA where we are more and more tolerant of others and their paths into the rooms of AA? Weren't we supposed to get to a point where we ceased fighting everyone and everything? Isn't that one of the "basics" old time AA? The grumpy old men and women who chided new and not so newcomers for identifying as "andas" (alcoholic and a addict) seem to be dying out now and it just doesn't seem to bother most folks how other folks identify themselves in an AA meeting. Personally, I don't see a distinction between alcoholic and addict. Alcohol is a drug. A recovering addict will not do well in their recovery if they consider alcohol "less than" any other drug. A recovering alcoholic will not do well on any sort of marijuana maintenance program. We all know that. I really have more important things to do in my life than concern myself with these semantic nonsensical pissing matches.

In fact, I think I'm done with this rant. Feel better now.

Take care.

Mike L.

Blogger's Block?

I tried with all my might a few nights ago to write a blog--but everything I started out to write all sounded like crap. I feared that this might be the beginning of a trend. Maybe this was just the end of this blogging attempt. Leave it to a drunk to take one instance as a permanent never-ending fact.

The following morning, the same thing sort of happened at the 6:30am meeting at the Concord Fellowship: after his chair the guy gave a topic that could easily expound upon for hours. But that morning? Nothing. Nada. Zip. I was afraid that he was going to call on me and for the first time ever, the words "thank you for your chair, but I think I'm just going to listen today..." were going to pass my lips.

No such luck, he left me alone to my blank thoughts. It was good to listen.

Tonight, I'll start trying to put into written word what's occupying my gray matter as it relates to recovery. We'll see what happens.

Take care!

Mike L.

Interrupted by Life

Recently, I've felt more and more pulled in all different directions. What's weird is that I'm relatively calm with this awareness. I've got a six different project schedules running at work and seem to walk into the office day these days "triple booked" most of the day. My wife's developing a long and ever expanding "to do" list of things I need to accomplish before our daughter's wedding in September. I'm continuing my regular meeting routine pretty much, although my average numbers of meeting per week is probably slipping below ten a week now. I meet regularly with my sponsees and feel relatively good at my ability to listen to them and do my best to offer a helpful story or word.

I have been cutting back on some activities just by necessity and one of those is blogging. I've done this now for almost 8 months and have really enjoyed it. It's added a great deal to my recovery and over this time, I've actually connected up with several "anonymous" folks along the way that I would not have touched were it not for my decision to try this blogging out. But it's been hard to find a few moments, like this one now, where I can sit down without much interruption and write.

My interruptions though are my life. Blogging, somewhat like my meetings, involves stepping back for a brief moment to reflect on that life and find a moment of replenishment. In addition, blogging and meetings are both places where I most frequently encounter other suffering alcoholics with whom I can share what I've found and can find what I'm most looking for...

That's it for now. Back to life.

Mike L.

Hope: The Contagious Message of Recovery

I've been immersed in life the last couple of weeks, so I've been remiss in blogging. I've missed it, but I've just not had time to blog. Even now, I'm sneaking in this blog between a couple of chores left me by my wife. She's out getting her nails done with my soon to be married daughter. I deserve this blog!

At one of my favorite meetings earlier today, the chair offered "Hope" as the topic and it was a perfect fit to her story. In fact, it is a perfect fit with every one's stories in AA! It dawned on me me today that Hope is one of the essential ingredients for recovery. Every time we tell stories in AA, they are filled with all sorts of horrendous tales which include shame, hurt, guilt, failure, betrayal and pain. Strangely, when we hear these stories, we often laugh with one another and I've often thought that laughter to be odd and maybe even inappropriate. But I can't help joining in anyway! Why do we laugh (and sure, we cry too!) at these stories??

I think it's because our stories, by definition, contain hope. They contain hope for all of us because while these stories tell all sorts of hellish events from our past, we have all apparently lived to tell and share our stories. They are all stories of survival. Somehow we survived. Where life was nothing but hopelessness and isolation, we somehow survived. We got sober. Even if someone was sitting in the meeting today still with alcoholic flowing through their veins, for some reason, they were there in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Even if they were there at the behest of a lover, the command of a lawyer/judge, or the pain of a swollen liver, they were there sitting amongst others who also could simply not stop drinking and/or using. And not only had these people experienced the same hell of not being able to stop, it appears that many of them had figured out a way to stay sober one day at a time for many days.

That meeting really gave me a renewed spirit of hope. Reconnected with a bunch of people I now get to honestly consider friends. And am now able to go back to my chores with a certain lightness and calm. Pretty amazing.

Take care!

Mike L.

