January 1970

– . – . .- — – TheSearch for Spiritual Experience

Can God Believe in Us?

and stayed with me. Now I know experience or awakening as a result

By practicing M ANY years ago, a terribly discouraged and desperate young woman went to an eminent clergythat, ‘way back before I ever drank, I was subconsciously searching for faith in God. At a recent discussion of the *.~Aereleven Steps, providing we conduct our lives in such a manner that God can have faith in us. ‘

man with her problems, simply be- meeting, the topic suggested was The rewards. or bonuses I have rethe principles o f cause she had promised to do so; l “spiritual experience or awakening,” ceived as a ‘ result. o f trying to live she had no hope or expectation that and in the course of the meeting I by these principles would comthe program he could help her. She concluded suddenly understood. By trying to pletely fill an issue of the Grapevine. a day at a time her long, sad recital of her situation practice the principles of the pro- Were I to sum them all up in one with the words “I’m not sure just I gram as best i can, I have found a word, they would be best described she arrived now that I even believe in God.” conscious contact with God and an as “comfort.” I have a really com- His reply was: “At this point, it’s understanding of Him. fortable feeling most of the time. ‘at a point of not very important whether you be- I, personally, could find this only For this, I thank God for’bringing conscious lieve in God. The important ques- through AA, for reasons known me to AA and I thank AA for tion is whether God believes in and only to the Master Planner. The bringing me to God. contact has faith in you. If you will conduct Twelfth Step guarantees a spiritual Kathryn H., Hollywood, Calif. your life in a .manner whereby God can have faith in you, then the time will inevitably arrive when you will return the compliment and have faith in Him.” Down through the years, this advice has recurred to my consciousness many times. Only lately have I realized why it so impressed me

February 1970 –

that had to be taken into account. problems, fears, and happiness to Later, very much later, I was to be shared. And what could be more discover that at official functions, of exciting than making friends all over which there were many, nobody the world? There is also the new bothered themselves about what I medium of communication through drank, as long as I had a glass of taping. Just watch a “tapeworm” something in my hand. It was a bit grab his mail, sort through it till disconcerting to find that another of he finds a tape, and rush home to my old excuses for drinking was his tape recorder to listen to a voice really unfounded! which has come to mean much to Alone? Not This Loner! It has often been remarked by him, though it belongs to someone members of AA groups that they he has nevq met and is not likely couldn’t possibly stay sober under to meet. Then you will see what Activities o f worldwide fellowship such circumstances. This is sheer I mean. inspire a happy sobriety nonsense! You can do anything you Apart from these correspondents really and truly want to do. The ex- by letter and tape, the only person pression “I could not bear it” is with whom I could discuss AA matanother fallacy. Of course you can ters was my husband, and at times

B Y DEFINITION, a Loner is a person who practices the AA program without the benefit of live the world who were concerned about my sobriety and were willing to help me, through correspondence. bear it if you really want to re- he must have been bored to tears main sober, but any excuse is good listening to me, though he was paenough if you are looking for an tience personified and never showed discussions and active membership It soon became obvious that to excuse to drink again. his boredom. in an AA group. The designation avoid the danger of that first drink Once I had recovered physically, When someone says, “I admire does not mean that he is alone. I had to keep myself fully occupied, I found that being a Loner was you for the courage you have shown Since most of my four and a half and I had to look around for new a far-from-lonely life. Soon my cir- in remaining sober on your own,” years in AA have been spent away hobbies to fill the time I now had cle of friends-through-correspond- I feel a twinge of guilt, because I from a group, I am listed as a on my hands, since it was no longer ence grew larger and larger, and have never really been on my own. Loner. When I first returned to the expended on finding new hiding time never hung heavy, because I may not be in face-to-face.contact Bundu after only two weeks in AA, places for my supplies and on dig- there was always the anticipation of with other AA members, but my I thought it would be impossible to ging up the wherewithal to buy what the mail would bring, and then real friends in AA are too many to manage on my own. Little did I them! there were the letters to answer. enumerate, and I find there aren’t realize then that this wouldn’t be It was also apparent that social The AA who sits at home and enough hours in the day to do all I the case. The assumption that being life on a small station would prove makes himself miserable because he should do. unable to attend meetings meant difficult at times, since the others has no contacts has only himself to So to GSO, to Loner’s Meeting, going it alone was entirely wrong. there all seemed to enjoy their blame, and is heading for trouble. the Grapevine, World Hello, and all At first, being registered at the AA drinking, and most of the station To be happily sober, we must be the other publications, and to other General Service Office as a Loner activities took place in and around active- and this does not neces- Loners and Loner sponsors who didn’t mean a thing to me. But when the club. The fact that the rest of sarily mean group activity. The have helped me to stay sober, I am the first batch of letters arrived from the world was not going to come to Loner is part of a much larger deeply indebted. Keep up the good overseas, it was brought home to a standstill because I happened to group of people in far distant places, work, and thank you all! me that there were other people in be an alcoholic was another factor all members of AA with the same W . H., Salisbury, Rhodesia

March 1970 ‘i

at the rear of the hall quavered, “Aren’t you ever going to get married?” That brought down the house. She On another occasion, I addressed a larger student body, filled with chil- Message meets respect dren from impoverished areas where and support there was a considerable pill and drug problem. As I left the stage of Carrier for A A the auditorium, the students rose en i masse, cheering and applauding until wherever I was out of sight – and far from dry Extraordinary of eye. Those cheers were for AA, she speaks not for me, and I felt gratitude and love for our Fellowship. Since those early experiences, I, too, have been graduated, in a sense. OR ALMOST as many years as I’ve high school. They were attentive as I mind and soul and on God – and Last year found me confronted on been sober (eight), it has been described my doomed attempts to still expect to mature. The extreme various occasions by student nurses. my privilege to address nonalcoholic overcome my tensions in college and awareness of today’s youth is known medical students, psychiatrists. adult . groups of every variety on the subject my all-out, futile efforts to abstain to all of us. What surprised me was p s ~ c h o b ystudents, ‘and the ineviof AA. Several years ago, I became a from starting the chain reaction of the depth and range of it. table, heartening array of overweight member of the Public Information abnormal drinking all over again. There was always time for a brief ladies with their similar, humiliating Committee of New Y ork Intergroup. They seemed to understand that description of the Fellowship and its compulsion. Nothing in life could These engagements have since in- the alcoholic is physiologically sensi- history, the practice of living each have thrilled me more than being creased to a degree that, I can hope, tive to depressant drugs – that beer day, the types of meetings, and the asked to address a church conl!regareflects expanding awareness of our and whiskey, not pot and pills, were sponsor system, and a short ex- tion at their regular Sunday service. unique solution to the problem of the things to dare in the 1940’s – planation of each of the Twelve Steps Everywhere. the reception has alcoholism. that some of them present were al- as they apply to the mental, physical, ~ ~ m e thed me. AA is respected Originally, speaking in high- ready, or would prove to be, addic- and spiritual aspects of alcoholism. among the most diverse age groups. school and college classes, I was tion-prone. No one ever snickered when I spoke No one appears prepared to argue stunned at the response. I assumed Usually, I remembered,to observe of finding my own faith in God with success. I feel support, publicly that the relative inexperience and that when I crept into AA, after through the gradual change in atti- and privately, for what we are all lack of prejudice in so youthful an nearly twenty years of battling alco- tude engendered by these Steps. trying to do – in our own individual audience were responsible for their holism with ever-decreasing success, All this took about twenty min- ways and places, with God’s help. consistent warmth and enthusiasm. I I was released from my fatal ob- Utes, more or less, depending on the That’s how a gal who used to hang told them of my own feelings of session, but was still emotionally pre- allotted time. The most important over the bar at the smartest joint in alienation and discomfort as a teen- adolescent. They reacted affirmative- part of the engagement, to me, was town, looking for her next martini ager. my rebellious conduct, my ly when I remarked that one can’t the question-and-answer free-for-all (on a good day), gets her kicks these search for workable values, and my meet the crises in life by depending that followed. Once, when I spoke days. And I thought I couldn’t surdescent into acute alcoholism, trig- on a drug (no matter what the drug) before close to 600 high-school stu- vive without drinking! gered by that first drink, while still in instead of on one’s own heart and dents and the graduating class, a boy M.L.A . . Queens. N. Y.

March 1970

– –

I you would understand. Bang! The it. A bright, cheerful voice says, “Hi! / circuit is broken. Are you ready for us to come and Act I1 take you over to the home?” The scene blurs. Periodically, I For a second, I hesitate. It is a move to the kitchen towards the moment of decision. I answer, “Yeq bottle, or I slither down the long hall I – I’ll be ready.” 1 hang up. My The Night I to the bathroom. mind won’t function. I need a drink. I am back on the living-room But no, I mustn’t, for They will be the Play Closed floor, the telephone book beside me. here soon. Befogged, I make a vain A number is underlined. Three times attempt to think what to take with I dial the number. Three times 1 me for the thirty days’ stay. This A flop for years, she rewrote thq last act hear, “Sorry, wrong number!” I beloved red nightgown, of course, squint again at the page. I have and, with those chills and sweats I and ended on a note of triumph I I underlined the number below the one get, I must take my heating pad. I want. Now! AA – 382 – ? Moan- Let’s see. Oh, I must take my music I T H E SCENE is my living room; dampens my enthusiasm. The calling the play, a repeat performance list of friends has been dwindling of the drama I have starred in for fast; worse, my husband and I have I ing, I dial all the numbers. I am sick book, for then they will know I’m no of myself, of everything, of life itself! skid-row bum! After all, haven’t I A voice, soft and low, is speaking been a very successful professional I to me. Again I wail, “It’s all my singer and pianist? Quite a while . years. (Tonight, it will have a differ- recently mowd 1,500 miles away ent ending, and the show will never from them. We know no one here. husband’s fault, but I am so sick. I back, though. Still . .’. open again, God willing. It’s been a Long-distance calls are a difficult don’t want to drink any more, ever Shaking all over, I pull a dress. real flop.) nuisance, and the operator seems to I again. I know you can’t possibly over my head. I look at myself. I Act I be hard of hearing. She keeps asking I understand, but my case is differ- look terrible. I am sprawled on the rug. The rug me to repeat the city, the number, ent!” The other voice tells me of Rap-rap-rap! I peek through the and I have something in common: and the name. Just can’t understand getting good food and lots of rest and closed curtains. It’s those women, all We are both looped. 1 am attired in me. 1 am partially deflated when the of finding a new way of life. right. How crisp and clean they look! the same old red tricot nightgown. contact is made, and a friend tells me , “Is it an AA home?” I ask. Well, here we go, old gal. We’re on My waist-length hair tumbles down she is going to hang up and, further- “No,” she replies. “It was started our way. I sure hope this is the right over pale bruises on flabby arms, more, leave her phone off the hook. by AA women, but AA doesn’t run thing to do. Rubber-legged, I walk mysterious bruises which have been “Don’t call again!” another it. They merely have meetings there between the women towards a car, appearing more frequently of late. I pleads, saying, “Don’t you re- daily.” carrying my purse and my three feel triumphant! Again, I have man- member, you just called a few min- ! With feelings of fear and distrust, valuables, the red nightgown, the aged to create enough havoc to make utes ago and told me the same things 1 together with relieved resignation, I heating pad, and my music book (so the enemy retreat. My husband has you are telling me now?” Un- agree to go there. She tells me to they will know I am definitely a big fled from the house for the night. I hearingly, I continue the tragic story, drink no more tonight, but just try to somebody!). have it all to myself. My cup runneth over and over: if only I hadn’t mar- sleep. For once, I am able to fall into We arrive at a lovely, comfortable over. ried him, if only I hadn’t had that bed and sleep the whole night home. I am introduced to a beautiful, I am all alone with my pals: my terrible illness, if only, if only! Ah, through. sweet-faced woman. She is the glass, my cigarettes, and my tele- you would drink, too, if you had my Act 111 housemother. I see a dozen or so phone. It is time for our party! A problems. Why do you sound angry Rrrring! The telephone jars my women moving around. A meeting is dark, fleeting thought momentarily with me? If you were a true friend, head. Unsteadily, I stagger to answer apparently about to begin in the

. :7 – – — _ _- i

more honest eyes. I will come to see him change also, through Al-Anon, and see him relaxed and happier. I long, bright dining room. But I go to will feel the embraces of my esbed. I do feel awful, yet somehow I tranged adult children, now filled sense a big change, a change which with love and respect. New and more may alter the course of my life. meaningful friendships will begin to Something tells me that in this grow. I will be a genuine someone, house I will find many wonderful instead of a fake somebody! things. I will begin to find my God, Epilogue who has been a stranger to me. I will As for my starring role in the old gain physical strength, through rest play, I can now gratefully report that and good food. I will find the way to the play clodd the night I dialed the a worthwhile life, for the first time. I AA number. In a short while, 1 will will come to feel moments of seren- have passed through 1,000 conity. I will begin to learn how to live secutive days of a real-life drama, peacefully and happily with a loving which will always be a hit provided I husband, the same one I have blamed follow the AA script. It has a large and hated and resented, but now love cast, and mine is a bit part. I am again, seeing him through clearer, content. J . A . B.. Las Vegas, Nev.

I

April 1970

, . Agnostic’s : 8, .

.. 11,

Unable to accept the “orthodox,” this : 1:)

.. fellow AA gives a personal version of I , .

, r l the Steps as they work for her … . ,!I – I * ..;. (4 –

I HAVE never been able to accept orthodox religion, and my search for God, as I understand Him, has Since no one is unique, there must be others like me. I feel it may be of interest to them ‘to .know ,how an* to a God I did not know. Steps Six and Seven I had to bypass. By doing Step Four to the second, I take all Twelfth Step work that comes my way and have not been utterly unsuccessful as a sponbeen long and persistent. It took me agnostic can like our Twelve Steps.: best of my ability, I reasoned, I had sor. to many meetings and churches, Step One presented no difficulties. I discovered a lot of character defects Now, how does this imperfect prowhere I talked with many AAs and knew that I was an alcoholic and that and shortcomings. I keep on trying gram work? I can say only this: I am even more clergymen. Confirmed as my life was unmanageable. to do all I can to eradicate these. happier than I have ever been and an Anglican, I sought out ministers Step Two: I knew I was insane Step Eight is quite straight- have had many years of sobriety, of the Anglican, Catholic, Presby- when I was drinking, so if AA could forward. This I have done as fully as after an uncertain beginning. My terian, and Methodist Churches. In help me keep sober, I had a chance to possible. family is a very happy and stable all of the twelve years since I came to return to sanity. . . ~ i Steps Nine and Ten I was able to one, and 1 enjoy their full respect, AA, I have not found God, as I Step Three I could not do. You do. Both are very important to my love, and confidence. As far. as one understand Him, so I term myself an cannot turn your will and your life continued sobriety, and I work at can ever judgeibout oneself, I have agnostic. over to the care of something in them with all the honesty at my again taken my place in society and I have been accused of deliberate which you can’t believe. command. A have been elected and reelected to refusal to believe – “None so blind Step Four I did, and keep on Step Eleven, like Step Three, had several local committees. My health as those that will not see.” In fact, doing. As sobriety has cleared my to be bypassed. This was not done is good, and I enjoy my work. I have my status as an agnostic has brought thinking, I have been able to do this lightly. After much time spent in peace of mind and no desire to drink. , I me much criticism. I have been more fully as time goes by. I searching and in contiersation, I fi- I now have enough maturity to actermed ungrateful and stubborn, as Step Five: This Step I did fully and nally gave up. cept life’s ups and downs. If this well as blind. I do not consider my- completely with another AA mern-‘ ‘ Step Twelve: For the first part of constitutes sobriety in its fullest self any of these things. ber. I could not direct my confession this often-misunderstood Step, I try sense, I think I must have acquired to live by the Golden Rule. For the it. M . W., Morrinsville, New Zealand

April

Cinderella Has a Ball! could go to the ball, but I haven’t a’ thing to wear, and my hair, is a’ mess.” At a wave of the godmother’s’ B u t like so many of us, she wand, Cinderella looked down and . saw she was wearing the most.-exhated herself in t h e morning quisite gown she had ever seen. An-$ other wave of the wand, and her hair became a bouquet of ringlets, all:,. i

and showed Cinderella their lovely done up 5n the latest ‘style. Ah,.how; lovely she looked! The fairy’wavadj , 0 NCE UPON a time there was a beautiful girl named Cinderella, who.lived with a wicked s t e p Somehow it seemed to make life more bearable. After a while, with a little more practice, Cinderella would gowns and accessories, she reached for the bottle as she never had before. The next morning brought the big once more, and there was the biggest’ Rolls-Royce ever made. Out,stepped; a handsome, uniformed chauffeur,. mother and two stepsisters. Her fa- dream of a fine home, fancy clothes, day of the palace ball! Oh, what who obediently clicked his heels. ther had died at an early age, having palace balls, etc. excitement! “Wash my hair,” “Oh, thank you,” cried ~indere1la.i ‘made such unwise decisions as At this same time, there was a screamed one stepsister. “Polish my to her fairy godmother; “Thank, entering upon an unfortunate second certain young prince who was trying shoes,” cried the other. Poor Cin- you!” tc L&I

marriage and reaching for the bottle to find his wife-to-be. He had search- derella, she had the worst hangover “You are welcome, my dear, but: too often. He had heard of AA, even ed and searched, but none was to his she’d ever had. Oh, how her head try not to take a single drink and to> tried it once, but, alas, felt he wasn’t fancy. Finally, he decided to hold a ached! If only her stomach would be home when the .clock:,strike~,, that bad yet. Thus poor Cinderella ball and invite all the eligible ladies r ., ,w..

quit shaking. twelve.” , I ;f9l-i 34 t- ‘ faced a life of misery, cooking, wash- in the kingdom. So the stepsisters hit The day passed, and after every- Cinderella ecstatically agreed, and; ing, and ironing for her stepmother the stepmother up in a good frame of one had gone to the ball, Cinderella off she went to the ball. When the,, and stepsisters. mind, got some money, and pro- sat at home alone and dejected. She limousine arrived at the castle gates, Now the stepmother was an ceeded to buy new clothes. After all, thought, “If only I could go to the she started feeling panicky. I’ll never) around-the-clock drinker, and the reasoned the stepmother, if one of ball, too. If only I could.” Then, get through this without a drink! If I sisters were social drinkers, bent on my daughters should marry the from out of nowhere, a light shone, only had one belt to see me throughL’ snaring the richest husbands they prince, I’d have more booze money! and a beautiful fairy waved her But she remembered the fairy god;; could find. John Barleycorn entered With that thought, she happily wand, and Cinderella wondered mother and walked into the the life of our heroine at an early age. blacked out. whether the vision was real or just a ballroom, with every eye . fol10,wing First, it was just a nip now and then. When the stepsisters came home ,.,I . Cp

her. Immediately, the prince saw her me AA, please, operator.” When the and asked her to dance. She was so Intergroup office answered, she said, excited, she stepped all over his feet. “I want to quit drinking more than Again she thought, if I only had a anything else in the world!” drink, I could really glide. But again The voice at the other end said, she remembered her promise. “Stay there. 1’11 be right over.” Soon the prince asked her to walk Soon, there was a knock at the . in the palace garden. As soon as they door. When Cinderella answered, were alone, he crushed her in his there stood the handsome chauffeur arms and said, “Will you marry of the night before. Seems he was me?” moonlighting for fairy godmothers in “Oh yes,” said Cinderella, “yes, order to pay.. some old bar bills. yes!” , “You’re an alcoholic?” said Cin- “Come,” said the prince. “We derella in utter dismay. must tell the people.” “Yes, but I haven’t had a drink They went inside, and after the today. Will you go to a meeting with announcement was made, all the me tonight?” drinks were on the palace. Everyone Before long, they were going to toasted the happy young couple. Re- meetings every night of the week. membering her promise, Cinderella Cinderella stayed sober and even thought, “Hell, I’m marrying the made amends to her godmother (who prince. Just one won’t hurt me.” also happened to be the Delegate for Then she really started living-it up. that Area). After a few inonths, When the palace ran out of clean seeing such a change in Cinderella, glasses, she started drinking from her the stepmother joined AA, too. And slipper, as did everyone else. Just the stepsisters .went to Al-Anon then the clock struck twelve. Cin- meetings, and almost everyone lived derella yelled to the prince, “I’ve happily ever after. got to go!” With this, she ran to the I said “almost.” You see, the waiting chauffeur and Rolls-Royce prince kept throwing palace balls to and promptly passed out. find a wife and soon crossed that . The next morning, she awoke to invisible line. Life became one hanghear her stepsisters telling their over after another. Cinderella and mother about the beautiful princess her family did approach him, but he the prince was going to marry. felt his royal blood would see him Cinderella didn’t care. She hated through. Last we heard, he was in the herself. She had let her only god- hospital with cirrhosis of the liver. mother down. How could she? Her All the king’s horses and all the head ached. She had the shakes. Her king’s men couldn’t put him back faet hurt. She picked up the tele- together again. phone and said, “I’ve had it! Give E. P., Hamburg, N.Y.

May 1970

An Addictive Personality Five years o f sobriety went down the drain when they put her on tranquilizers

M Y N A M E IS Vivian, and I am of the Steps. That is the only answer an alcoholic. I have an addic- I know to my problem. It has given tive personality, and I am powerless me eighteen months of “complete” over all the mind-benders! sobriety. Five blessed years in AA started A poster in my kitchen shows a down the drain the day I went to funny little man called the “Demy doctor after an operation and formed Alcoholic.” In his mouth is heard him say he now had a tran- a reefer, and all around him are quilizer safe for the alcoholic. It bags of all kinds of “goodies” in pill took me another five years on tran- form. The caption reads: “1 sinquilizers alone to admit I was cerely believe that I will never addicted. The pretty little pills did again find it necessary to drink.” the same job as alcohol, complete Maybe it won’t be necessary; with blackouts, utter misery, and maybe the switch to solid drugs will the ultimate “bottom” of the state do the job; but maybe, as with me, mental hospital. the solids will start a pattern that The doctor’s statement may be can lead to insanity or death. true for some alcoholics, but for me I hope that there will be those it was not. When I read an AMA who can use my experience and not pamphlet that described one class have to go the destructive way of of addictive drugs as “barbiturates, the pill. I am no doctor and I cantranquilizers, and alcohol,” my eyes not prescribe anything for anybody, were suddenly opened to the fact but if you are addictive like me, the that my number one problem was Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonme. 1 was able to retake the First ymous are the only proven answer. Step and start on through the rest Vivian D., Sacramento, Calif.

June 1970

World We Live In

?5 As a sober alcoholic, can I come

to terms with the hostility, confusion, and misunderstanding all around me?

up, but this one seemed a bit of a nine percent of the news would have

T HE SCENE was the regular Monday-night meeting of my own AA group, somewhere in Manhatstunner. Almost without thinking, several of our members broke into laughter. Then there was a general been shock, gloom, and despondency. What is the world coming to? Where do we go from here? What tan. Suddenly, this written question guffaw. The sagest member of our is the use of staying sober in such a was read aloud: “Have you read the group (in my opinion) let us have world? And then, he said, he might newspapers today? If so, how do our fill of mirth, then interrupted have asked himself the vital question you feel? If you haven’t read the with a raised hand. “You know,” he that was perhaps consuming tonewspapers today, how do you said, “this isn’t as silly as it sounds,” night’s questioner: What is the point think you would feel if you had and he proceeded to tell us why, in of trying to live the AA way of life read them?” his opinion, it was exactly the op- and practice the Twelve Steps, a way Many times had our group chair- posite – an extremely good ques- of goodness, in the midst of such man (as well as all his predeces- tion for an AA closed discussion evil? sors) said at the opening of the meeting. From there, we proceeded to meetings, “There are no stupid ques- If, he said, he had read the papers branch out into a good half-hour tions in AA. So don’t be afraid to that day, as the questioner assumed, discussion. It may or may not discuss anything at all.” We were his immediate response to ninety- have helped the original questioner, used to odd subjects being brought

anonymous as he remains to this drop on me during the night. (Later 4 to my children in terms of life. I find great joy in the sheer fact of day, but it most certainly helped me. in my alcoholic career, mostly I was must show interest, not detachment, existence. I, too, have been concerned with too drunk to care whether it did or toward the world in which they are I must do what the AA program this area of thought for as long as not.) When I could sleep, the huge going to live. There is very little I in essence tells me: I must live my I have been sober. How can I be mushroom shape destroying the uni- can do to change things, but I must life my way, even if it is an exexpected to practice a good and verse haunted my dreams. Sick? Of at least be aware of the world in tremely selfish way, one day at a beneficial way of life when I am course, I was sick, because some which we all live now. time. I read the papers only when I surrounded by a world of such mis- things are obviously beyond my If, as many people do, an AA feel like it. I concern myself with understanding and confusion that at power to change, now as they were member feels that his or her talents world events only when I feel like it. . times it becomes intolerable? So in- then. and energies can be put to use out- If these things depress me, I must tolerable that, I must confess, I As a sober alcoholic, what can side the Fellowship, in areas where tune them out and do as Voltaire’s sometimes withdraw and refuse (out I do to come to terms with the world these talents and energies might help hero Candide was advised to do in of a compelling need no5 to know we live in? Are we to be involved change the world in some way- order to survive: cultivate my own what is going on) to read the daily with society (and therefore with such as politics, education, the garden. newspapers. life), or are we going to choose Peace Corps, or what you will- After my husband turns on the To us sober alcoholics, living in to be personal isolationists? One there is absolutely nothing to pre- news at 7:30 in the morning to get a society which seems to be grow- woman in our group says that to I vent that effort. Stop griping and me out of bed, after that blast of ing daily more and more destructive preserve her sobriety she must be do something. Every little bit helps. bad news hits me. as I lie with the both to individuals and to whole an ostrich. She must not read the Find a cause you believe in and fight covers pulled up, trying not to hear. groups of humanity, the beautiful for it. After all, our Serenity Prayer the inevitable gloom, I use a gimdoctrines of AA seem to exist on (which, incidentally, I call my Cour- mick. ( I didn’t realize why I used it a higher plane than most of us can age Prayer) includes “change the until I attended that meeting where cope with in a cynical world. Wars, things we can.” We may try cou- the not-so-silly question was raised.) murders, foulness, rebellious youth, rageously to effect these changes so The gimmick is this: I totter out into drugs -even without alcohol, our long as we stay sober while doing the kitchen and, while I’m preparing lives seem threatened on all sides. it. Don’t get so wound up you get breakfast for my demanding family, If we become immersed in the drunk. I call the weather report on my wall world’s affairs, as our sobriety is The answer seems to be in mod- phone. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? supposed to enable us to do, will its eration. Get involved, get interested, After hearing fifteen minutes of harassments and threats of imminent and “act your way into good think- plane crashes, fresh battles in Viet doom drive us back to drink? Why, newspapers or get too riled up in her ing.” In spite of the newspapers and Nam, and statistics on starving chilthese are the very same things I thinking about politics or other is- TV news reports (and in spite of dren, my gentle brush with the used to rave and rant about when sues of the day. But as a parent of the people, unfortunately including weather lady at least clues me in I was drinking: the injustices, the three children (one teenager and the some AA members, to whom life is on what to wear that day, how to innocents killed by a single bomb, others rapidly approaching that hor- just a drag and hardly worth living), dress the children, and what to exthe thoughtlessness of man’s inhu- rendous age), I, for one, cannot be I feel in my sober state that life is a pect when I look out the window. manity to man, the pain of it all, an ostrich. Because I am an alco- gift and every day a miracle. While It brings me back home, to the garof living, of sickness, of death! In holic, I must be aware of society’s the world may spin giddily on its den that I must cultivate. The rest the early years of my drinking, I dangers: drugs in the schools, col- axis and it may seem that, as of my day, with the tools of AA to even spent sleepless nights worrying lege riots, etc. I must impart some Chicken Little says, “The sky is guide me, is up to me. that the atomic bomb was going to of my AA knowledge and opinions I falling,” I continue to look for and Bobbie G., Queens, N.Y. ,

June 1970

Name group – – would take me to a meeting est was the realization that the avoided the worst one: I didn’t pick or put the coffee pot on and sit in numbness had left and I was able to up a drink. So, over the years, I’ve Is my apartment talking for as long as feel and to accept love. Never in the drinking years had I been able been able to correct these mistakes it took the desire to drink to leave and use my knowledge to avoid me. Today, I am one of those who to do either. Now I felt love for AA, similar ones. I have found my place Charlotte can say from firsthand experience sponsors, God, and family. and station in life and have adthat even if you badly want to drink, Happiness was another glorious vanced in my work, because happiyou do not have to if you .will ask feeling -the happiness of being ness enables me to give good work for help. alive, of seeing another drunk get for good pay. Everything inside me was a tur- sober, of sharing a beautiful day and Most of all, eight years of AA its experiences -the happiness of and sobriety have taught me that I W HEN I first came to AA, it was moil that first year. Learning new a drag-these people were habits and responsibilities was hard. sober! I went back out and beat my- But my sponsors began simply: being able and willing to give of myself, to be of use for the first time care -I really care -about myself and about everyone and everything self some more. Finally, the day came “Don’t drink today. Ask for and – in my life, and to build a good thing, in my life, and that in giving I maniwhen I couldn’t stand myself any give thanks for the help you need. instead of destroying, as I had al- fest and fulfill my need to express longer. God wouldn’t let me die, as Get to meetings. And keep in close ways done in the past. I was a com- this caring by being able to give of I’d asked, and I had to try once more. touch with us and/or the group.” plete, whole person! (Thank you, my most precious possession -my 1 did not know one thing about so- Slowly, things began to sort them- God.) sober self. (Again, thank you, God.) ber living. Like us all, I would get selves out. My family “came to be- That first year was difficult in Thanks to Bill W. and AA, it is possober if I got too sick or if the lieve” that when I returned from many ways. I ended my marriage, sible for me to say in complete money ran out and the live ones dis- an evening out, I’d be as sober as moved to a new state, began a new truth: “My name is Charlotte, and appeared or if I was locked up -a before I left. I worked a full week life on my own, alone, and made I’m a happy alcoholic.” sobriety of sorts, but most miserable. now, even doing a lot of overtime. some very serious mistakes. But I Charlotte B., West Roxbury, Mass. So back to the group I came. For The rent, etc. got paid, and we ate a very, very long time, I went a lot better. around in a numb, foggy, confused Then the group said, “Okay, state, my two sponsors spendi~glit- Charlotte, time for you to start help erally hours after meetings explain- ing along with us.” And my first ing the program over coffee in my talks -began, as did Twelfth Step apartment. work. For the first time in years, my I was one of those who crave a personal appearance had to be more drink during the whole first year of than just clean. Slowly, I understood sobriety, and when this desire hit how self-respect felt -it was no me, it was absolute hell not to give longer just a word. With it came rein. A phone call brought help, and spect for my sponsor, my group, again my sponsors or others in the and my fellowman. Last and great-

June 1970

MOVING Can Be Such Sweet Sorrow

She looked forward to adventure D URING my first two and a half years in the program of AA, I was used to a lot of activity, many joyed it. I had been away from home before, but never for more than two weeks. So this was to be taken too much sun, and I became physically ill, too. For ten days, I experienced a terrible, frightening friends, Twelfth Step work, and an a test, and I knew it, but I had depression. My old negative emoin new AA way of life surrounding me. confidence. tions started charging in, and all the’ Then my husband was transferred The first two weeks were absolute old fears were returning. I could not surroundings. to another city for the summer. heaven. I played house in a lovely seem to shake it off, and I seriously I was anxious to go, looking for- new apartment, wrote letters to felt as if I were going to die. I But then . ward to it as a new adventure and my faithful friends, and received racked my brain. What was I s u p knowing they had AA there. I felt answers from them. Also, I loved posed to do that I was not doing? , homesickness that I knew myself pretty well and finding new friends at AA meetings. I prayed for help. should fare well in a new situation. Everything was going smoothly. Again, the miracle of this prostruck! I had worked the Steps to the best I .Then it happened! I got home- gram happened for me. I gave up. of my ability and had tried with all sick. I had read about homesickness, I surrendered, for no amount of my heart to practice the AA pro- but it had been only a word to me logic and*reasoning seemed to help. gram. So off I went to this new I until then. I started wishing I was Reluctantly, I picked up my teletown, armed with my AA books and home, wondering what my friends phone and dialed a woman AA the addresses of my AA buddies at were doing, etc. All of a sudden, I member I had met only twice behome. felt alone and frightened. fore, in meetings. I couldn’t see how The trip was pleasant, and I en- To make matters worse, I had she could help me. She didn’t even

know me! more been demonstrated to me. The I told her I was upset, sick, and old lesson had been repeated: As very sad, that I needed to talk to soon as I was willing to ask for help, someone. I told her I needed a spon- it was right there, waiting for me. sor in that town, very badly. I am still lonely, but it has be- Immediately, she offered to be my come bearable, and I am learning a sponsor. She told me she had en- very valuable lesson. I am really actered AA four years before. She cepting a situation I cannot change, made a few more remarks and then and I am again safe in the realizalistened while I attempted to tell her tion that I am never alone. My what was bothering me. She listened summer, through the grace of God, attentively, and in a few minutes we is truly becbming a rewarding ended our conversation. experience. I felt somewhat relieved, and the I am going to meetings with a pressure seemed to be lifting. Then better attitude. I am becoming inthe real miracle happened: She terested in these new people, and I called me back! think that this is the secret. I can’t She now made some suggestions possibly stay depressed when I’m that began to get my thinking on concerned about someone else. the right track again. My fears be- A simple little phone call made gan to evaporate. Sanity was return- the difference, by showing me once ing, and I could now seek a solution. again that one sober drunk really The presence of God, working does care about another. through a human being, had once N. C., Covina, Calif.

September 1970

aboard this ship, all Americans; and you know what that means. They drink! Not just the wine provided at meals (which is what the Italians seem to confine themselves to), but cocktails before lunch and before dinner, with beer and gin betweentimes. The serious drinking starts before six; dinner is at seven; and at eight, except for the crew, me, a When the young man, and an older woman, the ship dies -socially. The officers retreat soberly to their quarters; the came into focus, passengers, knocked out by the cocktails and the wine, disappear a new understanding into their cabins. One of our number, traveling of responsibility alone, is a very pretty blonde in her I came clear, early fifties, beautifully dressed and always well-groomed. The first four too days we were aboard, she had me baffled. She doesn’t sit at my table, and seldom joins the groups on deck. She has spoken to me cordially several times -but we have not really conversed. Although at

. I AM WRITING this on an Italian freighter off the coast of Central America. Yesterday the sea lay glass- I

I my strength to live sanely is transmitted. Although I have brought the Big our first encounter she told me, “I’m a person who likes to be alone,” I noticed that she was promily calm, truly Pacific. Today it is II Book along, for me there is no sub- inent and vivacious at the cocktail heaving gently, strewn with crests of stitute for the expressions on a face, hour in the lounge. (I regularly foam. It is a .month since I have I the intonations of a voice, the solid avoid that event, because it is so been to a meeting or had face-to- feel of flesh under my hand as I boring. Besides, the sea is usually at face contact with an AA member; touch a sleeve or the shoulder of a its most beautiful at that hour, and and, under gusts of minor frustra- coat. Furthermore, I am one who I like to stay outside and look at it.) tions, the psychic seas’ within me are 1 ! needs verbal outlets in conversation Ohe day Our Blonde did not apbeginning to rough up, too. It may to maintain equilibrium on the roll- pear at all, for meals or anything well be at least ten days more before ing sea of life. I have decided that a else. From various indications -an they can be calmed by the settling monologue like this is the next best aggressive attention to the handsome presence of another member of Al- thing. younger officers, sexy dirty stories coholics Anonymous, through whom There are twelve passengers thrown out at inappropriate times, a

flirtatious attitude toward everything rising and heading for the dining “She’s alcoholic,” the other So far, few people on this ship male that happened to be on deck salon at the established hour; so woman returned bluntly. “She starts have seemed to notice that I don’t -I had tentatively formed the everyone had to troop off in his, drinking in the morning, and she’s drink; at the champagne party, for opinion that Our Blonde was a wake. On a ship, people do what the high all the time- that is, when instance, I whipped off unobtrusively nymphomaniac. However, I felt that captain dictates. If I had been par- she isn’t low, and threatening to kill to my cabin and filled my glass with something more was wrong, that she ticipating in the champagne-drink- herself. After that cocktail party she water. But the woman who was might even be slightly retarded. The ing, I tell you this would have been gave, she was almost hysterical at giving me the lowdown on Our . only way I can express it is that her pretty sickening, to have to switch dinner; kept saying it had been a Blonde volunteered, “She said her mind did not seem to focus properly. to their old red table wine! And I flop.” brother had told her she ought to The second night after my hus- wouldn’t have been alone in my I was stunned by the revelation of go to AA; but she told me she didn’t band and I embarked, Our Blonde frustration, I presently discovered. what was wrong with Our Blonde. think she had the willpower.” , gave a cocktail party on the “ve- Last evening, I was sitting on Yet at the same time my confusion So I took that opportunity to re-: randah,” the semioutdoor lounge. deck chatting with the lady (a mod- about her was instantly dispelled. mark casually, “I belong to AA my- All the officers were invited; the erate drinker) who shares Our Everything fell into place: the self; and I feel terribly sorry for her, canap6s were tremendous; and the Blonde’s table. All of the passengers slightly out-of-focus mental state; because if she doesn’t want to quit, champagne bottles appeared inex- except my husband and me, who got the conspicuous, uninhibited pursuit there’s nothing we can do for her.” haustibly in the hands of stewards. on in Curasao, had boarded the ship of men; the “keeping to herself” in The other woman then said, with On this occasion I experienced a in Europe; so the other ten knew the intervals. And how well I recog- a curious, faintly accusing air, “I, wholly sincere gratitude that I no each other well. When her table- nized her reaction to the cocktail should think you’d have recognized longer drank. Champagne, for some mate mentioned the blonde’s name, party! From the point of view of it.” reason, always had all the typically I decided to be candidly curious. “I the person I used to be, it was an But somehow I hadn’t. I think alcoholic effects on me. I would can’t figure her out,” I said. “I get a utter, disastrous flop. Before any- Our Blonde’s impeccable dress and rather not take it at all than be re- feeling there’s something wrong with body had had a chance to get really grooming and her excellent posture stricted to one or two glasses. The her. Does she have a mental condi- rolling, the captain had unkindly had fooled me. I never could drink captain broke up this little party by tion of some kind?” stopped everything cold! all day and at the same time go

vertisement for sobriety if I sudden- make upon us: Do you mean it, or ly, visibly cease to enjoy life. And I don’t you? Some people would say, don’t mean that I must pretend to not that God is Love, but that Love be happy. I must be so. is God. Am I going to turn my will ‘ Here is the most unpleasant fact and my life over to Love, or am I I have to face in all this: If I can not? truly feel such responsibility toward We can talk all we want to about around looking beautiful. is gone before I get up -some time the practicing alcoholic aboard, I “practicing these principles”; but the Now, it strikes me as strange that later, having sat out on deck with must assume the same responsibility real test comes when life plainly last night of all times I should have the crew until ten o’clock the night toward my husband’s little old shows us a choice. In my case at the learned the truth about Our Blonde, before, watching old movies with “drinking problem.” It’s much easier moment, that means I must stop for yesterday I had to do a lot of dialogue in Italian, which I don’t where she is concerned. She can’t sulking. I put myself into this anasking for help from the unexplain- understand. hurt me by her behavior; he can. noying alcoholic environment; for able power that I believe resides I think Al-Anon members will Strong as was the instant concern me, the advantages of sea travel outsomehow in the cells and organiza- understand the complicated psycho- which sprang up in me when I found weighed the disadvantages of possition of my entire being. logical effects all this has on me. At that Our Blonde was One of Us, my bly being alone among lushes. My feelings were becoming un- cocktail time last night, I was in my caring and concern for my husband I must start thinking about Love manageable, centering around my cabin doing a leisurely grooming are greater. and allowing myself to feel it and husband. He has what the psychi- job for dinner while he was in the So there I am, faced with the act upon what it dictates. atrist in charge of our local Alco- lounge consuming double martinis. stern demand our AA principles Anonymous, California holic Rehabilitation Center told me And I was becoming ill-tempered. three years ago is “a drinking prob- When I heard the news about lem.” This doctor said he did not Our Blonde, it didn’t turn off my consider my spouse a “true” alco- bad mood instantly. But this mornholic. Although he did not add the ing I realize that I must allow my word “yet,” my active imagination knowledge of her presence aboard did, rightly or wrongly. I quote the to act as a balancing force on my doctor to show that I’m not fan- emotions. If she wants or needs my tasizing. help, I must be ready. Even if she Quantity-wise, John (not my hus- doesn’t, it is my responsibility to band’s real name) does not drink stand by with that help available, if much more than the rest of them only through the example of my aboard, but he gets awfully jolly and own sobriety. If I give in to the loud. John also thought the cham- sulks and unhappiness which threatpagne party was a flop. In addition, en to take me over, I will be useless along with the rest, John is out as as an instrument of Alcoholics soon as dinner is over, sound asleep, Anonymous. if he can find a place to lie or even Even if Our Blonde shuns me sit down. Then he’s likely to wake when shipboard scuttlebutt carries up terribly early in the morning, like to her the news that I belong to AA four-thirty. A good part of his day – as it will! -I shall be no ad-

November 1970

M y Name Is joy== I I

and I a m an alcoholic . . .

HE LAST few years I drank, I T knew I had a problem with alcohol. What I didn’t know then was too much, behaving in a crazy way, lems, weight loss, and a chronic boasting of monumental hangovers bronchial condition. As I made the that alcohol was the cause of my – this was the standard equipment rounds of physicians and later of problems. of the party girl. When I added to hospitals, I also made the inevitable From the first time I drank, I ex- this thc modest success I was having encounter with sedatives and amhibited symptoms of alcoholism, I with a career in fashion and televi- phetamines. now believe; but these were camou- sion, I had no trouble disguising the My husband spent thousands of flaged in one way or another, and truth. dollars on psychiatric treatment for I had a fling of social -if some- I crossed the line into pathologi- me, but I kept getting worse. I what sloppy-drinking for ten years cal drinking during my first marriage. wouldn’t cooperate with the psychibefore I found myself with a full- I concealed my drinking and my atrists. As a matter of fact, I directed blown problem. bottles; I drank alone; I preferred all of my energies toward trying to During these years, my main con- wine, telling myself that I was no convert these doctors into drinking cern with drinking was a conscious wino, since I selected only the finest buddies. I took to trailing them dureffort to “hold my liquor.” Toward pale dry cocktail sherry. ing blackouts and eventually kept a p this end, I developed a number of I developed most of the standard pearing at group-therapy sessions so defenses. If I was the life of the diseases that go with compulsive and drunk and hostile that I had to be party, people expected me to kick neurotic behavior. I had -itis of every eased out. up my heels, didn’t they? Drinking part of my gastrointestinal tract, Naturally, my marriage deteriopostnasal drip, scalp and skin prob- rated to the point where my husband

hated to come home; consequently, I realized I was an alcoholic and he rarely did. In a fit of arrogance, 1 contacted AA. timately directed me off the dark in the past and are better left alone. I will never forget the feeling of toboggan ride of insanity. I have AA has been a sort of spiritual divorced him and then discovered, overwhelming relief when I was able been restored to health, sanity, and cement. It has welded the broken to my horror, that things were worse purpose. I have a successful and to identify with the speakers at my and shattered pieces of my life tothan before. 1 had new companions: happy marriage, to another sober gether. Throughout the seven years first meeting. For the first time in terror, loneliness, and despair. I be- AA, and have discovered for the since my last drink, I have found the years, I had real hope – a precious came a bar drinker. When I wasn’t commodity for a downhill depres- first time the joy of finally being able same hope that I discovered at my draped over some bar stool, I was sive. I needed it, for my first year to form a true relationship with an- first meeting, and I have many times carrying the ubiquitous wine from in AA was rocky. I had a severe other human being. I have mended felt that I would rather have hope room to room at home. I kept it on delayed withdrawal that put me back some broken bridges through the than the things that I’m hoping for. the edge of the bathtub when 1 in the hospital. My health and nerves practice of the Steps; others belong Joyce H., North Hollywood, Calif. bathed and beside the bed when I had taken quite a beating. I paid tried to sleep. Six months of this out more in doctor bills than I was landed me in a locked psycho ward, able to earn. in the wake of two suicide attempts. Yet, with the guidance of the AA Months of inpatient treatment did veterans, I was able to put together very little to rehabilitate me, because the program 1 still follow today. I I still considered myself a nice girl keep it very simple, because that is whose psychiatrist didn’t understand the way it works best for me. The her. After I left the hospital, I be- suggestion “Work on your number came a periodic and changed from one problem, and everything else wine to vodka. Several times in the will be all right” has become the next year, 1 stopped drinking, im- central concept of my life. I get to proved, built up some false hope, meetings regularly; I practice the started drinking again, and wound Steps with joy and gratitude; I try up worse than ever. I was experi- to repay the love that has been given encing the periods of brief recovery me by being of service when I can. described in Chapter 111 of the Big I am never far from the literature of Book. Finally, after a prolonged AA. In the books and the pamphlets, blackout, 1 was forced to my knees. I discovered the guidelines that ul-

DEcember 1970

of fifteen months and a boy of alcoholic friends, and by this time four months. I had to go to work my drinking was worse than ever at the sanitarium, and that is when before. Now, when s h e In this town, my younger daugh- I started drinking. I then met a white man, a very ter became very ill with TB. I felt s a y s s h e is a n good and kind person, steadily em- sorry for myself. Why did this hapployed. I married him, and he took pen to my daughter? I had never alcoholic Indian, my two children and me in hand done anything wrong to deserve this. and took very good care of us. I had I blamed everybody, including my she’s p r o u d of it two more children, a boy and a girl. husband. We had only our little boy This husband was much too good at home, but this didn’t help with for me. I rewarded him with drunk- my drunkenness. I was drunk most

w HEN I started to drink, it was just enough to keep – up- with the crowd. I had no taste for alcohol then, but I liked what it did for enness and jails. I have great re- of the time, but would sober up for spect for him, though, for he has two or three days. always stood by me, no matter what I stayed with my drinking for one I have done. I even left him and the more year, until AA came into my me. It made me feel I was an impor- children to go and get drunk for life. Before that, I never thought tant person. months at a time, but he still took anything would keep me sober, but I left home as a small child, going me back when I came home. here were people who spoke my to an Anglican residential school By now, I was a full-fledged alco- language. I had nineteen months in for American Indians. I stayed there holic. I would leave home not car- AA without a drink, then I started for a very long time. When I went ing what I did to my family, as long again. I had a few more slips; but, home, I found my dad had started as I could drink. At times I wrote looking back now, I can see the to drink, but I thought my mother checks in my husband’s name, but sober months were the best months hadn’t. That same year, he always managed to fix them up I had had in my life. Some of us – . she had a I baby, a brother for me. He is an before I got into trouble. On sober- are slow learners in this program. Jeanne alcoholic man now. Looking back, I understand that both my parents ing up, I wouldn’t even remember Then something happened that having done such things, and I awakened me: My dad died of alwere drinking heavily when- I was would feel really sorry when I was coholism. It took a death to make home, but I didn’t know it then. told about them. Yet, drinking, I me realize what AA means to me The Indian custom is for the par- would do the same things all over and my family. With a lot of help ents to pick a husband for their again. Like so many of us, I would from AA and my higher power, I daughter, and in no time at all mine wish for death, even hoping some- will stay sober one day at a time. picked one for me. I did not even thing would kill me. I hope to always be on hand to help know my husband, or what kind of My husband moved all over the another alcoholic who still suffers. person he was. It was not a good country, each time hoping I would Believe me, AA is the best way to marriage. My husband spent more smarten up in a strange place. But, live. And now when I say I am an time drinking than he did working. of course, that never happened. I alcoholic Indian, I am proud of it. Two years after the marriage, he could always find some alcoholics I am no longer afraid of being just went away and never came like myself. Finally, we made one laughed at. back, leaving me with a little girl more move. Once again, I found J . D.,Grandview, Man. .

January 1971

rather was sent back-to thc States. My husband was discharged dishonorably after a thrcc-month stiiy at a penitentiary in Germ;my. We got back together, rentcd a M y Name Is house, and got ;I junkie boardcr. Now wr: had thrcc habits to support. never stopped my drinking for any My child was four ycars old. I had Patricia length of time. I divorced my first husband and just gotten her back, but I soon lost her to my pnrcnts. which I thank remarried seventeen days later. Out Cod for. I lost hcr for a lot of good of the frying pan into the fire! My reasons, including my husband’s bechild was six months and six days ing shot by my boyfriend, the junkie old when this second marriage oc- boarder. Hc was shot five times, but curred, in February 1962. This time, lived. I got several charges, but they 1 married a guy two years my senior. were dropped. Thc boyfriend got jail “I can M Y N A M E is Patricia, and 1 am an alcoholic and an addict to almost anything addictive. I am He had been a boyfriend of mine In high school, but an enemy after my time and was rclci~sed after about five months. twenty-seven years old. I have been graduation. Anyway, we married During this five months, I went to now see t h ~ t through two divorces and have an more or less on a buddy system. We the Federal hospital at Lexington, eight-year-old daughter. I have been both said “I love you” and “I do,” and so did my husband. He left a a member of AA for about three or but what we meant was “I need you” week before I did and got a job and good is good four weeks. (misery likes company) and “I will” another good start on drugs and al- 1 had my first real drinking prob- (each of us had a will to do what- cohol. He came to Louisville and got lem at the age of eleven and a half ever the other did). Drinking, taking me, and we arrived in Daytona and bad or twelve. In the years after that – pills, and finally shooting narcotics, Beach, Fla., four days later. ( A more than half my life -it got con- we were real miserable. We fought straight-through drive would take tinually worse. When I was barely with one another, stole together, only eighteen hours.) To maintain is n connived, and lied to and for one our habits in Daytona, we worked, sixteen, I married a man six years my senior, who was bisexual. We another for about two years. We stole, and all the rest. He went to a good were married without the consent or even got a house, furniture, all the state reformatory for a three-year knowledge of either of my parents. rest, but then we got busted and lost sentencc, because he had been caught In about three years of marriage, I everything. We did six months. in a drugstore after it closed. I did lesson” only lived with him for about a year Somehow, we got into the Army. not even try to get him out on bond and a half. During this time, I com- That is, he did. We went to Texas or consult an attorney. I came back pleted my high-school education and and Germany and took along our to Louisville sick and stayed hooked about one year of college. I also had alcoholism, addiction to drugs, and and drank excessively for two a child, when I was nineteen. My all the habits we could. It was quite months. I then went to Lexington husband was not the father. And I an experience for us and for all con- again. This was my founh or fifth cerned. Needless to say, we got into time. 1 stayed there one wcck. I trouble again. I came back – or didn’t take narcotics for about two

nionths i~fterI canie out, but I did a blackout that time. My sponsor ‘ drink. Finally, I got a good job, and citme over the next day. My parents I immediately startcd drinking wine wanted me committed. But I wasn’t. and tcrpin hydrate. It got worse. I Since then, I’ve not drunk a drop of got on the needle. anything. I’m getting off pills with I withdrew at home this time, in the help of a physician. It will soon January 1968, with the help of a be four weeks. physician. my parents, and a few I’m beginning to have peace of fricnds. I t took three weeks or more, mind more and more, day by day. during which time I nearly died. Just I’m tinding out more about life, twforc this, I had hid it complete learning to love, and-gosh! I don’t hystcrcctoniy. ( I had had n partial know what all or how to say it-I’m in 1964 at Lexington.) Anyway. finally getting to know and underagain I stayed off narcotics for a stand God and happiness. I am able short lcngtli of time. I never quit to share life with my eight-year-old drinking. I got worse agitin. I starred daughter, too. on pills of ilny kind, cough syrup, By the way, on the day of the i~lcohol,prostitution, and the whole moon walk I was shocked to learn iavolvcnicnt. On Christmas Eve, that there had been ten other Apol- 1968. I woke up in ii hospital emer- los, and I shed tears for the work of gcncy room. Then 1 was taken to a God and His miracles. Before, I had doctor’s ofiicc and to the city morgue had the opinion that it was all fanat the hospititl. There I was told by tasy, and why did they want to exa faniiliar voice, “Raise up and look. plore the moon when they had their ‘Ihis is where you’ll end up if you hands full with the mess here on don’t stop.” The voice belonged to earth? 1 had lost all belief in God, ;I detective I feared. except when I got into trouble or I just collapsed. I had not eaten needed a way out of jail. or slept in nearly a week. I learned AA is my life in many ways, as I hilt1 taken an overdose of diet pills. I’m sure all who seek it and follow 1 I i x i drlink too much, too. They its program have found out. It is my wouldn’t keep me at the hospitill or pathway to righteousness and human tlic jail. They rel~iised me to my concern for my fellowman. This is p:~ndcringso-cullcd boyfriend. my “high” in life. The AA Grape- After that. it got even worse. 1 vine is great and has really helped \\.;IS in jail twice and in ;i psycho me. I now can see that good is good, ward tor five days. I got into AA and bad is a good lessor^. I can also A’tcr the nut-ward incident, only to see that God didn’t throw the mold slip, and wake up in my bed at home away after He made me. He just In a pool of blood, with both arms alters it a little for each of us. cut all to pieces. I had had a dilly of P. McC., Louisville, K y .

April 1971

Woman-to-woman talk wanted From New York State: I am the only woman alcoholic in touch with me. I’d be more than here. Being from a small town, and willing and able to write to them. I not having any AA in the immediate have been sober, with the grace of God, for nearly three years. I read vicinity, 1 go to a group in a larger town. But there aren’t any women everything I can get my hands on, i members up there. Not long ago, I to keep sober, but would like so heard that a man can’t twelfth-step much to have another woman to a woman and vice versa. That makes talk to. Yes, 1 have a wonderful the phone therapy kind of hard to husband, who is also an alcoholic, come by, and I am not in on any of but even a good husband doesn’t those chatty talks after the meetings have the same problems as a woman! that I’ve seen the men have with Again, keep up the good work at each other. the Grapevine. With it, I have a What is the solution? I thought silent contact with the women who perhaps there might be other women write you. God bless ’em! in the same boat, around the world. ANONYMOUS If there are, please help them to get

June 1971

he. too. can hccoms ;I happy. useful person. His nccd to rejoin the llunian race is tilled. AA nlakcs on tl~cill- I Never Bothered coholic no dcninnds which cilnnot hc met. Open arms i~nda Ilandshakc

to Thank You.. . arc thcrc to grcct him. No one points at him or suggests that he bc ashil111cd of himsclf. Wc nccd to accept our alcoholisnl. Wc must admit that time. Thank you! wc arc powcrlcss whcn it conlcs to My second rcason for writing you alcohol, and that is why we drink. is to talk to you about thc womcn I That is easier said than done in a havc sent to you. You arc so right drinking society likc ours. whcrc It is 2:30 in the morning, and 1 double addiction-alcohol and pills. whcn you say that no one wants drinking is supposed to be “fun.” cannot sleep. This evening, in your Most doctors just do not know what them. No one wants to treat them, I t is doubly hard for the woman oftice, you made the comment that to do with or for us. We don’t tell and in a way, I don’t blame these alcoholic. Nobody likcs or wants a I had -lived many lives, and you the truth, and we display so many unwilling doctors. It is a thankless, woman drunk. From the word p. asked me which one of them I had different symptoms that it is no won- frustrating job. it is sccn as a moral issuc. Yct, when liked the best. My answer Was “This der we are not diagnosed as alco- Each one 1 sent to you, I sent bc- we havc run out of cxcuscs for ourone.” We talked further, and you holics until it is too late. By the time cause I feared for her life. As God selves, our protcctivc socicty hands mentioned the girls I had sent to you call us by name, all we can do is my judge. 1 just can’t let them go us a nlillion and one othcr cxcuscs: you. is get mad at you, say you don’t un- down the drain! I can’t put a price a nagging husband. a nlcan boss, a My reason for writing you is two- derstand us, and charge off to an- on each of these lives. No one knows no-good neighbor, that tinlc of the fold. other doctor for another go-around, when someone, somewhere, is going month – I could go on crd tmitseutn. The tirst reason is that I have until we wake up in jail, in the hos- to get through to them, and I can’t Wc have to stop kidding oursclvcs never bothered to thank you for the pital, in an asylum, or dead. help but believe that as long as they and facc thc fact that the rcasons part you played in giving me back are breathing, there is life -and we drink arc within ourselvcs and How wise you were never to give my life. When I first walked into hope. not in all thosc othcr, outsidc cirme anything to fight. All you ever your office, I know I was a full- gave me was understanding. Thanks You asked me whether I still go cumstanccs. If anyone had licd to blown alcoholic. Whether or not you to you, I stayed alive long enough to to meetings. The answer is a definite mc thc way I lied to myself, 1 would yes. I believe the record proves that havc wanted to kill him. were aware of this, I do not know; but I am sure that, over a period of get to Alcoholics Anonymous. For that, I am truly grateful. There is no the needs of the alcoholic are best – People you and I, doctors, time, you became well aware of it. way I can ever tell or show you my met by AA. As a method of dealing lawyers, n~inistcrs,family, fricnds – You are one of the finest doctors gratitude. There is really no way with the emotional and personality havc to stop trying to hidc us in thc I have known, and I have known one human being can thank another problems of alcoholics, group ther- closet. I t docs not work. Somehow many, having been a trained medic for his life. I can only try to say apy appears to be more promising or othcr. the moral issuc has got to in the Women’s Army Corps. So “Thank you” by living my life to than private therapy. be takcn out of it. I think ignorance many, many women today suffer a the best of my ability one day at a The alcoholic needs to hope that kills ninety percent of the alcoholics .- he can recover. At AA meetings, who die every year. Long ago, somehe can associatk with recovered ;I- one should have said to me, “Look, coholics who are living proof that Beverly, you are an alcoholic. You

11;lvc ;I discasc. A disease recognized AA is the means by which the by thc Anlcrican Mcdical Associa- alcoholic can come to accept himtion. A discasc which will kill you self as a human being, and can learn just as surcly as cancer. but much. to accept othcr hunlan beings for nluch lwrc slowly and painfully.” what they are. Every day there is I iinl convinced that alcoholisn~is failure – and there is success. Anlcrica’s number one killer, but is You have played a great part in not credited with this “honor” be- my success for the past four years, cause of thc big cover-up. With the because you cured. For that, I will ~lioralissue in mind, nobody wants a be grateful for the rest of my life. In loved one to havc alcoholism listed helping to save my life, you have iIS the cause of death. So it is “can- also helped to salvage the lives of cer” or “hcart failure” or ??? Alco- my three girls. holism is a recognized disease, with Each time you have helped a symptoms, just like any other dis- woman alcoholic, you have touched caw, yet none of us will speak out many lives. Thank God you do care! and say, “Ycs, you are an alcoholic. We need many, many more like you. Lrwk at your symptoms!” B. F. S., Torrance, Calif.

June 1971

S I LOOK BACK OVCr t h ~ past four A ycars of nly sobriety, I am truly grateful that no one pronliscd me a in nlysclf. I just didn’t nccd those Five years ago, how I hated all of pcoplc in At\. I could do it ;~lonc. those suggestions. They were such 1 did. for onc year – drunk. Then harsh words for someone who had rosc gardcn. In fact. AAs ncvcr it dawncd on mc. one horrihlc 1110- lived with “self-will run riot” as a They pronliscd nic a good ioh, a new car. nwnt i~ftcr lily I;Is~ ten-day bingc. prcmise for cverything. How could a great lovc, a strong hclicf in God, that it might just he possible that 1 those AAs expect me to turn my Never suddcn happiness, wealth, or sainthood. They only said, “We can show would die – if I didn’t find what will over to a God I knew did not those “stupid people” had (the sober exist and never had? Those people you a w a i t 0 live without drinking.” nlcnihm, of coursc) – if the bigL’I” were really crackers! They talked Promised 1 had a simple choice bctwccn lifc couldn’t sonichow bc rcniovcd. about love of your fellowman and and death. My gardcn was filled with weeds, God; how vcry unsophisticated they Often, ncwconiers think that we snails, and rocks. There were no really were. Didn’t they know, in Me a in AA have all the best of lifc. and roscs to he found; a lot of work this modern age, that we came from they expect those same rewards in would have to be done cvcn to pre- the ocean and would all return there Rose Garden three niontt~s.three weeks. or three days. I t has takcn nlc nearly four pare thc ground for the roscbushes. again some day? Growing from a sick alcoholic to a On and on went my sick thoughts, ycars to ;tcquirc a used ;~utomobilc. rccovcrcd alcoholic is rather like five years ago. Today, I tell new I rode a bicycle through most of nly growing roscs: Both take a lot of people that the most important thing earlier sobricty. It didn’t hurt a bit. care and patience and love, always in AA is time. We don’t get here Today. my little car is a bciiutiful love. How could my garden have overnight; when we do get here, we grown without fresh air and sun- must listen, even though we do not Now, in the beginning of my fifth shine? Roses could never have believe a word of what we hear in year, I pause and think of the real bloonlcd in the dark, cold cellar of the beginning days. Time does heal meaning of my life without alcohol. my mind. all things. We are supersensitive You see, I was a hardheaded, cyni- I managed my own life for thirty- people; but, shielded by alcohol, we cal, know-it-all kind of young wont- one years. What a mess I made of survive. Take the booze away, and an, filled with hate and arrogance it! Only now, in my fifth sober year, we are still supersensitive people; and held together by a strong belief is my garden beginning to bloom, we only hurt more. But, .with the mostly because of the honest AA help of other recovering alcoholics, people 1 met in those early days. we learn to become stronger and They told me, “Grow up or die. less sensitive. We develop a little Become willing to really hurt in steel in our backbones as we face order to live and grow in your so- life one sober day at a time. briety. No matter what happens, Growing up is not always pleassobricty is the most important thing ant when you start late in life. For in your lifc. Should you forget that me, when the escape from reality fact, should you place anything or became worse than the reality, then anyone above it, you will have no and only then did I hurt enough to life. Maintaining sobriety is your begin to think about growing a rose number one problem; the others will garden of my very own. take care of themselves in time.” P. B., La lolla, Calif.

July

The Cage

Fvom T H E CAGE is clearly marked with one big word sprawled over the front. It stands in the middle of the town square for all to see. Children the yealo hurl garbage at it all day. The occupant moans a bit from time to time. She scratches her head and 1990 squints out at the children. Once in a while, they bring her a can of beer or a bottle of cheap wine. comes a “DRUNKARD,” says the label on the cage. It is the town’s drunk h o ~ v o vs t o w cage. Every time Alice gets bombed, as Alice. Years and years ago, in the ing in an institution. Coming out. the townspeople shove her into it dark ages when people were dumb Getting a sponsor. Attending meetand lock the door. enough to believe in all that AA ings, meetings, and then some more for our She tries not to hate the children. nonsense. meetings. Pert Alice was sober, busy, “After all, they’re only kids,” she “Well, I fixed all that- but apple-cheeked. She was speaking at thinks. “I shouldn’t have a resent- good,” Alice mutters to herself. meetings all over the place. She time ment against them. Resentment! That victorious feat long ago is sponsored people herself. She helped Why did I use that word? Here I am Alice’s fondest memory. Even here start groups. On and on the sobriety in 1990, still using those stupid old in the town drunk cage, she derives went, until Alice felt as if she were a AA words. Hey kid,” she calls, “get great pleasure from her memories. truly outstanding AA member. One me a beer, puhlease!” She nibbles on her beer can and night at a closed meeting, one of The hollow-eyed youngster Alice reminisces as overripe tomatoes Alice’s newcomers threw a particuis pleading with rushes to bring back splatter around her. larly flowery verbal bouquet at her. a can of beer. She knows him. His She thinks of how she began in Alice just smiled enigmatically, but father, who is roaring drunk at home, AA in the unenlightened days of the her thoughts soared. “At last, I’m used to belong to the same AA group early 1970’s. Going to an AA meet- .. getting recognition. 1 am . . .well .

sort of a star!” Then her group began asking her She had led the fight to smash AA ‘s stupid anonymity Tradition. to hold other jobs. “It’ll be good for your sobriety, Alice,” they said. I have something to learn!” Who won the first clcction? Who their phone service canceled, and “These people at the intergroup of- But a star is not that easily de- clsc? Alice became the lirst AA of finally they all shut down. AA was fice are great.” feated. Before the next assembly, the Ycar. She was known wherever truly decentralized. “Why not?” thought Alice. “I cer- Alice sought out a few friends. a she went. Some time in the seventies, But Alice was still hopping mad. tainly have something to offer. I’ve handful of good loud talkers who she was the main speaker at AA’s It seemed that, no matter where she come so far so fast. 1’11 be happy to agreed with her. There were 300 first tcleviscd world conference, and went to speak, nobody showed up to go over and give them advice.” GSRs at the meeting. Ten of them shc was happy to the core. She had listen. In fact, no group would be So she went confidently to inter- were friends of hers, allies, people Icd the fight to smash AA’s stupid there when she arrived. Already group, the central office for all the who were not at all afraid to talk up, anonymity Tradition. Now she had decentralized, AA became disorga- AA groups in the area. She didn’t to scream if necessary. the world for an audience! nized. Groups closed by the thoulike it at all! Why, those people knew At that assembly, she reintro- Alice stepped before the cameras sands. The new slogan was “Stay absolutely nothing about answering duced her motion. The chairman let and mikes. She sniiled and bowed sober on your own.” phones or handling requests for in- his exasperation show. “Not again, graciously. Thcn she said, “Before One day in 1985, Alice had a slip. formation. They were actually help- Alice!” I talk to you civilians about what’s Why not? Everyone was doing it, ing people set up new groups all With that, one of her friends wrong with your lives, here’s a word going back to the old days. With a wrong. leaped to his feet. “Let her speak! for AA nicnibers from Alice, the bad case of delirium tremens, Alice “What idiots,” thought Alice. “1’11 Don’t muzzle her. Lct the group con- alcoholic. I move that we decentral- called a friend she thought might still try General Service work. Surely, science be heard, you bleeding dea- ize! Now that we aren’t monymous be sober. The friend wasn’t. Alice they’ll listen to my ideas.” So she let con!” any more, everyone Carl open up his had nobody else to call. There was her group know that she’d like to be Alice’s nine other friends jumped own AA ofice right in his home. nobody left, nobody sober. They their General Service Representative. up, shouting. The chairman was Close all intergroups and central of- were all drunk, and they didn’t care At her first area assembly, she visibly unnerved. It seenied to him fices. They don’t know what they’re or couldn’t. really shone. True star that she was, that Alice’s opinion must be popular, doing, anyhow. Get rid of the asseni- The world’s attitude toward drunks she stood right up, eyes ablaze,’and because the other GSRs sat in silence. blies and all the General Service has become stern and inflexible since gave all the other GSRs the benefit Actually, they were stunned, afraid nonsense. They wouldn’t. know a AA passed away. So here is Alice, of her brilliant thinking. “I move to talk, to be controversial. They felt great new idea if they fell over one. sitting in the drunkard’s cage, telling that we run a contest to determine that they had to stay out of fights to AA was never meant to be orga- herself, “I might have had this slip ‘ the AA of the Year. Then run her – stay sober. It appeared that the be- nized. Let’s change it all!” anyway. Those creeps in AA deor his – picture on the cover of the fuddled chairman had no support at Alice spoke for an hour. An served what 1 gave them. I was right! Grapevine, with her life story in- all. epidemic of AA quarreling followed, Me, Alice, the alcoholic star.” I side.” Alice screamed for a vote. as rcsentnients built up. Alice had Dismally, she throws her last beer I Not a soul applauded. Alice was “All those in favor raise your freely expressed h e r s – why can through the bars of her cage. She deeply hurt. She hated the mealy- hands!” called the chairman. shouldn’t everybody else? AA offices spies her little friend with the mouthed way they tried to placate Eleven were in favor. all over the world began closing. The drunken father. All the other chilher after the meeting with hints that “All those opposed?” he said. Grapevine stopped publishing. The dren are home in bed by now. her zeal might perhaps be misguided. Not one hand was raised. The General Service Otlice closed for “Hey kid,” she calls out. “Steal a “What gall!” she said to herself on other 289 GSRs stayed out of it. Un- lack of support. With no money eom- drink for a star, willya? Puhlease?” the way home. “They actually think committed. Safe. ing in from groups, intergroups had E. S., Brooklyn, N.Y.

July 1971

Another ‘outnumbered’ lady Editor3 note: From a small town in 1 have only been in AA for nine New York State came a plea for months, and 1 have had a couple of help in communicating with other very small slips, but I do have a wonwomen in A A . “I am the only wom- derful sponsor. He is a man. I have an ulcoholic here,” wrote our corre- never heard anyone in our group say spondent in the April issue. Scores men could not twelfth-step women. of letters from concerned women In your letter, you said you don’t AAs poured into our ofice, and all get into chatty talks with the men. have been passed on to the writer. You know, I have gotten into some We couldn’t possibly have printed great discussions with men, and them all, but the following is a sometimes I learn more from them hearrwurming example of the re- than I do from women. Next meeting, sponse. why don’t you make a little effort and From Sault Sainte Marie, Ont.: try to express yourself to some of I read the Grapevine every month, them? Maybe you are holding yourand 1 enjoy it very much. When I self back. Give yourself some credit came across the letter from the -you are doing a great thing by woman in New York State, I just just being there. But do try to mix had to write and give or try to give with them. Once the ice is broken, her help in a very sincere way. you will enjoy these meetings so very I am a member of AA, and I en- much more. Take the first step joy that very much, too, but 1 find towards them. If they are like our the same problem here in the Soo. AA men in Soo, I’m sure they will There are very few lady members. not turn you away. We have open meetings where you I wish you the best of luck at your can bring friends, and these are quite next meeting, and I also wish more well mixed, but the people are not all women would write to the Grape- AA members. Then we have the vine, for I like to hear or read about closed meetings where members of women AAs. I was beginning to won- AA are allowed. Now, 1have gone to der if there are as few women mcmmany of these meetings, and I do feel hers in groups all over the world as rather funny. There are some things there are here. Let’s hear from sonlr: I’d like to discuss, but I feel so out- of you ladies, eh? numbered, I usually end up saying ANON) ‘.lOUS nothing. I’m going to these discussion groups so I can break the ice. Maybe some day 1’11 be able to get up and tell my story, but so far I’m still very nervous and afraid of saying something wrong o r maybe offending someone.

August 1971

to work tlie switchboard, too, and On my birthday of thc last year that wcnt on some writing assignments. I worked for this newspaper, I got The I t was then that people began to drunk on the job and walked off and notice my ability, and I was pro- never went back. first life 111otcd. I began to hate each day because In my particular position at the it went toward night, and then hate ‘ she lived newspaper, I was responsible for co- the night because I couldn’t sleep had no orilin;~tingcocktail parties and other until I had had several drinks. I was social functions for the paper. At at the blackout stage. I was now livmeaning that time, 1 was a social drinker. I ing with a girl friend. The only peace saw to it that everyone had a drink I found was in the bottle. I began and mingled before I was free to to wake up with it and continue drink. At those affairs, I was always drinking during the day whenever I “Now I Want Myself” thc first to get there and the last to could. This took away the need for leave. For my excellent service, I love, acceptance, job, or furthering was always given a bottle to take my education. home. A fight occurred between my

I WRITE as a hobby, not as a vocation. However, 1 feel it only fitting that I pay respect in writing watch the other children playing and wish 1 could join them; but my aunt, in trying to protect us from the Finally, at one of the largest roommate and me over a drink and affairs, I got drunk on the job and a man, so I went back to my aunt’s had some unpleasant words with the house. My aunt tried to take my car to AA, which has given me the “bad kids” in the neighborhood, editor and publisher of the news- keys and make me go to bed. Inwonderful life I now lead, one day always gave us little chores to keep paper in front of sonic very influ- stead, I jumped into my car, found at a time. Now I know who or what us busy and out of trouble. From’ ential people. The next morning, 1 a pint of liquor I had hidden there, 1 am – an Aquarian black woman, this, I believe 1 developed the feel- was called into personnel and given drank it down, and headed for the thirty-one years of age, who is proud ing of being a loner. the opportunity of resigning. lake. to know that she was once a drunk As I grcw older, my chores in- Although I had loved my job, I was picked up by the police but is now a sober alcoholic. creased. When I was about nine I didn’t stop drinking. It was the when I tried to drive my car into I was about thirteen months old or so, I began cooking for the editor’s fault I had lost my job, not the lake. The only thing that saved when my natural mother died. My five members of the family. Con- the fact that I had developed a me was the fact that my back tires aunt came South and brought me, sequently, after school, 1 could never drinking problem! got caught against some rocks. I the youngest of seven, and my two play with the other children. After I have never (thanks to the grace then jumped into the lake fully brothers, who were just a few years I finished high school, I got my first of God, my Higher Power) had clothed and was pulled out by the older, back to Chicago. 1 was raised job, with a black newspapcr. I trouble finding a job, because of my police. From there, I was taken to under a very strict religious and went to work as a typist in the dis- excellent work record. Within a few the county jail and on to the psycho moral code. I found no outlet for play advertising department, where weeks (which I spent drinking), a ward of the county hospital, where my yearning to be loved and ap- I also learned how to lay out ads friend of nine called with a job I was strapped down and went into preciated. My new “parents” had to for a newspaper. I was then pro- offer on another black newspaper, the dt’s, crying, ranting, raving, and go off to work, placing us in a nur- moted to classified advertising, which as otlicc manager at a higher salary. swearing. I remained incoherent for sery school. As we grew older, they threw me into direct contact with Of course, I accepted the position. five out of the seven days I was left us home alone sometimes. I people either in person or by phone. By this time, liquor was in control, kept there for observation. would look out the window and In this department, I learned how so I began taking it to my new job. When I was released from the

hospital, I went to live with my aunt, who handed out a list of rulcs ‘7began to realize. .. I had bee11 drawing on resozrrces I did not nossess. ” and regulations to follow: Bible study on Monday night, prayer mcct- Sor~lconcliad taken intcrcst. I bc- while drunk. one season to the next is a miracle ing on Wednesday, Sunday school gan to straighten mysclf up and was ‘I’hc next morning, I looked into in my life. and church on Sunday. rclcascd on a conditional dischargc, the mirror and began to rciilizc that There is a question we ask in I began to drink again. Every which w a n t I had to stay with my for about seven ycars I had bcen AA: Why were we chosen? 1 feel Sunday morning, after a bad Satur- aunt for a year and also go to tllc drawing on resources I did not pos- I was chosen to help my fellow alcoday night, I had a hangover; but I outpatient clinic. sess, that I had bcen shortchanging holics, particularly of my black race, knew I had to go to church, or my I t was not until almost scvcn nlysclf physically and spiritually, not who are still suffering and searching aunt would send me back to thc ycars aftcr my lirst drink that I to niention mcntally. I was reminded for a better way of life without the state hospital, where I dreaded go- hcard the term “AA” uscd in con- of sonlcthing 1 had heard the late aid of alcohol. ing. nection with alcoholis~n, in one oC Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. say in a AA has given me keen insight One day, a girl friend of mine my thcriipy sessions. I talkcd to the spccch: “If you can’t run, walk! If into my limitations, and it enables called and asked if I wanted to stay social workcr about i t and bcgan you ciin’t walk, crawl! But by all me each day to remove myself from with her. I told her “Yes,” and so attending AA nwtings, which kept nlcirns keep ~noving.” I called AA. people, places, and things that tend I moved away from nly aunt’s housc nic s o h for about two ri~oriths. For over three ycars, I have chosen to threaten my sobriety. Since being once more. The drinking continued I hadn’t hit my bottom yct! I tllougllt the AA program to nlaintiiin my in AA, I have gained more friends to get progressively worse. I lasted an alcoholic was a person on skid sobriety. AA has bccome my spiri- than I could ever have imagined, about seven months, and signed my- row. What I Icarncd later wils that tual wily of life, one 1 dare not let friends who sincerely care about me self into the county hospital. I knew skid row can also bc in onc’s nlind. go of for love, nioncy, family, or and my welfare. I have one friend nothing about AA. During the tinlc I was attending the fame. My prcscnt life has meaning in particular, whom I call my guard- This time, I asked to be sent to AA nlcctings, I was not drinking. I far greater than the first one I was ian angel. Recently, I was in an another state hospital. Some of the went to visit my father in the South given. The things that happen to automobile accident that almost cost patients had found a way to get for about two wccks and started nlc now arc just as good, or some- me the use of my writing hand, and booze onto the hospital grounds, so drinking again. times just as bad, as before; but AA she encouraged me to write. there I was, mixing booze with pills. Aftcr I rcturncd home, I con- now nlakes the difference, and 1 Since I’ve heard and learned the On one occasion, I passed out at thc tinucd to drink. But thcn, thi~nk don’t reach for the bottle to solve meaning of the Serenity Prayer, it dinner table. But I still had not God, I got back into the program a problenl or to feel wanted. For has guided me daily. Thanks to a heard the tern1 “alcoholic.” I even and remained sober until my ycar now I want myself, and I find I can Higher Power whom I choose to asked one of the attendants what I was up. At that time, I moved awiiy cope with my problems one day at call God, 1 have been given a new was classified as being, and she told fro111 my aunt’s housc and obtained a time. A little thing like being able way of life. me, “A paranoiac schizophrenic.” my own apartment across the city. to keep up with a wardrobe from F . H.,Chicago, Ill. Webster defines paranoia thus: “a My lirst tinie on my own – what chronic psychosis characterized by would I d o ‘ I should have joincd a systematized delusions of persecu- group in my arca right away, but I tion or of grandeur.” I could not didn’t. I began drinking again, at see that it applied to me. home alone, after work and on I talked with my social worker, weekends. This lastcd for about six and she told me 1 had too much months, until Thanksgiving Day, to offer to be in a place like this. when I fell and cut myself at home

September 1971

– –

Are Those I almost always come away feeling better. Something does happen, after time to give of your love and help.” “We love you very dearly,” writes all. Maybe I catch one sentence: the feminine half of an AA couple, Meetings “I found when I joined AA that 1 was not alone.” This sinks into my ‘way out in Salt Lake City. I don’t take any personal credit consciousness and stirs a response. for having AA pigeons and wonder- Really I leave the meeting in a different mood. The glow of belonging and ful AA friends like this. Something bigger than all of us drew us tothe stirring of hope, as described at gether in the first place. And this Dull? the meeting, are mine, too. I have Higher Power has never failed me had my own need answered again. when I needed it. I haven’t had a As an old-timer, I find that the drink for many a long year, but I simplest truths, reiterated, are neces- have been depressed, discouraged sary for me. And when I forget this, -standing on my head in the attendance at a meeting is likely to Grand Canyon at midnight, as I remind me. When I squirm on a like to say. I might have slipped off This F COURSE, some meetings are hard chair and wish I had my top the program altogether if it hadn’t

veteran 0 dull. I’ve been to thousands of them, and some of the speakers bureau drawer with me, or my guestroom closet, so that I could be straightening things out while listenbeen for wonderful AA friends who stood by. They have reminded me haven’t appealed to me. But then what anger, resentment, and lack of o f a thousand my talks don’t fascinate everybody, ing to the speakers, this is when I’m self-forgiveness can do to us, and I either. This is all par for the course. in exactly the right place for my that the ability to laugh at ourselves meetings finds Live and Let Live. own good, for my sobriety, my life- is a must. With this help, plus the But there is a kind of boredom line. help of a psychiatrist whom I found that is simply me. This is the rest- “I feel sorry for people who don’t through another AA friend, I am she always takes have AA,” someone says. Yes, and beginning to make some headway less, wriggling kind; the chair is too hard; my fanny aches; I cannot sit I feel sorry for those who don’t against this nonsense. away something have an opportunity to help others I need the meetings; I need my still. Honestly, I have lost my judgment; I don’t know whether this is at deep and meaningful levels. friends; I need the AA teaching. o f value a good meeting or a bad one. The “Dear Sponsor,” says one of my Because of all these, I know, 1 now truth is that I am anxious or wor- pigeons in a recent letter. “You have have a mind that can keep learning, ried or resentful or depressed about been such a help to me in my life, a spirit that can keep growing, a something, and that is why my mind my sobriety, and in everything, that personality that can keep changing just won’t stay with the speakers. I do not know how to thank you. little by little, for the better, and a But whether the meeting is really Whenever you feel low, just count love that 1 can keep sharing. I am a dull one, as far as I’m concerned, up the people who are alive and grateful, exceedingly grateful. or whether I am not being receptive, sober today because you took the F. M., New Canaan, Conn.

