AA meetings – The Recovering Urchin

Where I Go For Hope

A friend of mine asked me “where do you go for hope?” He was feeling hopeless at the time. I don’t know why, but his question resonated with me.

This is where I go for hope.

I go to AA meetings for hope. This never fails me. I go because I hear other people sharing their experience, strength and hope. They give that hope away for free.

We regularly have 1000 years of sobriety in attendance at my home group. There are a few people with 40+ years of sobriety, and at least 20 people with 30+ years sober. That is incredibly hopeful for me. How could I not get hope from sitting in a room of people with that much sobriety?

I go to my sponsor for hope. My sponsor is a hopeful man. He always finds a way to find light in a situation. His attitude and outlook on life are contagious.

I know I need to call him when I don’t want to call him. When I am feeling blue, I know it is time to pick up the phone and listen to his joy.

I go to my family for hope. My wife and daughters are hopeful people. They believe in positive things. They believe that their actions and their words can make a difference in the lives of other people. As I write this, the three of them are participating in the democratic process, and knocking on peoples doors. They believe that what they are doing will make a difference in the next elections.

I go to work for hope. You might be surprised that I included this. But I did. I work for a small healthcare company that is developing medicines for the treatment of rare diseases. There are some very smart people who work at this company.

Have you ever heard the expression “we aren’t trying to cure cancer here”? The people that I work with are trying to cure cancer. They could be making more money doing something else, but they believe that they are contributing to the greater good by doing exactly what they are doing right now.

How could I not be inspired by that?

I go to the gym for hope. The gym that I go to is full of people who work hard every time they go there. They believe that their lives will be better if they work hard at their physical fitness. I was skeptical the first time I went, but that work ethic is infectious. I can’t help but work hard when I am in a gym full of other people working hard.

I go to my dog for hope. My dog is the eternal optimist. He is full of unconditional love. He has a precious soul. One hour at the park is the highlight of his day, maybe his week.

Going to the park with him might be the highlight of my week, too.

Where do you go for hope?

With love,
The Recovering Urchin

Guest post: Grace, compassion and the stink of the soul — part one

Last Sunday, I chaired a local AA meeting. Compassion and grace were chosen as the topics. Faced with seventy souls, some of whom were actually listening, I let loose my truth. Heads nodded, faces contorted, uncomfortable grunts plunked into the air like a chunk of cheese was being coughed up. Judgement of all kinds was exercised.

Among the truths and experiences described was the ability for active alcoholics being able to find each other at large gatherings. I am of the opinion that, in a group of 100 people, where only two substance abusers are in attendance, they will be attracted to each other like magnets. Somehow we know each other—hidden in plain sight, we seem to be able to sniff each other out.

In this context, during the meeting, I discussed the stench that an alcoholic’s pores emit the day after a binge. Teeth can be brushed, a shower can be taken, extensive grooming can have taken place, but still the stench emanates from every pore and fills the room.

Given the fact that alcoholism is as much about a mind compromised by a disease as it is about the substance, it occurred to me spontaneously, during the meeting, that the attraction of alcoholics to one another is based on our ability to smell the stench of a toxic disease leaving the pores of a peer’s soul.

How does this relate to grace and compassion? Read part two next week.

This has been a guest post by Michael D.

With Love,
The Recovering Urchin

The Importance of Home Groups

I have belonged to the same home group for 25+ years, ever since I moved to the county that I live in. I think that one of the reasons that I have been sober as long as I have is that I have a home group.

My home group is a place where people know me. By “know me”, I mean that they know my first and my last name, my address, what I do for a living. Many of my home group members know my family. We have attended weddings and funerals and other ceremonies together.

It is so important for me to have a place to go to where I feel comfortable being myself. Recovery can be challenging sometimes, and I need a place to go to where I feel comfortable sharing my truth. My home group is such a place.

My home group is also a place where newcomers thrive. We ask at every meeting for people who are willing to be sponsors, and we regularly have 30-40 people who volunteer to do so.