What I Listen For in an Alcoholic's Story

I went to a meeting this afternoon and heard a young man tell his story for the first time. He had 18 months of clean and sober time and he told us that he normally never ever talks in meetings. That got my attention, because I haven't stopped talking since I got to AA over 6 years ago. Anyway, this guy was quite nervous and lost track of the time. He apparently made up for the 18 months of not talking all at once.

He took us down a long walk along memory lane in terms of his truly horrible and abused childhood and equally horrible abusing adulthood. And only after 30 minutes (it was an hour meeting and normally, people keep their chairs to 10-15 minutes...unless you're really good at storytelling, like me!) did he get to the part of his story that I was most interested in: how did he get sober?

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind drunk-a-logs at all. They help me know the person and their disease better and put their sobriety in context, as it were. But I was afraid though that this guy wasn't going to get to the sober part until after the meeting was over, so I was glad when he did reach his bottom and found his way out of hell with 15 minutes to spare! (That was only because the secretary was kind enough to slip him a note reminding him that he needed to bring things to a close... She did that very well --- it's something that can be done very badly and she handled it perfectly!)

His way into that hell was very very different than mine, but his way out was almost mirror image of my own: someone with our problem reached out to him and said that they had found a solution to their drinking/using problem and offered to help him go down that path. For this man, that involved having his friend help him get a place to sleep (he was, like me at the end, very very tired!!!) in some sort of treatment facility for the homeless. For me, it meant watching my son get sober and then reaching the point where I wanted what he had found and knew that involved doing what he had done.

I didn't get to share at this afternoon's meeting because there was no time left and others were quicker to raise their hands. I did want to tell this guy that he did a great job and that I learned something valuable from his chair. I was ready to defend him if anyone had the gall to attack him for not even identifying as an alcoholic (he identified as an addict only...) or for talking too long. Had they done the latter, I would have reminded folks that Bill Wilson's story was only 16 pages long and he didn't get sober until page 13. But no one attacked him, at least, they didn't do it out loud or during the meeting. Those that talked had identified with his story and were appreciative and kind.

Me? I heard all I needed to hear from his story, he drank and used until he couldn't stop, no matter how much he tried. And just when he hit the bottom of despair, there was someone there who reached out a hand, not with judgment or condemnation, but with an offer to help and with a solution that had worked for them. I left the meeting after thanking him for his share and came back home to resume my "honey dos" with a little more gratitude for the way things have worked out for me in my life.

Take care!

Mike L.

The "One Day At a Time" is Always Today

During the month of June at the Concord Fellowship, whenever the secretary would ask if anyone was celebrating a AA birthday during the month of June, many of us spent most of the month egging on one of our old timers to raise his hand because in June he was going to be celebrating his 29th year of sobriety. Bob always shook his head No though, because he didn't believe in celebrating his birthday until it happened. Until the end of June, his birthday was only a possibility. He'd gotten into a good "one day at a time" habit and he was going to stick with it since it had worked "well over" 28 years.

This last Sunday night I got a call from an AA friend and he told me that Bob (Robert Adams) had been killed that morning when a car ran a red light in Concord, CA and hit Bob as he was crossing the intersection on his motorcycle. I believe this was the day, June 29th, Bob finally raised his hand to let us celebrate his miraculous feat of 29 year's worth of "one day at a time" sobriety. I'm just now getting over the shock of Bob's death. There are a couple of people around here who I know are in the last stages of the dying process and I while I'll be sad on their passing, I won't be shocked. Bob's death shocked me. My initial reaction was that this death was wrong. Untimely. Unfair.

I wanted to blame someOne, but there's no one for me to blame. I've positioned myself so that theologically and philosophically, there's really no one to blame, certainly not God. I espouse a belief system in which God, if God exists, does not "do" anything. In my view, God's been resting since he got Creation going. If I'm not mistaken, this view is shared by one of the writers of Genesis. For me, God's not a puppeteer up in the sky who pulls strings to make "good" things happen or to prevent "bad" things from happening. Therefore, God doesn't cause a man to run a red light and kill another man....and I feel no inclination to try and conjure up some divinely justified rationale for God's making this death happen. I simply don't believe God had anything to do with what happened Sunday morning, other than simply and lovingly "being there."

But Sunday night, I wanted to take a short vacation from my theological belief system. Just one drink of blame and anger toward a higher power or anyone else. Just one drink... Blame toward the driver of the car: was this guy drunk at 9:30am on a Sunday morning? Not out of the realm of possibility for an alcoholic, to be sure. And if he was drunk, was this some sort of cosmic humor where a drunk drunk kills a sober drunk of 29 years? Or was this guy just driving his car and distracted by some out of control event in his life, such that he just didn't notice that the light had turned red? In neither case, could I work up satisfactory anger because I found myself identifying myself as the perpetrator in either scenario: it could have been me, drunk or just simply distracted. Now, there's a part of me who wants to comfort the guy who killed my friend Bob. I hope our paths cross some day.

