The Habit of Making a Gratitude List: Advanced Version

I know many in AA who have found benefit by routinely making list of things in their life for which they feel grateful. It seems to help overcome a natural tendency many recovering alcoholics have toward self-pity and poor poor me attitudes, particularly when we're still beset with cravings for outside solutions to inside problems.

Writing down the good things in our lives helps us keep the so-called bad things in perspective and right-sized. I remember sharing this conventional AA wisdom with Dr. Earle sometime in my first couple of months of sobriety. I'd already learned to cherish this old man's unconventional views on what seemed to being pitched by many as the "right way" to do AA. At the time, I wasn't yet comfortable or confident in my own sometime dissonant views of recovery or of AA and listening to this particular old man, who'd taken his last drink two days before I was born (6/15/1953), was something I could never get enough of....

I'd expected Earle to poo-poo the idea of making gratitude lists, but he surprised me. I thought he'd downplay the practice because it seemed to me to be yet another subtle attempt by AAs to change their feelings because they were 'bad' and/or to artificially bring about the experience of so-called 'good' feelings.

While he nodded in agreement with these concerns of mine, it didn't deter him from finding potential benefit in the practice or exercise of making gratitude lists. He simply said that many people in AA had found great benefit in that routine practice. That seemed enough for him, but I suspected there was more to it.

Though he's long gone now (he died in January 2003 when I was almost 14 months sober...), I've been thinking about him recently and how what I learned from him might help me develop a new version or method in writing a gratitude list. One that might avoid the suspect path of trying to be or feel something other than was we are or what we feel. I'm confident Earle would like this new way of making a gratitude list, so I will dedicate it to him now and assume his blessing.

The basic idea is to make two lists: the first is the typical gratitude list of things for which was are grateful: things like being sober, being in relationships that are nurturing, having a job, having a friend, being alive, being healthy, etc. These are all things that we "feel" grateful for, things that we see good in. Things that we are thankful for. For our ability to love, to be kind, to be honest, to be forgiving, to be compassionate.

When that list is as long as you can make it, then start a second list of all the things that you don't feel grateful for, that you resent, that you regret, that make you sad. Things you grieve over. Things you wish hadn't happened in the past or things that you wish weren't happening now. For example, some alcoholics wish that they weren't alcoholics. If that's one of your regrets, write it down. It's ok, no one's looking. It's your list. Other regrets might be things that you might have said or done in the past which might have hurt you or others. Things which no amends seem to wipe from your memory. Memories of actions or deeds which make us wince now. The death of someone you loved (or hated). Let loose! Give yourself permission to remember (remember means to put the pieces of a human being back together: to re-member one whose had their members removed) back to all those "bad" things in our past or in our current experience. You might be without a job right now. You might have just ended a special relationship. If you don't have true gratitude for it, write it down. Think of the most annoying flaws in the person you love the most in the world: things you've been wanting them to change since the very beginning of your relationship.

The next step to the process takes time and is going to be different for each person. The next task is to become aware of the fact that nothing in our first list would be possible were it not for each of the things in the second list. In my experience, there are direct links between each of the items in my "bad" regrets list and each of the items in my "good" things list. The fact that I'm sober, which means everything to me now, would mean nothing were it not for the fact that I was a drunk and that I did every stupid and shameful act that I did when I was drinking or when I was "dry".

The sadness that I have over the fact that my father died of alcoholism years before I got sober, was the very foundation of the joy I felt when I sat across from my son and told him that while he had been getting clean and sober for the last year, I had been drinking on a daily basis and that I finally understood that I was an alcoholic and that I was going to try and do what my son had been doing successfully for five months: try to stay sober one day at a time. The joy when he smiled back at me and said, "Gee, Dad, that's great! We're BOTH addicts!" --- would simply not have been there were it not grounded in the knowledge of my own father's addiction and ultimate death due to this disease. His death wasn't a failure, it was a consequence. And one other consequence from his death was that I knew in my heart what laid before me if I continued doing what I was doing.

