My name is Michael. My last drink came on November 22, 1988. I am honored to be asked to contribute some thoughts about my experiences as a sober individual to this website.
I think I will pick a few themes and write down my impressions for a while. With a little luck, they may seem cogent and linear. If not, you will get a front row seat into what it is like to live inside my head 24 hours a day. Either way, a helmet is strongly suggested. (You are on your own for snacks.)
Are You Done Yet?
Whether or not you drink is none of my business. I know that seems to fly in the face of recovery “common sense,” but that is the truth. That is how I was raised in recovery.
My sponsors were unafraid of my drinking or my dying. That is not to say they did not care. They cared deeply. They spent countless hours with me explaining and re-explaining. But they also understood their role in my recovery. They could only point the way. They knew that my recovery was beyond their power and that I had to learn how to be responsible for it.
I know that word can be scary. I hated it. “Responsible” (Response – Able) simply means the ability to respond appropriately to a situation. You are not done drinking until you are done drinking. For some it happens all at once, for others it takes multiple tries. Most die. That is not a typo. MOST DIE. Most people get dead from alcoholism.
Why not me? I don’t really know. I can tell you that I put my entire being into my recovery to the best of my ability. At the end of the 12 Step process, I had no more secrets and I had discussed myself entirely with another human being.
About one month after that the pain inside me, the one that was causing me to pray to die everyday and had been a constant travel companion for several years had gone away. I looked at my self in the mirror and what I saw in that moment was OK. I think I even said it to myself out loud.
I was dumbfounded. Something had changed in me and I didn’t do it. If I could have done it, I would have done so long ago, just for the sheer embarrassment that my life was. That sucking void of pain was gone.
They say 10 – 12% of the population has trouble with drugs or alcohol. So conservatively, out of every 1000 people, 100 are addicted. Of those 100, 10-15 make to treatment. Of those 10-15, 5 have long term sobriety. Five people out of every 1000 recover. That is less the 1%, one-half of one percent to be precise.
If you are sober, you are a walking, talking miracle because most don’t make it. If I were you, I would stay in the life boat…but your mileage may vary.
It’s none of my business.
Grace
If you asked me today if I believed in God, my knee-jerk answer would be “no.” After another moment, my curiosity would kick in and the “clarifying questions” would start. My sponsors were — and are — cut from the same cloth: details matter, words means things, the Steps are about specifics and the more specific the information provided, the clearer an answer can be provided.
So my next question may be “What God are you talking about?” If you mean “God as a guy?” No. That is not to say I am an Atheist or Agnostic. So what do I believe in? Grace.
What is that you say?
Grace is the idea that the healing is already done and all we are waiting for is your awareness. Grace is the idea that there is a “Force” of some sort that is present and that can account for circumstances occurring that no reasonable explanation of science or medicine can cover.
Grace is the atmosphere that Recovery breathes when the miraculous happens. Grace means the field is tilted towards healing — which seems strange when you think of the vast numbers of alcoholics who get dead.
What if I told you that most don’t recover because deep down they don’t feel worthy of their own recovery? That belief takes more people out than anything else. Unlovable, unforgivable, unworthy, broken, not worth the effort…and many more negative beliefs. People wear these things like a lead coat that shields them from harm. I know. I’m a 40 Long.
Grace has the ability to find you in places you least expect it. That is its nature – its natural state. Grace is not something you receive, it is something you already are. Grace is not something you earn. Grace is not an unmerited gift or favor. It is something you already are.
Truth never hurts. Resistance to the truth can be painful – even deadly. You can deny it, you can try to hide from it, run away from it….but its presence is constant.
Wende F. would say, “You’re God’s Grace walking around on two legs…get used it.” I don’t know about the God part, but at least I have a word to loosely hang on the Higher Power
Grace and Cause and Effect
I recently read Zen Spot #36 – Mindfulness, Mediation, Autopilot and the Internal Gyroscope on this website. If you have not, I highly recommend it. Why? Because it is description of the practical application Twelve Steps used in everyday life covered, in a five minute read.
What makes the essay all the more wonderful is that it is applied at a time when its use is most difficult — when the person was ashamed and afraid. I know the writer has had a personal transformation through the Steps.
How? One sentence: “I chose to sit.” In the face of an urge to run or avoid, he chose to sit and face the fear. It was not just heroic—for an alcoholic, it is miraculous! It brought tears to my eyes because I have had similar experiences happen in my life. This is how Grace has worked in my life. I did not know it at the time. I was too busy living in that moment of tension and indecision.
We think that we “work” the Twelve Steps, but that is not accurate. We surrender to the Twelve Steps and those principles slowly heal and transform us in ways we can see and ways we cannot. What we “think” is happening, and what is actually happening can be two very different things.
My sponsor would smile and say, “See, Mike! Just like a told you. God’s workin’ even when we don’t know He is. That’s what Grace is! The healing is already done—always has been done. All we are waiting for is your awareness.” The sitting was not the cause of the awareness, it was the effect.
Your Answers Are Seeking You
Try not to limit where your sources of truth come from. Sometimes they will appear when you least expect it and have, seemingly, stopped looking.
I will give you an example. I personally think that the 12 and 12 of AA is some of Bill Wilson’s most inspired writing. In this context, during my first year I went to an AA meeting on the last day of the month, which meant it was a Tradition Meeting. There was a soft groan in the room when the group realized Tradition four was to be discussed. My thoughts were far more profane.
On the first page, Bill reeled me in, though: “Children of Chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser. These very deviations created a vast process of trial and error, which, under the Grace of God has brought us the very place we stand today…We saw that the group, like the individual must eventually conform to whatever principles would guarantee survival. We had discovered that there was perfect safety of trail and error.” (12 and 12 pg. 146)
Seems contradictory to what I was writing about people getting dead, right?