September 1971

I went along just fine, and then – cohol any more. ‘ boom! I needed it. A similar experi- I lost a job through drinking and T o a daughter in trouble comes this message ence? You bet! This is what I have finally ended up in the psychiatric been trying to get through to you ward of a general hospital. While o f love – a sharing o f experience to remind for so long, with varying degrees of this experience didn’t hurt, it really and comfort us all success: While our addictive patterns didn’t help. An addict is not necesmay be quite different, in recovery sarily psychotic. Though our bewe are all dike! An addict is an havior may seem totally unbalanced I Have Walked Down addict. Chemical addiction is chem- to those who love us, it is the ical addiction, whether it be depen- chemical and not necessarily a per- Those Same Streets dcnce on booze or speed or heroin. sonality problem that occasions this When a fun-loving woman needs behavior. to be half-drunk to have fun – Of course, some doctors do not D EAR ALLISON: This is probably the hardest and psychological as well as physical dependence on chemicals turns us into whcn suddenly it isn’t fun any more, agree. I still remember the learned so she decides to stop drinking and psychiatrist who told me I was a thcn finds she can’t -this is addic- manic-depressive and such a typical most important letter I have ever something completely different from tion. The bottle becomes as terrible, case that he would like to put an had to write. 1 am trying to com- the peoplc we were meant to bc. ;IS frightening as any needle contain- interview on tape to use as a teachmunicate to you that 1 not only love Our use of the chemical always ing a chemical. ing example! Of course, I accepted. you and care about you, but truly starts out as a lark and may con- I hope 1 can convince you that I’ve always loved to talk. Now that understand your problems – be- tinue to be for many years. Then, today – in this age of enlighten- I know my problem is alcohol, I cause I have had similar troubles in one day, we cross that invisible line ment i d compassion toward illness often wonder -with varying demy own life. between socializing and dependence and human failings – you do not grees of humor – if that poor, con- The familiar cry of the teenager, -in your case, between turning need to descend to the depths before fused little man is still using my tape. “You just don’t understand,” does on with the crowd and needing to you begin the long climb back. No, psychiatry is generally not the not apply to this mother. Not only turn on to fccl “normal.” The bottom I reached was so de- answer for us. It is the chemical that do I have empathy for you and com- Normality is different for each of grading that I pray God you do not causes us to develop crazy personpassion for you, but I have walked us. I would say it is the state of need to go through a similar experi- ality traits. Remove the chemical, the streets you have walked, been being comfortable, secure, and hap- ence. As I said, for years I was a and part of the problem is solved. through the hells you have been py. And if the only time we can perfectly acceptable social drinker. But remember this: When you rethrough, and turned on as you have feel this way is when we are high. And then something happened. Sud- move something from your life, you turned on, although with a different then we are both in trouble. denly, I was in trouble. I have tried must replace it with something else. chemical. And I have lived to come I belicvc you when you say that to decide for myself just when and A new life-style is an absolute neback from the depths of perdition you ncvcr really turned on for kicks, where I was when 1 crossed that in- cessity. For me, Alcoholics Anonyto life and health and God’s clean that you bclicved the phrase “mind- visible line. I do not know. I do mous was the answer. For you? This air! expanding drugs,” that you thought know it happened after your grand- is something you must decide for No one knows what makes a lov- this route was thc way to find your- father died. Perhaps my balance yourself. The Synanon program and ing, warm, attractive woman become self, your life-style, and God. And wheel was suddenly taken from me; the experiments conducted at Dayan alcoholic. And 1 do not really then suddenly – boom! Drugs be- I must have been more dependent top both have been successful for know what pushed you into drugs. came a necessary part of your life. on him than even I realized. Any- many. Would either help you? Well, But I do know that there is such a In my case, I started drinking be- way, suddenly I couldn’t handle al- go and find out. thing as an addictive personality. A cause everybody else did. For years,

That’s what another psychiatrist asked your grandmother’s permisfinally advised me to do. He told sion to come home for Christmas. me he thought I was “slightly alco- She refused. While this was very holic” and should go to AA and find wrong of her, I cannot blame her. out. His statement always makes me She was frightened and hurt and think of the AA saying “Being a completely without knowledge of little bit alcoholic is like being a what was wrong with me and how little bit pregnant. Either you are – to handle the situation. or you ain’t.” Always remember, my love, that Knowing nothing about the AA think we are tired or nervous or Demented behavior? How else whenever you need me – I am here. program, 1 shied away. I certainly hot or unhappy. The truth is, we can one explain it? During that year Whenever you want to come home was no skid-row bum! And I cer- simply want to drink. Our bodies and a half, whether 1 was drunk or -your home is here waiting for tainly didn’t want to associate with crave it. and our minds stimulate sober, your words rang in my head: you. Sick or well -just come. Help people like that! So, when I returned the need by saying, “To hell with “Plcase come home early tonight.” and understanding are never farther ‘ from the hospital, I did not take the everything. I need a drink.” Didn’t And 1 had left, with only the clothes away than the nearest telephone. good doctor’s advice. How foolish! I you tell me you had taken speed I had on my back. Me – the most Call collect or have someone call for could have saved myself years of once because you had had very little clothcs-conscious of women. And I you if you cannot. That is one misheartache and degradation if 1 had sleep and needed a pick-me-up? had not gone home. Me – a mother take 1 will not compound. I only made one phone call. Never And this after you had been straight who dearly loved her daughter. I had Oh, my God, the price I have condemn anything you do not know for many, many months? Do you see walked out the door with no inten- paid for a drink! about. Never! the similarity? tion of returning. And you, dear Allison, what has I went back to work, and for For me, the result was that I lost Here began a perbd I hope I this done to you? Pushed you into about nine months things went along my job once again. Then I really never, never go through again. I drugs? Made you run away from a pretty well. I was not drinking, but I panicked! There I was, thirty-five literally had no home. I remember reality that for you is too horrible was not happy, either. I remember years old, and I was afraid to tell sleeping on the steps of an apart- to go through without a crutch? wondering whether I had to go your grandmother I had been fired. ment house for a few hours one Driven you into a life of misery and through my whole life being either So I didn’t tell her. I got dressed the night. 1 made friends – mostly men degradation and despair? Dear God, drunk and happy or sober and mis- next morning and pretended I was -who really were very good to I hope not. I hope I am not to blame erable. It seemed God had played a going to work. Of course, 1 headed me. 1 could have had some harrow- for your problem. Perhaps we will rather nasty trick on me. for the nearest bar. ing experiences, but apparently my never know. The cause is not really Then something happened. I re- I remember that on that particular 1 judgment was still good enough that important. The result and what you member that the incident was trig- morning you said, “Oh Mommy, I only took up with “beautiful” peo- do about it are all-important. gered by my winning a $10 jackpot please come home early tonight. 1 ple. Please, my dear, try to find your at work. But the underlying reason, found the Chinese checkers, and we Johnny Cash’s song “Sunday way back to me, to help and hope of course, was that I was an alco- can play a game.” Morning Coming Down” brings and health. Let me do what I can holic and here was a perfect excuse “I will,” I said. tears to my eyes because 1 remem- to correct what may have been, at for a drink – a little extra money. I “Do you promise?” you pleaded. ber that feeling so well. I remember least partially, my fault. had been living frugally for months “I promise,” 1 answered. And it was almost Christmas, and 1 was Allison, please come home! in order to pay off my bills. then I walked out the door, and it walking down the deserted “Sunday- All my love, Oh my, the elaborate excuses we was a year and a half before I saw morning sidewalks” softly singing Mother invent to get that first drink! We you again. Christmas carols to myself. I had Albuquerque, N.M.

January 1972

thing the group said to do, 1 did. I am now losing weight and feel fine. didn’t like it, and 1 wanted out. My ( 1 weighed 200 pounds.) bottom came up and hit me-I 1 still get some questioning looks from old-timers, but I know I am an Soon I’ll Be Sixteen didn’t ao down and hit it. I got in contact with AA through alcoholic, and that’s all that counts. n doper friend. She just needed some- 1 feel rejected at times because the thing to do. 1 stayed. I liked the love young people in our group are mar- She k n o w s she is an alcoholic – that I got. I needed the love. ried and get together quite often, 1 stayed in, drunk, wanting to be without me. But, God willing, in and that’s w h a t c o u n t s “a part of, not apart from.” Finally, about four years 1’11 be married, and after eleven months, I started work- then 1’11 remember to ask the single ing the program. Things began young person to join in.

W HEN 1 FIRST CAME to AA, I couldn’t have been an alcoholic. It was impossible at the age these kids who smoked, drank, and took drugs. My parents begged, beat, and argued with me. But what the changing, and it was really beautiful. My relationship with my parents and other people is great. The love My father is still drinking, but I have to “let go and let God.” Maybe some day God will find him, also. of fourteen! hell! They were the ones who had 1 receive, I pass along to still-sick In two months 1’11 be sixteen, but At the age of six, I had my first me and never wanted me. They were alcoholics. God- my God-is very I urn an alcoholic. drink. Being the only girl out of the ones who put me through all the patient, thank goodness for that. I D. B., Liberal, Kans. three and being the youngest child, years of misery. Now was the time I could get my way. I now believe to pay them back, 1 decided. I was an alcoholic from the first I started taking drugs and drinkdrink, because from then on I set ing. My self-pity really got on fire. my life up in the alcoholic pattern. Booze and drugs helped relieve it I lived in fear of the day, in hatred, all. Wow! It was rcally weird. Sex in resentments, in a dream world. I became very important because 1 would dream I had six closets full of wanted love. Lots of love! I felt clothes and all the girls were jealous dirty inside. I was filled with selfof me. In real life, I was fat, over- hatred. I wanted to die. I wanted to bearing, and jealous of others. I end it all. I couldn’t – I was too hated my mother because she would scared. spank me and not let me go without I hated my father because he starta shirt like the boys. ed drinking when I was three and We moved away from that town was drunk most of the time. I hated just before I entered fourth grade. him and hated him – but I could 1 was really lonely. I had no friends get money from him. and I couldn’t make any. I was I thought my homelife was the loudmouthed and pushy, lonely and problem, so I started going to coundepressed from fourth grade through selors, church, head-shrinkers, the seventh and halfway through the whole bit. It didn’t work. So here eighth. That was the turning point of came the booze again. my loneliness and depression. I met I always wanted to belong. Any-

January 1972

U 0 . a 9: I t started with

Sparkling Wine in a Crystal Glass But became a coffee mug filled with beer, tiny tricycle. Little children laugh the glow served in an all-night restaurant af- innocently at such games, but when ter the bars closed. Or sometimes, in they’re older, they feel shame for a didn’t last c;n Oriental after-hours spot, it was parent’s drunken antics. I know, bea tiny teacup, filled from a steaming cause these were my children and and the glamour pot containing a heady mixture of they witnessed these stunts and a soon wore tea and bourbon. As I look back, it lot more staged by their mother. But seems I never had enough to drink kids grow up, and mine eventually of7 or enough places to drink it in. did. They have created good lives My escort on some of these noc- for themselves. And they still love turnal searches for brip5t lights and me in spite of everything. For this, I

I T ALL BEGAN with a sparkling liq- Eventually, I grew up and left uid in a crystal glass -and ended home. But I hadn’t forgotten the with white-coated men bearing a glow and laughter resulting from the late booze was a bronzed Apollo, who now rests aboard the battleship Arizona in Pearl Harbor. The man am grateful. As time passed, the pleasure of drinking diminished. Only the desire stretcher. From the beginning, I childhood episode in the wine cellar. I later married bore a striking re- for alcohol remained. Soon, it bedrank too much. I can’t recall ever During the years following, the epi- semblance to my former escort. My came a compelling need. I didn’t taking just one drink. sode had many counterparts. I was husband liked to drink, too -very need the laughter of friends any My first was from a long-stemmed the half-gassed guest of a mildly risky basis for marriage. The venture longer. It was becoming difficult to goblet, filched from a table set for a snockered pilot on early-morning proved a stormy one; but, after a recapture even a small flicker of the holiday dinner at the home of friends. spins around San Francisco skies. 1 quarter-century-plus, we’re still rock- glow that alcohol had brought in the My mother found me later in their went to ski lodges, not because I ing along in the same boat, although beginning. The obsession grew worse wine cellar. She vented her humili- liked to ski, but because I reveled gntly these days. as my lonely drinking continued. ation and concern over my condition in the warm feeling the hot buttered After marriage and the start of a If it had been illegal to be carted by warming my backside with her rum gave me while I stared out at family, I “settled down.” Neighbors into the emergency room of a hospi- . bare hand. But the spanking didn’t the cold snow. I stuck bottles of saw me stagger and fall to the side- tal, I would have been arrested sevdiminish the alcoholic glow – and booze into the sands of the swift- walk – trying to maneuver through eral times. I made desperate calls to our friends thought it was funny, running Truckee River; obviously, a sin~plcwaltz on the children’s roller men of the clergy in an effort to find since I was only eight years old. At an impromptu picnic on a summer skates. They watched the spectacle self-understanding. Any suggestions that time, I believe, the pattern was day called for well-chilled drinks. of a full, as well as full-blown, adult made by these good men were soon set for what happened later. As time passed, my crystal glass pedaling down the block on a tot’s discarded. Yet I didn’t want to drink.

Or perhaps I wanted to drink with- in the Big Book, I recalled this inciout getting so ill. I was ill most of dent with shame. I thought, “I’m the time now. behind the times, all right. My emo- As for the white-coated men at tional and spiritual growth is stunted the beginning of my story, my mem- from years of wanting to livc norories of being placed in an ambu- mally while drinking abnorn~ally.” lance are vague. Some time later, 1 “Dry up and grow up” bccame my did become aware of being strapped personal motto. down and railed in securely at the These days find me a happily incounty-hospital alcoholic facility – volved person. I attend the AA too sick to feel humiliated. Instead, group of my choice and have a plcas- I just felt helplessness, along with a ant homelife. Twice a month, I atmisty sensation of being spared from tend an AA meeting in the alcoholic the depths, at least for this day, this ward where I once was a patient hour, this moment. It was then that and, God willing, never will be again. 1 began to realize the meaning of Not long ago, my favorite “commuliving each 24 hours as though they nicastcr” read “Just for Today” on may be your last. the air. I wondered about that. Returning home after several days, During a recent discussion of the I knew my only hope for escape moon shots, some of us predicted from this obsession was through the a lunar AA group. And why not? AA program. I had been exposed to We alkies have learned to fly high AA before, but the results had come in more ways than flying in the face up negative. It is indeed a simple of nature as practicing alcoholics. program. It’s the person who can be No longer do I dream of the old difficult at times, and this I had been. “fun-filled” days and yearn to re- The Big Book tells us, “We are not capture them. Such reservations once saints. The point is that we are will- were a stumbling block for me. The ing to grow along spiritual lines.” Big Book tells us, “Some of us have These words reminded me of the tried to hold on to our old ideas and time I had telephoned a radio phone- the result was nil until we let go abin talk show. After I had discoursed solutely.” In spite of the childhood briefly with the producer on subjects spanking in the wine cellar, in spite of “current” interest, he suggested of the disasters of adult years, I forthat I was somewhat behind the got the pain and remembered only times, as well as obviously in my the glow from the contents of the cups. He asked that I call again on crystal glass -for much, much too a sober day, promising me the al- long. But now the atmosphere of jotted moments to chat on the air AA fellowship is glow enough for with the “communicaster.” I didn’t me. call back. When I read Chapter Five V . W.,San Pablo, Calif.

March 1972

In this letter to the Grapevine we are again reminded of the network of love that begins with one and goes on and o n . . . ting drunk, I was subconsciously I haven’t slowed down since I stepped into this magic won- trying to get your attention. derland full of you miracle people! In order to keep the magic Terry, I realize that aIl the times working for me. I had to end an eighteen-year marriage. Then I gave up my home and came to Houston and opened up a you deliberately did what I told you home for alcoholic women. not to do, you were trying to gain There are miracles in this home every day. One of my girls attention, too -the attention I was that stayed here three months wrote a letter and wanted me to too “busy” to give you. Even if I read it. With her permission, I’m sending it to you. Mary B. R., Houslon, Trx. got mad at your mischief, it did not make me loye you less. In fact, it made me love you more. After all, A Mother Makes Amends who are you most like? Your mother. When I talk about you, my eyes dance like yours always do. No, I can’t say that I loved you less-

TO MY CHILDREN: You may think writing you a let- I’ve found a place where I don’t feel crazy; I’m atpeace with myself. (If that I was partial. Now I know difand be honest. I hope you and Nancy will bqth try to think a b u t this in the way I ter is silly, with all of you living so you could see me now, you would ferent, and I’m free of this guilt. feel it. Feel for your brother, for near me, but I feel this is the only understand why I had to write. I am Stephen: In my mind, I could what I put him through. Love him right way. To work the AA pro- crying, but it is with gratitude for not trust any man; so I had to make for himself. He loves you. gram, I must clear up the wreckage my peace of mind, not with self- you head of the house. Who else Last but not least, we come to of the past, first of all by admitting pity. ) could I trust with my dearest posses- Nancy, my only daughter. I can remy wrongs as I come to them, then This is a program of self-honesty. sions but part of me? I was not ca- member how shy and alone you felt by asking God to forgive them. And Mary started helping me with the pable of making the right decisions, going to high school. My, heart in the knowledge that He has for- digging when she asked, “Why is it so the burden was placed on your would ache for you. It seemed I given me, I must forgive myself. you never mention your other kids? shoulders. What a load you must always managed to say the wrong Then I must try to make amends to It’s always Stevie.” I wanted to run have carried! I put you on a pedes- thing to you -about your weight the persons I’ve wronged and ask and hide, but I stopped because I tal; I did not allow you to be a child or your friends. I would think it one like Terry and Nancy, because I de- way in my mind, and I just kne them to forgive me. Remembering the Serenity Prayer, I have got to accept that which I cannot change. knew I was here for help, whatever came out. So I stayed with it. I remembered all the years of trymanded that you take the reins I could not handle. Please forgive me. you’d understand and it would he1 ‘d you. But it didn’t come out that way I cannot change other human be- ing to keep everyone from getting I’m now taking you off the pedestal, when I said it. I tried to buy you ings, so I may not be forgiven by my kids, the years of trying to keep and I hope you can find some peace. and Terry with material things: to them. us together. Many times then, Terry You can go ahead and relax. give you what you wanted so you This is how it is today for me – and Nancy, you said I loved Stevie I think I’ve found my way at last. would be “nice” and let me drink I feel relieved of so much loneliness. more. Finally, you convinced me I am working on turning loose of what I wanted. you kids. I thought I had, but in get- When Stevie graduated, I became

aware that you all would not need myself sober. When I finally got it me any more. It wasn’t just losing all out and talked it over with Mary, Stevie to the world- it was like I truly saw I loved all of you -each losing all of you at once. My alco- for yourself. I was free of the guilt holic mind said, “I’ve still got the that I had let grow out of proporbottle, and I can hide, so when I do tion. lose Nancy and Terry, I’ll probably I requested that this be read with be so drunk I won’t feel it.” all three of you together alone, be- I drank and drank. I kept search- cause my chief wrongdoing was done ing for an answer for my loneliness, to you. I must work this program by but the loneliness was always there. all the suggested Twelve Steps, in- I truly believe I had to drink every cluding the Eighth and Ninth. drop that I did to bring me to the This letter is not foolish to me, last day, when I fully realized by and I expect it to be taken very, myself that I was an alcoholic. I did very seriously. What you choose to not get to the emergency ward by do after reading it, I cannot change; myself – God, whom I had turned I can only change myself. My writmy back on, was there. I handed the ing it was a matter of life or death girl my card and said I was an alco- to me, because I do not want to take holic, and that was it. another drink. I will go to any I cannot change the past, but my lengths to work this program and past mistakes can be an asset to me grow stronger mentally, physically, as I tell my story to other AAs, and spiritually. helping them stay sober and keeping E. W.,Houston, Tex.

March 1972

,. Once the decision was made leads me to the idea that I must come up with a solution for every ~roblem.Not onlv must I find a so- Nobody Could Have Kept Me From M y Slip iution, but I musi believe that there always is one, and it has to fit into my current concept of right and wrong, and it must arrive pretty a miserable goodbye at the airport, soon, like now. Usually, I can’t rest I headed for the nearest bar, know- until I’ve said the perfect thing or ing exactly the chance I was taking. written the perfect letter which will What I had no way of knowing was what form the pattern of drinking change the course of events -for somebody else. 1 ! would take. I had never been a con- Another sentence in that same stant drinker-all day and all night, booklet hit home with equal force: that is -and I suspected that may- “Never underestimate the adverbe that was the next stage awaiting sary.” That, too, I must remember. me. The adversary’is not about to change Now that 1 look back’ on that to suit my will. In my tender stage morning at the airport, I know two of learning, I must keep plugging things: One, nobody could have kept and at the same time be patient with Now the struggle to come back me from drinking once the idea was myself. Those same old creeping, demands patience, honesty, and humility full-blown; two, I had not spent the grasping patterns of egocentric thinknecessary time (for me) working on ing may crop up more often for a the Steps, reading, and meditating, while now, but I’ll try to have the F” R ALMOST A W E E K now, I’ve rately, because it seems almost inbeen having what I suppose are credible that there has been such withdrawal symptoms from three extreme progression in my inability even though I had been attending meetings. The Third Step has never been club ready to beat them off. Patience with myself will involve standing still and riding out a bad mood, o y small martinis before dinner out, six to handle the poison. one that I could take to my bosom of the hardest of all things f ~ mr nights ago, plus two slugs of sherry I am a fifty-six-year-old woman at home later. Admittedly, I was who had three years and four months and call mine. But recently, in the booklet “Twelve Steps and the Older at this point. If I can hold on for a hour, or however long it takes, I’ll ! wound up tight and only picked at of continuous sobriety in AA, end- Member,” a sentence hit home. It be victorious, whether the world sees dinner. When I got home, I had to ing on December 26, 1970. On that was about our wills and our lives it or not. \ keep talking to my long-suffering particular date, I’d had it up to my already being in the hands of God. On that December 26, I had sevhusband and had to have the relax- ears, I thought, with my two young- I don’t have to work on it to make era1 martinis, and the results were I, ation of drinking – hence the sher- est sons. They had been here for a it happen; it is already a fact. For not too bad. During the following ry, which was the only thing in the week at Christmastime with their long me, the final acceptance of what al- period, the pattern gets hazy as I try house. My husband cut me off and hair and talk of drugs. Oh so subtly, ready is will make the difference; to recall it. I drank off and on and went to bed. That saved me from I had tried to influence their think- and then I will have to maintain went to meetings off and on. I never worse results, because when I’m ing with talk, and obviously I had constant vigilance. Without vigilance, got drunk in the old sense; at times, wound up I need an audience. I’d gotten nowhere. Though dry, I was I can so easily fall into a negative, I had myself quite convinced that I like to remember and report accu- tense and unhappy. So, after saying critical pattern of thinking, which was different and not exactly an al-

coholic, after all. As the months member rhis stretch. went by, however, the main thing It is somehow very hard to get that happened was the awful effect back in the swing of meetings and of two or three drinks on my sleep to feel the sense of belonging again. and morale. The baffling part was I’ve been to two meetings this week, that I seldom drank more than two one yesterday and one the night beor three (not at all like the stories fore, and I felt so conspicuous I of other people’s slips), but I could wished I could have disappeared actually feel the poison killing my from sight. I did not confess, but brain cells (or, at least, it seemed to instead tried to appear well, instead be hurting my head in some fright- of crazy. It’s hard to come out and ening way), and I was scared. Thank say, “I feel crazy. I’m scared to open God, I’m not quite ready to settle my mouth. I’m scared to walk to on becoming a vegetable. Before the coffee-maker and back, because coming to AA several years ago, I I’m that unsure of myself.” could drink to oblivion, but those You see, once I had talked like a days are past. big shot in those same groups. 1 re- Up until this last time, six nights member, too, being critical of slipago, the effect had progressed to the pers who came back and didn’t make point of no more than two or three a clean breast of it. I simply thought hours’ sleep after three drinks, and they could not last, because they then two or three more days and could not be honest. (We’ll see.) I nights of turmoil and agitated (cer- was becoming critical of a lot of tainly not serene) thoughts, with things and people in AA, so maybe little rest. I’d hide from people when- I needed a lesson. Now I’m shaky ever possible and be unable to con- enough to wonder whether anybody trol my feelings of inadequacy. If I will believe me when I say so little had to perform (see people), I drinking can wreck this particular would double my defenses, appear progressed alcoholic, can produce halfway normal, and later collapse. the whole ugly scene and make me Still, frightening as it is for me to want to kill myself. I know better contemplate, I did try again six nights than to worry about that. If my salago, and I have gone through six of vation depends on spilling it at the the worst days and nights 1 can re- next meeting, 1 hope 1’11 have whatmember. They have not been the ever it takes. 1’11 be as honest as I old, really torturous type, but just can, when 1 can, and hope that a bit downright grim and degrading. Each of humility has been added. God night, I’ve been thinking, “Tonight knows, I’ve been a mess of contra- I’ll be able to sleep, and tomorrow dicting thoughts and actions without 1’11 be able to cope.” Thank God it the lifeline of AA to cling to. has lasted this long. Maybe 1’11 re- C. S., Santu Fe, N . M .

May 1972

that. Not a care in the world, either my private one or yours. 1 wouldn’t mind being pitied or even laughed I s This Sanity? at sometimes, because I would have (if I had any awareness of it at all) similar feelings of pity and amuse- She. thought it was madness ment toward those poor, earnest to live in the real world without escape souls who thought their grim actualities were the true reality. Of course, I knew that the grin1 ize this – a few long-distance calls actualities were the real world, and I disputed with the phone company, I thought it was madness to live in followed by an episode that I found D URING THE LAST YEARS of drinking, I was fully aware that I was heading toward insanity my They didn’t care whether their hearing aids worked or their bifocals were smeared; they just wished that it without the escape I found for a few hours a day through alcohol. So rather shameful. But I was terrified, because 1 knew that some time I people would speak up more and 1 continued to drink. I did my seri- might do something catastrophic in or death, and I couldn’t understand why people made so much of it, as turn on lights; and, meanwhile, that ous drinking at home alone, making one of those blackouts – wonder dark-haired woman who walked in sure I was never drunk in restau- out of my house, drive my car, end though if I stopped drinking, I’d a few minutes ago looks a lot like rants or shops or at parties. But 1 up anywhere with anyone after poslive forever. People who don’t drink, Jenny; does she know it? Or maybe got smashed every night, going to sibly having killed someone. And I used to point out, are headed for she doesn’t know Jenny, so I won’t bed on cue: when my eyes went out not remember it. Wake up and face much the same things: senility and ask, and besides, Jenny’s probably of focus. One more drink and I the results with full possession of my death. I preferred to precede the instill in Paris, she didn’t sail until couldn’t walk, so I’d better get to senses, my values, my intelligence. evitable with a few years of gay, full after the Armistice. . . . I bed. Occasionally, I’d wake up in It was a hideous prospect: insane living, rather than decades of fuss- I was often “that dark-haired the morning, in bed, but unable to during walking, talking blackouts. ing over my health so that I could woman,” a dutiful niece with a vod- remember how I had gotten there. but afterward forced to face and eventually wear dentures and a hearka breath, half envying my care- I’d congratulate myself on having able to feel their consequences by ing aid and try to remember the free aunt. All her responsibilities had had enough sense to lie down before sane standards. That wasn’t the. kind names of people I’d known most of been turned over to others; a young- I fell down, and remind myself to of insanity I had bargained for. And my life. er brother managed her business watch that eye-focus cue more care- my physical health was far too g o d . As for insanity, I thought it must affairs, and his wife saw to it that fully this night. I didn’t worry too I wasn’t going to die quickly, and I be like advanced senility, and it much about it; after all, I always seemed to me that those of my older women were paid to come and clean wasn’t going t o go insane all of a did make it to bed. piece, only at intervals. I had to stop relatives whose minds went before and cook. My aunt lived from day to day in any year that pleased her, And then I found that I didn’t drinking. their bodies were the lucky ones. serenely and lovingly and hapqily always make it to bed when I For nie, stopping drinking meant They lived in a pleasant, even jolly thought I did; that I had walking, little world of their own, freely and knowing that her reality was as good consigning myself forever to the ughappily mingling past and present. as anyone’s, you’d think. 1 talking blackouts during which I seemed rational, but did things ly world as it was. No niercifully blurred edges, no bubble-born wllo- They didn’t care much whether they I always figured that if my drinking brought me insanity before which I would never have done even cares, no retreat, no escape from remembered specific names; they half-sober, and which 1 could not could always think of somebody’s. death, it would be something like grin) actualities until a lovi~igGod remember doing at all. Nothing di- should bring me senility. From what I sastrous occurred to make me real- I’d heard, AA could teach you how

tried to control my illness with God’s from unexpected sources. It’s no fact that they share my concepts, 1 help. I must have misread the title longer a worry, or maybe it’s just might think 1 was crazy. I feel exactof a well-known World War I1 that I’m not worrying about it. I ly as I always thought I would if I book; I thought it was God Is Only can’t. My needs will be taken care went insane. I have a sense, not of My Co-Pilot. of. Joyous! pity so much as compassion, some- When I realized this, I realized I have reason to believe that some times tinged with amusement, for also that I had never really taken ‘ people think I live in a dream world. those poor souls who think that their Step Three. I’d said, in effect, “Here, It doesn’t matter. What other peo- grim actualities are reality. I know God, here’s my life and my will. I’ll ple think no longer matters at all. that mine is the true reality. I can’t to endure the real world. . turn them over to You while I go on I do watch it a little, however, aware that only among my AA friends can explain it; nobody can. But 1 do try, When I joined AA, I didn’t want about my business.” However, once as niuch as I can, to share the joy what you had. ( I thought all you I had the daring to turn my drink- I be completely open about my of it. had was meetings.) 1 simply didn’t ing problem over, I let go absolutely world. If it weren’t for them and the R . K., Los Angeles, Calij. want what I knew I was going to get and with complete abandon. if I continued drinking. The very The results have been wild. Mad! word “sobriety” turned me off; it re- I’ve been sober sixteen months, and minded me of Calvin Coolidge and if only my aunt could hear a little my paternal grandfather, who looked bit better, we’d have some wondersomething like him and was founder ful times together. We manage pretty and first president of the Kansas well as it is; not talking much, just Temperance Union. The Second sitting together. She usually calls me Step made me want to cry; I didn’t by her dead sister’s name, but I want to be restored to the sanity I’d don’t bother to correct her, because known sober even before my black- I know- and hope she knows J outs began. know -that I’m only another man- But 1 had no choice. And that, ifestation of the love she and her too, brought a wry laugh from me. sister shared. I “Now you have a choice!” AAs I’m very much like my aunt now. would bleat at me cheerily.’I hadn’t. Like her, I no longer manage my But I would shoulder my responsi- own life. I haven’t a care in the bilities, plod dully along with the world. I cope, which is different from rest of you, do my share, pitch in, managing: I pay bills and buy g o keep it up, a day at a time, Easy ceries and keep myself clean all over Does It, First Things First, grin, and the house clean in spots, not to chatter, chatter, grin. say fits and starts. I work and play, Not surprisingly, I didn’t make it but most of the time I don’t find too right away. I didn’t make it until, much difference between the two. I having tried everything else, I sur- work at only things I enjoy, though rendered my drinking problem to some of them don’t bring in much God. Before, I had reluctantly ac- money. Money seems to last longek cepted myself as an alcoholic and than it used to, anyway, and comes

October 1972

Unconditional love From West Palm Beach, Fla.: After my initial contact with AA, than a m i m e and scared to death. I stayed sober for eight months – Well, I thought, now I have somegrudgingly, I realize now. Then I thing that I have to care for any decided that I was too young to be something that I can love. Strangely an alcoholic, life was too short to enough, this was the impetus that go without booze, etc., and began to brought me back to AA. I knew that drink again. But AA had ruined my I could not take proper care of that drinking even after this brief expo- little kitten if I was drunk all{the sure. It just was not much fun any time. more (not that it had been for quite Often, I feel that Lucky has kept some time). I was on the fence. Go- II me on an even keel when I have I , ing back to my AA friends and ad- been in trying situations. Just think mitting that they were right and I of the advantages of loving animals: was wrong was more than I could They love you unconditionally; they bear. I was out to prove to them don’t tell you what your character dethat I could drink successfully! fects are; they love you whether you About the time that I was decid- are old, young, fat, skinny, udy, or ing instead to try staying sober on beautiful- if you just spend a little time with them and show them that my own, Lucky came into my life A few weeks before, my neighbo had asked me if I would like to have 1 you love them. I know that Lucky senses when I am disturbed about a kitten. I had said yes, but when something. He will crawl upon my Lucky came to me, I had forgotten lap and love me in his sweet way. about my promise. Here was this Somehow, by that action of his, 1 little black ball of fuzz, no bigger know that God is watching over me, too, and that all will be well. Lucky will be five years old in September, and I will be five years sober in December (Lord willing). 1 know that Lucky will probably pass away before I do, but I intend to replace him with another cat as soon’as that happens, although 1 do not believe any animal will ever replace my little black good-luck piece! D. R. L.

December 1972 .r –

diers” stacked on the counters. ?ihe ‘ air reeked of stale smoke and stagnant liquor fumes. I became sicker by the minute. I moaned to my husband, “I’ve had it. I can’t face it! I think I’ll hie myself off to a nunnery.” “Too late, too late, old girl!” he moaned in response. And yet I knew can be kept we were both praying silently for the The Children’s Hour ,

arrival of the bootlegger. (Our town I with joy was dry.) We called him “the Saint Bernard.” He was a real saint to us on mornings like this. The hair of

D OES THERE come a time when a sober’member of AA can look back on Christmases prior to AA the number of bottle-shaped packages began to grow and grow. At first, there were three: one tagged ‘ called Merry Christmas before I found AA. There I stood in my lovely home that dreary, hung-over that dog was priceless! Soon, that all too familiar queasy feeling hit me, and I crawled and with some amusement? I suppose it His, one Hers, and one Theirs. As morning, and surveyed the devasta- lurchedfor the proper room. Then depends a lot on how far away from the years went by, the display be- tion before me. The gay little tree, out on the lawn there rose such a the past you are and how far into came ridiculous. The His’s and no longer gay, lay with its cherished clatter, I sprang to my knees to see AA. To me, Christmas is a time to Hers’s doubled, then tripled. The old keepsake ornaments shattered. I what was the matter. It was the be merry, to rejoice, to show rever- one tagged Theirs remained stable, could hardly keep from crying. Then Children’s Hour! Having no children ence, and to be happy. except that, of necessity, its quality 1 remembered that some Christmas of my own, I had adopted about all On many Christmases of the past, declined to the cheapest brand go- card had persuaded me it would be the kids in the neighborhood. In my happiness called for one essential ing. It was laughingly labeled “Cure great fun to shoot the baubles off “unwell” morhents, I would promise ingredient. Even though 1 did not for Alcoholism.” There was little the tree with the new target pistol. Jeep rides, picnics, or anything else drink in the early days of my mar- room under our tree for more con- My gaze rested on the dozens of that came to mind -to my later, j riage, there was always one gaily ventional gifts. (Oh yes – the count partly empty drink glasses, crammed hung-over, sober regrets. wrapped, bottle-shaped package be- included two more: the bottle I hid with soggy, brown, and blackened Now the dear little monsters neath the tree for friends, neighbors, and the one he hid.) ! cigarette butts- a sickening witches’ were trying to tear the door down, and relatives who would drop in Now it is another Christmas past, I brew – on half-eaten food scat- ringing the bell and chortling, “Y?u bearing gifts. Only a few years later, many years later – my last, so- tered about, on heaps of “dead sol- promised! You promised!” I asked

myself: What had I promised this ed was that Christmas was just a time? I soon found out. It was a day like any other, to be handled Jolly Jeep ride with “peaner-butter one day at a time. sanridges,” and I was to inspect all Best of all, I went to my first AA the toys Santa “brung.” The kids Christmas Eve party. I felt no loneburst through the door in a pack. liness. Instead, I experienced the Santa must have a sadistic sense joy of being with friends who really of humor, I thought, to give kids cared and loved me just for myself. toys like that at a time like that. The Nor did I bother to try to hide the toys! All of them either tooted, tears of happiness we see often in shrilled, rattled, vibrated, thumped, AA. It seemed to me that the large whistled, popped, sonic-boomed, or room could not hold all the love cried. My respect for the famous that filled it. But it did! Pie-Eyed Piper increased. That’s On Christmas morning, my little why he phased out the kids! Just tree stood shining and gay with all before rigor mortis set in, I suggest- new ornaments, just as it had looked ed to the kiddies that they might go the night before. It smiled at me. home and play first, while I “cleaned And when the kids burst through the house.” door, I did not shudder nor reach “Oh, we can’t go home,” they for my “booster shot.” We played yelled. “Mama and Daddy are sick.” together with all the toys that tooted, So I plied them with all the goodies popped, whistled, and exploded. We I could muster and sent them home went for that Jeep ride and yelled to get sick with their parents. And “Merry Christmas!” to everybody then “cleaned house” – that is, we passed. poured myself a drink or two or so. Slowly, through the years since, The following December, I was the true meaning of Christmas has a new member of AA, fearing that been restored. The nagging shame Christmas would be very dull and of drunken Christmases past no sad without “the cup that cheers.” longer haunts me. The Christmas My marriage of many years had chimes from the nearby carillon fill drunk itself up. But those wonderful me with a sense of peace and real members of AA understood and happiness. stayed close. The main thing I learn- M. U.,Brighton, Colo.

December 1972

victim. Compassion is the word. I going to work in a nursing home, I am amazed that I was spared cir- would again love my profession with rhosis. Would to God I could give a love deeper and greater than I had this lady what I have. ever known? AA gave me that feel- ,

Now we trek down the hall. Lone- ing -gave it all back again after liness stalks this hall. No one in “the cure” -one day at a time. So her right mind would work here, simple. So easy. I am so grateful You’ve Got to Be you might think. Very few patients are in their right minds. 0 Lord, I that I go down on my knees at night. 0 Lord, I am not worthy – I who Kidding! I prayed, not that you remove my loneliness, but that you help me enresented, I who tore through the alcoholic hell at full speed. Who dure. Endurance has helped along prayed for me? Who picked me up I f you think you have it so rough, the miles as I walk the miracle road from the gutter? Who loved miserfollow this nurse on her rounds paved by AA, enduring suffering able me? and pain, loneliness, despair, depression, selfishness, the beads of sweat So now I give away what I have received. I give it to my lovely daugh- I when I am tempted to reach for a ter, to my parents. I give it with a drink. squeeze of the hand. My home and

L ASTNIGHT, I leaned over the bedside table and gave my patient a pain-killer. As I did so, I spoke these with me, and you’ll see how easy it is to be an alcoholic. Here is Mrs. M., an arthritic at forty-seven. This, We continue on rounds. “To be a nurse is to walk with God, along the path the Master trod.” I hold a my life are rededicated, revitalized. The miracle of AA goes on eadh 24 hours. Easy; isn’t it? No needles. words: “It’s a progressive disease.” too, is a progrcssive disease, crip- gnarled hand, limp, useless. The (Are you a diabetic? Aren’t you . You in AA who grouse and complain that your medicine is so bitter, pling, confining her to a wheelchair, eyes look up at me without compre- grateful for insulin?) No kidding, I with no use of the hands. Do I see hension, dull. Did I know that by isn’t it great to be alive? so hard to take -you’ve got to be you hanging your head in shame? M. L. B., RN, Havre de Grace, Md. kidding! So simple a formula for liv- But I thought you felt sorry for ing, and yet I hear around discussion yourself because you were an alcogroups the grousers saying, “Oh, I holic. Haven’t I heard you whining get discouraged.” Really, I think a and complaining that you wanted an well-placed kick in the rear for our easier way? childishness might be the best medi- 1 don’t know about you, but I cine for what can be described as wanted AA more than I wanted anycomplacency. thing in my whole life. I wanted so- I am more and more amazed and briety, health, happiness, and peace grateful that all I must do to stay of mind. Did anyone say there was alive and well is to follow a program a price tag on those? Can I ever for normal living! Do you remember repay all that was given to me freeyour sponsor asking you to do with- ly, without my asking? out a drink today? Doesn’t that On rounds again, I am with a sound easy? lovely lady who is a diabetic, a I am a nurse. Come on rounds chronic alcoholic, and a recent stroke

December 1972 I

emotional as well as a physical basis. that God was doing for me what I That old wormy sobriety wasn’t good couldn’t do for myself. In the seven enough any longer. I had seen the , years since that night, I have real- I glowing, radiant happiness in AA, ized many times that I came into the and I had read the seemingly extrav- program in a condition of spiritual agant promises in the book. I leafed -if not financial -poverty. Old- I Still Had M y through the pages, looking again for those comforting paragraphs promistimers still talk about the early days on the program when a newcomer ing serenity and peace, a change of wasn’t considered ready for AA if attitude, an end to fear of people he still had his wristwatch. I had to and of economic insecurity. I paused, stay around the program and pick holding on to the pledge that these up enough humility to see that my 1 She came to AA in a condition things would happen for me, too, if few material possessions didn’t have of spiritual – if not financial – poverty I would work for them. to be a liability to my sobriety. Since At that bleak time, between my then, I’ve discovered that happy first and second AA bikhda~s, I sobriety – with the emphasis on began to reexperience the Twelve happy -is a by-product of the AA . Steps at depth. The gloom receded, way of life. Y THE TIME AA found me, I their dilemma; it certainly wasn’t I

I B was a round-the-clock drinker, totally dependent upon alcohol and mine. In spite of my active agnosticism the panic cleared, and I was aware Joyce H., Burbank, Calif.

accustomed to sobering up in re- and orchestrated arrogance, I did straints in a sanitarium. Because I manage to run through the Twelve had watched others close to me die, Steps, once over lightly. And be- I knew it was going to happen to cause I was sincere in my intent to me if I kept on drinking. stay sober, I attended lots of meet- My initial surrender was to booze ings. That’s when I started noticing in the strictly physical sense. I was some glaring differences in the qualthrough fighting alcohol, and I was ity of sobriety, between theirs and ready for any old broken-down kind mine. I yearned for the serenity and of sobriety I could find. While I peace of mind those people seemed could acknowledge that alcohol had to have. In contrast, and in spite of me licked, I was still unable to ac- the fact that I still had my wrist- ‘ cept help in other areas of my life. watch, my own sobriety was at best After all, I still had an apartment of uneven, spotted with highs and lows, my own. My car was paid for. I pockmarked with times of depresowned some nice jewelry. And wasn’t sion, desperation, and personal I a scholar, a candidate for a gradu- chaos. ate degree? Maybe the rest of those One night after a meeting, I openpeople found their lives unmanage- ed the Big Book. By that time, I was able. Lack of power may have been looking for a way to give up on an

December 1972

‘Were they talking about me?’ From Washington, D.C.: The best advice I received from on what I had gone through during my sponsor on entering the program my drinking days, when I was mennearly four years ago was “Don’t tally and spiritually sick. I would fiddle around with the opposite sex walk into a group of people and until you really know what you are would become completely paranoid doing.” -were they talking about me? I naturally headed for the bar, because the booze eased my conscience, and after a few drinks I didn’t care what the old hags were saying. Did I want to start that hassle all over? Here I had a chance for a whole new life. I am so very thankful to this gal for her advice. I did find a wonderful man in AA, but it didn’t happen the first year 1 was sober. What I I thought this was rather nasty of her, since I was young and attractive. had done before entering AA didn’t I felt like saying, “You are just jeal- matter, but this wonderful man who ous because nobody is interested in has been in the program eighteen years fell in love with and married you.” Thank God, I held my sarcasthe gal who “kept her nose clean” tic tongue, because she went on to tell me why. She didn’t preach at me in AA. How wonderful to walk into a or condemn me, but told me kindly group of people at a meeting and that if 1 was promiscuous, people would eventually start to talk and know they aren’t whispering about YOU! R. S M. P. then my old guilt feelings would return, which would eventually lead me to a drink. This gave me a chance to reflect

May 1973

Practice the OT LONG AGO, when 1 was visit- N ing friends, a rug slipped and I went boofl. I hit that beautiful, polprinciples and make a great ished floor with my left hip. My daughter Came on the double, looked discovery at the huge drops on my brow, and offered me smelling salts. Then, at a loss, she said, “Dear, I know you don’t wagt bourbon, but would a in All Our Affairs whiff of it help?” I lay there in agony and laughter. friends or themselves – help for and down stairs with railings, and that would take me inside. So I sat Then came the next move: Easy those unable to live without alcohol going up and down a step without a there. “Easy Does It,” I told myself. Does 11. With those words in my and yet unable to live with it. railing, like a curb or front-door “Others have done it – so can you. heart, I rpoved the body bit by bit I was asked to explain the work- step. The first day’s lesson worked Faith is the absence of fear. Have and got rump on the edge of the ings of AA to a class of student okay. The next day, I had another faith in your teacher. You did it couch. nurses. go at it. I swung myself down the yesterday -you can do it today. From there on, it was “Let go and Once, at 4:00 AM, I was told by room toward that one-step platform, There is a right way and a wrong let cod.” My son came to help; the the night nurse about an alcoholic got to it, and froze. I c ~ u l dnot bal- way. Learn the right way, and each doctor, the ambulance, X-rays, and down the hall, unruly and unman- ance on those crutches enough to step will be easier. Easy Does It, hip-pinnjng all followed in their ageable at the time of admission, but pick up my good foot and place it old girl.” proper place and order. at present out cold with paraldehyde on that slab of wood. 1 could not do “Ready now?” said the teacher. Then came acceptance. Plans were and a hypo. The next day, I was it. I sweated and shook. My teacher “Yes,” said I. I swung to the step, knocked into cocked hats; there were wheeled to him, and found he was said, “You’re working too hard at up the step, and down the other expenses not planned for; the family a man I hadn’t seen in sixteen years. it.” side! Ten more times I did4t. Weary, had the worry and extra loads to He remembered me. He listened and So I sat in a chair while he at- worn, but victorious, I said, “Thank bear. All these had to be accepted, said he would accept help. I got it tended someone else, and I had a you, God.” plus my jmmobility, the slow, slow for him. Was that his day to sur- session with me. I flew home the next day. I crutchprocess of recovery, and my seeming render? I left the next morning, so For many, many years I had come, ed across the lawn, down the walk, uselessnee. Acceptance of alcohol- I may never know. But perhaps, just time and again, to that unsurmount- up the first step, and up the next ism had been a tough one for me; perhaps, I may have been of use. able First Step and couldn’t make one, and stood in my hall and cried. this seemed very similar. So the 24- That in itself was action. So I was it “hon~e” into AA. This was much These were my first tears since the hour p l d went into action. One day not immobile after all. I had shared the same. For me to go home, that accident, but they were happy, joyat a time, that’s all. my experience and hope. one step was of paramount impor- ous tears. Then tregan a aries of unexpected The most astounding pan of this tance. I would not be able to get “. . . In all our affairs.” What a events that left me in awe. People whole accident of mine took place into our house unless I mastered it. small phrase to carry such a wealth came to me. Here I was in a in ;physiotherapy one day. 1 was One step, just like that platform, of meaning for the living of each hospital bed, and people came 4eiiming the.uie of crutches for plain was in front of our door, then a flat today. to .me,,fur help for lwed ones or wal+g,.4bstoele courses, going .up space and another step beyond it J . C . W., Greenwich, Conn. . . . d

January 1974 –

joyable, it wasn’t until I was nearly had to change. Me, the best pal I finished and was writing about my ever had . . . most of the time. The fear of God that I became aware of Sixth Step was difficult, because my a pattern in my attitude toward au- pride had got me through a lot in thority and my way of dealing with life, I thought. I had just kept going, it -passively negative, spiced with right on through. No-Moss-Mary, I active negativity. That was enlight- called myself -inaccurately, since ening. my name wasn’t Mary. Me?The Best Pa1 I Ever Had? And I was happy, too, to discover Now I had to ask my Higher that there were, after all, some good Power to remove a shortcoming that She was scared of that Fourth Step inventory – things to say about myself. There was really closer than the alcohol were also obvious improvements that problem had been. It took a few it might mean making some changes had taken place during my six days to get ready for that, even months in AA. And I was some- though the common sense of it was thing, neither so bad and hopeless evident. I had a newly developed as I sometimes feared, nor so won- understanding of God. I knew He NE OF THE most frightening pe- could, maybe. Why not me? What 0 riods in my AA life came just before my Fourth Step inventory. I had happened to the best football player on the block, the idealistic derful in that special way that only had helped with my drinking prob- I, apparently, understood. This dis- lem and could help with some fears covery was both a relief and a disap- if asked; but overabundant pride is considered suggesting to my sponsor student? I had drunk a lot in the pointment. Before my progressively a complex problem, and asking for that it might be immoral to write a past year trying to figure that out. fearless moral inventory, there had the removal of a shortcoming that fearless moral inventory if one was But this was now. Even though always been just a chance that I was, I didn’t clearly understand myself scared. There was something in her now slipped back or forth a lot, I possibly because of unusual sensitiv- seemed risky. There were times when eyes that discouraged that maneuver. managed to figure out that this no- ity, quite special, waiting for dis- I thought of God as an equal power And I entertained myself for a while good inventory should probably be covery. Instead, I was-somewhere or even as a slightly lesser power wondering whether some people written at a desk. So I sat at mine, in the middle. with special talents. I was comfortcould be afraid to be fearless and looking passively at the mimeo- In our Fifth Step discussion, my able with the idea of God Jr. Still, I whether I was one of them. graphed guide my sponsor had given sponsor helped me understand more had experienced good from’His spe- Finally, I had to admit that for me. There were suggestions of what about the nature of the problems I cial talents; if I took the Seventh some reason I simply was scared to to write about, taken from Alco- had become aware of through the Step, there was a fair possibility that sit down and write the thing. After holics Anonymous. There was even Fourth. It took some effort to put no harm would come to me, and all, what would I find? Did I really a list of fears to discuss. And there aside my pride and listen to some- very likely some further good. I gave want to spend a couple of hours was my sponsor’s own touch -the one suggest that I might have too Him a try. writing about my ratlike tendencies, seven virtues and seven “sins.” much pride and that I could, if I We’ve been partners in the two even if I didn’t intend to show the It felt good to express “officially” wanted to, do something about it. years since. Every now and then, I result to anyone? Life was hard (written right there) what I believed This involved trust and faith both in find a “new” problem has come; enough! What if I looked at myself and felt about these things. I wrote my sponsor and in God as I had every now and then, I find an old and saw a formless thing that oozed for more than a couple of hours and come to understand Him. This faith one has gone. There is little question into spaces left by others, with no stopped only a few times, for private had worked for my own good in the these days of who is junior. Mostly, direction and no control? Could a compliments on the fact that I was past six months, but still it was I just take it easy. sweet, sensitive person live forty doing it, and it wasn’t bad at all. frightening to think that I actually L. E. L., Sonoma, Calif. years and be a nothing? Others Though the process itself was en-

L* ‘ 1

A A and the Military January 1974 tolerate myself, I paid for a trip to a drunk to remember. By late afterrehabilitation hospital. I received an noon, that former boss couldn’t even education in alcoholism and saw my- remember having seen me at work self in almost every lesson taught. I that morning. Nothing irritates me agree with the statistics that say the more than the drunk who pities me three professions hardest to reach in because I’m sober. ‘Off-Duty Conduct’ relationship to alcoholism are: ( I ) Now I shy away from the social clergy, (2) medical, and (3) mili- functions, and I get this jazz: “I and tary. Admission of the disease is al- just don’t understand her. She’s such most assured professional suicide. a nice person, but so difficult to Sociability’ So my revelation was not an easy know. I believe she’s antisocial – a experience. It was frightening. loner. Maybe she should see a psy- Since 1969, I’ve been sober 1,502 chiatrist.” They have no conception days and drunk 168. The years 1969 of the difficulties I encounter in try- Her military career was enhanced and 1970 were difficult -I fought ing to maintain my cool. I force mysobriety. I have been sober every self to smile and look pleasant as by her ability to tip the glass until day since June 19, 1971. This pe- individuals slop their drinks all over riod of sobriety has been a trying the place, slur their conversation, the “requirements” led her to alcoholism experience, but completely reward- and make little or no sense. Someing. My patience has been tested to times I feel as if I’m’looking into a the limit. The cocktail parties con- mirror of my own past, and it tinue, and I’m expected to attend. doesn’t make me happy. Most of I ‘M IN THE military, in my last year of twenty years of service. My career has been judged on perfor- Even my pattern was more typical than unique. I had a couple of drinks before the cocktail party to All my supervisors are aware that I these functions cause me to feel as am an alcoholic. I leveled with them if I am visiting an abnormal gathermance of duty, off-duty conduct, and relax – I didn’t want to appear prior to being appointed to this job. ing of addicts. I don’t mean to sound sociability. “Off-duty conduct” and stuffy. I had a couple at the party During the first year of this as- pure -I’m not. I’m only trying to “sociability” mean tipping the glass so I could mingle, and I had a few signment, I did attend the social stay sober. “There, but for the grace . at cocktail parties without appearing drinks after the party so I could sleep. functions. I soon found that the of God, go I.” to be intoxicated. You use the word I managed to do very well on my effi- longer I stay sober, the less tolerant I have other experiences to share “intoxicated” when you attend a ciency report in the area of sociabil- of drunks I become. I got fed up with my AA friends, and perhaps I cocktail party, but really you’re just ity, but I fell flat on my face in with my former boss’s discussing my I’ll continue to submit my thoughts. plain drunk. Through my own ini- performance of duty. alcoholism with me at social func- My comments to the Grapevine tiative, I became a military success After almost killing myself, I real- tions only. That’s the only time he serve as an AA meeting for me. I and an alcoholic. I accept full re- ized I was no longer just a sociable I would discuss the problem, because write more freely than I speak. Also, sponsibility for my success and my drunk. I was, in fact, an alcoholic. he was loaded with “bottle courage.” I’m still in the military and some alcoholism, but the requirements of That is more than most military per- I now cringe at the &ought of a what restricted in my remarks. But the military service did help me sonnel would care to admit. At the drunk’s hanging on to me. I’m weary I can speak freely in the Grapevine reach the point of alcoholism. time of my discovery, the service of listening to the same drunken withoutwoqingab~utmyefficiency For fifteen years, I worked hard was not tolerant nor sympathetic to tales over and over and over again. report. Perhaps I lack the courage and I played hard. Finally, I became the alcoholic, so I hid as well as I I’m plain tired of repeating myself of my conviction. the inevitable- the Military Drunk. could hide. When I could no longer because the people I talk to are too C. M. D., Floridn

February 1974 4 k

!

There Can Be Love and Laughter .. . stop, make an about-face, and follow 1 pulled anchor, steered my little Would 0 N J U N E 8, 1961, while sitting in a boat fishing a picturesque little lake in Illinois. I reached a de- I

I the AA path with God and His people as my guides? boat landward, and never looked back at the tranquil spot, the tiny cision. 1 had returned to the scenes It was not a decision made lightly. cove with its tree-filled shores, its her decision of my childhood to sit mv mother. 1 agonized over the emptiness of life quietness and majestic calmness. condemn her and for one week I had come dail; without all my good drinking friends. Heading to the nearest bar to celeto this tranquil spot to fish, to pray Where would love and romance come brate my decision, I drank the rest to an empty life and meditate, and to reflect back from? Love and romance were im- of the day, while driving back to my over the years of my life as an active portant to me. Where would laugh- home in Northern Indiana. The next of somber, alcoholic. ter and fun come from? Laughter morning, June 9, 1961, there was a There had been a brief interlude and fun were important to me. God note of finality to that hangover. 1 solemn of dryness, when I was going to AA didn’t like gaiety, I rationalized. God had drained the last dregs from the meetings for a period of three frowned on frivolity. The church of cup. I had had enough. It was finsobriety? months. But then had come the old my parents had said so. Was I ca- ished. call of the wild, and I had bolted, pable of living out my allotted time That was thirteen years ago, and rejoining the pack – the old cronies in solemn, somber sobriety? each morning since that day, when in their dens. My mind flooded with memories I have awakened, I have had the Now I was at the turning point. of the price I had always paid for feeling “I have had enough.” What was I to do about my life and the fleeting gaiety, the hollow laugh- Lct me tell you about my mornthe influence my life was having on i ter, the pseudo loves. I made the ings now. Upon awakening, I take those around me? The choice was decision. “Okay, God. You win. It’s my cup of coffee to the patio of our mine to make. Was 1 to continue AA all the way -starting tomor- small pink house nestled under great down the path of self-willed destruc- row.” oaks and hickory trees along the tion, filled with hangovers, remorse, That’s the way it was. The deci- shoreline of a tranquil cove on a confusion, and chaos, or was I to I sion, I mean. picturesque lake in Illinois. Soon,

my husband joins me. My husband derstanding for His guidance “to- -the first boy I ever loved, the idol day.” Some days, almost hourly, of my high-school days, returned to renew the plea for His way in my me through the divine grace of the life. Higher’Power 1 came to know But, ever so slowly, I could feel ‘through a program of Steps to re- myself changing. Things that had covery. We have our morning pray- seemed important were no longer ers and meditation in harmony with important. There was inside me a the bids and God’s little critters warming, a softening, a stirring, as scampering about. . the petals of a rosebud stir almost My gaze fixes on a spot out in the imperceptibly into a blossom. cove. I see a woman in a small boat. You, too, can live, new woman – I feel again her loneliness, her fears really live. There will be love and and frustrations. I hurt for her; but laughter and a delicious sense of there is a sweetness to the pain, the well-being down deep inside if you sweetness of gratitude, for she lives will abandon yourself to the business only in my memories. May she al- of recovery – not just recovery ways abide there. I have gone full from the disease of active alcoholcircle, returning now to the exact ism, but deeper than that, recovery location where I made the weighty from a former self. Such thorough decision that changed my life. recovery can be realized, I believe, I write now to that new woman – only through the fearless application &d to any woman new in our Fel- of spiritual principles to our daily lowship today. That lonely, fearful lives. woman, who cannot envision life I hear the katydids, the buzz of without alcohol and all the familiar the locusts, and I am reminded of a ramifications of a drinker’s life. Thir- passage 1 read about a man named teen years ago, forty years old, twice Joel. The locusts had devastated his divorced, all I could see stretching lands year after year, but God said ahead was an empty path for me to to Joel, “1 will restore to you the trudge alone. Go to work; come years the locusts have taken.” home; meet the family’s needs; go to My heart swells and tears of grat- AA meetings alone; come home itude fill my eyes, for I, too, have alone; go to bed alone. Do the best had restored to me the years of the I could about an inventory of self. locusts, through a blessed fellowship Relate the sordid details of a seem- called AA. ingly wasted life to another human Alcoholics Anonymous is a felbeing. Make humble petitions for lowship of men and women who forgiveness to those 1 had harmed. share. Thank you, Grapevine, for Each morning, day after day after letting me share. ‘r day,,ask.the God of my limited un- N. G.,Neoga, 111.

– I May 1974 place three weeks, she got a new roommate. Judy, too, was seventeen, Nobody can recover for US. frightened, and suspicious. That evening, when I visited Mindy, she But we still can’t do it alone, told me that Judy had refused to eat dinner, crying out that others wanted t o poison her. Because We Need lane Another “I went and got her some food, Grandpa,” she said. “I tasted it first for he; and then told her how I had been as scared as she was. Just like She told me she was going to col- Then my daughter got Mindy into M Y LAST gulps of alcohol were consumed only a couple of lege, and I scoffed gently. “Why, hours before I stumbled into my first child, I’m seventy years old and a mental center some distance from our home. Her fears persisted. The her. I explained how I had learned to trust people. How I had found out I was surrounded by people who Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I have four of my eight grandchildren approach of strangers panicked her. loved me and wanted me to get well. expected to crouch in a corner and in college.” She refused food and medication, ‘We’re all friends in the same boat,’ try to absorb “the message.” So I I never drank from that time on. sure that enemies sought to poison I said. ‘We stick together.’ ” was surprised when a man they call- The night I got my first birthday her. I asked her whether anyone had ed Sully clasped my hand and told cake, with its single, lonely candle, I On the second evening of this told her to do this. “Oh, no, Grandme he was glad to see me. Then he Jeannie was there, patting my shoul- -hospitalization, my daughter, and I pa. But in those meetings with my led me to the coffee room, while a der and saying, “I’m so proud of stood in a corridor, feeling appre- friend Jeannie, I learned that the meeting went on in the main hall. you.” That shook me up. Imagine a hensive and frustrated about the best way for sick people to get well That night, I learned that we in co-ed being thrilled at an old man’s future. And there came Jeannie, is to help one another. You know, AA are people who need people. first 365 days of continuous sobriety! bouncing down the hall. She had re- it is beautiful to comfort someone They told me that I need never be I saw Jeannie now and then- ceived her college degree and had else who is going through what you . alone again. What a promise to one just an antique soul and a young of us, who are always loners when person who shared a disease, a re- ‘ recently become a counselor in this institution. She was working with aldid. Nobody can recover for us. But we still can’t do it alone. That’s bein our alcoholic haze. covery, and a program. Eventually, coholics confined there. cause we need one another.” I was to go on being reminded a day came when I was in need and I told Jeannie about Mindy and I suddenly told my daughter I had of our mutual need for people, in search of a bright face, of some- introduced her to Mindy as one of to go look for something out in the through contacts such as I experi- one who understood though not Grandpa’s good friends. Jeannie took car. I knew then that Mindy was enced with a young woman named for myself this time. Two years and , charge of the child. “Don’t worry,” going to recover (she has, and now Jeannie. She handed me my first five months after my AA life began, she said. “Mindy will be among is doing great in college herself), mug of AA coffee that night. I look- one of the apples of my eye, a seven- I friends. She’ll be loved.” thanks to a fringe benefit of the mired at the half-filled cup and thought, teen-year-old, granddaughter named And she was. Progress was slow. acle of AA. “Wow! AA really must be hard up,

July 1974

church just a block away from where those before-dinner drinks and to I lived. I noted beginners meetings fortify myself with food. and attended them. 9. If I felt stuffy while others were 4. I made a decision never to miss having cocktails, I reminded myself the two meetings a week of this that one drink would be too many group -unless I was ill or out of AA Tools town. Because I had a job that re for me. I realized that gaiety is not necessarily the most desirable goal quired long hours of work, some- – especially when your very life is Some helpful how-to-do-it hints times in the evening, I wasn’t free to at stake. attend as many meetings as I would 10. On Friday nights, which had have liked. But I vowed that I would always been my nights to howl, I get to these two regularly and take went to a meeting, saw a movie, met R ECENTLY, I have been asking myself, when viewing a stmggling newcomer or a “slipper,” how in as many others as possible. 5. I stopped seeing the man I had a nonalcoholic friend, or did something to avoid going home or to a I ever made that first year after been drinking with almost every bat: twenty-five years of drinking, the last night. 11. I conferred frequently with an ten to fifteen of which were problem 6. I kept in touch with my doctor, old friend who had been in AA for or alcoholic drinking. Before AA, who thought highly of AA and had several years. He and his wife iinwhen I had tried to stop, I could get been trying for two or three years vited me to their home for several through only one month without to get me to join. He recommended weekends, so I would not be alone; drinking. eating honey and gave me vitamin he took me to meetings and intro- Now, after a dozen years of so- B,, shots periodically. duced me to other AA women he briety, I have been trying to go back 7. I kept on hand several kinds knew who lived near me. and search my mind to remember way it was during my first few of juices and soft drinks at all times, 12. He also gave me The Imitathe various approaches and gim- months: so that, when I had the urge to drink, tion of Christ, which I read each micks that I used -either recom- 1. After a visit to the AA inter- I could have whichever one hap- morning. Later, when I discovered mended by the AA program, picked group office in New York, I went pened to appeal to me. 24 Hours a Day, reading it became up from other members, or figured home and did some tall thinking. I 8. I had my dinner as soon as I (and still is) a daily habit. out for myself -to avoid taking realized that if I didn’t stop drink- got home or ate out as soon as I left 13. On Saturday and Sunday that first drink. ing, I would lose my job, my family, the office, to avoid being tempted by mornings, when previously I had We are individuals, each as dif- my friends, and my life. Many times awakened with a hangover and startferent from the other as our finger- before, I had resolved not to drink, ed to drink before getting out of prints. It is our common goal that but I had not known how to live bed, now I sat .by the window, with makes us brothers and sisters. The without alcohol. Now AA showed the sun streaming in, and did needlemethods that I, a businesswoman, me the way. point. ( I even surprised myself living alone, used in the beginning 2. I threw out any liquor I had on there!) can easily be adapted by any new- hand. 14. I read avidly -the Big Book, comer. 3. I checked the meeting book the “Twelve and Twelve,” AA pam- So far as I can recall, this is the and located a group which met in a phlets, the Grapevine, any new books being published on alcoholism, or old ones with alcoholic

stories. drinking was the greatest surprise to 15. I tried to be good to myself! me, for I had anticipated much more Rather than feeling deprived or try- of a problem here. ing to discipline myself to work the 20. I stayed away from bars I had whole program right away, I just previously frequented, and I avoidtried to keep sober one day at a ed the people with whom I had time. I spent money on clothes, drunk excessively. 21. I checked off each day on a calendar for the first three months. 22. Every so often, I had phone conversations and after-meeting gettogethers with old-timers in the group. 23. I used all the Slogans and the Serenity Prayer, and during the first six months, I took the first two Steps. After six months, I realized that grooming, and theater, or did what- my entire outlook on life was changever I happened to want to do- ing. My attitude toward people was except take that drink. better; I had increased self-respect; 16. I was consciously aware of the I was handling my time, energy, and dangers of getting too tired, too money more efficiently; my social reangry, too hungry, too anything. lationships with co-workers, friends, 17. I took exercises daily, in the and members of my family had immorning. proved; I was beginning to enjoy 18. On Sundays when I was home simple things; there was an increased and found time dragging, I called breadth to my activities and intertwo other beginners, comparing our ests; and I was surrendering to a experiences and telling them what I Higher Power, whom I chose to call had learned of the program. Neither God. of them stayed sober for long, but I Since then, I have moved twice to did. At the time, I didn’t realize how different parts of the country, and much talking to them was helping both times I have found AA groups me. which welcomed me and made me 19. When others were having feel at home, our common bond. drinks before dinner or at a party, How grateful I am to Bill W., to I had tonic with lime, ginger ale, AA and its members, and to God or anything nonalcoholic, and few for giving me back life itself and for people seemed to know or care that revitalizing my spirit in this truly I wasn’t drinking. The ease of not wonderful Fellowship. drinking among others who were M . H., Claremont, Calif.

October 1974

Medical Help in the May issue, Where in the Steps, the Big ,Book, I N A LETTER Alice, suffering from bone cancer of the neck and spine, wrote, “There or any other AA writings are we banned from seeking medical help are some members who seem to and following a doctor’s orders, prothink I am not really entitled to my viding we have been honest with the sobriety date, as I am taking medi- doctor and ourselves about our alcocine.” That shook my serenity! holism? Intractable pain, like alcohol, can Let those who reject medicine foldestroy both the mind and the body. low their own convictions and keep To exist with such pain, the sufferer their own sobriety in their own way, must turn to his Higher Power, his as we all must. And let none of us doctors, and his own determination in AA condemn a fellow alcoholic to be a “person,” just as he does in in need of help by trying to play God rejecting the urge to drink. in his life. Who can deprive me of The cop-out pills, those that try to my physical and mental sobriety? do for us what we have to do for Only I. And only I can judge truly ourselves, aren’t the remedy for al- and honestly whether my sobriety coholism or pain or anything else. is being jeopardized or violated. But medication for survival and/or Congratulations to Alice for her function is another matter. thirteen sober years. May my Higher AA, as I understand it, does not Power sustain my sobriety and help issue orders, does not condemn, does me deal with my spinal problems as not punish. AA’s objective is to “help successfully as she has with hers. others recover from alcoholism.” Helen F., Sun Diego, Calif.

December 1974

day is such a simple concept that satisfaction and fulfillment in my life my complicated, analytical mind had today. missed the whole point. It is an art I no longer wait to be happy when to be able to live one day completely such-and-such happens, nor to b e in the now. A person living with one come creative and fulfilled when I foot in yesterday and the other foot get my degree from some school. All I have is today. But, thanks to AA Return to Now in tomorrow is unbalanced today. I know from experience. and my Higher Power, today has To live each day without either been beautiful and full, because I A member a t eighteen, s h e f o u n d regret or guilt about my past or fear stopped several times to enjoy and herself outgrowing A A or anxiety for my future- that is observe the now. mv one goal todav. I believe learn- If there is someone else in this HAVE BEEN sober in Alcoholics ink to l6e in th; now is the only Fellowship who feels he or she may I Anonymous for eight and a half years. I am twenty-seven years old. needs. What little humility I had gained flew out the window. Again, a s h the bad old days, I began diway real serenity, peace of mind, and freedom can be achieved. I do be “outgrowing” AA, I would like to say this: Please reread the Big I came into AA when I was eighteen. recting God, bargaining with Him, not for one minute claim to be able Book and the “Twelve and Twelve” My fringe benefits and blessings trying new, more sophisticated forms to give any great pearls of wisdom and honestly ask yourself whether have been many, but after my third of prayer that would get me what I about how to accomplish this. Any you have really done everything sugyear of sobriety, I began feeling un- wanted. progress I have made has been a gested there to bring about the peace easy. About that time, I discovered After two years of concentrated gift from God, because, for the first of mind, serenity, and freedom from a study group in my area and be- effort at self-direction, I was totally time, I am not trying to figure out anxiety that these books promise came very involved with the Twelve miserable and as deeply depressed the answer. Instead, each morning I and we all desire. Get the basics Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, as I had ever been in my entire life. ask God to guide me each minute of down pat and work all the Steps without which I would not be either Finally, I was again brought to my the day and to teach me how to live completely before you go on to sane or sober today. knees. During all this, I thank God in the now, just for today. I ask God something else. However, in about my sixth year, that I had kept a running acquain- to open my eyes to the blessings that God bless you, and have a happy I became dissatisfied with AA. I had tance with AA and that my friends are here today, and to help me find now! a vague idea that I had really out- had kept in touch with me. So, by R. F., Lemon Grove, Calif. grown my need for the program. So the grace of God, I did not drink I got involved with other endeavors, and eventually got honest enough “more spiritual, advanced, and in- with myself to see what I was doing. depth.” Insidiously, my ego reared I was able to become willing to turn its ugly head and sent me on a self- my life and will over to my Higher propelled, self-centered journey that Power and go on from there. I was was headed for a painful end, be- at last convinced that a life run on cause it led me to believe, “Of my- self-will was headed for disaster. self, I am everything.” Again, I began The most important concept I had setting the stage of my life and trying “outgrown” was living one day at a to position the actors. Again, I put time. I had thought I had that one forth great energy and effort in ar- down pat. In reality, I hadn’t even ranging life to supply my wants and begun to practice it,. To live just to-

“We remembered a l w a ~ sthat o u ~ sex powers were God-given and there fore good, Ja nuary 1975 neither to be used lightly OT selfishly insanity demanded revenge. I insisted that we have sex, even though I nor to be despised and loathed.” didn’t want it. I taunted and teased, Chapter Five, Alcoholics Anonyntorrs till it was his turn to dread bedtime. How cruel, how insane, can a person be? I came to AA and found sobriety nearly four years ago. I have discovered contentment and peace of Sex Attitudes and Sobriety mind much of the time, but I have yet to regain the pleasure from sex After the drinking stops, o u r ideas that was a part of my life before I drank. My doctor reminds me that a b o u t sex may change I am impatient and expecting too much, and he assures me that time will improve our situation. Naturally, my resentments grew My husband came to AA over a A MONG NEWCOMERS, I often hear the question “How will sobriety affect my sex life?” I feel that this is alcoholic six years before 1 did. I dreaded going to bed with him. Then 1 discovered that a couple of stiff and so did my drinking, until I, too, had lost all control over alcohol. At year real ago, but as yet has not found sobriety. It may be that I still a valid question and that the new- this point, we became more animal harbor resentments, even unknowdrinks before retiring helped to looscomer should discuss it at a more than human. X-rated movies had ingly, that make me resistant to total en my inhibitions. This then became personal level with a sponsor or nothing on us, except for our privacy. enjoyment. I have placed this proba frequent remedy. Deep down, I hated what I was do- lem in God’s hands, knowing that other AA who has some length of Nights when my husband was out sobriety. It should not be ignored or ing. It was degrading, and there when I am ready, He will answer my late, I’d sneak off to bed early, hop- ccrtainly wasn’t anything beautiful prayers and remove this shortcoming. swept aside. It can be a very real ing that if I managed to get to slecp, Practicing the principles of this problem and hang-up. Yet I cringe about it. he’d show some consideration. But As our alcoholism progressed, my wonderful program in all my affairs when I hear this question, because consideration is not characteristic of may be a simple task, but learning it really hits home. I was unable husband contracted a liver and gallthc i d v e alcoholic. I had been bladder condition that required an how to grow in it, day by day, is a to share my experience, perhaps brought up in the belief that it was full-time job for me. Sex seems such through shame, remorse, or guilt. operation. He was forbidden alcohol morally wrong for a wife to refuse in any form and he did try to cut it a small part of my entire being, but When I was drinking, my ideas about her husband. Consequently, there sex were altogether different from out, but all he was able to do was I do know now that if I do not abuse were many long sleepless nights. If what they are now. cut down. That didn’t slow me up it, but rather use it as God intended, he did go right to sleep, I’d lie My husband and I are both alco- by any means. 1 knew my husband for my pleasure, it can be beautiful. awake for hours, motionless, for fear was a sick man, but my alcoholic Anonymous, Canada holic, but he became a full-blown I would wake him.

