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.