Relapse and Raising One's Hand Again

I've had two experiences dealing with friends relapsing this weekend, one was a sponsee who had worked hard and well to achieve 18 or 19 days before he drank today and the other was a guy who I'd known for awhile at one of my meetings--I'm not sure how much time he actually had as he rarely talked in meetings and I only knew him in passing--but he began drinking a few days ago and called me Saturday morning asking for help.

My sponsee called me tonight after he'd had a few beers---not enough to be really drunk, but enough to begin feeling a horrible on rush of shame over what he'd done. For some reason, he called me before taking his next drink or before going out to buy more alcohol. I took that as something of a miracle---the more expected/normal thing for someone to do after relapsing would be to go ahead and give themselves the go ahead and get really fucked up because they'd already broken the "first drink" barrier. But he called me instead.

The other guy had been drinking for two days and by 10am Saturday, he was already quite well on his way for a third day of drinking. Again, the miracle: he began reaching out to people he knew and had phone numbers for. When I took his call, I was at my daughter's house begin a long day of planting flowers and getting her house ready for a family party next weekend for my other daughter (the recent graduate). Not something I could walk away from. But when he called, I walked off to the side of the house and talked to him for about 10-15 minutes. He was at home and it appeared to be a safe place. His wife was on the way there to be with him as was someone else from AA who was taking off from work to be with him. I asked him to try to help them find all of his alcohol (or anything else) and get it removed from the house. I suggested that he avoid beating himself up for what he'd done, try to not put more alcohol in his body and once he'd sobered up enough, to get himself to a meeting. That's when he told me that he was terrified to raise his hand. He was embarrassed and felt he had let us down. He didn't think he could raise his hand again.

That was the same fear that was going through my sponsee: he was fearing tomorrow's noon meeting and raising his hand. He'd been feeling so good the last two weeks! He'd not been able to string 1 or 2 days before this recent run of almost three weeks. He was so close to being able to "not have to raise his hand anymore!".

I'm not sure either one of these guys understood what I tried to share with them: either because they were still somewhat drunk or because I think this is a hard concept for even sober alcoholics to understand:

I'm not most afraid of drinking again. I suspect that that may very well happen to me at some point in my life, maybe even multiple times. Who knows. I certainly don't want that to happen. I can't even imagine how it would happen. But I know that it could happen. And while I'm afraid of that happening, there's one thing that scares the shit out of me far more than the possibility of me drinking again: and that's that were I to drink again, I fear that I would be too ashamed to come back into a meeting of AA and raise my hand as a newcomer---or more accurately---as someone in my first meeting after my last drink. That's what I fear most.

The fear that I might drink is a real fear because I don't really know for sure what will happen as a result of that first drink. I suspect all sorts of bad stuff, but I don't know for sure. The fear that I would be too ashamed to come back into AA and begin the process again: that's a more dreaded fear because I do know the result of that: all sorts of bad stuff and no real hope of getting sober or staying alive.

For me, I've found it worthwhile to work through both of these fears so that they are not so frightful. I've accepted that alcoholics, even recovering ones who work good programs, will sometimes drink. I'm not shocked when that happens. I'm actually more shocked that it doesn't happen more often!

I've also come to the awareness that the night on October 23, 2001, when I walked into my first meeting after my last drink and raised my hand and said, "My name is Mike and I'm an alcoholic." that that was the best night of my entire life. And now, seven and a half wonderful years later, that same night is still the best night of my entire life. Were it not for that night, nothing that followed could have happened and nothing that came before it could have come to provide the foundation for so much growth and healing.

So, were I ever to drink again, I'd pray and hope that I would be able to get a second chance to raise my hand and give this life of sobriety another shot.

I hope my two friends come to understand this strange fact of recovery. I suspect their life may depend on it.

Take care!

Mike L.