February 1975

The Good and the Bad One finds serenity in letting go and letting God

with their lack of privacy. I WAS STILL shaking. I had just found the copperhead before anykilled a copperhead, which my body stepped on it. It was so well dog had been barking at. I hate to camouflaged by the dead leaves that Cities are rough places in which to live these days, with their crime sang their songs and twittered in glee. I felt more relaxed and serene. Geographical cures never worked kill anything. Although I know a nobody could have known it was and pollution. I have to go to the for me, any more than they work for copperhead will not kill a dog, it there. city now and then for AA meetings, any other alcoholic, and 1 should will make him very sick and uncom- Then, as I calmed down even for doctors’ visits, and just to see have learned that by this time. The fortable. I speak from experience! more, I began to realize that we my friends; but on the way back, I only thing to do was to face up to Rebellion rose in me. Why did I have to take the bad with the good. can feel serenity stealing closer to the fact that there were going to be have to live in a place where there I really love our place in the foot- IIIC the farther 1 get from town. It snakes and unpleasant things around were poisonous snakes? And why hills of the Ozarks, even with its rciilly comes when I leave the tur- every so often. 1 was lucky I could wasn’t there some able-bodied man inconveniences and sometimes lone- bulent nuin highway and pull up the recognize them for what they were around to kill them? Why did I al- liness- and snakes. I am condi- hill toward home. and could do something about them. ways have to do the dirty work? tioned to living there now, and Still in a reflective mood, 1 went Life isn’t always a bed of roses, even Finally, I calmed down, and se- would probably be unhappy living to my favorite chair by the swim- after wc sober up. renity spread over my agitation. nearer to town. That time is coming ming pool. As 1 sat there quietly, As the birds continued to play After all, this snake stayed killed. soon enough. My husband and I il cardinal balanced on a nearby tree around the pool, I repeated the Some of those that came around seem to be getting old rapidly and ;ind sang to me. Chickadees and Serenity Prayer. My shaking agitawhen I was drinking didn’t. They may not be able to stay out here titmice played in a thorn tree over tion and my discontent vanished. I kept reappearing. too much longer. Retirement centers my head. They chased bugs and was letting go and letting God. I should be glad that my dog had loom in the not-too-distant future, swung from branches, while they F. J . T., Missouri

February 1975

ber with a ‘man’s’ disease. How em- ers and nonhierarchal organization. barrassing!” Because I had grown angrily resent- Eventually, I came to AA, still ful at the fact that men ruled the I afraid that I would find an organi- world – ran the schools, the stores, zation of men – or at least one in the states – the democratic princiwhich men were the dominant ma- ples on which AA is based were an jority. Imagine my relief and surprise important factor in persuading me at finding that about half the AAs to stay and hear what 1 desperately in this area are women – and, fur- needed to hear. Perhaps truly human thermore, that these women take an ideas are “invented” again and again Liberated Libber I active part in leading meetings and speaking from the podium. Here throughout history. As another autumn wanes, I have wils a group where men were not grown grateful that neither alcohol- T o her surprise, she discovered that in A A afraid of damaging their “fragile ism nor AA discriminates according women are people, too egos” by making coffee or talking to sex. As victims of the same disirbout personal feelings, and women ease, we all share a common bond were not expected to “play dumb and a common hope. This year, the and stay fun.” changing of each season has become s ANOTHER fall slowly decayed For three years, 1 had thought a symbol of this newfound hope for A into winter, I found myself slipping into hopelessness once more. willing listener, I ventured, “I bet they’ve got a patriarchal structure with a chain of conlmand rivaling that we feminists had developed the idea of nongoverning, ratating leadme. S. I . I., Springfield, Va. By this thirtieth winter of my life, the military organizations.” I realized that I was addicted to al- Somehow, most of thc stories I cohol and an~phetamines,caught in had heard or read about alcoholics an upper-downer, roller-coaster syn- scenml to have been about men. drome, and I did not know how to Although I drank with a few women get off. friends from time to timc, apparently Fearing my suicidal thoughts, I not one of thcm had the problcnl I made an appointment with the uni- had. I ncvcr knew what would hiipversity psychologist, who suggested pcn i~ftcrthat first drink. Sometimes, to this anxious student, “Why don’t I had a high tolerance, but morc and you try AA?” more, I did not. Once, one friend “I couldn’t do that,” I replied tried to get me to switch nly comquickly, “because I heard some- pulsion to pot, and I smokcd conwhere that AA members are mostly scientiously for weeks, but still I men. I couldn’t relate to them. And drank. I felt terrifyingly alone. I’m through with being told what to “Whur’s wrong with me?” I wondo by men who think they know all dered. the answers and sit in positions of “Oh, I get it,” an AA sister said expertise and power.” Finding a recently. “You were a women’s-lib-

February 1975

“. . . I have seen them fall for the old lines before they have a chance to clean up their lives in an area that puts their sobriety in constant jeopardy.”

vengeance, hellfire, and brimstone, for “just putting the cork in the and I wanted no part of Him. (It’s bottle”? Give the Girl a Chance! different today!) You slapped the Today, I’m that lady I wanted to Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous be for so many years. I have the down and said, “Read it. Use it as respect of my fellow AAs (malc and That new female member is probably starved a textbook. Study it.” You told me female) and of their Al-Anon for love – not sex! the purpose of this book was to spouses (male and female). Most of show me precisely how you had all, I have regained my self-respect. recovered. The road hasn’t been all Inter- You didn’t condemn me for my state. I’ve had to take some long, I AM A WOMAN alcoholic. 1 didn’t get to this Fellowship a saint, and if what you tell me is true ( I have I had my last drunk a t age thirtyseven. Then I got into the program of AA. (There is a difference bepast failures and sins, but told me to be honest with myself and others. You told me to stop doing destruccurvy detours, but my destination has remained the same. I’ve been traveling, a day at a time, in the no reason to doubt it today), I’ll tween being around and being in.) tive things and start doing construc- direction you told me to go. nevsr be one. I fought you, I resented you, I tive things. You told me to be willing I always wanted to be “a part of.” When I walked through the doors argued with you, and I refused to to try to change my thinking and to I wanted what you had, but I was of AA, 1 was not a sex kitten, but believe you until I was beaten to my give up the disordered life I had scared. How could I fit in without I’m not too unpleasant to look at, knees and surrendered. I firmly be- lived. You told me to stop coloring my friend alcohol? The first year, I either (so I’ve been told). 1 was lieve – if my last drunk is any indi- my attitudes toward life with al- was like a kid looking in thc candyanything but a lady, but oh, how I cation of the progressiveness of coholic thinking. You told me I store window, without a periny, wanttried to act like one and to convince alcoholism – that this is my last couldn’t keep doing the things I did ing to be inside. Today, I feel I’m in you I was! chance. when I was drinking and expect to there with the rest of you – with a I almost beat myself to death with When I finally gave up, I had to have happy, contented sobriety. You fistful of pennies. alcohol. I was twenty-seven years do what you told me. I had to put told me I had to change from my I’d like to share my experience in old when 1 went to my first AA my sobriety first. You told me to way of life to the AA way of life, regard to “the Thirteenth Step.” meeting, came back when I was find a God of my understanding. and the choice was up to me. Did I You don’t have to be around too thirty-four, and stayed around until The only God I knew was one of want the very best, or would I settle long to learn what this step is if you

are single and not too unpleasant to that I didn’t know what love was look at. I found that it was not real problem is. If it’s alcohol, so hard to tell us to mind our own during my drinking years. Love to necessary to take this step to be “a there’s a chance she may stick business. He’s paranoid. me was the one-night stands, always part of.” Thirteenth-stepping is here around long enough to grasp the Live and Let Live. I buy that 100 hoping this time it would be differto stay, and nothing I can say will program. If it’s sex, she’ll not stay percent, but if I have to sneak ent, this time someone would care erase it. From reading AA Comes of anyway. (I wouldn’t have stayed if around, afraid you’ll find out – I -then awaking to find it was over Age, I gather that the early AAs wor- sex had been my problem.) Instead want no part of it. before it had begun. How many of pursuing her and trying to make Then there’s the guy who very ried whether our Fellowship would times, in a drunken haze, I cried out survive the sex problem. It has sur- a conquest, AAs should be examin- sweetly says, “I’d like to take you to the walls, “If I just had someone vived, and it will go on surviving. ing their own attitudes in the area out to dinner or see you outside of to love me, to hold me, to tell me, of sex, as the Big Book tells us to, AA -but how long have you been I have often expressed my concern, ‘It’s all right, I understand’!” and encouraging her to stay sober. sober? I don’t mess around with an but I’m always referred to page 69 I found love – not sex – in AA. Today, I can say to the new gals: AA gal who hasn’t been sober at of the Big Book: “We want to stay Thank God for the good AA men If you put sobriety first, you can least a year. I wouldn’t want to be out of this controversy.” in my home group who treated me make it. In the Thirteenth Step area, responsible if you started drinking I can understand the frustrations with respect, who loved me as an here are a few of the lines I look again.” Does a year make it ethical? of B. S. of Columbus, Ohio (ex- alcoholic and protected me ( I don’t for. By whose standards? I’ve been withpressed in her letter in the Septem- think they really know how much), 1 run, don’t walk, away from the out a drink, a day at a time, for bcr Grapevine). I have been through but also taught me the hard facts of glib orator who presents a beautiful thirty-seven months, and I’m not so some emotional roller-coaster rides life. For a time, I was the only regprogram of solid sobriety at an AA sure that I could survive something with newcomers who are “searching ular woman member of my group. meeting, but confides to me at the that was not “good.” for” and “starved for” love, and 1 1’11 never forget my first experience first opportunity, when we are hav- I am not a sanctimonious reformhave seen them fall far all the old finding out there were a few AAs ing a cup of coffee, that I’m so er. I am only saying, there are lines before they have a chance to (the good members far outnumber- understanding and if he had some- some guys who are contributing to clean up their lives in an area that ed them) who didn’t “walk like they one around like me, his life would the delinquency of minors. I don’t puts their sobriety in constant jeop- talk.” I was shattered, but thanks to be different (he’s being understood care if she does have a beautiful, ardy. I have seen the emotional high the good AA men, I finally under- far more than he realizes), or mature body-emotionally, she’s an when they are flattered into thinking stood what they meant when they “You’re a beautiful person. I’d like infant. 1 was less than that, and I’m they are something special – and said, “If a drunk s.0.b. puts the cork to get to know you better.” only now learning to crawl. the depths when they are dropped in the bottle and doesn’t change, he I’m leery of a guy who puts too I would be the last to criticize after the conquest and are avoided. or she is just a sober s.0.b.” much emphasis on our wonderful male sponsorship of women: I do I’ve seen some beautiful and good A newcomer (a gal, in particu- Slogan Live und Let Live. The Slo- criticize men who go around using things happen in my short tenure in lar) is likely to believe, as I did, gans have been a lifeline to me, and the guise of sponsorship. Thank God AA. and I’ve seen some tragedy. that AAs can and will do no wrong, 1 respect and use them (or try to) for two guys in particular (whose How many times I’ve heard “It’s that all of them really mean what in the right context. But when I hear motives were right), who told me to tougher for the woman alcoholic” or they say. We’re supposed to be hon- a member say over and over, grab their coattails and hang on. “I feel sorry for the woman alco- est, but a few fellows don’t get rid “Where I go, what I do, when I do (Looking back, I don’t think they holic – it’s not as easy for her” or of all their old ideas right away- it, and who I do it with is my busi- meant it as literally as I took it.) “The woman alcoholic needs a little some never do. I have heard the re- ness – 1 say, Live and Let Live,” As I said in the beginning, I’m not more love.” For God’s sake, let’s mark “Her problem is not alcohol I know this dude’s feeling guilty. a saint, but neither do I condone define love to her. -it’s sex.” I say: Let her alone He’s doing something he shouldn’t tampering with someone’s life. I love I realize now, from experience, long enough to find out what her be doing, or he wouldn’t be trying the AA men -the men who are in-

I terested in seeing me stay sober hear), and I can turn to her with another day. I also know that a any problem. You wanta know somewoman -if she is the way I was – thing? She was right all along. She has a tendency to criticize the sober doesn’t always say what I’d like to , AA women. ( I had been looked hear today, but I know she’s right, down on by women for a long time.) and 1 listen. I may be slow in act- Oh, but the wisdom these “jealous ing, but with God working through old broads” have! I’m only forty, her, I’m staying in the right direcand I wear the “old broad” title tion. proudly today. Let the good happen. If it’s God’s When a new gal comes to your will, let two people find each other group, she should be welcomed by in AA and make a life for themmen and women, but she should be selves. Don’t ruin a gal’s chance for turned over to the “old broads” to happiness by helping to destroy her hclp her g t her life straightened reputation in AA, too. She’s at the out. Today, I have a beautiful lady last place she can go if she’s an sponsor (one I turned my back on alcoholic, and if we lose her, she when I was floundering, because she may never make it back. As a lady told me things 1 didn’t want to AA, I am responsible! Anonymous, Charleston, W.Va. I

March 1975

experience is a valuable militant in been sober, I’ve made some good the protest against stigma. I am friends in the Fellowship-and many proud that I don’t have to hide be- of them are men. Job discrimination hind those drapes any longer. I’ve no longer angers me; I can earn a An traded in my drunk’s muumuu along with my resentments. decent living with dignity. Thanks to AA, I’ve learned enough maturity to Equal-Opportunity Now, I think of myself as an alcoholic first and a woman second. I get myself started as a writer. This time, my marriage is a real partnership. My corporate-executive, AA Disease had to haul down the feminist flag. And curiously enough, by doing husband isn’t a male chauvinist pig. She learned to think o f herself that, I have -arrived at the place He’s terrific, and he’s my best friend. as an alcoholic first and a woman second where 1 always wanted to be any- You’ve come a long way, baby. way. In the twelve years that I’ve Joyce H., Toluca Lake, Calif.

M Y DRINKINGwas a pioneer protest against unequal opportunity. I was a militant long before the recognize that alcoholism is an equalopportunity disease. Nobody ever reported seeing a bottle of gin lafirst bra got burned. I was an early beled “For Women Only.” casualty of male chauvinism. After If I was going to survive, I had all, I had a gifted and educated mind. to rethink those “My case is differ- That was apparent to anyone watch- ent; I’m a woman” ideas. Then I ing me glue macaroni on tin cans in made some startling discoveries. AA my favorite nut ward. It was dis- is not a man’s world; it is an alcocrimination in the job market that holic’s world. I share a disease with prevented me from realizing my po- other members, and that common tential. denominator makes us all equal. It was a man’s world, and I Differences of sex, along with those stayed drunk in it. Even being a of color, background, and opinion, drunk was subject to the old double disappear. standard: okay if you’re a man, no- When I drank, I lacked the power no if you’re a lady. So I hung up to exist successfully on my own reliving in that world. My best friends sources. As 1 began to apply the became a stained muumuu, a fifth Twelve Steps to free myself from the of vodka, and a pair of closed alcohol trap, I got liberated in a lot drapes. While I drank, I excoriated of other areas. No longer was I at husbands, attorneys, psychiatrists, the mercy of those destructive old physicians, and ministers for my patterns of thinking and behavior. failures. 1 was liberated, too, from the stig- Then I went to AA and opened ma I used to believe was attached my eyes. Those attitudes hadn’t lib- to my alcoholism. The sober woman erated; they had enslaved. I came to alcoholic who is willing to share her

May 1975

The Only Requirement.. . A s alcoholics, we can help each other with the problem of alcohol

I ‘M A N ALCOHOLIC. I’m twentyseven. I’m a woman. I’m a homosexual. I’ve been sober in the “Are you willing to go to any lengths to maintain your sobriety?” Who would understand my situation? beautiful Fellowship of AA for sev- Whom could I trust? War I willing enteen months and, for the first time to go to any lengths to stay sober? in many years, find myself smiling, In desperation, I went to my sponlaughing. imd really caring for other sor. I cried, sweated, and shook. But people. the words I hated to say came out, After tcn years of alcoholic drink- painfully and slowly. I sat back, ing, that life of horror, loneliness, waiting for a word or a look of reand despair brought me to the doors jection. of my first AA meeting. In the first My sponsor simply smiled and few months of my sobriety, I tried told me that she was an alcoholic to follow suggestions, went to many just like me and that this was how nlcetings, joined a group, and found and why she could help me. myself a sponsor whose sobriety I I thank my higher power every respected. But during this time, I night for this program that saved my lived in fear within -fear of my life – a program of “principles behomosexuality being discovered – fore personalities.” “The only refear of being rejected by fellow AA quirement for AA membership is a members -fear of being left alone desire to stop drinking,” our Third to cope with my disease of alcohol- Tradition says, and there is a place ism. This fear drove me so close to for every person who wants help. the first drink that I believed I could There is a place for me. I thought never maintain the sobriety I so des- that I was unique, different, that I perately needed and wanted. I be- had nowhere to turn in this world came distrustful of my fellow AAs. for help. But thanks to the program My fears became my biggest prob- of AA, I have found the way to a lem. instead of my alcoholism. full and happy life. Finally, I heard a speaker say, Anonymous, Rhode Island

May 1975

-w

Woman’s prerogative they’re talking about. A man and a Watching women newcomers change their minds . woman. . . Oh, all right, I guess. . . No, not that woman! I don’t care if as they grow in the program she has ten years – she drives too fast. . . . Make more meetings out of change the things 1 can. Now, that town? I’m making three a week now! makes sense to me. No booze in six What do you want from me?. .Oh, . A FTER I HAD been in the program the serenity to do what? Oh, my of Alcoholics Anonymous for God, I hope the girls at the bridge about five years, one of my early club don’t find out I’ni down in this I months, and it’s time 1 made some you just want me to be a sober alcochanges in the people in my life and holic in a bunch of sober alcoholics.” sponsors, sober many more years, church basement every Wednesday got things organized. After a!l, for After eleven months (in a telesaid to me, “Baby, you’ve come a night with these people. How could years I ran my life und our home phone conversation with the local long way.” I wondered what she 1 explain to those women that I have mtd the family, and I should be able alcoholism counselor) : “Now, Jack, meant. 1 had a few extra material to control my drinking and these to make all the right decisions now. just fill in the form for me, because possessions, but no great personality people seen1 to know how’? Now, Everybody’s forgotten that cocktail I’m going to be late getting there. change seemed to have taken place. that woman over there with the wild party. 1’11 show them all I’m sober . . . Of course, sign my right name. After ten years in the program, I haircut keeps babbling about those and l’ni capable. . . . What are they I don’t care if the governor knows found myself saying to another Step things. I wonder what they’re saying about sponsors? Probably try- I’m recovering. Some of the help at woman, “Baby, you’ve come a long really all about. I hope these AAs ing to sell those cakzs.” that place look like they could use way.” Her outlook- on the pro- don’t havc a shrine.” After eight months: “Wisdom to AA themselves.” To the group secgram, at least – had changed radi- After four months: “Accept the know the difkrence. But you don’t retary: “Now, about the medallion cally in a matter of months. I realized things I cannot change? Oh no- understand me. My situation is dif- and the cake. Did they get the date that many of us have to get an open I’d like to change these meetings. I ferent from yours. It’s complicated okay? We should go back to large mind about the program before we only make one a week, and all they ilnd unique, and it’s just simply un- cakes and have them presented by can make any real progress with do is talk about admitting you’re an bearable. Everybody drinks for dif- both sponsors to encourage the newourselves. And we have growing alcoholic and insanity. I’m not in- fcrcnt reasons. It’s just a matter of comers. Have you seen that new pains along the way. sane! And what do thcy mean about time till I havc my slip. I wonder if woman? . . . Yes, the high-bottom I searched my memory and came medallions and dates and snlall cakes you have to resign. . . . What are drunk. Worried about her anonymup with what I believe are typical or large cakes? Why do thcy havc to thcy saying about being i ~ rthe pro- ity. Can’t accept she’s an alcoholic. thoughts of many women at different hassle nhout such nonsense at the gram instead of crrormd it, and mak- Doesn’t believe the insanity part. stages in the first year of their sobri- only meeting 1 make? It’s intoler- ing more meetings? That’s insulting!” Can’t accept a Higher Power. ety. It evolved into a kind of chart able! I hilven’t had a drink in four After ten months: “But why can’t Doesn’t understand the Steps. She’s of the progress of a woman alcoholic nlonths and I’m fine and I’m busy I have a nian sponsor? They’re so really sick. Hasn’t she heard anyduring that year, and it indicdtes and that’s all I want from these pco- niuch easier to get along with than thing we have been saying to her?” that some of us may even have got- ple.. . . Let go and let who run wlrut? women. Women are always picking Yes, baby, you’ve come a long, ten a little bit sicker before we be- My life? What did that man say? and taking other women’s inven- long way. gan to get very much better. They’re overbearing!” tories, when it’s really themselves M.M.C., Plattsburgh, N.Y. ‘ After two months: “God grant me After six months: “Courage to

August 1975

Breakup of a Marriage A time for courage and wisdom

I DON’T R E M E M B E R ever having heard the four absolutes until I read Dr. Bob’s article in the June beginning, with another sober alcoholic, whose path toward sobriety had been unbelievably harder than stepped sick snails. And he was my husband. He continually demanded to see me – or no one. 1973 Grapevine. Now, I trip over mine. I’d watched him go to lengths In various agonies, I talked with them constantly -another indica- 1 still believe I would be incapable other members and got various antion of the subject-deafness that has of, or would certainly try with ex- swers. “One family member cannot long seemed part of my thinking. trenlc rcluctance; yet he performed twelfth-step another.” “He’d only One absolute stumped me. Abso- with seemingly good cheer. He had argue.” “You haven’t seen him lute love, unselfishness, and honesty, a fabulous new job. We planned to drunk, but you do know his history. I could understand. But absolute buy a house. 1 was to rest, because You wouldn’t be physically safe.” purity? That was a head-scratcher, I was terribly tired. and just be That didn’t bother me. I’d dealt with until Dr. Bob explained that it cov- me. For the first time in years, there violent people before. “He doesn’t ered, not necessarily behavior, but were no pressures on me from a want help. He wants to start a fight.” motives and intents. As I thought it dozen directions. I am no fighter. A big mouth, yes. over, I began understanding some- One afternoon, he amicably came Fighter, no way. thing that had happened months home, cheerfully packed, and moved Finally, the hostile calls ended. earlier. out. He ncver said why. He was sober, temporarily. I sawed How does AA work? Most gradu- Within a week, I’d lost the anes- myself in half emotionally and filed ally – but exceedingly well, I thank thetic of sheer shock, and he was for divorce, a step we’d previously God devoutly. Self-understanding drinking. agreed on if either of us returned to i comes even more slowly, but that After another week, the telephone drinking. 1 do not want alcohol as eventually happens, too, and life be- rang repeatedly. “I wanna quit drink- a pan of my life, either to drink or comes easier emotionally. ing. C’mere and twelfth-step me!” to live with. And I am unwilling to Four months earlier, I had remar- Each time, I refused. I offered to subject anyone I love to myself ried. My life completely changed. I call another man, suggesting several drunk. quit working; we moved from the in half a dozen towns. He turned I moved away. For the second town where I had helped start the them down. “You mean you won’t time in less than six months, I began AA group and had been deeply come twelfth-step me?” he kept ask- building a beautiful new life, now involved with the community’s alco- ing indignantly. I could understand in completely unexpected directions. holics. A new, beautiful life was his disbelief. I’ve almost twelfth- That’s quite a trick for any old gal!

me to do that. It would take con- nesses better than his wife? I’m an expert mistake-maker. siderable sick effort from me before Today, 1 no longer debate over Thank God, I sidestepped that par- He’d let it happen. My ignorant mis- what 1 should have done. I had to ticular one, though none of those takes do not cause renewed drunk- turn him over, to turn him down- fellow AAs then mentioned the real enness. I’d have to work punishingly because I was not, and am not, pos- reason that I could not let myself hard to throw away my sobriety. He itive about the purity of feelings with go. I finally learned that my going wants me sober, because He deeply which I would have gone. No sick with sullied motives would have loves even me. alcoholic needs our grinding of pri- meant disaster, when my loud mouth So I did not drink, but my experi- vate axes when he calls for help, no opened to impale him with knowl- What had happened was the hard- ence gnawed at me. I had been matter why he calls. Whether or not edge that only I could twist in his est thing I’ve endured, sober – not asked to make a Twelfth Step call, we recognize that our axes exist, the festering wounds. the worst trauma in my whole life, asked repeatedly, and I’d refused. I sick one surely needs our single- Mercifully, some recovering inbut the most nearly unbearable in felt that I was right, that going mindedness of purpose in any help stinct had absorbed, and could use; my sober years. Thank God, I did would have opened up a can of we attempt. And perhaps we need an absolute that I did not conworms, but it bothered me. I have that single-mindedness even more sciously recall. not drink or die. My Higher Power and I have not stayed sober by spurning any for our own self-respect. L. D. S., Chico, Calif. an understanding. I respectfully call pleas for help, serious or otherwise. Him Mr. Macy, because I evidently When my husband left, I wasn’t believe He’s Macy’s original com- consciously angry or resentful. He plaint department. I moan and was never my possession. He was his groan, and He lets me. He runs own man. If he did not want me, for things His way, and I let Him. I no whatever reasons, that was his delonger ask for what I think I want, cision to make. He was free to live but gratefully accept whatever is. I as he felt best for himself. Legal know I am His carefully sheltered scraps of paper could not change his child, with the security to wail and right to do so. mutter, knowing His love accepts But I hurt, crushingly. I’d married me. him, uprooted my established life- And I learned one bedrock fact: style, tried remaking my existence He would not have guided me around, or next to, his. (I still love through all my earlier life, first him, though our divorce is long final drunk and now sober, brought me and 1 have no contact with him.) through alive and, more importantly, I began to wonder. If I’d run maintaining sobriety, if He’d plan- eagerly to help that sick alcoholic. ned to take back this miraculous with precisely what motivation would treasure of today’s clear head. He I have acted? How pure would my gave me sobriety to keep. He means intentions have been? Would my me to keep it, wants me to keep it, hurt, and any unrecognized anger or fully intends me to keep it. resentment, have directed me un- I could, of course, deliberately erringly to the fatal spot to twist the throw it away. But He does not want knife? Who knows a man’s weak-

December 1975

be the most I could live with. I think will, self-propulsion. it would also be about the outside And having thus wondered on belimit of efficiency that my family half of Alma, I am inched to woncould stand. der some about Virginia. How come Think how maddening it would be I can devote so much thought to Alfor a husband to be confronted daily, ma’s problem? Is it because my own and perhaps feel obliged to compete house is in order? No, that hardly with, this paragon! Alma seems seems to be the case, since I can proud of her efficiency. It’s her never quite remember which days greatest asset. It’s the tool she has are garbage pickup and which are always used to win approval. It’s al- trash collection, or, for that matter, so her sadistic master and her vul- which bags are for which. nerable underbelly – the spot open I suspect that my area of perfecto attack. And it’s there that Oscar, tionism lies less in the field of physher husband, gets to her. ical cleanliness and more in the Some mutual inventory-taking Her vulnerable spot would never field of human behavior, especially in a search for reasonable balance be exposed were it not for the insane other people’s behavior. This can expectations Alma has of herself – keep me in a tizzy or a snit quite rs the impossible goals she sets. Having easily as if I was actually accomprepared for guests. The family, set them, she is bound to encounter plishing something. But, of course, I HAVE THIS perfectly fascinating friend, Alma, who can take her whole house apart and reassemble it scrubbed and starched, must give the impression of living in idyllic hardays when someone’s ill-timed a p pendicitis attack, or a hurricane not on her agenda, catches her with I do accomplish something: I make other people uncomfortable. It would be a neat trick if somein seven hours, give or take thirteen mony and unhurried serenity. stcon&. (Thirteen seconds is the In case you hadn’t guessed, Alma something undone, unwashed, un- one could plunk Alma and me in maximum time variation allowable; is an alcoholic. What demon drives bought. It is then that Oscar moves a sack and shake us up, thereby and this, only in cases of death or her now that alcohol is no longer ac- in and pounces. Sadly, Alma sees homogenizing our strengths and other natural disasters.) tive in her life? I’m on shaky ground, the answer to these attacks as still weaknesses. In this way, Alma’s per- The housecleaning includes dust- of course, when I try to take some- more accomplishments, more effici- fectionism would no longer be a ing the underside of the shingles and one else’s inventory. Yet it seems so ency! threat to my self-esteem. But nowaxing the basement floor. To make much easier to get a clear view of a No accusation of adultery could where in Chapters Five or Six of the the job sulliciently challenging, it dear friend’s problem than of my undo Alma like an attack on her effi- Big Book is this method recommust be done on a day when Alma own. So hang in there for a minute ciency. She has the energy of a dyna- mended. (There are some pretty also must drop one child at Little while I see whether I can put a fin- mo, the endurance of a robot, the good pointers in there, though.) League, take another to the dentist, ger on Alma’s pulse; and maybe organizational ability of a corpora- Will Alma turn her life and her and can eight gallons of chili sauce she’ll do the same for me. tion president. And all of this is will over to the care of God? Will in half-pint jars. For openers, let me say that I brought to bear on one household. Virginia let go of Alma? (And have On a really good day, all of the would really like to be about ten per- It’s like using a steam shovel to another look at Steps Three, Six, above will have been accomplished cent as efficient as Alma. That level transplant a petunia. In short, it’s a and Seven for her own use?) before the family sits down to a low- of efficiency would increase my own waste of energy. And that’s ineffici- Drop by our AA study group calorie, gourmet dinner Alma has by about eighty percent and would ent! I am inclined to wonder whether some night and see! Alma’s life is not still run on self- Virginia S., Gulfport, Miss.

February 1976

Memo to ME Easy does it, but d o it!

H EY THERE! It’s time to start being responsible for your actions. Time to be willing to take some chances. Anyone can be safe and secure in a test tube. What about getting out whcre the action is? Now is the time to find out how secure your emotions are. Now is the time to put into action what you have been preaching for lo, these many months. You say you know where your priorities lie? Okay – tben fear nothing but fear. Get out there and expose yourself to the real experience of average-style living. Do things in your own behalf. Be a responsible adult, making your own decisions. If this new AA life is valid and telligence to use. How you use them right, then surely it can stand the will determine how you survive in test of exposure to real-life situations this world. You know what you can and problems. Do not be afraid to safely do and what you cannot. be human, or to fall on your face Therefore, let go, and go! in the process of living. Sobriety is Any theory, any idea, or any only the beginning. Living is what philosophy seems fine as long as it it is all about. And living entails stays on paper. But putting it to the sharing, accepting, giving -inter- test is the only way to prove its acacting with other people. Now is the tual worth. So go forward, friend, time to put this faith into action. and let’s find out what it’s all about. God has given you talent and in- Pat R., Toledo, Ohio

July 1976

honestly say I had a sincere desire fined two years -not very long, to stay sober. But I thought, “What actually, but long enough for me. I have I got to lose?” So I joined the must not ever forget that it was there group. The good AAs from the free I found AA, because somebody world aroused my curiosity. They cared enough to take a little time seemed to have something going for and carry the message to me. Let’s them, and I wanted to know what it all get on our horses and ride where was. these folks are locked up, and carr) I learned that I had a disease, for the message behind the walls. I have which there was help. I think the seen girls and women who are doing most important thing was that I lost life sentences change through this some of my resentment (not all of program, so that they are less bitter it) at being locked up. How did this and find it easier to accept and do come about? Through attending the the time. meetings at the institution, of course. — –

I also learned to do “easy time” by Remember, even if you helped trying to apply the Twelve Steps. only one person or none at all, you The Serenity Prayer helped me the would still be helping yourself. But most. I could not change the fact there is always someone who will N o w f r e e and sober, that I was there and had to serve my derive benefit from your own persentence, but I could use the time to sonal message. I felt that I was s h e brings .4 A hopeless and that there was no one try to make myself a better person, –t o institutions ready to go back into the free world quite as bad as I was -until I went A A and Prison again. It has not been an easy, fast to the reformatory and heard both process. But I am making progress. inside and outside AAs lead the I am active in “outside” AA now. meetings and talk. From these speak- Thecurious Woman Prisoner I work with the institutions and pa- ers, 1 found my help on the road back. rolees, and I am often very discour- Connie A., Columbus, Ohio s A GRADUATE of a penal institu- A tion, I want to express how I feel on a very important part of our ventory and found my God again, aged when I ask outside AAs to this time a kind and loving God, participate in going to the instituwho lightened the burden for me tions to carry the message. 1 get a program – AA in institutions. By I while I was confined. Upon my sen- lot of “Oh, institutions upset me.” the grace of God and institutional tencing and incarceration, I had lost When I hear this particular answer, AA, 1 have had quite a few years all hope of ever being anything in I cannot help but wonder how upset of continuous sobriety. For me, a life. I had been in and out of jail, these very same people would have person who wound up at the bottom made promises to do better, and been if they had been sentenced and of the heap after twenty-seven years broken them. I was at the end of my confiped, as I was. They so soon of drinking and ten years of addic- rope. My drinking had long since forget “There, but for the grace of tion to pills, this is truly a miracle. gone out of control, and I knew no God, go I.” It was in an institution that I other way to live. When I was told I am grateful today for having learned to take my first feeble in- of AA at the reformatory, I cannot been there. The last time, I was con-

July 1976

banging my head. Then I decided to for painkillers with codeine, s d try the geographical cure, but after pills, and tranquilizers. Then I’d eight months in California, I re- make like the mad scientist and mix turned home and to AA. a few of these with a couple of This time, I kept in contact with those, washing them down with a the people and went to meetings dash of that. until I thought 1 could swim by my- Since I was too drugged to make self. When I started drowning, I’d any decisions for myself, some AAs return to my lifeboat, which was arranged with my husband for me to AA. This became a pattern, a very go into the state hospital. (For my sick way of life. I was using the “nerves,” I had previously been in Abuse of prescribed medication pcople for the attention and affec- two psychiatric wards in so-called tion I could get out of them, but I nice hospitals, and my husband’s blocked the way to A A principles was not using the AA program. savings were used up.) Now, I went I was a phony and a hypocrite. I through withdrawal from drugs and didn’t even try to understand the was tied down in restraints for three Twelve Steps.Those were for squares days and three nights in the violent and puritans, and I didn’t wish to be ward, which also housed the crimicithcr. nally insane. T HE DOCTOR looked at me reflectively and said, “You’ve been honest with me, so I’ll be the same a half months, I took the tranquilizers as prescribed, went to AA meetings as my sponsors suggested, and When I wasn’t drinking, I was One month later, I came home, usually high on pills. I had discov- armed with pills. Today, it seems with you. If you are an alcoholic. lived without alcohol. I cared very ered that tranquilizers in quantity incredible that the doctors preand you’d know that better than I much for the people I met at meet- could producc a lovely glow, with scribed tranquilizers for me to take would, I confess my help would be ings, but told myself that I couldn’t no telltale odor and little or no home – the very things that helped minimal, if I could help at all. I identify with stories about morning hangover, and they were so con- to put me there in the first place! suggest you call AA.” drinking, hospitals, DTs, and other venient to carry. In addition, the I had seen things at the state hospi- The doctor dialed the number for symptoms. I managed to convince cough medicine with codeine that tal that I could not have imagined me, and I did the talking. Since myself that I’d made a mistake. I had been prescribed for me since even in my wildest dreams, yet noththen, I’ve often wondered just how didn’t belong in AA. I wasn’t really childhood for bronchitis, if taken by ing scared me enough to change my many alcoholics get the AA number an alcoholic after all. Much relieved the gulp instead of by the teaspoon, ways, Now, I used alcohol only at their doctors’ offices. I would like by this decision, I resumed the cock- also produced the desired effect. when I couldn’t get hold of anything to think many do, but I’m afraid tails and highballs, while continuing One of my AA sponsors tried else. My tolerance had become so this is not the case. to take the tranquilizers. desperately to warn me of the dan- high that booze alone did practically Unfortunately for me, my doctor Many times, though, I would gers of habit-forming medicines. I nothing for me, but the combination was only too right when he admitted drink n~orethan I intended to; the was now taking daily forty to fifty of drugs taken with alcohol kept me his lack of knowledge about alco- f u n drinking was vanishing. I was tranquilizers and two or three bottles high most of the time. I often drove holism. He prescribed tranquilizers. becoming as crazy as the guy who of cough medicine or paregoric, or the car while nodding, half asleep, The next day, two lovely women keeps banging his head against the both. I was like a train going down- and I’m sincerely thankful that I came to my home. They told me wall because it feels so good when hill with no brakes. My days were didn’t hurt or kill anyone. some things about AA and arranged he stops -except that it didn’t feel spent going from doctor to doctor One day, with my mind gone from to take me to a meeting. For ten and good when I tried to stop, so I kept for prescriptions and to drugstores an especially heavy dose of tranquil-

izers and booze, I became violent. I attacked my husband with a butcher knife, cutting his hand badly as he tried to take it from me. Another 66 …nothing scar, enough t o change my ways. ,9

time, I smashed both my fists and own in my home. ; m e of my habit had had an impact My personal belief is that women arms through a window. The police My sufferingwas beyond descrip- comparable to that of a car smash- alcoholics are particularly vulnerwere summoned, and one of the tion! After four and a half days, I ing into a brick wall at sixty miles able to pills. Also, I feel that any officers, standing in my kitchen, was out of my mind with the craving an hour. alcoholic who takes mood-altering stared at me, a dirty, smeary mess for drugs. With what I believe was In an article on “Surrender Versus medication when prescribed and with blood dripping on the floor. my last shred of sanity, I called my Compliance in Therapy,” Dr. Harry c.ontinues to do so beyond the time Then he looked around at our at- sponsor and asked her to drive me ‘Sicbout said that complete surren- required, is depriving himself or her- . tractive house, at my frantic husT to the hospital. I would face my hus- der cannot be willed upon oneself. self of the full benefits of the AA band, and at my frightened children. band about this decision later. I I t either happcns or it doesn’t. n’ot program. As 1 see it, the only dif- Shaking his head, he whispered, knew that if my three children had even the experts seem to know the ference between booze and pills is ”Why?” to witness much more of my suffer- how or why of it. I try now to de- that one is liquid and the other solid. As my addiction progressed, self- ing, they would crack up, too. I also pend upon God as I understand How can anyone honestly and comhate grew, and I saw only the knew I should be taken where I Him, on the Twelve Steps of the AA pletely take Step Three and still faults in other people. Because my couldn’t physically hurt any menlber program. and on our wonderful Fel- need chemicals? children were a part of me and I of my family or myself. At this lowship. These grand people have This, then, is the basis of my sodisliked myself so much, I could point, I believed I had surrendered iillowcd me to speak at meetings briety: the constant use of the hardly be expected to care any- to my powerlessness over any drug about my drug problem and have Twelve Steps, regular attendance at thing about them. Four years ago, (only time will tell for certain), and listened with patience m d kindness. meetings, and a willingness to carry my youngest child was born at seven I was determined that I would die I don’t think that I could ever lose the message. Today, I’m infatuated months, weighing only three pounds. before I’d give in to my cravings. At hope for other habitual “slippers,” with life. Everything is so fresh and I had taken drugs heavily during the Ion? last, I’d stopped fighting. I lit- because this phenomenon of surren- new and different! My family and I pregnancy, and I think Mother Na- erally gave up! der can happen at any moment. were shopping in a crowded store a ture decided that the child would A week later, after detoxification At times, my feelings still threaten few weeks ago, and my four-yearhave more chance of survival with at the hospital, to my great joy I to overwhelm me. I have periods of old reached up for my hand. She a premature birth. Guilt spread was given the privilege of going depression, anxiety, loss of temper, looked at me with trust, confident through me, and I tried to dull its through the twenty-eight-day reha- discouragement. lack of confidence, that 1 wouldn’t let her get lost. I pain with more booze, more pills. bilitation program offered by a well- and other negative emotions. Some- sensed that she knew her mother Then something different hap- known private hospital. I learned thing will happen that I can’t laugh was not lost herself any more. Now, pened to me, something I may never thzt in ten years’ time, I had pro- ofi, and 1 start to lose my sense of with an awareness and an ability to completely understand. I realized gressed to panic drinking, one of the dircction. However, when things comprehend, I delight in doing even that I was absolutely powerless to most advanced stages of alcoholism. look black. 1 reach out for help from the simplest things, like trying out a help myself. I suddenly found my- I w3s indeed at the end of the road. my Higher Power and AA. As long new recipe, working on an afghan, self begging my husband to have me 1 also learned – and faced the fact as I remember that such emotional or tasting a yummy-flavored ice hospitalized for withdrawal just once – that I am an extremely addictive setbacks are only temporary and cream. Boredom has disappeared, more. But he said, “No more hos- person. There could be no more that “this. too, shall pass,” I can and I look forward to tomorrow and pitals.” So I started to withdraw chemical crutches for me. I found bear the discomfort without taking the good things to come. from codeine and alcohol on my out, also, that the abrupt discontinu- pills or alcohol. R. G., Prairie View, Ill.

August 1976

truly a part of AA. I had put a veil us.” I didn’t know then what they between myself and other AAs. I meant. I do now, and it’s beautiful. The Veil was not growing. I wasn’t even hurting, for pills were causing me to My life is full of problems, like anyone else’s, but I know at last that sleep away half my now-precious either a pill or a drink will put me Medication dulled her senses, so s h e w a s puzzled day, Everything was fine- yet ter- back in that gray, neutral world rible. No one ever called from AA, where I’m neither fish nor fowl. How when AA told her, “Don’t chew your booze” or anywhere else. I wasn’t in either nice to be an alcoholic and a pillworld, the world of the recovering head! I know what I am and where alcoholic or the outside world. I I belong; at last, I’m a part of AA’s M Y OWN STORY came back to me in a rush just now, during a phone conversation with a fellow could they harm me?) For a while afterward, I stayed really sober–or at least dry-withwas nowhere. About eight months ago, I hit sharing miracle. I heard myself on the other end of AA who was complaining about her out either pills or booze. But in a what I pray was my bottom, and I that telephone line today, and it was feeling that people don’t like her. few months, another doctor pre- begged for help. I ran to as many good for me. I pray that she truly How I identified with that! She’s scribed another mood-changing pill meetings as I could. I wanted what heard my story and identified. But been high on pills for the entire eight and was obliging enough to tell me , was missing. I wanted to be a mem- even if I didn’t help her, she helped months she’s been around the pro- that I’d have to stay on it for the ber of AA-a real member-really me; I saw in a flash the woman I gram. I told her my story, for I think rest of my life. Wonderful! For a sober, without any drugs in my sys- was for so long before AA, and the I know the basis of her feeling of long time, I thought of him as a tem. woman I was while “around” AA being disliked. It is the barrier that great healer who really understood My fellow AAs had been saying, for so many years, on a slip with mood-changing pills can put between my problems! Thus began what I “Put away the toys and come along pills. us and other people, and between us now realize was a five-year slip, dur- with us. Take your lumps in life with Anonymous, Rhode Island and our capacity to be honest with ing which pills were substituted for ourselves and others. alcohol. On three occasions, they led Before I joined AA, I drank for directly to picking up that first drink. thirty years, most of that time alco- “What are these AAs talking holically. And I took pills when I about?” I used to wonder. “What do couldn’t drink. I had many hospital- they mean, ‘chewing your booze’? I izations, went to many psychiatrists don’t chew the pills, I swallow them! and other doctors. The last psychia- I’m so nervous I’ve got to take them trist sent me to AA- but simul- -the doctor says so!” Of course, I taneously gave me an open prescrip- didn’t tell my fellow AAs I was on tion for Librium! Once in AA, I pills (I didn’t have to, I’ve found didn’t touch booze. But within four out since), for I was sure they months, I was in deep trouble with wouldn’t understand. Nor did I tell the Librium. I spent a month at a the doctor how many I was taking. drying-out farm, trying to kick the (If one is good, two or three are dependence I’d acquired on the pills better.) Anyway, I could always I had unknowingly substituted for console myself with the thought that alcohol. (After all, they’d been pre- at least I wasn’t drinking (yet!). scribed by a reputable doctor! How But, as I know now, I was not

March 1977

she felt incapable and inadequate. I grace of God, to find happy sobriety was stunned at the way she in- in AA. Before, I had submitted to formed me she could no longer my problem with alcohol, but now I . sponsor me. It made me feel terribly have surrendered and become willhurt and angry. How dare she! And ing to go to any length. And it’s to announce it publicly! I had had working, a day at a time. rejections in my life, but this rejec- The lesson I had to learn, which is tion of one alcoholic by another in essential in AA, is to put principles Feet of Clay AA seemed to be a new bottom. As a practicing alcoholic, I rode it to before AA personalities. principles are God and the the main tools the hilt. Now I really had areason to necessary for sobriety. Fellowship drink. My personal savior had turn- and sharing are a vital part of AA, ed me down. Poor me! but we all have feet of clay, and r e It was Without my knowing it then, my liance on any one person is not the a blow when sponsor had released me with love answer to staying sober. cepted, and then and there I felt 1 In this happy, joyful state I now her sponror had a person who could “cure” me. for my own good. I am writing this to thank Jane for letting me go. 1 find myself (two years without a released For years, I had sought answers thank my Higher Power for the wis- drink), I express my gratitude to her through people, to no avail. But this would be different, I was sure. My dom He gave her. After dropping Jane for lovingly letting me go, and sponsor would save me. out of AA and doing more research, helping me learn a life-giving lesson. 1 have been able now, through the J. N., Lexington, Ky. I put her on a pedestal. I almost worshiped her. But the longest I M Y EXPERIENCE began with a small group of women who, with beaming faces, told me of their could stay sober was three weeks. Then boom, drunk again. Why didn’t Jane make me well? During struggles with alcohol. They offered this time, she was planting seeds, me hope. They seemed to carry the but I gave them no water or sunsecret of sobriety. Maybe, I shine, so they lay dormant. What thought, they could give me the key. she told me has deep meaning now; Perhaps they would sprinkle their thank God, those seeds didn’t die. “magic powder” on me, and pouf! Jane repeatedly reminded me that I’d be well. she had feet of clay. She was buf- “Serene Jane” seemed to have faloed by my drinking bouts. It was the most of this magic dust. At that difficult for her, because in her ten first meeting, I felt totally unloved years of sobriety she had never had and unlovable. This radiant person a slip. 1 continued to hang on to my put h a arms around me. Someone old ideas, and 1drank. had touched me and showed she At an AA meeting one morning, cared. I wrote her a dear little note, as 1 sat there with a hangover, I dripping with alcoholic sincerity, heard Jane announce that she could asking her to be my sponsor. She ac- no longer sponsor anyone. She said

July 1977

&- AA and Prison that unhappy affair. M y Name Is Helen 1 went back to Florida in July to begin working on my case with my M Y N A M E IS HELEN, and 1 am an alcoholic. Like most of us, I found AA the hard way. 1 when I was released on bond, a sister was there to make sure I did not harm myself. I went to New lawyer. The man I had been involved with was dead, and I was in very serious trouble. My lawyer sent me knew that 1 had a serious drinking York City to live with her until my to a psychiatrist. The first time I saw problem a year before I had to d o lawyer decided what to do. She has my shrink, he told me that 1 was an something about it. A man was the same problem with alcohol that alcoholic. 1 went home and drank to dead, and I had a second-degree I do, and at that time, neither of us that. Another time, he told me that murder charge facing me. would admit it. We began to have no man could have done all those At first I thought, “Well, it’s too vicious family fights. Soon, 1 was things to me-I had let him do would I do at a party? All my late now. Why not drink myself to willing to spend my time of waiting them! Everywhere I turned, I was friends drank. Well, almost. I had . death?” I had tried to die several in jail, rather than there with her. losing my excuses. 1 had to face the several friends who were nondrinktimes already-why not now? By Instead, I found my own apart- fact that I alone was responsible. ing alcoholics (AAs, of course). I the grace of God, I am alive today. ment. This time alone was a god- That was hard. Every session was was living at the beach at this time, It must have been His will, because send. I was still drinking, but capped with another drink. and everyone at the beach was in a living certainly was not my will. without extra pressures, I drank Why should I quit drinking? I party mood. I started drinking tonic The only reason I wanted to be considerably less. I spent the next would darn sure have to quit drink- and lime without the booze. No one released on bail was so 1 could get to few months thinking about myself ing when I was in prison, so why minded at all! I still had a nice time. another bottle of sleeping pills and and wondering why I was where I fight it now? Every time I got I still had friends. One more fear another bottle of Scotch-and this was. I had always been very active in smashed, I wanted to down another dissolved. time I would have “the good sense” my community and had been highly bottle of sleeping pills. But I would I had support from my drinking not to call anyone for help. respected until I met a man, a heavy remember the tears streaming down friends as well as my nondrinking My lawyer sensed my sorry state drinker, and started really hitting my son’s face the last time 1 over- friends. They all cared. For the first of mind and notified my sisters, and the booze. I blamed everything on dosed. And 1 remembered how my time in my life, I began to trust my daughter went to live with her father friends enough to lean on them. because she was tired of the misery And no one turned a cold shoulder. at home. I began to have many long conversa- My shrink was patient and always tions with my AA friends, and they available to me. I think I finally were available to me twenty-four decided to go ahead and quit drink- hours a day. I finally let one of them ing to make him feel better. I quit talk me into going to a meeting. I three months before my trial, and I really did it to get her off my back. found that I could actually face my Again, I was surprised at the nightmare better sober. It was still warmth and compassion I found horrible, but at least 1 could control there-and some of them even knew the urge to kill myself. I was waiting to go on trial for Then I began to wonder if it murder. would be feasible to face life (a nor- I discovered I was the one who mal life) without drinking. What had been rejecting people all my

something-not really sure just what. I was skeptical, but the words sounded good. And I did begin to feel a little better, and 1 began to smile occasionally. I even began to feel kindlier toward all these awful animals in here. Then I discovered these “animals” had names-and feelings-and fears-just like me! I began to comfort some of them and worry over them and counsel them, life. I began to discover how and I forgot about myself for a dishonest I had been with myself while. Comforting them comforted and everyone else. 1 began to me. discover that people really did like One day, I needed to write a letter me and that they weren’t all after and mentioned that I was almost out something. Now, I had nothing at of paper. Suddenly, I had enough all to give but myself. paper to write a book. Three or four I was tried and convicted of inmates came to me and gave me manslaughter. 1 am in prison now, sheets of paper from their own supand I have been through the usual ply. I wasn’t even looking, and had periods of emotional stress-fear, not seen a friend approach. They remorse, hopelessness. Then I joined had been there knocking at the the prison AA group. I found tre- door, and I had been afraid to mendous moral support from the answer. 1opened the door. visiting speakers from the outside. Things are looking up now. My But I still smirked when these people friends in here comfort me, and my assured me that things would get friends from the outside do what better if 1 turned my troubles over to they can, too. I am learning to live God. How in God’s name could as AA has suggested in the Twelve God help me where I was? He Steps, and it makes life so much betwasn’t going to get me out of ter for me and those who live with prison. He wasn’t going to hush me. these eighty women in this dorm at 1 am growing in ways that needed night so I could sleep-or keep them growth, and when I leave this place, from stealing and swearing and I will be strong enough to survive. fighting. God may be everywhere, Thanks to God, AA, church, a but I surely did not see Him in here! wonderful family, and many Then I began to resign myself to wonderful friends, 1 am going to my dreadful situation. I continued make it now-one day at a time. to go to AA and church, hoping for 1 H.P.,Florida

turned my problems over to my the bathroom floor?” Higher Power and found that I I don’t allow them to dwell on could take my job as mother these things. “You have learned to seriously, but in a less frantic and forgive yourself. They must, too,” older AA members have told me. Sober Mother possessive way. I started to practice the Third Step around the house. Although they will probably never There have been some funny forget certain incidents, my children moments, too, in the last four have forgiven me, and those refer- Children do forgive, and love years-such as the time one of my ences to the past are becoming less and respect can be restored non-AA friends, who happens not frequent. to drink for different health reasons, I share many activities with them was visiting. “Are you an alcoholic?” now that would be impossible if I asked my son. was drinking. I can go to guide and W HEN 1 CRAWLED through the doors of AA four years ago, looking like something the cat ful Fellowship of AA, my children were waiting for me at the door with a barrage of questions. Was the “Why ask that?” questioned my friend. scout picnics without making a fool of myself. When they return from “Because you don’t drink,” he school, I am at home, not at a dragged in, my children were six and food good? Did I drink any wine neighbor’s having that first one of seven. They were in good health stated. Confusing? 1 realized that in there? Was it strict? The excitement his mind all people who didn’t drink the day. They may not often need physically, but the negative life with in their voices was unmistakable. me to discuss their problems, but I an alcoholic mother, a mother’ they were alcoholics. All three of us were embarking on a Both of my children have been to am there clearheaded and sober if could not rely on, had begun to new life together; they were with me they do. show up in their mental health. meetings and enjoyed them thoroughall the way. ly. Unfortunately, we live in a rural It is tempting for the mother \lho They were whiners-nervous and It was about six months before I area where there is no Alateen, but is newly sobering up to fall over demanding. They were overactive began to notice concrete changes. they pick up a lot by osmosis. When backward to be a super-mom, to and underloved. When I couldn’t They started inviting friends over to make up for all those years of cope, 1 used to shunt them off to my a pot boils over or a plate breaks, the house, and their report cards one of them usually says, “It’s not drinking. It takes some time to find mother or my ex-husband, and they were better that year. My daughter a balance between being too lenient were so busy coming and going, the end of the world.” What they stopped crying when I left the house are really saying is “Easy Does It.” out of guilt and too strict out of they didn’t know where they lived or to go to meetings, although there There are many hidden rewards in fear. Children of practicing alcoholwho was boss. was an occasional complaint, “Are AA, not the least being a growing ics learn to be con artists, too-they During one of my many hospitali- you going to a meeting again?” respect between parent and child. have to, to deal with a drunken zations for alcoholism, my daughter, Slowly, she began to accept and It’s hard to have your children’s mom or dad. then aged five, wrote me a letter. It realize that it was something I must respect if you’re screaming at them I go to AA meetings and stay closed with the following remark: do to be happy. Their confidence sober for myself, and I pray that one moment and smothering them “Please, Mummy, don’t drink so began to grow, and they began to with drunken, maudlin love the next. with the grace of my Higher Power, much wine.” She knew even before walk, talk, and run just a tittle taller. I will continue to do so when my I did how deep was my problem. From time to time, one of them And my son’s nightmares stopped! will brihg up unpleasant memories children have grown up and left When I came home after six There was a change in my attitude home. We must do it for ourselves, from the past. “Remember the time weeks in the alcoholic rehabilitation as a mother, too. Gone were my you were so drunk you threw my but it sure helps to have such helpful center where I began my sobriety anxiety attacks if they were five Barbie doll into the fireplace?” Or sidekicks-it’s the icing on the cake. and was introduced to the wonder- minutes late getting home. 1 now “Remember when you fell asleep on S. B., North Hatley, Que,

October 1977 4 y

I I – – —

Sobriety and Divorce

S PEAKING AT an AA convention, I told about the good and bad things that have happened to me over sobriety. Many people said that they were faced with the same situation, but that it remained unresolved and working the program and attending meetings (rather than sitting around the marriage as it is or change it. One of the ways of changing it-the most the eighteen years I’ve enjoyed con- was a constant source of inner war- and feeling sorry for ourselves), we radical, to be sure-is divorce. I t is tinuous sobriety. I tried to communi- fare. Several said they had gotten don’t have to take that first and often painful and unpleasant, but it’s not cate to the audience that when we’re drunk as a result. fatal drink. something to get drunk over. We can sober, both desirable and undesirable Some typical reasons for not re- When asked for advice or counsel endure, tolerate, accept, and recover. things happen to us, just as they do solving the situation were: “What on divorce in sobriety, I try to explain No matter how difficult divorce to other human beings. The fact that would people think? How can I that I can’t make decisions for other may be, it is a fact of life even for we get sober doesn’t mean that bad divorce my spouse? After all, he (she) people. How can I possibly tell you people with fairly long periods of experiences or unpleasant events will stayed with me when I was drinking. whether to stay married or get a di- sobriety. After almost a year of living never occur in’our lives. I just couldn’t go through a divorce.” vorce? I can’t play God. in an apartment alone, 1 can say that Without going into any great de- And there were many more. The What I can do is refer you to that because of the Fellowship of AA, I tail, I used this as an example: After point is, quite a few people continued old AA tool, the Serenity Prayer. am alive and healthy and still sober. my eighteen years of sobriety, some in their unresolved dilemma, and “God grant me the serenity to accept I am living well and enjoying the irreconctlable differences arose be- periodically they drank. For us, to the things 1 cannot change, courage benefits the AA way of life offers tween my wife and me. We were di- drink is often to die. to change the things I can, and wis- when we pray for the courage to . vorced, after twenty-one years of Divorce is a touchy subject, and it dom to know the difference.” know the difference between what marriage. As bad as the experience is very difficult to terminate a mar- If we apply this prayer to a trou- we can accept and what we must was, and no matter how much it hurt, riage after twenty-one years. It’s like change. bled marriage, we must either accept the Fellowship of AA made it possi- experiencing the death of a loved L. R., Lexington, Ky. ble for me to go through that whole one. We must deal with anger, a great I time without drinking. sense of loss, and an almost over- It was amazing how many people whelming sense of aloneness and approached me after that talk and separation. But all these are feelings over the next two days of the conven- that human beings can cope with. tion, commenting on divorce in Alcoholics are human, and if we are

February 1978

The price we paid for it was far too In many areas, we can afford high on each side-my depressed mixed motives. When I job-hunt, I heartbreak, his new felony charge. consider the paycheck, the human My first AA husband did not get value of my work, and perhaps me drunk. I did. And I did not social contacts. Some people go to force either husband to climb back church for God and for friendships. into his bottle. But I will never People often adopt children both know to what extent my personal- for the youngsters’ sake and for their ity and character defects contributed own, to enrich their lives. And how That Thirteenth Step to their growing discomfort, until they threw their lives away. 1 cannot many people marry for recognized reasons other than consuming accept such responsibility again, not passion? in a close relationship with any other But sobriety, sanity, and life itself

She I F THERE WAS a way for thirteenthstepping to succeed, this inventive gal would know the gimmick, bealcoholic. Perhaps this is a significant sign of my gradually developing are not at stake in those situations. They allow room for mixed motivations without disaster. Recovery from sanity. found out cause I’ve surely tried. But the people alcoholism is another story. who advise, “Don’t. It doesn’t Even if 1 bore no responsibility the hard way (most unlikely). 1 am unwilling to I came to AA completely helpless work” are unfortunately correct. It emotionally, mentally, spiritually. that Twelve Steps have all the guilt dumped on me. 1 doesn’t. While it appears that men Physically, I was in great shape-it am trying to recover and be a good were all and women alcoholics miraculously human being. 1 do not deserve, and only took my eyes three months to she needed have everything in common in count- focus. Financially, I was well-off-1 cannot carry, someone else’s proless areas, these seem to be the pre- only spent six years of working, defor happiness jected blame for his childish unwillcise spots where that shoe will pinch voutly paying bills, before 1 broke unbearably once it’s your shoe and ingness to go to whatever lengths sobriety demands. even. I would literally rather die must be worn daily. I need this program. It’s the only than return to how I was-and 1 am During my first AA marriage, unwilling to be used, however unplace I’ve found (and I’ve looked in which lasted over two years, I drank wittingly, as the excuse for someone plenty of others) where a congenital twice and took some tranquilizers. else’s returning there. I cannot again He’s still drunkenly disintegrating. coward with a roving eye, like me, can be given enough courage to be maneuvered into any relationship Too bad; like all of us, he had lots where a still-unrecovered person will handle my angers and enough mato offer. use the stress of my closeness as an In the second marriage, which turity to admit that I can’t do and be everything with everybody-not excuse for renewed self-destruction. fortunately ended after four months, We come to AA with such deif I wish to become the person 1 can 1 grew almost suicidal-a hard way vouring dependencies. If we transfer to maintain sobriety. He’s regained be. (I’m catching faint glimpses of her.) And it’s unquestionably the them from the bottle to the program his sobriety, living inside a maxi- and our Higher Power, we recover. only place where the kind of newmum-security institution-a consid- But if we merely switch to that incomer 1 was can begin to find legiterably harder way to work the pro- stantaneous, magic, perfect solution, imate ways to handle loneliness and gram. It was a sick relationship. all the other problems of living. someone of the other sex, the com- But why am 1 here in AA? bination of our partner’s personality

and our own will soon erase all the problems-fortunately. If it did, I principles of sobriety, and we’re off would soon (being the person I am) to oblivion again, once more heart- build resentments because every broken, disillusioned, grossly dis- prqblem was not solved to suit me, appointed, because “Mommy” or or at my convenience. But AA does “Santa Claus” let us down again. generously hand me the tools and Why am I here? directions-sobriety and straight To save myself. Period. emotions-to do the solving myself. I’ve finally learned, as reluctant- From then on, it’s up to me and my ly as I’ve learned anything else that efforts. If the result falls short of makes me nwre comfortable, that perfection, I have to accept the rethere are only Twelve Steps to this sponsibility, because that’s the way program. Count ’em yourself. That’s I did it. I can’t blame the program, all there are. And that’s all I need, or any other person in AA. If I don’t thank God. As long as my motives blame another person, I can’t posare clear and I remain single-minded sibly get drunk at him. about what I want here, it is mine I don’t want trouble any more. to find and enjoy. Not mine. Not yours. Not his. AA does not solve my personal L. S., Chico, Calif.

April 1978

She couldn’t say, “I am an alcoholic, ” and handed a cup of coffee, all but she did have right, but then I was told that, since I could not say I was an alcoholic, it would be better that I not attend the meeting! This was a crushing, humiliating blow. I tried to explain why I had the difficulty, but they would not hear my explanation. 1 know that my eyes filled with tears I N THE NEARLY sixteen years 1 have been in AA, I have often heard it said, with despair, that if a through the day until the next night, to drinking every night and around the clock on weekends. And so it was am an alcoholic.” My dictionary said that an alcoholic is “one who of rage, frustration, and a terrible sense of rejection. And, of course, I drinks to excess.” That being so, I left the place in a hurry, with a feelclosed group wanted to reduce its on a Monday morning that I called ing of “to hell with them and with size, the way to do it was to an- saw no reason for labeling myself as AA for help. It was the first time an alcoholic, for 1 had stopped AA.” nounce that there would be a study that I was unable to go to work. My mother happened to be visitof the AA Traditions. People would drinking. When I spoke, 1 took the In our area, there were a number First Step before any comments 1 ing with me at this time. She listened stay away in droves, and those who of meetings, and I went to them reg- wanted to make. This I did by say- to the details of what had happened, did attend would be the ones who ularly. Because I had been a nighting, “My name is Liz, and I am let me cry it out, and then suggested were really involved in the program time and weekend drinker, a Satur- that I think this through carefully. I and wanted to know more about powerless over alcohol, and when I day afternoon women’s meeting was drink, my life becomes unmanage- know she felt terror that I might go how AA works. very important to me, and the possi- straight back to the bottle. And this able.” I owe my life to God and the bility of friendships to combat my tea party turned kangaroo court was Third Tradition. When 1 called AA in Nobody else followed this proloneliness was a source of great just the episode to trigger it. Her 1%0,1 was still holding a job but had cedure, and although I did not know hope. it, several of my elders became in- loving concern quieted me, and lost almost everything else. I was a 1 eagerly read all the literature I when she suggested that I call an AA sick woman physically, a wreck creasingly irritated with me. could get my hands on, and 1 fell in friend, I did. mentally, and a zero spiritually. I One Saturday afternoon after the love with the program as I listened My friend was not new to AA. had moved from a fourteen-room meeting, I was invited by three of to others in meetings and read AA the group’s members to stop by the She had come in as a very young house into a small efficiency apart- books and pamphlets. But 1 balked woman in 1955 and had some sucment, alone for the first time and home of one of them to have a cup at the word “alcoholic.” cess with the program, had stayed with no one to protect me from my of coffee. My heart sang. I was The procedure was to open all making friends at last, and they sober for several years, was an avid alcoholic self. My drinking built up comments in meetings with the inwanted me to be with them. reader, and had read her AA literfrom drinking at night and living troduction “My name is – and I When 1 arrived, I was welcomed ature. She had also been a very will-

—– – Ky .- A

—— & ing twelfth-stepper. When 1 called her, she asked, “Have you looked at the Third Tradition?” “This requirement I could meet with honesty and deep desire. ” I went to my copy of Twelve ability.” hell was being very sick physically coholic.” Without this wonderful Steps and Twelve Traditions. Tra- About two and a half years after and emotionally, crying copious program, 1 never would have found a dition Three plainly states: “The I became active in AA, I went to a tears, and saying over and over God that I could turn to. I can feel only requirement for AA member- party in my old environment. I was again, “Why? Why?” I could not the presence of this Higher Power in ship is a desire to stop drinking.” an invited guest, but when I walked explain what had happened in any my life. I can see the beauty of this Hope rose at once. This require- into the large drawing room, every- reasonable terms at all. Needless to Higher Power in my AA friends, ment I could meet with honesty and one was well on the way to being say, there was not much sleep for whether or not they know they have deep desire. drunk, and no one seemed to care me or for my AA friend. She nursed it. When the following Saturday that I had arrived. The rejection me through the four-ounce slip that Our program of unity, service came, 1 awakened with much ner- went deep. I had just come from was killing me. In the early morning, and recovery, love and growth really vousness and indecision. Should I leading a meeting on the Third Step when she came in to see how I was works. As proof in this case, one of dress and go to the meeting, even and was feeling especially good feeling, I said to her in wonder- the three members who sat in on the though some members of the group about everything until I walked into ment, like a little child, “You know, kangaroo court became one of my did not want me there? Or should 1 this place. I’m an alcoholic!” two sponsors, and a second became just stay away? The God that had I went to the bar to get a Coke. She smiled and said, “Now you my best AA buddy, with whom I atbrought me to AA was with me The gin bottle was sitting there, and know.” tended many meetings and made through all this. He had not brought without a conscious thought, I For the first time, I knew at many Twelfth Step calls for ten me to AA, sick and pleading for poured two ounces of gin into the depth that 1 had a compulsive, ob- years, until she was accidentally help, in order to allow me to be Coke. That drink (Coke and gin?) sessive addiction to a drug that was killed a few years ago. The third tripped up by personalities. I pulled tasted so good that 1 went back for poison to my system and could member left the area and attends myself together and went to the a second one. The true alcoholic was destroy me in every way. I could AA elsewhere. No resentment remeeting. taking over. understand the AA meaning of the mained in my heart, and the exper- When 1 walked in, I could see 1 had planned to make a delicious word. ience taught me an invaluable lesconsternation on three faces. But steak dinner and had brought all the I was too sick to drive home. Two son in tolerance for the confusion other members who may have known food for it. When I started to pre- of my AA friends drove to that of the sick, willful newcomers who about the tea party did not shun me, pare the meal, I saw a bottle of small town to get me, and one of may try our patience almost beyond and those who did not know about Scotch. I made another drink to them took me to our Sunday meet- endurance, but must be waited out it treated me as usual. When my have with my dinner. But things ing, where, sick as 1 was, I shared for as long as their desire to stop turn came to speak, 1 took the First were not to continue this way. Sud- with my group what had happened drinking remains-and beyond, as Step and then said, “1 have just read denly, one of my friends said in hor- to me. This I did with even more the situation dictates. the Third Tradition, and it states ror, “Liz, you’ve been drinking!” shame, remorse, guilt, and fear than Since then, my God has blessed simply that ‘the only requirement A signal went off in my mind. 1 I had brought with me to AA in the me with many insights and many for AA membership is a desire to grabbed my weekend case and threw first plate. That was my last drink. old and new friends, and has given stop drinking.’ This 1 have, and I it into the car. All I could think of But now I could say without any me beautiful work to do, in whatplan to continue to attend AA meet- was to get to an AA friend who question, “I am an alcoholic,” and ever way I can do it, to serve and I ings as 1 wish and as I need them, lived sixteen miles away. 1 do not know what I meant. give back to AA what it has given for my life depends on my embrac- remember the drive, and all I can re- As the years have gone by, 1 have to me. ing this program to the best of my call of that terrible night of pure now added, “I am glad I am an al- E.P., Alexandria, Va.

April 1978

meetings, and I went to them regu- not say I was an alcoholic, it would be larly. Because 1 had been a nighttime better that I not attend the meeting! and weekend drinker, a Saturday af- This was a crushing, humiliating ternoon women’s meeting was very blow. I tried to explain why I had the important to me, and the possibility difficulty, but they would not hear of friendships to combat my loneli- my explanation. I know that my eyes ness was a source of great hope. filled with tears of rage, frustration, I eagerly read all the literature I and a terrible sense of rejection. And, could get my hands on, and I fell in of course, I left the place in a hurry, love with the program as I listened to with a feeling of “to hell with them others in meetings and read AA and with AA.” books and pamphlets. But I balked at the word “alcoholic.” The procedure was to open all ” . . .One of the three comments in meetings with the introduction “My name is -and I am membm who sat in an alcoholic.” My dictionary said that an alcoholic is “one who drinks on the bnfiaroo cwrt to excess.” That being so, I saw no reason for labeling myself as an alcobecame one of my two holic, for I had stopped drinking. sponsm, and a second When I spoke, 1 took the First Step before any comments I wanted to became my best AA make. This I did by saying, “My name is Liz, and I am powerless over b d y , with whom n the nearly sixteen years I have been in AA, I have often heard it woman physically, a wreck mentally, and a zero spiritually. I had moved alcohol, and when I drink, my life becomes unmanageable.” I . . . made many said, with despair, that if a closed group wanted to reduce its size, the from a fourteen-room house into a small efficiency apartment, alone for Nobody else followed this procedure, and although I did not know it, Twerfth Step calh. . . ” way to d o it was to announce that the first time and with no one to pro- several of my elders became increas- – – –

there would be a study of the AA Tra- tect me from my alcoholic self. My ingly irritated with me. My mother happened to be visiting ditions. People would stay away in drinking built up from drinking at One Saturday afternoon after the with me at this time. She listened to droves, and those who did attend night and living through the day until’ meeting, 1 was invited by three of the the details of what had happened, let would be the ones who were really in- the next night, to drinkingevery night group’s members to stop by the home me cry it out, and then suggested that volved in the program and wanted to and around the clock on weekends. of one of them to have a cup of cof- 1 think this through carefully. I know know more about how AA works. And so it was on a Monday morning fee. My heart sang. I was making she felt terror that I might go straight I owe my life to God and the Third that I called AA for help. It was friends at last, and they wanted me to back to the bottle. And this tea party Tradition. When I called AA in 1960, the first time that I was unable to go be with them. turned kangaroo court was just the I was still holding a job but had lost to work. When I arrived, I was welcomed episode to trigger it. Her loving conalmost everything else. I was a sick In our area, there were a number of and handed a cup of coffee, all right, cern quieted me, and when she sugbut then I was told that, since I could gested that I call an AA friend, I did.

My friend was not new to AA. She tinue to attend AA meetings as 1wish. saying over and over again, “Why? gram, I never would have found a had come in as a very young woman and as I need them, for my life de- Why?” 1 could not explain what had God that I could turn to. I can feel the in 1955 and had some success with the pends on my embracing this program happened in any reasonable terms at presence of this Higher Power in my program, had stayed sober for several to the best of my ability.” all. Needless to say, there was not life. I can see the beauty of this Higher years, was an avid reader, and had About two and a half years after I much sleep for me or for my AA Power in my AA friends, whether or read her AA literature. She had also became active in AA, I went to a friend. She nursed me through the not they know they have it. been a very willing twelfth-stepper. party in my old environment. I was four-ounce slip that was killing me. Our program of unity, service, and When I called her, she asked, “Have an invited guest, but when I walked In the early morning, when she came recovery, love and growth, really you looked at the Third Tradition?” into the large drawing room, every- in to see how I was feeling, I said to works. As proof in this case, one of I went to my copy of ‘Ikelve Steps one was well on the way to being her in wonderment, like a little child, the three members who sat in on the and Twelve Traditions. Tradition drunk, and no one seemed to care “You know, I’m an alcoholic!” kangaroo court became one of my Three plainly states: “The only re- that I had arrived. The rejection went She smiled and said, “Now you two sponsors, and a second became quirement for AA membership is a deep. I had just come from leading a know.” my best AA buddy, with whom I atdesire to stop drinking.” Hope rose meeting on the Third Step and was For the first time, I knew at depth tended many meetings and made at once. This requirement I could feeling especially good about every- that I had a compulsive, obsessive many Twelfth Step calls for ten years, meet with honesty and deep desire. thing until I walked into this place. addiction to a drug that was poison to until she was accidentally killed a few When the following Saturday I went to the bar to get a Coke. The my system and could destroy me in years ago. The third member left the came, I awakened with much ner- gin bottle was sitting there, and with- every way. I could understand the AA area and attends AA elsewhere. No vousness and indecision. Should I out a conscious thought, I poured meaning of the word. resentment remained in my heart, dress and go to the meeting, even two ounces of gin into the Coke. That I was too sick to drive home. Two and the experience taught me an inthough some members of the group drink (Coke and gin?) tasted so good of my AA friends drove to that small valuable lesson in tolerance for the did not want me there? Or should I that I went back for a second one. town to get me, and one of them took confusion of the sick, willful newjust stay away? The God that had The true alcoholic was taking over. me to our Sunday meeting, where, comers who may try our patience brought me to AA was with me I had planned to make a delicious sick as 1 was, I shared with my group almost beyond endurance, but must through all this. He had not brought steak dinner and had brought all the what had happened to me. This I did be waited out for as long as their deme to AA, sick and pleading for help, food for it. When I started to prepare with even more shame, remorse, sire to stop drinking remains – and in order to allow me to be tripped up the meal, I saw a bottle of Scotch. I guilt, and fear than I had brought beyond, as the situation dictates. by personalities. I pulled myself to- made another drink to have with my with me to AA in the first place. That Since then, my God has blessed me gether and went to the meeting. dinner. But things were not to con- was my last drink. But now I could with many insights and many old and When I walked in, I could see con- tinue this way. Suddenly, one of my say without any question, “I am an new friends, and has given me beautisternation on three faces. But other friends said in horror, “Liz, you’ve alcoholic,” and know what I meant. ful work to do, in whatever way I can members who may have known about been drinking!” As the years have gone by, I have do it, to serve and give back to AA the tea party did not shun me, and A signal went off in my mind. I now added, “1 am glad 1 am an alco- what it has given to me. those who did not know about it grabbed my weekend case and threw holic.” Without this wonderful pro- E. t?,Alexandria, Va. treated me as usual. When my turn it into the car. All I could think of came to speak, 1 took the First Step was to get to an AA friend who lived and then said, “I have just read the sixteen miles away. I do not remem- Third ‘lfadition, and it states simply ber the drive, and all I can recall of that ‘the only requirement for AA that terrible night of pure hell was membership is a desire to stop drink- being very sick physically and emoing.’ This I have, and I plan to con- tionally, crying copious tears, and

August 1978

The Gift of Sobriety

M Y LIFE is full and I am very busy living these days, and sometimes I forget the miracle of defiant anger, I stated my need loud and clear and marched out with my bottle under my arm. sobriety. 1 speak at AA meetings and I remembered the mornings when recall my story, but today I exper- he opened late and 1 wondered what ienced the full impact of what my to do, and the days when I walked drinking was like. I happened to go away from the store in the opposite to a grocery store near my home. I direction from home, hoping that don’t visit it often, but it carries a neighbors would not know where I special kind of bread that my hus- had been, since I would arrive at my band likes, so I went that way this door from the other end of the morning. Next door is the liquor block. This morning, I remembered store. My heart gave a lurch as I re- the sickened feeling of self-hate that membered the leaden misery of the I buried with alcohol, only to find it days when 1 frequented that store. returning over and over, each time I remembered how the owner was deeper and more painful. smiling and friendly at first, sug- When 1 walked toward my home gesting various wines and liquors, as today, I was overwhelmed with he assumed 1 was just a housewife gratitude and wonder. After all bent on gracious entertaining. It those horrible years, I could hardly took him only a few days to recog- believe that those miserable mornnize me for what I was. His smile ings and leaden days of dragging changed to that noncommittal ex- along between drinks were really pression that told me nothing and over. Soon, I will be celebrating my everything. He knew that I was short third anniversary. My heart sings on money when 1 bought cheap sometimes with joy at this precious wine, and that 1 was going away gift of sobriety. It is worth every effrom home when 1 tucked a small fort, every phone call, every bottle of vodka in my oversize purse. meeting, every prayer, and every Most of the time, I didn’t look him time we share. square in the face. But sometimes, in L. A., Valley Stream, N.Y.

September 1978

calling one of them. I had sponsored itual awakening as the result of these Today she’s Steps, we tried to carry this message many, and we stayed in constant glad to be contact. In the evenings, Mary, Kay, to alcoholics, and to practice these Helen, or one of the newcomers and principles in all our affairs.” Yes, I 1 would discuss which group we am again carrying the message to the would be visiting that night. All the alcoholic who still suffers. I am an Just One of the Boys meetings were feasts of sobriety; our old-time member of the Fellowship, only concern was where to go that and where I formerly lived, I had evening-to an anniversary, a Step relegated Twelfth Step calls to newer

B EING THE only female member in my group who makes meetings regularly has its interesting meeting, closed meeting or open? I took big-city AA for granted. In the desert where we live now, members who deserved the privilege of carrying the message. Mostly, I was called upon for sage advice. aspects. When we moved here from there is one group, and so I have Here 1 am, back in the thick of the East a year ago, I gleefully learned to put principles above per- things again. I carry the message looked for the little slip of paper sonalities. If I disagree with another again and again to women, who thus with the addresses 1 had gotten from member, I no longer have the option far are not ready to accept it. All the AA directory. The first number I of making another meeting in those midnight calls come to my dialed rewarded me with a recording another place. Gone by the boards is home, since I am the only female telling me, “That number is no the petulant driving through the member available then. Out into the longer in service.” The second desert in the dark for a distance of dark streets I go, with flashlight in number brought joy to this old alco- sixty miles to a “neighboring” hand to read street signs and adholic’s heart. I could find some new group because he (in my home dresses. I mutter to my Higher mommie at the meeting at Mt. Olive group) isn’t practicing the program Power. Doesn’t He hear me pleading Church. my way. for just one more woman in the 1 looked up the address and was Through the grace of my Higher group? At first, the answer “Not off on a search in the unlit streets. Power, I have learned I’d better yet, old girl” was hard to accept. Finally, after an hour of twists and practice Step Eleven: “Sought Now, I understand that the program turns and muttering the Serenity through prayer and meditation to handed to me when I joined’the Fel- Prayer, 1 saw the lighted steeple, and improve our conscious contact with lowship is one I have to work for walked in to the handshakes and God as we understood Him, praying very hard here. smiles of my new group-ten strong only for knowledge of His will for Girls, as your meetings draw to a and boasting three women members. use and the power to carry that out.” close in those large metropolitan Over the next ten months, two of the Too many times in New York, my areas, and you whisper a prayer of women moved and the other got a higher power was another woman in thanks for yet another day of sobrijob working nights. There I was, just the program. It was so much easier ety, think of your brothers and sister one of the boys! to get an instant answer to a problem here in the desert joining hands at In my old home, a large suburban -not always the right answer for the close of our meetings. With the community on Long Island in New me, by the way. In frustration, I’d grace of God, we’ll be saying our York, I took the girls for granted. then turn to Step Eleven, when I prayer; and I’ll remember to be One was always calling me, or I was should have practiced this Step first. grateful to be just one of the boys. Step Twelve: “Having had a spir- J. S., Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

December 1978

They said there were no have-tos, but a lot of you ‘d-betters!

They told me to take a good, ple who are given an open invitation honest look at myself and to stop to take the “easier, softer way.” I looking to others for excuses. If 1 have heard the following said to a phoned them in one of my pitiful- newcomer as he or she first walks Pearl states of mind, I would be through that door: “Well, if you go Tough Love listened to but never sympathized with, and would be told very firmly out of here tonight and get drunk, don’t worry about it. You can alto pray. 1 was never cajoled, never ways come back.” That statement

W HEN I A R R I V E D at the door of Alcoholics Anonymous seven and a half years ago, 1 was extremely the determination that must have prevailed when Bill W., AA’s cofounder, first sought out that other given a soft shoulder to cry on, and never given an easy alternative; nor was I often agreed with in those early makes my blood run cold! Yes, the door is always open, thank God for that. But why not offer sobriety fortunate in having offered to me the alcoholic who still suffered. Thank days. But 1 was given what 1 needed, first? strict compassion, the disciplined God, those gals were tough-what I and I remain truly grateful. I, too, According to our Preamble, “Our love, and the total honesty that I so like to refer to as gut-level AAs. listened, and I did what was primary purpose is to stay sober and desperately needed. I was barely into Believe me, they pulled no punches, necessary for me to gain sobriety. help other alcoholics to achieve my thirties, a frightened, pathetic and each refused to allow me more The solid foundation that was of- sobriety. ” Sobriety is complete abwoman, and, although I was un- than one “Yes, but” and “If only.” fered to me several twenty-four stinence, one day at a time. Alcoaware of it at the time, as miserably They told me there were no have-tos hours ago made it possible for me to holics Anonymous is a promise that alcoholic as I would ever need to be in AA, but if 1 intended to get sober build a new and better way of life none of us need ever drink again. again. and stay sober, there were a lot of through the program of Alcoholics When I first came to this program, There were two other women in you’d-betters! They also told me Anonymous. I was told that staying sober was a our group. Both had serene, con- that I’d never have to drink again if I Recently, I have been witness to a matter of life and death. Life is staytented, and continuous sobriety. thoroughly followed AA’s path, and great deal of what I refer to as ing sober, and to drink is to die. One was old enough to be my that if I wanted what AA had to of- “allusive” AA, and it saddens my How, then, can any of us who are mother; the other, to be my grand- fer, I must be willing to go to any heart to see the number of new peo- sober today through this Fellowship mother. They latched on to me with length to get it.

honestly say, “Don’t worry about alcoholics? Are we so involved in getting drunk-it’s okay – you can our own “accomplishments” that always come back”? There have we have forgotten where we have been thousands of alcoholics who come from and where we are? Have haven’t worried about getting we forgotten that we must be respondrunk, who have thought it okay to sible if we are to make progress? continue drinking, because they be- God help us if we, as individuals or lieved they could always come back, as members of an AA group, can and who have made it only as far as either shrug our shoulders or answer the nearest cemetery. yes to any of these questions. What’is happening? Where are the 1 love Alcoholics Anonymous, our firm principles upon which AA and Twelve Steps, our Twelve Tradimy sobriety were founded? Where tions, and the new life afforded me are the gut-level AAs like those who through people who cared enough to were responsible for showing me the tell me what I needed to hear, rather way? than what 1 wanted to hear. Have we all returned to being With the help of the God of my people-pleasers? Are we more in- understanding, I will remember terested in being winners in a from whence I came and will conpopularity contest than winners in tinue to give away that which was so sobriety and in carrying the freely given to me-strict compasmessage? Are we forgetting that our sion, disciplined love, and total principles come before per- honesty-lest someday someone say sonalities? Have we forgotten our to me, “You are killing me softly.” primary purpose as sober C. T., Wenatchee, Wash.

F e b r u a r y 1979 :.