I have a very strong home group. We do service commitments (prisons, hospitals, rehabs), and we contribute to AA as a whole (GSO, Intergroup, our local Area and District). Many home group members enjoy fellowship together (coffee, meals, sporting events and concerts). And we have a lot of recovery in our group. One time we did a count of sobriety, and counted over 1000 years of sobriety in the room. On most days, we have 2-3 people with 40+ years, twenty or so with 30+ years, and lots and lots of people with 10 or 20 years sober. On most days, we have 100 or more people attending our meetings.

I need the help of sober people to stay sober. At the end of my active alcoholism, I tried the “I can do it myself” method, and I failed several times. I failed so badly that I now know that the only way I can stay sober is with the help of sober alcoholics.

I find those sober alcoholics at my home group. I sometimes share at my group that “I can’t share this stuff in the deli line at the supermarket”. If I did share my stuff in the deli line, I think people would probably leave that line!

When I come to my home group, I am with kindred spirits. They are people just like me-trying to stay sober, and help someone else to achieve sobriety, one day at a time.

With Love,
The Recovering Urchin

Staying Sober in Dark Times

Have you ever found it more difficult to go to an AA meeting? Have you ever found it more difficult to go to the gym, or stick to a diet, or do anything else that you know is good for you?

So have I. In fact, I am going through one of those times right now.

I have an internal messaging machine that says “I don’t wanna”. It goes off any time I have to go to the dentist, or take my dog out for a walk when it is raining, or put on a suit and a tie.

Usually I don’t have that experience when it comes to going to AA meetings. I normally run to meetings. But right now, my energy is lower, I am kind of cranky, and I think “I don’t wanna go to a meeting”.

I should mention that I have this experience once in a while. Maybe it is the change of seasons, it is getting dark a little bit earlier in the evening, and there is less sunshine.

Whatever the reason, I feel an inner heaviness right now. Work seems more difficult, exercise seems more difficult, going to meetings seems more difficult.

It feels like gravity is 1.3x stronger right now than it normally is.

So what am I going to do about it?

I mentioned in the last section that I have this experience sometimes. Periodically I have an internal heaviness. What I do about it is that I ignore the messaging. I ignore the things that I tell myself, especially the negative stuff.

I put one foot in front of the other. Literally.

I map out my day, with a list of tasks that I am going to accomplish. Then I do those tasks.

I remember what I have heard so many times in meetings: “This too shall pass”. I know from experience that my inner darkness is a temporary things. It is just visiting, and it will get bored and go away.

Until then, I am going to a meeting tomorrow morning. I am going to exercise right after the meeting. Then I am going to take my dog to the park.

I will do the same thing the next day, too.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

Whether I want to or not.

Because I will be a lot happier if I do.

With Love,
The Recovering Urchin

The Challenge of Being an Introvert in Alcoholics Anonymous

Have you ever taken one of the “personality type” profiles at work? There is a popular one called the Myers-Briggs Indicator. You answer approximately 60 questions, and you receive feedback about four different indicators. One of them is whether or not you are an introvert or an extrovert.

I have taken this test four different times (it was popular for a while in my industry). Every time I took it, I received the same feedback: I am really organized about my time (that’s good), and I am almost painfully introverted (not so good).

In my alcoholism, I never really liked to go to bars or clubs. There were drunk people there, and drunk people annoyed me. I didn’t like hanging out with other people who were drinking. I preferred drinking by myself.

The good news is that I wasn’t doing a lot of drinking and driving, because I was doing my drinking alone by myself. The bad news was that I was home alone, doing my drinking by myself. And almost no one knew.

I was lucky enough (blessed?) to get sober in 1990. One of the things that I was told was that I should go to an AA meeting every day, for at least 90 days. (My sponsor said “120 meetings wouldn’t hurt!”). So I went to a lot of meetings. I still do.

The challenge for me has been that I am still the same introvert that I have always been. And my meetings are full of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed people who are on fire with the idea of interacting with other people.

In AA, we talk about Unity (through the Traditions), Recovery (through the Steps), and Fellowship. I struggle with the Fellowship part. I struggle when people invite me out for coffee. “Struggle” means I don’t want to. I do not want to go out to a diner with people I don’t know that well, and try to make small talk.

