A 1st Step Puzzle/Riddle: The Three Ps of Alcoholism

One thing I often recommend when someone is working a 1st Step is that they first carefully read and re-read what I call the "Long Version of the 1st Step" found on page 30 of the Big Book.  It's the first page of the 3rd Chapter, called "More About Alcoholism".  On that page is the statement, "We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics.  This is the first step in recovery."

The challege then, is learning and understanding what an alcoholic actually is.  If you don't have a good and accurate perception of what an alcoholic is, then I suspect that your 1st step will not be as effective as hoped.  An example of a poor understanding of what an alcoholic is can be found in my own history: for years I "knew" that alcoholism was a disease, but I thought that disease was one that was temporary or one that could be cured. 

Every time I had an alcoholic "incident" in my life, I would be baffled as to why I did what I did (because it seemed to be something very close to what my dad had done at some point...and he was an alcoholic!) and I would then swear "never" to do that again.  According to this plan then, while I may have accidentally acted "like" an alcoholic during that unfortunate incident, it was within my power to change my behavior in such a manner as to avoid actually being an alcoholic.  Truly a delusional and self-serving view of this disease.

So, what I ask my sponsees to do is to read this page very carefully to discover what it holds for us in terms of more accurate information about the disease of alcoholism.  I then ask them to figure out what I am going to call "the three Ps of Alcoholism".  Hidden in that reading are three very important characteristics of the disease of alcoholism: each characteristic begins with the letter "P". 

Before they begin, I give them a hint in the form of a riddle: None of the three P words are "powerless" BUT all three of the P words can be summarized by the word "Powerless" or "Powerlessness".

Anyone want to take a shot at what the three P words are which describe critical characteristics of the disease of alcoholism?  Bonus points will be awarded to those who can then explain how all three P words can be summarized by the word "Powerless."  Good luck!

Take care!

Mike L.

Three Most Important Days for the Recoverying Alcoholic

When I begin sponsoring someone, I always ask them for their "Day Zero" date. It's the first day in their recovery: the day they didn't put any more alcohol or other drugs into their system. A Day Zero begins just after midnight (technically, 00:00:01 or 12:00:01 o'clock) and ends, assuming no alcohol/drugs ingested that day, at midnight. Day Zero is one of the most most important days in a recovering alcoholic's life.

Another very important day is "Day One" which most people refer to as the day they "got" sober. Interestingly enough, Day Zero and Day One will equal each other by the end of the day. I always enter a "Day Zero" event in my Outlook calendar for each of my sponsees, setting that event to remind me each month about this milestone so that I can celebrate with them when that happens. If it doesn't, I just hope to create a new one when that happens.

The last day of most importance for the recovering alcoholic? Today. Ultimately, it's the most important day for me. Today. Full of possibilities. Day Zero and Day One are both still extremely important to me, because without them, I would have all the possibilities before me now. I'd be back in the darkness, without hope.

Take care, Today!

Mike L.

What's So Important About Identifying AA's Birthday?

Several months ago, I posted a blog talking about when AA began. There had been much talk in meetings at the time about AA's "birthday" being June 10th because that was the day Bob sobered up from his last relapse. In my blog, I took the position that this June date was incorrect as far as I was concerned because I suspected the rationale underneath that was the supposed "unacceptability" of relapse and that AA certainly couldn't have one of it's founders relapse "after" AA officially began. My question to the Fellowship is: Why not?

http://mikelrecovery.blogspot.com/2009/06/aa-began-before-dr-bobs-last-relapse.html

This week, I received a comment and opposing view on that blog from Dick B., a rather well known AAer, writer and historian.

Dick commented:

Interesting point about WHEN A.A. began. Lois thought it began back in New York. T. Henry thought it began when Dr. Bob dropped to his knees with the little fellowship and prayed for recovery. And some dispute the dates. However, as I wrote some time ago in The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous, the key point is not WHEN A.A. began. The key point is that it did begin in Akron in 1935; and Bill and Bob dated the beginning of the first group Akron Number One as the day that A.A. Number Three Bill Dotson walked out of the hospital a free man. It should be noted that there were no Steps or Traditions or meetings or drunkalogs. And no Big Book. All three men turned to God for help and then were cured by the power of God. There's a lesson there.

http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml

God Bless, Dick B.