Then I turned my anger toward Bob: damn him for riding that goddamned motorcycle! They're unsafe and provide you with no protection from the "givens" of driving on our streets and highways. What was he doing there at that time of day anyway! Turns out, that Bob had done that morning what he almost always did every morning: he went to his 6:30am meeting at the Concord Fellowship, where he probably came in just a little late, where he probably sat down and joked with those around him (while seeming to rudely ignore the secretary's introduction to the meeting...OK, a little resentment there from a Concord Fellowship secretary!) and most likely not raise his hand to share. I assume that he raised his hand when they asked if anyone was celebrating a AA birthday. Finally!

After the meeting, I hear that he then joined a impromptu group of AA friends at the local Denny's and had a "meeting after the meeting." I know there much have been much laughter and probably some serious talk about something important to someone. Bob then left Denny's not to go home to his wife, but to head to another meeting nearby where a guy he knew, and I think who Bob sponsored at some time, was going to be the speaker. This guy, Lance, had been around AA for many years but has had a hard time staying continuously sober until recently. Lance now has over three years sober (I think) and Bob wanted to be supportive of Lance that morning because Bob did things just like this all the time. That was why Bob was crossing that intersection Willow Pass and Gateway Blvd. at 9:30am Sunday morning.

So I can't even get mad at Bob for being there that morning. Even his riding the motorcycle was Bob's way of being able to do all that he did on a limited retiree's budget, a retiree who, by the way, never seemed to completely stop working some jobs to make end's meet for his family. I believe that Bob was a penny pincher because he wanted to squeeze the life out each day. He and his wife had just taken a vacation trip together with this penny pinched money. With this money that he'd saved by driving that goddamned gas efficient motorcycle.

Bob was a great man. An honorable man. One of the ever growing list of honorable people I've come to know and love since getting sober. These honorable people attempted to live each day of their life as fully as humanly possible. They seemed to take nothing for granted and gave away everything of real value to any suffering alcoholic who crossed their path. Many saw Bob as someone who laughed a lot, but also someone who sometimes got very angry at things. Bob would sometimes be in a meeting at the Concord Fellowship, which I oftentimes refer to as the "Wild West of AA" due to it's unseemly and wild environment and interchanges, and if he thought the members had crossed some "line" in terms of behaving or not behaving in such a manner that would be helpful to a suffering alcoholic, Bob would raise his hand and not even wait to be called on: he was just take us all to task for our failure to carry the message of AA to a suffering alcoholic.

That was a line not to be crossed when Bob was present and, by God, he was here to let us know that we'd crossed it. Failure to carry the AA message was not to be tolerated! Now, personally, I thought Bob was usually about two or three weeks late in noticing that we'd crossed that imaginary line, but he always seemed to identify the most effective moment to raise our consciousness. I always loved to watch him explode, even when it was directed toward me, with love for AA and the suffering alcoholic. I think that's because it was Bob being most passionate and on fire with love.

I was telling my wife about Bob Sunday night, sharing a little bit about what I knew and was going to miss about this man who falls into her category of one of those "strangers I hang out with" in AA.

One thing that I knew Bob struggled with all of the time I knew him was the issue of death. Bob grew up in a world and culture where God was all powerful and whatever happened in life was "God's will." Some years ago, Bob's son and daughter-in-law were having a baby and the baby died at or just before birth. I don't know the details of the death, but I do know that this event devastated Bob for a long long time. Probably until last Sunday morning. He just couldn't reconcile his belief that God was love with the fact that God was ultimately in control of all things and if God was in control of all things, then how could he allow this innocent baby to die before ever having a chance to live or to be loved, especially by Bob. This death tore Bob apart. We talked about it several times, and no matter how much I tried to offer Bob an alternative view of God, he had a hard time letting go of the God of his fathers and forefathers. Not long ago, Bob's son and daughter-in-law were having another baby and the possibility of another death was utmost on Bob's mind. I don't think he could have survived another innocent death. Luckily, that wasn't what happened and Bob was able to hold and love his grandbaby.