My wife's overly critical eye has been the bane of my existence since shortly after we got married over 28 years ago. It's only recently (by means of this gratitude process...) that I've been able to see that part of what annoys me about her critical eye is that she has pretty damn good eye sight! That is, much of her criticism of me is right on the money. Part of what I don't always understand about her is that she most likely saves her most harsh criticism not for me, but for herself. She beats herself relentlessly, although quietly and to herself alone. In comparison, her criticism of me is mild and gentle. To be honest with myself, much that I have accomplished and improved in my life is a direct result of her assistance and guidance. I'm basically a slug.

For me, the benefit of this two step process in making a Gratitude List is that gradually the items in these separate lists begin to meld together into one list. All is Good. Everything is perfect, just they way it is, has been and will be.

One day when Earle and I were waiting for the meeting to begin, he asked me how I was doing. I was only a few months sober --- so I lied: I told him that I was doing fine. He laughed and said to me, "You wouldn't lie to an old man like me, would you?" I smiled and answered, "Well, apparently I would!" I told him that I was regretting the fact that it took me so long to get sober and that I'd caused a lot of harm and hurt along the way, in particular with my wife and kids.

He nodded with sympathy and then told me that "Were it not for every single drink that you took in your life, every single drunk, every single stupid and hurtful thing that you did while drunk or sober....you would not be sitting here right now. And, were it not for every single drink that I (Earle) took in my life, every single drunk, every single stupid and hurtful thing that I did while drunk or sober in my life....I would not be sitting here right now. So if all of that hadn't happened in each of our lives, neither of us would have come to be right here, right now. And if that's true, then how can any of what has happened to either of us be bad?"

The meeting then began and my life had changed once again.

Take care!

Mike L.

Create Your Own Concept of God

I was at a noon meeting today and the topic was "Love." A guy who just picked up his 6 month chip shared that he was working on his 3rd step and was feeling some love from and for his Higher Power, but that he was struggling with some "hate" that he still had toward his higher power. Hate was what he felt when he thought about the "fact" that his God had created him to be an alcoholic and that ended up resulting in much pain and suffering, not only for this guy but also for many other victims strewn along the path of his life.

I talked to him after the meeting and shared with him that in my view, one of the great things about AA is the fact that if there's something you hate about your Higher Power, you can change it! You can come up with a new understanding of your higher power. That's one of the main things that distinguishes AA from religions or cults: In a religion, if your concept of "their" God gets too far out of whack, they excommunicate you. In a cult, if your concept of "their" God gets too far out of whack, they kill you. In AA, they listen to you and most often nod their head in understanding and laugh (or cry) along with you.

I then shared with him my own personal God Myth: In the beginning, there was God and nothing else. God was lacking Love, because Love requires an "other" to love. And since there wasn't anything but God, God was very very lonely. So, out of Love, God created. God created all things. And in each "thing" God tried to place a spark of Love in such a way that God could escape the terrible loneliness that God experienced since the beginning of time. There were sparks of Love placed in all forms of existence, dirt, stones, water, light, planets, stars and animals and human beings. Lots of experimentation in this process.

It wasn't until God discovered that Love requires that the "other" have the freedom to choose between right and wrong, good and evil...that the "other" attains the ability or capacity to return Love to the creator. Without free will, there can be no Love.

And once there was free will, then there began the whole waterfall of consequences to each act of free will: both good and bad, both hate and love, both harm and healing. One right after the other.

In my myth, this is about the time when God stopped "doing" things. Once things got started with people making free choices, there was nothing left to do but watch and wait. For God to intervene after the gift of free will, God would return to the lonely existence he'd found escape from by creating others with the freedom to choose from a wide array of choices and to suffer/benefit from such choices and to inflict blessings/harms to all those around and after them.

So my God's one who just sits and watches. Hurting with the hurt and the hurters. Laughing. Crying. Laughing. Waiting for the Beloved to be what they were created to be: Beloved.

In my myth of God, I have no hatred or anger toward God. Certainly no anger over the fact that I became an alcoholic! I have nothing but gratitude for my becoming an alcoholic for were it not for that blessing, I wouldn't be where I am today, right now, right here. No. I'd be back in the lonely and isolated existence that I'd come to know at the very end of my drinking career. Interesting isn't it? The ending of my drinking placed me in the same lonely existence that my God experienced before coming upon the idea of creating another with a spark of Love and freedom to choose....