Twelfth Step

Out of the night and iota The Day of the First Meeting Two people are blessed when a willing newcomer calls on an A A member for help

T HE SHAKY voice blurted it right out on the Sunday-morning telephone: “I’m an alcoholic and I need Avenue, but, as I drove to pick up a woman on welfare with five children and no husband around, 1 hadn’t exwoman she had meant to be. Underneath those heavy eyes, that florid complexion, and that disheveled meeting, turned to me, met me eyeball-to-eyeball, managed a tiny smile, and let a tear run down her help.” Visions of a nightmarish Sat- pected it to be. The door opened, hair, a lady was hiding, begging for a cheek. I took her hand and felt a urday night came to me through the and I saw a woman who most cer- way to surface, but unaware that a trembling plea for help. receiver in my hand, and 1 hurt for tainly had once been lovely. The world of AAs was extending a hand I, too, did not hear all the speaker the woman on the other end. As I dark eyes told a story of their own to her that bleak January morning. I had to say that morning. I was silentlistened to bits and pieces of her and could not meet mine eyeball-to- put my arm around her and restrain- ly praying to my Higher Power that predicament, my free hand fumbled eyeball, because she could not hold ed myself from crying with her. Be- He would remove the hurt she was with an AA meeting list. It revealed a her head up yet. It was not the phys- lieve me, her pain was in my heart. I feeling deep down in her soul, and ‘ Sunday-morning meeting we could ical sickness that made her keep her thought over and over, “Oh, my God replace it with the dignity and feeling make if she could pull herself to- head down, but the guilt and shame – but for the grace of Thee . . .” of well-being that come to an alcogether a bit. I had always felt that the she felt, and I knew it well. I don’t believe she digested much holic who is recovering in the AA best time t o get a newcomer to her On the way to the meeting, I ex- of what was said at that speakers program. I wished I had a hypofirst meeting was the morning after, plained to this shaking, fidgety, very meeting, but I know she was touched dermic needle and could shoot the when she was really hurting and sick girl that alcoholism was an ill- by the countless people who ap- whole program right into her and craving a drink. ness, not a moral issue, and she must proached her, introduced them- bring her instant relief from her It didn’t take much persuasion. I not be ashamed. From the few things selves, and gave phone numbers, of- pain, but I knew that it would take think if 1 had told her we had to take she told me as we drove, I realized fers to help, encouraging words, time and that our sickness can be an African safari, she would have that she was not an irresponsible per- literature, and good wishes. She healed only after we have experiagreed – she was that beaten down son but had become snarled in the received them all gracefully, enced it to the fullest extent each one and crying for help. clutches of alcohol and, in her swallowed hard, fought the nausea of us can bear. The address was not Park drunken travels, had lost sight of the and the shakes, and once, during the After the meeting, we found a lit-

tle restaurant and had breakfast to– that she was not built for the worst Her purse was stuffed with AA It began to spread to other newgether. She could not understand rigors of active alcoholism. She lov- literature, and she’d leaf through it, comers around her. Although she why I, a perfect stranger, would ed her children dearly, hated herself stop at a particular passage she had did not know it, she helped at least want to befriend her and buy her today, did not want to exist in a marked, and ask questions-proof one other new member over the breakfast. For an hour, we talked. drunken stupor around the clock, positive that she was reading. When threshold of AA by her example. She explained her drinking pattern and was reaching out for a hand to and what had happened to her. I ex- help her off that merry-go-round. plained AA and how it could help She had it! “The words ‘I can’t’ have never her. My commitment was total. 1 accomplished anything, but the words ‘I’ll try’ There is usually a crisis of some broke a cardinal rule of mine. I sort that catapults an alcoholic into never, never, never gave my phone have worked miracles” the arms of AA. Hers was a blackout number to a new person on our first the previous night that had left her to encounter. I always got her phone wake up in a strange bed in a room number and called her several times asked to read the Steps or Traditions It’s been said that a rain-drenched she had never seen before, with no a day, instead. 1 had learned a sorry at a meeting, she didn’t back off rose cannot hold its head up right recollection of how she’d gotten lesson: Some people who are not in with an excuse; she accepted and after a storm; but a woman can. Just there. She recalled her frenzied dash earnest will get drunk the day after said, “1’11 probably botch this up, give her a few minutes with her comout of there and plainly showed her they call AA and keep me up all but I’ll try.” The words “I can’t” pact, and she comes sailing forth bewilderment. How could this have night with their phone calls. But this have never accomplished anything, with a freshly lipsticked smile happened to her? Slowly, she calmed time, 1 knew I had a winner. Instinc- but the words “I’ll try” have worked flashing and hope in her heart. This down enough to learn that, although tively, I gave her my phone number, miracles. woman’s recovery was exciting to blackouts are not uncommon with address, blood type, Social Security One day, she called and said she watch. As if seeing a beautiful alcoholics, they are danger signals, number, and heart, because I couldn’t stand her messy house any flower blossom in a slow-motion and that she was in the right place if wanted her to have all the support I longer. While she was drinking, she film, petal by petal, I watched her she truly wanted to recover and if she could give her, right from the start. said, she hadn’t cared what it looked unfold into a wholesome, sober was willing to be honest. (I had I told her that I was in her corner, like; but now that she was sober, she woman with a new zest for life. I felt already heard more honesty out of backed up by a whole community of couldn’t stand it. She went on a honored to be a part of this rebirth. this woman than I had been able to AAs, and that the Higher Power be- cleaning spree that lasted two weeks Tonight, our group had the muster for months after I dried out.) hind her was greater than the task and brought her heaps of satisfac- pleasure of presenting a ninety-day I’d been twelfth-stepping for ahead of her. tion. Suddenly, I noticed that she card, and the recipient came forward about six years, and I’d seen many A meeting the next day was was standing up straight, looking to accept it from me, the secretary. I types of women come into AA, but followed by a meeting the day after people in the eye, smiling, and put- saw a very attractive lady who had this one was really refreshing. As that, and so on for a couple of ting her hand out. Her self-respect lost twenty pounds in ninety days, sick as she was, she pulled no weeks. She was off and running in was returning. Through the Fourth had a new, stylish hairdo, and was punches, made no excuses for her good form. Next thing I knew, she , Step, she found that the more faults perfectly radiant. I choked up a bit behavior, blamed no one but herself, had a dozen acquaintances in the , she was able to face, the more re- as I handed the card to a lady and expressed an honest desire to program who were calling her daily. spectable she became. Her eagerness who, ninety days ago on a cold become sober. I saw nothing but With an announcement that she was was refreshing; her honesty was as- winter morning, had bowed her head green lights for her. She’d gone up taking up too much of my time, she tounding; her enthusiasm knew no and said, “I’m an alcoholic and I the Nile until she saw the first croco- began to get to meetings on the bus bounds; and most of all, her will- need help. ” dile, and she plainly demonstrated or to manage rides with other folks. ingness io try sobriety was positive. I. C.,Rochester, N.Y.

February 1979

making an effort at clear thinking, since that initial moment of truth. realistic thinking, positive thinking. Once something is recognized and Bad feelings were rising; good old accepted, however, it can be dealt AA training was coming to the fore with. just when I needed it. And then, this The only way that 1 can defeat the voice inside said, “1 don’t want to!” enemy is by taking action. Going in- The Enemy “Ruth,” I said to myself, “that is ward is fine until 1 recognize my the enemy. You have just met the problem; once it is recognized, ac- Within enemy. face-to-face, and what is tion of some kind must be taken. more, you have recognized it.” Talking to someone is the first line of The enemy was not the people defense. This ventilates feelings and who had excluded me from their anxieties and unclutters the mind of weekend arrangements. The enemy negative emotions and thoughts, so Her healthy self was not even all of me. The enemy is that the way will be clear for positive has an alter ego the negative, self-destructive part of thinking. Going inward and becomme, the part that relishes self-pity. ing more introverted is giving in to that really enjoys When the healthy part says, “Here’s the enemy. Going toward other peofeeling bad a way to feel good,” the unhealthy ple and taking positive action will part says, “But 1 want to feel bad.” defeat the enemy. I have met the enemy many times R. E., Gloucester, N.J.

N OT MANY people can say that My options were: talk to someone they have met the enemy face- about my feelings; make my own to-face-but 1 have. We’ve all heard plans for the weekend by taking the the expression “You’re your own initiative and inviting other people worst enemy.” But what does it to go to dinner, a movie, anything. mean? Also, I needed a new pocketbook, 1 met the enemy one Friday morn- and I could go shopping. Spending ing. I was feeling blue, because the money usually makes me feel effecweekend was fast approaching and I tive. It won’t pull me out of a depreshad no plans. It seemed that 1 would sion-but it will minimize the feeling be alone. 1 started to feel sorry for of being put-upon, a victim of the myself. As I headed downward into whole world. So I had at least three self-pity, which was combined with ways to get myself out of the depresanger and annoyance at other people sion fast coming on. As I was mullfor “deserting” me, my AA training ing over the various choices, a little came to the fore. 1 recognized that I voice inside my head said, “I don’t was starting to go into a depression want to!” and knew that I must catch myself Son of a gun! The enemy face-tobefore 1 fell into the slump. face! Here 1 was, stone cold sober,

February 19

any of us ever will have to do. When alcoholics/addicts, as well as those getting sober also means giving up who are “just” alcoholics, and yet other addictions (there is no way you Dual Problems can get sober while staying high on avoid diluting the wisdom accumulated by the hundreds of thousands another drug), it may be even worse. who have learned to stay sober one The most dangerous aspect of multi- day at a time? Was the old-timer Let’s concentrate on the things we have ple addictions is that they make it so right? Should I learn to hide my in common and on the tools that help us much harder to “keep it simple.” other addiction? God knows, we all have problems In my first year in the program, I overcome our common problems with thinking ourselves unique, with rewrote the Twelve Steps; I really fearing that no one will understand, thought I could make them clearer.

T HERE WERE about twenty-five people at the meeting, and I knew most of them. It was a discusalcoholics did in twenty-five or ty years of drinking. Although most people find it hard to put compulsi~e with feeling that we are somehow worse than anyone else, and with experiencing overwhelming loneliness. In my second year, otherwise known as the “Saint Barbara” stage, I thought my facility with words sion meeting, and we went around overeating in the same class as drug Early in my sobriety, with a real would enable me to write new and the tables discussing the First Step. It abuse, the effects of multiple addic- problem that made me “different,” wonderful additions to the AA colwas my turn, and I started as I al- tion were the same for me: Witfi a I often found it hard to keep from lective wisdom. With five years, by most always do: “My name is much shorter time of progressiorb 1 rejecting the advice of sponsors, the grace of God, I naturally looked Barbara. I’m an alcoholic and a was so sick, mentally and spiritually, with the excuse that their suggestions for my answers in the AA literature, compulsive overeater. ” Someone that my life was in immediate danger would not work for me, because my confident of finding them there. snorted explosively. A man across from suicide or gradually s d f – problem was more complicated. And so, in the article by Bill W. on the table stifled laughter with his destructive behavior, even tho@ They told me to eat when I felt like “Problems Other Than Alcohol,” 1 hand. My stomach twisted, and my my liver and my stomach were @ll drinking. (Would you tell a pigeon found the very sensible guideline thoughts scattered. I said something intact. to use heroin to ease alcohol with- stating that anyone, regardless of -1 don’t know what-and passed. Switching back and forth between drawal?) “other” problems, who has “a gen- Later, one young man said he was my two drugs kept me from the It was only my desperation and uine alcoholic history” can be an “an alcoholic and an addict,” and morning drink for several years after the unthinkable alternative-to AA member. no one laughed. I could no longer face even ordinary* drink and die-that forced me to try I checked that out, reviewing my After the meeting, a respected old- day-to-day problems without a drug many of their other suggestions. own history with all of the abusive timer told me that he didn’t think for a crutch. Thus, when I stopped Then, of course, the AA program use of food erased. Looking at only alcoholics could identify with an using food addictively (with the help began to work for me. But I still felt my drinking, 1 still found the pro- . eating problem, and that maybe it of Overeaters Anonymous), my different and not understood (with gressive spiritual deterioration, the would be better if I didn’t mention it drinking changed suddenly to an real cause) and less a part of the changing values, the tangled emoat all. around-the-clock, low-bottom oaf- Fellowship. tions, the increasing mental obses- With many young people coming tern. When AA stopped my driflk- Believe me, even after five years in sion, the steadily growing physical I to AA, it is increasingly common to ing, my sanity itself collapsed, AA, I felt very alone in that meeting need for more alcohol, and the hear people talk about multiple ad- unable to function with both when that man laughed. (It’snot powerlessness to halt or reverse that dictions; through the combined use crutches gone, and I was hospital- ridiculous!” I cried silently. “It progression. If I could have conof pills or hard drugs and booze, ized with a complete psych~tic made me want to die, and I bought a trolled my eating, I would still have they often went closer to insanity or breakdown. gun, and . . .”) been an alcoholic (and vice versa, I the grave in five years than most Getting sober is the hardest thin8 How can AA best help suffering might add).

Can drug addicts and other sub- to serve a dual purpose, and when binges or the hatred 1 felt for mirrors two sentences on the special diffistance-abusers be AA members? should a problem be taken else- and my body would help only the culties of getting sober when one Sure-as long as they find those tell- where? few who share my food addiction. In fights two compulsions? Then, if tale signs of progression and loss of Perhaps common sense can help AA, 1 will talk instead about such there are those listening who strugchoice in their use of alcohol. I t us keep clear of complications. things as the incredible effort 1 put gle, as I did, with that dangerous doesn’t really matter whether our Regardless of our other problems, into being sure I was at work every sense of aloneness and of being difdownhill slide is accelerated by the we all have trouble with alcohol as a Monday so that no one could tell me ferent, we can find each other later. loss of a job or a family or by the at- common ground for understanding. I had no right to get drunk the next We can then share, in those meettempt to substitute other “drugs” The loneliness and fear as our weekend. The relief 1 felt when 1 did ings-after-the-meeting, the exfor alcohol; our arrival at an alco- powerlessness grows are a shared ex- my first Fifth Step and my surprise perience of recovery from these holic bottom is the same. perience. The problems in learning when the promises made in the Big complicated addictions and the reas- God seems to have an amazing to live by the principles of the Twelve Book came true for me will be shared surance that the simplicity of the ability to get at multiple addictions Steps are also common ground, and by those who have worked the Steps Twelve Steps will work for us, too. If through the Twelve Steps of AA. staying away from a drink for one and perhaps will give hope to those necessary, I can help them make When we become willing to go to any day requires the tools we all need to still hesitating or new to AA. It contact with those other fellowships. lengths in honesty, hope, faith, and have in our survival kits. Many of us doesn’t matter that I stayed away Please, let us say that we are both responsibility to ourselves and to have used those same tools to stop from two kinds of drugs; it was still alcoholics and compulsive overothers, little self-deception about smoking or to handle a family prob- just one day at a time. eaters or addicts without fear of ridother drugs or addictive behavior lem without finding the edges dulled Sometimes, just for practice, I tell icule or censure! But if we forget, can hang on for long. But for some when we use them to cut away drink- my story in AA without any ref- and talk too much of those other adpeople like me, a second fellowship ing thinking. erence at all to the eating problem. dictions, please remind us that we will be needed, such as Overeaters In our meetings, then, let us talk For us all, the things we have in com- are in AA to share our common ex- Anonymous or Narcotics Anony- about those things that will help all mon are far more important than perience, strength, and hope, and mous or Al-Anon or the small, in- of us, about the things we have in our individual differences. But in my that if we want to find understandformal groups of AA members who common, rather than our differ- AA sharing, shouldn’t I feel free at ing and help here and to give it to have learned that they use relation- ences, and especially about the tools other times to at least identify myself others, we should stick to our AA ships to feed their addictive person- of recovery, which work on all ad- as a recovering compulsive overeater business. alities. How much can we allow AA dictions. T o dwell on my eating in addition, and perhaps to spend B. L., St. Louis, Mo.

June 1979 also my handling of new situations. avoid dilemmas in general and emo- My emotions were returning; and tional involvements in particular for Sharing with others this time, they were undiluted by an unspecified time. brings answers to booze. I experienced my first sober When I’d been in the program six baffling questions trip to the dentist, then my first weeks, a married man paid some atsober cold, then my first sober pass. tention to me after a meeting, and I I handled them all awkwardly, par- was instantly in love – or, more acticularly the pass. curately, was instantly obsessed. 1 Dealing with sudden attention began to think of this man constantfrom men didn’t get easier right ly. 1 dreamed of him. 1 built fantasy One Woman’s Journey away. I felt like a schoolgirl. 1 was awkward and confused, and 1 faced worlds in which we were running away together. I was uncomfortable my first sober dilemma: Should I in the same meeting with him and continue to work on my appearance embarrassed around his wife, and all and expect to be noticed by men, or this from a few casual, friendly should I put a bag over my head and remarks.

T HIS IS NOT intended as a treatise on sex. Nor do 1 claim that women are special in their recovery and friends, and my health became impaired. When I came again to an AA meeting room, I was there for a get on with my program? Did one endeavor necessarily preclude the other? The obsession passed, but the lesson I learned endured. I could see that I was immensely vulnerable as a through AA or have a tougher time meeting. I came; 1 came to; I sur- 1 struggled with almost every new nondrinking alcoholic. During of it than men. My purpose here is to rendered; I came to believe. aspect of my life during those early my drinking years, I had used share my experience, strength, and My health began to improve. By few twenty-four hours. Simple me- alcohol to help me deal with social hope as a single woman who is a then, there were many more women chanical tasks were baffling, and the situations, and toward the end, I had recovering alcoholic. in the program, and they talked me more complex ones were more so. cut myself off from all interaction. I When 1 first entered an AA meet- through the first few difficult Struggling with this new dilemma did not realize how lonely I had ing room, in 1971, in a middle-sized twenty-four hours. I began to take a raised old fears, doubts, problems of become until the obsession helped southeastern city, there was one renewed interest-long-dormant- self-esteem. me to see the social effects of my other woman who attended meetings in my appearance, and when the fog At that point, I began to approach drinking. there regularly. She and I had a great lifted a bit, I was looking better than the problem in ways that I’d never So this was why the old-timers had many things in common, including a I had in years. I had a little makeup before considered. I used some of suggested that I avoid emotional inlack of acceptance and a refusal to on; my clothes were matching; my the tools of the program, though volvements. In my confusion, I admit powerlessness. hair was clean; and I was beginning they were still new and a bit strange simply didn’t know how to handle 1 did not continue to attend to feel human again. Even more to me. 1 talked to AA friends, to situations with a very clear head. I meetings, nor did I read any of the amazingly, I was beginning t o feel many women both older and young- was still an emotional infant with an literature. Even though my new like a female human being again! er than I. 1 briefly took the podium adult appearance. friend and I knew a third woman An old-timer in our meeting told at an open participation meeting and After the first ninety days, I stuck who had died a painful alcoholic me that he had gotten sober through spoke in general terms about the close to the program and attended death, neither of us seemed to get the “brute strength and awkwardness.” dilemma I was experiencing. My many meetings. I let men know how message that day, and we both went 1 remembered that saying daily, be- sponsor, who wasn’t giving advice, long I had in the program and exout and drank some more. cause it so aptly described, not only told me of some people’s opinion plained that I still felt too new (or In the ensuing years, I lost jobs my avoidance of the first drink, but that newcomers might do well to “not sober enough”) to go on dates.

And I prayed, awkwardly at first. women may not have been much dif- I asked for forgiveness for the con- ferent from women in general, but I fusion I was having. Then I prayed was discovering that we had more that I might have the extra strength 1 things in common than I’d imaginneeded and some idea of His will for ed. I experienced a new feeling of my life. I got it down to one twenty- sisterhood, a feeling that I’d never four-hour period at a time. experienced in the wake of the My dilemma became a good bit women’s movement. easier to deal with and I became less More and more, I was turning to awkward when 1 was able to be other women in the program to share honest about what I wanted, what problems, experiences, and conmy priorities were. When I knew cerns. I added a regular women’s who 1 was and what I wanted, the meeting to my schedule, and my confusion subsided greatly. I am an growing telephone list is made up alcoholic. I want to be sober. almost entirely of women. My feelings about men may have I was no longer suspicious of the been warped, but so were my feel- intentions of men, nor was I parings about other women. My ex- ticularly trying to avoid speaking to perience in regard to other women them. But I was finding that, in my also began to change after 1 came to case, my recovery was aided best by the program. calling other women when I had a A speaker at one birthday meeting problem. said something that made me mildly And strangely enough, for me, I uncomfortable. She said that at the was enjoying the company of other time of her beginning in AA, she did AA women. Before coming into the not like other women and did not program, I tended to consider an trust them. She had been working in evening meal with a woman friend as a man’s world, and she found she but a substitute for a date with a identified more with business con- man. Now, I am becoming concerns than with what she saw as the tented with the company of women frivolous activities of housewives. friends and have turned down dates When I gave some honest thought in order to have dinner or see a to that speech, 1 had to admit that I movie with a group of other women. felt that way, too. I had few close I am never finished; but today, I women friends, and I actually con- am on the journey I began as a child. sidered myself above “woman’s If my sharing helps others, then I am work.” Suddenly, admitting my better for that. Finally, I am underown prejudices made me alone re- standing what this saying means: It sponsible for them. is not the end that matters; it is the And I began to discover how journey that matters in the end. wrong 1 had been. The other AA L. B., Atlanta, Ga.

October 1979

You need never be lonely again –

Just Pick Up the Phone

W HEN I FIRST came to AA, the warmth and acceptance of the program crept over me like a trying to run my own life. I sought counsel from my AA friends. “Will 1 be able to stay sober,” I asked day when self-pity and resentments crept in, with the inevitable resultloneliness. 1 had suffered from lonehow they are. There is always someone out there at the other end of the line. All I’ve got to do is reach out blanket. That blanket and God and them, “if I do what the doctor says liness for over thirty years while my hand and pick up the phone. I many hundreds of meetings have and stay away from meetings for drinking booze, and for a few years am grateful for that one day when kept me sober for quite a few twenty- however long it takes? He wants me while taking mind-altering pills, so 1 the loneliness came back. I hadn’t four hours. to stay in bed for at least three could recognize it as an old enemy. really thought-until it came and Then, enter illness: a back prob- months!” But I wasn’t willing to give it up right went-of the tremendous number of lem, lots of pain, difficulty in walk- They answered: “Others have away. I thought I’d wallow around non-lonely days and evenings I’ve ing, a couple of weeks of sheer done it-for even longer when neces- in it for a while. After all, didn’t 1 been able to spend with God and my panic. I rushed to meetings on sary.” deserve some “enjoyment” from the AA friends since entering the crutches, clutching my pillow. I had The panic subsided with this en- self-punishment that was all the program. informed the good doctor that I was couragement. I went to bed with lots “pleasure” I had known for thirty Those AA speakers who said, ‘ an alcoholic and a pill-abuser. “No of good AA literature I had been years? “You need never be lonely again” pills,” I said to him. “I’ll conquer meaning to read or reread for a long My sponsor called that night to see were 100 percent right when they this thing.” So there I was, trying to time, and with all the yarn 1 could how I was doing. As I told her about made that promise. I may have been run my life again as if it were wholly beg from everybody, to crochet an my self-indulgent day, it began to too sick to consciously hear the other ‘ in my hands-but, of course, it afghan. strike us both a bit funny. And in the half of the promise, but it was filed didn’t work. Finally, I couldn’t walk When I entered AA, 1 was promis- end, we laughed over it! away somewhere in the deep recesses at all, because of the pain, and I sur- ed that I need never be lonely again. From that day to this (and I’m of my mind, and 1 thank the God of rendered to the medical advice. So I had a phone installed next to my right now heading for my first meet- my understanding that my one lone- I did what I was told-complete bed; lay back, and waited. After a ing in two months), I’ve made many, ly day dredged it up for me: “You bed rest. My husband took a week’s few calls from some of the people in many phone calls. Why should I wait need never be lonely again-just vacation, at home. I stayed close to my group, there came a day when the for someone’to call me? If I’m think- pick up that phone!” my sponsor by phone, and gave up phone didn’t ring at all. That was the ing of them, I call them and find out Anonymous, Rhode Island

February 1981

A Big Difference

this divinely inspired program, we The AA program offers much This AA found that by following are enabled to participate fully as more than just not drinking. Its way worthwhile and productive members of life teaches us new attitudes and the guidelines of the program of the society we had fallen away alternatives conducive to peace of she was assured of a better life from. We learn, by our peers’ shar- mind and to harmony between our ing of their experiences, strength, inner selves and external conditions and hope, how to deal with whatever over which we have no control. The trauma or success appears in our answers to living without alcohol lives. No longer do we find it and other mind-altering, moodnecessary to reach for the false “liq- W HAT A DIFFERENCE a day makes when one is sober and can enthusiastically drink in the simattitude replaces a negative outlook; faith replaces fear. I am but one among a million uid courage” that, for us, is always lurking in the shadows. We can, inchanging drugs are found in the simplicity of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. By incorple beauties of a new dawn – happy who, by the grace of God, have been stead, reach for the help that is readi- porating these suggested guidelines contrast to the “days of wine and led from the sea of alcoholic despair ly available to let us meet whatever into our daily living, we are assured roses” when I arose bleary-eyed to to this sheltered island of salvation need is dominant. We can attend of the better life that can be expeconsume my first drink of the day. called AA. We who enjoy sobriety meetings regularly, call our sponsor rienced only when we are freed from Sobriety does makes a difference one day at a time are privileged to ex- or other AA friend, and read and re- the bondage of alcohol. – in more ways than one. It is the perience a way of life that we had read the messages set forth by our It is my prayer that what is so gendifference between sanity and in- never thought possible. From day to founders in the Big Book, Alcohol- erously shared with me, I may return sanity; being honest and lying; being day, we overcome the mental, phys- ics Anonymous, between whose cov- in some measure to those whose lives clear-headed and being foggy- ical, and spiritual paralysis caused ers can be found the answer to any touch mine. brained; responsible and irresponsi- by the disease of alcoholism. living problem we may be facing. R. F., Lake Worth, Fla. ble; cheerful and grumpy. A positive By applying the Twelve steps of

April 1981

No one rememberednot even her sponsor Three Months Last Friday

It was a good meeting. Nothing meant to me. Then, they all applaudwas said that made bells ring or ed. I was glad they didn’t ask me to say anything. I couldn’t have spoken I T WAS A pretty good meeting, one I really needed. Being newly sober, I was very unsure of myself and was lights go on in my head, but the uneasiness gradually subsided. Then, at the end of it, the leader past the lump in my throat. When I was going to bed that ‘

just feeling my way toward some The day wore on, and no one brought in a small basket full of night, I sat holding that chip. It sort of meaningful sobriety. I had remembered. Not even my sponsor! different-colored chips. I didn’t meant so much – a new beginning never really felt I belonged to that And the old, familiar self-pity reared know what they were. He held up a of hope, a symbol of life. group. But then, I had never felt I its ugly head. But I told myself, white one and asked, “Is there I do not cry easily. I cried that belonged anywhere. “Stop it, now. It’s no big deal. Just a anyone here who has made one to night – tears of thankfulness. The week before, I had made it to day at a time.” And I went about the three months of sobriety?” No one I hope we will always remember the three-month mark – three business of trying to stay sober. The answered. Then, “How about three how important the little things are to months without a drink, the longest weekend went fairly well. But on to six months?” a new member, and not let our own I’d gone in many, many years. I Monday, I woke up feeling uneasy, I raised my hand and said, “Three length of sobriety get in the way of remember how I felt that day, how and that feeling of something being months last Friday.” our ability to remember how it was often I’d thought of it, and how I’d wrong persisted all day. I couldn’t He asked me to come forward. He for us in the beginning. Let’s give hoped so hard that someone would identify it, but the thought of a drink gave me a chip with “AA” printed out those chips, or announce anremember. I knew three months of nagged at me, no matter how busy I on it, and said, “Congratulations!” niversaries at meetings. Call that sobriety was no big deal, but to me, kept myself. When he shook my hand, there was a new member when he misses a it really was. After I took that last By evening, I knew I should go to little extra squeeze. And there was meeting. Ask him out to coffee. drink, three months before, I’d had a meeting. It wasn’t my regular also a little extra something in his Maybe that call or that time spent such a sick certainty I’d never make meeting night, but I knew I needed eyes – a caring, an understanding of over coffee can save a life. it. to go, and I did. what that little piece of red plastic G. M., Brainerd, Minn.

June 1981

“And now you’re the greatest mom in the world again”

A New Day Bright With Hope

S PRING IS the season of hope. It is the time of year when we believe that the flowers will come up, that ing brings. when I began to attend AA regularly, during a hospital stay, I called myself a hopeless drunk for patients who had been admitted for alcohol abuse. At first, I attended because, as I said, “I’d just as weeks and months went by, I found myself depending more and more on the simple program and the faithful, the air will warm and the grass will meaning, not only that I couldn’t be soon sit there as here.” beautiful people. The Twelve Steps turn back to green and the sun will helped, but that I had lost all hope. But attending AA meetings can be gave me, for the first time in my life, shine a little more brightly on our Though I did not know it at the time, addictive, too. The smiles began to the belief that there could be, not days. At least, we are able to hope this was probably one of the best interest me. As a measure of my sick- merely a way of existing without alfor that now that we are sober. Dur- things that could have happened to ness, let me tell you this: I harbored cohol, but a way of living without ing our drinking days, of course, the me. When I had hoped before, I had a sincere suspicion that the hospital alcohol – a way of living which I idea of the sun shining brightly always hoped for the wrong thing – had hired these people to come in a saw increasingly as more. satisfying probably just brought thoughts of namely, that I could control my few nights a week and “act out” the than anything 1 had ever known, what its blaze would do to our drinking. parts of recovered alcoholics, to even before drinking had shattered already suffering eyes and heads. But the next spring and the begin- encourage the patients. Talk about the structure of my life. But now we go into spring and ning of the summer saw a different being self-centered! As the other pa- The summer was not without its summer bright with hope, living our attitude. I knew that I could not do tients who were going through treat- problems. The death of my father, new beginning through the program anything about my drinking. I had ment with me began to catch some of to whom 1 had always been very of AA and the help of a Higher given up. I did not call it the contagious hope of AA, I just close, brought me much pain and Power who had apparently not for- “surrender” for a long time. All I barely stopped short of thinking that fear. My AA friends were strong and gotten us even when we had ceased said then was that alcohol, “the Big maybe the hospital had also hired understanding, and most important ever to think of Him. A,” had beaten me fair and square those “patients,” so I would believe of all, they were there. I remember a spring that was not – not even by a close decision. that abstinence could work. The job situation proved more hopeful for me. That spring and Fortunately for me, the hospital But AA took with me, too. I was difficult than I would have thought summer came on me with the sodden where I went had AA meetings on just a bit slower than some other possible. Many changes had to be thud of weighted sorrow that drink- the premises (or at least next door) people to hear the message. As the made in my life, and I could see a

rather bumpy road ahead. Like in the world. And then when I was many of us, I had let my drinking in- about eight to ten, you were worried vade every corner of my life; there all the time. And then when I was ten was nothing that had escaped its to twelve, you were drunk too much destructive touch; therefore, there to be a good mom.” was nothing that did. not need The words were out, and he was repairs. There were bills, pains and not quite sure of what would hapmisunderstandings with frierids and pen. I was glad to hear them, family, and all the general assort- because the healing cannot start in ment of ruins that alcoholism leaves him, either, unless he is allowed to be in its wake. honest about the pain he suffered. I Summer turned to fall, not usually was glad he had Alateen to help him. my favorite season. One afternoon, Yes, it hurt, remembering. my younger son and I went up on the Then he said, “And now you’re mountain to see the changing leaves the greatest mom in the world again, and play ball and walk around. The just like you were when you were in afternoon was beautiful, in the way your thirties!” that we in AA are advised to find our The afternoon, if possible, bebeauty: It was beautiful in the now, came brighter. The autumn colors that day, without fear of the future were the colors of hope. I thanked or regret for the past. God for the time that my boy had to And it was on that bright, vivid remember, so that not all of his autumn afternoon that my hope memories were bad. I thanked Him grew out of the words of my son, for AA and for Alateen, which were redoubling my gratitude to AA for helping us to make our way back to what it had let me have. As we build on what was good and clean played ball, he suddenly said to me, and this time, to build with prin- “This reminds me of the thirties.” ciples that would give us a solid I stopped literally in my tracks. He foundation. was only twelve years old, and the I felt hope, such as only the 1930’s didn’t seem to be something recovering alcoholic might underthat would appeal to him even if he stand. I felt hope that God was in had heard about them! His heaven and all was right with the “What do you mean?” I asked. world, and that AA would go on as “You know, Mom,” he said, a lit- long as this earth and the needs of its tle bit uneasily but still smiling. people last. “No, really, I don’t. What do you When a woman past forty has just mean, it reminds you of the been told that she’s gone back to her thirties?” thirties, who wouldn’t feel hope? “Well, Mom, you know. When I Miracles can happen. was little, you were the greatest mom J. W., Huntsville, Ala.

September 1981 J’ b

and hours with me, just me, threw me into a terrifying, gut-wrenching panic. Alone within my four walls, I The results? Dresses hanging in finally had to face the fact that in all my closet that I didn’t need or want, those months of staying busy, I had invitations accepted or extended to taken no real action at all. I had occasions I did not enjoy, etc., etc. I completed tasks, even AA tasks like had always considered myself a le- a Fourth and Fifth Step and a daily thargic – no, let’s face it – lazy per- Tenth Step, but I had done them as a son. T o me, taking action meant get- child does homework to avoid getting myself involved in some kind of ting in trouble with his teacher at activity that would keep me physi- school. I finally realized that I had cally occupied. When I was too tired used constant activity, the distracto remain physically busy, I would tion of people, places, and things, to keep my mind busy with books, tele- avoid bumping into myself. vision, or radio. As a single working God must have known that I parent, I have managed to Take Ac- couldn’t take too large a dose of tion almost constantly for the last myself on the very first try, so my car fourteen months; I even did a little was “miraculously” repaired and volunteering for AA and congratu- ready late yesterday afternoon, and I lated myself heartily for my efforts. was able to get out to a meeting to- Then, yesterday, it all fell apart. I day. Lo and behold, the topic was Action had been looking forward to a twoweek vacation, and the first day of self-honesty, just what I needed to hear. vacation finally arrived. I had plan- After the meeting, I was lucky to Begins ned to spend one week of the time visiting my sister in another state and be able to share some really honest thoughts with an AA friend of mine, one week accomplishing all the misat Home cellaneous chores that had been shoved to the bottom of my priority thoughts and feelings that I had been unwilling to confront for all these months in the program. list for the last few months. The relief was immediate. I am so

F OR THE LAST fifteen months of dryness, interspersed with occasional glimpses of sobriety, I have The money I was counting on for the trip did not materialize. My son, on whom I was counting for comgrateful to AA and to my friend for giving me the opportunity to begin to grow. From now on, I think, I’ll gritted my teeth through meetings on panionship, decided he had better be able to remind myself that Taking Taking Action.The meetings always things to d o than hang out with Action can be a very quiet, personal made me feel pressured, inadequate, l mom. And my car was going to be thing. If I can remember that action and angry. After each meeting, I stuck in the shop for a few days begins at home, maybe I won’t be so would go out and d o something im- while needed parts were being ship- scared next time I bump into myself pulsive just to respond to the call to ped to the dealer. in an empty apartment. Take Action. The thought of spending hours C.A., Houston, Tex.

October 1981

and … dinner with another kindred AA .- .- — — – –

soul at a local club I’d bleen wan.Sing turned out to be to visit, since they were featuri~ ng a a wonderful birthday favorite sinner of mine . That was another first since getting sober; I – had been avoiding “slippery places,” but I passed the test with only one brief moment of uneasiness. The weekend was then spent at my first AA roundup, where I met many A Now-Forty new people and learned a great deal from several powerful speakers. After more cards and presents from AA friends who learned of my

I HAD BEEN in AA only seven months, with eighty-five days’ continuous sobriety, when I ap- Third, I had dropped, or been dropped by, all my old buddies who would have relished such an occacould consciously remember in a long time. That was followed by a visit with a new AA friend, who had birthday after the fact, my birthday, which by now had extended to a week, wound up with a final cake proached my fortieth birthday. For sion for a big bash. And last, I’d ar- baked a birthday cake for me, and and card from workers in an adjoinme, as a woman and an alcoholic, ranged to take my Fifth Step on the we enjoyed a few pleasant hours get- ing office, whom I had known for a the big forty loomed as an irnpend- Saturday before my birthday; that ting to know each other better. year but had bothered to become acing disaster, offering several reasons was somewhat frightening but some- The day before my birthday, my quainted with only after joining AA. for a good binge that would cause how seemed urgent. sponsor took me to lunch (a delight- All in all, it was a birthday I’ll me to lose that ninety days again. What a surprise I had in store! ful change from my usual brown remember on subsequent ones, how- First, of course, was just the age Because of the positive thinking and bag), and that evening, I had dinner ever many I’m allotted. Certainly, it itself – the belief of many that this alternate ideas for living I was learn- with my family and helped celebrate was one 1 never could have foreseen was the start of the slide over the hill, ing in AA, as well as the friendships my sister’s birthday (that day) sober seven months earlier. It mixed pleascoupled with alcoholic thinking, I’d developed in the program, not – a real treat for everyone. ant memories with the removal of could lead to a good pity-party and only was my birthday the best in On the big day (after noting in the many unpleasant ones, but most imdepression. Second was the fact that years, but the celebration lasted for a mirror that my now-forty face was portant was the hope I felt for a hap- I’d never celebrated any birthday week! more or less intact), I received many py, sober future. Who says life since my twenty-first without booze, On Saturday, I took my Fifth Step good wishes from AA friends, a sur- doesn’t begin at forty? Thanks, AA. let alone a milestone like the fortieth. and felt the first sense of peace I prise present of a beautiful necklace, B. M., Charleston, W.Va.

October 1981

Two who slipped to be. I was a chameleon. I could not out, and I was so desperate that I stand to be alone with myself. truly had to let go of every old idea. and came back My husband and I were married I began in AA as a totally new, igduring our fourth year in AA, and I norant woman that day. I made the moved to the town where he had meeting and got my beautiful “dealways lived. In AA there, I became sire” chip. I immediately asked an just his wife. I resented that deeply old-timer to sponsor me. He’s and began competing. My husband taught me many things: that I live in is the dearest person in the world to a today unit only; that I am to be me. He is a completely active completely myself at all times (and member, dedicated to all Three gradually, there did become a me); .

Completely Myself Legacies. Besides that, he has plain that I am not to parrot anyone else’s old common sense, which I’m surely way of working the program, but lacking. work this program as the Big Book Slowly, I became accepted for outlines it. Yes, I started with the myself, but the old ego was still in First Step, and I hope to God I never me. When we were asked to share a again think I have taken the Twelve program, I’d compare my talk with Steps in their entirety. They are my his. (Thank God for his sense of tools for sobriety, for sanity, and for That really shook me. More and humor.) As he became more and serenity. more, I realize that this knowledge more active in service work, I The competitiveness is gone, has given me courage to face the became more and more jealous and thank God. 1 am proud of my hustruths I never wanted to surface in resentful. band and his program, but I have my my life. It has given me courage to My years as our group’s GSR hands full trying to keep myself in change. (general service representative) line. I have thought for a long time I’m really self-will run riot, full of didn’t curb my appetite for power. that AA does not so much build self-centeredness a lot of the time. When my husband served as dele- character as tear away the old char- The big ego! If there is anything gate from our area to the AA Gener- acter. Now, I enjoy being a plain more ridiculous than one drunk al Service Conference, I really working member of AA, not a judging another drunk, I certqinly became self-pitying. Without his grandstander. I am at peace with don’t know what it is. Yet I’ve been knowledge, I had turned our AA God, myself, and my fellowman. All guilty over the years of doing just program into a one-upmanship this has come about through not takthat in AA, taking people’s inven- game. ing that first drink and through be- IT . DAWNED on me several years ago, after a horrible one-day tories and justifying it to myself and others. For those nine years, I ran hard in frantic action – twelfth- I was not working the real pro- coming a little bit teachable and gram. One day, I drank. The next open-minded. I sure hope I keep day, it was as if God had stripped me growing. I’ve found the beautiful drunk breaking over nine years of stepping, sponsoring, speaking. I completely of all my false gods of world that I’d been looking for all sobriety in this blessed program, ran because I didn’t want to take a ego, and I stood bare and frighten- my life – in books, in people, and that God was unbiased. He allows us fearless inventory or come to really ed, more frightened of alcohol than finally in booze. But this world is for to live a lifetime on earth and neither see the emptiness that was me. Look- I’ve ever been in my entire life. I real. judges nor condemns us drunks. ing back – there simply wasn’t a me knew I had been in a spiritual black- D. S., Port Lavaca, Tex.

October 1981

w

knowing that I left AA to live such loved very much, because I knew Slips an insane existence makes my skin that he could destroy me. I realize crawl. Don’t think it was easy for me now that sobriety is the only thing I to come back in. Actually, I came have; without it, I’d have nothing back for someone else. He’s drink- except an early death. ing, and I have been given a second I hope that I never have another chance. I don’t believe in God, but I slip. I used to say that it could never do believe in the love of all AA mem- happen to me and that anybody who bers. I feel I really belong this time. I had one was a fool. Well, I’m a fool Like the Old Days also listen a lot more and am following the Steps and reading anything I who can only live one day at a time and who is proud to be in such a can get my hands on. I have a very wonderful fellowship – it sure good job, am moving into a new makes life a lot easier. The first time

A FTER TWO and a half years of sobriety, I left AA. I went out on a slip. The night it happened, it and old fears. I gained back all and more of the weight I had worked so hard to lose. I cut myself off from apartment, and most important of all, have the love of my sons back. I used to have too much pride and around in AA is a gift. The second time around, you have to work for it. If you want anything badly was either throw myself under the my closest friends in the program never asked for help. Now, I ask enough, you’re sure to get it if it’s nearest truck or go out and get good and even stooped so low as to just when I have to, and I hope to be able good for you. AA is good for me, and drunk. I chose the latter. I was about destroy a wonderful man who to repay some of my dear friends if and I hope I’ll be good for it. Thanks overcome by personal problems, and loved me. the time ever comes that they need for giving me my life back. instead of turning to my friends and My oldest son once again became me. I’ve had to let go of someone I S. C., Dorval, Que. meetings, I turned back to that bot- my beer buyer and told me over and tle that I had worked so hard to over that he hated going to the store crawl out of. for me. I stopped working and stop- I told about six people that night ped taking careof my home. I lost all what I was planning to do. They self-respect and began hating to look laughed at me and said that I had too at myself in the mirror – just like much good sobriety to take such a the old days. I went to one or two foolish step. How wrong they were! meetings during this time but didn’t My sobriety had gone, and 1 was feel I belonged. I didn’t feel I merely dry. I had stayed away from belonged anywhere. Nighttime meetings, because I was working at drinking turned into early-morning one of the social clubs for AAs and drinking, stopping off at bars, and figured that was good enough. But leaving my car just about anywhere I nothing can take the place of a meet- decided to stop for a drink. Then ing, unless you’re an AA Loner with began the blackouts and the terror no meetings nearby, and I had no the next day – what had I done the such excuse. night before? On my last drunk, I Once I had decided to go out on a lost about four hours of my day and slip, it was the beginning of a descent somehow made it home. into all the old habits, old friends, Looking back on all of this and

December 1981

The Jingle Cat old, she made a number of things quite clear. Anything that dangled was to be batted. Anything new was to be thoroughly investigated, and if Our animated ornament possible, taken apart. Anything would have demolished climbable was to be climbed. a Christmas tree What this creature would d o t o a Christmas tree didn’t bear thinking about. It would be new, covered with dangling things, and supremely climbable. It would crash to the floor two minutes after Lambeth discovered it, with a horrendous shattering of delicate ornaments. The first year we didn’t have a tree was endurable – barely. I said the Serenity Prayer several thousand times. I busied myself increasing the number of other decorations, hanging ribbons and wreaths out of her reach. A few years earlier, I would have repeated, between Serenity Prayers, the maxim that helped me through those first, bitterly hard weeks of not-taking-a-drink-today: “There is no situation so bad that a drink won’t make it worse.” But drinking as a solution to anything, I no longer considered one of my o p tions. I consoled myself with the thought I/ 0 BVIOUSLY, there could be no Christmas tree again that year. And I love Christmas trees. My years of Christmas decorations. But especially the Tree! And I couldn’t have one. For the came trotting across the room, jumped on my lap, said “Yow!” loudly, and curled up for a nap. She that my treeless state was just for this one Christmas. Lambeth was only . five months old. By next Christmas, of sobriety in AA have brought in- second year. It just wasn’t fair! is a blue point Siamese cat named she would be a full-grown cat, sedate creased maturity in several respects, (“And who ever told you life was Lambeth. (In the drinking days, pets and dignified, as sober as I was, her or so I like to think; but my passion fair?” echoed in my mind. I had said did not come trustingly to my lap, rambunctious kittenhood behind for Christmas trees remains as that to other AA members fuming at but hightailed it with great rapidity her. robust as when I was five years old. fate. Hope it helped them more than in the other direction.) The trouble with this comforting And for wreaths and pine cones and it did me.) From the day she came into our theory was that the news of no tinsel and all the charming foofaraw The reason I couldn’t have a tree lives, at a diminutive two months longer being a frolicsome kitten

never filtered down to Lambeth. dog person. Lambeth changed that. light. It was going to descend mo- ing from chair to divan to footstool, Talk about being young at heart! A He took the tiny, furry bundle of mentarily. It was going to engulf me. jingling with every jump – and year later, Lambeth still was – but personality and energy in his hands It was . . . where was it? There was then, exhausted from her decorative and held her up in front of his face, four times as big, ten times as strong, something wrong here – or rather, duties, seeking out the nearest lap twenty times as skillful at getting inwhile two pairs of bright blue eyes something marvelously, wonderfully and purring herself to sleep? We to and onto everything, and about a gazed at each other. In that moment right! The black fog of self-pity never had a happier Christmas. thousand times as determined to do was founded the Man and Cat wasn’t there, just a few misty wisps My best present, though, was dis- Mutual Adoration Society, which floating around and quickly evapoholds open meetings at our house rating. daily, and closed ones when I am ab- Had the AA program been worksent attending my closed AA meet- ing for me while my back was turnings. Neither one really likes my go- ed, to bring about this change? Why ing away for meetings, but both are I am so astonished everytime someenchanted with the serene and smil- thing like this happens, I don’t ing woman who comes home from know, for my program has never them. worked in any other way. One of my best-beloved AA Something else happened – the friends has a saying: “Sober don’t leap of imagination that had been mean smart!” I have been proving impossible while my mind was cripthe truth of this, repeatedly, ever pled with self-pity. I stroked the since I got sober. I have never been warm, soft little body purring on my able to anticipate a change in myself, lap. “If I can’t decorate the house despite the many that have come for Christmas because of the cat,” I about through the AA program, nor told her, “then I’ll just decorate the able t o realize one is taking place un- cat.” til after it has. I still thought a case of By Christmas Eve, the outside of terminal self-pity was the inevitable our house had a Yuletide look: a aftermath to any disappointment. wreath on the front door, lights That I could take an imaginative twinkling in the shrubbery. The Man leap and turn a disaster into a delight had programmed the door chimes to never occurred to me. play a carol. Inside? On the inside So, for the second Christmas, I was Lambeth, her exquisite face and couldn’t have a tree. I couldn’t even vivid eyes framed in the largest obit as she had been the Christmas put extra decorations up, as I had the tainable bright red collar, circled covering all over again how dependbefore. “You are a pest!” I told her. year before, out of her reach. The with jingle bells. And looking insuf- ably my AA program is working in “A nuisance! A one-cat wrecking house didn’t have an out-of-her- ferably pleased with herself. every phase of my life, showing me, crew! So why do the Man and I love reach anymore. If I had wanted Christmas decora- not only how to stop drinking, but you so much?” I settled down for a prolonged tions all through the house, now I how to start living. The Man of the ~ o u s e ,though wallow in the customary thick fog of had them. Who needs a tree when Thank you, Lambeth. Thank you, always kindly tolerant of my cats, poor-me. I knew it well: dense, you have an animated ornament AA . had considered himself primarily a black, impenetrable by any ray of bounding from room to room, leap- E. E., Tulsa, Okla.

May 1 9 8 2

pr&ribed by my doctor, I could die in seizures. If I did take the medica- get off.” I really wanted to end all the medicine in my system. I finally cried, tion, I could not be sober. confusion. 1 did not want to drink. I because I longed to know what it felt I heard a woman, with more cour- had learned alcohol would only make like to go without any alcohol or pills. age than I, ask about taking medicine it worse. For several hours, I battled I knew this was impossible. her doctor prescribed for seizures, and planned with myself. Then, I de- For the first time, I began to disand one of the members at the begin- cided to kill myself. If it had not been cover what sharing was about. Many ners table told her to stop taking it if for AA members, I might have suc- members responded, and most of the she wanted sobriety. Needless to say, ceded. They missed me when my exchange was helpful and supportive. I panicked. I did want sobriety. I did phone went unanswered. They missed One member in particular has suswant to share the joy 1 saw around me when I did not come to work. They tained me to this day. A man spoke me. I did want to be free and happy, were afraid my epilepsy was active. and shared his solution to the Thank God for their caring. ‘Can the way I observed others to be. I did want to get active in a group and fidilemma. He simply stated, “We, as People in AA never left me. I could alcoholics, cannot take one more or I Ever nally belong somewhere. However, 1 came to the conclusion that some finally start talking about my dilem- one less pill than that which has been ma. They suggested I eventually share prescribed by our doctors.” all this with thegroup. I was terrified, Be Sober?’ things done while drinking were not forgivable. For me, one such thing Home at last! I could have a group. but the next time I was able to attend I could become active, but most . was harming my body so badly that I a beginners meeting, I held another blessed of all, I could be sober and would have to live with it one day at a member’s hand and spoke out about still take my pills the way my doctor The story of time for the rest of my life. my doctor’s prescribing medications tells me. an AA I took a geographic cure within for my seizures. I could finally talk 1 know the would-be teachers I who needs medication AA. 1 became a group-hopper, with- about not knowing what it meant to meant well, but I also know why the out roots. I would stay until I heard feel chemical-free. I could also share Preamble reads, “a fellowship of the same thing again: Pill-taking the fact that I never would know, men and women who share their because my epilepsy was incurable experience, strength, and hope.” D URING MY ACTIVE drinking days, I fractured my skull and, as a result of surgery, have been left must go, to achieve sobriety. Off 1 would go to sample another group, hoping they would say I could belong and could be managed only with M. R., Manhattan, N.Y.

with epilepsy. This is a constant re- as a sober, recovering alcoholic. minder of one of the prices of my ac- During all this time, there was tive alcoholism. one thing I did not do: speak out at In AA, 1have never been chemical- a meeting. After all, I had taken free. A constant question kept com- medication that day. I did not speak ing back: “Am I really sober, even about my difficulty to any individual, though I’m not drinking? Can 1 ever either. After all, if the group did not be sober?” I heard some AAs say that want me to speak, how could any one pill-taking was equivalent to not person understand my pain? . being sober. I did not think anyone I decided the seizures were unbearwould understand I had to take pills. able. Taking medicine was also un- Many days, I cried. What could I do? bearable. One morning, I woke up If I did not take the medication as and said, “Stop the world. I want to

May 1 9 8 2

‘Inclusive, never exclusive’? From San Diego, Calif.: I’ve been on the program about fifteen years. I know that each group is autonomous, but a lot has been happening lately here in AA that frightens and saddens me. When I came to AA, what really across town to a women’s meeting, got me and made me stay was the real taking my son with me. A vote was caring I saw. AA was one place we taken there, and I was kicked out could never be kicked out of, no because (I) my five-year-old wasn’t matter how sick we were. I was defi- an alcoholic and (2) he might divulge nitely one of the sicker ones, loud and the horrible secrets these women were obnoxious and drunk when I came to going to let out. Is AA changing? These women meetings. While sober, I took five didn’t know but what I was a newchildren (all under five years) and a comer. What of the poor newcomer German shepherd to meetings with who might have been in my position? me. I’ve come to meetings barefoot (I At another meeting, a woman was didn’t have shoes) and wearing a voted out because she was a lesbian. bikini (if I’d gone home to change, At another, a man was evicted be- I’d have missed the meeting). 1 was cause he sat quietly talking to himalways loved and accepted, and that’s self. At still another, a woman was why I’m sober now. forced to leave because she had her Today, although I am somewhat sleeping five-week-old infant with content, I am on welfare, trying to her. support my youngest son. I go daily Are we so well that we don’t care at to a noon meeting while he is in kin- all for those less fortunate? Is our dergarten. sobriety so secure that we can afford , However, last night I needed a -..~ ‘. to think only of o u r c o m f ~ t t ? ~ meeting and drove several miles ‘ AN?YYMQ4$6&..

September 1982 / ‘

L AST YEAR, on October 31, New York Intergroup gave its annual dinner honoring Bill W.3 AA birth- The New York Hilton Hotel understands how to handle big crowds. The Intergroup Dinner Committee was I for one, couldn’t stay on the wagon more than a week. Believe me, you younger ones: If we could do it, you day in advance. If he had been alive, heroic, having sweated for ten can do it, too. December 11 would have seen the months over the preparations. All the The VIP Room is where banquet start of his fortyeighth sober year! Intergroup people were on hand to speakers and special guests are assem- Intergroup was celebrating the com- welcome us. They wore name badges bled, so that they can be sorted out pletion of its own thirty-fifth year. and steered us through the happy and marched onto the stage in the A banquet honoring And on top of all that, Intergroup mob waiting outside the dining hall. right order. There was a long row of old-timers ” . was kind enough to honor the real We old folks were adroitly zigzagged hard chairs marked with our names. old-timers in the area, those moss- through over two thousand hellos, There was also a gigantic coffeepot, spurred memories ‘

covered monuments like me who hugs, and how-are-yous, hearing joy- so of course we all milled around of old times have been sober thirty years and ful laughter and shrieks of reunion. that. We drank coffee like mad, and more. We were taken clear back to what we all met old friends we hadn’t seen There were, in all, 2,500 people at the Hilton, alas, calls the VIP Room. in years. the dinner. And thirty of us old- We old old-timers are not VIPs. We By and by, Lois W., Bill’s widow, timers were in good enough shape to are just like anybody else in AA. arrived in a wheelchair -not because come and sit on the dais, in a long We’ve stayed sober on the program she couldn’t walk, but she is ninetyrow in front of the speakers’ table. twenty-four hours at a time, while I, one and tiny. When I started toward

Lois, she saw me coming. She waved younger, and a whole lot of them are attention business, when you half But lying in bed, waiting for sleep, I and said, “Why, hello, F-. How two generations younger. They are hear spoken words and your mind is had to smile. “After all,” I told mygreat to see you!” She hadn’t seen me perfectly wonderful to me. They help on something else. self, “you weren’t very important up in quite a number of years. She goes me up and down steps, which is un- I thought, “Maybe this man is hav- there. It’s conceivable that nobody to conventions all over this country necessary, but so sweet of them. They ing a heart attack. I’ll have to do noticed you at all.” and abroad. She has been greeted by also bring me coffee, and someone something right away.” I turned to And then, I remembered another tens of thousands of people. And always gets up to give me the one the man on my left and whispered, banquet in another ballroom ion$, here she knows me right away! I have comfortable chair. I love it. But “Aren’t you a friend of his? Didn’t long ago. That time, I was conspicunever had a memory like that! often, when I’m alone at home, I you come here together? Change ous. I was very, very drunk and com- At a given moment, Intergroup think about the old faces, to say noth- places with me. He’s sick. He needs pletely out of hand. people went around and said to us all, ing of my old friends. Most of them help.” The occasion was a newspaper kindly but firmly: “Please go and sit are gone, and oh Lord, how I miss Under the circumstances, it wasn’t editors’ dinner, also in New Yofk. in the chair with your name on it.” them. They’ve left a hole as big as the surprising that this nice fellow was Wendell Willkie was to be the main They wanted to be sure we would moon. slow on the uptake. I couldn’t get him speaker. At dinner, the wine flowed walk out and take our seats in the The man sitting on my right at the to move. So I stood up and said, freely. There had been cocktails right order. And we obediently did. dinner was great fun to talk to. But he “Please! Change places with me right Now, I am not used to doing any- was small and silver-haired and rather now! Please! I tell you, he’s sick.” thing at all with 2,500 pairs of eyes frail. “Does my smoking bother He moved, and I breathed a sigh of fastened upon me. I thought of my you?” I asked him. relief. I was able to hear the last of beloved friend and sponsor, Marty “Not at all.” The place was well H.’s talk and enjoy his reminiscences, M. Countless times, that dear old air-conditioned. “But I did have a which I had shared as one of the war-horse spoke in front of thou- lung operation,” he added. I extin- founders of the St. Nicholas Group. sands of people without turning a guished my cigarette. My old gentleman and his friend hair. As I walked onstage, I thought, When the talks began, my new kept their seats, so I knew things “Oh Marty, if you were only here to friend dropped his head, closed his weren’t too bad. 1was able to concenhelp me!” I tried to walk as if I had a eyes, and rested his forehead on his trate on the third speaker’s talk. He heavy jar of water on my head. How I hands. I noticed that his breathing I said, among other things, that we before that. I drank everythins I wished that I could put my thumb had become labored. “Are you all weren’t VIPs just because we were up could get my hands on. -. under my sagging chin and hold it up. right?” I whispered. on the dais – that the most impor- I sat next to a beautiful and famous Then, at least from a distance, 1 “Compared to what?” he asked tant person in the whole room was the woman, who was done up in an exwould look reasonably well-pre- me. He was obviously in distress. I man or woman who was the most pensive evening dress and wearing a served. was alarmed. recently sober – sober for a day – lot of fabulous jewelry. I said to her, We were seated, and hundreds of Nell Wing spoke first; she isn’t an sober for an hour. “What’s the most exciting thing in waiters put coffeepots on every table. alcoholic, but she has served AA for That night, after I got home, I sud- your life?” I was cheered by the fact that the thirty-five years, as Bill W.’s secre- denly thought, “Why, you darned Her face lit up, and she said, “My three speakers were all my friends. I tary and currently as AA archivist. old fool, you stood up and gesticulat- race horses. I love them. I love to began having a wonderful time. The Then came H. U.; I remember him as ed in the middle of a talk. You made a watch them work. I love it when they men on either side of me were in my one of the first members of an inter- mini-scene in front of twenty-five run.” age group. It’s a treat to see people racial group in Harlem a long time hundred observers! You could have I cut her short. “Come c l w , my age in AA. Up here where I live, ago. I’m going to have to listen to explained the situation quietly to that doll,” I told her. “What about Lour *

almost everybody is a generation tapes of both talks -it’s that divided man while simply keeping your seat.” sex life?” > :,, ,*>+A

Without a word, she moved her She said it must have taken a lot of chair around, so that her back was to courage to write that apology. She me, and began talking to the person never knew that it wasn’t courage, on her other side. but rather a desperate need to make That did not dampen my spirits at amends. all. “Get her,” I told the world in I am humbly grateful that I am in a general, in a carrying voice. “She’s wonderful, sui generis organization stuck-up, that’s what she is. Just that has saved my life, restored me to because she invented a face cream.” sanity, and given me a chance to stay My poor editor-relative, alerted by sober, to grow in spirit, to stretch my this maxi-scene, got a woman pho- mind, and to give of myself to others. tographer on her paper to lead me out (I heard that expression “sui generis” of the room. I went swaying past all and thought I’d use it to impress you the tables, hardly able to walk. This kids. It means one of a kind – nothgal had me firmly by the elbow. In the ing else like it.) ladies’ room, she said to me, “Come Lucky was the day that my psychion. I’m taking you home.” I don’t atrist, who had tried for several years remember what I said – but I went to sober me up, heard Bill W. address back to my seat. Some man was mak- a group of doctors. She finally pering a speech. suaded me to go down to the Alco- The next day, my unhappy relative holic Foundation on Vesey Street in called me in mid-morning, when I the Wall Street section, and have a was enjoying one gorgeous hangover. talk with Bill. (The foundation was “Who was that man up there talk- the forerunner of the AA General ing?” I asked her. Service Board.) I went there fright- “Wendell Willkie. He’s running ened and ashamed, and came out for president, remember?” with hope in my heart. “Oh, that’s right,” I said. Bill and I became good friends. But “Remember anything else?” in all the years I knew him, I never “Vaguely.” saw him go on an ego trip. He was But my heart seemed to tighten up. just plain Bill to us all. He said that I began remembering, only too well. I finding Dr. Bob and working with had stolen the show. Fear and shame him was simply an act of desperation. and remorse flooded me. He had to carry the message to stay Today, I feel very grateful and sober. Though 1 have far less cause humble. Years later, I was able to for conceit than Bill, I do try, a day at write the beautician lady an apology a time, to emulate his humility. and tell her that I was now in AA. I They say that gratitude and humilwas rather surprised to get a letter in ity are two parts of the same thing. reply, a beautiful letter in which she And I believe this with all my heart. said that she understood perfectly. F. M., New Canaan, Conn.

September 1 9 8 2

Two for tolerance If the AAs mentioned in that letter From Killeen, Tex.: fear a five-year-old, what d o they In reference to “Inclusive, Never think about the unfortunates who Exclusive?” in the May Grapevine – come to one meeting and never I have been back in the program for return? F. D. two years. I am also single (like the writer of that letter), and raising a From North Little Rock, Ark.: ten-year-old son, who goes to every’ A letter in the May Grapevine says meeting with me. that a woman was “voted out” of an The time I get to spend with my son AA meeting “because she was a is limited, because I do shift work. I lesbian.” have never been asked to leave a I have been sober and going to meeting. What some people fail to meetings two years, and 1 have yet to understand is that though I must stay go to an AA meeting where the topic sober for myself, I have another rea- for discussion was sex. The Big Book son for being sober: my son. A lot of says, “We want to stay out of this people forget, after they have been controversy. We do not want to be sober awhile, the hell that we alcohol- the arbiter of anyone’s sex conduct.” ics put others through – especially If the founders of AA would not children. express an opinion, who am 1 to judge another’s sex life? Before I loved a man, I had no tolerance of people in love. Before AA, I had no private business. Now, my sex life with my husband is my own private business. What does other people’s private business have to do with my sobriety, unless I am intolerant? Intolerance can get me drunk! B. G.

October 1 9 8 2

above him in salary, even while I was always rebelled at conventionality drinking; so my attitude was that I and conformity. With the help of was definitely superior to him. alcohol, my best friend, I became the Inside, I was crying for under- epitome of unconventionality and standing and love, but I couldn’t let was proud of it. My right mind Swinger him know that. My defenses were strong and immovable. I wasn’t even wanted a man of my own; my insane thinking made me feel the temporary And discovers that seu-love aware of them, despite sporadic property of any man who came along. i s the mmt important thing counseling and psychiatric help. I I was insane to think that this was my divorced him, thinking he was my right and that it showed respect and problem. Instead of relief and a bet- admiration for me.

I T WASN’T hard for me to accept Step o n e – that my life was unmanageable, that I was powerless not insane, not even immoral. I had thrown out the old standards from an over protective, over emoter way of life, what I attained was a long string of one-night stands, three proposals of marriage, and complete Women’s Lib was not responsible for my actions; neither was God. My immorality was caused simply by my over alcohol. I no longer had fun with tional religious background, as it oblivion through alcohol. inability to control my feelings under drinking; I had become incapable of seemed to me. I had listened to the Yes,alcoholism leads to insane be- the influence of alcohol. None of my even wanting to go out and swing presentday concepts found in wom- havior. In my right mind, I would not sleeping around gave me inner serenonce I began my four o’clock cocktail en’s magazines and believed by the have been promiscuous. As I look ity. Instead, I drank more. I was hour. I was no longer proud that I younger generation, including my back, I was no better than a prosti- selfish and self-centered, striving for was a schoolteacher and had worked daughters. But I found no peace, no tute. I might just as well have charged thrills. I was determined to have my hard for my B.S. and M S . degrees joy; I only drank more as my con- for my services. There is some salva- own way, but I didn’t really know while caring for three small children, scious mind still nagged me with tion, however, in being told that I what that way was. a home, and a husband. guilt. behaved that way because I needed to Alcoholism is not immoral; it is Drinking no longer drowned my I am reminded of the self-righ- feel desirable and pretty; my self- what I do when I am under the influfeelings of loneliness and despair. For teousness of an AA friend of mine worth was so low. ence that may be immoral. Alcohol is five years, I had been divorced and who excused his philandering with his I deserved male attention, all right, bad for me because it triggers a physiactively looking for a better way of secretary because his wife was perma- but I was used over and over again, cal need for more and more, convelife through a man. Men had flocked nently ill in a nursing home. I found and I, in turn, used the men. I chose niently allowing me to forget the around me as I went my liberated justification for promiscuity because insane behavior hoping to receive good I would do. way, spurred on by the modem phi- my husband of nearly twenty-two normal love and attention. Alcohol Today, I choose to live without the losophy of pleasure for the moment. years didn’t love, need, or appreciate helped me forget I was a moral per- aid of alcohol to solve my daily prob- But Step Two was hard to accept. me as a woman. Either I was too son; I acted like an animal, lusting lems. They don’t go away just be- . That I was insane and needed God to threatening to his masculinity or he with no real concern for others. I had cause I’m not drinking, but they are . restore me to sanity was an idea im- was incapable of intimacy, I said. no power over my feelings and ac- easier to solve with a clear mind. I possible to fathom. 1 had done only Now I wonder: How could he have tions, however. My alter ego – the know I will continue to have that what I must to survive. After all, I wanted me? I complained and drinker – was running my life. I choice as long as I do not take that ‘ deserved sex and a good man. Be- bragged to him, belittled and resented pursued sexual gratification because I first drink. Through the Twelve Steps cause I drank in the best bars and him, because I myself felt inade- had been taught, I thought, that sex of AA, I am growing up. After half a practically checked credit cards be- quate. It was my feelings that made, itself was a sin. How could anything century, I want to choose the good, to fote sleeping with a man, I felt I was me an alcoholic, not his. I was risiDg that felt so good be sinful? That was stay sane and moral. my childish rationalization. I had V.R., Fargo, N.Dak.

J a n u a r y 1983

1

next to last, and I had to leave before to contribute something, I selected a the meeting ended. Talk about frus- seat at one end of the front row. tration! Guess what! By the rotation system At my second meeting of the trip, there, I was last. 1 calmly accepted it near Tampa, Fla., guess who was and listened. Do I have to tell you near the tail end of the rotation line that I got a lot out of it? again. The meeting had run into con- My Higher Power figured I was siderable overtime because of the ready for only a few sentences, perlarge attendance, so my zealous tinent to the Step under discussion. offering was hard to hear above the My turn arrived. No one left. I was Last winter, my husband and I sounds of people departing. Very listened to. I must have said somewent on our annual trip to anywhere humbling, to be sure! I accepted the thing worthwhile in those few senbelow the snow line, with only brief fact that the remaining members tences, because a young man new in stays at each stop, thereby making cared more about the termination of the program approached me, shook getting to meetings difficult. On that what I had to say than about the my hand, and told me that what I’d trip, my Higher Power successfully content, so I quickly terminated. said gave him hope. removed a defect of mine – an anx- My third meeting of the trip was on I thank God for my anxiety rernovious compulsion to talk endlessly at Florida’s space-age coast. There, the al, and I thank all you lovely AAs closed meetings. Going through three removal was completed. My anxiety who provide the workplace He needs. stages, the removal began with a was gone; but, hoping to be allowed M. S., Mt. Clemens, Mich. humbling process. In my home state of Michigan (at least in my area), groups are broken up into tables of eight to twelve people, giving each person considerable I time t o tdk. ~ i k ae pent-up volcano, Her anxious need to I would await my turn. When it came, weak at everv .. regardless of the particular Step that meeting was finally was under discussion, I managed to cram in a few others that I felt were removed necessary to work before, after, or while working this particular Step. It was like trying to stuff the whole

A FTER EIGHTyears of sobriety in program into one sitting, and I often the blessed Fellowship of AA, wound up exhausted and rambling. I’m improving emotionally and spir- At the first meeting I attended on itually – albeit slowly and painfully our trip, in Mississippi, a rotation at times. I’m a far cry from what I system was used, giving everyone a was when I acquired the sincere desire chance to contribute. I anxiously to stop drinking that qualified me for waited for my turn. It never came. membership. The sequence of rotation had put me

We can’t explain how it works but meetings are where it works

Quiet, nassuming Power

– – F IVE YEARS AGO, I sat next to a beautiful but emotionally wrecked young man – a newcom then, and it still does today, and I hope it does for as long as 1 am alive myself and was sorely out of touch with my restoring power. Things got worse before they got were six of us all women although the topic was “taking the blame,” we covered a range of emoand

– at his first open AA in the last few years better. There were times when I tions and feelings that began and When the time came for us down. bothered. and would reluctantly swallow my pride ended with love. the usual way, we all held hands to \ in need of a lift, I’ve come to a meet- and, in quiet desperation, call some- It was a great meeting, and guess say the Lord’s Prayer. He was visibly ing and felt that power. It’s amazing one and ask her to take me to a meet- what – when we closed in the usual touched – both by the physical con- how my perspectives change (on my- ing. I’d sit there, bundled up and way, there were the tears, the goose tact and by the emotional content of self and my troubles) as I sit in smoky miserable, waiting for something to bumps, and the power, just the way I the meeting. Halfway through the rooms and listen to other people talk happen, waiting for the reassurance remembered them. After all the hugs prayer, he broke down in great sobs. about their day, their lives, their that everything (and I, too) would be and kisses, I think I floated out of After the prayer ended, he was still sobriety. It never fails, that quiet, okay. Sometimes, it didn’t come (or I there on my own little cloud. I clasping my hand tightly and was try- unassuming power; it lifts me up and didn’t hear it), ‘and I’d leave feeling haven’t felt so grand in months, and I ing to explain his tears. out of myself and reassures me that, worse (or thinking 1did) and wonder- am so grateful for the reminder that 1 was only six months sober myself one day at a time, things (and I) will ing if AA still worked. Sure it did, but “this is where the power is.” It’s not and tried to tell him, through my own get better – if I get over myself. I didn’t. just in the books I read, or the deeds I tears, that no explanation was neces- All last winter, 1 didn’t make many Last week, 1 went to a new noon do, or the things I think and say; it’s sary; this happened a lot at AA meet- meetings, and though 1 had plenty of meeting I helped begin in the town also in the hands and hearts of my ings. He said something then that I excuses – no money, car, or license, where I’m now working. I knew I sisters and brothers in AA. And with haven’t forgotten, as he lifted our out in the boonies with the nearest needed some warmth, kindness, and each hand in a power like that, how hands together: “This is where the meeting ten or twenty miles away – common sense, and I was really can I lose? power is.” It gave me goose bumps the truth is that I was feeling sorry for hoping for something that day. There A. T., Oneonta, N.Y.

February 1983

very high-heeled platform shoes; and her house. I got the idea of dyeing my she stood as straight as if she had hair red (looking for another identity, stuck a pole down her back. She perhaps). In her bathroom, she stayed looked almost beautiful – except with me as I tried to mix the perfect that there was a hard street edge to color. With her presence and converher. 1thought the fellow at thecentral sation, she kept me from pulling the office had really made a mistake, hair out of my head instead of colorhaving this formidable woman try to ing it. I suddenly realized that it was relate to a sweet flower child and after midnight and that she had to be closet drunkie like me. up at 4:30 AM in order to be at her job The But as it happened, I looked twice and found her eyes. They were very on time. Then I knew: What was really happening was not just one Hard warm. They looked at me with love! Now, such a thing was beyond my woman helping another tint her hair, but one alcoholic sharing and caring comprehension. I did not look good; to keep another alcoholic sober. Woman I did not feel good; I didn’t have money; and my job, which I had a There were times when the gift of love was given, qnd nobody was With the hard time keeping, wouldn’t have impressed anybody. And here was there. That first night, the hard woman with the soft eyes took me Soft Eyes this woman looking at me as though 1 was her daughter and had gotten a home from the meeting while my drunk was beginning to turn into a hangover. Panicked at the thought of straight-A report card! That night, over five years ago, being home alone without booze, I was just the beginning of a shower of asked her, “How do you stop drinklove, acceptance, understanding, and ing?” She told me to get down on my giving that I have been receiving to knees and ask my God, as I under-

I T WAS another dreary Tuesday night, and I was drunk once again. 1 called our local AA central office to would take me to a meeting. Frantically, I made some coffee and brushed my teeth. I would have this day. I have received gifts of fellowship, like the birthday party my AA roommate gave me when I was stood Him, to relieve my compulsion to drink. I was extremely cynical, not having prayed for some sixteen years. see if 1 could get some hope, and been tempted to drink some booze, celebrating two years clean and But I was also pretty beat-up inside, asked for information about meet- but of course, there was none left. sober. I almost had to run out the and I was touched by that lady’s eyes. ings the following night. “Why don’t Nothing was ironed, but 1 really back door, because I had a hard time So I did what she told me to do you go to a meeting tonight?” asked didn’t care how I looked, as long as I accepting all the love and attention alone. What I received was the most the man on the other end of the line. didn’t smell bad. 1 went out to the that were being given to me. beautiful gift of all. It was as though “Because I’m drunk,” I said street and sat on the curb, hoping to 1 have received gifts of caring, as I 2,000 pounds of guilt and self-hate lifelessly. sober up before I got picked up. did one evening just a few months were lifted from my shoulders, and in “You can go to a meeting drunk. The woman who came scared me ago, when pain and anger had gath- their stead was a sense of being light How do you think we alkies get to death. She was just over three ered unchecked and I was screaming and of being loved. That night, I here?” He told me someone would years sober (“Nobody is ever three inside for a drink. 1 called that same cried alongside that unmade, winegive me a call to get my address, and years sober,” I thought); she wore hard woman with the soft eyes and stained bed for two hours. My time asked her if 1 could spend the night at had come, and I surrendered.

Recently, I have been aware of a knew also that no matter what the truly beautiful gift that I have been answer had been, I would never think receiving in bits and pieces over the of myself as a bad seed again. past five years. But again, I finally Today, I am beginning to underhad to be alone to receive it fully. I stand that seed of love. 1 am beginwas faced with an extremely difficult ning to feel deep inside that I need to decision that would, I knew, cause give freely in order for that seed to me great pain no matter what I de- grow. In my first years, 1 believed in cided. I feared that I would drink giving, yes, but really with the intent either way. My sponsors, AA friends, of making you think 1 was a good and AA “babies” were all totally person. And when my AA babies got supportive, and they knew, just as 1 drunk, I would be infuriated and did, that this decision was between would feel as though I personally had me and my Higher Power. It was a failed. If a drunk woman didn’t sober Sunday morning, and I tried to get up, I felt used. 1 was in the rehabiliout of bed but was too filled with tation business, working with develtears of fear and unhappiness to stay opmentally disabled people, and I out. 1cried until 1was finished. Then, had to quit in my third year because 1 I went to a book, one that I had was taking so much personal responavoided reading because it dealt with sibility for the clients’ success or my specific decision, and I found that failure that I became “burned out.” others had indeed gone through sim- It seems different for me now. I am ilar experiences. experiencing clearly the joy of giving. For some years, even in sobriety, I 1 don’t seem to have as much fear of had been carrying around one of my “being used,” and my energy in try- “old ideas,” which went something ing to be of service is high. like this: “No matter how much good For a person like me to say that 1 you do for other people, no matter am able to give without a price tag how nice you appear to others, once (sometimes, mind you, not always; they get to know you, they will see maybe that’ll happen when I’m fifty that you’re really a bad seed.” That years sober) is an amazing thing. But morning, when I decided to take re- it is not impossible. What I see here in sponsibility for my actions in sobri- Alcoholics Anonymous is a wonderety, 1 was able to look at myself in the ful Power. That Power not only mirror and see that, indeed, there was keeps hundreds of thousands of a seed inside me, but it was not the drunks sober and clean a day at a bad seed that I had feared – it was a time, but changes takers like me into seed of love, and it had been planted givers who not only need to give to and allowed to grow by the miracle of survive, but want to give because it Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew then feels good! the answer to my dilemma, and I B. C., Los A ngeles, Calif.

F e b r u a r y 1983

What Ever Happened vive my “pink period” with more-orless-cheerful acceptance. social activities to others. (It’s amazing how well they coped without The day came, however, when I me.) I limited my AA coffee hours to realized that 1 was somehow cheating times when family members were them, that there was more to my life busy about their own affairs. I saved than flitting from one AA activity to weekends for my husband, the girls, another. These three had kept on and friends and relatives who were trying to help me when there seemed still speaking to me. We sailed, nothing left to try, had kept on swam, and talked, and I even taught hoping when hope should have been (hem how to bake the cookies. And gone. They had grimly stuck by me lo, communication was reborn when 1 fell in public, drank vodka in only this time, it was fresh and honest my breakfast juice, and lost my all around. drunken temper over nothing. They There were moments when I envied -.1.. had dutifully tuned down the TV or stereo while I took innumerable AA friends with fewer responsibilities, who were free to twelfth-step, \ “naps” (meaning that I passed out speak, and run all over the place to i’, for a couple of hours in the bed- pick up newcomers – to do all the room). And through it all, they had things I had been doing before. But insisted they still loved me. l’ve learned something. .-3 Now, the miracle they’d hoped for l’ve learned that 1 am here, today, Too much A A activity was happening-and I was sharing it where 1 am supposed to be in my life. wasn’t fair to her family with everyone but them, though they I may not be able to save the whole never complained. The turning point world, but 1 can make my corner of it came one Sunday when I magnan- a better place to be. The time may W HEN I FINALLY Came into the AA program for good, I threw myself into it with the same all-ortended every AA convention in our area. There was no end to my usefulness to the group – or to the imously decided to forgo my tenth meeting that week in order to go on a come when the responsibilities lessen and 1 will be freer to do more of the nothing attitude that had character- world, for that matter. In short, I was family picnic. Their happiness at hav- AA things I’d like to do. But here and ized my life both before and during a veritable whirlwind of activity. ing me all to themselves for the day now, I take joy in being free in sobrimy drinking years. There were meet- Meanwhile, somewhere in the brought me to a sudden realization: I ety to do the things I can for the ings day and night, seven days a background, two teenage daughters hadn’t let them know for a long time people I love, in and out of AA. I’ve , 1 week, late-night after-meeting-go- and a patient husband were hanging that I still loved them, too, that they learned that I’m a human being first, have-a-hamburger meetings, and around at home wondering what ever were important in my life, and that 1 one who just happens to be alcoholic. informal have-coffee-and-shoot-the- happened to good old mom. What on was grateful for their love and I f I truly practice these principles in breeze gatherings in between. 1 was earth was she doing? Why, there support. all my affairs, 1 will tgke the things I on the planning committee for almost weren’t even any homemade cookies It was clearly time to find some learn from the program out into the every AA social event (my talent for anymore, unless I happened to be balance in my life. I cut down a bit on world with me, perhaps to pass on to organization, you know), twelfth- baking a batch for some meeting or my number of meetings every week. I my fellow human beings, whether stepped anyone who looked even other. Luckily, my family was fairly let a few other people take some alcoholic or not, since we are all subremotely a likely candidate, and at- self-sufficient and managed to sur- Twelfth Step calls. (They did just ject alike to “the human condition.” fine.) 1 turned over my planning of E. H., Tarpon Springs, Flu.

May 1983

I Was a Scared Newcomer

W HI:N I AT’IENDIJDmy first meeting of AA, a woman approached me, asked if I was new, got meeting, a chain of events occurred that has kept me dry, then sober, for the past five years. me a meeting list, and wrote her name It is important for all of us to noand telephone number on the cover. tice scared newcomers. Give them She also told me that if I needed her your phone number, and offer a for m y reason that night, I should sincere welcome. They just might call. need that one bit of encouragement Even though I was sick, shaking, to start a new life. It worked for me. and frightened, I was amazed at this. Anonymous: Brocklon, Muss. I had never seen this woman before, but she had taken the time to make Ine feel welcome and give me information. I know now that this was the grace of God. If no one had talked to me, 1 might have left that meeting and not gone back, for I knew nothing at all about AA – not even that there was more than one meeting a week. As it turned out, I called her the next morning, and she arranged for someone to pick me u p and take me to a nlorning meeting. This second woman gave me literature and her phone number, and directed me t o my third meeting, that night. It was at that meeting I met my sponsor, who took me under her wing, and 1 was off and running toward sobriety. Meetings, meetings, meetings! They kept me away from alcohol; they were my salvation. And because someone spoke to me at my first

June 1983

would turn up and others would rec- job, and what do you think? Sure ognize my talent. enough, he appeared! 1 now have the When no promotion was forth- most wonderful husband in the coming, 1 took a geographic cure. 1 world, four stepsons (one still at t r a n s f e r r e d f r o m Illinois t o home with us), and even a grand- Louisiana. It was the first move away daughter. from friends and family I had ever It astounds me that I keep trying to made, but with AA, I knew I had run the show when God has better friends yet to be met awaiting me. things in store for me. The job that I The thousand-mile drive was made was just passed over for was not good in ice and snow; without the faith that for me, or I’m sure it would have God would get me here safe and been mine.

