I'm not ready yet....

I read a great little story the other day that shed a lot of light on some uncertainty and doubt over my own ability to sponsor others.  Or at least do that well.

The story was about a therapist who was walking home one day when he was acosted by a guy who walked up to the therapist asking if he knew where a certain street was located.  The therapist replied, "Yes, just go down the street here and turn left at the first intersection."  The stranger seemed to understand the directions, so the therapist continued toward his home.  At one point, the therapist looked back and saw that the stranger was going in the opposite direction than he'd directed him.  The therapist called out, "Hey!  You're going in the wrong direction!"

The stranger turned around and yelled back, "Yes, I know!  I'm not ready to go there yet!"

So true!  I rarely (if ever) find myself in a position where I know, without uncertainty, what a sponsee or other friend in recovery may need to go or what they should do.  There are times where I sense that what might good, better or best for the other person and I will then share that as a suggestion which might be worth their consideration. 

That's all well and good.  I just need to learn how to let it go at that point and detach myself from whatever it is the other person chooses to do.  That's their issue and it has nothing to do with me.  Even the suggestion that the other should consider not drinking --- the truth of the matter is that some people are simply not ready to go there yet.

When they are ready, I can try to be there for them with my hand extended.

Take care!

Mike L.

AA Didn't Work for Him... Really?

I was listening to someone's chair/story the other day and he mentioned that before getting sober he once spent 5 years as a member of Synanon, founded by someone who'd once tried AA but found it didn't work for him.  During the discussion period afterward, someone shared that this Synanon founder eventually got drunk and died.  People laughed.  I admit that I joined them, chuckling by impulse, but something felt odd about laughing at someone's dying from this disease and also about their claim that AA didn't work for them.  The presumption seems to be that when people claim that AA didn't work for them, these people weren't ready or weren't willing to do what it takes for this program to work.  If AA doesn't work, it's not AA's fault.

I'm not sure that's always the case.  Does AA not work for some people?  Sure!  But why?  I've been mulling this over for awhile now and I want to share some of my thoughts on this topic. 

First, I don't think "AA" fails anyone.  AA is an organization and doesn't have some separate personal existence or identify that any one person can "experience" by walking into any particular meeting or by talking to any particular member of AA.  Whatever a meeting or member might do or say in terms of conveying the AA message (whatever that is...) to an interested non-member will never represent AA in it's entirety or completeness.  It will always fall short of the ideal that we each might have in mind when we think of AA in all its potential and beauty. 

To the extent that an incomplete or distorted message of recovery gets conveyed to the newcomer, that's not a failing of AA.  It's an unavoidable failing of that particular meeting or member of AA.  Unfortunately, far too many (one would be too many...) people experience such incomplete or poorly conveyed message of recovery by a group or individual.  We're not perfect, as a group or as individual members of AA.

Luckily for me, when I walked into my first meeting, I was just willing and desperate enough to overcome some of the defects/flaws in the messages being conveyed to me, intentionally or not, when I first started coming to AA meetings over 8 years ago.  And as I listen to or read stories from others, members or not, who had bad experiences when they first tried AA, I'm glad that I didn't face some of the intellectual hurdles others had to overcome in order to make it all the way into this weird organization called Alcoholics Anonymous. 

All that said, I don't want to become complacent and just trust that we're doing good enough for those who are willing and desperate enough to overcome all obstacles to giving AA a chance at providing a solution for suffering alcoholics.  It seems incumbant for us all to try to do everything we can to remove any obstacles to a suffering alcoholic's recovery as possible, to take care with our words and message so that we give as many people as possible an ability to find a solution like we have here in AA.  That's not to say that we try to become all things to all people: but it is to say that we should always strive to reach out to more people and to be more effective at conveying the AA message of recovery.