Take care!

Mike L.

Surrender Isn't Such a Bad Word

When I first got sober, I often heard people talk about the benefits of "surrender." Surrendering to the disease. Surrendering to the program. Surrendering to the will of God. Surrendering to the direction of a sponsor.

To be perfectly honest, I hated the word itself. Surrender was a word I heard a lot when I was growing up in the South. It was used in connection with a certain brand of Christianity which encouraged people to "surrender to the Lord" and to demonstrate that by walking up to the front of the church for some nice "laying on of hands" by a minister so that the Spirit of God could then enter and take charge of this new convert. Scared the life out of me.

So when I heard this word in the context of AA recovery, I recoiled as though from a hot flame! I came up with a long list of alternative preferable words that I could use to signify the same concept, but without using the word "surrender": giving up, letting go, stop fighting, etc. But never the word "surrender"!

Until one day when I was at a meeting and the person telling their story was one who shared my strong dislike of what he considered to be the "religiosity" of all the surrender talk in AA. He went on at some length about his dislike of the word and while you might have thought that would have made me close friends with the guy, I didn't. You see, I'm a contrarian. I have to disagree with everything. Ask anyone who knows me well, my wife in particular. The more he talked about his dislike of the word "surrender" the more I began to think of ways in which this word was a good one, if not an essential part of any one's "kit of spiritual tools!"

As I was doing that mental rebuttal, I remembered someone saying that "surrender is simply giving up a battle that can't be won." I then realized how appropriate this word was to my own miracle moment when I awoke from my last drink: for it was that morning that I surrendered in my hopeless battle "not to be an alcoholic". That was the battle that I began from my very first drink: I knew even then that my father was an alcoholic and that this disease was supposedly genetic in nature. I drank anyway because I thought that alcoholism was a "choice" and I was going to drink and "choose" not to become an alcoholic. I was going to drink "like" a non-alcoholic! The silliness of this strategy has me rolling on the floor laughing my ass off (ROTFLMAO) now, but it was a serious and strongly held strategy way back then and for the next thirty years.

So I did surrender on the morning of October 20, 2001: I gave up the battle of trying to drink like a non-alcoholic. I gave up the battle of trying not to be who I was: an alcoholic. I surrendered. Strangely enough, the obsession to drink left me that morning and hasn't returned since. I think that's a blessing without question, but I think it's also a direct result of what happened when I finally surrendered. You see, it takes a huge amount of effort and willpower to try and be someone you're not.

The effort required by this program of recovery is real and substantial, but it's simply nothing compared to the doomed and "negative" efforts used by me when I was trying to be someone I wasn't. The effort in my recovery has been directed more positively at staying sober, learning new ways to live life, new attitudes, new habits, new practices, new ideas. It's not a battle to be me.

I still don't agree with those who use this word to characterize their relationships to God, to their sponsors, to the program, etc. But that's ok. If the word doesn't work for me, I don't use it! Guess I'm surrendering to yet another battle: the battle to make everyone else just like Mike! Ahhhh. This is much easier!

Take care!

Mike L.

Either You Is or You Isn't; Either I am or I amn't

Objectively speaking, that is.

Unfortunately for the one who is wondering what's wrong with them and if what ever is wrong has something to do with their drinking, the most clear cut and objective tests for alcoholism can only be done in the late stage of this progressive disease, oftentimes after the patient is dead or (wet) brain dead. Before that point in time, the tests for alcoholism are more subjective in nature and require the alcoholic themselves to make the final determination.