That’s what I said. Isn’t drinking trial and error? Yes, but there is a major distinction.
As it says in the Big Book, AA is assuming the reader wants to stop – i.e., stay sober, stay in the lifeboat. The Big Book talks about the thought that we are like normal people (non-alcoholics) has to be smashed. (BB, pg.30) We had to concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. THIS IS THE FIRST STEP IN RECOVERY.
Either you are done or you are not. From the stand point of recovery, if you stay in the lifeboat – all else will eventually, usually through pain, frustration and futility, lead us to surrender to the relief Step Work can provide.
Bill’s larger point is that it is practice not perfection. Errors are built in. We are human. We must test our skills and limits. The Steps allow us to grow spiritually and allow others to see that growth. In the lifeboat is one life, back in the water with the sharks is another. They are not even remotely similar. Not even close.
Normie’s vs Alcoholics
“Normal” drinkers are a different class, order, genus, species and family from Alcoholics. The most important difference is this: For normal drinkers, the decision to ingest alcohol is an act — an act no more important than having fish or beef or which shirt to wear to work.
For alcoholics, drinking is a Consciousness – not an act. With that consciousness comes a unique set of beliefs, behaviors and rituals. The ingestion of alcohol is embedded in the very ether of that consciousness. We are creatures and servants to it. And if one is not actually drinking, there usually is some sort of fixation on the moment of its return into the system. There is no making one of the other. Not possible. Once you have the alcoholic consciousness, the only solution is total abstinence or death.
I am not the same man I was November 22, 1988. That man no longer exists. That man will always suffer. That man will always be afraid. That is the mystery of it for me. One day I was drinking, the next day I was not. I don’t know why. Why that day? There was no shining light or voice of God, only the thought that I was going to have to go through life without medication. The trudge had begun.
Respect Others and their Path
I can remember a night when I had attended a meeting in my sponsor’s truck. I do not remember the details of the meeting other than the beautiful newcomer who sat directly in my sight line. My sponsor was sitting about ten people to my left. After the meeting, when we got to the truck, I jumped in the back. He stepped into the driver’s seat, smoking his Lucky Strike No Filter, then he stepped back out, looked at me and said, “Not until she has completed all 12 Steps, Mike.” With that the truck started and he drove away.
When we reached a coffee shop, I pressed him further on this “rule.” (This was important – I was in lust!) After a few minutes of this, it was obvious that Steve had grown tired and I was not getting his point. Finally, much too loudly for my comfort, Steve said to me, “Mike, am I understanding you correctly? Are you trying to explain to me why your PENIS is more important than her sobriety?” Sponsorial Five-Finger-Death Punch applied to my ego, I understood.
People get dead from this disease.
Meditation
I am a busy guy, mentally and physically. It is very difficult to sit and quiet my “mind.” It is still difficult now. It was damn near impossible in early sobriety. I had so much energy running through me that to try and “sit” would cause great anxiety. I would fail miserably and feel like I was doing it wrong.
Fortunately, my sponsor asked me some very important questions: When does your brain shut off? What brings you joy? What are you doing when “time flies?” I wasn’t sure what that had to do with my problem, but I told him – running, hitting golf balls, hockey, putting my earphones and playing the guitar, going for a long drive in the car, even cleaning the bathroom. “That’s meditation. Meditation is not a place to go to, it is a state where you can exist in this moment without your self-critic doing play-by-play. Find out what shuts your brain off and go there.”
Stay In the Lifeboat
If you do not ingest alcohol, you cannot get drunk. Simple. Maybe too simple.
Drunks like to complicate things to the point of ridiculousness. Do not drink under any and all conditions. That’s what I mean by “Stay In the Lifeboat.” Sobriety brings with it an infinite number of ways to get help. Once we drink, those options begin to vanish. Not because they are unavailable, but because the shame of “failing” makes people run. Some don’t make it back.
My sponsor used to call me a rock head. I was stubborn, obstinate and refused to concede points I did not agree with. Although I frustrated him, my sponsor respected that part of me. He once told me, “Mike, once God turns that same rock-headedness of yours toward sobriety, you could stay sober a really long time.” He was right. No drinks or drugs under any and all conditions. We face what we face in the lifeboat. We fear what we fear in the lifeboat.
It will be 30 years in November. If I can do it, anyone can do it. I’m not that smart and not that brave and don’t have that much heart. But, unlike the cowardly lion who turns and dives out the window, I have learned to stand and wait for the smoke and scary voice to pass. I cannot take credit for that. I was taught how to do that. I stood shaking, staring at the Wizard while my sponsor was talking about fear and the compulsion that would “make you set yourself on fire”. Not that day. The Wizard could never produce on his threats. He was relying on me to carry that out on myself. It was never the same again after that day. Never had the same intensity because it had a name and a face now. It was me. This gives you a little context now of why I found Zen Spot #36 so interesting. He didn’t stand and face it, he sat. Strong spiritual work, anchored in the Steps and a faith in the process. The result was the same. The smoke vanished and there we were – In the lifeboat.
Gratitude
In closing, I would like to thank my brothers and sisters in recovery for being the walking, talking miracles they are. People who shared their raw selves with me and, in doing so, gave me hope. Your not supposed to be here. The fact that you still are must mean that you are here for a reason. You may want to find out exactly what that is. Until then, I will be here in the lifeboat listening to this new song a heard about 57 times in a row. Suck the nectar out of life and share your new found loves with others. They will share theirs with you. Oh, and one more thing…Everything I just wrote down could be wrong.
Blessings!
This has been a guest post by Michael M.
With Love,
The Recovering Urchin