Secondly, I think that given the weirdness of this particular organization, where there is no Pope or ultimate authority or rigid structure/doctrine, the message conveyed to the newcomer will always include something of a mixed bag of fruit and nuts.  I personally think that there's as many ways to work this AA program as there are members of AA.  True, many might strongly disagree with that opinion of mine, but that really only proves my point because all of us who disagree and agree with that statement are still equal and full-fledged voting members of AA even though we have strong differences of opinions on pretty important inside issues.

These two points may appear contradictory: we need to do more and we will always fall short.  But that's not the only paradox I've found in my recovery or in the AA progam.  I'm sure it won't be the last either.  I'm grateful that AA has worked for me and has given me a framework through which I've been able to fashion a way of sober living that works just right for this alcoholic.

Take care!

Mike L.

Life Boring?

At my Wednesday night home group meeting last night, a guy who'd just passed the 30-day mark in his sobriety shared about how although he was glad to be sober 30 days, he was feeling somewhat bored with his life.  He felt that all he was doing was getting up, going to work, going to a meeting and then going to bed.  He was bored sick!  We all laughed, I suppose because we'd all been there -- and even those with years of sobriety were still capable of feeling such boredom even now.

Since at this meeting we allow others to give us feedback during the meeting, this guy got some feedback based on what others had done when they found themselves in similar situations:  try taking up a commitment in one of your meetings just so that you're "a part of" and not just a passive observer in your own recovery....  be patient, don't drink and these periods will pass... when these feelings come, talk about it with your sponsor or, like he had just done, with other alcoholics...  try making a gratitude list and if that's difficult, read pages 416-420 of the Big Book.

I shared with him that when I hear someone complaining about being bored with their life, I ask them to tell me more about what they are doing with their days over a week or month's time.  Invariably, what I discover is that the reason they are feeling bored is that they are leading a boring life!  The cause of boredom is oftentimes BEING boring!  The definition of boring is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the SAME results! 

Doing the same thing today for my sobriety that I did yesterday or last week or last year will not keep me sober today.  Thank God!

I'm all for structure and routine.  In fact, I'm probably obsessively just that!  But I regularly shake things up in my schedule and routine.  I try to go to different meetings, new meetings that I've never been to before.  I will sometimes leave the house with the intention of going to a 6:30am meeting (like I did today) and realize that I really don't want to go to that meeting today.  I'd rather go to work early and spend an hour blogging about something, anything!  Even boredom!  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  I sometimes do something just because it's uncomfortable or different.

I love my life.  It's rich.  Multi-colored.  Curvy and zig zaggedy.  Full of different and oftentimes contradictory feelings, moods and attitudes.  My life often doesn't go according to plan and, in retrospect, that's what makes it so rich and full.  And when the rare time comes where I find my life becoming boring, I know from experience that the ball's in my court.  Life isn't waiting to live me.

Take care!

Mike L.

Why Communal Prayer Seems Inappropriate Within AA Meetings

I was at a meeting Saturday morning when someone announced to the group that at the request of one of the members, the group was going to go through a group conscience process concerning a request by one of the members to change the meeting format such that the customary closing of the meeting would no longer include praying the Lord's Prayer and that we would begin using the Serenity Prayer instead.  Although the meeting was a Step meeting (and that week we were reading the 8th Step from the 12x12...), several people during the meeting shared their thoughts and opinions about the issue of the Lord's Prayer, most seemed against changing the format and gave various rationales for keeping things as they were. 

I wasn't surprised by the trend given my sense that AAs don't like change and the only thing they dislike more than change is controversy or differences of opinion.  In fact, my only surprise was my ability to not talk about this issue until towards the end of the meeting.  I have strong feelings about this issue.  Not just about the Lord's Prayer, but any communal prayer in the context of an AA meeting.  I think it's wrong. 

I think it causes harm, most particularly with the newcomer who hears one thing in our literature and format, but another thing quite the contrary in our actions.  In the literature, we tell the newcomer that they don't have to believe in God to get or stay sober, that it's a purely personal decision for them to investigate for themselves and that they were completely free to define their "higher power" in any way they chose.   Blah, blah, blah.  And then, at the end of most meetings, the leader stands up and asks us to join him in closing the meeting with the Lord's Prayer.  The people then stand, join hands in apparent solidarity and say this Christian prayer together.  So much for a higher power of our own understanding.