That said, once the alcoholic is or becomes an alcoholic--in fact--they no longer have any "choice" as to being or not being an alcoholic. The only choice at that time is a subjective one and the choice has to do with what kind of alcoholic they are going to be at any one moment in their remaining life. As far as we know, the disease itself will never go away nor will it get better. Alcoholics then have four choices as to what sort of alcoholic they can be at any one time:

1. They can choose to characterize themselves as a non-alcoholic. True, this does not change the fact that they are, in fact, alcoholics---but they can choose to think of themselves as non-alcoholics. They can claim to others and to themselves, the facts not withstanding, that they really are not an alcoholic. Personally, looking back, I see that I did exactly this for the thirty years of drinking I did before getting sober. And for the last ten years before I got sober, I would characterize myself as a "periodic alcoholic": whenever I would have an 'incident' ending in guilt and shame over what I did while drinking. The incidents got worse and more frequent.

2. They can choose to be a practicing alcoholic: they can give up the fight and just resign themselves to being themselves, i.e., drunks! This was certainly my mode of existence for the last ten months of my drinking career. I consciously began drinking every time I could (without getting caught) once my son began his recovery in January 2001. I didn't discover a solution to that nightmarish existence until I woke up after my last drink on October 20, 2001. That morning I discovered and accepted the objective reality of my being an alcoholic.

3. They can choose to be dry alcoholics: they can, for various periods of time (at least in the early to mid-stages of the disease) do without alcohol. In my case, these dry periods were always periods of time that I endured to prove that I wasn't an alcoholic. To prove I had control over my drinking. Once I did this for 18 months. No meetings. No AA. No help from anyone. 18 months. 18 fucking months! But these dry spells always ended the same way: I would become convinced that I had been able to stop and if I was able to stop, I wasn't an alcoholic! They can't s6op. I can. The inevitable problem with stopping drinking is that it always leads to me starting again. Always. The distinguishing characteristic of all dry alcoholics? They are all VERY thirsty and as a result will usually resort to drinking or using some other drug at some point in time. Or commit homicide or suicide.

4. They can choose to be an alcoholic practicing recovery. That practice (practice means "to put into action") can mean a variety of things for different people, but I think it always involves accepting the truth of this disease and finding some way to deal with life without resorting to the use of alcohol or other mind-altering drugs, one day at a time. There are comparable stages to this recovery, early recovery, the "middle years" and "long term" sobriety.

The important thing to notice about these four choices is that an alcoholic can avail themselves of any of these alternative views of self, at any time in their alcoholic life. On any particular day, they can pick and choose to live any one or gray area mixed combinations of the four. For example, I often hear members come into the rooms of AA sharing that they have just finished living some sort of "dry spell" and are now trying to get back into active recovery.

The most dramatic example of a dry drunk getting sober was seen by me a few years ago when I saw a guy come into one of my regular meetings: he was 25 years "without a drink or drug", but hadn't gone to meetings, worked the steps or worked on his recovery since he completed the first year of his recovery. For the first year of his recovery, he had done all the basics: didn't drink/use, went to meetings, got a sponsor, worked the steps.... But then for the next 24 years, he became a workaholic and withdrew from the fellowship and from an active program of recovery.

Then the inevitable night came: it was 10pm and he was just getting ready to leave work, when he called his wife of 20 years and let her know that he was wrapping things up at the office and would be home shortly. Then, before hanging up and for a reason he still doesn't quite understand, he decided to ask his wife: "Are you happy?"

Her response was silence for several long seconds and then she said to him, in effect (I'm paraphrasing): No. I'm not. And I want a divorce. And when you get home tonight, I'll have your bags packed and waiting for you at the front door. Find another place to live beginning tonight.

Somehow, this man did not drink that night. Instead, picked up his bags, moved into a motel and then he returned to the rooms of AA the very next day. I remember being astounded that this man didn't drink, given what happened to him and that he'd been so disconnected from the program for so long. I talked to him afterwards and shared with him that while he miraculously didn't drink, it did appear to me that he was awfully thirsty! He laughed and we became AA friends from that point on. For the last three years he has been practicing a rigorous program of recovery...and knows very well the difference between "dry" and "sober". It's been inspiring to watch him soberly and honorably walk through the pain of a divorce and the joys/pains of new relationships.

I've been extremely lucky to have spent most of the last 7 and a half years as an alcoholic practicing recovery. It seems to be the easier softer way that I was always looking for!

Take care!

Mike L.

What Advice Would You Give Sergio?