If you are an extrovert, you might be thinking “that sounds like a really good time!” For me, that sounds like torture. I get very anxious when I have to talk to several people at the same time. I am much more comfortable in intimate 1-1 conversations.

I do understand the importance of making connections with other people. I have been sober for 28 year, I’ve been married for 25 years, I have worked in my chosen field for 30+ years.

I understand how important my relationship with other people is. I know that I cannot do this alone. I need help (see my essay “I Need Help” for more about this….).

I do participate in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. But instead of having 100 close friends (I don’t even know if that is possible), I have a handful of people that I consider very close friends. They are friends for life. They know everything about me, and I know everything about them.

If you are an introvert, and you are new to AA (or any other twelve step fellowship), please know that you can recover every bit as much as the extroverted people.

Find one or two people that you really trust, and get close to them. Sit next to them at meetings. Call them, and try to get to know them. Just as importantly, let them get to know you.

If you are like me, you also need help getting sober and staying sober. You may not wind up with hundreds of friends in recovery, but you might wind up with a few very close friends for life, as well as a wonderful life in sobriety.

With Love,
The Recovering Urchin

Meetings When I Travel

On page 162 of the book “Alcoholics Anonymous”, Bill W. wrote “someday we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination”. These were amazing words for him to write, because at the time he wrote them, there were fewer than 100 recovering alcoholics in Ohio and New York.

Eighty years later, alcoholics journey all the time. I am one of them. I was lucky enough to go on a vacation in the first year of my sobriety. My sponsor suggested that I should attend a meeting (or 7) while on vacation. He explained to me that my alcoholism didn’t take vacations, even if I did.

I promised him that I would go to meetings, and I am so glad that I did. I remember those meetings even though 28 years have passed.

I am now in a position where I travel overseas for work. So I make it a point to go to meetings when I travel for work. As of today, I am lucky enough to have attended AA meetings in 14 countries.

I hope that you do not mind if I share some of my experience in locating and attending meetings when I travel. I hope that my experience is helpful for you.

It helps me to do a little bit of research before I travel. Since I have an internet connection at home (and I don’t necessarily have one in every destination), it helps to find a meeting schedule in advance, and print it out.

It helps me to commit to someone else (my sponsor, my wife) that I will go to a meeting when I am travelling. The truth is that travel is hard. Sometimes I don’t have a lot of energy after flying for 14 hours. But since I have made a commitment to someone else, I feel obligated to go to a meeting.

It helps to have cell phone (mobile) service when I travel. If you travel internationally, make sure your cell phone works in your destination. This is helpful for navigating from your hotel (or apartment) to a meeting.

It is really helpful to do a bit of mapping, in advance, if you are travelling to a large foreign city. Some places are complicated. Going to meetings in Tokyo, for example, is very complicated (at least to me). The layout of the city was confusing for me the first time I travelled there.

One of the great benefits of going to meetings in other places is that I have met wonderful people, and attended some of the best meetings I’ve ever been to. Here are a couple of travel stories from some of those meetings:

1) My wife and I attended a meeting in Bermuda. At the meeting, three gentlemen started talking to us, and were surprised that we were attending a meeting where this meeting was located. They graciously noted that the neighborhood was not very safe for visitors, and they escorted us to the bus after the meeting. Theirs was a kindness I have not forgotten many years later.

2) I recently attended a sunrise beach meeting in Florida. I did very little advance preparation (I ignored my own advice) and I came to the meetings with only a towel. I noted that every other person at the meeting had a beach chair, but I didn’t think much of it. A few minutes into the meeting, I felt some pain in my feet and my ankles, and I realized that I was being eaten alive by a swarm of fire ants. I spent the rest of the meeting watching these ants carry parts of my body away for breakfast. Next time I’ll bring a chair.

3) This year I visited Africa for the first time. I arranged to attend a meeting in Johannesburg. I connected with a wonderful man at Intergroup, and he picked me up at my hotel and took me to the meeting. The people there were so passionate about their sobriety. One thing they did that I’ve never seen before- they lit a Serenity Prayer candle at the start of the meeting. I stared at that candle for an hour, during one of the best meetings I’ve ever attended.