I told my wife that I'm not at all sure Bob reconciled with God before his death on Sunday, but my hope was that maybe Bob would now finally be able to vent all his anger and resentment out directly to God and could come to peace with this everpresent death issue. My wife, you got to love her, replied back to me that maybe Bob would be better served by taking this opportunity to hold and to love his first grandchild for the first time....and to let his anger toward God die a timely death. My wife is an amazing woman who simply doesn't give an alcoholic, sober or drunk, a break! And that's without Alanon!

I'm missing Bob a lot right now. I didn't go to the 6:30am Concord Fellowship meeting this morning because I thought I'd rather blog this stuff out while it was still fresh. And I wanted this time alone with my memories of Bob and my grief over his death. While he may be dead and gone, I still have the ability to sense him in my heart and in my mind. Bob's going to be in some wonderful stories of mine that I'll use to help other suffering alcoholics! That's how I handled Dr. Earle's death five and a half years ago. It worked then, it will most likely work now. Today. One day at a time. Today.

Take care!

Mike L.

Such a Contrarian! (God is a Door Knob!)

At times, I'm struck numb by how much of a contrarian I really am! I often disagree with something before a person's done making their statement. I mean really! There was even one time a couple of months ago when someone was chairing a meeting in Sacramento and during his share he was kind enough to quote me two or three times during his chair... "You know, like Mike says, blah blah blah..." Instead of being honored I was struck in two ways: one, that he was quoting me correctly (people don't always do that!) and two, I disagreed with each of the quotes correctly attributed to me!

Another strange example of how far I will go to disagree is that I will sometimes even reverse directions and adopt a position espousing something that I have adamantly disagreed with in the past: e.g., I've always thought it was rather silly to consider a door knob as being one's higher power and felt it short of helpful in terms of helping people get in contact with their own understanding of a higher power. But some months ago, someone was chairing a meeting and they said something rather demeaning about the idea of electing to have God be a door knob.... And as soon as they said it, I instantly became a passionate advocate of God as Door Knob theology!

How did I do that? Well, in addition to just being a compulsive contrarian, I started trying to come up for reasons supporting God as Door Knob and it didn't take me long to come up with a rather convincing argument for this image of God. What is a door knob? It's an object that we grab on to in order to get into another room. We use it to get into the next room. And, most important to this theology, once we get into the other room, we must let go of the door knob before we can get very far at all into the room. Door knobs have a specific and temporary purpose then: to allow us into the next room. Once we're in the next room, we need to let go of the door knob before we can completely enter and roam around the room. And eventually, we're going to discover another door knob that we're just going to have to test out!

I think understandings and names for God (including Higher Power) are very much like door knobs. These understandings and/or names help us better understand "something other than ourselves" (and ourselves!). They do help, but that help is limited and temporary. Eventually, as I understand it, we need to let them go once they've served their purpose. To do otherwise, gets us back into the age old problem referred to in How It Works: the problem of holding on to old ideas!

I chuckle to myself whenever I hear that part about 'old ideas' in How It Works read in meetings: I mean it's simply not true! Some of us? No way! Have you EVER met an alcoholic (or non-alcoholic for that matter) who didn't try with all their might to hold on to certain old ideas! I've yet to meet one!

"Some of us tried to hold on to our old ideas!" No, I think truth in advertising requires us to modify that statement to read, "All of us!". Ultimately, we all seem to get to the point where certain old ideas, like the idea that we can drink like a non-alcoholic, just stop working for us and we have to replace them with new ideas. If we are going to grow. Sure, most of us like to think that these "new ideas" are permanent and unchanging --- but both that thought and these new ideas are going to change whether we like it or not. Trust me. Even if they don't change: they do get old! (And isn't that a change?)

Take care!

Mike L.

A 4th Option for the God Question...

Typically, members of AA (and others) characterize themselves as being atheist (they believe no God exists), theist (believe God exists) or agnostic (not sure if God exists). I've been all three over the last six years of recovery, oftentimes on the same day, and as a result, this vacillating spirit most often leads me to identify myself in meetings as an agnostic, one who just doesn't know if God exists. I realized this last week that this Agnostic ID has never really felt comfortable to me and I've come up with a 4th philosophical position on the question of God's existence.

Before I go on to describe a 4th alternative to the God question, I do want to mention that these three belief characterizations of myself or others really don't mean much at all to me. What I mean by that might best be explained by example: one of my sponsors characterizes himself as an atheist, but when I ask him to describe in more detail the "God" he doesn't believe in, I find that he and I agree on "that" God's non-existence --- and he's still an atheist and I might very well on that day still be a theist.

How can that be? I think it's because the word "God" means something different to each of us. It's possible for you and me both to say "I believe in God." AND both be in utter and absolute disagreement about who God is. And it's possible for one person to say he doesn't believe in God and me to say that I do believe in God and the two of us can very well be believers of the same thing.