To be clear, I am not against prayer.  I pray frequently.  I often use other people's prayers as a jumping off point for my own prayer.  I memorize many prayers that I've found to express some deep resonating truth to me and recite them aloud as I drive to/from work---eventually modifying those prayers so that they become more "my" prayer and less someone else's prayer.  Communal prayer though seems appropriate only in a religious community where there is a shared or common faith.  Stealing such a communal prayer from any community, which is a strong AA tradition by the way!, seems a bad idea for AA (at least when we only steal prayers from one of the available religious traditions in the world).

The use of sectarian prayers, which includes the AA favorites of The Lord's Prayer, The Serenity Prayer and St. Francis (or Eleventh Step) Prayer, in an AA meeting expresses the reasonable interpretation or mistaken belief that we "in the circle and holding hands" are a part of that Christian or Judeo-Christian sect and that all our words, spoken or written to the contrary, were just meaningless words.

Am I going to bring about change in AA's long practice?  I doubt it -- at least nothing substantial or quick.  I share my thoughts on this inside issue whenever I think that I can be helpful, especially for someone who is new to this weird organization called AA.  I do it with a sense of humor and, as best I can, with humility.  Sometimes, I speak loudest by simply doing what I've done consistently for the last six or seven years: when a group is going about doing a communal prayer, I stand and join in the circle and I do nothing other than listen.  Sometimes I pray silently.  Sometimes I just observe others in the circle. 

Sometimes, especially during the Serenity Prayer, I join the others by inserting my own silent words inbetween theirs:  When they say, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." -- I say to myself:  "That would be you and much else out there!"  Then, when they continue with, "Courage to change the things I can..." -- I say to myself, "That would be me and my attitudes!"  And as they close with "And the wisdom to know the difference." -- I say to myself, "Yes, please!"

If the secretary asks me to take the group out with a prayer of my choice, I say the word "God?" with a question mark and then stop.  The group usually doesn't notice that I just asked a question or plea toward God and they assume that the prayer of my choice is the Serenity Prayer.  It isn't.  The prayer of my choice is the word God followed by a question mark.  That's it.

I believe one of AA's strongest and longest held traditions is the tradition of stealing prayers from other traditions and making them their own.  We've taken great liberties with massaging these prayers of others to suit our own circumstance.  I love people who when the Lord's Prayer is being prayed, change the word "name" to "names" -- those folks are aware of everything I've been saying in this blog tonite.  Bless them! 

I also noticed this last weekend when I was at my favorite Step Meeting that at the end of the chapter on Step 12, it closes with a different version of the Serenity Prayer than the one I hear prayed in AA meetings or placed on placards in meeting rooms.  The version of the Serenity Prayer in the 12x12 is sometimes referred to as "The We Version of the Serenity Prayer" -- it isn't prayed in the 1st person.  It's prayed together with others:  God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change..."

Someday, I'll make a motion at a business meeting that we take that version of the Serenity Prayer and, with  a few changes, begin to use it to begin and close that meeting:  the motion would be to begin using the new AA version of the Serenity Prayer:

Higher Power grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change; courage to change the things we can; wisdom to know the difference and love to do the next kind thing.

Higher Power gives everyone the ability to address this prayer to whatever they have come to hold as their higher power: whether that be some sort of personal, localized God, or not.  It could mean a door knob.  It could be Truth.  It could be Not God.  It could be the group itself.  And, of course, this closing prayer would be purely optional to those who would like to participate.  Anyone should feel perfectly free to not participate without separating themselves from the group or from AA.

Of course, for me to do that, I'd have to attend a business meeting.  Not sure I'm that sober yet!  ;-}

Take care!

Mike L.