My response to Dick follows:

Dick--I agree that it doesn't really matter about WHEN AA began, but I wasn't trying to make a historical point. I was trying to make a "meaning" point --- which was that in my opinion (no authority needed for that) one of the most important points in time in the process of AA "becoming" was the talk between Bill and Bob at that kitchen table on Mother's Day, 1935. A talk that was, according to Bob's conditions for even meeting with this stranger, supposed to last no more than 15 minutes. It ended up lasting 6 hours more than those 15 minutes.

It was, according to the author of A Member's Eye View of AA, the first recorded time that one alcoholic reached out to another drunk with the intent to that it would help them stay sober.

You and I may disagree about when AA began, but that disagreement would be akin to a Pro Lifer and a Right to Lifer arguing about when "human life" begins: at conception? at birth? Who knows.

We also seem to disagree about the "key point" in terms of the importance of AA's beginning: you identify the importance being the turning to God for help and that God somehow cured these 3 men.

I rather think that the "key point" in AAs coming about was (and is!) the fact of two alcoholics coming together to help each other with their disease. In addition, one of the "key points" in this weird organization's continued success was the two early AAers who were atheists and what they did to ensure this organization would survive beyond a few weeks, months or years. These two atheists helped keep AA from becoming a religious, non-denominational or not, organization which it would have certainly become had these three supposed spiritual giants, Bill W., Dr. Bob and Bill D. had their way.

It was these two atheists who fought tooth and nail against the over-religiosity of early AA (under the strong influence of the Oxford Group and others...) and I believe it was that atheistic stubbornness which eventually resulted in several AA literary gems that many, many members now attribute as a major reason why they were and have been able to stay in AA: "Higher Power," "as you understand Him" and "a power greater than yourself". Those phrases didn't originate from Bill: they were pushed down his throat and the throats of the other pioneers of AA by two stubborn atheists. Not Agnostics. Atheists.

I personally think that AA's doing quite well today. I don't have any desire to get AA to get back to its roots. I suspect that you do -- I wish you well on your endeavor of herding cats.

The reason we don't do things like they did in the early days is not because we've become lazy or followers of Satan. We no longer do things like make newcomers kneel down in a room upstairs and say the 3rd step prayer BEFORE being allowed into their first meeting anymore BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK NOW and probably didn't work all too well back then...at least long term.

But that's my opinion. AA as an organization, and as a group, traditionally has "no opinions" on outside issues, but the fact that most people fail to understand is that as an organization, groups and members: AAers have ONLY opinions about INSIDE issues. Should we or anyone else disagree on that statement, well, that just goes to prove my point.

I suppose that is also another key reason I've been able to stay in this weird organization.

Take care Dick. I have to admit that I am honored to have such a well known AAer and historian visit my blog. That said, I'm not at all overwhelmed by your celebrity or supposed authority. I was mentored by one of the greats in AA and one of the great lessons he taught me was to be careful of the "I Know The Way Gang". There is no "outside authority" in or within AA: the only "ultimate" authority is what's found to be true in our individual hearts.

Our names for that ultimate authority are different; none of us has to be wrong.

Take care!

Mike L.

Sometimes the comments I receive are amazing and I hate to have them buried down so deep in the blog... So for this one, I thought I would like to highlight it a little.

Take care!

Mike L.

Sponsoring Others: When Do I Stop Raising My Hand?

In some meetings, there's a tradition where they ask for anyone who's willing to be a sponsor or even a temporary sponsor to raise their hands. It's done to help the newcomer, or someone who's looking for a sponsor regardless of the time sober, find a sponsor. Recently, I've been feeling somewhat conflicted about raising my hands because I'm concerned that I am overextending myself or developing a Messiah complex (trying to save the world).

I've never asked someone if they wanted a sponsor. During the first three and a half years of sobriety, I did have several people come up to me after meetings, most frequently when I had told my story at the meeting, and talk to me about my becoming their sponsor: I always gave them my phone number/email address, but none of them ever called me back. It was only when I finally came to a point when I knew that I was done with working the Steps that someone actually came up to me and asked me to be his sponsor that the guy actually followed up on that request and called me and met with me. He's still my sponsee today and he's close to celebrating 4 years of sobriety.

Now after almost 8 years of recovery, I have about 10 sponsees: each of them very different in all respects. I think the only thing they all have in common is that they see something in me that's attractive to them and that they seem to be getting something out of our bi-weekly get together over coffee or dinner or just sitting outside a meeting to talk. My strategy of sponsorship has never been to focus solely or even primarily on working the Steps or reading the Big Book together. At first, I did just what had been done with me by my three primary sponsors: Dr. Earle, Dave and Russ. All three of them had the following approach when sponsoring me: they listened really well, they told great stories and they never (ever!) told me what to do or judged me.