I was watching the Masters golf tournament this last weekend and happened to catch an interview with Ben Crenshaw, a two time Masters champion. Someone asked Ben Crenshaw what advice he would give to the young Sergio Garcia, a relatively young golfer who appears to have all it takes to be a great golfer but who has yet to reach his full potential and who is now apparently struggling most of all with his putting game.

Ben reflected on the question and then said that he thinks Sergio is a great golfer and that his only advice would be to tell Sergio the same thing his teacher once told him. Ben's teacher was a old guy named Harvey Penick. Ben said that Harvey's greatest advice to him was when he told Ben, "You need to start swinging like Ben Crenshaw." That is, you need to stop trying to swing like other golfers. No matter how good they are, they are good because they are swinging like they do. You can't be great by trying to imitate someone else's swing. So, Ben's advice to Sergio was, "You need to putt like Sergio Garcia!"

I was really struck by the love Ben Crenshaw had for this man Harvey Penick, his teacher. My sponsor told me tonight that when Ben Crenshaw won his second Masters tournament, that Harvey Penick had died just a week before that tournament. After winning that Masters, Ben broke down and sobbed when he tried to talk about how much this meant to him and that all during the tournament, he felt that Harvey was his 15th club. He was there with him.

I was equally struck by the obvious and deep love Harvey Penick had for Ben Crenshaw, his student. It appears not to have been the stereotypical teacher/student relationship where the teacher had all the answers and the student just needed to do what he was told and to swing in the right way. No. This teacher --- this Master --- was one who simply wanted his student to be the best "them" that they could be and there was no preconceived concept of what "that" might be. It was a mystery for the student to discover.

My sponsors have all been Penick-like in their approach to this recovery process and to sponsorship. None of them see themselves as "possessors of the truth" which must somehow be passed down to the ignorant newcomer. They all see themselves as people with their own story and who've been able to learn the skill of listening to other people's stories, tremendously well. They never seemed to be teaching "truth" -- but simply listened and then shared with me a story that seemed to "fit." And their stories always seemed to fit. Like a well worn glove.

I'm feeling particularly grateful this night for the gifts I've been given in the form of Earle, Dave and Russ. My Harvey Penicks.

Take care!

Mike L.

Recovery's Stages: Physical, then Mental, then Emotional, then Spiritual...

From a safe distance, I've been watching "one of us" struggle through the pains of early sobriety. Not that those pains are limited or restricted only to the first few days and months of recovery, but they seem to be more visible and consistently experienced by those who for whatever reason get to begin a process of recovery from the disease of addiction to alcohol or other drugs. This person's current struggle reminds me that Earle used to talk about the various levels of recovery and that the process goes through stages, beginning with:

--physical sobriety (no physical ingestion of alcohol or mind-altering drugs... Period. No matter what you feel, think, or wish.),

--then mental sobriety (there are healthy and not-so healthy ways of thinking, we need to focus on learning more healthy ways (e.g., attitude of gratitude: which is an attitude, by the way, not a feeling...) and un-learning less healthy ways (e.g., resentment, hatred, etc.).

--then emotional sobriety (any emotion/feeling is perfectly OK, without moral weight or character, no emotions are good or bad, they just are; that in early sobriety especially, emotions are like riding a roller coaster and they can get like that in later sobriety also, especially if we neglect some basic physical care-taking of our body and mind...H(hungry)A(angry)L(lonely)T(tired) sorts of things...),

--then spiritual sobriety (for Earle, there was really no difference between emotional and spiritual sobriety....and I agree; spiritual has to do with non-physical reality which is, in some sense, above and beyond the more basic physical, mental (which is physical in that thinking occurs by means of a physical brain mechanism) and emotional (again, which is physical in that feelings are the result of our "perception" of reality and we perceive reality via physical eyes and the brain) recovery.

The basic concept is that human beings need to deal with these stages in order: first physical, then mental, then emotional, then spiritual. The more advanced stages generally cannot take place until their is some level of consistent and healthy physical recovery. That doesn't mean that a drunk can't have a spiritual awakening: They do! But the fullness of emotional/spiritual recovery can't really come about until the physical and mental healing has taken place to some extent.