B EFORE I CAME to AA, I dreamed of a loving husband and children. Two childless, unhappy marsound, I could never have made it. The inner peace I felt while driving 100 miles on sheer glass is beyond I truly believe that God wants only the best for me, and if I not only believe, but trust that His will is best, riages and many heartbreaks later, I words. I will be grateful. He gives me what I found myself trying to justify my After living here about a year, I fi- need in spite of myself, and as it says drinking by pointing to my sad, nally surrendered and stopped trying in the Big Book, that’s what I wanted lonely life. “If only 1 had a family to to run it my way. I gave up my search all along. fulfill my life, I wouldn’t need to for the perfect man and the perfect R. B., Metairie, La. drink.” After sobering up, I went on hunting the elusive male. When my love life still didn’t seem to improve, I took a different route to what I thought would be fulfillment. I was going to be a career woman! I had worked for the same company for ten years and had changed departments and job classifications easily whenever I chose. I began applying for promotions in earnest. Some jobs 1 felt very qualified for, and others I knew 1 could do if given the chance. My boss encouraged me, but time and time again, someone else was chosen. This went on for three years (and about two dozen different jobs). It may seem foolish to have tried for so many, for so long, but I was certain that the right one

when we made our first stop at the junior high school to pick up our Hk first AA conference younger daughter. If I needed further was a surprke – convincing, I got it when we stopped at the senior high school to pick up from a “sneaky” and our elder daughter, and at the gas loving wife station where I work to top off the car. 1 was due at work at 6:00 PM and was already in uniform. I suspected that I might not make it and that my my program. So 1 dismissed the flyer boss already knew that, but I kind of and the conference from my mind and like surprises. So I told him that never gave either another thought. something was apparently up with Seven weeks ago, I found a part- my flighty females and that I would time job. Six weeks ago, we bought a see him later. $150 car, a bright lime green, ten- As we wended our way by a slightly year-old Pinto with psychedelic indirect route toward the northwest daisies painted all over it. I privately part of the state, new possible destiresolved never to test its mettle nations constantly occurred to me, outside the city limits and admon- only to be eliminated as we passed the ished my wife to take the same con- turnoffs I expected us to take. Fifteen servative attitude toward it. miles from our real destination, we But her faith was greater than mine. drove past the one I had settled on as Unbeknown to me, she scrimped certain. One possibility remained. enough from her own paychecks to My wife was bound to turn left at the preregister us for the conference, to interstate ahead to take us back to my pay for our roomein the motel where sister’s house. the conference was being held, and to But just five miles beyond the inter-

Takenjior cl Rklc buy enough travelers’ checks to cover our other expenses for the weekend. Finally, she took the afternoon off from work – to finish a sewing project, I thought. When she got home, state, she turned in to a motel in a resort town, and we went in to register. Not until 1 saw an Al-Anon name tag in the lobby did I remember the conference. I didn’t know whether to

M Y WIFE IS an Al-Anon; she’s sneaky. She gave me my life back last weekend. of the conference happened to fall on the first anniversary of my sobriety date. 1 had noticed that, too, but the she remarked that it was a beautiful day, and I readily agreed. I had vaguely sensed that somefaint or to fall on my knees in thanksgiving. I did neither. I was calm on the surface, but by the end of that Three months ago, a flyer an- possibility of our attending was too thing was up the night before, when first night’s meetings, I was so ‘ nouncing a state AA conference al- remote to give a thought to. After all, she and our daughters closeted them- pumped up that I didn’t sleep a wink. most 200 miles from our home we owed more money than a lifetime selves behind a closed door for an It was a weekend I couldn’t adereached the table of my home group. of work would enable us to repay. I hour or so. My first real indication quately describe in a week of writing. My wife remarked that the final day was unemployed and struggling with that my hunch had been right came The love, the caring, and the sharing

I

of old and new AA, Al-Anon, and smiles I got from hundreds who never ‘ Alateen friends overwhelmed me. spoke with me. Late Saturday night came the crown- 1 do not know when it happened, ing joy. My brother, whom my wife and I do not need to know. The had not called for fear of embarrass- stimulus was the conference, with its ing him if he was no longer on his overwhelming love and caring. The program, was at the conference and response was the acceptance that had heard me speak at a meeting. eluded my best efforts until then. For I do not know exactly when the a year, I had accepted the AA progreatest gift – the gift of life -came gram in my head. I fully knew that it to me. And my wife, of course, was was my only hope, and I worked it as only one of the instruments of that conscientiously as was possible for gift, which came from God.I do not me the way I was then. But I had obknow and do not need to know pre- durately persisted in wrestling with cisely when it came. the angel of complete acceptance. I It may have come in the sponsor- had accepted the program in my ship workshop when a man from my head, and the result was at best a home group unwittingly, .almost shaky sobriety. under his breath, answered my ques- Now I am able to accept it in my tion about the urgency of sponsor- heart, and that has made all the difship. “It’s a matter of life or death!” ference. It has filled me with gratihe said. 1 listened to the panel but I tude to the hundreds of people in heard Randy. I know now that he was and outside the program who have right; for me, finding a sponsor is a reached out to help me over the past matter of life or death. I’m enjoying a year. It has enabled me to start workgrowth spurt as a result of last week- ing the Steps again. I am now, or end and the gift of acceptance that it soon will be with a little more help, brought me, and growth is stressful. I “entirely ready” to continue my pilneed a sponsor now, and I will have grimage up the down escalator toward one within the week, God willing. spiritual growth. The gift of life may have come in The $150 Pinto, by the way, not the quiet talks I had in the halls, the only got us there and got us home lobby, the elevator, the parking lots, a distance of some 450 miles – it got and the hospitality rooms with people more than twenty-four miles per who share my life fully, because gallon in the process, and it’s still they’ve each lived their own version going strong. of it. It may have come in the friendly W. D., Iowa City, l o wa

I heard a speaker say: “It got to be painful waking up every morning with my clothes scattered all over the room – and me in them.” C. C., North Hollywood, Gal$

1,. . A A G R A P E V I N E , A U G U S T 1983 thought he must really be something incidents as that. to be given such an important respon- Fortunately, she didn’t return to sibility. drinking. She continued going to Well, Mr. Impressive approached meetings, but she was a lot quieter our new friend. Saying how much he now, avoiding contact with those was impressed with her growth in the around her. Finally, she could no program, he invited her to join him longer stand the hurt within herself. and a few others on a panel at an She had to either share her experience institution. What a stroke of luck! with someone or give up the hope she Being so new in AA and being invited had felt. She had to tell someone, by the chairman himself to join a anyone, in order to save what littlc 1 panel in an institution – that had to be quite a compliment. sanity she had left. Perhaps, that would save her from returning to the ‘

! Our new member was given a lot of bottle, an act that could have proved attention by Mr. Impressive. She fatal. flowered with his continual praise of That story is true – in part; I have her progress in such a short time and dramatized it a little out of respect for Y ‘ Mr. Impressive her ability to “carry the message” so early in her sobriety. She was grateful for her sobriety and amazed that she was doing so well so soon. For the the confidentiality of the sharing. The obvious message is intended, not only for the newcomer, but for AA as a whole. Our Fellowship, by nature, first time in a long while, she felt joy is made up of many diverse personali- R ECENTLY, a relative newcomer (female) to our Fellowship told me the following story. When anyon.! takes advantage and hope. Her euphoric trance lasted through her third panel meeting, after which Mr. Impressive invited ties. It is the responsibility of each member to sound the alarm upon becoming aware that the welfare of Like most of us when we were new, of a newcomer, we’re all an individual member, or of AA as a her to coffee at his home. Swept up she had very little understanding of responsible for by how grand life was for her now, whole, is being jeopardized’ by the the ways and structure of Alcoholics sounding the alarm she immediately accepted the invita- actions or verbal misrepresentations Anonymous. Being impressed by the tion. of another member. To remain silent warmth and compassion of the peo- Our new friend saw only one room or uninvolved can present a wrong ple in .her first few meetings, she of his house and never received the impression of AA to the new memnaturally began looking for the indi- penings in other local groups. Some- coffee. She returned to her home the ber. vidual “in charge.” Her attention one else was introduced as the next morning confused, angry, and The experience my friend shared was drawn to the secretary of the group’s GSR and gave another re- fully disgusted with what she had just with me is not unique in our Fellowgroup; she wondered how the person port, on doings in the whole area. experienced. She was scared and ship, nor should it be treated lightly. had obtained that position of author- As if she wasn’t impressed enough, hurt; she really didn’t know whether It is a problem that will be with us for ity. Next, she wondered what part the another person introduced himself as she wanted any more to do with AA. as long as AA exists. Therc are, howleader of the meeting played in all of chairman of the Such and Such Com- Sobriety didn’t seem to be much dif- ever, possible solutions that may help this. Then, to add to her confusion, mittee, asking for volunteers to help ferent from the drinking life; at least, reduce the number of such occursomeone was introduced as the inter- “carry the message” into prisons, booze had helped remove her feelings rences. group representative, to report hap- jails, and mental hospitals. She of guilt and remorse after such casual The group should encourage the

new member to read our pamphlets necessary action on behalf of the describing AA and its many facets. individual who has been misled; they One excellent choice is “The A.A. should act, not with the attitude of Group.” sitting in judgment, but rather in the The group might assign a member spirit of our AA principles. to temporarily sponsor the newcomer, I am confident that our Higher as in the early days of our Fellowship. Power will continue to protect us and Then, the sponsor should encourage those that follow us from harm the newcomer to ask questions and providing we, as individual members, should explain what the various do not become complacent with the duties needed for our unity are, and gift He has given us. When I hear why those assuming the duties are stories like our friend’s, I feel sad, called “trusted servants.” and I sometimes wonder how many Newcomers should be encouraged have turned away from our Fellowto share with their sponsors or spir- ship and have subsequently missed itual advisers any experience that has the wonderful gift of sobriety. I must left them uncomfortable with their continually ask myself, “Am I carryimpression or understanding of AA. ing the message or the disease?” Groups should be prompt in taking Anonymous, California

March 1984

months. I just couldn’t make lover 1 had pictured, but then God anything click. 1 had done and tried knows better than I, without excepeverything. 1 gave up! tion. There was no trade. We didn’t And that’s when it happened. need one. We both had what we That’s when my whole life became a wanted, and when we came together, dream come true. It didn’t happen it was a union that I never dreamed overnight, however. It took applica- could exist. tion of the Twelve Steps specifically We’rc celebrating our first wedto the area of my life that had been ding anniversary soon, and for me, it giving me so much trouble. It took a is literally my first. In all my earlier

Lookingfor Cope lot of prayer and meditation, and a year of celibacy. In that year, I read everything I could and listened to everyone I could, to find my own understanding marriages, I never made it to a first anniversary. Without the patience and understanding of my friends in AA, I never could have made it this time, either. I couldn’t have stayed of God. I became as obsessive about sober without the acceptance that I that as I had been about looking for found in AA. I’d like to add a special

I WAS FOURTEEN when 1 first went looking for love. 1 found a bottle instead. I wanted so much to be first time in my life, I thought rnaybe the reason my insatiable need for love was not being met was something love. It’s ironic, isn’t it? – how you can be looking for the same thing on two totally different paths. I disthanks to Ala-Fam; that’s like an AA meeting for couples. In all my years of coupling, I never learned how to be needed and cared for. I wanted wrong in me. covered that God is love. God helped half of a couple! someone to feel they had the whole That was the beginning. I went to me to see that 1 was love, and that if I If you are just finding sobriety, world in their arms when they held AA. But it was not a cure! When I was love, 1 didn’t have to search for it and feel life lacks the love that should me. I wanted to belong to someone. was three months sober, I was two anymore. And lo and behold, when I be there, let me share this with you: From the time I was fourteen, I months pregnant – a direct result of quit searching, there he was! This Don’t look for love – discover it! needed alcohol to give me the courage thirteenth-stepping. I didn’t have al- man was absolutely nothing like the K. T., Naples, Flu. to trade my body for love. I was cohol in me now, but I was still lookliving in such a dreamworld that I ing for love in the wrong way. By the never knew it wasn’t love 1 was grace of God, I didn’t have to live getting until it was almost too late. with that mistake, but I didn’t learn When I was thirty, I had three mar- from it, either. riages behind me, and 1 was living For nearly five years, I continued with a twenty-one-year-old man. One to compromise my self-respect in renight, the same old tape was playing turn for a little attention. My lifc was that had played so many times be- one continuous heartbreak, and 1 fore: I was drunk, feeling unloved, never realized, as I had five years beafraid he was going to leave, and I fore, that it might he my fault. I censaid some terrible things to him. I tered all my efforts on men in AA. loved him, and yet 1 had to hurt him Then, I rationalized that that was my before he hurt me. What happened to problem, and I married a man outme that night was a miracle. For the side AA. That marriage lasted six

April 1984

But get back to AA I must, so I Book, crept into my head: “They are sneaked in the back door, lower than naturally incapable of grasping and a snake’s belly. I went with my developing a manner of living which daughter to an out-of-town meeting, demands rigorous honesty.” “Rigor- Them to people who didn’t know me. Very softly and timidly, hoping not to be ous honesty, rigorous honesty, rigorous honesty” flashed like neon lights, heard, I admitted that I had gone out Against to experiment, that I was an alcoholic, powerless over alcohol, that occasionally darkened by the recurring thought that now, a few weeks sober, I c0u1d’~oback to my home Me my life was unmanageable, I waited for a wave of relief to wash over me, group, kinda slide into the back row, and take it from there. giving me new hope, and I waited and But the white hats always win. I I waited and I waited. Nothing, awoke early one morning, and the nothing, nothing. And I was sick first thoughts in this dense skull were: When shefinally told AA friends deep within my soul (if I could still “So this is what the Big Book means. boast of having one). I’ve tried ‘an easier, softer way.’ If I . about her slip, it was 1 went to another meeting and am to stay sober, I need ‘rigorous them and me again another and another – still out of honesty.’ I need to be ‘willing to go to town, away from my home group. any length’ – and admit to my home But 1 was unable to listen or to talk; 1 group that I have gone on a drunk, a sensed that something in me was all long, ugly drunk, more devastating

A FTER A FEW twenty-four hours, I had a slip – a slip filled with anger, guilt, resentment, and ravaged by booze, with the old suicidal tendency rearing its ugly head. Just to get back to AA was all I wrong. Well, now that I had gone to several meetings, I thought, I could than any before.” And at that moment, 650 AM, the desired wave of relief washed over remorse. AA sayings and images of needed to do, to pick up the threads I return to my home group as though me. “They,” the enemies, became the faces of those in my home group had severed. But I couldn’t. Fear nothing had happened. Then, 1 had real people with names and faces and -those who cared for me and shared kept me sneaking that “last” one to to go into the hospital for surgery. life, givers of experience, strength, their experience, strength, and hope bolster my courage enough to make After several days there, I was still be- and hope, with true concern for me. 1 – roved through my head. that call, and the bottle would black wildered, because I felt strongly that knew I could get on with life and All the time, I knew for a certainty me out with nothing accomplished. I something was wrong deep within me living, Step by Step, day by day, and I would return to where real life was would awaken with even more fear and between me and AA. Parts of find what “they” glowed with. – AA, my home group. But when? and remorse and guilt. “How It Works,” from the Big K. P., Olympia, Wash. 1 was indeed more powerless over At last, I made it through several alcohol than ever before. In my head, days without booze, fighting sweats, tapes played, assuring me all I had to chills, nausea, and fever caused more do was make that phone call and turn by fear of facing “them” than by it over to God as I had a glimpse of withdrawal. In my sick mind, my him a God who had not meant me wonderful friends became “them” to let my body and mind be abused as indefinable, out to get me, my ac- ‘ ‘ I was inviting John Barleycorn to do. cusers, my persecutors, my mockers I knew I could not survive long – and I trembled.

J+ – May 1 9 8 4

social drinking was. My condition For three years, it went on like was such that 1 firmly believe death that. But then, the days came when would have been my next stop if I had the end really seemed near for Jim-

Only OneThing not joined AA. I met Jimmy five years after 1 joined the program. Every morning, I saw him emerge from one of the empty buildings on the corner of the my. He’d drag himself out of the empty building in the morning, but he no longer shadowboxed with imaginary foes, dancing up and down, jabbing at the air. The spark block where I live. His eyes were was gone from his eye, the fight from chronically infected then, and pus ran his gut. I did what AA’s axiom says: from them. Every morning, I was Keep it simple; no analysis. surprised to find he was still alive. As “Jimmy, do you want to die?” days and months went by, I began to “No.” seek him out obsessively – especially “You look like you’re giving up DijJerent as the city streets and suburbs from which they came, if I had had a hard day at work and and want to die.” needed a meeting. 1 would look for Without AA and with my middletwo alcoholics shared their sobriety and their lives Jimmy, and as I talked to him, I class background, I could have anawould talk myself into another day of lyzed Jimmy to his grave. We don’t sobriety. typically talk about death that starkly The vocabulary of my world was in the nice suburbs. But these city not his, and the vocabulary of a streets and AA had taught me to keep

H E ISBLACK, Southern-born on a sharecropper’s farm some sixty years ago. As he grew, he meathe war to find work. In the beginning, he always found jobs with the bigger construction outfits. But as black, Southern, street alcoholic was not mine. The only thing we had in common was alcohol – the alcohol I it simple. Death was the issue. Shortly thereafter, Jimmy disappeared for three weeks or so. The sured his approaching manhood in his drinking increased, his work had stopped drinking and the alcohol street was full of rumors about where how many pounds of cotton he could world shrank, and he was reduced to he still drank. It provided the lan- he was, but no real answers. Then, I pick. School was where he went be- finding work daily, contracting out as guage both of us could understand. came driving home after work one tween weeks off to work on the farm. a helper to local plumbers, painters, That language related to our com- day and saw Jimmy. He was walking He mostly remembers school by the and bricklayers. When I met him, he mon experience – the experience of fairly steady. By the time I parked the events he won, like the 100-yard was hustling jobs sweeping out a being alcoholic. I collected AA slo- car, however, he had settled on a dash, or by the fights he had. He left store here, unloading a truck there – gans, stored them up, found Jimmy, neighbor’s front steps with a drinking a segregated South, with its “colored all to get the price of a drink. A drink and spouted them out. And he’d say, buddy and they weresharing a pint of only” signs on water fountains and was all he needed and all he wanted. “Yeah, but listen. . . ,” and we’d ar- wine. 1 ran up to him anyway. toilets, to fight in an all-black army Men he worked for would leave the gue for an hour or so about one slo- “Hey, where you been?” I asked. unit in World War 11. price of a meal at a diner, so he would gan. But we were communicating. If I “Bridgewater,” he said. I am white, Northern-born, and eat at least once a day. found him on the streets when I was Bridgewater is a state hospital farm raised in a suburb of the city where he I came to the same city from the on my way to a meeting and 1 man- for alcoholics, the mentally ill, and and I met. I am a perennial student, suburbs after twenty-five years of ged to convince him that the sand- the criminally insane. Street people with many courses beyond the mas- daily drinking. During the last ten of wiches would be good, he might come are sent there when they get really ter’s degree. And I am a woman. those years, I had been a daily drunk, along for warmth and companion- sick from alcohol. It is in a suburb He came to this Northern city after past the point of remembering what ship, and for those sandwiches. some distance from the city, and at

istration program. Finally, he got to been told. “That guy makes you a the halfway house – about eight slave! ” blocks from the empty building he Because of his Southern heritage, had flopped in and from the street Jimmy understood what being a slave corners where he had drunk away so was. But he also felt that being a man many of his years. The counselors in meant punching the guy who made the halfway house were all AA mem- him angry. “Easy Does It” was not bers. Meetings were mandatory. being a man; “Let go and. . .” was Jimmy asked me to be his sponsor. not being a man. Yet being angry and He and I got real close – like brother getting drunk meant being a slave. So and sister. But we were the most un- “Easy Does It” won out. We were likely combination you’d find on any now communicating very well. street, North or South. A year came and went, and Jimmy The drunks up and down the street stayed sober. He found self-respect the end of a ten-day drying-out peri- I lived on took bets that Jimmy would and new ways of being a man, and the od, the bus back usually arrives in the be drunk in a week. Yet, week after guys on the street couldn’t figure it city about 10:00 AM. I looked at my week, Jimmy stayed sober. The guys out. Jimmy would tell them that he I watch: only 1:00 PM. 1 looked into baited him, all but poured whiskey did it through AA, with daily meet- Jimmy’s eyes. There was more down his throat. But through it all, ings. He’d say to other drunks on the awareness in them than I’d seen in a he stayed sober. Whenever he had a street, “Come along with me, man.” long time. Maybe, just maybe. . . problem, he’d call up from the phone He’d be out there on the corner every I started with every simple AA sug- booth on the corner, two buildings day keeping himself sober by talking gestion I could come up with. By let- away from my apartment, and I’d go program talk. ting go and letting God, we kept it down and meet him. We could be Now, it is more than three years simple. Jimmy agreed to come with found all up and down the street in sinck Jimmy came into AA. When I me. 1 didn’t describe a halfway house earnest conversation. People made hear people say about sponsorship, – we went to visit one. And then we him very angry in the beginning, as he “a man for a man and a woman for a went to a detoxification center. He slowly began to realize he had rights woman,” or “Get a sponsor similar had never been in any of the many de- and could assert himself. Anger was a to yourself,” I just smile and think of toxes in our city -only in hospitals. I problem 1 knew well. And from those the inside similarities of Jimmy and tried to use AA slogans all the way. who had shown me the way in AA, I me caused by our alcoholism, and But sometimes, I’d get wound up and had the language to deal with it. how they far outweighed our outside start using big words. Then, he’d “The guy who makes you angry differences. We just follow AA’s adlook puzzled and lost, so I’d just stop owns you,” I’d tell him, just as I had vice – keep it simple. talking, ask for help, and go back to B. S., Boston, Mass. simple slogans. With the help of God and AA, 1 managed to talk him into his first detoxification center. For nine months, he went through a variety of institutions, the last being a twentyeightday Veterans Admin-

May 1984

/

prayer: “We ask him to remove our going places, talking to people, fear and direct our attention to what sharing a lot, contributing at work, he would have us be. At once, we actually leading meetings, becoming commence to outgrow fear.” There it “a part o f ‘ instead of “apart from.” was! Plain and simple. I could begin 1 discovered that the more 1 shared, to outgrow fear if I would but ask. the less lonely I felt. , I took that prayer and I made it my That hasn’t changed. I say my Away … $.- own: “God, remove my fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be.” I said it over and prayer daily, It has made the greatest difference in my sobriety. I still have fears to turn over, but I don’t have over again, all day, every day, at the gut-wrenching terror that used to

A LL OF MY early life, I was terrified. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid. My parents are work, at home, wherever. I internalized it. It became a part of me. And I’m happy to report that at once, I accompany me every day. God has seen to that. He paves the way. It works. drinkers, and I soon learned to be a commenced to outgrow fear. I began T., Monterey, Calif. “good little girl.” Those of us who employed and believed myself unemhave been good little girls know ex- ployable. Except for an occasional hit actly what that means: Walk softly; over the head from God to let me do not question authority; and share know 1 was loved, things looked absolutely nothing – especially fear. pretty grim. We moved every six months to Then came the summer that I was three years. I remember the feeling of four and a half years sober. In meetanticipation: “Now it’s going to be ing after meeting, all I heard was different!” That would last for about “We stood at the turning point ,” three months. Then I would settle again and again and again. I knew I into a depression that became semi- was standing at a turning point. I permanent, filled with loneliness and decided to tackle the Fourth Step self-pity. I always felt different and I again – this time, exactly the way the never felt safe. Big Book told me to do it. I made my 1 carried all of my fear into AA. three columns, writing down my For months, I would not raise my resentments, the causes, and what eyes from the table, and I generally was affected. I didn’t need to take the passed at meetings. When I did talk, Fourth Step again to find out 1 was my face turned red and 1 shook. The living a life based on fear. That I first time I was asked to chair a meet- knew. But it was after I took that ing, I lost seven pounds in one week. Fourth Step that I discovered what to It was all too painful! do about it. And it wasn’t only in meetings. 1 I went back to the Big Book. Right had difficulty sharing with anyone, after the Fourth Step discussion, including (and especially) a sponsor. I there are four paragraphs on fear. At didn’t know how. Also, I was un- the end of the fourth, it suggests

May 1 9 8 4

“‘ OR A BRIEF ~ e r i o dduring mv fifth year of continuous sob;ieti, I he ing or repetitive drunkalogs. One

Winner’s I was going through a rough patch in urged me to count the words on the my attendance at AA meetings. Steps or Traditions banner or, better – Somehow. the drinking -stories and – – – -the tales of the early days of AA were -yet, to examine how each Step has been accomplished in my life. Anrubbing me the wrong way. If I other suggestion was to use the time wasn’t bored, 1 was angry. What to to take my daily or weekly inventory, do? making a mental list of those to Leave the Fellowship altogether? I whom I must promptly admit my errors. Still another bit of advice was to

Meetings had heard enough people say that they came to meetings to find out use the time to meditate on the word what happens toalcoholics who don’t “one” or the word “unity” until I come to meetings. It wouldn’t be could see how I and the person quitting – I’d be allowing others to speaking were similar. drive me out! The suggestion I liked best, how- Change my patterns of atten- ever, and the one I subsequently dance? I tried attending different practiced for six months with great, groups and different types of lasting benefit, was to carry a little meetings. That did help somewhat, notebook to meetings and write down but a complete change of groups any pieces of AA folk wisdom that made me feel that 1 was a beginner might be lurking in the midst of again, trying to break into new otherwise uninteresting stories. At friendship circles. The loneliness I felt first, I was self-conscious about when I cut myself off from my jotting down those pithy gems, but familiar AA associates was not help- no one seemed to mind, and my coling my mental health. I was still lection grew rapidly. It was like bored with “identification meetings” finding gold nuggets amid rocks in full of drunk stories, and there the stream of consciousness.’ weren’t enough Step, Big Book The first saying I noted started me study, or discussion groups near The answer, of course, was to talk The assembled members listened off in the right frame of mind: enough to where I live and work. about my fklings. My first oppor- patiently to my distress, then offered “What I don’t know about this Trying to solve my own problem tunity came at a “problem-study some opinions on what they had done program may kill me.” That was folin similar circumstances. Here was a lowed closely by “The clenched fist . by running from the Fellowship or group,” which I went to with the spemy regular meetings was a dry-drunk cific intent of letting it all out. I t definition of our Fellowship in never receives” and “It’s AA or manifestation of my alcoholic pat- wasn’t hard to do. 1 almost exploded action. By sharing their experience, ‘amen’ for me.” After a while, I tern of running from my problems. as my anguish, pain, frustration, hos- strength, and hope with me, they heard statements like “I don’t live for Resentments were building up inside tility, and confusion poured forth, saved me, so 1 have been able to pass AA – I use AA to live,” “If you 1 me, and I was keeping it all inside. If l complete with table-banging and these ideas on to others trying to want sobriety, you must go among didn’t want to relapse into the active language that would make a strip- work the program. those who have it,” and “If you want form of our disease of alcoholism, joint bouncer blush. Some of their suggestions included what we have, then do what we do.” ways to occupy my mind during bor- Soon, my notebook was overflow-

ing with those statements that we pass be healed, and I continue to stay on to each other as part of the mes- around to witness the naturally ocsage of recovery. I learned to look at curring miracles as we love each other people and the way that they are into well-being. handling this program of living. I Today, I know that notes in the learned that it is the simple, easily re- same key resonate together. I’m at membered statements that are our meetings to give as well as to receive. most eloquent contributions to one No matter how much continuous soanother. briety I have to my and AA’s credit, I To be teachable, I had to be reach- am still only one drink away from a able. 1 can see now that my stinking drunk, just like everybody else in thinking was leading to drinking. these meeting rooms. If there’s any Since the door swings both ways in message in all of this problem-turned- AA, I had come to a turning point project, it can perhaps be summed up where I had to hang on and let go. My in these words heard at an otherwise confidence today is gained from my dreary meeting: “I never let the seeds humility of yesterday. Now, I go to stop me from eating the watermeetings not to be entertained but to melon.” C. F., Wollstonecraff, Ausfralia

July 1984

In the following seven months, I – -read As Bill Sees It, the “Twelve and tremendous relief! This Step talks least one insight, sometimes more. Twelve,” and the Big Book. I honest- about a person’s being either on top When I read the prayer regarding ly couldn’t remember when was the of the heap or on the bottom of the total and complete surrender of my last time I had read any one of those heap. That was me, all right. The last life and will, the relief was just that books. page of the chapter talks about total and complete. My morning ending our “isolation from our God As Bill Sees It showed me just how full of pride – the negative, not the positive kind – I was; also, the selffellows and from God.” That’s when I cried. prayers and meditation took on a whole new dimension. One morning when I was saying

Didn’t ishness, the self-centeredness, the superiority complex to cover up the inferiority complex – that puffed-up No specific time nor even a specific year of sobriety can be given when my terrible, terrible feeling of isolation my prayers, I thought: “Am I ever lucky that God didn’t get mad at me when 1 was praying specifically and

Follow feeling of being the most important person in the whole wide world. An old-timer in the group I used to from my fellow human beings and from God began. But it did. The phone hardly ever rang anymore; no giving him orders about my life! He knows, really knows, that I am a human being, and he truly loves me

Orders belong to would call me Queenie, and he wasn’t kidding, either. It used to annoy me no end and even make me one wanted to pick me up for meetings anymore – I had to call a cab to go to one meeting a week. The list – good and bad.” In addition to saying the prayer of surrender in the Third Step every morning, 1 sincerely mad sometimes! He was merely say- could go on and on. admitted that there wasn’t one single, ing, “Queenie, you’re only another And boy, was I ever mad at God! I solitary character defect or shortlittle fish in a big pond.” But by then, was telling him in no uncertain terms coming that 1 wanted to hang on to the barriers were so thick and so high exactly what he should do in my life, anymore. I started saying the recom- Why a complacent he couldn’t get through. and he wasn’t doing it. The job that mended prayer to have my character old-timer got As Bill Sees I t merely touched the was being prayed for so hard didn’t defects removed. The beautiful reback to basics tip of the iceberg. Now it was time to come. The aunt who was so seriously sults of praying and seeking God’s get into the “Twelve and Twelve.” ill with a lung disease wasn’t healed; will in my life are far from passive. 1 read the chapters on ‘two Steps she died. Neat things, really neat, started to each night before going to bed. it was I couldn’t go on like that indef- happen. all brand-spankin’-new to me. In my initely. My isolation from my God just early days of sobriety, I had read the The night I finished reading Step evaporated. Twelve, it seemed as if the veils or The telephone started to ring T wo YEARS ago, all hell seemed to break loose in my personal life. At that time, 1 was approaching “Twelve and Twelve,” but it had an entirely different meaning to me then. This time, different questions curtains were all Lifted at the same time. I realized I had become exactly again; I was amazed when I got three calls in one afternoon. One was from my nineteenth year of sobriety, and were being asked, and different what my sponsor and the old-timers a lady I sponsored four years ago. my life was definitely unmanageable answers were being sought. had warned me against – a compla- She is still sober, and we had the – eighteen years or no eighteen Each night after reading, it seemed cent old-timer. Now, it was time for my next comnicest visit. Before she hung up, she said, “I love you,” and I said, “I love years. to me as if part of a veil or curtain was My sponsor and the old-timers had being lifted just a little. The night mitment: to read the Big Book. I read you, too.” A friend of mine always warned me about complacency a long after reading Steps Seven and Eight, I two chapters each night, and the Big says, in Bill’s words, “AA is ‘the time before. 1 had to make a commit- cried. Step Eight especially had Book was all brand-spankin’-new to language of the heart.'” ment to myself. supplied most of the answers. What a me. Then there were the long-absent Every night, there would come at visits from friends. After meetings is

always the nicest time, when everyone identified completely with this is relaxed, honest, and open. One woman, and a sense of peace, serenfriend came by one afternoon un- ity, and well-being came over me. It expectedly. When I opened the door, was as if I had been pressing a difshe said, “Do you look terrible with- ferent key each night on a computer, out your makeup!” I wear makeup at and all of a sudden all of the insights meetings, but not at home. came on the screen. I know now ex- Through a series of phone calls, I actly where I lost myself. I know now was put in touch with acquaintances exactly where my written inventory who were just waiting to become will begin. friends. They started to pick me up In fact, when I’m all finished for meetings -places I’ve never been writing it, I would like to imagine the to before – several times a week. old-timer who used to call me Each week, it varies. Queenie sitting on a white, fluffy My isolation from my fellow cloud in AA heaven with a twinkle in human beings has also evaporated. his blue eyes, showing his wry sense The night when 1 finished reading of humor, and saying something like: the story “Freedom from Bondage” “Well, finally! Nobody has to call in the Big Book was so beautiful. I her that any longer.” V.P,,Toledo, Ohio

January 1985

I HAD BEEN SOBER in AA for a little over twelve years when I married “one of us.” Before I met this dream ty, and built our dream house. But we started missing meetings, with excuses like: It’s too far to drive toand celebrated my twenty-fifth birthday this year. I attend meetings regularly (at least two a week) and still go night; I’m too tired; we built this to Al-Anon occasionally. I went to The man, I felt that all alcoholics were weak emotionally, as was I, and I shouldn’t socialize too much with the t house to live in and enjoy, so why go out? their meetings for a year before I finally got their message: I am Marriage opposite sex – much less get seriously involved! My AA elders had also After a couple of years of this, he quit his job (I had retired from mine a “powerless over alcohol.” Alcoholics Anonymous is not a j “couples” program – it is an indi- Syndrome warned me about the “thirteenth step,” saying it would get me drunk. I few years before) and didn’t do much of anything for about six months. We vidual program. Thank God I finally truly believed them; then I met my depleted our savings, sold our dream came to realize that I had been workman – handsome, charming, out- house, and moved 300 miles away to ing my husband’s program, not going, a good speaker, irresistible an apartment and another job from mine. I have also come to believe that (you gals recognize the type). which, after nine months, he re- his slip was a godsend to me, because We went together for more than signed. He didn’t like AA in this new it woke me up to the fact that I have three years before we got married. town. I went back to work, and ap- to live my own program, my way. AA is not a We went to all AA functions and proximately a month later, he found What’s so sad is that while I was “couples” program – we all meetings together. If he didn’t go, I another job. About eight months gradually losing my program, I didn’t go. I loved AA conferences, after this, he started drinking (he had wasn’t even aware of it. Cunning, work it for ourselves but he didn’t, so I quit going to them! fourteen years of sobriety; I had baffling, powerful! This is truly the As the days, weeks, and months twenty-two). I was stunned! How disease of alcoholism. slipped into years, we became finan- could he d o this to R:& It breaks my heart to see, or hear cially well-off, bought some proper- By the grace of God, some of my of, one of us who goes back to the old early AA training gradually began life of despair. I still do not wholly filtering down through my sick brain, understand why this happens to some and 1 knew that I had to get back to of us; I can only thank my Higher I AA no matter what. I had kept in Power that it hasn’t happened to me. touch with AA by going to meetings My purpose in sharing this experivery irregularly in our new town and ence is to help some other arrested still read some literature. I now found alcoholic from falling into the trap 1 and accepted Al-Anon and, most I fell into – not maintaining my important, I did not take a drink. own program. When I hear an AA After two years, I found my wonder- member who is married to another ful AA program again. I regained my member speak of staying home from 7 self-confidence, got rid of those old a meeting because the spouse did not I fears I had taken back, and most of want to attend, chills go up my spine! 1 the self-pity and resentments within Today, I feel that I am so very fortudisappeared. I had developed the nate – I have been doubly blessed, j “crazies” even though I was still sober. and feel that I have recovered from the AA marriage syndrome.

I I have become active again in AA D. S., Harlingen, T a .

4* A April 1 9 8 5

involved the first year.” Soon, we were p i n g 1: meetings As usual, they were right. I did Well, between all the meetings and together and spending our spare time grow from the pain, and I did learn. I a lack of self-esteem, I didn’t give with each other. It was my first hon- learned that I am in no position to tell much thought to romantic interludes. est, loving relationship, and I was another how to feel. When I used to 1 didn’t think anyone would be inter- very happy. I also started to take on tell this girl what she should do and ested in me in the first place. I did her problems as my own, and in turn how she should feel, she resented it. I . find a couple of fellows who were she took on my problems. We be- turned around and got a resentment about the same age and had the same came so caught up in each other it because she wasn’t doing things “my amount of time in the Fellowship. We was interfering with our primary pur- way.” (Sound familiar?) became inseparable, going to meet- pose, to stay sober. This life is filled Today, I know that all those sugings together and spending our spare with enough problems, and there is gestions I heard are as true and applitime “hanging out.” This made those no need to take on additional ones. cable now as they were on day one, early months much easier than they Then came the inevitable breakup. and will continue to hold true. would have been, had 1 roamed The only problem was that she did the Today, I see this girl again on a alone. breaking. My ego was devastated! regular basis. It is only possible, how- As time went on,’we all started to She said that she couldn’t handle a ever, because of the pain I felt and a share our mutual feelings toward relationship and work her program, new awareness and sense of priormembers of the opposite sex. Oh, we too. What hurt more was my ego tell- ities. Today, we both realize that our were such a lonely bunch! Here we ing me that if I had been stronger and own sobriety must come first, above were sober and without a woman to “more sober,” it could have been anything or anyone else. share our goodness with. I myself prevented. I hurt awhile, but there I try not to project how long this began to believe that sobriety and were many people around me to give relationship will last. Ours is a daycelibacy went hand in hand. When I support and a hug. I saw a lot of the by-day program of recovery. I only told my sponsor and others of my love found in this program. Along know that a relationship takes a lot of woes, they always brought up that with the hugs canne the words “You work and is possible only by working A too-early romance “one year” suggestion. are going to grow and learn from our beautiful program first. Finally, after about a year and a this.” T. M.,Iselin. N.J. got in the way half in the program, I met a girl. She of serene sobriety was also in the program, and we seemed to hit it off very well. A relationship between two in the program

I N THE FIRST FEW months of my newfound sobriety, there were, it seemed, countless suggestions from is indeed a beautiful one. There is more honesty and sharing than in a non-AA involvement. I was in love, my sponsor and others. I got very and the fact that this girl had only active and spent most of my time eight months in the program was of either at meetings or thinking about little consequence. As long as I had all I heard at those meetings. With all over a year in the program (my ego this going on, there was one thing I said), that was all that mattered. was told that hardly seemed worth Things were finally looking up for mentioning: “Don’t get emotionally this alcoholic.

May 1 9 8 5

glad to be able to share my happiness again. Others had merely drifted The Seven-Year Itch with my group. They had seen me away without attracting notice or through the bad times. Now, I could comment. When dissatisfaction with her group offer them some good ones. The group had changed quite radi- As I looked around the meeting cally in membership in just the last crept in, she took a hard look at her changing room, I knew that none of what I had year. More than three-quarters of our responsibilities won would have been possible with- members were people with less sobriout sobriety, and that could not have ety than I had. Leadership was now been achieved without the AA pro- totally in the hands of those newcomgram and the support and encourage- ers. I myself had been one of those ment of my home group. It was from who had urged such a course. The my group I had drawn the strength I irony was that I increasingly found needed when my spirit flagged and myself at odds with the choices and my courage failed. decisions of those who had assumed There were so many memories in control. Worse still, when 1 voiced that room, and they returned to me in my objections, they merely listened a rush. When it came my turn to politely and then went their way. make a few comments, I spoke with a At the semiannual election of offilack of reserve and a fullness of emo- cers, I had noted that I had “had it tion I had not been able to release on all” in the way of offices 1 wanted, other occasions. and I took myself out of considera-

M Y AWARENESS of my underlyinn dissatisfaction started on my seventh anniversary celebration. On returning home, I spent a few minutes reviewing the evening’s events. I had to admit that, as annition. Having chosen the bench, apparently I had been shifted to the sidelines. The previous year had been the versaries went, it was one our group My nose was out of joint, and my best I had enjoyed in sobriety. The could be proud of. Two of my co-cel- position was quite unclear to me. My early years of struggle against diffi- ebrants were people I had shared five group was no longer my group the cult odds had finally paid off, and I other anniversaries with. We were way it had been my group. I had to could truly call myself a grateful alco- proof positive it could be done. deal with my new relationship with holic. The nagging yearning for a The crowd assembled had been these people. The problem was how. drink had stopped years before. I had large, filling every seat. Mentally, I One possibility was to d o what mended emotionally and was well compared the faces with previous others had done before me – simply along in rebuilding my personal life. years’. That was when an element of shift groups. For a while, I deliberate- The last area to improve – my busi- doubt and discontent started to form. ly stopped going to my group at all ness life – was finally shaping up. I So many of the old faces were missing save for my once-a-month, longtime had achieved a measure of success in now. People I had shared the early commitment to open our Sunday a new field, and I was looking for- days of sobriety with had moved on meeting. I plunged into other groups ward to new and expanded opportu- or off. A few were seen only on rare trying to find one that would offer me nities. occasions. Some were around but ac- what seemed to be missing in my All in all, it was a time for self-con- tive in other groups. A few had disap- own. Some supplied one need; gratulation, indeed jubilation. I was peared abruptly and were never seen others, something else. But in none

could I find the sense of newness I was new. She continued to be active What struck me most forcibly was bring up the good and the bad, the longed for. They were new groups, in all ways, as an individual in the shameless brain-picking that went successes and the failures; to be sure perhaps, but I was the same old Twelfth Step work and in AA service on. This was particularly true of our the group doesn’t go off half-cocked person. at the group, district, regional, and group’s leadership as it confronted or forget the things that have worked. Okay. I’d begin with me. I played national levels. I personally needed to the old-timers present. Old-timers must refuse to be silent or with the idea of starting my own hear her, and I acted selfishly by It was then I found the dimensions withdrawn. Only we can give thecongroup. This was a course others had designating her to lead us in the First of the new part I could play. While tinuity required to keep our group taken as well. I sought out like- Step. still a little green for such consider- purposes always stable. minded souls to back me. Hard plan- To my delight, I found her “fame” ation, I was inevitably approaching We have another, deeper responsining revealed to us that there was no had preceded her. The “youngsters” old-timer status. The thing for me to bility as well. Ours is that unique gift need for a new group in the area. welcomed her enthusiastically. In ad- do was to accept rather than shun of time to each and every person who The next logical step was to consid- dition, she had attracted a number of that place. My mistake had been in comes to our group to find and retain er abandoning personal participation her peers from other groups. The not cultivating it. I had fallen into the sobriety. When we share our particuin a specific group. This, too, others meeting was deliciously balanced: trap of sulking rather than speaking, lar strength and experience of sohad opted to do, and they had re- some new-newcomers, the middle- and here I had deprived my group as briety, we teach others to avoid our mained sober. In my heart, however, aged in sobriety, the old-old-timers. well as myself. I must assume my pitfalls. We make it just a little bit 1 knew that for me this would be It turned out to be one of the most mantle of authority and become easier for them to meet their chalcasting myself adrift. motion ally, 1 exciting and enthusiastic meetings I more vocal. lenges. As active, enthusiastic group was unwilling to do that. It was a had attended in ages. Each and every After that meeting, I took the time members, we can do this on a congamble some others had lost, and 1 speaker participated to the fullest, to chart the dimensions of my new sistent basis for more people, more did not want to take that chance. each offering that which he or she role. Other seniors mentioned words effectively than we can as noncom- The solution came one Sunday alone could offer. Before, during, like “watchdog of the Traditions” mitted individuals. night four months after my anniver- and after the meeting, we shared with and “gadfly.” It’s for me and people Let us not forget we got sober as sary. My speaker that night was my an intensity I had not witnessed in a like me to remind the group of where part of a group. earliest sponsor, an old-timer when I long time. it has been and what it has done; to J. D.. Queens Village,N.Y.

December 1 9 8 5

“baby,” Debbie (not her real name). having a few second thoughts herself When she arrived at my hotel, she as she saw me in that environment. “Is said, “Where shall we go?” I sug- this it?” I asked, hoping my bright

I New York gested a couple of places I had found smile would cover my doubts. out about, but she said, “How about “Yes,” she replied. “Do you want going down to the Village? There’s an to go in?” AA meeting-place that’s putting on a I looked at the’concrete stairway dinner.” How perfectly New York, I leading to the entrance. Stenciled thought. Thanksgiving in Greenwich there were messages: “No Alcohol,” Village! Off we went. “No Pot Allowed.” “This must be Debbie is twenty years my junior, the place,” I commented, trying to An electric debut for the holiday season- and 1 did not realize that my thoughts sound confident. Past the gloomy Thanksgiving in a disco of a traditionalThanksgiving and hers entryway, we proceeded up another were not parallel. staircase, turned a corner, and came T HANKSGIVINC is a treacherous time for many of us alcoholics. Orleans, where I live, and had then moved on to Kansas City. Now, she The cab driver looked at me quizzi- into a hallway with light bulbs dancally in the rearview mirror as we gling from the ceiling. There were . It begins the holiday season and, par- unexpectedly wrote to me from her approached the East Village address two rows of tables set up, covered ticularly for the newcomer, resurrects Debbie had given him. “Are you Sure with food. We took the plates offered new home in New Jersey just across memories of embarrassing behavior. this is where you want to go?” he us and began to fill them. the Hudson River from New York. I When I arrived in front of someone But as sobriety progresses, we set knew I had another source of strength asked. “This is it,” she replied enthusias- who was carving turkey and seemed , aside a store of happier memories – in her being there. tically, and hopped out of the cab. I to be in charge, 1 asked, “May 1 make good fun and fellowship with AA New York was everything I had friends. hoped for and remembered. I went looked around at the pot-smoking, a contribution?” hippie-type kids grouped in small clus- He smiled but looked a little wary. My favorite Thanksgiting recollec- back to places vaguely recalled from tion now is of my fifth sober one. 1 drinking trips and saw the beauty I ters up and down the street. There “Are you an alcoholic?” were empty bottles lying at the curb, For the first time, I truly underhad finally worked at one place long had only partially absorbed before: and the whole scene was reminiscent stood the Seventh Tradition: “Every enough to earn a paid vacation, and I St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Statue of decided on a trip to New York. I had Liberty, Central Park, the skaters at of a Haight-Ashbury photo from the AA group ought to be fully self-suptraveled to see my family, gone to Rockefeller Center. I toured the AA 1960s. Debbie grabbed my hand and porting, declining outside contribu- AA assemblies and conventions, and General Service Office and received fairly skipped across the street. At the tions.” “Yes,” I replied, feeling both moved a couple of times, but this was a deeper appreciation for our Fel- entrance, she paused, apparently pride and humility. “I’m an a l c e my first sober trip solo. I was aware, lowship. At the intergroup office, I from others’ sharing in meetings, learned how Twelfth Step calls were of the pitfalls I might encounter. I handled there, and picked up some gathered some phone numbers from ideas to take back to my home Cenfriends in the AA program, wrote tral Office board. down the intergroup office number in Then, too quickly, it was Thanks- New York City, and packed my bags. giving – the last day of my vacation. One of my “babies” (I don’t call I saw the Macy’s parade and planned them pigeons) had sobered up in New to have dinner with my former

-. holic. My name is F-. I’m visiting acles before me – young adults, and As we walked around the glass- “A lumpfbwed in from New Orleans.” some still teenagers, living clean and enclosed promenade, we watched the “Hi!” he grinned at me, sticking sober by the grace of God with the sun set and the lights of the city come help of the AA program. I was over- on. Debbie pointed out the Brooklyn out his hand after wiping it on his apron. “My name is B-. Welmy throat as I saw the whelmed with gratitude and thanks- Bridge, the Empire State Building, and other familiar landmarks. I locome! Sure, we’ll take anything you nZim[es b@e me – giving. But the music was starting to get to cated Ellis Island and told her about care to give.” I handed him some money, and he youy adults, a d me, and I wanted a breath of fresh air. We walked out into the late afterthe immigrants who had arrived there – their hardships, their hopes, and thanked me. Proceeding down the ‘ line, I caught up with Debbie, who some Still teenrlgm, noon, strolled through the Village their struggle for a better life. (The story was fresh in my mind, from a had been watching. “1 didn’t know and on to lower Manhattan, talking we had to pay,” she said, embar- living clean and sober as if we had never been apart. “I Thanksgiving TV special and my rassed. haven’t been to the top of the World recent visit to the Statue of Liberty.) “We didn’t,” I explained, “but we Trade Center,” Debbie said. The “Kind of like us in AA,” she said. building was open, and we took the I recalled my own “landing” and give back what we have received, in whatever way we can.” with the he$ ofthe elevator to the observation floor, hers in the strange world of sobriety, “I wish you could stay with me longer. I have a lot more to learn,” AA propm” laughing together at the folder for visitors, which proclaimed it to be our hardships and hopes. The similarity was there. “Yes,” I agreed, “much Debbie said. “the closest some of us will ever get to like us coming into AA.” “So have I,” 1 replied, remember- was almost impossible over the mu- heaven.” E D., New Orleans, La. ing my recent Tradition Seven lesson. sic. I was grateful for the whiteness of I wondered where we would eat. the plate as I aimed my fork towzrd That question was answered as she it. The rim was all I could see. Each led the way into a huge room dec- bite was a surprise: turkey, dressing, orated with black draperies and ran- apple pie, beans, mashed potatoes dom strings of lights. In the dimness, I wasn’t sure which was going into my we saw tiers of tables lining one side mouth until I tasted it. of the room, found an empty one, After we finished our food, I stole put down our plates and coffee cups, a couple of glances at Debbie. The and sat down. When my eyes adjust- mirrored ball spotlighted shiny hair ed to the light, I looked around in neatly pulled back from her face, nice amazement. We were in a disco. A makeup deftly applied, small frame mirrored ball turning just below the held straight but swaying to the ceiling threw sparkles of light around rhythm, eyes sparkling. What a mirthe room. High in the far wall was a aculous change from the hunchedcontrol room housing a disc jockey. over waif who had stumbled into AA The recorded music blared as couples in total confusion two years before! and singles twisted and gyrated on the I looked around at the other young large dance floor. Several young men people, maybe a hundred of them, all were break-dancing. happy, alive, and alert. A lump We ate in silence – conversation formed in my throat as I saw the mir-

February 1986 J. ‘

days show. At one point AA groups Grace,” I offered, “and we all know *. became concerned with devising com- that doesn’t work. Why don’t you try plicated membership codes. They pre- changing your own approach, and pared elaborate written rules about see if it doesn’t produce a more eligibility for membership, degrees of favorable reaction? Instead of critmembership, and expulsion from icizing him for what you don’t like, membership, and sent copies to what praise him for the things he does that was then called “headquarters.” We you do like. You can find things to stopped taking this seriously when it praise if you look for them.” was discovered that, if all these rules Grace was horrified. “That would were enforced, absolutely no one be trying to manipulate him. We’re could get into AA. not supposed to manipulate people!” “Ninety meetings in ninety days” is I looked at gentle, loving Amanda one more example of illogical but all for support, and did a double-take. too human reasoning: If something is She opened her mouth, as if prepared good for some people under some cir- to utter an outraged yell, closed it, I t was hard to hear the voice on the telephone over the rain pelting outside my window. “Is that you, pouring rain. You have at best a cold and sore throat and at worst the flu. Do you really think that you’recertain cumstances, it has to be good for all people under all circumstances. Another one I have been running twitched her lips rapidly, drew a deep breath, and tried again. “Grace, dear, did you ever think Joan? You don’t sound like yourself. to start drinking again if you don’t into lately is “We should never that people respond in one way or Is something wrong?” risk pneumonia to get to a meeting manipulate people.” It came up most another to everything we say to It was “Joan,” six weeks sober, tonight?” recently when “Grace” and I were them? If we speak angrily and critichecking in with her sponsor on the “Of course not! Drinking is the last having coffee with “Amanda.” I like cally they respond negatively. When coldest, wettest night of the year, in a thing I want to do. But they told me I to spend time with Amanda, who has we speak lovingly and approvingly, voice 1 hardly recognized. had to make my ninety meetings. . .” been sober in AA nearly thirty-five they respond positively. In that sense “I just got home from the office,” “The Big Book doesn’t tell you years, hoping some of her love and we are, all of us, manipulating other Joan croaked, “and 1 think I’m sick. that. I’m your sponsor, sober around kindness and understanding will rub people all the time. We just don’t My throat’s sore and I can’t seem to ten thousand days now, and 1 don’t off on me. realize we are doing it. What you get warm.” tell you that. Actually, Joan, going to Grace shared with us her woes seem to object to is doing it deliber- “Thank goodness you’re in out of a lot of meetings while you’re new to about a family member, with whom ately, in a planned campaign to imthe rain! Do you feel up to a can of AA is an old idea, and a good one. If she had a running fight going. Well, prove things. But that is exactly what soup?. . .Good. I f you eat some hot you treat it as a suggestion, not a com- not all the time. Only when they were AA does, and why it succeeds in helpfood and go right to bed -” mand, and rf you use common sense together and only when they dis- ing alcoholics stop drinking, when “1 can’t,” Joan wailed. “I have to when applying it.” cussed any of their several areas of nothing else works. The sick alcoholgo to a meeting tonight. If 1 don’t go Joan, to the relief of us both, disagreement, which was about all ics come to us, hurt and resentful to a meeting every night I might not decided to use some sense and stay they ever discussed. She didn’t like from angry criticism about their getmy ninetymeetingsinninetydays.” home in bed. I, too, stayed home and her relative’s attitude. He reacted drinking, and AA gives them love, ‘

I opened my mouth, prepared to reflected on the tendency we alcohol- with angry resentment to her justified encouragement, and understanding utter an outraged yell, closed it, ics have to create rigid rules for a pro- criticism and complaints. – on purpose. And the results are breathed a fast prayer for patience, gram that has always worked better “It seems to me that you are trying terrific. and tried again. without them. We’ve done it since AA to force another person to change, “The principle that we shouldn’t I “Joan, dear, it’s a bitter night, and started, as writings about the early

try to take over and control other It strikes me that “they,” whoever people’s lives is basically sound. It “they” are, must keep awfully busy. doesn’t mean we shouldn’t control Taking every suggestion that is good and direct our own actions into ways in theory, if used with discretion and which are beneficial rather than de- common sense, and turning it into a structive. You apparently believe that universal rule to be forced on everyusing cruel, unkind words that are one regardless of circumstances, certain to produce an angry reaction can’t be easy. I wonder how “they” is alright, but using warm, loving find time to work their own AA words that at least have a chance of programs. encouraging harmony and coopera- I wish “they” would relax a little tion is manipulative and wrong. Does and concede that so much rigidity is that make good sense?” often ill-advised, and sometimes even “I never thought of it that way,” dangerous. It can be a threat to Grace admitted. “I guess I never health, like Joan’s, to domestic tranreally thought about it at all. h he^ quility, like Grace’s, and to an even said we shouldn’t manipulate people, disposition, like mine. and that was as far as 1 got.” E. E., Tulsa, Okla.

ing desperately wants were offered on quietly, not about her drinking, him only by strangers, and a special but about my own, explaining that alkind of strangers. coholism is an illness, and how we re- Yet, even as I struggled with my cover from it in AA. tears of sympathy for Conrad, I rea- Sara, tearful but relaxed and no lized my compassion was for all of us. longer afraid of me, said, “How kind Was there an alcoholic alive who you are! I never expected anyone to hadn’t lived with unending criticism be nice to me.” and disapproval? Then, to move “How do you think it would be to from that dark night of the soul into sit in a room with about twenty men the sunlight of kindness and love we and women, every one of them unfind in AA! No wonder AA works derstanding about compulsive drinkwhen nothing else does. ing because they did it, and every one When 1 made a Twelfth Step call anxious to be kind and nice to you?” on “Sara” some years ago my chief “I think it would be heaven!” problem was to induce her husband “Then be ready at 8 o’clock toto leave us alone to talk in private. He night, Sara, because I’m going to treated me to twenty minutes of com- pick you up and take you to heaven.” plaints about her lack of willpower, In my more than a quarter of a cenher selfish indulgence in booze, the tury in AA I have seen only a few inway she had embarrassed him by her stances of a new person being treated

I A Bimple Act of Kindness drunken behavior. “It was ridiculous for her to call AA anyway,” he wound up. “All you can do is talk to her. and I can do that.” with deliberate cruelty. But I have seen some, which means I have seen far too many. One . . ha~uenedwhen 1 was only a

W hen newcomers to our AA group prefer to listen in silence we respect their wishes. But that we had experienced the same fears and despair ourselves. Conrad said, with a world of “Yes, talking is all we can do, but since I’ve made the trip out here, and thousands of alcoholics have stopped few months sober, visiting what everyone called “Amos’s group.” “Amos” asked for a few mi.nutes of when a new man or woman shows in- astonishment and gratitude in his drinking as the result of the kind of the group’s time. Contributions were terest, wants to know how we stay voice, “This is the first time in ten talking we do, and it seems to work too low, he told them. Some weeks sober, what AA is like, and whether years I have felt that anyone cared better when we talk privately;do you there was hardly enough to pay exhe belongs with us, how quick we are about me.” think.. .?” penses, which was not be tolerated. to reach out with the same under- 1 blinked suddenly wet eyes and After he departed, Sara, who had “Nancy,” a member of the group standing and concern that were given kept the tears from spilling over. For maintained a sulky silence through- who was even newer to AA than I, to us when we were new. ten years this man had lived with criti- out, visibly braced herself against put up her hand. “Conrad” was one who needed all cism and rejection. His out-of-con- another attack, this time from me. I “What are the group’s expenses? .the reassurance and encouragement trol drinking had dominated his smiled and took her hand. I haven’t been here long enough to we could muster for him. We watched thoughts, and the thoughts of every- “Dear Sara, 1know how you feel. 1 find out.” with interest the growth of incredu- one around him, so completely that drank just the way you do. And 1was Amos’s expression startled me. lous relief as he slowly became sure they could see nothing else. The love so scared, because I didn’t want to Surely he couldn’t be that angry at that no one was condemning him and and understanding every human be- drink like that, but 1 had to.” I went what seemed to me a perfectly inno-

cent and proper question. “Oh. . .all “So was I. I blame myself, and all right. I’ll tell you!” And he gave a of us relatively old-timers, for keepbrief, brusque run-through of the ing quiet when we should have spogroup’s major expenses, and ended ken up. I have made up my mind that with “You’d have to be dumb and ig- I will never let something like that go norant to ask a question like that!” unchallenged again. If we have a row, What shocked me even more than so be it. Amos could have driven her his statement was that none of the away from AA entirely. That’s a risk older members spoke up in Nancy’s we mustn’t take with any new person. defense. Much later I asked a senior We did lose her from the group. She member of the group why no one had came back a few times, but never fulprotested. ly trusted us again, and who could blame her? When we failed her in ‘Tin my more than a kindness, we failed her completely.” For a long time after I became qmrter ofa centwy sober in AA I thought all it took to give any reasonably willing newcomin AA I have seen er a good start on recovery was identification with fellow alcoholics. I no only a fay instunces longer think that this, alone, is @a new pe3″son enough. It is essential, yes. There would be no AA without it. But once being treated with that identification is established our new, sick, frightened alcoholic is deZibe3″atem l t y ) ) looking for something else he needs just as much – kindness, love, and “Two reasons,” the man replied. the absolute certainty that we truly “First, we love Amos, in spite of his care about him. passion for holding power where no Conrad was profoundly relieved to one should. Aside from that he is a find we understood his drinking. good AA and has done a lot for the Only when he was convinced that we group. Second – and I’m ashamed cared about him could he feel he beof this – we were afraid to. We longed to us. Sara identified gratefuldidn’t want a flaming row at the ly with the story of my drinking. The meeting, and we’d have had one if promise of finding kindness and love Amos thought anyone was question- there made her look forward to an ing his authority. He took Nancy’s AA meeting as a trip to heaven. question as defiance, which is why he Kindness. lashed out at her.” Its cost is nothing. In AA its value “I was afraid she’d be so upset she is beyond measure. might drink again.” E. E., Tulsa, Okla.

July 1986 Long before AA entered my life, I stole the very things I thought it had ‘ knew I was a “problem drinker.” given me: self-confidence, a sense of Admitting and accepting myself as an belonging, a feeling that somehow I alcoholic took much, much longer. “mattered.” But my drinking didn’t As I look back, I knew that somehow stop at theft; it wanted to murder, I tried to control my drinking from and it did kill. It destroyed sweet the beginning, buying only a half-pint relationships, and it killed others’ for weekdays, a pint for Friday hopes for me. At last it killed my own nights, and, as for Saturdays and hope, my belief that I could think Sundays, they were times to pull out about anything other than the next all the stops, weren’t they? As the drink. And it very nearly killed me. drinking got worse (and for the active alcoholic, there is no other way it can go), and the half-pints turned to pints ‘Tt wouU be better and to fifths, I grew to hate Sundays, knowing that somehow I had to fbr my chiLdm to find a stopping point so that I could try to be halfway sober for work have no mother than Monday morning. to have a d m n h From the time I started drinking to the time I called for help, the relation-filurejk a mother, ship between me and my drinking changed. At first, alcohol was my muHn )t it?’) medicine, my sedative. How wonderful to take a drink and go to sleep, One day in August of 1%5, I finaland at that time, it really was a drink. ly knew: there was no hope for me, Then how marvelous to have a drink there was no help. Neither my life nor or two and feel the tensions of the life itself had any purpose or meanlong day slip away. Alcohol was ing. I truly believed there was no surely my friend, my solace,, my con- God, and surely no God stronger than solation, my panacea, my magic! death. It was obvious, wasn’t it, that Why, then, and how did it turn into the only decent action left for me to my mortal enemy? Why did it be- take was to die? It would be better for come a thief, stealing every dear thing my children to have no mother than from me: the love and respect of my to have a drunken failure for a rnothfamily; my ability to work and think; er, wouldn’t it? And so I took the six the time and opportunity to do some- or eight tranquilizers that my mother thing besides get drunk, and then in had supplied for the “nervousness” the fear and trembling of near-para- she had observed in me, washed them lyzing guilt and remorse, try to sober down with as much alcohol as I could,

Y standing of how-and why all this good, here and now, came to me. up? And of course, drinking finally and laid me down to die.

You might think I awoke with a to -a degree, sponsor, although na- – for myself! But 1985 also brought great wongreat sense of joy and gratitude, but turally and necessarily we turn to Why did my call to AA work? Be- ders to remember: the privilege of my inability to commit suicide only others in the program for our individ- cause none o f the people who an- attending the International Convenconfirmed the extent of my failure, ual growth. swered my plea came to “rescue” me. tion in Montreal, and of going to the depth of my degradation, and the They did not come to “do good” or New York and visiting the General enormity of my powerlessness. I went to “save” me or to dwell on my fail- Service Office! And as marvelous as t o the telephone and called AA. “Why did my call to ures and imperfections. They neither those events were, something even Why? How was I, still reeling from preached nor judged nor condemned. more miraculous occurred this year. the stupor of the dreadful night be- AA wwk? Became They came to help themselves. And, In August, our entire family gathered fore, able to reach out? You, of course, are free to form your own none of the people as any alcoholic who has heard the AA message knows, it was what they to help us celebrate our twentieth AA birthday. were doing for themselves that helped explanation. Mine is this: the grace of a power greater than myself. It may who a n m d my pku me! The wall I had built around me It is customary in our group that those in attendance identify themvery well be that people, people whom I had hurt so terribly, still cum to ‘~escw’we. began to crumble, and AA members showed me how to take the very maselves: “I am A-, and I’m an alcoholic,” or “My name is B-, and prayed for a miracle. Perhaps they still loved a very unlovely, unlovable They dld not c o w terials that the wall had been made of in the first place and begin to build a I’m an Al-Anon.” Can you imagine how thrilled and touched we were me. I do know that I was filled with bridge – to them, to AA, and finally, when our sons, daughters, daughternothing but overwhelming self-loath- in a painfully slow spiritual awaken- in-law, sons-in-law, and grandchiling. I know too that today I believe ing – to God as I understand God. dren all said, in turn, “My name is that because I was unable, I was en- I have written this little passage in -, and I’m a family member”? abled. Precisely because 1 was unable I cannot find words sufficient to my personal history while sitting on That celebration meant more to me to stop, unable to help myself, unable express my gratitude that AA was my patio on a beautiful sunny morn- than anything else that has happened to control or fight my drinking any there when I called. All I brought to ing late in 1985. I have been thinking in the past two decades. It signified to longer, and obviously unable to win this program was my own experience. back over the difficulties of this year: me that amends had been made and this battle, I was enabled to begin It is AA that continues to give me the prolonged illness and death of a accepted, that all the pain and sufferto recover. strength and hope. I am learning how dear sister-in-law; various kinds and ing were worth it, that indeed I am But the miracle that began that to be sober, which is not the same degrees of problems for other family learning not to regret the past, nor to Friday the 13th extended beyond my thing to me as just not taking a drink. members; the instability of the econ- wish to shut the door on it. I know individual plight. Although he did Because of what I am learning from omy; the insanity and misery of the how profoundly blessed I am. not think at the time that he had any AA and from AAs, I know now that larger world. All of these’are suffi- Right now, the sun is warm on my need for this program himself, my an inability to deal successfully with cient to make me feel that 1 should be back. I am aware o f the light and the husband decided to “come along for feelings of fear, rebellion, guilt, glad to say goodbye to 1985. But shadows, of the beauty and simplicthe ride.” The miracle blossomed and shame, remorse, and anger has today 1 know what I can and cannot ity, and the joy of being sober. I continues: not only are we both still plagued me since very early child- change. I also know that growth is know today that life is a gift, and a . sober, we are still married – to each hood. It is only now and here in the painful, but the paradox of growth is sober life for the alcoholic is a gift other! Our relationship today is more program and Fellowship of Alcohol- that its pain is ultimately good. It is beyond measure. Above all, I know honest, more open and more mature, ics Anonymous that I am learning especially good for me to learn that I that because I have been given the more truly caring. We love each other about my feelings and how to express must allow others the experiences opportunity for sobriety, I live and more deeply and sincerely every day. them with love, not only for those that help them to mature and grow in grow in the sunshine of God’s love. We are one another’s best friend and, around me, but -miracle of miracles stature and in grace. C. F., Lafayettle, La.

J*.’ July

A ; I have a younger sister in Maryland whom I have been watching hit bottom for the last three years. 1have ” Here is the last one I wrote to her while she was still in jail: “I was thinking of you and thought landed back in the hospital, this time on the psych floor.

Carbon “Right now you have a chance, if really witnessed how alcoholism is a I would drop you a line. I hope things you are willing to do certain things. family disease. I sponsor lots of peo- are going okay with you. I know these Your life and future depend on your ple, but it is really hard dealing with a last few years I have written you willingness to work toward sobriety. family member. I realize how power- letters that were not pleasant. What I And AA is definitely something that less I am, and how cunning, baf- have been doing is sharing my story works for alcoholics. I believe in you. fling, and insidious aicoholism is. with you in hopes that it might help. If I can do it, so can you. You only I have also witnessed family denial “I have been watching you hit your have three choices: to be locked up, bottom, knowing how you feel. You to sober up, or to be covered up. Over the last few years I have are a carbon copy of me and of what “Right now you are at a turning watched my sister wreck her car sev- alcoholism was doing to my life. point. You can either choose to sureral times, and get busted for DUI. When I went into treatment my mo- render to AA or you can continue The last time, about eight months tives were not honest. I went mainly what you have already tried. And ago, she had to do some time in jail. to get my job, family, and the judge believe me, things can always get She was released on a Thursday morn- off my back. Even though my mo- worse. I was facing a year in thewoming and soon after that she got hit by tives weren’t honest, treatment really en’s penitentiary when I finally sura drunken driver. The guy that hit her helped. I learned I had a disease. rendered to AA. With you being on had no insurance, a revoked driver’s “I also went through jail many two years’ probation, if you get times – on weekends, overnight, and caught doing anything, you are gone, one time for thirty days. Alcohol was no exceptions. It is no game. This is hospital. As she was lying on the table always the bottom line. When I woke real. It was only by the grace of God . in the emergency room having her up in jail one Sunday morning (not that I did not go to prison. head sewn up, she said to our mother, realizing it was Easter Sunday), I “My last drink was February 16, “That could have been me hurting looked at myself and hated what I 1981. I have never been happier. I did saw. I didn’t believe in God and I not know so many beautiful things wanted to die. I felt so ashamed. I felt and people could ever be in my life, that life had no meaning for me. I felt just one day at a time. Staying sober that my only purpose in life, if I even and clean meant just being willing to had one, was to suffer. The only have some kind of faith. My faith thing that made me feel any better started in AA. It started with the was to fantasize about death. group and my sponsor. Then I slowly “When I finally started going to started to believe in myself, to believe AA, I didn’t do anything they told that I deserved to be happy, and that me to do. I didn’t drink for seven I was worthy. I pray that you will months, but that was all. I was still choose a life of sobriety over a life hanging out with old playmates in old in prison. playgrounds. I started substituting “I also want you to know I am drugs for alcohol and I was back on your friend.” that merry-go-round called denial. I D. W;,Atlanta, Ga.

. …

January

. About ‘relatlonshlps’ . . Three years later, I admitted, ac- From Carlsbad, Calif.: cepted, and made a commitment to Over- the past ten years, I have myself and AA that 1 was an alcoheard the subject of relationships holic and that no excuse was valid to discussed many times. My personal drink alcohol again. It was already opinion is that a relationship is not a too late for my wife; she died fortycommitment, and thus will usually eight days after 1 became sober. Her lead to great emotional pain. death gave me an excuse to drink, but When I made my trial run at AA in my commitment was firm. I no longer 1973,I established a relationship with had a relationship with AA; I was the Fellowship. I resolved to give it a practicing the principles in all try, but if something better came my affairs. along, I would change horses. Every 1 remember the words of my first move I made was tentative, until a sponsor, who said, “How come those better thing came along. I attended that want to have relationships never one meeting a week, bought the Big seem to want to become relations?” Book, made coffee, and always voiced The answer is fairly obvious to me my opinions at the meeting. I never now. Relationships are for those who did read the Big Book, and I have no don’t want to accept responsibility idea of what 1 said at those meetings. and really share themselves with an- Then the relationship ended! I other person. There is an easy out came home from work one Friday just leave. Commitments are solid after six or eight months of dryness and become more so with time. and found my then wife drunk. My You might just want to take a excuse to break up with AA was moment and reflect on you at this weaving in front of me, and I quickly very moment. Do you have a relatook advantage of that excuse. I tionship, or a commitment to AA and rushed to the nearest liquor store, to others in your life? C. R. bought a bottle, and was drunk within the hour. I fixed her, by golly!

May 1987 detailed his membership in AA – But what about the celebrity on along with his repeated relapses. At “60 Minutes”? She didn’t say the end, he was living with a bunch of she attends AA; the interviewer pronuns and limping through a pretty vided that superfluous detail in a ragged life. voice-over. In the second the author referred Either some journalists are ignoronly to “a fellowship of recovered ing the ground rules, or the people alcoholics,” but set forth a gritty, they’re interviewing aren’t making painful history written several years the ground rules clear. Whatever the into hard-won sobriety. Is there a case, it’s our responsibility to let peoconnection here? ple know- members of the press and Of course there is. Abiding by a fellow AAs alike – that this is one tradition that advises against break- part of what makes AA work, one ing anonymity at the level of radio, reason why there are success stories to TV, press, or film – even when one report in the first place. I used to rail against the Eleventh Tradition, used to insist it no longer made sense; I railed, and people ing forward to that one, and listened with pleasure as it began. 1 went at the dishes with energy and cunning part wants to swagger, and clamors to rebel – is another way of affirming that sobriety means more Maybe we need to be like the Amish, flashing mirrors at tourists who want to take their pictures: Maylistened. Then one night someone turned frequently to watch as the to us than the deceptive “comfort” be we need to rail a little. told me something I hadn’t thought show went on; my regard for CBS, of sliding back into a well-worn habit. B. N., Charlottesville, Va. about, and I stopped railing: What if for presenting such an unsparing a person who’s gone public about account of alcoholism, increased attendance at AA has a slip? What steadily. They talked about the happens then? mother who’d broken free of her dis- I know now that there are other ease, and showed footage of the two reasons underlying this Tradition. together, and spoke of denial and hit- But this is the one that makes most ting bottom. It was great stuff. sense to me, and every time I see ano- But then it came out. No matter nymity broken at the public level, I what city she’s in, she goes to Alcowince. holics Anonymous. And after that it l b o weeks ago 1 was doing the went further. Yes, she admitted, there dishes and listening to “60 Minutes.” have been slips, and she feels awful The first segment was on adolescent every time. addiction, specifically teenagers in- So what’s the viewer’s opinion of troduced to drugs and alcohol by AA, based on watching that show? their own parents; in my mind I com- That this is a normal run of events, plimented CBS for work well done. slips followed by abject telephone The last segment was a profile of a calls? celebrity who had emerged from a It makes me think about two books well-known treatment center and put 1 read several years ago. In the first, her life back in order. I’d been look- the author (using his full name) freely

May 1987

right? I mean, what about people seeing each other on a regular basis who are married when they come into with no strings attached. We decided AA. Do they divorce their spouses to give it a try. for a year? Just because I happen to Things went very well for about a be single, does that preclude me from month. I felt wonderful! I had a lady the enjoyment of the opposite sex? I in my life who 1 really liked and remean, I’m ready to be happy, joyous, spected, and I was staying sober! and free! Happy, joyous, and free was here at After discussing my plan with my last, right. . .? Wrong! In retrospect, sponsor, and assuring him I wasn’t no one was to blame for the eventual looking for anything heavy or deep in break up. I guess we set ourselves up a relationship, just some regular with unrealistic expectations of each steady companionship and good com- other. She felt we should spend more pany, he responded in his standard time together, and I wanted my fashion, “I can’t, nor would I if I space. We seemed to disagree and could, tell you what to do. I can only argue more and more often about suggest.” He proceeded to suggest seemingly insignificant things. Rewhat 1 thought he would: “The sentments became reality and my AA advice is, no major decisions or rela- program began to suffer. I didn’t tionships in the first year.” I remind- pick up a drink; however, the thought ed him that when I had admitted that of doing so entered my mind on sev- 1 was powerless over alcohol and that eral occasions. My options were my life had become unmanageable, clear: continue the relationship and 1 didn’t realize that also meant taking try to deal with our problems, or con- YouWant a Relationship? a vow of chastity and preparing for a monastic existence for the first 365 days. centrate those energies on staying sober and working my program. I chose the latter with some regret. I

I had been in the program about two months and was starting to feel a little better physically, but that ness, hello togetherness. My brilliance sometimes amazes me! Why hadn’t I thought of this before? No He wisely reminded me that I had just two months of sobriety (it felt like two years), and that he could not really wanted this relationship, but I wanted it on my terms and that doesn’t work. awful void and the loneliness 1 felt more liquor-laced lines in singles bars remember reading anything any- My lesson was well learned. Luckwhen 1 was drinking was still rearing for me. No more hungover mornings. where that proclaimed you were sup- ily, the lady was understanding. I see its ugly head. Somewhere in the re- This would be a sober relationship posed to start feeling happy, joyous, her now and again at meetings, and cesses of my mind, the thought supported and blessed by my AA pro- and free in sixty days. 1 thanked him we have remained friends. I guess we . occurred that a relationship with a gram. Besides, it was time I started for his opinion and set out to prove were just in different places. By the lady in the program could possibly fill feeling happy, joyous, and free, like him wrong. way, I invited my sponsor over for that void and lessen my incredible the others I had heard speak. I was attracted to a particular lady lunch after the break up. He enjoyed loneliness. What could be more per- I had heard about the warnings and in my home group who had just com- a bowl of my homemade chili while I fect? Two people enjoying each advice given to newcomers: no major pleted a year of sobriety. We often ate my own words. other’s company and sharing their decisions or relationships for the first went out for coffee after the meetings For the next four months, I kept a newfound sobriety. Goodbye loneli- year. There must be some exceptions, and had discussed the possibility of low profile socially. I made my meet-

ings and called my sponsor on a regu- transition to sobriety was, at the very lar basis. 1 started getting involved. 1 least, difficult, and certainly did not chaired and led several meetings and need the added complication of tryvolunteered to make coffee, to set up, ing to cope with stress in a relationand to clean up. I began to get over ship at that particular time. the loneliness that had returned after Is the prospect of a relationship in the break up.. sobriety realistic for me? Certainly it 1 had finally admitted to myself is. But only through fourteen months that 1 was wrong to try and have a re- of sobriety have I been able to relationship so soon after joining AA. I evaluate my concept of what I want in mean, two months really wasn’t long such a relationship. I’ve come to reenough. My feelings at the time were alize that a relationship, at the very of anger, I guess. Here I was, least, is a give and take situation for attempting to change my old way of both participants. Now, I was aware living, and trying to do everything of this intellectually while 1 was that was suggested. 1 just wanted drinking, but not emotionally. I someone to commiserate with. I always wanted things to go “my wanted sympathy as well as com- way!” If they didn’t, I pouted, got panionship. angry, or exhibited some other imnla- At the time it was difficult for me ture behavior. to understand the reasoning behind A relationship represents a spirithe suggestion that there should be no tual and emotional bond between two relationships or major decisions in individuals. It must show genuinethe first year. All I knew was that here ness of caring, and a sharing of your I was, undergoing major changes in experience, strength, and h o p with my life, changing my socializing and each other, as well as being supmy friends, as well as trying to adapt portive in times of need. to a new way of living, and I was In order to give all that I can to a miserable. relationship, I must “have my house Having given time time, I now un- in order.” The aforementioned rederstand the concept behind the sug- evaluation would not have been gestion. Relationships often lead to possible had I continued to seek a emotional trauma, anger, and resent- relationship within my first year. I ments. All of these are danger sig- reluctantly took the advice that was nals! These are luxuries I couldn’t given, concentrated on my program afford – then or now! I needed every and turned the rest over. ounce of sanity and all the energy I Hopefully, when the opportunity could muster to deal with life on life’s for an honest relationship presents itterms. I found that seemingly insig- self, my house will be in order and 1’11 nificant problems were magnified be ready. and blown out of proportion. My R. B., Greenacres, Flu.

f.’ July 1987

i l

floor and wandered my way. Without tears began to flow. any prompting on my part, she began Fortunately I had heard enough in to pour her heart out. At least she meetings to know how useless it was tried; since she was extremely intoxi- to try and talk any great amount of cated, her words were slurred and full sense to her. She needed someone to of emotion. Of course, having been listen. I also remembered my stubin her shoes many times, I could born nature when I was drunk, and understand every word. My heart knew this was no time to remind her . went out to her. of AA principles. I did tell Jenny how I had met Jenny a month or so much of myself I saw in her. She surearlier and had quickly established a prised me by agreeing that she saw special place for her in my heart. You herself in me. She asked me why I was see, she’s a spitting image of me. 1 sober and she was not. Then, withdon’t mean that she resembles me out waiting for an answer, she dephysically. 1 mean that her behavior scribed how her life had been when is just like my behavior when I was she wasn’t drinking. drinking. The very first time she came She said AA meetings had depressed bouncing up on campus, empty grin her (“nothing but sixty-five-yearon her face, cigarette in her hand, and old men who had lost everything”). bragging of her latest drinking esca- AA meetings used to depress me pades, I knew I was looking in a mir- too, until my sponsor pointed out ror. Try as she could, Jenny could not that I had not lost anything, yet. hide the loneliness and despair in her She shared with me how it made her eyes. I couldn’t help but think back angry when everyone continually told on my boisterous, self-centered at- her how “proud they were” when tempts at covering my own pain, not she wasn’t drinking. In early sobriety too long ago. I hated such comments too. I may So I -got Jennv- a -glass of water and have been a little foggy, but .I knew

A t a recent noon meeting on gratitude, I felt compelled to share my New Year’s Eve experiences. The its of some of my fellow celebrators. One friend in particular I’ll call “Jenny.” Jenny is my age (early we went outside for some chilly night air. I was holding her up as we made our way. Everyone watched and if people were taking the time to notice I was sober, then they must have also noticed that I had a problem last night of 1986 gave me enough twenties). At one point she had stayed laughed. It struck me how often I’d with alcohol. No one bothers to comgratitude to last, hopefully, a lifetime. sober for a year arid a half. She chose been helped out of public places in ment when “normal” people aren’t After attending our local New not to change her playmates and the same way-amid stares and drinking. Year’s Alkathon, I chose to spend the playgrounds, however, and soon laughter. Jenny got out a cigarette Jenny swore she could not imagine remainder of the evening with returned to the bars. As often hap- and dropped it. She leaned over to life without drinking. She expressed “earth” people. The evening went pens, she rationalized her decision to pick it up and almost fell on her face. disbelief that she still had friends. She smoothly enough, up until the stroke drink by concluding that she had only She couldn’t make the lighter reach hated the sight of her own reflection of midnight. As the last chorus of been depressed, not alcoholic. the cigarette so 1 helped her. (At least in the mirror. Finally, she cursed her “Auld Lang Syne” died down, de- Around 12: 15 on the night in ques- she didn’t light the wrong end.) I disease and demanded to know why pression and guilt dampened the spir- tion Jenny stumbled off the dance leaned Jenny against a car and her she was different.