4) Lastly, I attended a meeting many years ago in Hawaii. At the end of the meeting, it was the chairperson’s prerogative on how to close the meeting. This chairperson announced that we were going to hold hands, and sing the first two verses of “Mustang Sally”. I kid you not, we sang the first two verses of Mustang Sally.

I do hope that you have the opportunity to attend some meetings when you travel. And as it says on page 164 of the Big Book, “may God bless you and keep you until then”.

With Love,
The Recovering Urchin

Recovery Resources

When I work with newcomers, I try to work the Twelve Steps with them. I encourage them to attend as many meetings as possible (a “90 in 90”), especially as they begin their journey. I encourage them to have a sponsor, and a prayer life, if possible.

What follows is a list of additional ideas for people in recovery, especially for those times when a meeting or a sponsor is not available.

Speaker Recordings: I almost called these “speaker tapes”, because when I first came into recovery, the speakers were recorded on tape. That was a while ago. There are thousands of recordings of speakers available in almost every twelve step fellowship. If you do an internet search on “twelve step speakers”, several sites display. Many of these speakers are available as free downloads. (This is useful for those of you who travel by airplane a lot).

Telephone meetings: do an internet search on “twelve step telephone meetings”. Most Twelve Step fellowships have telephone or internet meetings. I don’t find them as useful as face-to-face meetings, but there are times I cannot attend a face-to-face meeting, and a substitute is helpful for me.

Using the Telephone – it is easy to collect telephone numbers. For me, it is difficult to use those numbers. I try to practice my dialing skills 2-3 times a week at a minimum.

Literature – I cannot emphasize enough how important the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) and the “12/12” (The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions) have been to me. There are now electronic, searchable versions of these books available for download, or available on the internet for browsing. E-readers are useful for finding a favorite passage, when I can’t remember where the passage is in the literature. They are also helpful for reading on an airplane, because there is no book cover to hide. There are also audiobooks available for some of the most popular recovery texts.

Joe and Charlie – I will write about them in more detail sometime later, but I strongly encourage people in recovery to listen to the full Joe and Charlie series. For the uninitiated, Joe McQ and Charlie P were two fellows who started a 12 hour (approximately) study of the Big Book, and the Twelve Steps. They conducted hundreds of weekend-long workshops. One of my sponsors told me “Joe and Charlie changed my recovery”. I encourage you to listen to them.

E-mail and Text lists: some of my friends have started e-mail and text distribution lists as a way to stay in touch with each other. Some send daily text “Thought for Today” messages. These are nice recovery reminders.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

Roll Call

When I was in elementary school, my teachers assigned us seats in every class, and they took “roll call”. Roll call meant that the teacher read out the names of the students, and we had to respond if we were present. (By the end of the first week, the teacher could take attendance without roll call, once the teacher knew our names).

The point of Roll Call is to know who is present, and who is absent. The point is also to make it obvious that someone is taking attendance, and to show that there are consequences for not attending class.

I sit in the same seat at every meeting. I receive some good-natured teasing about this, but I have a reason why I do it. I do it because I want my home group to know if I am present or absent. (Unless I am travelling, I am present. I have been present at my home group for almost every meeting for the past 25 years).

I apologize if this offends you-but twelve step groups and meetings are easy to disappear from. It is too easy to sit in the back, be invisible, and stop attending. That is not what I want from my recovery. I want to be right in the middle of the pack, present and accounted for, at every meeting that I attend.

I want to act like my life depends on my recovery, because it does.

When I was young, I learned to swim at a crowded public swimming pool. The lifeguards used “the buddy system” for our safety in the pool. Everyone in the pool had to have a “buddy”- someone who we stayed with at all times in the pool. When the lifeguard blew the whistle, we were supposed to check on our buddy, and make a lot of noise if we couldn’t find them. Between the times of whistle checks, if our buddy was in trouble, we were supposed to make a lot of noise.

We took some responsibility for the welfare of our buddies. We did that in the swimming pool. We do that in my family. I try to do that in my recovery, too. If someone is floundering, I try to help. If I am floundering, I want someone to call the lifeguard (my sponsor, my wife, anyone).

I sometimes wish that we took Roll Call at meetings.

With Love,
The Recovering Urchin