The Steps really just sort of happened to me during my first 3 1/2 years of recovery: I went to a great Step meeting every Sunday morning for probably the first five years of my recovery, I read everything I could put my hands on (both AA approved and not) related to recovery (broadly defined). When I wondered about something in regards to any of the Steps or what I was hearing from others about any of the Steps, I talked to my sponsors about this and came to my own peace with each step. Each step was sort of like a pot of coffee: it started cooking at some point, usually "in order" (but not always) and then at some point later on, it was clear to me that the pot was done: the percolating had stopped and the pot/Step was done. I would then begin focusing my attention on the next step and it too would eventually happen.

When I was coming to the "done" part of the 12th Step, I was terrified of finishing it because I knew that completing the 12th step meant, so AA conventional wisdom held, that I would then need to begin sponsoring others. I didn't want to sponsor others: ever! I didn't want people coming to me, getting close to me, asking me for advice or input, expecting me to take them through the steps in some very specific way (like they may have heard everyone else talk about step work in meetings: it sometimes sounds like we all agree on how the steps should be worked and we pretend that there is only "one" way to do them! By the Book! What's that mean anyway? Don't get me started on the invisible "4th column" in the 4th step!). No, I'd taken care of myself, picked the best sponsors ever and well, they were free to go talk to Dave or Russ (or talk to the dead Earle if they so pleased---I do so they are free to do so also!).

But when Kim asked me to sponsor him, I simply couldn't say no. I told him that he was the first one to really be serious about this and that I was scared shitless at the prospect of sponsoring someone. That said, we moved forward and I told him that he was going to be much more the teacher than I was. Interestingly enough, he wanted to go through the Steps right away and wanted my help in doing that. It was clear that my approach of going through the steps was not going to be right for him. So we began going through the books (Big Book and 12x12) much like I hear everyone else talking about. I told him that I hadn't done it this way, so not to be surprised if it started to become clear to him that I was a complete failure as a sponsor. But we got through it together. He couldn't read very well and he was even worse at writing. But that didn't seem to bother either one of us: we adapted. His 4th step was a list of events in his life that he just jotted down enough information to remind him to talk to me more about this when we did the 5th step. When we did the 5th step, we just sat at his kitchen table and he told me the story of his life, particularly as it related to his love affair with alcohol and his life long fight not to be an alcoholic. He found relief when we stood up at the end and hugged. I still loved him.

None of my other sponsees have duplicated that process. Each one is different and my approach with each has been quite different. At least three of my sponsees (I really don't like that word by the way) have substantial amounts of sober time than I do -- one is close to 30 years. Three are in the early stages of their recovery, one is vigilantly working on completing this third day today (a week ago, I was thinking he was going to die...). The rest are somewhere in between.

It's only been in the last few months that I've started becoming a little more assertive with the newer guys: giving them writing and reading assignments, setting up secure blogsites where the two of us can communicate with each other and share our thoughts in a safe environment (only the two of us can access their recovery site). Part of that is because I am needing to be more efficient with my time, but also because I'm getting a better feel for what can be helpful to someone else when they are struggling with this disease or with related life issues.

So, how do I know when to stop raising my hand or to actually say "No" to a sponsorship request? So far, it's been simply a matter of do I have at least one hour of time every other week to meet with them. I go to so many meetings, that most often, I find a day/time that I would normally go to a meeting and I set that day/time aside for a particular sponsee. If they need more time, I see what I can do or I try to find someone else who might have more time to help this person.

My next fall back strategy is to begin to farm off these requests to one of my sponsees: I'll say that I can't sponsor them because of a lack of available time but that I will introduce them to some of my sponsees and see if any of them are a good fit for this deal.

So, for now, I think I'm going to keep raising my hand and making myself available. This sponsorship thing has been the most rewarding and transformative part of my recovery to date. I really don't see them as sponsees: I see them more as very close friends with whom I've structured some regular time together to talk about what's going on in our lives and our recovery.

Take care!

Mike L.

Attitude of Gratitude

I've got several of my sponsees working on a common assignment (I'm not an assignment kind of sponsor --- but for some reason, each of them seemed to be asking for an assignment and I came up with this....) and I realized today that today, more than ever, I needed to practice my own counsel. These guys have been making daily gratitude lists which are a little different than what most people do with these lists. Because of some things I learned from Earle early on in my recovery, I've adapted the typical daily list of things you feel grateful for by adding a little addendum of resentments. Another unusual thing about this assignment is that I setup a private blog space for each of them to write these gratitude lists: each blog site is tightly secured so that only the two of us have access to their blog and only the two of us can post things to those blog sites. [Quick aside: This use of a blog site is a great tool for increasing my ability to communicate with my sponsees and for them to communicate with me.... When they post a message to their blog, I get notified by email and the same happens when I post something to their site. It's been great...]