I stood next to her and calmly lis- Finally I regained some serenity, tened. My mind was racing. I wanted safe in the front seat of Debbie’s car. to shake some sense into her. 1 want- As I sat there, fighting off a headache ed to hug her and make it all okay. and waiting for everyone to be found, Most of all, I was thanking my Higher all I could do was repeat to myself, Power over and over again for show- “Thank you God, thank you God.” ing me myself in this other young Eventually Debbie got everyone woman. back to the car. Jenny was filled with We went back inside and the saga guilt. She kept apologizing and swearcontinued. She picked a fight with a ing this would be her last drink ever. friend and then with a policeman. After one stop to let yet another pas- The clincher came when she needed senger gracefully vomit out the back to use the restroom. The policeman door, we were able to head for home. wouldn’t let her out of his sight. Fi- Jenny asked me to take her to an AA nally he agreed to let me escort her meeting when she returned for spring straight to the toilet and straight semester. I told her all she had to do back. Imagine me, an ex-drunk was pick up the phone and I’d be who’s had more than mv fair share of more than happy to. I told her she run-ins with cops, being trusted by a will always have a special place in my man in blue! Once inside the rest- heart. With that the back seat got room, Jenny’s tears began to flow quiet as its occupants drifted off. again and I thought 1 d never get her So that’s how 1987 got started for back in the lobby. me. It truly was a wonderful experi- Bv this time 1 was worn out so 1 ence. Most importantly, by the grace turned Jenny over to her best friend, of God, I stayed sober. I was also another source of gratitude for me given the opportunity to see myself as that night. “Debbie” is one of those I used to be, as if I were watching a dry “alcoholics” who’s never picked movie. Hopefully I set a good examup a drink but has all our symptoms. ple. After all, 1 may be “the only Big She immediatelv entered “control” Book some people ever read.” gear and went inio action. This meant I am also grateful I no longer feel trying to fix Jenny and anyone else compelled to solve the world’s probwho happened to come within five lems, especially that night. AA has feet of her. As 1 watched her round taught me I cannot successfully manup all ten of our friends and herd age my own life, much less anyone them to the car, I was again reminded else’s. of my old behavior. Oh, how 1 used As I write this, I remember New to revel in any situation in which I Year’s Eve like it was yesterday. To could fix any person, place, or thing. insure a lifelong attitude of gratitude, Trying to control had been my, only I hope I never forget it. source of self-worth. L. B., Charlotte, N.C.

September 1987

with love, attention, and mottos at any given time. about “keep coming back, no matter Our format is simple. After the what!” I grew, matured, leveled out, Steps are read, prayers prayed, anand loved back while becoming a de- nouncements made, we pass out a voted member of my home group. basket of toys, paper, coloring When my baby was born, and my books, crayons, cookies, and kisses need for meetings was even greater, I for all. If things get too loud or crazy began to run into a problem: children during the meeting someone takes the aren’t always welcome in Alcoholics offending party for a walk, a hug, a Anonymous meetings. That includes visit to the powder room. It is a spewomen’s groups! cial meeting indeed. It is a place tor mothers, Financially and practically speak- where a mother can come where she is *f a ing, there are conditions to being a always welcomed with open arms in and others parent that are not unique to me that spite of the fact that her arms are can challenge a meeting schedule. filled with a loud, sticky two-year-old Childcare, for one, is very expensive. who is cutting teeth. There is more Many newly sober mothers have hus- love in this particular room than at bands who are in the program as well any other meeting I have ever been in and have meeting schedule problems – and I have been in a few thousand of their own. Still others are single of them over the years. parents with tight budgets. We even have a rather special meet- I know that it is disconcerting for ing time: 10:OO AM. We found that some people to be around small chil- this is a good time for mothers and dren anywhere, let alone in a meet- children alike. We are fresher and ing. For a new mother, intolerance calmer at this time than at the usual toward her children can be frighten- meeting times. ing at times, maddening at others, Being sober mothers is important and frustrating at best. Guilty and to most of us and we are determined angry from time to time over this in- to give the mothering part our best tolerance I finally found it necessary shot. Bedtimes, mealtimes, and bathaving been around these rooms I found the doors of Alcoholics to practice the principles of the pro- times are special times for us and 11for some time, I have formed Anonymous, and a couple of months gram in one more area of my life. I make up for some of the more unand rejected many opinionsregarding later found that I was to be a mother decided to take positive action! 1 be- appealing parts of the job. When we special-interest groups in the hal- for the first time. There was no direct gan a meeting we call Mothers in So- are always racing off to a nighttime lowed halls of Alcoholics Anony- connection between those two events briety. !t is a closed, nonsmoking meeting this competes unfavorably ‘ mous. I would like to share an experi- except that my sponsor and 1 shared meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. with those intimate times with our ence that began as a special-interest the joke that this must be my Higher We have everything every other meet- children that fly by too quickly and group, but has grown into something Power’s way of having healthier ing has, including the Twelve Steps, are so important for healthy relationnone of us ever imagined – a very babies enter this world, and to teach Traditions, coffee, and lots of love. ships. This may sound selfish up to important anchor in the lives of a me some lessons in humility. We also have anywhere from two to this point, but this is a selfish probunch of moms trying to stay sober! As a newcomer, I was showered twelve kids running around the room gram. I now have to confess that the

joke is on me. Though my motives We have mothers learning to love for beginning the mothers group were themselves by watching other motha bit murky I have to tell you all ers deal with their own children in a about the wonderful by-products of loving, caring way. We are seeing this meeting. each other grow in ways that would We have had a daddy show up who be skirted in more traditional settings needed to talk to a bunch of mothers in AA. about some difficulty he was having Last, but certainly not least, we being a single dad trying to make it in have newcomers and old-timers alike the program and raise his kids in a coming to us just to be “mothered” a loving atmosphere. little. They know that we always have We have single women come to our a lot of kissing, hugging, slobbering, group on a regular basis. They want and crying at our meetings. The to know “how it works” living with babies aren’t the only ones getting these children as sober alcoholic into the act! mothers. It is no easy road for any Sure we are a “unique” bunch. mother. An alcoholic mother often Sure we live in southern California brings skills to parenting that are bet- where we have the reputation for beter left behind. These single women ing a little “off the wall”! Like many have the presence of mind to know things from the sunshine state we that they can use some “hands on” think we have somet hing special. We experience before venturing into par- encourage and challenge you all to enthood. reach out to the mothers in your We have had retired preschool group and let them know how very teachers and nurses who come because special they are! The idea of having a they miss the honest, open-minded, group such as this is not new. Having and noisy sharing that only small families get sober and learn this prochildren seem to have naturally. We gram together goes back to the first have grandmas with absentee grand- meetings at Bill and Lois’ house. We children that they miss and so they like to think that our meeting is are able to unload some of their expe- smiled upon by our Higher Power rience, strength, hope, hugs, kisses. and the founders of this wonderful and common sense on the grateful gift called Alcoholics Anonymous. mothers and babies in our group. D.S., Curlsbud, C’ulif

October 1 9 8 7

The experience of my son and his lowship would be an immediate friends led me to consider why and source of social contact with those how I was able to find compatibility who also did not drink. AA could.

/ IsThere Room \ between AA’s teachings and my own teach me to be a social being without atheistic philosophies. My back- having to use the drugs I was accusground prepared me better, 1 think. 1 tomed to. She told me the lbelve

(, Enough in AA? ) had been raised in a religion – one Steps could be liberally translated to that I rejected, but also one that I be an excellent guideline for reasonunderstand and do not feel any par- able and harmonious living with I

f%atheist shares her experience, strength, and hope ticular animosity toward. I simply d o others and with myself. Not that first not regard belief in God as support- night, nor in the years of our friendable by evidence, rational, nor ship since, did she tell me that I must necessary for happy living. That was find God in order to stay sober. true for me when I got to AA and Over the years I have been reticent

R ecently my twenty-eight-yearold son began to recognize his growing problem with alcohol (an alcoholism is about as absurd to him as a suggestion to use bloodletting or a few voodoo treatments would be to continues into my long sobriety. 1 about my atheism at AA meetings besuspect that my earlier contacts with cause I know it goes against the grain religious people whom I loved and of most members and is contrary to episode with the law helped get his most of us in the modern Western trusted made me more tolerant or at AA literature. The chapter to the attention) and went to his first AA world. You see, my son, like me, is an least less suspicious of their ideas. agnostic is quite clear in its message meting on his own behalf. As a child atheist. Also the man who urged me to call that somehow all of us will eventually he had been to meetings with me, When my son told me of his en- AA was an atheist in AA and had find God – that such belief is fundanow sixteen years sober in AA. Over counter, I tried to point out to him forewarned me of the strong God ori- mental to humans. I do not agree, but the years he has watched the improve- that I and an agnostic woman he entation of many people. This AA when God or higher power is disments in my life and I am sure he knows have had success with AA’s member had suggested I reveal my cussed at meetings I tend to pass, exknows of AA’s high success rate for program. But his comment was: ideas at once and ask that I be re- cept at the small close-knit home alcoholism recovery. When he was “Maybe you can handle that stuff ferred to someone with similar ideas. group I attend. Otherwise, my contriabout eighteen and I spoke to him but I don’t want to waste my time Furthermore, I think my first call butions are mostly limited to topics about the probable inheritability of with it. I’ll just have to find some rea- to AA was crucially different than my which address practical sobriety. 1 alcoholism and the strong potential sonable way to work this out.” Like son’s. 1 told the woman who came to have refused requests to speak at for him to become alcoholic he said, many alcoholics he may still be some- take m6 to a meeting of my atheism meetings for several years because I “Don’t worry. If 1 find out I’ve got it what uncertain about whether he and my concern that AA might not didn’t think I should speak openly of 1’11 just go to AA.” wants to make a commitment to so- work for me. She respected my atti- how AA works in my life. The time has come for him, but his briety. The heavy-handed religiosity tude and pointed out to me how AA, Perhaps that was wise of me when I initial visit to AA for himself was a he found provided exactly the excuse regardless of God or higher power, was still quite mad and when the disaster. He says the only member he needed to bolt and run. Unfortu- had a great deal to offer that was very benefits of AA were not so obvious in there who approached him was a nately his assessment of AA as a practical. AA would (and did) pro- my life. It seemed unacceptable to woman, well-meaning no doubt, who group of religious fanatics was sup- vide friendly counseling from people state that sobriety is possible without began telling him the first thing he ported by two of his friends who had who had followed the same path as I. believing in God when my sobriety had to do was find a belief in God. also sought help from AA and had re- In the nurture of the Fellowship I was so short-term and my mental and This woman’s suggestion that God jected it for the same reasons after could develop living skills that I had emotional equilibrium was so tenuwould bring about his recovery from similar experiences. neglected for so many years. The Fel- ous. But years have passed and all the

promises of AA have come to me. My onstrations all around me that sobrilife is richer than I could have ever ety is the result of one recovering alimagined and I owe it entirely to the coholic helping another, with both AA program. You see, AA’s Twelve striving to achieve the orderly, re- Steps and the exchange of ideas with sponsible lives described in AA’s other recovering alcoholics are so Twelve Steps. effective in combatting this disease Often it is said in AA meetings that that, for some of us, these tools alone AA is not a religious program but a are enough to gain a rewarding sobri- spiritual program. However, in AA ety. It concerns me that many do not most spirituality is spoken about in realize this fact. religious terminology. The term God Rarely do I hear anyone else admit (with capital “G”) and references to to nonbelief in God, and I have, held “him” and “his will” are right out of the impression that very few atheists Western Judeo-Christian writings. remain in AA. The man who sent me We cannot expect a newcomer atheist to AA subsequently abandoned the to read between the lines of religious Fellowship. Often I have wondered jargon and conclude that a phrase whether the atheists commonly go like a “conscious contact with God” away or if they finally conform out of could be translared to mean “an engreater willingness or more deter- lightened attitude.” mination to believe than I have. Re- We all need to be able to explain to cently I have come to suspect that newcomers how AA works in terms neither is the case. I hear so little from that particular alcoholic can underatheists in AA because those of us stand. Never would I seek to explain who do not believe in God keep quiet AA in my own atheistic interpretaabout it. I have done so partly out of tion to an alcoholic who believes in timidity and partly to avoid the com- God and suggest that he would do ment that the admission of atheism well to modify his perception in order frequently brings: that I will someday to get or stay sober. Instead 1 can believe or I will get drunk. speak to the person about God from The relationship between a belief in the many references and explanations God and sobriety cannot be demon- which abound in AA literature. Yet it strated to be consistent. Over the is probably more difficult the other years I have watched many people get way around. A God-oriented AA drunk even though they professed a member doesn’t have a large supply belief in God and a clear understand- of ideas from atheists available to ing of him. The clergy suffer as much share with the newcomer atheist. Too from alcoholism as any other group few of us state our positions in meetof people. Clearly a belief in God is ings; too little is written in AA’s no assurance of not returning to literature. drinking. I am convinced from dem- J. L., Oakland, Gal$

February

for “them,” but I never considered like the day I saw an ex-patient at my that I, too, was an alcoholic. Years AA group who had five months sobefore, I said they’d have to pay me briety when I had five days. She was to go to an AA meeting, and God smiling and happy and I barely felt arranged it so they did. alive. “Bring the body and the mind will But by the gracc of God, I’m smil- I’ollow” is really true, because as time ing today. 1 feel accepted and loved passctl, I began to search my own and have a reason to live. 1 finally I ~ e a l I~ .5a\v patients being “restored came out of the closet about my newto sanity” and I hated them. They ly found sobriety when I invited the wcrc changing and I was nliscrable. patients to my 30-day birthday cele- One night, I was so broken down bration. It was hard to be that honest; inside that my soul literally ached. I’ve taken a lot of flak, but it’s been Suicide was all I could think of. After worth the effort. Once, I was accused the AA meeting, one of the members of going to AA meetings (at the AA look me aside and started sharing his group which meets at the hospital)

Microscope L hen I think back on how mis- me looking okay – that is, until I hope wilh me. Imagine! Twelfthstepped in the lobby of my own Ilospital! But I will never cease to be on my day off as “free hospital therapy” and I’ve been scrutinized by my employers and peers with a mi- W erable my life was just six escaped home to drink. months ago, before AA came into my “If you had the problems 1 have, grateful, because 1 haven’t had a drink of alcohol since. I was afraid for my job, so anonycroscope. But I’m still living proof that it works. life, I am reminded that miracles still you’d have to drink, too” was my Because I chose to be honest, I’ve n~ously I sobered up “under the been able to share my experience and can happen. I thought I was so theme song. I worked, went to colunique, that no one in the world hurt lege, raised a family, and drank. My noses” of my colleagues at an AA hope with members of the staff (some group down the street from the treat- of whom used to drink with me after the way I did, and even though 1 was drinking got worse and worse until it ment center. I’m not going to tell you work). Recently, 1 had the joy of tellmarried and had two children, I felt 1 began to show at work. I never drank it was easy: I’d go crying to an AA ing my teary-eyed supervisor how she was dying of “terminal loneliness.” on the job, but I certainly comforted All my ambitions were crashingdown myself before and after. I was impos- meeting at noon and show up for could stop drinking (it even happens work at 4 PM. I drank so much orange to head personnel in treatment cenon my head one by one, and my self- sible to live with, even though I juice with honey that I thought I’d ters). Other staff have asked about esteem was gone. thought no one knew I was drinking. die, but no one at work suspected the change in my life: I say that it’s I had recently been rejected as a I know now that God was getting what was happening. candidate for medical school while 1 ready to do a miracle in my life, be- due to God and AA. I received more love and support Yes, miracles do happen. Although was working in a psychiatric hospital. cause our hospital opened an alcohol from my sponsor and AA friends As a mental health worker, I would treatment facility. I immediately I was unwilling to go to AA, God than I’d ever had in my whole life. 1 brought AA to me! go to work and listen to the problems asked to transfer to that unit, because also received large doses of humility: of my patients, while silently contem- of a conflict I was having with my B. T , Ft. Worth, Tex. plating ending my own life. I was a head nurse. My work record was imtower of strength outside, but inside I peccable and I got the job. was so afraid. I was tired of being so One of the things I had to do, daily, capable, so efficient, so understand- was to accompany the patients to AA ing; I hurt inside but my pride kept meetings. I really thought it was good

, .

A ~ r category that lepers or epileptics once ently blocked out those events. 1 did. Great strides have been made never fully grieved the death of my against the stigma of those two ill- baby. And when physical abuse took nesses, but it took centuries. place in my marriage, I invented re- I think women alcoholics face a markable fabrications to explain the different set of problems than do bruises and black eyes. men. It is more “acceptable” for men Grown women cannot continue to . to drink. Nice women simply are not overtly play make-believe. As a wife, supposed to lose control. There is mother, and career woman I could no more of a stigma attached to an alco- longer run away to a dream world of holic mother. Therefore, I think cowgirls or queens or movie stars. women have a more difficult time ad- But I discovered another way to mitting they are alcoholic. It simply cope – a way accepted by society. A does not fit our cultural norms. relaxing drink could do no harm, and Whether I drink or not, I suffer it did help one unwind. And, after all, from the “ism” of the alcoholic. I my husband always had a drink or don’t feel quite on a par with others, two after work, and my female neighso I strive for perfection. I know how bors enjoyed backyard “happy I “should” be, so 1 stuff all the feel- hours.” y name is Ruth, an ings I consider unacceptable. I was a social drinker for a good I’m an alcoholic.” I am sure I was born with alcoholic many years. I disliked seeing people Never in my wildest dreams did I tendencies. As far back as I can re- drink to excess, so I was always carehink I would ever introduce myself member, I blocked out unpleasant re- ful. I was also careful about drugs of that way. I never considered that such ality with pleasant fantasy. If real life any kind, for I knew from experience a thing could happen to me. And – didn’t suit, I could invent one that 1 had very low tolerance to any medionce it did – it took me a long time did. I was very proficient at doing so. cation. It never occurred to me that to face the fact, and even longer to I was considered “creative.” alcohol is a drug in liquid form. I was also considered even-tem- As abuse in my marriage moved Today 1 believe alcoholism is a dis- pered (I believe the correct term is from verbal to physical, my conease, based on the wealth of informa- “passive”). Because I hated un- sumption of alcohol to “mellow” my tion to prove that premise. I did not leashed temper in my father, and later feelings increased. Such tactics may always accept that. I saw uncon- in my husband, I went to great effort have worked for a nonalcoholic. For trolled drinking as a moral weakness. to keep my anger under control. me, it simply made more rough spots. I still am not comfortable discussing I stunted many of my emotions. If During the last couple of years of my disease with nonalcoholics, be- the pain was too great, I overlooked my marriage I would fortify myself cause I’ve found many still consider or sugar-coated or buried, or I re- before my husband came home bean alcoholic person a “loser,” a treated into fantasy. For years I never cause I dreaded it. Conversely, I weakling. Diabetics may have a prob- came to terms with traumatic experi- would also drink when he was gone lem with sugar, but they are not ences, including molestation by an because I was lonely. I wasn’t a fullscorned, laughed at, or thrown into uncle and a brother-in-law, and a blown alcoholic yet. I was a good jail. I believe alcoholics fall into the rape when I was eighteen. I conveni- housekeeper, a good mother, a good

u employee. bad,person, one who had no scruples leave him. guilt. Wife, mother, churchgoer, I do believe batterers are also sick, or backbone. One who couldn’t cope. After a long period of sobriety, I drunk. It doesn’t fit. But another and women who stay with them are So, damn it, I’d prove 1 could cope. acted on the longing. It was Decem- female who has been down the same just as sick. So our marriage was un- On the outside, for a while, I did ber, a month full of sad memories. A road can share the feelings, and speak healthy on every front. I may have cope. I’d work until I was exhausted. child, my mother, and other close in the tongue of a fellow sufferer. drunk because of my unhappy mar- I could be Marvelous Mom, great ca- relatives had died in December. My My sponsor told me, “By all reariage, but my husband did not reer woman, fabulous lover. 1 could finances were low. And my ex tore son, we should both be dead by “make” me an alcoholic. He was sparkle – and wish I were dead. my ego toshreds. now.” She is correct. Even overlooksimply the catalyst. But at the time, I Finally, through treatment and So I drank, I drove, and I am now ing the reckless chances, the driving, didn’t realize that. AA, I did face some of my ghosts. I serving a prison sentence because of the suicidal thoughts – drinking it- Finally, I did leave my husband acknowledged my fear, my anger, my that “relapse.” self is a slow suicide. and sought divorce. Divorce is a frustration. 1 accepted the fact that I I know I did not drink because my I should be dead. God chose to crazy time for any couple, and ours used alcohol to cope, and for me that son died or because my ex called me keep me alive. He has a reason, alwas pure hell. There was a great deal was not a viable solution. I came to names. I drank because I am an alco- though at this point l am not certain of jealousy and the battering con- believe I was suffering from a disease holic, and it is unnatural for an alco- what it is. Perhaps it is just to show, tinued. The hurt, the fear, the games as real and as deadly as cancer or holic to not drink. Those “things” no matter what the obstacles, there played are beyond description. With diabetes. I could not be blamed for gave me the impetus to drink; but a can be life after drink. my life in such a mess, who wouldn’t being an alcoholic; I had no more logical person would weigh the conse- An old Indian saying is, “Do not drink? control over that than I would have quences. The insanity of the disease judge your neighbor until you have I honestly believed that once my over an allergy to strawberries. Nor dispels logic. walked a mile in his (her) moccalife calmed down, my consumption could I control my drinking through What can I do now? Get down to sins.” Wherever there is another would lessen, After all, everybody my own willpower. The big word, business and fully accept the fact of woman who has suffered the hell of drank! It harmed nobody. But I had and the most difficult, was “surren- my disease. I can no more be a little alcoholism, we have walked that the responsibility of a house, a job, der.” I had to realize what factors bit alcoholic than I can be a little bit same fearful, desolate path, and children. I needed to relax! would spur me on to take a drink – pregnant. shared those well-worn moccasins. But evidence was mounting. There and turn that problem over to a High- 1 do not believe punishment helps I do not believe I am a criminal. was that DWI. And the blackouts. er Power. alcoholics. If I take a drink, the fear But I was a prisoner to alcohol long And the late-night phone calls. I It worked most of the time, but it of consequences flies out the window. before I was jailed for DWI. I ‘should would tell myself I would only have took daily, conscious effort. I had no What I do think helps is a thorough be home soon. And I only hope in two drinks – and never keep that desire to drink “for fun” anymore, understanding – before the drink – some small way my story can help promise. but when life got perplexing I often of how surrender to a Higher Power. some other “nice” woman from Blame and denial. The two deadly faced the desire to block the frustra- must be put to work. walking all the way down the hill in aspects of the disease. I blamed my tions out. My ex-husband still knows A woman with the disease of alco- those tattered moccasins. ex, my loneliness, my finances, my exactly which buttons to push for a holism already bears a tremendous R. A., Rapid City, S.D. lovers – you name it, I blamed it. response. And in weak moments, I And hand in hand came denial. I had allowed those buttons free reign. And no problem, he was the problem. then, full of fear or rage, I would long Even after taking the tests to deter- for a drink. With a sneer, a threat, a mineif 1indeed was one of “those,” I putdown, sometimes even a proposidenied. And 1 denied because of tion, he would once again have conshame. To me, an alcoholic was still a trol of the woman who had dared to

July 1988

my shoes. Who was this woman, and mired her. She told of how her sponon whose authority did she presume sor had helped her work the program. to tell me that I wasn’t sober? 1 had She said, “If it weren’t for my sponnot had a drink in four days! sor, I probably wouldn’t be standing Another time, while the group was here tonight.” I wanted what she having coffee after a meeting, Mardie had. After the meeting, I asked her, started talking about the thirteenth “Who is your sponsor?” step. She didn’t say anything directly “Mardie,” she replied. to me, but I knew she meant it for me. With help from a Higher Power “When these people try to fall in love that I didn’t know I had at the time, I and get sober at the same time, there’s asked Mardie to be my sponsor. She bound to be problems. I’ve seen it didn’t say, “Yes, I’d be thrilled to be happen time after time.” I gritted my your sponsor.” She said, “Well, I’m teeth, thinking, “Now, she’s judging speaking Wednesday night at the First me and I haven’t even done anything Step group. You come and hear my yet. Easy for her to say since she’s story and if you still want me to be married.” your sponsor, I will.” Mardie had a lot of problems. She I went. I listened. At the end I W hen 1 first entered AA’s doors problem, for I remember saying, fourteen short months ago, 1 “My name is Fran, I’m an alcoholic had a slight problem with drinking. I and I’m mad as hell about it.” I reinsisted that everyone needed a spon- cried. I could identify with her story. sor. She suggested once in a meeting I loved her for sharing her experithat only AA General Service Con- ences and tragedies and finally, had been spending each evening in member peering at Mardie. I thought: ference approved literature be used through the AA program, her daily smoky taverns where no intelligent “She’s been in AA for at least 110 for conducting meetings. She re- victory over alcohol. So Mardie beperson would go, and more than once years and they’ve brainwashed the marked that new people should learn came my sponsor. I had passed out in my car, only to poor unfortunate into being grateful to listen. (I was sure she meant that It’s amazing, but Mardie is getting awaken to the sight of strange vines for being here.” jab for me, too.) She did, however, better. During the past fourteen growing on the sides of buildings. Mardie had a stern, no-nonsense always tell me, “Keep coming back.” months, Mardie has made remarkable Previously, I had been treated in hos- attitude. And over the next few And for some reason I did. improvements. She is understanding, pitals and clinics for being a manic months she let me hear from her on I was reluctant to choose a sponsor. loving, has a sense of humor, and depressive. I had attempted suicide more than one occasion. In particular, “lt’s nobody’s business what 1 do, possesses an uncanny knack for fig- . twice. I had lost a good husband and one night after my third or fourth what I’ve done, how many meetings I uring out just what newcomers need. two fine children through divorce. meeting, I came to repeat (so I go to, what Step I’m working, or any- I thank my Higher Power for teaming So when I came to AA, everything wouldn’t feel different), “My name’s thing else,” I thought. “I don’t need me up with Mardie. Her brand of was “fine,” except for my slight Fran and I’m an alcoholic. I’m glad any of these old biddies telling me tough love was just what I needed. I drinking problem. At my first meet- to be here and glad to be sober.” what I should do.” Just the other day Mardie gave me ‘ ing, 1 met “Mardie.” I knew she had Mardie was sitting next to me and she But I wanted to get sober. I didn’t a pair of almost new shoes which she problems from the moment she nudged me and said sternly yet softly, want the going-to-the-tavern/passing- no longer wears. They are a lovely opened her mouth because I heard almost teasingly, “We’ll let you know out-in-my-car routine back again. So crimson color. I wear them all the her say, “I’m grateful to be here and when you get sober.” I started to look around for a spon- time. But you know, they are just a grateful to be sober.” 1 was furious. How dare she talk to sor. One night a very charming and little too big. At least 1 was honest about my me like that? She hadn’t walked in intelligent woman gave a talk. I ad- E D.,Hlmtsville, Ala.

December 1988

going to be traveling. things, they are more than welcome to This is, of course, an open meeting. attend, to listen, to learn so that they We are aware that many people new to may become sober members. the program are unable to identify Since this has proved for us to be then~selvesas alcoholics, nor do they such a successful format for a beginyet have a desire to stop drinking. So, ners meeting, we wished to share our although they may not become mem- experience with others. bers until they are able to do these Janet P., Colchester, Vt.

A s a longtime member of AA, I have seen beginners meetings come and go. I have seen various for- Our meeting is scheduled an hour prior to the regular meeting. It runs for forty-five minutes, so there is mats tried and fail. Ultimately all of time for coffee and fellowship before these meetings have become simply the regular meeting, which is often another discussion meeting. attended by these same newcomers. In an attempt to start a meeting We have worked and reworked the which would address the specific format so that it can be understood needs of the newcomer, we tried yet by those not yet familiar with AA jaranother format. We use the book Liv- gon. We urge all who attend to take a ing Sober. We read a chapter at each copy of Living Sober, paying for it if weekly meeting in much the same way they are able, or as a gift of the group that many Step meetings utilize the if they can’t afford to pay for it. The “Twelve and Twelve.” We use the book is so inexpensive, it can easily be topic of the chapter as the basis for our gift to the newcomer starting on questions by the newcomers and the the road to sobriety. sharing of experiences by those who We have found this meeting to be a have been in the program for a while. good one to chair for the first time This format has been in use for and encourage members with six more than a year. Its success is evi- months’ sobriety to do so. This we do denced by attendance of thirty to for a period of only two weeks, thus forty people, when previous begin- rotating the office often. ners meetings seldom drew as many People in attendance at the meetas ten. Although the majority of ings with at least one year of sobriety those in attendance have less than a are asked to identify themselves if year’s sobriety, the return to basics of they are willing to act as “temporary this format appeals to enough long- sponsors” for newcomers to help timers to ensure sufficient AA experi- them become familiar with meetings ence to be shared. and the new road of sobriety they are

January 1 9

bird inside my stomach, and I reniem- warn me how vulnerable I was. ber thinking to myself, “If yo11 don’t I noticed Bob had started hanging get moving you’re about to get around after the meetings like I did. kissed! ” .Then he told me his wife’s father was There were only two things in the ,very ill, and she had gone back home way of our e~ljoyingsucli a romantic to care for him. She had already been . moment – his wife and my husband! gone four weeks, and he didn’t know Only two things that really headed up when she would be returning. In his a list of a thousand reasons why nei- eyes 1 saw the same bewilderment 1 ther of us should have even been on was feeling. How could we be so that beach that night. abandoned? Suddenly I noticed that My husband John, a teacher, was Bob had deep blue eyes, that he was 1,500 miles away starting a new train- tall and athletic and very, very ing program. It was harder than he’d attractive. expected. When he did have time to I shook it off – this was silly. Kid’s cal: me, all I heard were gripes and stuff. Worse than that, it was remicomplaints. He usually didn’t even niscent of the old sick behavior, the bother to ask about me or our grown kind of thing I used to do, back when children. I was beginning to wonder I was one of those tornados. Back which he loved most, me or teaching? then there had been broken marri- I was working long hours and feel- ages, broken vows, broken lives. This

Too Close ing neglected. Our children had lives was now, this was supposed to be Reof their own and rarely called. I had a covery. 1 had respect for Bob’s probusiness at that awkward stage where gram, too. We were both supposed to

for Comfort it was too much for one person but not be living our lives on a different big enough to hire help. I had hopes spiritual basis. It was just a flash, and and fears 1 needed to be able to talk it passed. over. My partner had deserted me to The next day Bob was there after HI e taught me what it really meant to be “crazy about” somebody. The whole thing was crazy, right from us had ever done. It started, at least for me it did, on a soft summer night with a sky full of go chasing after his own dreams, and the meeting again, and thk next and 1 was one very lonely woman that the next. It felt comfortable talking the start. stars and half a moon. The sand had summer. with him. We had a lot in common. We couldn’t help how we felt about each other. Since we both stayed sober phosphorescence that shot in little sparkling showers from our feet as we . I was lonely in the midst of a loving Both of us had grown children who crowd. 1 sponsored two women who needed but did not yet want the AA through it I guess you could say we walked apart up the beach. We tried to needed me and we spent a lot of time program. I began to look forward to used some sense somewhere, though I chat about usual things, but the time together working on the Steps. Not seeing him. I have things under conwould still be hard-pressed to find any for talk was past. We’d already talked 4 having a husband to cook for, 1 was trol, I thought. There’s nothing wrong moments of sanity in the whole time our whole lives to each other in the last able to go to a meeting every day, with having a simple friendship. we were in love. few days. sometimes two. My own sponsor had Our group held a pot-luck supper Love – hah! We were in heat. It He stopped and turned to me, and just moved out of state, but we stayed on the last Friday of every month. It was wild and crazy and thrilling and the stars began to swirl around my in touch. I was active in speaking and was a special tie of fellowship and the most utterly stupid thing either of head. Something was flapping like a service work. There was nothing to laughter. I could see Bob was enjoy-

ing the treat as much as I was. As that could help. “I know, I love my I knew what he meant. With the had been devastated, and cried for usual, we were both among the clean- wife, too. I wish I knew what was phone line safely separating us we two days. Admittedly, 1 had convenup crew afterward, but as we put the going on between you and me.” 1 talked a while, admitting our mutual iently forgotten that incident. Now 1 finishing polishes on the kitchen he could only agree dumbly. need but acknowledging what we was trying to find a way to justify quietly asked me – “How about a Now, though, we were on the spot. both knew to be true: this was leading such behavior on my part? stroll on the beach, too cool off?” Neither of us knew what to do next. us into slippery country. Our instincts are God-given, she How did he know I didn’t want the He got an idea – “I’ll call you, later I f just a couple of kisses made us agreed, but we alcoholics do abuse evening to end either? on?” It was brilliant. We floated feel this bad – imagine! Though them so that we cannot consciously “Sure, why not?” replied some back to the parking lot and I drove neither of us had a solution, we permit ourselves any moral latitude. I part of me not connected to my brain. home in a turmoil of emotion. agreed that for today at least, we needed to get rid of my self-pity by re- Behind our church, a steep path leads would not do anything about it. membering all I had for which I am down to the beach. I resisted the urge f In the days that followed, the crazi- grateful. Faith and loyalty are exto be coy and take his hand there, but his nearness was electrifying. ”I realized I cou&nJt ness got worse. The man took up so much space in my head, I had trouble pected by my Higher Power. The truth was 1 was trying to betray myself more “Some of us have tried to hold remember when I’d working. 1 couldn’t concentrate. than anybody else. 1 fooled around onto our old ideas,” I thought. We Feeling faint one evening, 1 realized I with my emotions, and now I wanted walked the better part of a mile and eaten hst. This islms couldn’t remember when I’d eaten sonlething I knew I couldn’t have. conversation failed. I knew we should last. This was getting bad. I spent all I t has been the habit of years to get turn back but his presence was so g~ttin itad. ~ I sprnt my time fantasizing about hi111or re- on my knees and say the Lord’s warm and thrilling 1 had to keep enjoying it for just another moment, or all my timefunta- membering that night on the beach. I sat in adazeat meetings. If he was Prayer at morning and night, and to ask and give thanks for sobriety. two. I didn’t want to go home to that empty apartment. sizing about him . . . ” in the room there was no hope I could even figure out what the topic was, Now, in addition, I started asking for release from this new form of insan- Then suddenly he stopped and much less share when called upon. I ity. Though I might not have control faced me. The moment was here. The doubts started. Where in the could tell he was having a rough time over the way I felt, I was responsible Against the softness of the moon- world did I think such a relationship of it, too, from the smoldering looks for the way I acted, and I asked God light, the intensity of the look in his was going, anyway? I hadn’t lied – 1 he shot my way. The word to describe to help me with that. It was much like eyes, I had no defense. “She melted did love John. Somehow the way 1 this was “Obsession.” You could when I first got sober. It was one day into his arms,” I thought, just like in felt about Bob had nothing to do with throw in “Compulsion,” “Immatur- at a time. one of those romance novels. He that. So just how did 1 feel about ity,” and “Lust” without falling far Release did not come quickly or kissed me, and my heart sang. Bob? Well, 1 could recognize a lot of from the mark either. easily, but it did come. It seemed as if Part of me was aghast. Part of me high school prom in there, it was not I wrote a twchpage letter to my the next week were a month long. I was triumphant. Part of me was too disappointing to be found attrac- sponsor, pouring out all my dismay smiled at Bob at meetings but went touched by his tenderness, and sorry tive at forty-plus. And I could see my- and confusion. Then I called her the home as soon as they were over. He for both of us in our need for close- self justifying all kinds of behavior day she received it, and we talked for did not call again, and temptation ness. All of me agreed, it felt wonder- because my husband was off on his 1 a long time. Though in her sixties, she rushed back to keep him “on the ful to be in his arms. own quest, excluding me. still knows all about things like pas- line.” Now I could recognize such . There wasn’t much to be said. I The phone was ringing as I let sion, and she helped me a lot. First, feelings as the enemy, and refuse could tell he was struggling with his myself in the door. It was Bob. He she reminded me of a time a few years them. feelings too. “I love my husband,” I had been doing some thinking on his ago, when I’d suspected John of be- For some reason, the only part of said, stupidly, as if a comment like own. “God, I feel so guilty!” he said. ing attracted to a younger woman. I my life unaffected by distractions was

working with the women I sponsor on A valuable lesson I have learned is their Steps. I became especially grate- that sexual relationships are dynamite ful for these sessions. for me. 1 have no business flirting At some point I regained the ability around out of boredom – I.can’t to concentrate on my work. It came control the results. and went for a while, then settled The Big Book tells me that it’s not back to normal. I kept praying. As the end of the world when 1 fail our the next pot-luck supper came up, I moral standards, so long as I am genwas relieved to see I would be out of uinely sorry and make certain 1 don’t town on business. Temptations came repeat it. It goes on to warn in no unoften, but so did the good breaks. As certain terms that failure to do so will more time went by, it kept getting lead us to drink. easier. The most important thing I have Today, if I am near Bob I am aware gained is a stronger respect for the of him, and there is still a certain power of prayer. I am grateful for “perking up” inside, but the old ob- forgiveness. God rescued this foolish session and guilt are gone. 1 know mess once again. And I get another that I made a mistake, but have done woman to help me with the dishes. the best I can to make amends for it. Anonymous, South Carolina

F e b r u a r y 1989 J ” ‘

this. Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, the park and arranged two folding he said, “Tell him you will spon- chairs outside. This would be a sor him by phone only.” This 1 good place for us to talk and did and as 1 expected, Matthew there were many people nearby was very pleased. He phoned me enjoying this autumn day. When regularly and we became quite Matthew drove in, I waved to well acquainted. He worked him. It was good to see him his program diligently. But and for the first time we there was still that look in his hugged each other. Sitting eye. Had he done some terri- in the chairs outside the camp- ‘ / N ine years ago, when I had just a few years of sobriety, I met a young man at an open meeting. We found a seat, who should greet me, asking politely if he could sit beside me, but att thew. 1 was glad to see ble thing? Perhaps even killed somebody? 1 didn’t know. something was botherer, our conversation was enjoyable. I wondered what serious subject Matthew had come to chatted a while and then Matthew him and, as before, we talked together ing him deeply. discuss. Perhaps coffee would (which is not his real name) took a as the crowd assembled. Winter passed into spring, make our meeting seem like a seat next to mine as the meeting be- I was rather pleased with Matthew’s and in late summer Matthew real one. I bravely invited Matgan. When it was over, we exchanged attention since he was the age of my asked if he could bring his thew into the camper while I pleasantries and comments about in- youngest child, a son for whom I was mother to meet me. They made the coffee, and we sat at teresting parts of the speaker’s story. quite lonesome at the time. However, would come, by appointment, the small table, continuing to Soon I said goodbye and left to drive after several more weeks of the same to my place of business and not talk. home since I live twenty miles from behavior, my friend seemed to be over- to my home. I felt that Suddenly Matthew, leaning our meeting place and was even then doing things. I even wondered if this would be okay. They came forward, looked directly into an older lady. young man had some kind of crush and I was impressed. His my eyes and said, “There is There was something about this on me. Oh my goodness, I thought, if mother was lovely. She was something I have to tell you. young man that made me uneasy. I true, what will I do about that? about my age and we had I am gay.” wasn’t sure what it was but it The next week, when Matthew sat much in common. Our visit was most Yes, I was surprised. But relief troubled me. I’d been in the program down in the chair beside me, I said enjoyable. flooded over me as I shook my head long enough to know that we are peo- softly, yet firmly and directly into his October arrived again and Mat- saying, “Is that ail that’s the matter? : ple from all walks of life, with many kinds of backgrounds, and none of us ear, “Young man, I don’t have any designs upon you.” His face turned thew had been sober almost a year. One day he called to ask – urgently I thought you had killed somebody!” He quietly said, “No,” as tears come into AA when our lives are go- quickly toward mine and he stam- – if he could talk with me personally. welled in his eyes. The strange, anxing well. Matthew said he’d come in mered, “Oh no, I didn’t mean any- He hoped he could come right away. I ious look, now so familiar to me, acfrom the street and not with the help thing like that. I have just been trying consented. tually faded as he spoke. We laughed of a detoxification center. I’d heard to ask you to be my sponsor.” I live alone and was still somewhat and we cried together. The truth had prison stories and I wondered if I knew it was not advisable for a wary. It would take Matthew about been told and it was all right. something like that could have woman to sponsor a man and I said half an hour to get there. We could Eight years have passed since that accounted for the strange, anxious so. I recommended he ask a man and meet in the park, for it was a beauti- October day. Matthew and I call each look in his eyes. his disappointment was apparent. I ful warm day and there would be lots other frequently and go places to- The next week, having forgotten was sorry. of people there. I suggested this and gether occasionally. We are good all about Matthew, I happily headed In the meantime I asked Tom, an Matthew was pleased to accept. friends. for my weekly open meeting. Just as I old-timer, what I could do about all I drove my small white camper to M. K, Elk Rapids, Mich.

March 1989

successful in recruiting and salvaging it because his only other alternative high bottom cases, so that now an back then was shock therapy? I feel average AA’s life is too full and re- very uneasy when I hear old-timers at warding to give the same dedication meetings criticize the new ones beto the program? cause they rely on counselors or As a newcomer, I heard about the admit to taking prescribed medicaall-nighter Fifth Steps and the mid- tions. Is a suicidally depressed alco-

Too Successful? night phone calls and I felt cheated. The image of heroic AAs pouring into Jack Lemmon’s kitchen in “The Days of Wine and Roses” just as he holic really recovering simply because he or she is abstaining totally from all drugs? The usual comment is that the individual’s only problem is that he was about to pour himself a drink or she is working a “bad program”

: II n the June 1988 issue you solicited opinions on how AA is changing. My opinions have never been too out an individual to ask. Most were booked up, some didn’t have the mandatory twelve months’ sobrihaunted me as I struggled to find someone who was willing to listen to and needs to find a sponsor. 1 see this inflexibility as one area where change my Fifth Step. Forgive me if this in AA is needed. popular at local meetings, so if you ety, and none returned my phone soocds harsh, but I wonder if we 1 also wonder if the nature of addo not publish this piece, I will under- calls. I remember how I finally diction itself is changing. Oh, there is are making promises to newcomers stand. 1 have only been around the obtained a sponsor and communi- which are no longer practical. Per- still the pain, the denial, the roller program since 1982, so I cannot cated with her largely via her answer- haps it is time for each of us to realis- coaster ego bouncing between selfspeak with any authority about the ing machine because she was really tically reassess the Twelfth Step and hatred and arrogance. But “pure al- “old days.” But I do have seven quite busy. to ask how much sponsorship a coholics” are a minority, having years’ worth of continuous sobriety I also remember how, determined young man or woman with a job and largely been replaced by dually addicand AA involvement to refer to. not to let another newcomer experi- family can give. ted alcoholics, mentally ill alcoholics, One of the things I have felt in the ence that same rejection, I often I have tried to co-sponsor women and alcoholics with a concurrent eatprogram is the pain and loneliness of found myself the only “old-timer” as much as possible in order to com- ing disorder. Can we afford to have leaving a meeting after listening to the who went out of her way after meet- pensate for the time demands of my groups which still chastize members if old-timers (and even some newcom- ings to talk to new women in the pro- marriage and career. Another thing I they discuss problems other than alers) discuss the warm and caring rela- gram who looked like they needed to have done, rightly or wrongly, is to coholism at meetings? tionships they have had with their talk. And I experienced the frustra- advise these women that AA may not Last, I wonder if the. distinction sponsors. As a newcomer, I sobered tion of falling short of my ideal many be able to fulfill all of their needs. 1 between AA and psychiatry is being up through the program, then later times when 1 would desperately try to am not afraid to recommend counsel- blurred by treatment centers. After a went through treatment (still sober) introduce newcomers to other women ors, and I do not flinch when some- number of years, 1 have finally debecause of a continuing problem with who could serve as co-sponsors while one who is putting in an honest effort cided that the AA program probably depression. I remember as a new- I was at work. This has led me to asks about antidepressant medication consists simply of: “Just for today, comer announcing at meetings my wonder about the founders of the AA or expresses an interest in Antabuse. I don’t take the first drink.” With the need for a sponsor and then watching program. Were they all old enough to wonder if Bill W. would have referred arrival into the program of people people quietly move away from me be retired and free of family responsi- to these medications as an “easier, who became sober in treatment cenafter the meeting as if to avoid any in- bilities – was this how they found the softer way” if they had been in ters, the program seems to have exvolvement at all. I remember being time to open their homes to detoxing existence back in the ’30s. Bill himself panded to include, “Ninety meetings turned down a number of times when newcomers and give them the time supposedly battled a chronic depres- in ninety days,” “tough love,” “an I became bolder and actually singled they needed? Have we become too sion using AA principles alone. Was alcoholic cannot afford resentments,

anger, self-pity, denial,” or even be- to figure out. I am curious to know been committed in an asylum. Some- coholic,” or “I’m really an alcoholing in “too good a mood.” The how much of this is real AA and how tinles I could drink only a few drinks ic.” The person would then proceed Twelve suggested Steps of AA seem much reflects the philosophies of the and nothing terrible would happen to tell a story of drinking vast quantito have become the twelve command- people carrying the treatment center nor would I crave more. ties of alcohol for many years with ments complete with bylaws, corol- principles. Then t here would be tinles when I ‘trips to jail, prison, hospitals, loss of r.jobs, families, and so forth. laries, and subscripts as well as a time In conclusion, I would like to would drink too much for nie and do I frame (“You must complete your thank you for providing a forum for soniettiing totally bizarre, like trying The old doubts began to surface Fourth Step before leaving treat- these questions. In the past, the to beat sonleone up in a bar or drink- again. If this was real or true alcoholment”). Grapevine has not shied away from ing all the wine at an employee ism, then what was I? Maybe I was a Is it surprising that a lot of people controversial issues and that is why I Cllrist~iiasparty and having to leave pseudo-alcoholic, a second-degree don’t return to meetings? I could not enjoy reading it. work with a bad case of “stomach alcoholic, or maybe just mentally ill? have stayed sober with so many rules Marilyn J., Fox Lnke, Ill. flu.” And there were a few times Maybe 1 wasn’t so bad off after all. when I would drink so mucli that I Thanks to God and the wonderful would experience a total blackout, people of AA, I was able to not drink wake up so sick that I could hardly and go to meetings one day at a time. walk or eat for two to three days, and At last this denial of my alcoholism not remember driving home, parking – caused by focusing on the differlily car, or enlering my apartment. ences between us and by lack of These blackouts were rare since they knowledge about alcoholism and its scared me so much I would not drink progression – was overcome. I

the Elevator Stom for long periods of time afterward. After my last blackout, at age twentytwo, I did not drink again for over two years. There really was a pattern learned that alcoholism is an illness that progresses through various stages of early, middle, and late symptoms. I had some early and here but I couldn’t see it for a long some middle but no late symptoms of time because of the long periods of the illness. The stories that made me IdD ecently at a meeting I heard a lady tell some of my story. She did not drink as much as some of us given, possibly quite unintentionally, that his experience qualified him more for our AA program than the control in between what I called “my crazy times.” feel I did not belong were always laststage, late-symptom ones. Since I did because she went nuts on just a few previous speaker. Finally, after my last disastrous not get that far in my drinkingcareer, and she also spent long periods of Hearing this reminded me of when attempt at social drinking laced with did that mean I was not an alcoholic? time not drinking at all because of the I was new to this way of life, both be- “consciousness-raising” drug use in Did I have to drink until I experifear of what would happen if she did. fore and after I joined AA. You see, I 1974 (which took me on a geograph- enced the last, final symptoms and She found her way to the program went to open AA meetings off and on ical from California to Arizona via was next to death before I could be and recovery before all was lost or de- for three years, wondering if I could Oregon within six months), I crawled sure I was a red alcoholic? stroyed. Her talk was followed by a be an alcoholic but always deciding back to AA, knowing that I had to be I came to believe that I did not have man who said, “I’m -, and I’m a that I could not because I did not at1 alcoholic. No other explanation to go that far, that early and/or midtrue alcoholic.” He proceeded to tell drink the way I heard other people for my behavior made any sense at all dle alcoholism is as much alcoholism a story of daily hard drinking for say they drank nor had the “yets” anymore. as long-term alcoholism. It’s just a lot many years with trips to hospitals, happened to me. I had never been in I heard the same stories I had heard harder to see. 1 also came to realize jails, prisons, and asylums before jail, been stopped for drunk driving, before in AA and they typically went that we alcoholics like to be special coming to AA. The impression was been financially irresponsible, or like this: “I’m -, and I’m arealal- and that when people say, “I’m -,

and I’m a real alcoholic,” perhaps they do not have the disease. Why put what they are really saying is that they unnecessary hurdles in the road to rehave a more exclusive right to the covery for any suffering alcoholic? I program than those of us who are want to always remember that the maybe not quite so real. Sometimes only one who can say whether or not I when we add modifiers to our words, am an alcoholic is myself, and the we tend to make them more narrow, only requirement for membership is a more exclusive. I understand this is desire to stop drinking. why the word “honest” was elimi- By the grace of the God that I nated from the Third Tradition, mak- found through the loving support of ing our membership requirement AA, I have been able to stay in AA only a “desire to stop drinking” and not drink, one day at a time, for rather than an “honest desire,” many years. I am ever more conwhich might have excluded some al- vinced as time goes by that I, too, am coholics from membership. a real alcoholic even though, thank Because of my own experiences, I God, most of those “yets” never want to help keep the door to A A as happened lo me. I also have fait h that broad as possible. I do not ever want as long as I don’t take thar first drink, to give anyone the impression that if those “yets” won’t ever have to haptheir drinking history or symptoms of pen to me. alcoholism are not the same as mine, Judith L., Everett, Wuslr.

Is AA Changing? not understood this problem. It re- new members in AA will be dually or minds me of the time my beloved manifoldly addicted. I want to be doctor asked me when I became an there if someone who is also an alcoalcoholic. It was hard to answer that holic reaches out his hand. question, and it is difficult for dually I try to accept my fellow travelers addicted people to explain their prob- just as they say they are – after all .

Our Differences lems to me. I am trying to learn and understand more, because I personally believe that a large percentage of you accepted me, and 1 can do no less. Donna K., Lakewood, Colo.

had been sober on my own for do not argue about this, but, if asked, almost two years when my shaking I explain my own ideas and the ease knees took me to the top of a flight of of turning over my problems to the stairs where the club for AAs had God of my understanding. I d o not rooms. I had come to find help for make a sermon out of this. I hope he someone else, but I found a program will come to believe and I accept him. ‘of recovery that helped me relax my I am uncomfortable with some of own white knuckles. the bad language that occurs in one After the speakers meeting, I meeting room. It has recently become bought a Big Book as 1 put money in a place for newly recovering alcoholthe jug for my coffee. 1sat at the long ics. They are mostly young people table and waited. It did not take long. and their need to express themselves Soon 1 was asked my first name and is almost desperate. The words they that was when you accepted me. You use turn the tips of this old lady’s asked if you could help. I felt a sense ears pink. If the going gets too rough, of great relief that, at long last, some- I sometimes leave, but I wish them all one understood. I sat among you and well. If they are alcoholics, they have listened as the words whirled back come to the right place, and I accept and forth. I have never lost that sense them into the Fellowship, but 1 have of being accepted, of belonging. the right to leave. I am fortunate to Now I find that I have to accept live in an area with a choice of meetsome things that I find hard to under- ings, and I attend several. I d o not stand. feel this is a cop-out on my part, be- 1 am confused by the person who cause there are many people in that comes to his first meeting and fights room that use the same lingo and are the concept of God or Higher Power ready to help. I do go back once in a even when we explain “as we under- while. stood Him.” I have always had a close I have had some trouble accepting 1

relationship with my Higher Power. I the dually addicted, because I have

A p r i l 1989

ness. I felt very ashamed, and even were no coincidences there either! though my head told me it was a dis- One of those women was a person to ease, my heart told me it was a moral whom I had given a retreat a few issue. . months before! She knew me, and it It took a lot of love on the part of was a good feeling. It seemed right my therapist, the alcohol counselor, that a few weeks later she should beand my spiritual director to convince come my sponsor. me that 1 was not a bad person, but I think God tried to tell me early on rather a sick person in the throes of that these people who knew I was a the disease of alcoholism. They also nun welcomed me as a fellow alcoconvinced me to go to AA. I can still holic and were genuinely happy to see remember that cold January Sunday me. It helped to dispel some of my morning, when I walked from the con- fear of people finding out I was a revent to the parish church to attend my ligious woman who was also an alcofirst AA meeting. I knew it was the holic. I’ve come to understand that right thing to be doing, but I did not I’m an alcoholic who also happens to feel it was right for a nun! When I got be a religious woman! to the meeting, I unobtrusively That kind of acceptance of who I slipped into a row of chairs, and am has been a slow painful journey in somehow 1 managed to hear the sobriety. It is now three-and-a-half promises (which are read by the years since that cold January Sunday group before their Sunday meeting). I morning and as I have been guided particularly heard: “We will suddenly through the Steps by my sponsor, I realize that God is doing for us what have come to see that I do not have to we could not do for ourselves.” be perfect or even strive for perfec- Again, I felt 1 was in the right place, tion. Rather, the work of getting even though I was on the verge of sober has to do with becoming hutears. I cannot recall who spoke, but man and getting in touch with my halfway through the meeting I recog- creaturehood. In all the years of renized the man from whom I bought ligious life I had labored under the ‘j7 can remember the first time I read young girl child (in the guise of a my liquor! I thought it was amazing burden of trying to live up to the per- , U the following sentence from chap- woman!), and “religious” by profes- that he should be in AA. When the fect image – a God-like facade that , ter five of the Big Book: “We claim sion, hearing, for the first time, that meeting was over, he recognized me, did not let me get in touch with my ‘ spiritual progress rather than spir- God did not expect me to be “per- too, and came right up to me and wel- true feelings: anger, fear, resentment, itual perfection.” I was sitting at a fect.” What a relief! comed me in a very warm way. He got jealousy. I was a being apart, un- Big Book meeting, only a few months I had admitted that I was an alco- me coffee and sat down and talked to touched by messiness of any kind! into the program, still pretty shaky holic a few months before, in the me. By then I was crying! But 1 felt My drinking progressed slowly, but and confused. But those words gave presence of an alcohol counselor and safe and glad to be with someone I’d it became the perfect escape, and me a feeling of release and freedom my therapist, and I thought with that come to know quite well! He told me prior to my coming into the program such as I had never experienced in all admission, that my world had come he was going to introduce me to some I was drinking daily, in the secrecy of my thirty-one years as a “religious to an end. My world of religious per- of the women and when he did, there my room. I was very depressed and woman.” Here I was, an alcoholic, a fection did not allow for such a weak-

felt that I would never get my life together (one of the reasons I entered therapy). It was my bottom and it was a highly emotional one. Looking back now, I realize that in spite of my shame at having to admit I’m an alcoholic, it was also a great and long-in-coming relief! From almost the first meeting that I attended I knew I belonged there. I was absolutely amazed that so many people (of all different backgrounds and persuasions) could touch chords in me that vibrated to their accounts of how they had always felt! And so many seemed to be saying (and I suspect God let me hear) that they had always tried to be perfect. It seemed to be a failing of alcoholics: never to admit to imperfection of any kind. It was why so many of us drank – to cover up the bad feelings about ourselves! I was so good at beating myself up! I just never measured up and God wasn’t going to really love me until I did! Today, I’m glad that God let me flounder around for so long in that frame of mind. God’s timing is perfect and it was time for me to let go of such rigorous demands on myself. God gave me the AA program and the very human, loving and sober people of AA to teach me that our only big task is to seek spiritual progress through the Twelve Steps of recovery. Never again do we have to place on our shoulders the impossible burden of spiritual perfection. Truly, God does do for us what we could never do for ourselves! Eleanor M., WhitePlains, N.Y.

June 1989

of time and place. Not too long ago ing up everywhere, think of all the alcohol was illegal in this country. publicity given what are now delicately The rotten kids? Well, there are sev- referred to as “the Twelve-Step pro-

/ War of theworlds 1 ou know, the first time I went to it “guidelines” and it listed topics eral reasons we are getting them. Basi- grams,” think of all the people at our cally people are learning to recognize meetings sent there by the courts, by the signs of incipient alcoholism and/ institutions both public and private or addiction and the fact of denial obviously the description of AA meman AA meeting and found a you were not allowed to mention), and its attendant dangers, and they’re bers has broadened tremendously. learning it a lot earlier than we did. I find myself wishing older memjunkie there, 1 was astounded. And if and the nasty question, “Is it AA- bers would accept the fact that rimes that weren’t enough, this dope fiend related?” was born, and how I wish it The rotten kids, who are no dopes, are learning it faster than anybody. have changed. The AA program was talking and taking up meeting had been shot at birth; the move was time. And the AA members were be- on to get rid of these “New People.” This is 1989 and people have differ- hasn’t. ent backgrounds and values. Me, I And I wish the newer types would ing as encouraging and supportive as The War still goes on. if she were an ordinary newcomer! I picked a group for myself and set- have a few twenty-four hours, and attach themselves to the older mem- The she-dope-fiend claimed to be an tled down to watch. This time I used back then we wrestled with language bers. “Stick with the winners,” they alcoholic as well, but even so. . . my AA training – 1 pushed my mind like “character defects” and “resent- told me, and I did. They were awfully I went to a few different meetings. open as far as I could and gave my nmts” and slowly and often pain- old but so what? Everybody was Same thing. Was California AA this full attention to everything that was fully learned to pull out the truths older than I was in my group then. we’d hidden in our shame for so long. AA began as a tiny group of older different from New York? said – no matter who was talking. I I didn’t like it and I stopped going was tired of being meetingless. But these newer members come in Caucasian men. Imagine the upset to meetings. To tell you the truth, I Well, here’s what I found: calling it what it really is – anger; and indignation when women started felt these “dually addicted” people The program of AA is the same. It anger and helpless frustration at showing up at meetings! And the were doing a con job on our organi- has been battered and beaten and always being in the wrong. And when newcomers grew steadily younger! zation – using us – and I resented it. shows clearly that it can bend and ac- they holler their fury across the Way back, times and people changed, So I went my way, trying to prac- commodate changing times and dif- tables, something in me wakes up and but AA remained its original, tice the principles I’d been taught, ferent people – and remain its own I suddenly remember how it felt when workable self. And so it does today. the whole world was fear and hurt It was practicing the same old AA and after some years I went back to a sweet self. meeting to see what was happening. I I noticed dope fiend/drunks share and everything I did was wrong until I program that freed me from the fear strongly suspected AA had gone down with alcoholics the two basic prob- had to turn to the drug alcohol to of change and taught me once more bear the agony of being alive. the incredible, never-ending joy of the drain under the onslaught of lems that were unsolvable before AA: street people/junkies/rotten kids/and They can’t get off the stuff they abuse Meetings are a little more active learning what real freedom is by liswho knows what. and they are terminally immature. than they used to be. In fact, some of tening to everyone at the meetings. them resemble food fights minus the To you dope fiend alcoholics/rot- Well, the War of the Worlds was in Like us, they have to have whatever full progress. AA members had quit, they think they want the minute they flying sandwiches. It keeps you inter- ten kid alcoholics and all controver- AA members had left groups and ested. sial alcoholics: my deepest thanks for think of it, and nothing is ever their pulling those of us who needed it forformed others (dually addicted and fault, either. Which makes us twins. And I found out what was the matter with me. 1, like most people, was ward into the Now – where the AA young people not welcome), reams wary of change. Silly, isn’t it? Anyone program obviously will always be – Neither of us ever grew up. were being written and discussed Sure there is an important differabout the “takeover of AA meet- ence. The dually addicted are on one with half a brain could have seen the here to encompass the backward ings,” there was censorship for the side of the law, and we are on the tidal wave of newcomers heading our members as well as the newcomers. way. Think of all the “rehabs” spring- Sally de R, Fremont, Calif. first time in a few groups (they called other. But this is mainly an accident

J u l y 1989

\ On the Skids I

I was born in Hail- myself that I was not going to ever eybury. I grew up drink, but within that year I began me how to panhandle. I caught on to drinking. I often wonder what it on Bear Island. I having a rough life. I began drinking the street life fast. It was no fun, takes to scare an alcoholic. was born out of that year and also taking pills. that’s for sure. It was rough. I met The first time I ever went t o jail wedlock- the only My grandfather passed away in somebody else who tried to help me was at Brampton, fifteen years ago. I child between my 1973, and I tried to commit suicide. the best way he could by taking me went to AA meetings in jail, but I was mother and my natural father. My That’s when I first entered the psychi- out of North Bay. That is when I first not ready to admit that I had a probmother married another man in 1956, atric hospital. After that I became a got on a freight train. I guess you lem. I was fooling around with the so I had five half brothers and one regular there due to alcohol and pills. could say he made a hobo out of me. program, like many cons were. I used half sister. My mother’s husband I moved away from Bear Island in I remember one morning waking up to tell myself it would be party time never did adopt me, though, and I 1975. Went along to North Bay. in the Canadian Pacific Railroad when I got out – and it always was. was raised by my grandparents. Reason why? To do something about yard. My legs were on one side of the So I kept going around in circles for a When I was twelve, my grand- my drinking. Was I ever wrong! I tracks and my waist on the other. I while, in and out. Today I know it’s mother passed away. After she died started to get into more booze. Be- was very fortunate a freight didn’t the alcohol that got me in trouble. my grandfather began drinking a lot. sides that, I hit the skids. I used to come. Today I know it was my Higher Today as I look back on my life, I see I remember when 1 was twelve telling drink with this person who showed Power watching over me. But at the how sick I was – physically, mentime it did not scare me. I just kept on tally, spiritually. Going back to my

days on the skids, I was very fortu- again. Sometimes I feel like drinking, nate that I didn’t freeze to death in because I go back to my old ways of ‘ the winter. thinking, but I know it is very danger- When I first moved back to North ous for an alcoholic to stay that way Bay in 1987, it took me a long time to for too long. Sometimes I wonder speak up in AA meetings. Reason what is keeping me sober, yet I know why? I had lied so much to myself and deep down in my heart it is me, Alcoto other people in my past 1 was sure holics Anonymous, and my Higher no one would believe me and that Power, whom I choose to call God. they would hold my past against me. Today I am very grateful, and I was Today I am living with the person just thinking about the old cliche, who taught me how to survive on the “Once an alcoholic, always an alcostreets. But, to be honest, I don’t holic. . .” How very true. want to go back to that kind of life Diana k?, Bear Island, On1.

September 1989 4, ‘

Do they hear what they’re saying? Do ened me in the wee hours this mornthey walk like they talk? Do they ing and said, “Can you please take a

Then and Now mean it? I believe some do – but call? We know it’s late, but we can’t +

some don’t. ,find anyone else. This lady sounds My sponsor has always told me: desperate.” My sleepy reply was, “When something really bothers “Of course, give me her name and vou. write it down. Ask vourself: number.” I returned the call; the lady his morning I am grateful for my – it worked! Today, I do what I am what bothers me? What did I do to needed to talk to someone. I talked contribute to it? What can 1 do about with her and I’ll call her later today. sobriety. As a matter of fact, told – it works! I heard a speaker there has never been a morning since say: Show up for class, learn, do your it?” This recipe works for me. There What has happened to carrying the my last drunk that I have not been homework, and clean house. are so many things that I can do message and being responsible? 1 grateful for my sobriety. I am grate- During my meditation this morn- something about that all it takes is the realize I live in an area where the ful that the God of my understand- ing, I realized that something is not courage to do it. That’s where I am whole state doesn’t have as many ing, that I found after coming into right. I’m disturbed. What has hap- this morning. I’m disturbed about meetings as some cities, but I d o live AA, has allowed me to see another pened to gratitude and responsibility? something that happened last night in the largest city of that state and we day. I am grateful to the program of I go to a minimum of three meetings a and there’s something I can do about have an AA community of several AA and the Fellowship of AA. There week and I hear people say, “I’m so it. 1 can go to our “meeting in print” hundred people. Where were the will always be, in my mind, a differ- grateful for my sobriety and AA.” and hope that it will be printed. other AA women last night? Why ence between the program and the Our AA answering service awak- would anyone refuse to take a call Fellowship. The Fellowship did not from a suffering alcoholic? Where keep me sober, but the program has. would I be if they hadn’t been there The Fellowship kept me sober until the night I cried out for help? I never my mind cleared up enough that I want to forget that in blizzard-like could begin to understand just a little weather, two members of Alcoholics of what you were telling me when I Anonymous came, around midnight, came back after several attempts to to call on me. prove that I could drink like a lady. I 1 attend conventions, round-ups, never tried the program before my Regional Forums, all types of service last drunk. I stayed dry only on the meetings and visit AA groups during Fellowship. my travels to other areas and I know I am sober today because I followed that this is not a unique problem to the suggestions and the directions as my area. I’ve heard “circuit” speakset down in the Big Book of Alcohol- ers say, “I don’t work much with ics Anonymous. I didn’t drink; I newcomers today.” Around the went to meetings; I got a sponsor who tables I’ve heard, “I think it’s time to still shares her experience, strength, step aside and let the newer people do and hope with me (but who does not it.” Or, “Why are you cleaning up? always tell me what I want to hear); I Let the newer people do it.” I even became a student of our textbook. In heard a person tell another, “You’ve the beginning, I did what I was told earned status by staying sober X number of years.” Where does it say

‘ these things in our Big Book? I cer- it say we graduate. It does say sometainly haven’t found it in my copies. where (my sponsor wouldn’t let me Everyone is entitled to an opinion. memorize pages; if you don’t believe Thank God, AA has allowed me to me, do as she told me, look it up) that have mine. But I’m in deep trouble this is a beginning of a lifetime jourwhen I say “no” to AA. When I get ney. “The End” is nowhere to be too good to speak to the newcomer found. who walks through the doors of my I’ve been around ,414 since midhome group; when I get too good to 1963. I had my last drink on Augo get a cup of coffee for a shaky gust 9, 1971 and since that date, 1 newcomer; when I get too good to have been in AA. I went through the help clean up after the meeting. pain of getting sober. I don’t have to Would you believe there are people do that again. I showed up for class, I who have been sober for years in AA listened, 1 followed suggestions, I did who have never picked up a coffee my homework, and I began to clean cup, emptied an ashtray, or spoken to house. I’m still doing it. a newcomer? Of course some of you I have had many painful days of would believe it. You see it if you at- sobriety. I have gone through grief, tend as many meetings as I do. physical pain, disappointments and When I get too good to wash ash- so-called bad days, but I have never trays, when I just let somebody else found it necessary to take a drink do it, it’s time to ask myself: What since I became willing to go to any kind of AA member am I? It’s time to length to stay sober. remember where I came from. When I have been rewarded beyond my I get to the point that my social status wildest dreams. My peers in AA have is too high for me to speak to the new- loved me enough to elect me to sercomer who is not “dressed appropri- vice positions that I didn’t deserve, ately,” I’ve got to remember when I nor was I ready for. I’ve experienced could not dress myself for my first the “most satisfactory years of my meeting. The ladies who came to pick life” (the Big Book says that) since I me up helped. I’ve got to remember came into AA. It has been the most what I looked like when I got here. exciting journey I’ve ever been on. 1 I’ve got to remember that members hope it never ends. I pray, and ask the of AA cared enough for me that they God of my understanding every day didn’t say the things I heard on the to help me have another day of sobristreet (tramp, lush, slut, worthless, ety, and 1thank him at night. It won’t hopeless) and from my own loving end, I don’t believe, if I do the same family (it, she, her). things today, and in the future, that I This is not news. Nowhere in the did when I got here. It worked then. Bin Book of Alcoholics Anonvmous It works now. (fiist, second, or third editions) does G. D., Charleston, W Va.

October 1989

just returned from a speaking day without a drink. commitment with two other mem- On St. Patrick’s Day, 1987, I hit bers of my home group. I have a se- two parked cars and was arrested for renity right now that 1have not felt in drunk driving. While in the jail cell, 1 a long, long time. Telling my story in thought of all my AA friends I had front of a room full of people terri- met, all the things 1 heard them try to fied me in the beginning, but tonight I tell me; I knew what my life would can only feel the gratitude that is become if 1 didn’t surrender to this talked about so often by people who disease. I had joined AA two years cherish their sobriety. earlier, but you see, I was only twenty- In looking back at what I was be- one and I had my whole life ahead of fore I drank, what alcohol turned me me. I would quit drinking when there into, and what it took for me to begin was nothing left for me to do. living a sober life in AA, I am just Three months later, June 1987, I now starting to feel what I never be- knew in my heart that there was nothlieved was possible. I am so high right ing left for me to do. I had two now, and it’s a high that could never choices: get sober or die. I went back have come out of a bottle. to my old meetings, and this time I I started drinking when I was six- wanted sobriety more than I ever teen years old. From the very first dreamed I could want anything. I drink I wanted more. I lived for those have been sober, one day at a time, weekends where I could hang out ever since. with my so called “friends” and lose Today, at twenty-five, I can see myself in oblivion. Then I lived for that I have my whole life ahead of the day to be over, for the school bell me, and God willing, I will live that to ring, and I could get my six-pack. life sober. As my sponsor told me My progression was very fast. I got a when she gave me my ninety-day pin, job as a waitress so I could make fast “If you keep one hand in God, and money, have no real responsibility, one hand in AA, you can’t pick up and plenty of free time to drink with. that first drink.” ‘In just a few years, I could not go one Cynthia H., Perth Amboy, N. J.

October 1989

Putting Mvself First t

A bout fourteen months ago, I got out of my seven-week treatment center. I thought life was great. I was sor. 1 thought my sobriety was great. But my home life was not healthy. My mom and I fought all the time. mom and I were getting along good. I felt so strong. But in a way, I was not healthy. I had an obsession with my really let go. I’m seventeen years old and sixteen months sober. 1 got active in my sober and my mother and I actually She kicked me out of the house sev- ex-boyfriend. I called his house just group and went to a lot of meetings. I got along for the first time. I thought eral times. At thislime, my mom was to hear his voice. I followed him and spoke and shared of my feelings and my life was going to go the way I eleven months into the program. did really sick things. Things turned the pain. These are the things I need wanted it to. I was in a relationship Things got worse. I never talked around and got better for me. My to do to stay healthy and, most imwith someone who was using, and I about how I was feeling. I was hurt- sponsor helped me through a lot of portant, sober. got out of that as was suggested. 1 ing real bad, and I didn’t even know pain. I started to let go for the first I still miss my boyfriend very then got into a sober relationship be- it. He and I were both very posses- time. Just when 1 thought the pain much, but I must put myself first. I cause I thought that was okay. He sive. Things between us started fall- was getting easier to deal with, he cannot put anyone in front of me or I had one and a half years sobriety, and ing apart. came back into my life. We started will be a very sick person. I still think was such a power of example to me. He finally broke up with me and I talking and then started going out. I about him and what would be if we He told me how to do things, and 1 was hurting real bad. I felt I had no was nine months sober and thought I got back together again. But for todid them because I thought that was one. I had given up all my old friends could handle it. In one week I saw my day, we are not together and that is right. And this is how it went for six and I had never met any people on my obsessiveness kick in. He had okay. Even if we do not ever get back, months. own. I had a choice: go back out or changed a lot in four, months, I 1 can accept that. I have myself and I never knew other people besides start to help myself. I decided to help thought. I wanted what we used to my sobriety. My Higher Power was his friends. We were always together. myself. With the few people I did have. All I wanted to do was to be with me through all this pain; even at I went to his meetings. I never joined meet on my own, I started to open with him. One week later, he broke times when I doubted his will for me. a group or got active. I did not go to up. I joined a group and got active. I up with me again. I hurt more now I am grateful for him, my sponsor, any discussion or Step meetings. He went on commitments, spoke for the than ever. I felt I was back where we and the friends I made through this told me to get a sponsor and I did. 1 first time, and went to discussion and had started, but the one thing I did program. never used her. I used him as a spon- Step meetings. I got a sponsor. My have was the knowledge of how to Amanda B., U.S.A.