All that said, I decided this last week that I'm no longer going to characterize myself, at least in recovery settings, as atheist, agnostic or theist. They don't work for me anymore. I have decided that I'm an "apatheist". Not sure if that was a word before just right now. If I'm defining this word though (guess I can do that on my own blog!) it means "one who simply doesn't care if God exists or not."

And, in the context of my recovery, I really don't care if God exists.

I'm an Apatheist because I did not find or keep a freedom from the obsession to drink by way of a belief in any sort of God or Deity. My higher power in recovery, oftentimes in life, isn't God. It's Truth.

What freed me from this horrible obsession was when I woke up the morning of October 20, 2001 and realized that my inability to stop drinking was a result of the simple fact that I was an alcoholic. That alcoholism was a disease and I had it. That Truth, which I then shared with others, set me free.

There was no God part to it. You may see God in there, but I didn't.

Whether God was or wasn't part of that spiritual awakening, doesn't seem relevant to me at all. I really don't care one way or another. I found freedom from an obsession which had long been increasing it's death grip on me and which had led me the stage of this progressive disease where I could no longer stop by an exertion of will power.

As a confirmed Apatheist, I feel compelled to point out that I joyfully and repeatedly steal prayers and other spiritual practices used by others and use them to better understand myself and the world I live in. Many of these prayers I modify to suit my needs or beliefs. As you know, I don't pray in the context of AA meetings, but I do pray in my private life on a daily basis, sometimes as theist, sometimes as agnostic. It helps me with living.

As a friend of mine says, the name of her higher power is Whatever! That seems acceptable to me as apatheist.

Mike L.

Three Types of Prayer (and Why None of them Seem Appropriate in AA Meetings)

I believe all prayers can be grouped into three types: Their Prayers, Our Prayers and My Prayers. Their Prayers are those prayers said or used by other people, not me. Our Prayers are those prayers said or used by me and other people who share common beliefs with me. My Prayers are said by me alone, although I suppose the words making up the prayer might also be used by others. Their Prayers and Our Prayers, when said together in a community of believers, are said to be communal prayers. My basic point in this blog entry is that I don't believe communal prayers belong in AA meetings.

When I'm sitting in a meeting of AA, I do not participate in communal prayers... Well, at least I haven't done so for the last four years or so of my sobriety. I choose to stay silent and watch and listen to others saying Their Prayers. I suppose that another way of looking at this is that they're all saying their My Prayers all at the same time to their own concept of a Higher Power. But the act of saying it all together as a group seems to make in a communal prayer, regardless of the individual intent.

My issue (and believe me, it's my issue) with communal prayers isn't that other people don't have the perfect right to do it or that groups don't have the perfect right to make (or not make) such communal prayers part of their meeting formal. They all have such a right and I have an equal right to just be quiet.

My issue is this: communal prayers seem to give the appearance, most importantly to newcomers, that those who are saying them all have a common understanding of a Higher Power and that they're all praying to the same Higher Power. To the newcomer, I'm concerned that this communal act of "ours" is one that enforces a belief or misunderstanding that they are an outsider (until they join in our circle, hold hands and repeat a prayer that may or may not feel appropriate or true for them).

Sure, I know that most AAs understand that we really don't have such a common understanding of God---but my concern isn't about our understanding that or not. It's the impact of that group format and behavior on the newcomer. To the newcomer it appears that our actions are inconsistent with our words, both spoken and written in our literature. It's particularly troubling to me that we seem limited to using Christian prayers in most all of the AA meetings I've attended: The Lord's Prayer and the Serenity Prayer are both Christian in origin.

Clearly this is a group conscience issue and I'm just speaking my opinions about how groups are handling this is my corner of the world. I do appreciate several groups in my area of the East Bay/Contra Costa County who have made a conscious decision to eliminate common prayers from their meetings: several begin with a simple and quiet period of silence for the alcoholic who still suffers and/or end the meeting with some reading from AA literature. To me, this is much more in keeping with the best practices and traditions of AA.

Until then, I just sit quietly during any "Their Prayers" that happen during AA meetings and practice "My Prayers" when I'm alone with my misunderstanding of my Higher Power or practice "Our Prayers" if I'm ever in a religious community of which I'm a member.

Take care!

Mike L.

How My 5th Step Happened One Day...

All of my steps have happened to me. That isn't to say that I wasn't involved or working them, but in each instance, and sometimes almost in spite of all the things I was doing in terms of any particular step, the step eventually, and without fail, happened to me. My fifth step is a perfect example.