What I've asked these guys to do is make a daily list of at least 10 things that they feel grateful for in their lives. They can list more than 10 if they like, but they need to try to come up with at least 10. In addition, I ask them to list 3 to 5 things that they simply do not feel grateful for --- in fact, they may be things they adamantly regret or resent. The only restriction on these items is that they can only be very brief statements (no more than a line or so) and they must all end with a period. What I'm wanting is for them to document their resentments or regrets by writing them down very briefly. I know these resentments are there, so we might as well write them down. Just a short phrase which will remind them later on about what they wish didn't or wasn't happening in their lives. Write one down quickly and put a period after it. Write a second one down quickly and put a period after it. At least 3 of these and no more than 5.

No one ever told me to do a gratitude list this way. I just made it up because it seemed to embody the truth/wisdom that Earle passed on to me: that is, every thing's perfect just the way it is, we don't need to change anything. Also, there's no such thing as a "bad" feeling or "bad" circumstance: whatever's happened is just the way it's supposed to be. And the kicker: were it not for all the so-called "bad" things, I wouldn't be where I am right now. Were it not for all the so-called "bad" things in the past, I wouldn't have most all of the things that I actually feel grateful for today.

For Earle, gratitude was not a feeling: it was an attitude. A habit which many many people in recovery over the last 70+ years have found very helpful in their staying sober and finding some semblance of peace, serenity, happiness and joy.

1. I'm grateful for my sobriety today.
2. I'm grateful for my wife of 28+ years, especially for the last 7 years where things have seemed to blossom between us (sure it's a pure coincidence that I'm 7+ years sober now...).
3. I'm grateful for each of my children.
4. I'm grateful for my daughter asking me to go with her to see Robin Williams do a comedy show in Mill Valley Weds night: it was a continuation of my living amends with her.
5. I'm grateful for Matt trusting me enough to tell me the truth about his day count and to resume our journey of recovery together.
6. I'm grateful for a stranger coming up to me after the meeting tonight and asking me if I would sponsor him: we'd met about a year ago, but he went out and is just now coming back into the program after a DUI last weekend (he's scared and desperate). I'm honored beyond words.
7. I'm grateful for my job and the wonderful and skilled team of folks that work for me and give me the freedom and flexibility in my schedule to squeeze in what I really love to do into my busy work days.
8. I'm grateful for all three of my sponsors, especially the dead one.
9. I'm grateful for this weird organization called AA: it's probably the only organization I could belong to without a resentment or anxiety or fear of judgment or condemnation.
10. I'm grateful for this blog and all of the amazing folks I'm come to know and love as a result of this endeavor to expand my program into a new arena.

Now, the things I'm not so damn grateful for today:

1. That Mike H. took his life a few weeks ago: I had tears come to my eyes this morning at his funeral when I saw his mother standing near his ashes.
2. That the last time I saw Mike H. I didn't sense the deep level of anxiety within him, nor did I go up to him after that Weds meeting and give him a hug.
3. That Earle's not here with me now so that I can talk through these feelings of sadness and regret with him.

The attitude of gratitude is not for the faint of heart or the half measures sort of folks. It's for those who commit themselves to the no bullshit program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It takes work each day. There are no days off. There's no "fake it til you make it" escape measures. It's life head on and face to face. It's writing stuff down so that you can go back to it later on and start putting the pieces together.

I am confident that I will be able to go back to this list sometime in the not too distant future and discovery that they three regrets will have led to some new deepening of my own compassion for others and myself, some new heightened sensitivity for the pain and suffering within someone who crosses my path, whether that be within the context of a meeting or elsewhere.

I know that because there were regrets in my not too distant past which are now appearing on my list of things that I do feel grateful for today: (1) I used to regret that I was an alcoholic (none of the ten items above would be on that list were I not an alcoholic then and today); (2) I used to regret that I was married and that I had children --- they were expecting too much from me and I was feeling more and more the total and absolute failure as husband and father (now, I can't imagine life without my wife or my grown and wonderful children). I could go on forever.

But my day's at an end and I'm wiped out. This was a long, full day. But I couldn't end it without going through this gratitude list process.

Take care!

Mike L.