December 1989 – —

goal in mind, whenever one of these counters with members of the profesprofessionals would ask about my sional community have a variety of alcohol consumption, I would lie. positive results: Not only does my . This disease will do anything to pro- truth telling benefit me, it also helps

MRbP tect itself. .r the professionals and through them, When I first started coming to, perhaps, another suffering alcoholic. meetings, I heard the suggestion that For instance, when 1 needed to find newcomers get a thorough physical a physician in a new community, I It takes work- checkup. I also heard people talking asked around my meetings and learned about having let their teeth and their that a local alcoholism organization and being bodies falbapart during their drink- kept a list of doctors who treated alhonest ing. Luckily, 1 told myself, 1 was in coholics. From that list, I picked the good health: I hadn’t let myself get one nearest to me – and quickly that bad – and anyway, didn’t I re- found that, as newly sober as I was, I peatedly seek medical attention while knew more about alcoholism than he drinking? The truth was, of course, did. But he did understand the serithat 1 was afraid, still, to admit my ousness of my purpose in staying ‘ alcoholism. sober and staying away from risky As it happened, I had not been medications. As our relationship has sober very long when 1 had occasion developed, I have helped him learn a ‘ to go to a clinic where I was asked to lot more about this disease. I’ve given fill out a medical history form includ- him CPC pamphlets, helped him to ing questions about my drinking and understand why his alcoholic patients drug habits. What a relief to write ”I can’t simply stop drinking when he am a recovering alcoholic.” What tells them they should, described the freedom to be able to tell the truth! difference between being “on the Since then, for better or worse, I’ve wagon” and being sober, and exused to lie to doctors on a regular had many opportunities to tell that plained why meetings continue to be basis. Lots of alcoholics do that – truth to professional helpers -physi- essential after more than five years of

I” maybe all of us do. But as an active alcoholic, I spent a lot of years wanting to stop drinking. So I would take my symptoms to doctors – physicians, psychiatrists, even dentists cians, dentists, psychiatrists, lawyers, sobriety. He has never failed to be accountants, even judges. AA works supportive of my recovery. When I hard, through its CPC (Cooperation was hospitalized, he took up my with the Professional Community) cause with an even more naive speprojects, to make these helpers aware cialist, and he once told me during a hoping against hope that they would of alcoholism as a disease, of AA’s checkup, “You look 200 percent betsay “Your symptoms come from program, and of the sometimes spe- ter than when I first saw you. What-

b your drinking. You must stop drink- cial needs of alcoholics. My own ex- ever you’re doing, it must work.” ing.” And with that medical com- periences in dealing with these very After I’d been sober a while, I demand, I believed, I would be able to essential nonalcoholics bear witness cided, with my sponsor’s support, to Y

stop. to the importance of these CPC start psychotherapy again. I had been The thing is that even with that efforts. I realize that my personal en- in therapy while I was drinking, and it

sober living. I was able to find a law- sponsor told me that if I was uncomhad helped resolve many of my life ences helped make it easier for me to fortable about any aspect of it, in- “” yer in my home group, but only after problems, but not my drinking. My put my recovery up front in every cluding the possibility of being seformer therapist believed that by re- I’d heard him share often enough to medical situation and to better evalu- feel that he was trustworthy. I’ve questered and cut off from my s u p solving my underlying conflicts, the drinking could be relieved – the alce ate the difference between an emergency room doctor who says, “Three learned firsthand, though, that being ; port network, I could speak up. Still, ‘ sober doesn’t guarantee competence I was surprised when, after describing holic’s dream. This time, of course, I years sober? That’s wonderful!” and in detail the case at hand, which inneeded a different approach, so I in a professional: A recovering’ one who sneers, “Well, the best treat- accountant to whom I was referred volved drugs and drinking, the judge gathered names from people I re- ment for your pain would be a tran- invited anyone who felt uneasy spected and went therapist shopping. proved to be a near disaster, so I went I quilizer, but of course you wouldn’t back to my pre-AA accountant and “such as members of AA” – to ap- I told each prospect that I was a re- take that!” proach the bench. As I walked up, I cwering alcoholic; that my primary fessed up. ,This was important, not Telling strangers about my alcohol- only because of the increased, and in- mentally prepared a lengthy explanapurpose was staying sober; but that I ism is one thing; telling professionals tion, which proved to be unnecessary. had some conflicts that required pro- creasingly complex, prosperity that who have treated me during my “ly- has come with sobriety but also be- The judge said, “You’re excused, and fessional help. All of them professed ing years” is another. So I was ner- you’ll find plenty of cases that don’t to having experience in helping alco- vous about revealing my previous involve drugs. Thank you for being holics, so I questioned’ them: “Tell drinking to the dentist I had used for honest with us.” me what you know about Step Six,” for instance. The one who answered years. I had been told, though, that this was important, because dentists “These experieences Being honest – is that all it takes? that got a second interview. As it sometimes use dubious drugs (includ- hebed make it mier Like everything else I’ve learned in; the rooms of AA, getting help from turned out, though he was not an al- ing, sometimes, psychoactive “boost- professionals – something that used coholic himself, he called himself a ers” to novocaine) and because my tO pt my recovery up to terrify me into silence and paralysis “recovering psychiatrist.” He be- chemically new body might react diflieved that “the real healing is in the ferently to pain and painkillers. So on jkmt in every – is, indeed, almost that simple. I begin by being honest about my rooms; I am just an adjunct.” When my first sober visit to the dentist I need for help. Then I ask for sugges- I compare that with tales I’ve heard in swallowed hard and told him the truth. tions in getting that help, and I honmeetings of psychiatrists who not He didn’t bat an eye – and immedi- — estly try to follow them. Keeping my only don’t support their patients’ so- ately substituted plain water for the sobriety first, I am honest with the briety, but work against it, I feel espe- cause a confrontation with the IRS &proof mouthwash he’d had in the can be a sobriety-threatening experi- professionals I use and, having turned cially glad that I put in the footwork “please rinse” cup. I’ve learned that I over an important aspect of my life to finding mine. I gained a great deal ence! When my accountant had sucseem to need more novocaine than I cessfully handled an IRS audit for them, I must be honest in my efforts from my sessions with him, partly be- used to, and sometimes I’m afraid to to follow their advice. I also check me, she said, “You deserve a great cause I was sober and telling the ask – so he pays attention to how big drink. No, a great big piece of with my sponsor when I’m uncertain. truth, of course, but also because I I’m reacting. Then, when the bills come in, AA was dealing with a doctor who told chocolate cake!” The message gets In short, when I’ve put my sobriety spread in unexpected directions. keeps me honest again, so I do my me to not drink and go to meetings first and been honest with doctors, best to pay them promptly. Having and, when confronted by a particu- I’ve not only protected myself, but It seems that some judges have gotten the message, too. In all my years been open about my AA membership, larly knotty issue, suggested that I’d I’ve gotten the special help I’ve I wouldn’t want t~ give AAs a bad better pray about it. needed. of drinking, I never had to appear before a judge. Sobriety means showing credit reference! One can’t expect that kind of in- The same has been true with using All of this practice with professiondepth support from every profes- other professionals whose skills have up, though, including showing up for jury duty, which frightened me. My als served me well when I was faced sional, of course. But these experi- been required because of the gifts of

I with sudden hospitalization. Though What did she mean? “These nurses my sponsor, sponsees, and AA and interns and aides are very accusfriends. were available as much as tomed to seeing active alcoholics. But possible, I was essentially on my own. no matter how much educating I try I told every hospital interviewer I en- to do, they have a hard time associatcountered, from the admitting room ing ‘alcoholic’ with ‘sober alcoholic.’ through specialists and floor nurses, They find it hard to believe that that I was a recovering alcoholic. I ex- you’re an alcoholic – but you’ve plained that this fact had potential shown them by your attitude, by the medical implications, and insisted on network of support you have, that being consulted prior to any medica- AA works. Thank you!” tion. Still, lying in a hospital bed for Thank you – for helping me to the first time in my adult life, I was ,learn to be honest even with outside feeling frightened and alone when I professionals. And for being able to had the unexpected thought, “What say those simple-but-not-easy words, this is about is showing how a sober “I am a recovering alcoholic.” person does it.” I wasn’t sure what Those few words not only help to that meant until I was almost ready to protect my sobriety by keeping me go home. I had been unable to attend out of medical and emotional crises any of the hospital’s AA meetings, that could trigger my disease, but but an alcoholism counselor on the when doctors, judges, lawyers, and staff came to visit, with my chart in others have evidence that AA works her hand. To my surprise she said, – that there’s hope – they’ll pass “You’ve done some important that on. twelfth-step work here.” Sara G., New York, N. Y,

JANUARY 1990 little nursery room, and some of them on things: “Why don’t you start your not so little either. More than a few own babysitting meeting?” Well, I’d mutterings were heard, mostly from thought of that but this time we the older members. Things, as they talked it through, even going through have a way of doing, had just come to the Yellow Pages to pick out likely a head. churches. Don’t pick one with too The group held a group conscience many insurance requirements, she meeting. The very next week, an an- said, and make sure they have proper nouncement was read. It began, “We facilities for children. The wheels had don’t want to offend anybody, been set in motion. but. . .” Instantly on edge, we lis- Here it is, three years later. Our tened. The group asked that mothers meeting has been going strong for a who brought their children take fif- year and a half. We have not been teen-minute shifts watching the chil- without our problems, but what dren during the meeting, to keep group has? It’s all worth it, and them quiet. more, to see a frazzled newcomer, To be honest, I will say that I was with a couple of toddlers hanging off blind with rage and hurt feelings. her, come in and say, “Thank God Most of the other moms felt the there’s a babysitting meeting!” same. It was the first time I ever About six months after we started walked out of a meeting in anger. our new meeting, I realized some- Two of us cried the livelong day; we thing. Those group members from felt AA had rejected us. Instead of the morning Step meeting had seen trying to find a way to welcome us their meeting slipping away fromi they had pushed us away. Well, fine, them. They did the only thing they we said, we’ll never go back there. could to save it, as they saw it. They They sure have accomplished their could have said: Mothers with chilpurpose, we said. No kids will ever dren will please stay away. I’ve heard sully their meeting again. of that being done. But when I looked 1 t’s said around AA that the only thing you need to start a meeting is a resentment and a coffeepot. Our and there was one of those divider things to shut out most of the noise. Summer came. A lot of moms and And, like true alcoholics, the resentment just hung on and on. In back, objectively, at the way they handled the situation, or their group group needed one thing more – a grandmoms (and a dad or two) now fact, it lasted for months stretching conscience handled it, I was surprised , babysitter. had their older children during the into years. This whole issue of young to find that they had been rather nice I Several of us mothers had discov- day. They started coming, and bring- children at meetings became a sore about it. I had held a resentment for ered a morning meeting pretty close ing their children. We were still com- spot, a rallying point, you name it. years over something that had been by that had a nursery where our ing, not every week but most weeks. We felt like the women in the olden kind, gentle, and thoughtful. young children could play. We started You know how it is when you find a days, campaigning for suffrage. Although I love our morning babycoming regularly, since it was a Step meeting that always makes you feel One day 1 was complaining (no sitting meeting, I went back a few meeting (an even rarer, more delight- good; you want to stick with it. other word for it) about this situation months ago to that other meeting. ful find). The kids would behave One morning everyone came. to one of those wise old-timers, and Know what? It’s still a great meeting! pretty well for most of the meeting, There were probably ten kids in that she said one of those lightbulb-going- Cathy D., Laurel Springs, N. J.

March 1990

floor, believing that all was well. The My drinking progressed. The noise music would begin (the louder the inside of my mind could not be better), and I would be into the short- drowned out by the loud music. The lived fantasy. My body would begin voices inside mv brain were .~.-deafen- -. – -. to move in a frenzy (the wilder the ing, and they kould not stop. The better), and I would believe 1 was flashing lights began to startle and someone else, living someone else’s frighten my liquor-and-drug-sensitive life, possessing someone else’s mind eyes. I would now get up on-the dance and body. My new, brief identity floor and my legs would twist and would be that of a famous Broadway buckle under me. Coming to for a actress, a Bob Fosse dancer, or a Pu- minute, I wouldn’t know where 1 litzer Prize-winning author. Multicol- was. Saliva would be running down ored lights would begin to flash from the side of my mouth, and my clothes above, the brighter the better. When would be wrinkled. I would look into the transformation in my mind was the mirror and see the grief-stricken complete, I would no longer be the girl. She no longer sat at the table girl who was flunking out of school, waiting for me to return. She was who was out of work, who threw up now on the dance floor with me. She and blacked out, who hadn’t called wouldn’t dance. She would just stare her family for over a month. back at me with a blank hopeless- I left that girl back at the table. She ness that frightened me. I would had no desire to dance. She didn’t try, feebly and in vain, to make her want to join the fun. She sat alone dance, or to dance her out of my semiwith her sadness. Every now and consciousness. But every time I looked then, I would catch a glimpse of back at the mirror, she was there. myself in the mirrors, and I was When all of this became too much impressed. In all my grandiosity and to bear, I would sniff the poppers self-centeredness, I would believe being passed around on the dance that the mirrors were reflecting a floor, or run to the table for a drink, wonderful creature. Every man in the or grab hold of the stranger dancing room had just fallen in love with her. with me. Anything to make the sad When the music stopped, I would girl go away. But she wouldn’t dance make a mad dash back to the table. I and she wouldn’t go away. The music always left the dance floor with my had gone out of her life. The joy of head down. I was afraid to look up escape could no longer be turned on. and see the illusion smashed, to I felt only a deadly stillness that I realize that 1 was the grief-stricken hope I will never forget. girl I had tried to leave back at the When I got sober, I still clung to table. She was always there waiting my drinking and drugging friends. I for me, staring at me, offering me an- was convinced that it wouldn’t be other drink. possible to dance sober with sober

people. Drunk people didn’t notice I survived the first few dances, my new self-consciousness, my new stepping on my partners’ feet, bumpfear about dancing. Sober people ing into other dancers on the floor, would, or so I thought. losing the rhythm of the song being I now know that I thought dancing played. Another part of my life was and having fun were ways of escaping starting over. I had to learn how to from myself. My view of having fun have fun as a sober adult for the first was distorted. time in my life. Dancing had been an Gradually, I began to realize that escape. Now, clean and sober, I no 1 had to break away from my old longer needed to escape from me. friends and make new friends in Looking into the mirrors, I saw the program. 1 sat in meetings and me, smiling! I started to cry. The screeched about how it was impos- grief-stricken girl was gone. The sible to dance sober with sober peo- music had come back into my life. ple. The old-timers smiled and nod- There was no noise going on, no ded. They promised that it would nightmare in my mind. A miraculous get better. transformation had taken place. The When I was about two and a half sunlight of the spirit danced all years sober, I went to an AA area around me, with me, and best of all, assembly in the city where I had done inside of me. a lot of my partying. After the busi- Now, with four years of sobriety, I ness meeting, a group of AAs were have a better idea of what dancing going dancing. I dared myself to and fun is. In sobriety, I have danced go along. naked under a full moon with a I took the same terminal unique- friend. I have danced by candlelight ness I brought into AA with me to the with a lover. I have danced in the solidance, but it soon evaporated. We tude of my home. were in the same room where 1 had When I dance now, I have an danced to lose myself back in my awareness of who and what I am and drinking days. I saw that everyone I have a feeling that everything is else in the group was just as nervous all right. And I have that great rush <s I was. We were all sixteen again, of joy in knowing that I have been lined up against the walls, sweaty given a second chance in life. That is palms, dry mouths, loud giggles, try- what dancing does for me. That is ing to get up the nerve to ask each what fun is today. other to dance. Bambi S.,New Orleans, La.

March 1990

I was doubtful. How could anyone to twenty-five men and women. like me? 1 didn’t like me. I wasn’t There are several dually addicted sure you would accept this woman. people. There are people who have The mother of four children and pilfered from the till. There is a man stepmother to two who broke up who gets the Steps mixed up since he two families and two homes surely had a stroke. There is a woman whose wouldn’t be judged appropriate to husband has been unable to speak or come into this group, if these women function for over ten years.

Sobriety were any example. Also, I was not a “pure alcoholic” – 1 was dually addicted, although at that time I We range in age from twenty-three to about sixty-seven. We have a new member with six days of sobriety (at couldn’t see how prescription drugs this writing) and an “old-timer” of were also causing me monumental de- fourteen years. We are predominant- One woman’s jour- At one time I was ashamed to ad- pression and anxiety. Although I had ly white, but often have a few black ney to Alcoholics mit I was that apparition. Today I never heard of or read the “Twelve men or women attend. We are single, Anonymous be- know – after countless tear-jerking, and Twelve,” I was sure I could be married, divorced, widow and widgan like this: The belly-laughing experiences myself – classified as a “fallen woman.” ower. We are doctors, lawyers, hometelephone .call this experience can be used to save Two nights later, minus orange makers, computer operators, stable was made to the another life. juice cans and slippery heels, I was hands, sales people, and retirees. We AA phone number and two lovely, How those two women kept straight taken to a meeting. Still sure you have slippers and staunch members clean, sane, sober women were sent faces as they began to share their ex- would judge my outsides I wore a who didn’t touch another drop from to a middle-class suburb on a Satur- perience, strength, and hope, I’ll brand-new white winter coat, fabu- the day they walked through the doors day night. I’m sure they wondered never know. One talked about how lous straw hat, white gloves – the of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are what they would encounter. They her drinking had led her to AA. The works. After the meeting was over, 1 believers, doubters, and atheists. We rang the bell. other talked about how her drink- looked for my white coat and couldn’t all have ~roblemsother than alcohol. The door was opened by an appari- ing affected her family life. Both find it. Someone needed it more than But wk are all there for one reason tion in a wine-stained robe, wearing said they were finding hope and re- I did. (They left me the hat.) 1was too and one reason alone – we each have orangejuice cans for hair rollers, walk- covery in meetings of Alcoholics frightened to show my outrage at a desire to stop drinking. No one who ing on tiptoes because her heels were Anonymous. such an act. I was still afraid you comes through the doors of our little greased with petroleum jelly and she’d Of course I cried – a lot – as I lis- wouldn’t accept me. But not one brick meeting house leaves without fall if she walked flat-footed. The ex- tened to them. My shame and re- single person ever told me I didn’t knowing that, and knowing that we planation this apparition gave for her morse and guilt were weighing me qualify or that I wasn’t acceptable. not only want them to come back, we charming appearance was that the next down (to say nothing of the orange Three weeks later I heard a talk need them back. day was Sunday and she had to look juice cans). We talked about drink- that broke my dammed-up tears. In my home group we come togethgood for her Sunday school class. ing. 1 tried to tell them about me – A man had done what I had done, er to share our experience, strength The visitors could tell from the what a terrible person I was. And walked out on a family and home for and hope with every suffering alcowine stains on the robe and the carpet then the most beautiful words that I the only lover that was important – holic that comes our way – or is althat this greased apparition had a hope I never forget were said to me: booze. He was sober six years and I ready there. And we never ask quesproblem keeping the alcohol on the “You don’t have to tell us anything heard him say everything will be tions – so no one has to tell us anyinside. They could also tell she had a about yourself that feels bad. We only okay, if you don’t drink. thing they don’t want to. few other problems! want to help you stop drinking.” In my home group there are fifteen Corinne H., Raleigh, N.C.

April 1990

– Accentuating the Negative – caves in or my face turns green with purple spots, I won’t drink today. If I want a drink this badly tomorthings we want, but can have only one. My desire to drink was accompanied by an even fiercer desire to stay Must we alwavs sav “ves” to AA? row, maybe I will, but I won’t drink sober. I could drink, or I could not today!” And day after day I didn’t drink. I couldn’t do both. Alcohol drink, and after a while the desire could deprive me of my marriage, my left me. career, even my life, if I ever stopped Since we regard “No!” as having saying “No!” to a drink. There was enormous respectability when it never any doubt about which choice comes to our drinking, is it logical was good for me. that so many of us treat it as repulsive Under the circumstances of Mark’s in all other AA affairs? Mark was far exhausted state, his agreeing to make from being the only AA member I an AA talk was not good for him, have heard declare -boast -that he and not good for AA, either. No one never said “No” to AA. got the AA message from him that I can hear rumblings of disagree- night. He couldn’t have lifted it, let ment: “The two things are so differ- alone carried it. Perhaps he did no ent you can’t even compare them, Not harm to anyone, but the possibilities taking a drink is something you can do are many, and frightening. ur speaker at the Friday night about the AA program, but I came for yourself. All the others are things Did a new person, hearing that meeting didn’t look like himself. away .with an enduring conviction: you do for AA. You can’t decide rambling discourse, decide AA was He had a gray complexion and droop- There are times, in AA as in all things, whether to make an AA talk on the not for him? Did someone, hoping to ing eyelids. And reeling with exhaus- when “No” is the right answer. basis of whether it’s good for you!” hear the words that would encourage tion, all but falling asleep on his feet, It is hard t o understand how this Well, 1 think maybe we can – him to hang on for one more sober Mark began to speak. one inoffensive little word ever got and should. day, fail to hear them? Did anyone’s “Maybe I, ah, shouldn’t have such a bad press in AA. Granted that Suppose we try a new measurement heart sink at the thought that AA come t’night,” he admitted. “Oughta the Twelve Steps outline a very posi- about our activity in AA, from taking members were required, or at least stayed home and slept. Been workin’ tive course of action, the foundation a drink to everything else: giving expected, to perform every AA task sixteen, eighteen hours a day all of all our spiritual growth. But the talks, attending meetings, doing our asked of them, even when in the week. I’m about wore out. But when ultimate purpose of AA itself can be share in service work, being a spon- shape poor Mark was in? Clem ast me to speak tonight,, I hadda expressed in one entirely negative sor. When we have a mental conflict I think we will find that, when Fome. I never say ‘No’ to AA.” statement: “Don’t drink.” about whether to do something, we carefully evaluated, any AA task Whereupon Mark put himself and An even more specific negative can settle it with just one question: which is not good for us will not be . his audience through fifty minutes of injunction, “Don’t drink today,” is “Will doing this be good for me?” good for AA, either. agony while he tried to give a talk he what kept me sober through weeks of What we want to do isn’t the point. Most of us have known AA memwas in no condition to make. And brutal craving for alcohol and brought A lot of things we want to do aren’t bers who plunged into AA activity ‘ how we wished he had said “No” to me to my approximately 11,500 days good for us and a lot of things we as if the whole Fellowship must col- AA that time! without drinking. “I won’t drink once hated the very thought of (like lapse if they didn’t do five people’s Like many of us, I find something today ,”I told myself when the desire many years of total sobriety) prove to work. A while back, the Grapevine at every AA meeting, and that one for alcohol became almost unbear- be very good for us indeed. Also, carried an article by a member who was no exception. I didn’t learn much able. “If the sky falls or the roof many of our choices are between two had gotten into that situation. She

held offices in several groups, spoke, A friend of mine, on the other hand, organized, volunteered, chaired com- gave service a thorough trial and demittees, for hours every day. She was cided it was not good for him. He is neglecting her family, wrecking her conscientious and capable, so when health, and endangering her sobriety. he became GSR he faithfully attend- When she realized how bad for her ed all meetings, accepted a service this was, and limited herself to what committee responsibility, and made it she could and should do, she was an outstanding success. And he better off and so was AA. didn’t like any of it. The meetings Overtired, overscheduled people bored him. The discussions exascan’t do good work. AA was bet- perated him. He felt his patience ter served by the fresh, enthusiastic being stretched too far. He decided, 1 members who promptly took on the think rightly, that to a person of his jobs she relinquished. Her zeal to do temperament, a continuing service it all had deprived them of proper commitment was not good, either for service opportunities. him or AA. 1 learned the danger of trying to When asked to do anything in AA decide what was good for me in AA most of us, like Mark, want to say without adequate information when I “Yes.” That is usually the right anwas several years sober. Because of swer. But not always. Sometimes we an unhappy period in a group ruled need to consider things like our family by an absolute dictator, I decided 1 and work obligations, our health, our wanted no part of service. Let others schedule, whether at this time and hold the offices and make the deci- under present circumstances we can sions. Finally, though, I could ni, take on another task and do it well. longer refuse t o serve my greatly Then, the crucial question: “Will loved new group as General Service doing this be good for me?” Representative. So I reluctantly en- If the only intelligent answer is in tered the AA world of service – and the negative, we can say “No,” poloved it! I wouldn’t have missed a litely, but ever so firmly, serene in the minute of it! It was marvelously good certainty that we are serving AA very for me, but there was no’ way of well indeed. ,knowing this until I tried it. Elizabeth E., Tulsa, Okla.

August 1990 j * , r

after midnight I must have decided to imagine my surprise? I was sick at the drive home against the advice of my thought. Could I have possibly said friends. (Did you ever try to persuade something like that? I loved my job an alcoholic who was drunk not to do and tried to treat all patients with something?) I came out of a blackout kindness and respect. But how could in an awful jail where people were or- I deny it when my memory of the . dering me around and not too polite- whole thing was a blur? It seemed it ly. I must tell you I resented it imme- was their word against mine. Fortudiately. I was a nurse and a respected nately, I didn’t lose my job although person and who did they think they I was suspended for two days and were, treating me like this? I soon called in for counseling. Somehow I found out what had happened and managed to convince them (I think) why they were so mad at me. In my that I did not have a drinking probblackout I had hit a parked police car lem. I never drank before or during and smashed it up pretty bad. No one work – only after – so how could I had been in it, thank God. I was ar- have a drinking problem? And before rested for driving under the influence now, I never thought my drinking of alcohol and that’s why I was there. would affect my job. But that was not all. Apparently, dur- After two days and much pain and ing the arrest, I told this officer that I humiliation, I returned to work and was an ICU nurse, thinking that I somehow thought things would recould get out of it. I had been pulled turn to normal. But drinking would over for drinking and driving once or never be the same for me. The fears twice before and had gotten okt of it and guilt I’d felt before were now by telling them I was a nurse. This greatly magnified and I was terrified time it didn’t work. I was drunk and of what might happen in my next was five in the morning when the ing drunk when she hit another car. I’d smashed up his car and he didn’t blackout. I knew there would be patient arrided. She was badly In the other car were a man and his care who I was. more of them. mangled with m p n ~broken bones and two children out delivering morning The next morning, after being re- Shortly after that I started attenda collapsed lun8- Her face and body newspapers. All three were dead now. leased from jail, I was sitting in my ing AA meetings on the recommenwere covered dith cuts and bruises But this patient was alive. As I living room feeling sorry for myself dation of the court; they said, “If you and she would need a machine to worked to save her, my heart went when I received a phone call. The call want your driver’s license back you assist her breatt~ing.This was not an out to the wife and mother who ‘ was from my boss and she informed will go.” For about six weeks, I atunusual scene for me, but as I carried would now be alone. But I also felt me that my director of nursing had tended meetings and started reading out my duties p a trauma intensive something for this patient and her just received a call from the police the Big Book, but I was still unwilling care nurse, a su&denchill ran through predicament. I am twenty-eight years department. They told her what had to give up the alcohol. Finally, after me. lt was diffpent for this patient. old and an alcoholic. So as I worked, happened, adding that I had threat- thirty or forty meetings, I quit fight- ~f and when spe survived, someone I reflected on my five months of ened the police officer by telling him ing the denial and let go. I admitted I would have to t&llher that her car had sobriety in AA and how it came to be. that I hoped no cops would ever be was an alcoholic, accepted it, and struck and killed three people- One summer night, I had gone out patients in the unit where I worked picked up my white chip – the sur- ~h~ patient was a twenty-seven- partying as usual. Only this time it because I would get revenge. Can you render chip. I had decided to ask for year-old femal& who had been driv- had ended differently. Sometime

help to try to stop drinking one day at driver’s license, etc.). a time. I asked a God I had long since Today I am trying to live as an exforgotten about to please help me. A ample of what AA and sobriety can wonderful lady with eleven years of do. My life was a mess when I came sobriety was put into my life and she to AA and 1 didn’t even know it. No became my sponsor. And all of these one could have convinced me when I things I thought about as I took care was drinking that a life without alcoof this twenty-seven-year-old patient. hol could be anything but dull. I had I am one of the lucky ones. Today 1 to find out for myself how good it have sixteen months of continuous could be. Today I have many AA sobriety in the Fellowship of AA. I friends my own age. 1 have been to have had the love and support from young people’s conferences and met many wonderful recovering alcohol- many new people. I love my work ics. I have a loving sponsor who I and occasionally get the opportunity think of as my guardian angel. God to help another alcoholic who wants was directing my life before I even it. 1 love life today and I look forward asked him to. He had plans for me to each new day. that I didn’t know about. I had a As for my patient, she recovered chance after one year of sobriety to fully from her injuries after three make amends to my boss. I told her months in our ICU. I don’t know about my new life and her eyes filled what ever became of her or how she is with tears as she hugged me. I have doing, but I pray for her sometimes had a wonderful work evaluation and and think about her often. You see, we have advanced in my career. I have are the lucky ones. I thank you all for finally wrapped up the last of the giving me this second chance at life. consequences of the DWI (money, Kim D., OrrnondBeach, Flu.

September

and I moved to Yonkers, New York years old. There was the usual adjustin 1950. But 1 had neglected some- ment period in a strange country. At thing important – “First Things the age of fifteen in high school, I First” – and I found a lot of excuses experienced my first drink. I never to miss meetings. So of course the seemed to drink like my peers, but was inevitable happened and I got drunk always getting sick and always makagain. For the next two years I was ing friends with my type of drinker.’ ( Old-Timers of back and forth – sober, then drunk How I graduated is beyond me. My again. I made two trips to Towns mother had always pushed me into Hospital. One time they didn’t want beauty contests (which I won) and to keep me because 1 was in such bad that led to a short stint in show busi- ‘ shape with DTs. While there, I had ness, which was ruined by my alcothe privilege of meeting the fabulous holism. Two marriages failed, both Dr. Silkworth who had such beauti- because of alcoholism. The progresjoined AA in Springfield, Massa- and other bills. We also used our own ful piercing eyes that looked right sion of the disease was very rapid. chusetts in 1944 at the strong sug- home phone. number for contacts. through you, ‘down to your soul. It When my first arrests started, my gestion of a judge. There were four The other members guarded their was there that I found out that this parents were puzzled but supportive other members in the group and I was anonymity because they were well- disease progresses even when we are to the best of their ability. But their the only woman. A dentist by the known business and political men. not drinking. patience soon wore out. More than name of Dr. D. had gone to Boston I was slow to completely surrender I finally got sober for good. I will once I would be released in the mornand brought the message back from at first and slipped a few times at the celebrate thirty-five years of continu- ing and back again the same night that area. beginning. I met Bill W. in 1945 when ous sobriety on October 16, 1990. because I went right back to the bars At that time we didn’t have any I was a patient in a private sanitarium How or why did I become an alco- and always managed to get into some place to meet except restaurants, in New Hampshire. He was traveling holic? I don’t know and I don’t care. sort of trouble. More than one night 1 hotel lobbies, and my home. We had around New England to see how the If my parents or grandparents had a slept in hallways or doorways. only the Big Book and each other to program was progressing and offer- problem it is no concern of mine. I Today I can thank the judge who attain and maintain our sobriety. We ing words of encouragement. It was was an only child, so I have no broth- told me to look into this new “club,” never heard of ninety meetings in at the sanitarium that I witnessed my ers or sisters to compare myself with. as he called it, or I’d be back behind ninety days. That would have been first examples of wet brain, which is What is important is that I am an al- bars for a long time. It was in AA that impossible because there was only enough to frighten anyone into sobri- coholic and AA is my medicine, and I learned I wasn’t a bad person but a one meeting a week in a hundred- ety. It was also there that it took just as important as my heaft and lung very sick one. mile area. seven men to put me in a straitjacket. .’ medication. Today I hear a lot of ana- I’ve been through a lot in my near- My nonalcoholic husband was def- In those days they tapered us off with lyzing instead of utilizing. For my- ly thirty-five years of sobriety the initely a co-founder of our little paraldehyde, a combination of ether , self, I can’t afford to delve into the death of my parents, the death of my group. He borrowed chairs from the and alcohol. It is horrible tasting but whys or hows – I have to put as much son. I also had a massive coronary in , bar next to his place of business and very effective for treating DTs. I had effort into maintaining my sobriety 1977 and I have emphysema. Howallowed us to use his clubroom with- many experiences seeing things and as I did into feeding my disease. ever, I manage to get to one or two out charge for meetings. When we hearing things that were a figment of I was born in Scotland but we meetings a week – my health and could finally afford to rent a small my imagination. moved back to England when I was a weather permitting. My husband is room, my husband willingly allowed I finally got three years of con- baby. My parents came to this coun- afflicted with myasthenia gravis (an the use of his name for rent receipts tinuous sobriety. Then my husband try from England when I was ten incurable disease) but is still a pillar

habs. We spent more personal time with our pigeons – staying in their .chh~~Ikeepmy homes, babysitting, doing laundry if necessary, and staying with them in own howe in wder and shifts until they were able to get to a meeting. keep the Twebe S vs It’s so wonderful to see the younger people coming in today. They have a in my l*, I can chance to miss some of the YETS and still cany the messwe they have many more avenues of help available to them today. But please to the alcoholic who give us old-timers a break! We need you, too. Remember, you are the oldis still suffm*w’ timers of tomorrow. I realize that AA has come a long way and a lot of changes have beof strength. Thank God that this hus- come necessary. Some people get two band had faith in me and also in AA. or three years of sobriety and go into When I was younger and healthier, counseling and I’m sure it helps a lot I belonged to the institutional com- of people. However, I feel I don’t mittee and had the privilege of speak- need a degree to help and talk to aning at many prisons, jails, and de- other alcoholic. As long as I keep my toxes. In the beginning, there weren’t own house in order and keep the any fancy detoxes and rehabs. We Twelve Steps in my life, I can still wound up in jail or prison and I expe- carry the message to the alcoholic rienced a few places that should not who is still suffering. There is plenty have been allowed to operate – real of volunteer work desperately needed snake pits! in prisons, hospitals, institutions, and There are hundreds of groups in detoxes. The satisfaction received any given area today, but I still be- from this kind of work is something long to the first group that I came to money can’t buy. when I moved here. I can visit as I am old enough to be a grandmany groups as I want to, but for me mother to a lot of newcomers today that would be spreading my service – in fact, I am a grandmother. I’ve too thin. My loyalty belongs to my been subscribing to the Grapevine home group. since its first issue and it gets better all I’m not able to do the amount of the time. I wish there were more sponsoring and twelfth-step work Grapevine reps in groups today. Keep that I once was able to do, but I am up the good work. God bless you all, able to do some. Of course, years keep coming. ago, we didn’t have detoxes and re- Pat C.,Yonkers, N.Y

September 1990

Time cannot change (his son was killed), in, get well, and grow. I guess the real but he understands that in time he old-timers watched me that way too. will get used to it and eventually the Last night a man showed me his sixpain will get bearable. teen-year chip and reminded me that

Rolls On I Whenever I run into realold-timers, I beg them to keep coming back because I am followina in their footsteps. It scares me-when I’m the nobody believed he would make it back then. 1 remember – he was a Drettv sad case. But then I was five years sober, and I was a pretty sad senior member in the meeting because case too that year. Sometimes they I really need people to follow. I al- tell me that something I said made a ways get choked up visualizing Bill big difference to them in their early W.’s description of being led by the sobriety, but just as often the newcomhand of someone ahead and reaching ers say something that helps me a lot. out to take the hand of someone be- Being an old-timer means getting hind, in a never ending chain around in touch with my mortality. There’s the world. I’m glad I’m not a realold- Jack: For some ten years, I was his timer, no matter what they call me. backup on the AA telephone the first I’m not ready for that much responsi- Friday of every month. For ten years bility yet. I do what I can. we had been on the phone together Sometimes 1 get caught up in re- and had never met, but he was always membering what AA was like when I so cheerful I looked forward to my was still dying the gray out of my hair shift every month. Now he has cancer and wearing miniskirts and beads and has to resign, but 1 finally met while the flower children were still him at a mutual friend’s tenth birthsmoking grass on Haight Street and day party last fall. What a thrill to a In fact, last year, we had reunion of memories from my child- %: P”g

7 Telegraph Avenue. We took over the meet him at last! – the young people who were in AA in hood are starting to surface, and Industrial Club and danced to the Many of my friends who came in the late sixties. We didn’t do very well I am in therapy again. I went broke jukebox and stocked ice cream be- when I did are dead now, some from at getting the word out, not being again last year, and I can’t seem to hind the bar. In those days, telephone old age and some from AIDS and promotion-oriented people, but hold a job or make a business pay, volunteers worked a four-hour shift other causes. about thirty-five attended. Some peo- and I can’t seem to maintain a rela- every week, with no backup, and But others who were here before ple I hadn’t seen in twenty years. tionship. My life is not all that man- .took maybe fifteen calls a shift. (Now me are still going strong, and I need I There were a lot of hugs and tears ageable even yet. But I am able to we take maybe thirty-five calls in a them. They’re the realold-timers who that day. j stay sober, and I have learned that no four-hour shift with two backup peo- remember what I used to be like, and Sometimes, they call me an old- matter what happens it is possible not ple to take the twelfth-step referrals won’t let me gloss it up. I timer, but I don’t feel like one. I, still to drink. And time is my tool. The and the “I need to talk to someone” The real old-timers say the key to 1 don’t know how to live, and I still days add up, one by one. have much to learn. It just takes me I was talking to a man after last calls.) There were only two or three young people’s meetings in the Bay sobriety is don’t drink and don’t die. So, when you get right down to it, I ‘ 1 1 longer than some. I have been sober night’s meeting and we agreed that Area then, and “young” was under guess I’d rather be an old-timer than over twenty-one consecutive years, the best cure for heartache is time. He forty. Yes, times have changed. the alternative. and it is true that “more will be has an unacceptable situation that he It’s neat to watch the people come Sue C.,San Francisco, Calif.

September 1990

wrong side.” And I says, “Mind your right there with her little note and my own business!” And as I looked up, it check. “Your service no longer rewas a feller in uniform! So we had a quired.” And I had the nerve to ask, few words, and he pushed me, and I “Why?” I was told, all right. Well, in wasn’t going to let anybody get the those days you could get jobs any best of me, and I shoved him back, time. It wasn’t like today. If they had and we had a little tussle there, and ever looked for references from me I finally 1had two buttons off his over- think I’d never have got a job, be- This is the second in an intermittentseries of personal stories coat, and he says, “I’m takin’ you cause I never stayed in one. which first appeared at the back of the first and second in!” And I says, “Do as you damn I never hit hospitals, and I don’t editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, but were please! ” I was a tough piece of furni- know why because I was fit for hospiture in those days; if the Almighty tals many a time. All the time I saw later dropped from the third edition. God had come down I’d have done the queer things crawling up the wall in By presenting a representative sampling of these stories in same thing to him. So I landed in the my bedroom. In 1918, I got pinched the monthsto come, the Grapevine hopesto offer newcom- 67th Street station house on the east again for the same thing. I turned out ers a chance to meet – in print – some of the Fellowship’s side, and I stayed there all night long. to be a cop fighter; I thought I could The next day I had to appear, and I beat the whole force. I landed in the early members. was finger printed for molesting a same court, had the same judge, and policeman’s uniform. So I got five he asked me was I ever arrested bedays in the House of Detention. It fore. I says, “No, your Honor!” Just story. When my husband left me, I didn’t bother me whatsoever. The as brazen as can be. And all he done I started to drink only thing I was worrying about was was give me that sneering look, and in 1913, when the had to be on my own. I never worked before, but I had to get out and get a how was the gang making out with- he says, “For lying in court,” he women sat in the out me. I thought I was missed all says, “you’re not getting away with back rooms. We job if I wanted to drink. So I got a five days this trip!” I had gone under I

had a good time in pretty tough job. I wasn’t any chick- over. But they made out all right. those back rooms. en. I was a woman of thirty-one when So I got out, and then I had to grab an assumed name, and I had forgot I had two little boys at the time, but I had my first drink.. I got a ..job as myself another job again, so what did that I was finger printed, and I – . – .. I set into but hotel work! That was thought, being away for two years, he my family didn’t worry me, because cleaner after mechanics in buildings. one drunk always led to another. So I would have done anything to get the dking the Prohibition days, and the wouldn’t know who I was! Playing so my husband left me and took the two money for drink. Any place I threw bottles were flying all over the place. innocent! But I got thirty’days then, boys; one was six and one was nine. my hat was homesweet-home to me. ,When I went to work on the floor, my five days off for good behavior, over ‘ They were going off to school in It could be a basement or a cellar or a first idea was to look in the guests’ on the Island. closets where the bottles were. 1 was Another time I was in court on the those days, and it didn’t worry me a back yard. I fell plenty low, but if I bit. I loved the liquor and I loved the tell it maybe it will help some gal or all right going in, but I was cockeyed same old charge of drunk and disor- , I crowd that I hung out with. As far some guy so they don’t have to get drunk coming out. And I’d have the derly. “Thirty days,” says the judge. help drunk with me. One time I got so And I was that mad and disgusting i as my family was concerned, I lost down that low. everything of love and respect and Finally one day, as usual, drunk, I drunk I blacked out and fell asleep in that 1reared right up and spit clean in everything else. was standing on a corner waiting for the guest’s bed. I had the nerve to go the judge’s eye. It was a distance of at Believe me, this is no made up a streetcar, and a guy comes over to back on the job the next morning – I least five feet, too! You should have me and he says, “Lady, you’re on the didn’t know what happened the day seen him leap. “Another thirty days,” before – and the housekeeper was he says, “for spittin’ in the eye of the Repflntedwlih perrnlsslmol A4 World Services. Inc.

court.” “Nuts to you,” says 1, but I please about it! I have been on my had to serve the whole sixty days just own Tor all these years, and I can still the same. do as I please!” He didn’t get angry I was worrying about my liquor over it, and then finally he popped the and I was worrying about the crowd I question to me: “Would you like a hung out with. As far as my family drink?” Whooh! There’s what I was was concerned, they never entered my running for! And I says, “Sure I mind. So I did my twenty-five days would. ” So we went into a speakeasy on the Island, and all I could do was up along the line and we had quite a look through the bars across the East few drinks, and we talked things over River and see First Avenue and the and I went back home with him. joints I hung out in. But believe me, when I went back When 1 got out of the workhouse home it was too much of a decent life that time I got a domestic job, and it for me to lead. I didn’t want that dewas right up my alley because I got cent, clean life. 1 wanted to be what I paid every day, and paid by the hour. was, a drunk. So I spent more time In my day the women only got twenty- over on First Avenue than I did at five cents an hour, but the liquor was home. Of course when 1 went back cheap, and that would be all there home, my two boys were raised, which was to it – maybe. I had blackouts, I will give my husband credit for. He and many a night I don’t know how I raised them as gentlemen. The oldest ever got home. 1 always did say, well, boy was mariied, and the youngest to sit at the bars, I thought that was with the guys and gals that were on thank God I’m in one piece. But boy was going to Delehanty’s – to the terriblest thing – for a woman to the Bowery. I was loused up too. My where I had been I would never know. become a policeman! Brother! Well, sit at the bar! Well, it didn’t take me a whole clothes on my body were full of I had been away from home for fif- it was all right. I had to take it and ac- long while until 1 got myself initiated lice. How low can a woman get! teen years, and one day I was walking cept it. But every time 1 thought of to the bar. I was thrown off those 1got in tow with a gal named Irene, up First Avenue and I met my beloved that uniform, it killed me! After he stools so often that, believe me, it and we used to drink. When we had husband. He called to me and he said, had been in the force one year he got wasn’t funny. good money, we’d drink the best, but “Where are you going?” I was run- married. 1 was invited to that wedding I had everybody’s answers. 1 but- when we had only a little bit, beer was ning like blue blazes to a speakeasy to with his father. But I invited myself to ted in to everybody’s conversation. If good enough. So one day in 1946, I get a drink, and I didn’t know what the old gin mill over on First Avenue a guy would fall asleep and leave his happened to go into our hangout to say, so I said, “I’m goin’ up to the again, and celebrated his wedding change on the bar, 1 was handy to again as usual, and I asked Irene what Five and Ten to get hairnets.” I want- with my crowd that I hung out with. help myself. He couldn’t sleep and she was drinking. She says, “Anna, ed to beat it, but he says, “Wait a That’s the kind of mother I was. spend his money, so what was I wait- to tell you the truth, I can’t take the minute.” So I did, and we had a few I went back home again anyway. I ing for? And I’d hang around like an first drink. I’m havin’ cola.” (She words, and he looked me over, and was always forgiven, somehow or old jackass until I got loaded. Broth- nearly knocked me dead!) I says, he says, “You smoke, too, don’t other. But I wasn’t back home very er, was I black and blue! I’m sur- “Saints above! What happened to you?” He didn’t know what all I was long before it was the same old round- prised today that I’m not lame or you?” She says, “I can’t take the first into; he should have known the rest! about – back again to the friends something like that, the way 1 was drink.” “Well,” I says, “nuts to you. I said, “Listen here, you! This is my and the blazes with the family. When knocked and kicked. I’m havin’ mine!” “But,” she says, body and soul, and I can do as I the doors opened up for the women Then I got so low that I hung out “I’m gonna get you yet!” I says,

. ; “Over my dead body! ” the door of the 41st Street Clubhouse in alcoholics. She said to me, “You’re taught me the way of life. It has given She got me into AA in March of opened, I sobered up that very night drinking.” I says, “How do you me back my respect. It has given me 1946, and in May of that year, Moth- after thirty-two years of knocking know?” She said, “Come on in – sit back the love of everybody I know. It er’s Day was on the 12th. The day liquor around. I drank cola there that down awhile and rest yourself.” She has taught me to be humble when I before that 1 was having a good time night, and I went back and forth to says, “Charlie called up.” 1 says, have to be humble. in a gin mill again, and I don’t know the meetings for eight months. “That son-of-a-gun! He’s got me so I am what you call a lucky woman. whatever come over me, but I asked I was sober for eight months, phys- advertised that this damn organi- I live alone now. I have a television set . some of the younger folks that could ically, but not mentally. I never min- zation knows my whole business! which my boys have treated me to, dial the phone to call Irene. I don’t gled with a soul in the meetings. I Nobody stepped over my territory and now 1 have a telephone too! I do remember doing it. This was all told never shook hands or said hello to my before in my life! Now I gotta get love to go to AA meetings, and I meet to me after. The next day was Moth- neighbor sitting alongside of me. I \ into a thing like this and they know it with everybody, the old and the new. all!” “Don’t get excited,” she says. , I er’s Day, and like everyone else I wanted to be such a wonderful mother never stopped for coffee. I just ran in and ran out. In the meanwhile I got “They’re comin’ up to see you to- I’m a twenty-four hour person. I live on that twenty-four hour plan. I am , that I had to buy a gardenia for my married the second time. I picked a night.” I nearly dropped dead. five years and seven months without coat. I went up to this same gin mill to swell partner, another drunk like They came up all right. And 1hum- a drink, but I could go out tonight, celebrate Mother’s Day, I sat on the myself. I would come home from the bled myself. I felt so guilty. I don’t but for the grace of God, and get stool drinking, and pretty soon in meetings and tell him all about these know what AA does to you, but you drunk. There’s another thing I must comes my friend. stories. about these women hittine can never drink the same again. So remember, that once an alcoholic “Oh!” I says, “Hello, Irene!” She the jails so often and all the hospitaG they suggested to me to go up to a always an alcoholic. I don’t mind the says, “Hello my eye! You got me so often, and he says, “You old so- farm in Connecticut, nothing but name of alcoholic, because I was lookin’ all over the town for you! You and-so, you should’ve been there wide open spaces in the Berkshire called a son-of-a-this and a son-of-amade a date with me yesterday!” I yourself!” That’s what I got for an Hills. It was a beautiful place. 1stayed that, and alcoholic is a good enough says, “I?’She says; “Not you, but answer. But it didn’t bother me. up there two days, and I came back a name for me. So I’m very, very happy. the crowd in here had the ears rung Then one night a little argument new woman. To newcomers I say, go to meetings, off me with the telephone. They said started. I think I was waiting to start Today I have a lot to be thankful and God take care of each and every i you wanted to meet me tonight and something. It was a foolish thing, for. Alcoholics Anonymous has one of you! you wanted me to take you where I go over pig’s knuckles, believe it or not. on Sunday nights.” “Hmm,” I says, I was waiting for that pig’s knuckles “That’s news to me. Have a drink?” argument. He told me he was gonna “NO,” she says, “I can’t take that have the gang over to eat up my sauerfirst drink. There’s a cab there waitin’ kraut and pig’s knuckles for Saturday for me to take you down to AA.” night, and I said, “You will in a pig’s So down to the old 41st Street eye!” And I went out and got a fine Clubhouse I landed. In those days load on. I only drank for two days, they used to have three meetings a but I carried enough for a year in week -Sunday, Tuesday, and Thurs- those two days. day. So I went down to that AA meet- I got off that two-day drunk through ‘ing that night. They took me to the the AAs. The nosey AAs caught up beginners’ meeting. I don’t know with me somehow or other. They what was said, but I do remember went to the place where I worked. that when the meeting was over, when The woman there was very interested

February 1991 J ‘ .-

iti Is AA Changing? well they cover what AA is and what the Traditions and find that “we” are AA is not, how we relate within the just a small part of a larger picture, Fellowship and how we relate to the that our personal recovery depends outside world. We can also refer to upon AA as a whole. The Traditions AA Comes of Age, which explains in lead us out of our self-centered “1” depth the history of our three legacies program into the whole of AA. We of Recovery, Unity, and Service. Do are shown that we must conform and we need to reinvent the wheel? why. They show us what is at stake. Can our Fellowship survive a We see this is not a selfish program, in major unity break? Would we be able the sense of selfishness and self-cento regroup and get our unity back or teredness. The “I” does have a part

w hy do we need a “forum for debate” in Alcoholics Anonymous? Has AA really become a debating society? There was once an- We forget that should we lose our unity, the millions of alcoholics who still ‘do not know’ might never get their chance.” From the 1840s to the would we go the way of the Washing- in insuring that AA is still around for tonians? I do not believe that any one the generations to come. For that, I member sets out to destroy AA. Most am responsible. Tradition breaks occur because mem- Tradition Five seems to be getting bers want to improve AA, make it bet- the most workout lately. This Tradiother group of alcoholics who had 1930s millions of alcoholics didn’t ter, more up to date, to keep it mov- tion states that “each group has but much success at helping drunks re- have a chance because of the failed ing along in this changing world. But one primary purpose – to carry its cover. Many of you know about the unity of the Washingtonians it is our ignorance of what AA really message to the alcoholic who still suf- Washingtonians. Back in the 1840s The articles in the Grapevine under is that is tearing our unity apart. fers.” But what is our message tothey helped hundreds of thousands the heading “Is AA Changing?” sug- What are the main unity problems day? Many meetings have turned into achieve sobriety. They, too, had one gest to me that we have a serious unity that we are hearing throughout our an extension of aftercare programs. primary purpose – to help the alco- problem within our Fellowship – Fellowship today? Some are “How We discuss anything under the sun, holic who was still suffering. Their member debating against member, in do we introduce ourselves?” and from “getting in touch with our feelprogram worked. Then they decided print, in our “meeting in print.” “What do we talk about at meet- ings” to how abused we were as chilto introduce some secondary pur- Where has all this confusion come ings?” No one is trying to hurt AA by dren, from co-dependence to polyposes into their movement. The mem- from? Have our Traditions, our very introducing themselves as an “alco- addictions. What is the AA message bership couldn’t agree on what these name become obsolete? Our early holic and addict.” Many of these peo- that we have to offer the alcoholic? secondary purposes should be. Some members, through trial and error and ple are just doing what we tell them to Dr. Bob said it so well in his farethought this, some thought that. a lot of pain, laid down a set of spiri- do – get honest – and then we turn well message, when he emphasized Their fellowship started arguing with tual principles called the Twelve Tra- ?round and say don’t say this and “the simplicity of our program.” Dr. itself. Unity was gone and pretty’soon ditions so the future generations of .don’t say that! Just introduce your- Bob said, “Let’s not louse it up with so was the Washingtonian movement. AAs would not have to go through self as this and don’t talk about that! Freudian complexes and things that If we don’t learn from history are the same difficult process of finding In the beginning of sobriety the are interesting to the scientific mind, we doomed to repeat it? Some say out what was best for the Fellowship. emphasis is on “I.” I have to say thus but have very little to do with our yes. In our book, As Bill Sees It, Bill Let’s look at our name. It isn’t and so because I have to remind my- actual AA work.” We share our resaid, “Though many of us had to that complicated. Alcoholics Anony- self of who and what I am. I can say covery, through the working of the ‘struggle for sobriety, never yet has this mous. It states what we are. Our what I want because I’m important Twelve Steps with the newly sober Fellowship had to struggle for lost Preamble is very clear on our and I have to help me. How do we get alcoholic. What happens to our sinunity. Consequently, we sometimes -purpose, – on what we do and what we beyond the “I” into the “we”? It gleness of purpose when we introduce take this one great gift for granted. d o not do. And the Traditions – how happens when we start getting into ourselves with all our other addic-

tions tacked on? We open the door to gram. Without that moment of iden- canned heat. I do, however, have the being one and not the other. I have to talk about the other addictions. If tification, there is no recovery. experience of a double affliction, take care of both my afflictions to one alcoholic walks through our Through learning about the Tradi- namely drug addiction. I know the ensure my sobriety. I find my answers doors only to leave because he or she tions, we go beyond our own wants feeling of hopelessness, the inability in meetings where people deal in honcannot identify with the members and needs and learn to fit into the to love or allow someone to love you, est, gut-level feelings, where the words sitting around talking about aN addic- whole of AA. A whole other spiritual the desire to evade responsibilities, that are spoken come from the heart, tions, then we have failed. We are no world begins to unfold. The reasons and the need to feel oblivion whether where it is not so important how longer AA and we need to close shop. for giving up one’s self become clear it be from a bottle of rye, bottle of much or what you drank or used. We keep hearing that a drug is a when we start the journey toward the pills, or smoking dope. The feelings When newcomers come into a meetdrug, that alcohol is mentioned only self-sacrifice and humility that is the and behavior of the dually addicted ing, chances are increasingly higher in the First Step, that we are really spiritual foundation of our entire re- are no different from those of the that they may be afflicted with alcotalking about feelings, that all addicts covery. Then we can start becoming pure alcoholic. holism and drug addiction. If they inhave the same feelings. Yet the very of maximum service to God and to I cannot help where my disease of troduce themselves as addicts, please beginning of recovery for each of us our fellow man and anything is pos- alcoholism has taken me. We have all allow them the time to come to know is one drunk talking to another. This sible – even unity! walked our own walks. I am not so what they don’t know yet. And when is the whole foundation of our pro- Jude T., Waxahachie. Tex. perfect that I can carefully edit my people introduce themselves as alcostory to suit everyone’s needs. The holic addicts, please allow them the program teaches me that I have to be self-honesty that they have finally rigorously honest and to put my life found. You will save their lives by

‘A Desire in God’s hands. In the moment of si- allowing them to be who they are. lence before each meeting, I ask God The most important fact is that we to give me the words to speak so that I made it here alive, and that we each

to Stop Drinking’ may better help the people in the meeting. have a right to be here if we have a desire to stop drinking.

J When I attended my first AA meet- The Big Book carries the answers ing in 1980, I introduced myself as an to all of our problems. 1would not be addict. I was not asked to leave or clean, sober, or alive today had I not hit my bottom alone in my living about a daily reprieve, and introduced told I couldn’t talk about drugs; in- received some of the experience, room. It was a dark lonely place me to AA. On that three months the stead I was greeted with open arms. strength, and hope from pages 439 where there was nowhere to go and foundation of my continued sobriety They told me to come to ninety meet- and 452. We would have all been desuicide seemed an inviting alternative was constructed. With that came the ings, and if after that I felt I ‘didn’t prived of the vast knowledge that to a life without hope. I honestly did belief that by sharing my experience, belong, that was okay. They shared came from a doctor, alcoholic, or not know what my problem was, so strength, and hope I can help others their stories, and their feelings, hurts, addict if we had incorporated the for a year I sought answers in the on their road to recovery. angers, resentments, and frustrations notion that we should not talk about wrong places. In that year my disease Our shared experiences become the were mine. I felt that, for the first drugs or not allow someone who suf- ‘ rendered me totally bankrupt physi- most valued tool in our sobriety. I time in my life, I belonged. fers from a double affliction to attend cally, mentally, and emotionally. truly believe this and it has been with I am an alcoholic and an addict. I our AA meetings. God intervened and a counselor great emotion that I read the letters in cannot allow myself the luxury of Donna I?. Brooks, Alta. landed on my doorstep and suggested the Grapevine of late. I didn’t have — that I enter a treatment center. There the experiences of jail, or losing my they taught me about my disease, family, or being on skid row drinking

March 1991

which said, “Alcohol problem here.” knew I had to find the solution to this I didn’t realize 1 was so obvious. 1 Higher Power thing. stuttered and stammered then fell The first thing I did was to go over silent. When I found my voice again, every Step that directly related to a 1 told him that I guessed it was me. Higher Power. 1 had come to believe The man suggested an alcoholism that a power greater than myself counselor named Billy and I went to could restore me to sanity. I had see him the next day. As I sat in front admitted to my Higher Power, to of Billy, scared and hungover, he told myself, and to another human being me that he would be my guide for the exact nature of my wrongs. I was about six weeks but that the real entirely ready to have my Higher solution to my problem was to go to Power remove all my defects of char- AA. I went to my first meeting that acter. I had asked my Higher Power My glory years had After’my divorce, my life turned night, loaded with apprehension, to do just that. I sought through finally arrived. Af- sweet, but I kept right on drink- which soon gave way to an over- prayer and meditation to improve my ter fifteen years of ing. This blew my problem drinking whelming feeling of gratitude. Near conscious contact with my Higher struggling with a theory. This time my explanation for the end of the meeting I raised my Power and I prayed to know my bad marriage, I my drinking was that I was having a hand and said, “I’m Paula. I’m an al- Higher Power’s will and for the power I- # had married a won- good time. One day after a particu- coholic.” I felt so much better say- to carry it out. Well, I pondered, derful man and had a new chance. larly “good time,” I became aware of ing it out loud. I was on my way. “Where am I stuck?” We had a dream house. I was doing how seriously debilitating my fre- Two years later, I am still profoundly Ahh. Light dawned. The missing the kind of work I had always wanted quent hangovers were. 1 asked my- grateful. link was Step Three. I had not made a to do. My son loved his new school self, “If this is a good time, why am I For me, spiritual growth is at the total commitment to turn my life and and new friends. He even liked his drinking this way?” core of my sobriety. When I came to my will over to the care of my Higher new stepfather. How perfect could 1had no answer. But, thank God, I AA, I was, as the early AAs describe Power. life be? came across a man who did. And, it, spiritually bankrupt. But the hun- My whole life? My whole will? The truth was, however, that in the thank God, he confronted me. He ger in my soul was not dead. It was That’s what Step Three say’s. It midst of this “ideal” life, I was actu- was an expert in alcoholism in the just buried beneath years of anger, doesn’t say some of my life, like perally going down the tubes with a bot- workplace and I got his name from fear, and discouragement. haps the parts I don’t mind giving up tle of vodka in each hand. an article in the Sunday paper. I When I started, I wasn’t daunted or the parts I’d like someone to take. In the latter years of my first mar- called to interview him for a book I . by the fact that I had no Higher Power It says my life – as in the whole ,riage, I suspected I had a drinking was writing on the problems of drug and I didn’t worry that I hadn’t gone thing. Phew. I can’t do this, I deproblem. I even gave up liquor for abuse in business. (Oh, the irony of to church for at least fifteen years. In spaired. How can I function in this two years without AA. But I didn’t that.) I certainly didn’t want help AA I found I could have a Higher world if I move over and let this Highthink I was an alcoholic. 1 thought with my drinking problem. Power of my own making, one that er Power run the show? I have been that 1 was a problem drinker – that The man listened to me patiently as didn’t demand my presence in a pew planning, plotting and manipulatis, I drank when 1 qad problems. And 1 explained my writing project. Then on Sunday morning. I made up my ing for forty years. How can I possi- 1 had plenty to drink about in those he turned the tables on me. He asked own Higher Power in theearly months bly back off and let someone else years. My ex-husband was a drug who the drunk was in my family. of my sobriety. And for a while, he take over? abuser, our family life was awful, and This longtime recovering alcoholic did just fine, until my questions and The first thing I had to remedy was I had a series of jobs which I hated. could see the banner 1 was waving needs became more complex. Then I that my Higher Power was inade-

I discovered, the big meany just waiting for me to make a mistake so he could squash me. I found that he was loving, forgiving, and nurturing. And I could see – from his work in my fellow AAs with good sobriety he appeared to be smart enough and sttong enough to guide me through the thorny problems I was currently facing. I was thrilled. Now this was a God that could manage my life. I gave him a test flight. I took it day by day. I placed my life and my will in God’s hands. He took me up on my offer and started giving me guidance. I went through the Steps again, finding even greater satisfaction in theni now that God was managing my affairs. My program was back on track again and my sobriety was better than it had been before. I had found the key. And in discovering how important Step Three was for me, I also confirmed that spiritual growth is the essence of healthy sobriety for me. Now, when I hear my fellow sojourners say that they are having difficulty walking down the road of sobriety, I ask them how their spiritual life is. Usually, they tell me it needs major work. Then, I share with theni something that has changed my life irrevocably – lasting fulfillment for a deep spiritual longing that, I realize quate t o handle this lofty job. This today, has been in me all my life. This brought me to reviewing the religious has brought me joy beyond my expecteachings of my childhood. I did tations and serenity that has become some earnest and intense research my foundation. And I still have a lot into the God of my youth and began more growing t o do. to see him in a new light. He was not, I Paula L., Bedford, N.H.

J u l y 1991

forget Charlotte’s response to my that there really isn’t anything that timidly asked question: “Are there needs to be done to affirm this fact. 1 fewer black women alcoholics than disagree. 1 have learned several other other alcoholics?” things from “old-timers” in AA Charlotte smiled at me knowingly, ,about how to increase the probability as if my question was perfectly nor- that our message of “inclusion for all mal, and, more importantly, as if she alcoholics” gets through. Some of knew and understood that painful the things I have learned are: 1) If I place from which my opinion originat- am given the privilege of choosing ,

ed. “No, I don’t think there are fewer, AA speakers for meetings, workbut I do think that some may come, shops, conventions, etc., I should be look around, not identify and leave, sensitive in my selections so that there and that many others just haven’t is representation on the level of difgotten here yet.” ferent races, sexes, age groups, etc.; Charlotte then said something that 2) When sponsoring newcomers, I can absolutely altered my perspective in pass on what 1 have learned in this AA and helped me to begin the pro- area to increase their sensitivity; 3) 1 cess of not so much letting go of the can speak up about this issue even feeling of being different, but em- though it may be uncomfortable, unbracing my difference as a God-given popular, or not well-received; 4) 1can am black, female, and alcoholic. is a disease,” you said. But for me it blessing. Charlotte said, “You’re sponsor newcomers from underrep- Before AA, I often considered was an intolerable disgrace that 1 was needed here. You need to be in the resented groups into service. those facts a rather tragic and unfair convinced had been foolishly inflict- rooms for the ones who may need to At our 55th International Convencross to bear. Today, these selfsame ed upon me by my own hand. Thus, identify with you, for the ones that tion, 1 attended a workshop on the realities assure me that I have both self-flagellation was a regular and haven’t gotten here yet.” It was at historical perspective of blacks in purpose and responsibility. My re- daily occurrence. At meetings, I this moment that what I thought was AA. Listening to “what it was like in sponsibility to all alcoholics, sober noticed every gesture, every word, a tragedy began to be revealed to me our past histories,” when in certain and active, male and female, black, that in my distorted view of things as a blessing. parts of the United States blacks brown, yellow, red and white is be- validated and justified my intense The responsibility that I have felt weren’t allowed even to drink coffee yond question. However, the addi- self-loathing. One thing I noticed was in being black, female, and alcoholic after the meetings, certainly filled me tional, and perhaps special, purpose that I saw few alcoholics who looked hasn’t always been easy. Bu’t AA has with gratitude for how it is. But lookthat my Higher Power may see fit to like me – black and female. This ab- .’taught me how to be responsible, ing at how it is, both the progress that use me for is, in my view, related to sence deepened my feeling of being and through practicing the principles we’ve made and the areas where we the fact that I am first a black alco- “different” and alone. of our program, the Twelve Steps, still grow, fills me with hope, inspiraholic and second a female alcoholic. One day, still in that first painful Twelve Traditions, and Twelve Con- tion, and a resolve to do my part in Like many of you, I’m sure, 1 year of early sobriety, Charlotte came cepts, 1 believe I have grown in my carrying the message of AA to all walked into the rooms of AA with my into my life. Charlotte was about ten ability to handle this responsibility. I alcoholics in the spirit of the Third head bowed, consumed by so much years sober at the time, black, beauti- have tried to be sensitive to the need Tradition that AA may never exclude, shame that I could hardly look any- ful (inside and out), and totally de- we have in AA to demonstrate that overtly or covertly, any alcoholic who one in the eye. Sure, I heard your at- voted to the Fellowship and program Alcoholics Anonymous is for all alco- may need our help. tempts to reassure me. “Alcoholism of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ll never holics. There are those who may argue Dorothy H., Piscataway, N. J.

July 1991

pable of even admitting to-myselfthat I did want to live. Thank you “God wuhs xr at1 God and AA for loving me and giving me the strength that I so very much speclal chiIdren. needed. I’m alive and sober and grate- Eachoj’whas ful today. Some meetings today are quiet, sospecial net&. bering ones. I also enjoy the friendly ones and am grateful for those where We can learn, we we can’t stop giggling. I feel the rainbows and have help from friends and can chaye” seek strength through my Higher Power. I denied him in prison but and over in my head until I chose the thankfully he was always here. The road of insanity or committed suicide. God I had known would punish me I did not want to die but I would for the tragedies I have caused. I .

: The ‘Ex’ Factor *, have injected the fatal solution or tightened the straps on the chair or whatever it took for the wrongs to be right. couldn’t forgive myself – how could a God forgive me? But today my God does forgive. Sometimes we don’t believe, we just fake it till we make it Instead, I woke up to four years in and this power takes care of us anystate prison. I still have the picture of way, in spite of ourselves. Prison. For me prison for vehicular manslaughter I me taken there. I keep it just in case I I couldn’t smile when I was in that word used didn’t have any choices left. think about drinking again. The pain prison. Yet a friend told me tonight to mean deep, I never meant to hurt anyone. Yet was very real, very alive in my face that she called to hear my tinkling deep shame. It was as a consequence of this deadly dis- and in my haunted eyes. The death of laughter. Today people mention my so unmentionable ease, I was told by a police officer my body and spirit was imminent. smile. There are days when I even that it took me that I had killed someone. I still re- But there is a way out of that snake laugh at myself. three and a half years to admit and member the officer’s face, as he pit; prisons have gates; and alcoholics Prison? It doesn’t scare me anyaccept that I am an ex-con. Now I can yelled at me, “Do you know what can stay sober by the grace of God more. I am grateful for the time. Tolook at the word and say it out loud you have done?” and the Fellowship of Akoholics day, ex-con stands for extra-special and really see those first two letters – The horror was that I did not Anonymous. God makes us all spe- and extraordinary. ex. It used to sound like an axe cut- know, my worst nightmare come cial children. Each of us has special All I’ve yet to accomplish in my life ting through the wind. I remember true. I was a blackout drinker. I needs. We can learn, we can change. will be dedicated to God. Because of ex-husbands, ex-jobs, excesses – all drank to get drunk, to make the We learn at different times, with dif- all of man’s laws and everything I fearful, angry, disappointing things. world go away, to blot out the tears I ferent methods, different teachers, know in my head, I should be dead Always painful. didn’t or couldn’t cry. Then I drank different classrooms. My learning today, just like the man I killed..And % I drank until the pain of living was because I could not stop drinking. has meant staying sober and knowing I do believe that that man walks with just too much. I was afraid to live and I think today that it’s a blessing I the reality of a solid foundation for me and understands why I needed to afraid to die. .Today I have choices. was in a blackout during the accident; living “out here.” learn to laugh. When.1was sentenced to four years in I would have replayed that video over In my early sobriety, I was inca- Gloria S., Sacramento, Calif.

July 1 9 9 1

three daughters – then sixteen, eigh- jail. I was told my husband had been teen, and twenty-one – were proud shot and I was under arrest for firstof their mother for a change. 1was on degree murder. I couldn’t believe cloud nine. this was happening, but I saw blood However, my husband was con- on my jeans and there were bruises stantly telling me 1 couldn’t be an on my body. alcoholic or I couldn’t have stayed I had been out on bond less than a sober so long. He accused me over week when I got a visit from a lady I’d and over of just not wanting to have never met. She asked me if I’d like fun with him anymore. I was deter- her to act as my temporary sponsor. Then another recovering alcoholic asked if I wanted to attend an AA meeting with her. I really thought all I had b m out on bond of this was senseless. What good could any of it do now? But I went. less than a week when The stranger who was my temporary Igot a viiitfi.0~a sponsor is no longer a stranger and she is still my sponsor. I began work- My IYdw m met. ing the Steps and I will never forget

SELF-WILL She mked me if I’d like her to act & my Step Three and the spiritual experience I had as I turned my will and life over to the care of God as I understand him.

( RUNRIOT My husband and I beer into the back of our truck and My trial came up in August 1989, and the jury found me guilty of manslaughter and sentenced me to seven years in the women’s state prison in had been separat- stated, “I quit drinking.” mined to show my husband a good Arkansas. I am still incarcerated. ed a few months It was pure hell for me for some time and get drunk with him – even I have continued to work my pro- .when we decided time. The withdrawals and the crav- though after years of constant drink- gram, to read the Big Book, and pray to give it one more ings were agonizing. I knew the Seren- ing, blackouts, waking up in strange and meditate daily. I’m active in the try after many pre- ity Prayer and must have prayed it a places, even losing my children to AA meetings we have here. I no longer vious attempts. Both of us being hundred times a day. Occasionally I foster care at one time, 1.knew I was rely on my own self-will. My self-will active alcoholics, our marriage was a would go to an AA meeting, but even- an alcoholic. So on April 30, 1989, ended in a tragedy that affected many rocky road from the beginning. This tually 1 didn’t go at all because I be- after being dry for eighteen months, I lives. I rely on my Higher Power last time 1 had moved out of state. I gan doing so well on my own self-will. drove to the liquor store. whom I choose to call God. I still say was thirty-nine years old at the time. Why bother? I thought the meetings I can hardly remember anything we the Serenity Prayer daily but when I As we packed up my things and head- were great for those who needed the did that night. I remember us dancing say it now I do it with earnestness ed back home, we started to drink help, but I didn’t need it. I was hold- together and I remember us fighting. and understanding. There is a power nonstop. But when we crossed the ing down a good job, longer than My next recollection was of being greater than ourselves. state line, I threw my opened can of any job I’d ever had in my life. My questioned by police officers at the Janice E ,Pine Bluff,Ark.

July 1991 I b

After I was married I was. in ….. – – – much – — about two-thirty in the morning I —

more trouble with myself and 1drank started. In about one hour I was a great deal more, but now I had drunker than anyone there. I kicked someone to blame it on. All my life I someone in the shins and slammed had blamed everything that ever hap- the door on his fingers. I knew I pened to me on someone else, and I shouldn’t be drinking, and I was usually could find someone. Now 1 scared to death. I was in real trouble. had a husband. If I was drinking I didn’t know why I was drinking, worse now, it must be his fault. and I didn’t know why my behavior One night I was out drinking by had changed so. I thought if I left my myself, which I didn’t do as a rule. I husband things would be different. I sat in a bar drinking martinis for a thought I would be different if I could This is the sixth in an intermittent series of personal stories long time, and somewhere on the way live by myself again. Which I did home I fell down in the street, and a and proceeded to drink worse than which first appeared at the back of the first and second cop came along and picked me up ever before. ‘editions of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, but were and took me to St. Vincent’s Hospital. Then I decided that I was in trouble later dropped from the third edition. They pronounced me drunk and dis- because I was living in New York and orderly and took me over to Bellevue. everyone knew me, and I used to By presenting these stories, the Grapevine hopes to con- When I came to the next morning, drink too much with people, and tinue offering newcomers a chance to meet – in print – I was in the psychopathic ward. The maybe I didn’t know the righl people. some of the Fellowship’s early members. doctor who tested me and asked me a So I moved away. I never thought few ~ersonal ..r – ~ auestions – ~~- ..- — was -.- a . – nsv- about changing myself, I always chiatrist. I asked him to call wh&;l thought about changing people, or worked and tell them I wouldn’t be -. changing places.

I have to tell you a ing, and I took nothing. I suppose I in. I thought they’d just give me my I went down to Virginia, of all little of the way I lived mostly for pleasure, or what I clothes and let me leave quietly. They places, to stop drinking. I was down lived before I got knew for pleasure, which to me was told me that I was not able to go out there one month when I bumped into into AA so you can just going out at night. 1 worked all on the street alone, that 1 was not a a fellow I knew from Greenwich Vilsee why I made the day, and went out and stayed out at responsible citizen. They said some- lage who was on the same army post. choice that I did. I night. That was about as much as 1 one would have to call for me. To We were glad to see each other, and started drinking at the age of seven- knew about life. I rebelled against someone as arrogant as I was, who he invited me out, and I said, “Oh, I teen, but I was in trouble with myself everything I’d ever heard as a child, had taken care of herself, that was can’t go out. I don’t drink any more. ” long before that. I never got along at and I lived to suit myself. ‘kind of rough. I really thought if you didn’t drink, . home, and at the age of thirteen I I never thought much about settling I thought I would never get in such you couldn’t go out! And he said, stepped off and decided I’d go out for down. I thought anyone who got a situation again, and I thought the “Oh, that’s all right. Come on over myself. I decided that no one loved me under the dominance of another hu- way to get over it would be not to to the club and have a few beers.” and I didn’t love them, and I was go- man being was pretty foolish, but drink. I was so naive that I thought And I said, “Well, that I can do.” ing off and make myself independent. when I was twenty-nine I did get mar- that would be possible -just by wish- About midnight that night, when they 1 My father brought us up to give no ried. I was never trained to live with ing not to drink! I didn’t take a drink wanted to close up the club, they anquarter and seek no quarter, and that anyone else, and 1 took on a pretty for three months, but on New Year’s nounced that if anybody was missing was just the way I lived. I gave noth- big job I wasn’t capable of handling. Eve everybody was drinking, and his companion, she was in the ladies’

room, passed out. That was me, in 1945. I had lost all of that kind of could walk. And I said to myself, understand. > my brand new environment, with the independence. I had been drunk for “My God, how understanding! Some- About seven o’clock someone right people! nine days, sick and alone and Oesper- body who knows that you couldn’t came over to this girl and asked her to So I left there and went to another ate. They didn’t have to tell me that walk and why you couldn’t walk!” I speak at a meeting in Brooklyn. I was army post, where some Red Cross alcoholism was a sickness. When you said to her, “I don’t know, I haven’t scared this girl would leave me. It was workers took me out on a date with take a bottle and lock that door and tried.” She said, “Well, the only rea- the first time in my life I ever had some British officers. I got drunk go in by yourself, that is death. son I ask is, if you can’t we’ll come needed someone, and I knew it. I with the British officers, and I don’t This day I decided to give up. 1 over to you.” And I reared up in all looked at her to see what she would need to tell you what I told the British don’t know why you give up one day my arrogance and I said, “You’ll say. She looked at me and said, officers, I being Irish. I left the next and not another – I have never been never come to me, but 1’11 go to “Would you like to go to Brooklyn?” day, telling my boss that I needed a you!” It took me until four o’clock I don’t like to go to Brooklyn when that dav to net there. I’m cold sober! But I wanted to stay I shail neier forget how comforted sober, and I went to Brooklyn. I I felt that there was a building, there don’t know who spoke first, last, or was a place, there were people who what, but someone got up and said he were interested in what was wrong had been in Bellevue thirty-five times. with me. I walked in that door and I thought, “Oh, my God! I’ll look the girl asked me my name, and I like St. Cecilia here!” I was so glad to said, “I’d rather not give you my be able to tell this dark secret that I name.” She said, “We don’t care if had had for eight years that I nudged you haven’t got a name, just so you a man alongside of me and said, have an alcoholic problem!” Well, I “Mister, do you know I was in Bellewas put to shame, and I told her my vue once?” He said, “Okay, girlie, name. She assigned me to another girl you’ll get the program.” I guess he who took me upstairs. 1 looked into figured I was just another psycho! this girl’s eyes, and I thought, “If The next day I started back for the only my eyes would ever be that clear clubhouse. On my way over, that again, then I’d be grateful for that thick head of mine started saying to alone.” Little did 1 ever think that me, “1 don’t know that you’re such a many more things would happen to drunk. I think you’re far too dramaable to understand that. I had suf- me than clear eyes. tic about this whole thing. Why do very serious operation, and he agreed fered on drunks before, but as they ‘ The first thing I learned that day you have to go over there with that with me. I never had the courage to explained it to me in AA, that partic- was that if I never took another drink bunch of people?” I was walking wait to be fired. I left every place I’d ular day I hit bottom. I decided to call I would never have another problem along a Bowery sort of street, with ever been. I ran away from life. I up AA, but I didn’t know that the with alcohol. That went over in my music playing and those awful neon never knew myself until I got into AA. clubhouse didn’t open until noon. So mind like a Victrola record. I had lights all around, and suddenly a little 1 had heard about AA about a year I kept drinking and calling up, and never thought about that first drink. I man started to follow me. Not the before I came in, but I thought it was drinking and calling up. Finally, I got had schemed and stolen drinks, but it kind of man that follows nice girls. some organization that helped you someone on the telephone, and I told was never the first one. And here I And suddenly I said to myself, “Lisout financially, and I was always too her I was in trouble and asked what I had a very simple problem – one ten, Toots, there’s something the independent for that. But on June 1, should do. The girl asked me if I drink, and that’s all I was able to matter with you when a guy like that

– “

follows you, and you better get over and compassion for their suffering. I to the clubhouse and find out what it had to wait until these people gave it is!” I always like to say that on my to me so that I could go out and give second day I was “wolfed” into AA. it away. 1 had heard that I had to make Then I began to have trouble with amends, and do something good for myself, and I went to see Dr. Silksomeone – that I was too selfcen- worth and he explained to me what tered. 1 thought of a girl friend who honesty was. I always thought honhad a brand new baby, and she liked esty had something to do with telling to get drunk on Saturday night. And I other people the truth. He explained thought, “That’ll be it. That’ll be that it had to do first with telling my- . good.” I called her up and told her self the truth. I spent most of my life I’d mind the baby while she went out worrying about myself, thinking that and got drunk. That’s how much I I was unwanted, that I was unloved. knew about doing good! The next I’ve learned since being in AA that I day I called my boss and told what the more I worry about me loving I happened to me and asked if she you, and the less I worry about you would take me back to work. It.was loving me, the happier I’ll be. the first time in my life that I ever 1discovered a fellowship of human showed any sort of humility, that I beings that I’d never seen before. ever asked anybody for anything. I learned how to have self-respect And I went back there to work. I through work that AA gave me to do. learned that going back and facing I learned how to be a friend. I learned something unpleasant, regardless of how to go out and help other people how tough it is at the time, is a lot – there was nowhere else I could easier than running away. have done that. 1 have learned that I went to meetings every night in the more I give, the more I will have; the week, because I’m that kind of the more 1 learn to give, the more I person. I either do a thing or I don’t learn to live. do it. I didn’t have to give up very much, because my life before AA was very empty, very lonely, and very superficial. Then 1 was always afraid of being a sucker, for some unknown reason – 1 always thought people were taking advantage of me. said, “Oh, you can’t go. You have to 1 One day a call came in to the club- be sober three months.” And then I house for someone to go out and do a realized that here I had spent all my Twelfth Step job. And they looked at life afraid that people were trying to me and said, “How long are you in?” get something out of me, and I had and I said, “A week or so.” And they nothing to give! Now I was in an

August 1991

my friends would say, with what I lost it all, how willing would I have thought was admiration. been to surrender, to try the new way of This particular morning in the life offered by the program of Alcoholshower, I felt like an animal all right – ics Anonymous? Once my illusion of sick as a dog. I was seized with panic. control was smashed, I was defeated. I couldn’t do it this time, couldn’t I was desperate. 1 was ready for AA. fake it through another day. It was Today is my 826th day of continuthen I dropped to my knees in a prayer. ous sobriety. Had you told the poor, Looking back, I see that God did help me. He answered my desperate shaking woman in the shower that she would live on and be able toenjoy ‘ foxhole prayer, but not in a way I’d a life free from the agony of alcoholic ever dreamed. In the space of a few obsessions, she would never have beshort weeks, I had lost my job (sur- lieved you. prise, surprise), my fiance walked out It wasn’t easy rebuilding my life. (“I’m fed up! Why can’t you pull The Twelve Steps gave me a guide. yourself together!”), and I was hos- My sponsor gave me a shoulder. The pitalized for a concussion (I banged Fellowship gave me their experience, my head on the toilet when 1 was get- strength, and hope. And the Big ting sick – pretty glamorous, eh?). Book gave me answers. The program In addition, I missed out on a charge also involved a four-letter word 1 had of driving under the influence only never cared for: work. because 1 convinced the cop who “Are you willing?” my sponsor stopped me to let me go – through would ask, again and again. Ours is a the expulsion of copious amounts of simple program, but not an easy one. crocodile tears. But then, how much would the pro- I believe God let me bottom out for gram mean to me if – like so many a reason. As my sponsor likes to say, of the things that came to me in my “Sometimes God empties our hands old life – it had been easy? t was a foxhole prayer. In a hoarse thing to myself that very night. On in order to fill our hearts.” Had I not Cwen J?,Madeira Beach, Fla. whisper, I pleaded simply, “God, weekends, it was easier to pretend please help me.” I could barely stand that drinking wasn’t interfering with in the shower. I was shaking and sick. my life. I didn’t have to wake up, or Again. Somehow, I had to pull my- get dressed to do anything. So I didn’t. self together and get to work on time, “My weekends are my time,” I a task that was proving to be more would tell everyone. I’d usually leave and more difficult. the phone off the hook until noon, or So many mornings had been like until whenever I slept it off. I’d often this – feeling nauseous, my skin feel too out of sorts to see anyone all crawling, my eyes red and bloodshot. day – until I was ready to go out and I would vow, “Never again.” But, party that night. heartsick, I knew I’d do the same “You’re a party animal, Gwen,”

September 1991 –

getting a message: this was serious pect as tiny flames flickered from stuff (too serious to allow for the an- cigarette lighters randomly struck tics 1 was used to) and that somehow around the room. what was going on here, whatever it Still in darkness and silence: Marge was, was working for some people. resumed her story, while three home This fascination with procedure, along group members slowly felt their way with the fact that I was desperate to to the supply cabinet, found used stop drinking, kept me coming back. candles from December’s holiday The power of our primary purpose Although it’s been quite a few days meeting, lit them and placed one on since those first few meetings, I am each table. One more was placed on still amazed at the aura around AA the lectern in front of Marge, illumihe first time I sneaked my fear- years before I came to AA. I was an meetings. 1 still marvel at the way a nating her face as she continued to ful, bewildered self into an AA expert at running meetings, solving group of very ego driven people quiets speak. The three members retook their meeting, I was struck by the serious- problems, and convincing others of down to a hush when the chairperson seats, and in the blackness, no one ness and singlemindedness of the meet- the superiority of my point of view. I announces the beginning of a meet- moved or made a sound. We all sat ing and its participants. The meeting had no understanding at the time that ing, at the attention when the Steps there, Marge’s voice somehow ampliwas a somber, pain-filled beginners this was a symptom of my “self-will are read, at the courtesy given to the fied by the silent darkness and the I, meeting. These were the first real al- run riot.” And as long as 1 was willing speaker. No matter what our immedi- earnest concentration of the group. coholics 1 had ever seen, and unsure to take care of all the details and fol- ateproblems, fears, orresentments, we When Marge came to the part about whether I belonged there, 1 listened for low through on the decisions, others come to a halt when the meeting begins her recovery, the lights went back weeks until I found that their pain and seemed to be quite impressed with my and focus on our primary purpose. on, but no one seemed to notice. No bewilderment was the same as mine. command of the organizational struc- Nothing illustrates this more than cheer, no acknowledgment at all that But mostly I remember my astonish- ture and personally I thrived in the what happened at my home group anything had changed, except that the ment as I compared these meetings to leadership roles that 1 later discovered meeting last spring. A small, soft- posture of the group relaxed slightly the committee meetings I had become had become my way of covering up my spoken woman had begun to speak to in response to the resumption of the accustomed to in my outside life. growing insecurities and my increas- the eighty-odd alcoholics gathered sound system that made Marge’s I was used to free-wheeling discus- ing sense that I was losing control. that night. We could hear her better voice easier to hear. sions, often flying off the subject and But here, at AA meetings, was a because of the new amplifier the group After the meeting ended and the into the personal agendas of those phenomenon I had never experienced. had just bought. Five minutes into room filled with the raucous noise of present, the jockeying for position, The meetings began and ended on her talk, the lightning and thunder fellowship, I reflected on the simdemands for attention and the ego time. One topic was chosen, each per- raging outside were competing with her plicity of this wonderful program. driven clamoring for the upper hand. son took a turn, in order, and stayed whispery voice, and bodies were lean- For forty-five minutes, attention to 1 had been a “leader” in my commu- on the topic. No one interrupted, and ,lng forward to hear better as Marge everything around us – the thunder, nity, and had learned well how meet- to my astonishment some even passed told where alcohol had taken her. the sudden blackness, the difficulty * ings worked. You determined how an so they could listen to others. Suddenly the lights dimmed twice of hearing Marge’s timid voice, the issue was to be resolved (according to I was glad that no one knew of my and then went out, leaving the church insecurity of not being able to move your own knowledge of what was prestigious abilities to run meetings basement pitch black. Marge stopped, about freely – was suspended as we best), convinced others of your point because then, at the end of my drink- and everyone waited for the lights all focused on our primary purpose: of view beforehand, and generally in- ing, I was too beaten and lacked the and the microphone to go on again. one drunk talking to another about timidated the rest to go along. Meet- confidence to do more than offer my After a few minutes of hushed black- alcoholism and recovery. ings like this dominated my days for brief comments and pass. But I was ness, the room took on a spooky as- Nadene S., Pittsburgh, Pa.