For a variety of reasons, I had never felt compelled to rush through the steps or to do a step just to say I had done it. I saw that others had that urgency, but I didn't feel it. I was sort of lucky in that way I suppose.

You see, the obsession to drink had left me two full days before I first stepped foot into an AA meeting, or any other 12 step meeting for that matter. So I didn't feel pushed to do the steps quickly, or at all really, at least in terms of them being some sort of method to get rid of the compulsion to drink again. That obsession had gone already.

Ultimately, I began working the steps because each of them afforded me the possibility of dealing with some sort of suffering/pain or the possibility of providing me some increased level of happiness, serenity, joy and/or contentment. So I tried to work them, even if slowly.

I'd been encouraged in this "slowbriety" strategy by Dr. Earle, especially in terms of the fourth and fifth steps: he was of the opinion that people walking in the doors of AA should not rush into the fourth step. He believed, and I readily agreed with him, that when most of us walked in the doors of AA we were pretty beaten up already and the last thing in the world we needed was to focus even more attention on whatever wrong we had done before coming to AA and trying to get sober. He tended to recommend that people hold off on working a 4th step until they'd gotten at least a year or so of sobriety. Sure, if there was something really nagging at you or making you feel like you needed "liquid relief", you could certainly talk about that with your sponsor or whoever else you felt safe with, but absent that, he recommended that people should just focus on getting your feet on the ground and getting settled in the fellowship. The first three steps were prescribed by the Dr. if one was so inclined....he never really seemed to push it on anyone.

I probably took Earle as his word a little too much: I had not really done much in terms of the fourth step until after Earle had died in January 2003. During the last five months of his life, spent mostly in the hospital, I'd sometimes thought about the possibility of doing my fourth step then so that I could do my fifth step with Earle before he died. I ended up never really considering that because it seemed awfully selfish of me. I opted for just being there with him during that time of his life. While I know he would have loved performing that service for me, I simply wasn't ready and it never seemed as important as what I was doing by just being with him, holding his hand, helping him pee into the bottle, brushing his teeth, or just plain sitting.

Some months after Earle's death, I did sit down and write what amounted to a fourth step. I've already talked about that in an earlier blog, but suffice it to say that it was very brief. I'd already done a long narrative "fourth step" 20 years before when I was in the Jesuits and that confession had already provided me an effective means of dealing with all my past prior to age 25. I really didn't see any point rehashing and digging up what had already been resolved. As for the post-25 issues, a man who later became one of my sponsors explained what it was he found important to include in a fourth step: He felt that it was important to include anything that "made us wince". Anything that brought your face into a "just bit into a lemon" scrunchiness. That's what needed to be written down and shared with another human being. What we were really "guilty" over --- what we felt true shame over.

Ernest Kurtz (author of "Not God: A History of AA" and "Spirituality of Imperfection") wrote somewhere (I think it was in another one of his books, less talked about, called "Shame and Guilt") that most alcoholics come into the rooms of AA with two great burdens: shame and guilt. He said that guilt was what we carried as a result of what we had done; shame was the burden we carried over "who we were". The greatest shame I felt in life was the shame of being an alcoholic. I'd felt for years that being or not being an alcoholic was something within my realm of control. When I crossed the line and lost the ability to stop drinking, I felt tremendous shame over that.

I was very aware of that shame from the very first few meetings of AA and this shame began to dissipate on a daily basis as I learned more and more about the dis-ease of alcoholism. As a result, this shame was really not something that made me "wince" anymore when I was ready to do my fourth step. There were a few items from my past that did, so I noted them down in a notepad document on my Blackberry handheld device/phone. It really only took me about 2 hours, sitting on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean one day, to complete my 4th step. But it took longer before I felt ready to do a fifth step with my sponsor, Dave.

Dave had talked about the fourth and fifth step in meetings and I always felt he was talking to me when he was doing so. One of the things that he said about the fifth step when he was listening to some one's 5th step, was that he always listened for a "sense of remorse". That it really meant something to the person sharing this information. That it wasn't just some bullshit exercise being done to check off a step and somehow become part of the AA Club or somehow "ensure" sobriety by doing some sort of formalistic ritual without really meaning it.

Well, I just wasn't going to do that! But to be honest, I just didn't feel anything when I looked at the items on my 4th step list. Part of that was because I actually had shared most of all of these things with others in the context of trying to help them deal with their past issues.... By doing that, I think I accomplished the intent of 5th step....but I never felt it was quite enough to say that I was done with this important step.