To me, the 12 steps of AA are sort of arranged in a manner consistent with this view: the first step is physical in focus, the second step is dealing with the mental (return of sane ways of looking at reality) processes, the 3rd thru 10th steps are dealing with all various layers of our inner health, memories, perceptions of self, interactions and histories with others in the past and present) and the 11th dealing with widest meaning of spiritual. The 12th wraps it all up into a daily practice of recovery: being awake to who we are in all our glory and, as important, seeing and reaching out to others in all their glory: especially those others with the same dis-ease that we have.

So while the person I'm watching going through the pains associated with the physical withdrawal and healing that are part of the 1st step/early sobriety process, I'm excited for her. All of this is just part of the healing process. I encourage her to be patient and not to despair because she's not seeing the results of all or some the [9th step!!!) promises in her life.

Part of our suffering in life is not so much our present reality. Our suffering is more a result of our wanting things to be different from what they are. If we weren't so intent and obsessed with having things different than they are, we would not suffer. We would feel pain. But the suffering would be purely optional.

Take Care!

Mike L.

A Secret Part of the AA Program?

One thing that bugged me about the Big Book and even the Steps, particularly at the beginning of my recovery, is that no where does it explicitly state that the alcoholic must stop drinking. Or that the overall goal of recovery is to "stop drinking". Sure, there's all sorts of "implications" that not drinking is the ultimate goal---but I'm beginning to wonder if that was really the intended implication by the writers. Is "not drinking" a secret part of the AA program that is never said out loud but still remains a requirement to long term or "full" membership? You'd think! I mean if I had written the book, I would have been very clear about that. [Thank God I didn't write the book!]

But no. While the "not drinking" part of the AA program is rather essential to being and staying sober, I don't think that it's some secret part of the program. Nor do I think that it was an oversight by Bill Wilson and the others who were writing the Big Book when the choose not to include a clear and unambiguous "mandate albeit suggestion" that the alcoholic has to stop drinking. I say that because I think the insight they all had into this particular disease and it's treatment/solution was that the alcoholic was one "who could not stop drinking." AA is not made up of people who could or who can "stop" drinking.

True, the are those in AA who characterize themselves as people who have stopped drinking.... But I don't think that's the essential characteristic of all members of AA. If it were, we wouldn't have people coming in and going out. We wouldn't have members of AA who come into the room with alcohol (or other mind-altering drugs) still on their breath or still coursing through their veins. Are such people not "members" of AA? Are they "less" members? Of course not. In fact, they may be more aware of their full membership rights than most of us because they know without question that they simply can't stop drinking! They "know" they are powerless over alcohol.

Nor would we be better off had the writers of the Big Book chosen to rephrase the 1st step to say, "We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable--and therefore we stopped drinking!" To put things that way would have taken the focus off the utter powerlessness we have over alcohol, the utter powerlessness we have over "being" alcoholics.

The secret of the AA way of life, for me, is not that it gives me a way to stop drinking. No, that's not what it's given me. Rather, it's given me a way to stop stopping. It's given me a way of life which involves trying to stay sober, one day or moment at a time. I've learned to focus not on what I can't do (stop drinking) and focus instead on what I can: stay sober. Staying sober is possible for me. Stopping drinking is impossible for me.

Spread the secret!

Take care!

Mike L.

Angels and the 12th Step

On Sunday morning, I went to my favorite Step meeting where we tackled the last half of the 12th step in the 12x12. Because that chapter is so long and covers so much, this group covers it in two meetings instead of one. The woman who shared her story afterward, I'll call her Dee, was asked to chair the meeting because she was celebrating her 4th year of sobriety and the secretary wanted Dee to share her story with her AA family. What struck me most about her chair was how Dee talked so poignantly about the shame she carried into these meetings over four years ago---when she drank into oblivion one night and then passed out between her two sleeping kids. That shame.

The next day, as Dee sat at her desk at school, another teacher who Dee knew to be a recovering alcoholic, appeared at the door and asked how Dee was doing. Dee looked up from her desk and saw this other teacher as an "angel" --- Dee told her she had a problem with drinking and asked for help. The angel helped her get to her first meeting and begin down a path of recovery. In the early days of AA these angels were called sponsors: the ones who helped us get in the doors of AA.

