14th Dumbest Thing I've Heard in an AA Meeting

Some time ago, I wrote a blog entitled "The Top 10 Dumb Things I've Heard in AA"
http://mikelrecovery.blogspot.com/2007/12/top-10-dumb-things-ive-heard-in-aa.html and in that blog I listed 13 of what I consider to be the dumbest things I've heard in AA since becoming a part of AA in 2001. Recently, I decided that I'd heard my 14th when I heard several sponsors talking about relapses by their sponsees. The so-called AA wisdom that they passed on to me basically says that if a sponsee of yours relapses, just ask yourself if you (the sponsor) drank. If not, then somehow you're still a sponsor in good standing.

While I certainly agree with the sentiment that I'm not responsible for a sponsee's getting sober (or drunk), I'm not at all sure I want to buy into the dispassionate distancing of myself from the various feelings I experience when I hear of a sponsee's relapse---or anyone else's relapse for that matter.

I recently did have a sponsee relapse after about 18 days of sobriety and when he called me during that relapse, I remember feeling a heightened sense of being alert, that this was important and that I should choose my words carefully so as to be as helpful as I could to this man. He'd begun drinking that afternoon and had several beers before deciding to call me. He was absolutely devastated that he'd drank and for some miraculous reason, decided to call me and talk about what was going on. I felt a tremendous amount of compassion for him. I felt some of the pain and agony that he was experiencing. I connected with the shame and guilt that he was feeling: I'm sure that I would have experienced something similar.

He's gotten sober since and although it was quite rough on him for the first week or two, he seems to be back on track now. Most of his struggles during those first two weeks were dealing with the self-imposed shame and guilt that he was feeling in terms of having somehow let us (those of us in AA) all down by drinking. He had a hard time raising his hand for awhile...but that hurdle seems to be something of the past now.

I struggled with him all through this ordeal, trying to find the right words that would help him move forward and not get bogged down in self-pity or isolation or "too much" despair (in my experience, there's a certain amount of despair that is required to let go of some old ideas....and there's a fine line indeed between that amount and the amount which leads to suicide).

I know that I'm susceptible to being too attached or co-dependent of my sponsees or other alcoholics. But I'm be damned if I'm going to play it safe in this life by detaching so much from other suffering alcoholics that I cut myself off from feeling the full range of feelings if and when one of them drinks again. I care for them and all other suffering alcoholics. I'm not going to hide behind some sort of flippant resort to take my own sobriety as the litmus test of how well I'm doing today.

True, my own sobriety is most important to me. But I'm not an isolated being any more. I feel connected to people again. Sometimes that hurts. That's perfectly OK. In fact, it's greaaaat!

Take care!

Mike L.

AA began before Dr. Bob's Last Relapse

Yesterday I blogged about my thoughts about when AA began and how I am of the opinion that it began the day Bill Wilson almost drank again after having stayed sober for about 6 months. Instead of drinking that day, he decided to try to find another drunk to help get and stay sober. Because of that decision, I think AA came about. Because of that decision, he eventually went over to a stranger's house and sat at the man's table to try and help that man, Dr. Bob Smith, find a solution to his problem. The same problem that Bill had: alcoholism.

At that kitchen table, two men shared their stories and began to talk about the solution that was only in it's earliest infancy. The solution centered around staying sober one day at a time and helping another alcoholic get and stay sober.

But in yesterday's blog, I didn't talk about the most important reason I have for considering the date of that kitchen table encounter between Bill and Dr. Bob as the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's because subsequent to that meeting, Dr. Bob, co-founder of AA, found it necessary to take another drink. Subsequent to that first meeting with Bill, Dr. Bob made a trip to Atlantic City for some sort of convention and during that trip he began drinking again. And he showed back up in Akron some days later drunk as a skunk and humiliated.

But there again was Bill, reaching out a hand to help a suffering alcoholic. Apparently, that drunk was Dr. Bob's most successful drunk ever because it led him to begin a new day with the hope that he could stay sober one more day. Strangely, from our perspective 74 years later, because Dr. Bob was scheduled to perform surgery the afternoon he returned from Atlantic City, he was shaking so badly from the withdrawal from alcohol, that Bill decided to give his co-founder a glass of beer to sooth his nerves and hands enough that he could perform that surgery with steady hands (and beer breath---I don't think they had Tic Tacs back then).

But the first thing these two guys did was set out on a path of action: no study of the Big Book or working of 12 Steps for them (since neither existed at that time). Nope, their program of action was the same that Bill latched on to in the lobby of the hotel just a few days prior: they had to find another drunk to help.

I personally feel it's important to acknowledge that one of our co-founders saw it necessary to drink again and that he survived that drink and went on to live out his remaining years sober and, critically important to that sobriety, helping thousands of other drunks get and stay sober. Dr. Bob is something of the Patron Saint of those who drink again after getting sober the first time. So those of you who feel overwhelmed with shame and guilt over having relapsed, take heart: you are not alone and, in fact, you're in some really great company.

Take care!

Mike L.

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.