Then, my sponsor invited me to join him on an AA weekend retreat in August 2003. There were about a dozen of us who went. Most of us were looking forward to time away and time to play golf with our new found or old friends.... But part of the weekend involved a nightly AA meeting for all of us on the retreat. Other than that, it wasn't much of a AA retreat. My wife was correct when she accused me of just getting away for a weekend of golf and "calling it" an AA retreat. She's highly perceptive...but she let me go with her blessing anyway. Thank God she did, because my fifth step happened to me that weekend.

My 5th step "happened" in two parts.

The first part happened while playing golf with my sponsor on the way to the retreat location.... Dave's a great golfer and I'm really just a hack who can sometimes hit a great shot. About halfway through that game, we were playing a long par 5 hole and my first shot went left and off the fairway, behind a large hedge. When I stood by my ball, I could see the green about 200 yards ahead of me....only if I leaned way to my right. The hedge was pretty much in my way and the only way that I could possibly hit the green would be to either (a) kick my ball to the right or (b) hit the ball where it laid and try to do something like hit the ball to the right of the green and pray to God that it would curve to the left. Now, hitting a ball and having it curve to the left is actually something I do quite well! I mean, that's how I got behind this hedge in the first place! But doing it "on purpose" was not something I had ever done. Kicking the ball to the right seemed the more appropriate solution, but I just couldn't do it. Dave was always talking about "Golf" as though it was his Higher Power----it was the ultimate example of ethics and morality and provided meaning to life. Now, Dave couldn't see me at this point in time because he and the others were already up by the green looking for their balls.

I ended up choosing (b) and hitting the ball as best I could and I would just deal with it. I hit the ball and for the first time in my life it did what I intended it to do! It took off around the hedge, curved to the left and landed right in the middle of the green. Everyone cheered when they saw it land and I was on top of the world. I'd "done the right thing" and it worked out perfectly. I'd never felt so good about myself. I consider this event to represent all those other times in my life when I did the "right" or "good" thing. There are many such events and all of them needed to become part of my personal inventory.

The second and more dramatic part of my fifth step experience came on the second day of the retreat, again on the golf course with my sponsor. Again, a long par 5 hole on a different course. I'd been playing great until this hole and was loving the experience of being with these three other guys and being "part of". My sponsor and I both hit great shots off of the tee, both of our balls went over and beyond a hill, out-of-sight, but apparently about half way down the fairway. As we were walking toward our balls, enjoying each others success, we topped the hill and looked down the fairway: there was one ball sitting right in the middle of the fairway in line where I thought my ball had gone (Dave's ball had appeared to have gone somewhat right of mine...). Dave pointed to it, assuming it was mine, and said, "Great shot Mike!" and then began walking over to the right side of the fairway to find his ball. He quickly realized that his ball was not anywhere on the fairway and that it must have bounced somewhere into the rough. While he began searching for his ball, he called over to me and said to go ahead and hit, he may have to take a penalty if he couldn't find his ball soon.

I took out my 8 iron and hit the ball well... It landed up on the green not more than 7 feet from the hole! Unbelievable! As Dave continued looking for his ball, cussing like a sailor, I walked up to the green. Just before getting to the green I noticed another ball laying over to the right of the green and I went over to look at it closer: as soon as I saw it, I realized that it was the same kind of ball I had been hitting that day, a Pinnacle and the same number, 3. A Pinnacle 3! What a coincidence! Someone had lost their ball on this hole and it was the exact same kind of ball that I'd been hitting. Strange. I left the ball as it was and then proceeded to walk up to the green and mark my ball and wait for the others to catch up to the new Tiger Woods.

As I bent down to mark my ball and pick it up, I realized that it wasn't a Pinnacle 3, it was a Titleist and it had a red dot on it (good golfers, like my sponsor, always mark their ball with a unique symbol or marking so that they can distinguish their ball from other people's balls...). Strange. Dave was hitting a Titleist and his marking was a red dot. Oh my fucking God!!! What had I done? I'd apparently hit Dave's ball from the middle of the fairway... And the Pinnacle 3 that was laying out there not ten yards from the green (a shot, by the way, that Tiger would have been proud of!!!) was actually my ball. I then turned to look back down the fairway and I could see Dave giving up his search for his ball and taking a penalty drop and proceeding with play. In a split second, without any real thought, I marked my/Dave's ball and placed his ball in my pocket where I had another Pinnacle 3 ball. I didn't want to admit to mistakenly hitting Dave's ball, wasn't sure how we could possibly cure this mistake without delaying the game and making me the butt of many good hearted jokes that night. So I just decided to lie. I'd keep this innocent mistake to myself and just move forward. It would just have to be one of those mysterious ball disappearing stories that all great golfers love telling again and again.