This story touched my heart deeply, but before I could talk, another friend of mine who has maybe 15 or so years sober, raised his hand because he too was touched deeply by this story.
He's not typically one to get emotional, but Sunday, he almost lost it before he got three words out of his mouth. It doesn't matter what he said--in fact, I can't remember what he said--all I remember though was that this woman's story touched him to his core. Just as it had me.

I really don't remember much from this meeting because my mind was reeling during most of the meeting---remembering back to a time when I was in my early 20s. I had finished my four years in the Navy and for a variety of reasons had decided to become a Catholic priest. Toward that end, I became a member of a religious order called the Jesuits. Before I actually entered the Jesuits though, I spent a summer at a Jesuit retreat house in Los Altos, California called El Retiro.

That summer, I spent reading and walking and meditating on what I was planning to do with my life. While I was there, I met several amazing Jesuit priests. One older priest was quite strange though: he was brilliant, had a photogenic memory (could not only quote lines from books he'd read years ago but could go grab the book from amongst this shelves and stacks of books and could go straight to the page where that quote was located), was a very popular spiritual director to what seemed to be hundreds of women (religious and lay) a fact which struck me as odd because this priest seemed, certainly at first glance, a rather gruff and angry man (but they flocked to him regardless), and last of all, he was a fanatic about watching Mission Impossible every week. He loved Mission Impossible because, as he said, all those technical gadgets used on that show "actually exist!" Anyway, I got close to this guy over the months.

Anyway, this recent Sunday after Dee's chair, I remembered back to one night when they were having some sort of anniversary celebration for the El Retiro retreat house and had invited a lot of their donors to share in the celebration with mass, drinks and dinner. One couple who attended was a former nun and former priest who had both left religious life, fallen in love and gotten married some years before. They came to the celebration that night with their young daughter who was maybe 2 years old and the only child at the event. I saw right away that the girl was out of place and bored, so I offered to babysit her during all the events that evening. And with the blessing of the old crotchety Jesuit Mission Impossible fanatic, the parents agreed to let me do this for them.

I then took the girl traipsing through the hills, showed her all my favorite paths, trees and views. Showed her the decomposing things that I'd come across on these acres and acres of woods. Kids like decomposing things. We played games and ended the evening watching some kids show on TV. She fell asleep on my lap as all the adults were in the next room having drinks, telling stories and laughing. Sometime later as the evening was coming to a close, the old Jesuit came over to me and leaned down to me and whispered in my ear: "You know Mike, not many people know this, but shortly before Ignatius (founder of the Jesuits back in the 16th century) died, he told a confidant/friend that the way you could tell if someone was going to make a great Jesuit was that they would have all the qualities that would make them a great father or parent. Mike.... You're going to make a truly great Jesuit!" I remember being really touched by this comment. This guy wasn't known (to me) as being a kind, supportive or encouraging kind of person. But he was then. And I really wanted to be great at something!

But it wasn't until this recent Sunday morning that I realized that one of my life long dreams and desires has always been to be a good father. In fact, I eventually left the Jesuits because after four years of that way of life, I realized that I had never even considered marriage as an option for me. I'd never ever seen one work. All of the marriages I had seen, including my own parents, had ended in divorce, most of them bitter. I ultimately left the Jesuits because I needed to find out if marriage was an option I wanted to consider and within a very short time, I met a woman who would later become my wife....just recently for 28 years. With her, I became father to three wonderful and different children.

And while I always tried to be a good father, the drinking became more and more of an obsession for me. Parenting and adulthood were stress-filled activities and I never ever felt up to the challenge without the assistance of something outside of myself. Alcohol ultimately became my primary, if not only, solution. The disease seemed to grow very very gradually in me. Over the first 20 years of our marriage, I think I probably had maybe 6 or 7 "incidents" where my drinking crossed a line and was out of control. Each incident ended with me waking up, not remembering what I'd done or said (my wife would, unfortunately, have no problem remembering...or sharing) and feeling tremendously remorse and shame over what I'd done. I'd swear never to do that again. And I wouldn't. Well, I would never do "exactly" that again....but I would eventually always do something quite similar to it sometime in the future. And the something similar always had something to do with alcohol.