Then, Rich, one of the other guys who was playing with us was now approaching the green when he looked down and noticed the Pinnacle 3 ball laying in the grass. He checked the ball and then called up to me saying that, "Hey, Mike, weren't you hitting a Pinnacle?" Trying not to turn red, I said Yes, but that mine was up here on the green and already marked... Even pulled out my second Pinnacle 3 to "prove" it --- not that he was really accusing me of anything. He let it go and just put the ball back on the ground. My ball.

I ended up making an Eagle (two under par) on that hole and everyone "High Fived" me and told me how great I played that hole. No one seemed to have any idea about what I had done. Dave was still a little pissed about losing his ball, but he seemed to let it go rather quickly as it was just a game and he was having fun. It should have been best time in my life, but it was really my lowest point ever. And my Hell was only just beginning. From that moment on, for the remainder of the day, it seemed that the underlying topic of every discussion or story-telling was something along the lines of Honesty, Integrity, and Truthfulness. On the way back to the retreat site that afternoon, Dave told several stories about why he loved golf so much: primarily because it placed the responsibility for judging the game on the individual player: while there were marshals and judges on the course during tournaments, they weren't there to make judgments or dole out punishments. The players themselves call the penalties on themselves. It was a game all based on integrity and truthfulness.

I'll never forget how I felt sitting in the back seat of Dave's car as he was going on and on about how much he loved golf and why.... I never felt so disconnected from him as I did then. In fact, I felt myself disconnected from everyone on that trip. It was me and my secret on one side and everyone else on the other side of life. It was horrible. The longer I kept my secret to myself, the more isolated and alone I felt. It actually reminded me of the isolation and loneliness I felt those last ten months of my drinking...when my son was in recovery and I couldn't stop drinking. Isolated and alone. No one knowing what was going on inside Mike. No one.

That night at the AA meeting that we held at the end of the day, a guy named Mick told his story and toward the end really got honest with how difficult his life had been over the last couple of years due to his wife's illness. Several of us were close to tears with empathy and compassion toward him. When he finished, he said that the topic was "Honesty." Crap!!! They then started going around the circle each man taking his shot at talking about how important Honesty had been in their recovery and how much this Honesty made their recovery possible. Was this some sort of conspiracy? Did they all know what I'd done? What was I going to talk about? Was this going to be the meeting where, for the first time ever, I raised my hand and identified as "Mike, alcoholic" and then said "I think I'm just going to pass..."?

I knew that there wasn't a way in hell that I was going to be able to say anything, other than the truth. I really don't remember much of what others talked about that night, I was last in the circle to talk and Dave was sitting to my left. He'd share first, before me. When he was done, I raised my hand and identified...and then said that I really really didn't want to talk tonight. But that I had to clear something up that had happened earlier that day. I then told them all what I had done from the moment of accidentally hitting a ball that I'd thought to be mine....to the moment when I bent down to mark what I'd thought to be my ball on the green only to discovery that it was Dave's. I was crying like a girl (sorry, girls!) during the whole confession. When I finally finished, it was quiet for a few moments. Then Rich, blurted out, "You mean you hit Dave's ball??? You hit his fucking ball?" I nodded and he and everyone, including me, started laughing so much that they were on the floor. It must have taken ten minutes before anyone could talk. As things were starting to calm down, I leaned over to Dave and said that what had bothered me so much about what I'd done was that he'd once said something along the lines that we recovering alcoholics are now going down a path where we "do the right thing." I clearly didn't do the right thing. His response was to smile and say, Well, there's another part to that, and that is "We do the right thing, except when we don't". And that's perfectly ok. We pick ourselves up and try again. It was ok.

I then leaned over one more time and told Dave that I wasn't going to give him back the Titleist ball with the red dot. That it was going on my bureau and would forever remind me of this day. He laughed and said, "Of course!!"

Some weeks later, I told Dave that I needed to meet and go over my 4th/5th step with him. Ultimately, my 5th step was something that happened to me that night when I shared with this group of men what I'd done, how I'd separated myself from them by my actions and what I needed to do to recover the connection I had with them.... A connection that I so desperately needed to have with them. It really didn't involve going down any list of wrongs from the past (I'd actually already done that in a variety of other ways). It involved a deep felt admission to myself and to another human being (actually, about 15 of them!) the exact nature of my wrongs.

And the exact nature of my wrongs was that I mistakenly thought that my actions, good or bad, separated me from others, from God and from my true self. Nothing has ever been farther from the truth. Nothing.

Take care!

Mike L.