Like the woman who told her story on Sunday, I hit my bottom with tremendous shame and guilt over the fact, or rather, the perception that I'd ended up being the most horrible and despicable father ever in the history of the world. The shame was most intense when my 15 year old son reached his bottom and began trying to get clean: the shame came from the fact that while I asked to stop drinking, both to provide him a safe place to live and to show him that his father could deal with life without chemical assistance, I simply couldn't.

There was simply no way that with all the stress in my life (most of it related to my son!) that I could go any number of days without alcohol to relieve the stress and get me through the day. And I didn't. For the next 10 months I drank in secret, without getting caught. Most often, I drank in bars after dropping my son off at his AA or NA meetings. In the short period of time I would have while Pat was in his meeting, I would rarely have time to get really drunk. But I would have time to have two large very dry gin martinis: and that would at least "tide me over". It was only those few times where I would say "Yes!" to the hostess' offer of a third drink that I would feel drunk, where I knew I shouldn't be driving and that I should avoid all close contact with my wife so that she wouldn't smell the gin.

Yes. I connected with this Dee's sense of shame. And when she talked about her "angel" I knew who my angel was: it was my son Pat. Pat was my angel not because he approached me about my drinking problem, but because he was getting clean and sober. He wasn't trying to judge me. The last night I drank, Pat did smell something on my breath (it was actually oozing out of my skin!) and asked me if I had been drinking. I so wanted to tell him the truth. I'd seen how compassionate he'd been with others who had relapsed and how forgiving he had been of himself for his own relapses (for the first five months, he couldn't stay clean for more than 5-10 days! I'd try to be encouraging and tell him that "relapse is sometimes part of this process Pat..." but he would smile and say, "Dad, I haven't really "lapsed" yet, so these aren't relapses!").

But I couldn't tell him the truth because if I did, well, then I would have to stop drinking! And I simply could not stop drinking! That was my hell! I couldn't stop! So I lied. Pat accepted that lie without judgment or recrimination or attack. He said, "Oh, I smelled something like alcohol and I had to ask. Someone must have spilled something on the ground around here."

So, this Sunday morning I was blessed with one of those miracles --- where our lives flash before our eyes and everything all falls into place and makes perfect sense. All I ever really wanted to be was a good father. And I was. And I am. All because of my angel of a son. I'm looking forward to May this year because he will, "him willing", celebrate 8 years clean time. A month later in June, he'll turn 24 years old. And, me willing (and with pure grace/gift), will hopefully celebrate my 8 years of sobriety in October.

How does all this apply to the 12th step? Contrary to what most people seem to believe, for me, the 12th step is not primarily about sponsoring people or getting other people sober even. And if you read the 12x12 carefully, I think that Bill would agree with me. The very first sentence in the chapter about the 12th step, talks about the "joy of living" being the theme of the 12th step. And then at the very end of the same chapter, Bill ends with a statement that "the joy of good living" is the theme of the 12th step. The "joy" Bill is talking about is not some legalistically conforming way of life. It's life to the fullest. It's honest, true, fragile, emotional, uncomfortable, painful, scary. It's in our face. Right here, right now! This is the joy that Dee saw in this other teacher, a recovering alcoholic, and it was the fact that that joy was evident in a person practicing recovery that allowed one young woman to reach out and ask for help. In effect, she was saying I can't continue doing what I'm doing and I see that you know what that's like and have found a way out. Help me!

And that's the joy I started to see in my son, my angel, as he began his own journey of recovery. And that's what let me reach out to him and ask for help. Without him, I wouldn't have come in these rooms as early as I did, if at all. And since then, others have come to me as their "angel" and I have done what Pat did with me: I've helped them into the safe rooms of AA and got them started on their own journeys of recovery. I think that's all 12th step work.

And this is how I got addicted to AA meetings.

Take care!

Mike L.