October 1 9 9 1

and feelings in the group’s lap in the forms. When they do share their. middle of a meeting which is already strength, hope, and experience, it underway with a topic. breaks through any denial that might As an alcoholic, I need to hear other be building. I t drums into my thick alcoholics share on an ongoing basis head on a regular and consistent basis how they got through another day that I truly do have a disease. In my i without taking a drink, without suc- cunning, baffling, alcoholic way, cumbing to their alcoholic way of even though I have a lot of time in the thinking. 1 need for them, if they are program, I might conveniently forraising a topic, to think it through get. Others before me have shared before the meeting, even talk it over that reality. with a sponsor so they can present it in Many might say, well, let’s cut the a way that relates to our common dis- newcomers some slack. It’s better ease of alcoholism. That is why I’m in that they say something even if i t 3 the rooms of AA in the first place – to dumping rather than sharing. Rut is it keep foremost in my mind that I’m an better? I contend that half-measures alcoholic. avail us nothing. Since I didn’t know Dumping, as opposed to sharing, is how to share in my early days in AA, unloading problems on a dry drunk, I allowed myself to learn. I did what hit and run basis. It is not defining the the winners suggested. I took the cotproblem and relating it to alcoholism ton out of my ears, stuck it in my so that it can bediscussed in a way that mouth, and listened to how sharing is beneficial to all of the alcoholics in was done. I really was willing to do the room. It is a way of grabbing at- anything I had to do if it wasgoing to tention, as we are often wont to do in get me sober and keep me sober. early sobriety, stopping the meeting in Dumping has not done a thing for its tracks, holding everyone hostage me or my AA group as far as I can while the garbage is being dumped, tell. Whoever is telling the newcomer and then virtually daring the people to “take it to an AA meeting and in the room to deal with it. I t certain- dump it,” please stop and consider ly does allow for immediate grati- “dumping” vs. “sharing.” Dumping fication/release but offers no long- is a certain show-stopper and attenterm benefit. tion-getter. However, it’s about as I used to be able to turn my anger productive to sobriety as dumping over on this, but obviously I haven’t someone else’s garbage in the center been too successful if I now have a re- of the meeting room for others to sort sentment. My serenity and, perhaps out. No thank you! Sort it out first by one day, my sobriety will be at stake if relating it to your alcoholism and I can’t go to a meeting where I hear then bring it to the meeting and share called on to come into an AA discus- people sharing how they recognize i t . In that way, we will all benefit. sion meeting and d u m ~our ~roblems ;he; disease in all of its camouflaged Karen M., Basking Ridge,N. J .

October 1991

to begin sharing the full miracle of ple that they belong? Do we insist my life with AA and not just the peo- they avoid speaking of the brightest ple 1sponsor or my new home group, details in their lives, while other AAs my opportunities to serve AA would talk casually about husbands and

/ Message \ disappear. Would people continue to invite me to speak in their small-town meetings of farmers and workers? Or wives? Do we expect these desperate newcomers to make the first leap into open-mindedness, forcing them to be their respectable downtown groups? tolerant of others’ intolerance before they’ve even begun to heal? Do I, like the assembly speaker, found love in sobriety and share a classic we really listen and try to identify ac- AA-Al-Anon partnership with my cross the differences? ‘. sweetheart – but will we ever be allowed to share our experience, It’s been estimated that one in three gay people is alcoholic, and that obriety has saved my life, and in not so different from mine, I thought strength, and hope as a program cou- one person out of ten is gay. That’s a Alcoholics Anonymous I am again about the times well-meaning ple at a convention? staggering suggestion. Is AA now learning a great many things. More people in AA have encouraged me It scares me to think my story of willing – or will we ever be willing than ever 1 desire the spiritual life of not to talk about my intimate rela- recovery matters less to AA because to help all these people recover and to awakening and giving and receiving tionships at meetings, that being gay I’m not straight and not lying about it be helped by them? Is our message of that the Twelve Steps offer. In many was an “outside” issue. I thought to protect anyone. But what scares hope really for everyone? ways my story is exactly like that of about the time, in my first group, me more are the drunk, alienated, I am sober today and in service for any other person who has experi- when I was told I would never be able suffering lesbian and gay alcoholics my group because AA gave me life enced the miracle of life through the to sponsor people because I was a out there in the world, who don’t see and God and hope, and because I program. I love AA. lesbian. Others suggested being gay recovery for themselves in AA be- want the hand of AA always to be ex- But here at my area assembly meet- was symptomatic of my active alco- cause they don’t hear about sobriety tended for the next suffering drunk. ing as a newly elected GSR, a night- holism and that once I’d sobered up from lesbian and gay people behind In that way, I’m not different. 1 want marish concern has reappeared for and come into a right relationship the podium. They sense that they will AA for myself and for others. me. The speaker last night told her with God, “normal” life would be always be outsiders, even in AA. But does AA really want me? story, describing her growth in sobri- appealing and possible for me again. What do we do to reassure these peo- liuren L., Durhant, N . C. ety through service. In her story she Sitting there last night listening to described how her first boyfriend had this AA speaker, I heard the full taught her to drink, and how she had . weight of a message that has been married him, then finally divorced carried to me in one way or another him years later when she got sober. for five years, alongside of AA’s mes- When she told us how she fell in love sage of hope: that because I am gay, again in sobriety, really for the first my entire life is an outside issue; that time, and now experiences the love how alcoholism and sobriety and our Higher Power makes for us, she God have happened to me, the way I beamed. I know how she felt. These am, has no real place at a meeting or : things have happened to me. in service. But I am a lesbian. And while 1 sat My nightmare has two parts. First and listened to this woman tell a story is the nagging suspicion that if I were

October 1991

Children at meetings From Houston, Tex.: I recently attended a GSR meeting From Dunstable, Mass.: In my opinion, a true solution might I am writing to speak about my exwhere Tradition One was being dis- be that groups which have parents of cussed. One of the members asked perience of being a recovering alcoyoung children as members might holic and a sober mother. In October for an example of a problem where offer to pay for a babysitter if there is Tradition One would set the prece- 1987, 1 was blessed with a baby boy. space available at the meeting place. After one year of juggling babysitting dent for the solution. Another mem- This appears to me to be the way to ber brought up the issue of children at and missing meetings, I realized that truly provide for the common welfare I was going to have to do something AA meetings having been a problem of all of the group’s members. T. D. for a couple of groups that he at- about this. tends. The group conscience at both After saying the Serenity Prayer From Ann ‘Arbor, Mich.: and removing my resentments, I demeetings voted to ban children from As a single parent of two preschool cided to start a babysitting meeting! the meetings citing the fact that the boys, it can be difficult to get to as It has now been two years and the welfare of the group was jeopardized many meetings as I would like. In my meeting is full of Moms, Dads, and by the mere presence of the children, area there are two meetings I know of kids. The children play in a separate no matter how good they were. where children are welcome, but they room full of toys and the babysitter Being the mother of one of the chil- are women’s meetings, and I am a is wonderful and helps out at three dren in question, I became aware of man. Having been sober in AA since other meetings. Parents are responsiseveral issues. One issue is that my 1983, I seem to be able to get by for ble for bringing their kids a lunch or a welfare was not even addressed dur- now with one or two meetings a week, snack, escorting them to the restroom ing the group conscience discussion; when necessary, cleaning up the toys, that I was not considered a member but that never would have worked for me in my first year or two. 1 hope and paying the babysitter $1 30 per of the group even after attending the child. The group supplies only the meeting regularly for a year. Another anyone reading this who later has an opportunity to help someone in such room; the babysitting program is selfissue is that the outcome of this par- supporting. (This system came about ticular group conscience meeting was a situation will have a greater appreciation of what it can mean. G. G. as the result of a number of “heated” assigning blame for the problem so discussions about parents being rethat the group as a whole would not sponsible for the cost of babysitting, have to accept responsibility for a not the group.) true solution. And, finally, that this I’m hoping this letter of experience group and probably many others like will help other women start this type it consider childcare to be the sole of meeting. We have the pleasure of responsibility and problem of the raising children, but the necessary parents and that it should be resolved priority of getting to meetings. L.G . outside of the group.

February

hospital for her withdrawal treat- to be out of town. ment. There the nurse told me that 1 In those meetings I was supported, had to be sure she drank plenty of nurtured and encouraged to become orange juice to avoid dangerous con- what I could be and wished for and vulsions. 1 dreamed about. Every AA meeting This was my first experience with has the same format bit the messages this kind of treatment, and I was are very individual. It is not unusual scared that something would happen for a person to hear a new idea that is to this beautiful woman – not be- exactly what that person wanted and cause she was beautiful but because needed to hear .at that moment. . 1 was responsible for her. I stayed One meeting I reported that I had with her for hours, well into the next hospitalized my landlady, who had morning, and she drank plenty of been drunk for weeks. The members orange juice. began to praise me. That was the first This was my introduction to what time I had ever been praised for an it feels like to take care of another action of mine, and I shall never forhuman being. In that one call I get the warm wonderful feeling that learned that 1 was not an alcoholic bubbled up inside. 1 can remember because my mother died when I was that feeling right now. three. 1 learned I was not an alcoholic Another of our Friday night meetbecause my father and my second ings fell on my birthday, and the stepmother didn’t want me. I learned group had a cake with candles and that a woman could have a mother, a sang “Happy birthday, Nancy.” I brother and money and still be an started to cry and cried and cried so alcoholic. I learned that what caused much that I had to leave the party me to drink was not important. And I with the remains of the cake in a box — – — – – – – – -learned that what was important was under my arm. 1 cried all the way he Independent Blonde – that’s many before you have. Work with the what I was going to do about it. home and for hours into the night. how I was described in my story AA program because it works.” That The message for me was clear: That was another first – the first in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anony- gave me hope. If others could do it, I “You know what to do, so do it. Use birthday cake I had ever had, and the mous* soon after I arrived in AA could do it. the Twelve Steps as a guide in creating gesture, the attention, the celebration on June 1,1945. One day while I was on duty as a new,’ productive, satisfying life.” struck me in a vulnerable spot. The first thing I heard was “Don’t a volunteer at the club for AAs on That I set out to do. The episode, gratifying as it was, take that first drink. You are sick. West 41st Street in New York a call One night 1 attended a meeting in was also alarming. My hysterical re- You are allergic to alcohol. AA came in to hospitalize a woman. She the home of a woman who was not an sponse made me understand that I knows how to help you get well, as lived in a duplex apartment beauti- alcoholic. But she did know about had big troubles that needed to be fully furnished with oriental rugs alcoholics because her husband was investigated and worked on. That – and Louis XV chairs. There she sat, in AA. The meetings were held in was the beginning of my search for *See the July 1991 rapev vine for a reprint of this Big Book story. “The Independent drunk, her mother by her side, bewil- her home every Friday night for fif- ways and means of becoming emo- Blonde.” from the second edition o f Alco- dered, her brother angry, frustrated teen years, and every Friday night for tionally mature. I learned that there hdles Anonymous. I in his helplessness. We went to a posh fifteen years I was there unless I had is no instant cure. It takes insight,

i>’ honesty and patience over a long, a great way to keep life interesting. After fifteen years of sobriety, provement of my skills rewarded me long period. Don’t think I’m a Pollyanna; I’m however, I had a slip. Why? In retro- for I became recognized and respect- The next episode that impressed not. My AA life was not without spect I had forgotten that AA had to ed, nationally and internationally, in me came on VJ Day in August 1945. I troubles. All life has troubles. The be my priority. My self development; my craft. 1 was offered opportunities was working in a first-class hotel in difference now is that I know how to was important, but in the process I to teach advanced hairdressing skills New York and around eleven o’clock cope with troubles – by realizing it is had forgotten the AA philosophy of qt workshops around the country and that morning there seemed to be an a challenge to find solutions, con- giving and receiving help, and I had at international conventions. Teachexplosion and everybody just let structive solutions. I am convinced forgotten the power of the Twelve ing is a very gratifying experience and themselves go. The atmosphere in the that finding solutions to my problems Steps. I have had no trouble since a wonderful way of paying back, in entire hotel was wild. All the guests is my responsibility, and that convic- then, thank God, for AA works when passing on to others, all that I had opened their doors, blew horns, sang tion has worked for me almost always. you work it. received. By this time 1 had my own and popped champagne corks. I got Growing emotionally was a long, business that lasted successfuly for 26 so scared I would drink that I ran out slow process and a most difficult years, until I retired at the age of 79. into the street and began to make my task. It takes years. But along the way Growing socially was yet another way to the 41st Street clubhouse. All the rewards are so satisfying and en- major task. I went to my first AA New York seemed to be in the middle of 42nd Street, waving flags, crying, Everythiw Eke liching that one realizes the value of the process and therefore is willing to meeting feeling that nobody wanted me. While 1 didn’t admit it, I didn’t laughing, hugging each other, dancing – all at the same time. When I Hm Been Dune.’ work at it – one day at a time. Being want very many of them, either. Forin AA, where one encounters many tunately for me, when I met another opened the door of the clubhouse, I people, different people, who are also alcoholic my perceived negative nosaw more people, whooping it up, When I learned to forgive my father learning to grow up gives one the sup- tions about people vanished. What I celebrating with good feelings – and for what 1thought he had done to me, I port that is so necessary. saw was someone who was suffering with coffee. and for what he did do to me, I was I Growing up spiritually is also a as I suffered, and there was immedi- Having a place to go, where I be- helped to resolve that problem. It was never-ending process, and an exciting ate rapport. As time went on I was longed, where I could share impor- a healing experience and helpful in process. The Twelfth Step, for exam- able to apply these positive feelings . tant feelings without the aid of alco- establishing much better relation- ple, gave me an instant awareness of toward nonalcoholics, and this was hol, was turning out to be a reliable ships with men friends. It was a great how important it is to care for some- the beginning of knowing how to be a support when I felt overwhelmed by day when I caught on to the idea of one. Caring for another alcoholic friend and help a friend. events and experiences that I had developing what nature had endowed , helped me overcome self-centered- And social growth paid rich divicoped with earlier only with the un- me with instead of complaining about ness and that is a relief and a tremen- dends in business as well. From a ‘ reliable, indeed dangerous, recourse what I didn’t have. From then on I I dous reward in exchange. It was a tongue-tied technician I had grown to alcohol. didn’t have to use a lot of energy try- wonderful day when I left a life of into an entrepreneur capable of un- I reached out to every suggestion ing to justify difficulties by insisting dependency and recognized that 1was derstanding, responding to, and enand learned what other people were that I had no good points. In my pur- an interdependent member of the joying a clientele of cultivation and doing and trying. One led me to a lec- suit of a better way to live, even at human race. breadth of experience. ture about self-understanding. As I this late date, I remind myself that it Growing up financially was also As I grow older, I realize that my entered the lecture hall I saw a sign is fruitless to envy those who found a necessary for me, and I started by friends are the most important pleathat said ” D i v e r Yourself. Every- good way in their youth. They were developing greater skills in my work sure in my life, along with my very thing Else Has Been Done.” I have fortunate. My present and future – hairdressing. 1 wanted to be the good health. never forgotten that admonition, nor depend on my continuing to learn to best I could be. That took lots of Growing educationally, as we all have I ceased discovering myself. It is live richly, joyously, rewardingly. time, energy and patience, but im- know, is a lifelong process. I left

school in the 8th grade. Not until my In an instant he said, “Go back 50s did I go to high school at night school.” And just as-quickly I said, after work. In my 70s I watched an “I’m too dumb to do that.” To which old friend who was scared to death of he replied, “That’s a copout if I ever getting older. She was in comfortable heard one.” circumstancesand there didn’t seem a Thus, with his help, I began college reason for her fear, at least not a fi- at age 70. It was a struggle, but I took nancial reason. She had a job, a pen- it easy. I kept working in my salon; I sion, a family. I began to think that couldn’t give that up; and took only could happen to me, to be scared of two subjects each semester, the most I getting older, and I decided I had bet- could handle. And nine-and-a-half ter look into the situation and see years later, at the ripe age of 80, I what I could do to prevent an obses- graduated cum laude with a B.S. sive fear from overtaking me. from the City Universityof New York. I went to see a good friend who is a All through those years of growing psychologist. Since I had been in ther- in various ways AA was my sanctuapy with him years before I felt very ary, my refuge, my protection, and a comfortable with him and put the primary source of stimulus, motivaquestion: “What can I do to prevent tion, and friendship. being afraid of age, of getting older?” Nancy E, Kennett Square, Pa.

February 1992

This was downtown on Wall Street, said, “I’m going to send you to see an through it and a sentence hit her eye: in New York. Quite a small place. alcoholic woman.” “We cannot live with anger.” She d s I walked through to Bill’s office, “Oh, how can some drunk help voured the book and sent word to her frightened, guilty, and ashamed. This me? ” brother-in-law, who was drinking. man, whoever he was, would surely “She isn’t drinking anymore.’ “Grenny, we’re not alone anymore!” pull out a pen and a pad. He’d say, We’re never healed, we’re just ar- After she left Blythewood, Bid and “How much do you drink?” “How rested.” his wife, Lois, took her in. She was long have you been drinking?” He talked to Marty and said, “I’m the first woman in AA who stayed “What did you do?” sending you this gorgeous stumble- sober. The one before her had not But here was this long, lanky, bum. All right? Her name is Felicia.” made it. sleepy-looking fellow with his feet on The next day 1 went reluctantly to As for me, I started going to meetthe desk. He got up and said “Hello Marty’s apartment. I thought, “Aha! ings at our clubhouse, a little building there! Take a chair.” He’s passing the buck. She’ll quiz in Hell’s Kitchen, a down-and-out When we both sat down, he said, me. She’ll ask me how long I’ve been neighborhood on the west side of “Do you think you’re one of us?” drinking and what I’ve done.” New York. I didn’t take in much at I said, “Yes, oh yes!” But Marty did no such thing. This the first two meetings, but then Marty I hadn’t been one of anybody for a well-dressed attractive woman in spoke. She said, “AA in one word is long time; even my merry drinking her charming apartment, with so love.” I thought, what’s that? I crowd in the Village had told me to get many familiar books on the shelves, haven’t had any of that for years! lost. I was so disagreeable when I was launched into her own story. It was as Nobody really loves me. But slowly I drinking, always taking other peo- bad, if not worse, than mine. She’d began learning what love was. ple’s inventories. I hated myself and I fallen out of a window in London Bill had asked me if I believed in took it out on others. Most of the and broken her hip and jaw. In a God and I said, “Not anymore.” friends I had grown up with had London hospital, where they didn’t 1 quit going to church when I was am an old-timer in AA, one of the deserted me. My social life was a bar give her enough pain-killers, her seventeen. What had it ever done for r[ real old ones. (I joined the pro- down on Eighth Street. gram and after one short slip, I sofriends had to bring liquor in to re- me – or this world? But Bill said, Bill said, “Alcoholism is an illness. duce her agony. “Keep an open mind.” . bered up on Thanksgiving Day, 1944.) We’re sick, not immoral. We can’t On a New York street, she’d been Finally, slowly, my ears were, But when people try to make some- help drinking any more than a klepto- knocked down and almost raped, and opened. Marty, referring to an old thing out of that I stop them. maniac can help stealing. He’s let out her purse was stolen. She, too, drank Bette Davis movie, said, “See, she “I’m no different from you,” I say of jail. He swears he’ll never steal in cheap bars. I now tried to interrupt was saved by doing something for to them. “I’m just following the again. But he looks in the window of but Marty, who with Bill was the somebody else.” Welve Steps as best I can.” Over the a toy store, and there is a little red fire greatest teacher in all AA for my And I, who had nothing but drunkyears, I have had the opportunity to engine. He can’t resist it. He goes in money, did not let me talk. She went en fights with p y drunken mother, I, hear a lot of wonderful advice and to and is caught trying to make away straight on. who was divorced, who had neglected follow it. Some great wisecracks and with it. So the store calls the police, In Blythewood Sanitarium in Green- my daughter, letting her father raise questions have helped. The first ques- and bang! He’s back in jail again. We wich, Connecticut, she was given the her. ..well, I began to see that I’d tion probably saved my life. That was are like that with alcohol. We can Big Book, as we call it. Her mentor, better think about others in our prowhen “my shrink” sent me to see Bill rarely stop alone. AA is a way to Dr. Tiebout, put it in her hand. “This gram and try to help. W. at the AA headquarters known as stop. We have Twelve Steps to go by.” is the textbook of Alcoholics Anon- One of our sayings is, “If anybody, the Foundation. He picked up the telephone and ymous,” he said. Marty thumbed anywhere reaches out for help, I am ‘

.., responsible” and in the many years just as sick.” And the whole room lit up. He since I’ve been sober, I have done this I often felt “rejected because unwor- So I stayed sober. I stopped having thy.” Then a member of my church, knew God’s presence. as ,best I could. a problem with alcohol, but I kept on But Bill sent for Dr. Silkworth and And I’ve had such great help from an enlightened soul, said to me, “Lithaving trouble with me. After a third tle you can’t do much, but big you @d, “Was that a true experience or other people in the program. They marriage, which turned out to be the am I having hallucinations?” have said such wonderful things to can do anything.” worst one, I got divorced and went Of course that’s God within us, ‘ Thank God for the faith and wisme that I have acquired some wis- into clinical depressions, which alterdom, and led a happy, sober life, and when I feel challenged and over- dom of “Silky,” who told Bill that nated with abnormal exultation. whelmed, I point to my middle and this was indeed a remarkable awakmost of the time. Oh yes, there have Chase and Marty kept my head been some rough stretches of road, say, “Big me can do anything!” and ening. above water. I then I let go, and let God within me Bill, after some false starts, found but several people held my hand. I When I was low, I said to Marty, “I f do it, solve it. The solution, when it a way to help someone else get sober. comes, is often something beyond my He knew that his own sobriety dewildest dreams. pended on helping others. He went ‘AA in one wmd ilone.’ I thozrght, what’s For we, as human beings, are flesh- out to Akron, Ohio on a business trip bound and finite, while we are living that fell through. So on a Sunday that? I haven3 had any ofthatfm years! here on earth. afternoon, he called all the ministers Recently, I’ve been able to make in town to find an active alcoholic have never been alone, not knowing some progress. Sure, I still have my whom he could talk to. The last perwant to jump out of a window.” She terrible Irish temper. But sometimes son he called answered. She was Henwhere to turn. said, “But you might hit a pedestrian, For instance, I met Chase, who, I’m able to control it. If I’m arguing rietta Sieberling (a friend of a minisyou might cripple yourself.” I said, with somebody 1 say to them, “I dis- ter). She said, yes indeed, she knew of with his wife, had a bookstore on “Then I’ll lie down on the railroad Eighth Strut, down in the Village. In agree with every word you say, but a man who needed help. tracks.” She said, “Just keep So it was that Dr. Bob, a surgeon, his drinking days he had had a fall plodding along, put one foot in front 1’11 defend to the death your right out of an open floor-length window. of another.” to say it.” Then I say, “Guess who listened to Bill and soon sobered up. He was standing in frontof the john said that.” And then the two of them visited a Chase saw me often, too. He said, with his pants down, swaying, and he “Don’t just sit there, get on wiih the The angry person who’s been argu- third man in the local hospital. ing with me stops. They are divert- AA was born. And now .there are swayed right out, falling one story business of living. Do something, and right into a barrel of ashes. His ed. They almost always name one an estimated two million AAs all over write something, translate The Little of our founding fathers. Franklin? the world. bare bottom was full of ash. Prince from the English version back Next day, he went back, hung over, Jefferson? Bill wrote the Twelve Steps in half into French.” to see that barrel. Right beside it was I’m a professional writer, and I can “But no!” I say. “It was an hour. Some changes were made a barrel of broken glass. That did it. VA+.G~~I~* V U I L U . . ~ . from that first draft. But there they speak nonfluent French and German. He joined AA in a hurry. But writing in either language – for- This usually calms us both down. stand. ‘ We thought in the past that alco- Adela St. Johns, a famous nonal- He became my second sponsor and get it! My spelling is hopeless. Howmy guru. When I said to him, “I can’t ever, I did what Chase said. I sat with holics were morally to blame for cohic newspaper woman and a friend imagine New Year’s without cham- a French dictionary beside me and their condition – until that spiri- of mine, once commented that “The pagne,” he said, “You can get just as translated that great masterpiece tual genius, Bill W., came along. In Twelve Steps are the greatest thing falling-down drunk in a great restau- from beginning to end. I wish I’d Town’s Hospital in 1934 where he that has been written since Moses rant drinking, as you can in the Bow- kept it for laughs. lay, sick from drink, he suddenly gave us the Ten Commandments.” cried out, “If there be a God, let him How right she was. ery on cheap wine. Just as crazy and I still had such low self-esteem that Felicia M., New Canaan, Corn. show himself now.”

February 1992

I somehow got the impression that couple of women. I made myself inthere was an AA hospital or clinic or visible, if that’s possible, because they something, but at the bottom of the all looked so happy and were laughing article it said if you need help, write a n d talking. I thought, well, they’re to Box such-and-such in New York. 1 t h e doctors and the nurses and so rang the bell for the bath attendant forth and 1 thought they would be and asked for pencil, paper, envelope giving me a pill any minute now and a stamp, and I think 1 wrote a the magic pill, the cure-all. rather pitiful letter to New York. I Eventually a man got up and rapped said, 1 am a desperate alcoholic and on the table for order. And he said, 1’11 take the next plane back there and “This is a regular meeting of Alcotake your cure. holics Anonymous in California. We The answer came a few days later, are a band of ex-drunks who gather airmail special delivery, from Ruth to obtain and maintain our sobriety

: Learning Hock, God bless her. She was Bill on an all-time basis with no mental W.’s nonalcoholic stenographer and reservations whatsoever.” 1 thought had been for many years when Bill to myself, What an order; 1 can’t go was in Wall Street. And now she was through with it. Well, I didn’t have to

to Fly still working for him and she an- go through with it that night. I didn’t swered all the mail from that Satur- get a chance because he continued day Evening Post article. She an- with, “But as is our custom before y name is Sybil, and I’m an the car and I walked, swered my letter and said, You needn’t this meeting starts, all you women alcoholic. I got to this Fellow- and I saw this sign, “Sultan Turkish come back to New York, there’s one leave.” And these two women that 1 ship in 1941, and I want to just rem- Baths.” 1decided I could sweat it out group in Los Angeles. That’s for all hadn’t even noticed particularly beinisce with1you a little bit about the there and get myself in shape, but I of California. It’s very small and it cause I was so desperately frightened, olden days, what I call the covered thought I’d better have something to has been a struggle for them. They they just strolled out into the lobby. I have met in a couple of hotel lobbies later found out they were the wives – I wagon days. read. So I stopped at the newsstand A couple of weeks ago, my hus- and bought a Saturday Evening Post but they are now meeting in the Elks there was no Al-Anon then, and the band asked me if I could recall my – five cents. It was dated March 1, Temple every Friday night at 8:30. women were quite used to leaving the last drunk,, and I said, “Yes, I can.” 1941, and on the cover it said, “Alco- And she said, You’ll be very wel- meeting and waiting in the lobby; I was driving along one day, wanting holics Anonymous, by Jack Alexan- come, I’m sure. They have no women they came back later for coffee and to go home but afraid to because I der.” I was stunned because I had I alcoholics in California. donuts. But I thought this had been couldn’t face anyone, and I ended up read about AA in 1939, in the Liberty I I seemed to have unbounded faith cooked up to throw me out. And it in San Francisco. Now I couldn’t go Magazine, I believe, one little para- that it was going to be okay. I got worked, because I put my hands over home for sure – it was the next day. graph about an inch big. Even that dressed, but I couldn’t comb my hair my face and I ran out into the lobby. I What was I going to do? Shaking, impressed me and I intended to cut it so I tied a turban thing on my head lurked around in the ladies’ room sweating, eyes bloodshot, face puffed out and save it but I hadn’t. But here and I poked my hair all up under it, awhile and then 1 went into hysterics up, I’d run out of lies, and I thought, it was. So I took the magazine with and down 1 went. When I got to the and 1got in my car and I headed for a if 1 go home right now it’s going to me, had the Turkish bath, and even Elks Temple they directed me into a bar and I got very drunk. be too late. I can’t think of a lie that though I was just too sick to think, I small dining room, and seated around 1 thought, How exclusive can you will wash, ‘ knew there was hope. the table were ten or twelvemen, and a get! To kick me out like that. And as I

drank and got more livid, I turned to AA had. It was a thin pamphlet and there with Tex, and his winos, and Sybil. Come up here, Sybil. I’m put- ‘ the people beside me at the bar and I gave a few basic facts on the Steps, me, and about fifteen others, and he ting you in charge of all the women.” 1 said, “I’m a member of Alcoholics and as he read it he had a pint bottle said, “Well now, we got to get all had to be honest. I went up there and Anonymous.” And they said, “So in his hip pocket, as usual. He was these drunks down here by next Fri- ‘1 said, “Well, I’ll probably be drunk what!” Then at 2 P.M., when the reading and saying, “That’s good day night. So we’re going to have to ‘next Friday. I always have been.” bartender was trying to get me out of stuff, Syb. They really know what cut this crowd up in sections. And if And then I said, “What are you going there, 1 called Cliff, who’s in the they’re doing there. So you’re going there’s anyone here from Riverside to do tonight? What are you going to book AA Comes of Age. Cliff and Friday, huh?” And I said, “That’s County, come down and get these say to me that is going to make it dif- Dorothy had been taking care of all right, Tex.” So he says, “Well, I’m Twelfth Step calls.” Tex went down ferent? So that when 1 walk out that the Twelfth Step calls for California going with you.” He said, “1’11 tell in front and Frank gave him forty or door tonight during the week that I’m since the group started in 1939. I was you the truth – the reason I want to fifty of the letters to read and answer out there by myself I won’t get those very indignant. I said, “Well, I went go there. Those guys that are working from alcoholics who asked for help. butterflies and the sweating palms?” down to your group tonight and they for me down on Skid Row. I can’t get Then he said, “Anyone from the I said, “What’s going to be different? threw me out.” He said, “Oh no, no, a regular crew together.” He was a beaches?” This guy raised his hand, You got to do something tonight. I’m sure they did not do that. Did you vegetable peddler then, with a truck- Curly from Long Beach, and he went How can I stay sober for a week? I’d tell them you were an alcoholic?” 1 run around four in the morning, and down and got forty or fifty letters. like to be able to go and ring d w r said, “Of course not. No, they threw the winos sometimes didn’t show up. And this went on – Pasadena, Santa bells and bring all those drunks down 1

me out all right.” He said, “Well, we He said, “If 1 can sober them up, 1’11 Monica, and one guy from Fresno, here. But I haven’t read the Big need you, we need you. Please come make a lot of money. So what I’m one from Santa Barbara and so forth, Book.” He said, “I know that.” back. We haven’t had a woman alco- going to do is take them all down until there was one remaining stack I said, “Truthfully, I haven’t read holic.” When I heard the words “we there and get them all fixed.” of letters, about a fifth of them. your pamphlet. I haven’t felt well need you,” I thought, well, I am a So it was with fear and trembling enough to read.” He said, “I know good typist and maybe I should vol- that 1 looked forward to that Fri- that. You’re not expected to know unteer my services. Then I said, “All day night, becauseTex pulled up in very much.” But he said, “You asked right, now, I’ve had about enough of front of my house in his vegetable me how you could stay sober until this and I want you to send your AA truck and standing in the back were next Friday. Now 1’11 tell you it’s in ambulance.” He said, “We don’t eleven winos. I crawled up in the cab that Big Book that you haven’t read. have any such thing. You go back of the truck with Tex and down we go Somewhere in that Big Book it says next Friday night and tell them you’re to the meeting. There were a few that when all other measures f&l, an alcoholic. You’ll be as welcome as more people there that week, but the working with another alcoholic will the flowers in May.” full impact of the Saturday Evening save the day. Now I’m going to tell I don’t know what I did that week. Post hadn’t hit. But I got to hear you what to do quite simply. You take Probably was drunk and sober and the Twelve Steps read, and also the this basket of mail and tomorrow drunk and sober, but 1 know this: fifth chapter. morning you start ringing the doorthat it was a miracle I ever went back, At the conclusion of that meeting, bells, and when the girl answers the and thank God I did. But I didn’t go Frank R., God bless him -he was my door you say to her, ‘Did you write back alone. Because during that week sponsor and so was Cliff – reached this letter asking for help with a drinkmy brother Tex came to see me. He over and got a bushel of mail that had ing ~roblem?’ And when she says. came in the house and he picked up come because of the article. Hun- And he said, “I’ve been saving this ‘weil, yes I did,’ say, ‘Well, I wr% the pamphlet Ruth had mailed me dreds of letters from alcoholics. He stack up for the last because we now one like that last week and it was from New York, the only one that looked at that skinny little crowd have a woman alcoholic. Her name is answered. I went down there and I

looked them over. I didn’t find out You’ll have the report on it. That’s a wasn’t there, and you want to know how they’re doing it but they’re doing good system.” And 1 took it oh so why? He had been excommunicated. it;and they look good. So if you want seriously because I’d go down to the Because he had started a group. The to quit drinking as badly as I want to mother group – now we had two, powers that be, the boys downtown, quit drinking, you come with me and three, four hundred people possibly, called Tex on the Carpet and said, we’ll find out together.’ ” microphone and everything – and “Tex, fold the group up. Where’s’ ,,,.”Oh,” I said, “I think I can do as the forty or fifty women came in your loyalty to the mother group?” that alright.” So I took the mail and 1 and they were seated, 1 could think, He said, “I’m loyal to the mother went home with it, and I was getting “There’s Eva. She called on Bonnie. group. I’m just sick of picking up ready the next morning to get in my Bonnie called on so-and-so, and Fran, guys in Long Beach and driving them car and start ringing doorbells, and and yeah, yeah.” And it checked out thirty-five miles to Los Angeles, so I my brother Tex came over. He said, perfectly, beautiful. Then I would tell started a group at the halfway point. “I’m g ~ i n gto ride around with you Frank and Mort it was working fine. Some of my boys are down here tofor laughs.” Well, it wasn’t for They’d say, “That’s nice. You’re night. You come out to our group laughs. We made all those calls and doing a good job.” next Friday night and we’ll just kind out of fifty -we may have gotten a But one night I went to the mother of visit back and forth.” And they dozen or more. Some of the letters group and a gal came down the aisle said, “No, you’re excommunicat- Tex advised me to resign my job of were from landladies who wanted the and she had six strangers with her ed,” and he laughed and laughed being in charge of the women. He guy upstairs not to make so much and they hadn’t been cleared through and laughed. said, “Tell them you’re too busy help noise on a Saturday night, and some- me. And I walked up to her and I About a month later they called ing your brother with his group and times it turned out the wife had writ- said, “Where did you get these wom- him down. They had a committee suggest that they have a secretary of ten in for a husband who was an alco- en? You know what Frank and Mort meeting and they asked, did he decide their very own.” I did that, but how it holic, and Tex came in handy there. are going to say about the system.” to fold up the group and he said, hurt. But it had been good for me at And some of them were from women She said, “To hell with the system! 1 “Nope. Doing fine. Got a lot of the the time, because 1 had no ego. My who wanted help. have friends who have a drinking boys down here with me tonight and ego had been smashed for so many We did take a number of women problem same as I do, and they found you’re welcome to come to my meet- years, and it was good to feel that I down and a few men. The meeting out that I was getting sober and stay- ing. It’s aparticipation meeting where was wanted and needed and that I grew – and I mean it mushroomed. ing sober. They asked me how 1 was alcoholics all talk.” Well, at the had this little job to do. It was good But here’s what happened. Frank had doing it. I told them I joined AA. mother group, we had two speakers, for me at the time and it was good , said, “I’m putting you in charge of They said, ‘Can 1 go with you?’ I Frank and Mort, for two years. So that I gave it up. the women.?’ Well, to me that was said, ‘Yes.’ ” She said, “It’s as simple they said, “We thought you’d say Several years later, they called me . like a neon sign that was going on and as that and anytime anybody wants to that, so we have incorporated Alco- up and told me to come down and be off, “charge, charge, charge.” And I come to an AA meeting with me for a holics Anonymous in California.” the executive secretary for the Central could be real big because Frank and drinking problem that’s the way it’s And they had. Those that are still Office of Alcoholics Anonymous in Mort gave me a notebook and they going to be, and I’ll never report to around down there will tell you. It Los Angeles, and I was, for twelve said, “Now you write down all the you again.” took us about a year to laugh that one glorious years. So you see in AA you names of lwomen and then you get Well, when she told me that, tears off, until Tex began to visit themother turn a new page and it’s all new again. them a sponsor. And you have the came to my eyes and I couldn’t get group and the mother group mem- I want to be a newcomer – this sensponsor report back t o you. Then, out of there fasi enough. I wanted to bers began to visit the Hole in the iority bit is a lot of baloney. We’re all when you look in your notebook, you run up to Huntington Park and tell Ground Group – it was called that fledglings, learning to fly. will know who you gave the call to. my brother Tex all about it. But he because they met in the basement. Sybil C., Lm Angeles, Calif.

February 1992

good spot which was available for a ings we ever attended, those early morning meeting, everyone talked it members, and so forth. Gradually, up, and – fifteen old-timers showed we began to talk about some of toup! There was an almost equal num- day’s thoughts and experiences. At ber of men and women. first, it seemed almost like admitting Everyone was so happy to see the a kind of failure when any shortcomfew months ago, after ameeting, others! They talked about the old ing was mentioned. After all, these my friend John and I were talk- times, and told some jokes about were the retirement years we had ing about older members such as our- each other all over again. It was great! looked forward to for so long. But selves, and about how seldom we see Something like a family reunion. The never before in our AA experience any of them at meetings. 01′ John and same thing would happen in any other had we told each other we were per- I have continued meetings regularly, group, I am sure. fect, or expected to be perfect – so but the majority of older members At that meeting, the chairman why should we be now? Now we are have not. We miss our old friends. made the coffee and chose the chair- discussing today’s level of life, and At the same time we have heard, man for the next meeting. This little sharing and helping just as we always occasionally, about an older member routme has been followed, and so did before. who has had a slip, got through it – nobody is excluded. We have had visitors from other sometimes without asking for help – At our second meeting, fifteen towns, and so the word is out among and still has not returned to meetings. members again arrived and not all the neighboring groups as well. We feel John and 1 began to talk to our old same faces as the week before. It con- we are not unique and hope others friends and learned they might be tinued the same way! It has been easy will find the surprising support and interested in starting an old-timers because, apparently without being pleasures we have found, by forming group. John contacted most of the aware of it, many of us wanted the their own groups as AA always has, old-timers – fellows who still come same thing. or by continuing to come to join with to the clubhouse to play cards and In the beginning, the talk centered us. Either way – it’s wonderful AA! visit. They agreed on a time, found a around memories of the first meet- Dorothy D., No. Plalte, Neb.

February 1992

house. Did I throw out even that bot- the people who get up to speak and tle of scotch whisky with the dust on say, “I’m not gonna give you my it? Were the complimentary airline drunkalog, I’ll just talk about the shot bottles still in the liquor closet? I s t e p or the topic,” and then give you hadn’t touched them before, but who their drunkalog and even run over the knows? Hey, these AAs really know allotted time – because they have to what they’re talking about! Of course, tell it and I have to hear it. Because like the speaker was saying, taking otherwise we have no frame of referinventory every day was a good idea. ence for what they’re talking about. . How would I know if there was any- Because then they look like some thing around I could still get drunk genius who just dropped in to tell us on if I didn’t catalog it every day? about the Sixth Step, or gratitude, or I had a long way to go. But that staying sober one day at a time. We first night, I squirmed my way up to need to see how you can get from ‘ the front of the cathedral-sized room there to here, in my case how a conaud bought a Big Book. The speaker fused, disgraced, at-the-end-of-hersuggested 1 should read it. She even ropes alcoholic could make such said I could pay for it the next time 1 progress as to genuinely love and came. What did she think I was in admire the courage and grit of someead held high, flaming here for, a free ride? I paid for it and one she didn’t even know very well. designer glasses frami ran out the door back to the safety of Ginger was seventy in 1979. She nificent blue eyes, flawless white hotels, b e i z p a r t of the glitterati of my home, my husband and young looked decades younger. Really. On skin, a dancer’s thin body. Ginger: high class restaurants, having high baby. After reading all the stories that her thirteenth anniversary, she talked scarfs trailing, gliding into meetings, class dates. She told it all, then waved night (who could sleep?), I knew I about how free she was. “I’m free as fur coats in winter, one-piece yellow it off. “Sure,” she said, “I lived the had come into AA too late. I should a bird,” she said. “The sun is shinjumpsuits in summer. Ginger: head high life. How enchanting of me to have come in the 1930s or 1940s, even ing, I wake up, and I don’t feel sick or angled toward the speaker, smiling walk into a lovely place, looking and though I wasn’t born until the mid- disgusted with myself. I know where I when they looked her way, encourag- feeling lovely. How exciting to drink fifties. The quaint way the people was the night before and where I’m ing nods, emanating strength to bol- up the place, then have to be helped told their stories, the simple expres- going today.” She said this in her ster a stalled story. Ginger: at the out of there at the end of the night.” sions of the pains and the blight of usual manner – gorgeous posture, door, greeting old-timers and new- Something about Ginger scared me their alcoholism were written in the one hand gracefully waving, believcomers alike – in an it’s-all-right- when 1 first came into AA. Some- old-fashioned wisdom of people who ing it right down to her socks. She you’re-in-AA-now manner. Ginger: thing about everybody scared me, were long gone. I could never hope to could say something like, “It’s the someone who looked like she knew then. Two and a half years ago, I hear anything like that in the late first drink that gets you drunk” and what it was like to be drunk. walked into my first AA meeting. 1980s in Brooklyn. Yet, I came back. make you feel like you were just hear- Her story, as it comes back to me, Sweating like a hot glass with ice I had no other alternative. Except to ing it for the first time. I always wantmatches her description. She told of cubes in it, I sat down and tried to drink. But I didn’t want to die every ed her to keep on talking. She made limousines,. old-time New York City become a part of the furniture. The day anymore. me feel good about her, and in the nightclubs, meeting young hopefuls speaker was talking about taking This is a story about Ginger. But I process I felt good about myself. who are now full-fledged American inventory and I mentally made note can’t tell a story about Ginger with- But I didn’t have that much to do stars. She told of living in high-class of all that I had left to drink in the out telling a little about me. It’s like with Ginger, aside from listening to

– her share at our home group. One Many times we thought, “This is it. It She told me to sit down, graciously fourteenth anniversary of sobriety in time, when I was about thirty days will have to be soon.” thanked me for coming and then re- her home group. A couple of months galed me with stories that led, effort- later, she succumbed to the beating ‘ sober, I brought my toddler to an A close friend of Ginger’s was open meeting. He was sleeping in his taking care of her and the wiped-out . lessly, from what it used to be like, to cancer was giving her body. It never what happened, to what it was like I got near her spirit. That was her and stroller and I sat in the back by the expression on her face said it all. 1 now. 1 was able to enter into her her Higher Power’s domain. Right door. Ginger was standing by the cringed at the very thought of having world from direct knowledge of what up to the end, she was peaceful in the door to greet people as they came in. to deal with any part of it. After all, it’s like to be an alcoholic. midst of the physical assault. A dear My son woke up and wanted to ex- this was a private illness and only plore the territory. I sat him on my friends, I’m sure, would be wanted. From that most vital common friend of hers said, “Ginger, to many ground, I could walk back with her people you are really a hero.” She lap for as long as he would permit it, Then one day after a meeting, I said through her life and see the pitfalls, replied, “I’m no hero. I’m just a then let him down to toddle over to to Ginger’s friend, “Please let me the merry-go-round, and the final drunk who’s getting better.” the cookies. No sooner did he get to know if there is anything I can do to isolating despair that led to her first It’s funny how a person dies, but the coffee table than Ginger whis- help.” The woman said, “As a mat- step into an AA meeting. I joined her, lives on in Alcoholics Anonymous. pered to me that I’d better not let him ter of fact, since I’m staying with imaginatively, on her slip and then Ginger’s presence is still very much ‘ near that table because he could spill Ginger now, I could use a break on back. She was so matter of fact, so felt by the people who knew her. AA over the coffee. I picked him up, then Saturday morning to go to a meeting. willing to uncover her character to carried her and she returned the favor packed him up and got out of there. 1 hate to leave her alone. Would you me, that I felt honesty as a palpable tenfold by leaving a legacy of grace It doesn’t take much to fluster a come up and sit with her?” thing, a presence whose force was and dignity that touches us all, having thirty-day wonder. So, I didn’t have I was stunned, and then honored, powerful and right. At this point, she known her or not. The beauty of just much to do with Ginger for a while, to be part of the AAs who were giving said. “Hey, this took a long time and living one day at a time in a spirit of seeing as how she didn’t like kids and service in helping Ginger. Nothing a lot of work. Don’t let anyone kid humility and willingness is a powerful all. I kept coming back, though, and could have stopped me from being you.” We were quiet for a while after message to pass on. Ginger is gone. my head started to straighten out and there Saturday morning. In fact, my that. My thoughts centered on what We have absorbed her message. And a little bit of clear thinking goes a long husband had to work overtime at the lay ahead of me in this program of the person who, by the grace of God, way when it’s combined with will- last minute and I hired a babysitter to recovery. Her face was peaceful, so walks in the door for the first time ingness. I started not to “read into” get there. Before I went I read a spiri- her thoughts had to be comfortable. tomorrow will be freely given this what people said to me, and took tual piece in a favorite book of mine. Over the next few months Ginger precious legacy. things at their face value. It helped to On the way there, I prayed that God bounced back. She celebrated her Maggie H., Brooklyn, N.X have a sponsor who listened, loving- would help me to be strong and cheerly, to all my major catastrophes. And ful no matter what. 1 rang the bell, then Ginger disappeared for a while. feeling as if I was about to go into an Cancer. This disease comes in and operating room. knocks you off your feet, dragging For the next three hours, 1 was your spirit along with it. This time its entertained, mesmerized, soothed, prey was Ginger, and thecancer didn’t excited, and just plain made happy. I know the kind of fight it was in for. was there to help Ginger? Hardly. Ginger went through the chemother- She lay on her bed, her head wrapped apy, the radiation, the sickness, and in one of those Joan Crawford-like all the rest. Many times we remem- turbans, her flawless skin pale like a bered her in our Lord’s Prayer at the Southern heroine, her voice strong end of meetings of our home group. and clear. So unlike a sick person.

March 1992

By this time, 1 had tried suicide. I me, because I called AA to “find out saw no point in living. 1 hated life. 1 what an alcoholic was” – just to be hated everything. My big statement , sure I never became one. was: “You just don’t understand.” , As a result of the phone call, I was From the time we moved to Mary- taken to my first AA meeting. It was land until I got sober, 1 wouldn’t taik’ a women’s meeting and I was scared! to my parents. There was always ten- 1 hated all the women. They seemed sion in the house if I was home. 1 was too phony, too sweet. What did they ‘ sent to my room nearly every day want from me anyway? After that, I without dinner and it seemed I was became extremely paranoid. perpetually grounded. That never I was afraid of seeing any of the bothered me. 1 iust snuck out. – – women on the streets, so my drinky sobriety date is November 5, cutting school long before any of my When I was ifteen I tried to kill ing became extremely secretive. I 1977, and I’ve had continuous peers were interested in such activi- myself again, but this time I want- couldn’t relate to those women besobriety since then. That’s not the ties. I started sit-ins protesting the ed to fake God out. (I knew if God cause they were all old (the youngest way it always was. One of the first Vietnam War simply because I was so caught you killing yourself you would was probably forty years old); they alcohol-related incidents I can recall bored with school. I thought I knew it go straight to hell and that did not ap- talked about having been divorced was when I was five years old and had all. The Catholic schools had really peal to me!) So I refused to eat any- two and three times, having marital several sips of my parents’ beer and taught me well and 1 was bored with thing for three months; 1 lived off problems, problems with their chil- “fell asleep.” When I came to, I real- the public school’s curriculum. I felt alcohol and sodas. I didn’t die but I dren, and so forth. 1 couldn’t relate ized that the cops, my parents, the it was too slow for me and that I certainly messed up my body. because I had big-time parent probneighborhood -everybody was look- didn’t need to go to class or study. I was cutting school daily by the lems. My parents were driving me ing for me. Apparently, I had fallen I had been drinking during all these time I was in high school because I to drinking -‘or so I thought. (My asleep for several hours under the extracurricular activities and began to felt it was a waste of time. After all, it parents were not alcoholics and I stairwell and no one could find me. I pressure my peers to join me. I be- interfered with my partying time! My do not blame them for my alcoholcertainly got in a lot of trouble for came the type of kid my parents had life was so black, so awful. I wished I ism.) I graduated from high school, that and I swore at the ripe old age of warned me to stay away from. In was dead and was obsessed with the by the grace of God, and. decided to five that I would never drink again! junior high school, I finally found idea of killing myself. go to college only because I would be When I was a child we moved often, some daring kids, kids who were not In the beginning 1 thought I was leaving home and my parents would ‘ and I never quite felt like I belonged afraid to cut school. They introduced cool because my tolerance for alcohol pay for it. anywhere. I could make friends very me to pot. Most of these kids later was so great. 1 would drink before The first year of college was disaseasily, but had no experience in keep- got sent away to reform school or going to school, during school, after trous. Too much freedom. 1 started , ing long-term relationships. When I dropped out. Throughout these years school. It didn’t make a difference. off carrying twenty-one credits; after I was eleven years old, we moved to I drank and partied, not caring about 1 was flunking out of high school, the first semester, I only passed nine 1 Maryland and for the first time I was anything. though I never realized it until after I credits. I started some serious partyput into public school. Well, I went 1was a terribly violent little girl and had gotten sober. I just never went to ing and drinking because the guilt crazy. I didn’t know how to handle all would cuss people out or beat them class with any consistency. When 1 was so strong. I knew about AA and I the freedom I had just been given. As up for no reason. Often, 1 would was a senior in high school (seventeen had a clue that the drinking could be a fifth grader, I had started smoking come to in a fight with someone – a years old) I had heard about AA in my problem, but I was trying to make cigarettes well before my time. I start- classmate, teacher, princi~al,parent, one of my classes and something it my solution. It took me almost twp ed book-burning parties and began or brother. about the discussion must have hit years to get sober. I would Stay dry

ation. The sober alcoholic I married work with deaf AAs and have made a would not work and was a pathologi- career of working at a university for Today I am no h n p considered to have cal liar. 1 never could trust anything the deaf. AA has not only given me he said or did. It was awful. But be- ‘ my life, but also it has given me my been yozag when I cam into AA to stay at ing a good Catholic girl, I stayed in’ career. AA has also given me my health we nineteen. . .I’m now working with a that marriage for six years, and did not have to drink through it. Thank mental, physical, and spiritual. To- God for excellent sponsorship and day, I know what it means to be a thirteenyear-olil and his life isjwt as for Al-Anon. Without my sponsor friend and have many, many friends. and Al-Anon, I would surely have I know I never have to be alone again nzessed up rn mine evev was. drunk again. and that I never have to go through I completed my undergraduate de- life alone. It’s been a wonderful, for a week and then reward myself on that bad. She went through the sui- gree one year after we were married. 1 wonderful journey. the weekends trying to prove all the cide attempts and DTs and it was ex- stayed sober through school, gradua- Today, I am no longer considered while that I was not an alcoholic – I tremely painful for me to watch. tion, marriage, separation, and di- to have been young when I came into was not that bad. In the end, I had to transfer to a korce. Who would have ever thought AA to stay at age nineteen. I have I finally got seven or eight months different college (the old geographic that would have been possible? worked with kids in AA who are together just to prove to myself and cure) to stay sober because everybody During the first few years of my so- much younger. I’m now working God that I was not an alcoholic. I did and everything seemed to be a slip- briety, I noticed deaf people coming with a thirteen-year-old and his life is it by going to one meeting a month. I pery place for me. The first sponsor to my meetings and occasionally their just as messed up as mine ever was. 1 didn’t follow directions, didn’t work who had sort of adopted me told me, interpreter would not show up to in- am sure I would never have lived to, any Steps, got involved in relation- when I was drunk one night, that I terpret the meetings. So we would sit age twenty-one had I continued to ships, and when two of them failed would never get sober. Well, that got and write back and forth for the hour. drink. I would have finally succeeded on the same night, I got drunk and my attention. I would show him. I It was then that I decided to learn sign in killing myself and possibly others tried to kill myself. was smarter than he was; after all, I language to be able to interpret at my in the process. Today, 1 am a very I only drank for one night that was a college student! So, I stayed AA meetings. I thought this was my happy, optimistic, friendly individual time, but it convinced me that I had a sober the first year on a resentment. calling for Twelfth Step work. who loves herself and loves life. serious problem with alcohol. I still At the end of my first year of sobri- As a result, I do much Twelfth Step Lola G.,Greenbelt,Md. didn’t think I was an alcoholic, but I ety, I started dating the only other knew that each time I had seriously young person in the meetings, a man attempted suicide, I was drunk. who was seven years older than I was. I had met a girl in college who was I knew that the relationship was also my drinking buddy, and she wrong at the beginning, but we both could drink enough to keep up with had a program and we would work me. She was two years older than 1 things out after all: “Boy meets girl was and in really bad shape due to on AA campus. . .” alcohol. We tried to help each other Needless to say, we got married get sober. She ended up getting kicked and three weeks later I wanted out. I out of college and I ended up sober. I couldn’t believe what I had gotten had seen how bad she was due to alco- myself into, sober. If only I had been hol and I just didn’t want to become drunk, I could better explain this situ-

April 1 9 9 2

I had learned to cope with life now, expected something better in my life. I thought. By the time I reached my After all, didn’t I deserve a little haptwenty-first birthday, I had been mar- piness after all the awful things God ried for the third time, buried three of had laid on me? my children, lost my alcoholic mother Alcoholics Anonymous came into to suicide, and almost drunk myself my life about three years later. After from (36 to death. Drinking more and more a while, 1 liked the program and deduring the next few years, I finally cided 1 wanted to stay sober and be a found mindless oblivion. The prob- part of it. The people were nice to me lem was that one time I didn’t come and I didn’t feel so alone anymore. back from that oblivion. After sev- God was the only thing I couldn’t eral months in an institution and a lot deal with and I had no intention of of shock therapy I was released. trying to. He killed my babies and my Sober! I was sober! What now? mother and gave me this horrible life Having lost everything I owned and to live, and I wasn’t going to have any being put on state aid, I returned to part of him. my young son and tried to make a life Having acted like a drunken fool for myself. Since there was no Alco- all over the small town I lived in at the holics Anonymous in the institution time, I couldn’t find a job anywhere. where 1 had been, 1 had not been I would go to my meetings and comintroduced to the program. Instead, I plain about not being able to get work spent two evenings a week in group and they would tell me to “turn it lothes that didn’t fit quite right, therapy with a psychologist who was over!” “Pray about it,” they would hair that went wherever it helping me understand my living say. There was no way I was going to pleased, shoes untied, and a dirty problems and helping me develop give in to that at all. Finally, when I face: That was me. How 1 hated new coping skills. was almost broke and the rent was school! Always the smallest and the Eight years later, with a college due and I didn’t know where 1 was oddest one in my classes, I soon degree and all the answers to life’s going to get grocery money, I prayed. learned that 1 was different than oth- little problems tucked away in my 1 asked God to put me where he wanters. No one wanted to play with me head, I walked into a bar in Sara- ed me to be. I told him I needed a job and 1 hated them all. he helplessness sota, Florida. There I had my first and if he would put one in front of and hopelessness 1 felt at times was drink in years. The alcoholism was me, whatever it was, I would take it. overwhelming. ber. Alcoholism was lying dormant still waiting. The strangest things started to hap- As I got older, the realization inside of me, just waiting for me to About a year into my drinking the pen. I learned about a job two days dawned on me that there were other add the alcohol. Like many other only child I had left was killed. I was later from someone I didn’t even outcasts in this world. They were the alcoholics, I will never forget the first totally alone now. The one person I know. Taking care of invalids in their kids who were always fighting the time 1 drank. Warming me all over, believed ever cared about me in my homes was not my idea of what 1 system, and in them I found my taking the pain away, letting me feel whole life was gone. The one person needed to be doing, but 1 made the peers. That set a pattern of my life for like I was important, it was the best that loved me in spite of myself was call. I was told that there was no openyears to come. feeling 1 had ever experienced in my taken from me. I had been so good ing right now but I would be called if Drinking was a daily thing in my entire life. I wanted to always feel over those years of not drinking that 1 one came up. Before the week was family for as far back as I can remem- that way.

over the call came for me to come for trust and faith she had in me was the an interview. From the day I walked beginning of the trust and faith I have into that house and met Helen, my in myself now. She made me feel that life started to change. [was worth something and that God The next three years staying with could love me no matter what I had Helen would be the beginning of my done in my life. Yes, I learned about life as I know it today. She was the unconditional love from her. When most loving human being I have ever Helen passed away, I received a note known. She lay in that bed day after from her daughter that said “I believe day without, complaining about her God sent you to my mother.” Well, I pain. Her concern for me and my life think God sent her to me. was always there. There was a dignity There have been many miracles in and a pride in her that 1 had never my life in the few years I have been in known before. She loved me. Do you the program, but the one I treasure know what that meant to me? She most is the ability to honestly care h e w all about what I was and what I about others and to believe somehad been, and she loved me anyway. body loves me. She was the mother I never had. The Barb R., Neoga, Ill.

May 1992

little lie can lead to. That’s how the taken away, and my mind just revolt-

Not W h ~ t disease works, and 1 must always be ed. It tried pretty hard to get me back vigilant against my own mind. into oblivion. People told me that 1 was pretty much an agnostic, sugar helped ease cravings, and to eat leaning to atheism when I first started some hard, sweet candy. So I got my

I this program. But I was so desperate to get better, I made up my mind to try anything. I was told that if I was only willing to believe in the possibilfavorite type of this candy in stock – Tootsie Roll Pops. I grew to hate them. I had them morning, noon, and night. I polished off three of

Used to ity of a Higher Power, and prayed for acceptance, I would find it. I was more than a little skeptical at first, and really felt like a hypocrite, but I them on every drive to work. I saw people in beer commercials having fun and I would grab another sucker, cursing it. But better to be frustrated Be did what I was told. And guess what? It worked. I can tell you from my heart that this in itself is something of with a sucker than drunk, possibly in jail, or worse. The cravings aren’t so bad now and a miracle. And there are a lot of peo- I’vegraduated tocandy bars. Haven’t ple out there who will back me up, cursed one yet, so you can see that I have only recently been freed from people with whom I’ve venomously things do get better. the cycle of active alcoholism, and debated the existence of God. If you Probably one of the worst things while I am grateful beyond words, I had told me a year ago that 1 would I’ve had to deal with so far are the have often found it very difficult to come to accept God, I would have feelings of guilt and shame 1 have get through that proverbial “one day screamed “brainwash.” over things I did while drinking. I’ve at a time.” You know, sometimes 1 talked some of it out, and prayed a really hate that phrase. It sounds so lot about it, and this has helped me a easy, but living it is another matter altogether. Ahhol wm lot. I’m even kind of looking forward to Steps Eight and Nine. But some- When I first got sober, a lot of peo- wa~pt’xgmy mind, times 1 have to remind myself that I ple told me that I had tackled the wasn’t really myself when I did those y name is Susan and I am an worst part of my problem by admit- my attitudes, my things. I wouldn’t have done them if I alcoholic. I am twenty-five ting I was defeated. While that may years old, and for all practical pur- have been true at the time, I find that behavior. had had a choice. That doesn’t relieve me of the responsibility, but I know poses have only just begun to live. facing the rest of reality and continu- that I have a choice now. I know that I began drinking when I was eleven ing to live sober has been equally dif- What stood between me and God I never have to live like that again. years old and 1 now believe that 1 ficult. 1 have to admit my alcoholism was nothing more than fear and ego. There’s another thing I picked up in never had control in any way, not every day, just to keep my mind head- Mostly ego. Don’t you know that I one of the rooms that helps me treeven in the beginning. Even though ed in healthy directions. Because used to know everything! mendously: “1 am not what I want to there were periods when 1suffered no there’s a part of my mind that always Cravings used to get pretty bad for be. I am not what what I could be. negative consequences, alcohol was wants to tell me that I’m not defeat- me. I think it was mostly psychologi- But thank God I am not what I used warping my mind, my attitudes, my ed, that I’m not really an alcoholic. cal. My old familiar pattern of life to be.” Amen to that. behavior. But I know from experience what that – the great escape – was suddenly Susan N., Clearwater, Fla.

May 1992

tion center to seek advice on how to a cold beer. 1 realized that my chilhelp another alcoholic, my brother, dren would feel free to practice what who had hit bottom and possessed a they saw medo, but that never seemed family full of enablers. 1 absorbed to be enough to stop me. I knew that I plenty of information and related it would die before my time, but that all to myself. Unfortunately, I was wasall right, too. 1began to takemednot able to help my brother to any ‘ication for my stomach and found great extent; he had heard it all be-. that I could not stop drinking for the fore. What really hit home during this two weeks recommended by my docperiod was howwell 1 understood his tor. In short, 1 had no control over love and longing for a drink. alcohol. Months passed and 1 ignored what 1 had always been a happy drunk, 1 had learned. Steadily, I progressed of that there is no doubt, but now and began to have brief blackouts. even that was changing. One night Not only can this be dangerous but after drinking myself into a stupor, the shame 1 suffered the following treating people 1loved with contempt, morning was overwhelming. Whether and later crying like a child with the or not anyone noticed my loss of deep emptiness that only another almemory, paranoia kept me busy all coholic can know, I made a decision day wondering what had happened to surrender. during the blackout. The next morning I waited for my I truly gave some of the best per- husband to leave for work and then formances of my life while practicing sent my children off to school. Afteralcoholism in an effort to disguise my ward, I headed downtown in a heavy, growing dependency. Although my dreary rain to attend my first AA success rate had been pretty good in meeting. I found a place to park and the past, my friends and fanlily were feeling very numb and somewhat slowly beginning to recognize this worthless, I walked into a church problem that was stealing my will, my basement. There, loud and clear, I ambition, and my self-respect. fearfully admitted.for the first time to . A t last it was obvious to me: I had a drinking problem, but was I a full-fledged alcoholic? Wasn’t an doubts, easily dismissed with a little alcoholic reasoning; For example, reasons such as, I hold a job and run Finally, my health came into the myself, to God, and to other human picture. 1was tired of looking into the beings, that I was indeed an alcoholic. alcoholic someone who beat his wife, a household, or everybody gets plas- mirror in the morning at a pale, thin 1was treated with sincere understand- , neglected his children, or sat on a bar tered now and then. Then, there’s face. I was working overtime on giv- ing and strong words of hope. I was stool day in and day out? Many peo- my personal favorite: I never drink ing myself an ulcer and striving to not condemned after all. ple believe this, but I knew better a learn how to function with a hang- Some days seem harder than others in the morning. (No, 1 usually waited long time ago. Even so, it took me until at least two in the afternoon over, since they had become my and new revelations continue to take morning companions. place in my life, but with the support a while t o face the facts and find the . ..usually!) I knew I was consuming more alco- of AA and one day at a time, I have courage to ask for help. It is safe to say that the wheels be- While it is true that I had my suspi- gan to turn during the summer of hol than ever before and even when I managed to stay sober. cions in the past, they were quiet wasn’t drinking I was thinking about Anonymous, Frederick, Md. 1988 when I stopped by a rehabilita-

May 1 9 9 2

& grw woman %day am a black female, thirty-eight tant. I had to carry it to school and years old, and an alcoholic. With work. By 1985 my life really startthe grace of God, and the rooms of ed to fall apart. All I did was drink AA, I have been sober for threeyears. and pass out, drink and pass out. I My drinking career must have start- couldn’t eat, but I gained a lot of ed during my early teens. I remember weight. I didn’t see the drinking as the cutting of classes, the house par- contributing to the weight problem. ties, and all the fun it used to be. At This insanity went on for three least to me at the beginning it was years. The year 1987 was a total fun. I always wanted to be a part of blackout. something but didn’t know how. Al- I was at the turning point. In May cohol did for me what I couldn’t do. 1988 I finally got separated from an My drinking continued off and on for insane relationship I was in. I started about twenty-two years. earnestly asking God to help me find When I was thirty years old a series a place to go where I would be acceptof things began to happen to me. ed. I had wandered around in a dry First, my drinking got worse. I be- drunk for four months. In September came very abusive and belligerent. I surrendered to my disease and ac- I could still work – but barely. I cepted the First Step. As I started lost a baby. going to the meetings I met a lot of Second, my relationships with my people who shared their life story current boyfriend and my son got with me. I haven’t had a taste for a progressively worse. I was dialing 911 drink or drug since. I also gave up a more frequently than usual. I just terrible addiction to smoking. I tackdidn’t see what was happening to me. led it “one day at a time.” After a brief sobriety I was able to Thanks to God and the Fellowship finish my second degree in elementary of AA, I am a free woman today. education. That was in June 1984. If I can do it so can you. Just “easy But I got to the point where alcohol does it!” was becoming more and more impor- Chloe H., Brooklyn, N.!I

June 1 9 9 2

I

Somebody&Got toDo It! everal home groups I attend have in- meetings. If you don’t pick up a drink creasingly common problems: get- and go to meetings you won’t get drunk. ting new people to do service and get- Very simple-for old-timers and newting old-timers to do service. comers alike. Service work helps break The newcomer says, “I can’t show up our long-standing pattern of not showing every week. I can’t make that kind of up for ourselves, for others, for life. commitment.” The old-timer says, “I’ve Service is also about humility. It helps done my share. Let the young ones pitch newcomers give up the grandiosity that in.” All of these AAs are missing a won- keeps us separate from our fellows. For derful opportunity to become healthier, old-timers, it helps fight the pride that happier human beings. None of these at- says, “I’ve arrived. I no longer need the titudes are new to bs alcoholics. We all practice.” share common characteristics which For the newcomers, understanding make it not in the least surprising that service helps them realize that if someno one wants to do service. one doesn’t unlock the door, set up the As the “Twelve and Twelve” puts it, chairs, and make the coffee, there will alcoholics are known for being “child- be no meeting to keep any of us sober. ish, emotionally sensitive, and grandi- For the old-timers, service is a reminder ose.” Newcomers see no relationship be- that we must give it away in order to tween emptying ashtrays and getting keep it. sober. Many old-timers see no need to For all of us, service is many things. continue the smaller, humbler ways of It’s contact with people, it’s building a serving after they’re sober a while. new social life, it’s building self-esteem, Newcomer and old-timer alike, we al- it’s a newfound sense of responsibility coholics are often deeply mired in our that carries over into our daily lives. immature characteristics. We are in fact Bill W. and Doctor Bob were very deeply practiced in evading commit- aware of the necessity of service as a diment, responsibility, and fellowship. rect road to initial and continuous sobri- And it’s true that “A whole lifetime ety. It’s more than just a nice tradition geared to self-centeredness cannot be set to carry on. It’s a lifeline to our daily rein reverse all at once. Rebellion dogs our prieve from the bondage of alcoholism. every step at first.” Let’s all keep it intact for the next alco- So, doing service is practicing show- holic who needs it. ing up. If you do service, you go to Joan T.,New York. N.X

June 1 9 9 2

Willingness Starts ] in the Heart v m e o n e from our local Alano club a Twelfth Step call from Bill W. to Dr. h asked me to go on a Twelfth Step Bob. It did not keep Dr. Bob sober right call to deliver the message to a woman away, but it worked for Bill when he was alcoholic. There were three men from feeling self-pity and ready to drink. Bill the club at her house when I arrived. had only been sober six weeks at the These men had not been able to find any time. women who would go, so what else Remember the St. Francis prayer? “It could they do but take on the responsi- is better to give than to receive.” We rebility themselves and go? There were ceive by giving! Most of my life I took many women at the club but none had from everyone and could never get been willing to go. Many said that they enough and never felt fulfilled or satiswanted a meeting. But twelfth-stepping fied. Now I am learning how to give and someone is a meeting. What better that void 1 always felt is being filled. meeting can we have than seeing a per- I remember reading on the wall of anson still suffering because of the effects other club: “When anyone, anywhere, of alcohol:’ It can only make our prob- reaches out for help, I want the hand of lems seem so miniscule and make our- AA always to be there. And for that: 1 selves grateful for what we do have am responsible.” Oh, how I dreaded that (however little it may be, it cannot corn- word “responsible” when I first came to pare to the pain of “the old days”). Alcoholics Anonymous! Now I value it, Step Twelve is not for the other per- because I learned that being responsible son, it is for ourselves-to keep us for our fellow alcoholics is what AA is sober, keep us grateful, and get us out all about. of ourselves. The first AA meeting was Alice T., Racine, Wise.

j* ‘ June 1992

Raising the Bottom n first coming to AA, 1 was not a and forth: Am I an alcoholic? No, surely happy camper, primarily because 1 not. Well, maybe: And then again. . . . didn’t think drinking was my problem. What I did do was take wallowing in I only came after my husband gave me self-pity to record depths. Oh, I came to that dire ultimatum: Either stop drinking meetings, just as I was told, but as few or get out. Angry. confused, and know- as possible. And then only to tell everying little about alcoholism at the time, one what my miserable husband or rotmuch of what I heard seemed like a for- ten kids had done this time. You smiled eijp language. When I first heard the and told me you had had similar probterm “high-bottom drunk,” all that came lems while drinking, and that I should to mind was that some of you people keep coming back. You patted my must have very long legs. I sure didn’t shohder andhanded me tissues which until Christmas. taking a friend into town. then had to sit think this applied to me, as I didn’t feel I promptly filled with tears of righteous As a perfectionist, the holidays were while she told everyone in the group high-level anything. In fact, those first indignation. Then I’d go home, feeling my time to shine: I had to be the first to how frightened she had been. How I lost few months, 1could easily have walked much better, certain that drinking wasn’t get out my cards, make tons of the best it one Easter and threw the entire dinner, into meetings-under the door. my problem. It was all those other cookies, have the cleanest, most origi- including my grandmother’s dishes. I certainly identified when other peo- things. nally decorated home, find perfect gifts, against the walls. How I saw the look on ple spoke of their bouts of depression, What I didn’t like was associating and so on. Of course, all this made me my kids’ faces when things like these the guilt and self-loathing they felt, and with what I thought were a bunch of very tired, which then required afew to happened again and again. those bitter fights that went on at home. losers in dingy church basements, with help me relax. Besides, everyone knows These were not the kind of war stories What I clung to in my denial, however, all those stupid signs: Easy Does It, the holidays are for celebrating. You I heard in most meetings. Yet they were were all the things I hadn’t done-yet. Keep It Simple, Live and Let Live. Then can’t insult good friends by not drinking enough for me. I had no idea what all I’d sit in meetings, full of resentment, being told that everything would work with them. The only problem was all these incidents were doing to my kids and mentally tick them off. 1 hadn’t lost out fine if 1just remained honest, open- this got me drunk-so many times that- by teaching them the kind of behavior my family or a job, wrecked any cars. minded, and willing. It made me slight- my daughter questioned my sanity, and no one would tolerate. It not only drove or been in jail, detox, or rehab. In my ly ill. my husband began checking into his di- my husband and my friends away, but I still twisted thinking, this surely must Needless to say, the argument against vorce optims again. I still don’t know more importantly, it diminished me. mean I wasn’t really an alcoholic. being an alcoholic won out, and it be- how it happened, so fast. Each drunken episode took a shred of To me. alcoholics were way down came my solemn mission in life to prove Yet, looking back I see that I drank to confidence, a bit of self-worth, or a there on the list, right below mental de- to AA, my husband, and all those so- forget those humiliating incidents in my piece of my pride. That is where my k generates and lepers. The last thing on called friends of mine that I could drink past. How-when d r u n k 4 had taken – bottom occurred-inside. the face of the earth I wanted to be was like anyone else. And, by God, I did! a wrong turn on a county road, backed I probably could have continued , over an embankment, then ordered drinking for some time. Yet something one of “them.” Yet. what little intelli- For two whole weeks I had one drink a gence I had left kept battering me back day, and nothing happened-nothing some sleepy farmer to get out of bed and happened to my sister to make me look tow me out. How I bounced off curbs hard where I was going. She nearly lost

it all, ending up in a state hospital for the on with my life are just a few of my insane before she surrendered and found many rewards. I no longer expect my A A . I didn’t want this to happen to nle. husband to be what he is not, nor see I Still, it wasn’t easy. The lash of alco- that look of painful bewilderment in my

i holism hadn’t totally brought me to the bhildren’s eyes. AA has given me a point of surrender as it had many. I greater understanding of my Higher struggled and questioned a great deal Power, of the people around me, and of before the acceptance finally came. myself than I ever thought possible. ‘Ibday 1 no longer need to ask, “Why I’m grateful for that part of Step One me*!” nor say continually, “I’m not that in the “Twelve and Twelve” that states, bad.” I’m just grateful that the burden “It was obviously necessary to raise the of being an emotional cripple has been bottom the rest of us had hit. . . .” A lifted. Whether you classify me as a good friend of mine, who came into AA high or low bottom drunk is unimport- at the age of twenty-four, puts it beauant. What matters is that by working the tifully: “Sobriety is a gift. To receive it Steps, I have taken a 180 degree turn. at any age is a blessing. Yet to receive My anger and the erratic behavior and it early, and be spared those countless emotions I experienced fbr so long have yeas of suffering, is a double blessing.” dramatically subsided. The ability to For me, and my family, I can only thank handle daily problems, to mend painful God that this is the way AA works. relationships, to admit mistakes and get Janet R, Clairton, Pa.

there were groups of four and five peo- “lbo weeks,” I answered with a ple sitting together, laughing, backslap flinch. ping, and enjoying themselves. Every- The girl in red, her eyes softening, one seemed to know everyone else. A .leaned across the table, covered my , black and lonely cloud settled over me. *and with hers, took a couple of chews Just then I spotted a young woman on her gum, and said, “Well, honey, just who looked like she was headed toward keep the Lord with you every day and me. Her brown hair was spiked about you’ll be okay.” A tingling like an elecfive inches above her head and tipped trical spark passed from her hand to red. She wore a crimson dress. It was mine. very small, very short, cut low in back, Someone asked the girl in red to lower in front, and tightly cinched. She dance and a few minutes later I slipped had on red lace hose and red spiked from the room. heels. Her eyelashes were heavily mas- The night was warm and balmy. A caraed. Very wide, very long beaded light mist was falling. earrings brushed her chest as she Driving home, I switched off the walked. radio and rolled down the windows. She was actively chewing a large wad Though the route was familiar, I drove of bubble gum and there could now be slowly. The pavement glistened and

1 / urn@ @1 thought and with that I parked my car. At the door a nice man relieved me of five dollars and I was officiallv at an AA dance. no doubt-she was headed directly to- there were auras around the lampposts. ward me. I could smell the promise of spring in With all the fledging faith of my two the air. weeks of sobriety, I offered up a silent Inside the quiet of my car, I thought, A glance at the band indicated that prayer: “Please, Lord, let me think of “Well, I guess the Lord can speak to the musicians were in the process of something to say.” anyone, at any time, at any place, and killing their instruments-death by She said hello and made a few com- through anyone.” beating as I saw it. Another glance ments about and above the din of the I never saw the girl in,the red dress showed me that nobody but nobody had music. In desperation I asked, “How again. But she had touched me at my t was Saturday-but not just any on anything like a pretty pink dress with long have you been sober?” very core. I knew I would never forget 1 Saturday. It was the second Saturday a beaded butterfly on the shoulder. “A year and a half,” she replied. my first AA dance. of my sobriety. Instead, everyone was dressed in cut- “How about you?” Sue R., Leawood, Kans. I was restless and angry. I felt like I offs, leather jackets, jeans, and T-shirts. hadn’t been anywhere in two weeks and I could not have looked more out of my seams were near to bursting. place. I felt like an alien who had just Then at a meeting, my eye fell on a landed. printed flyer tossed on a table. It said One more glance and I spied a coffeethere was to be an AA dance that night pot. At least I had something to do. I at eight o’clock. My past social life had bought a cup, spotted a vacant space at led me to many a dance but I wondered a long table, and sat down. I inhaled the what an AA dance would be like. I de- coffee as one would a good brandy and cided to go. nervously lit a cigarette. Everywhere

July J* ‘ C

nate not to have caught AIDS or been were over and my sugar daddies were caught by the police. There’s no doubt to gone. 1 had to sober up. if I was to conme that God was watching over me. I tinue living. 1 began sincere prayer, as lived near a busy highway where I used I.had in my childhood, having been to trick, hitchhiking back and forth. But raised in a religious family. then I didn’t think I could do it anymore. I joined Alcoholics Anonymous, I decided on something safer: I would which taught that God is kind and loving beconie a mistress. I went with the first and would help me in all areas of my big spender in a bar to wave money un- life. I met women who had gone through der my nose. I ended up being with him what I had and were now successful. 1 for five years. Behind his back, I was met my present husband in AA. seeing a banker through whose generos- I have since become a professional ity I accumulated a wardrobe of expen- writer, learning from my husband, a sive clothing. My other gentleman ben- writer also. We’ve been married for over efactor saw that I had a car and a three years, and I have been clean and furnished apartment. Then, out of guilt, sober over six years. I have respect as a I left hoth men. Very quickly money got wife and a writer, and I am in love with low. a wonderful man who adores me. God t was a rude awakening when, after ruined. Dirty Charley went to jail for Setting out again. I went to the near- kept me safe from real harm. Though 1 ninety-six unrelated college units, I something or other. We had been skip- est dancing establishnlent and offered to was beaten, stabbed, and raped in those discovered I could earn more money ping out on the rent in various places, audition-which meant stripping in days, I always survived. dancing nude than I could with an and I ended up alone in a fleabag hotel front of the boss in the back room. But Nowadays, my life is quiet. We write Associates Degree. Of course, this was run by Greeks. I am of Greek heritage, he took one look at me and said I was in our cozy home and drive a yellow nearly twenty years ago, before gravity and 1 wanted to be as much at home as too old. Too old! Hurt, I went on a Cadillac! I am at peace with myself. I had an effect on my body. I was what I could be. From there l worked the top drinking binge, fueled by rejection and still have some emotional scars but they they called a “fox,” and I shook my bare less clubs, making good tips. desperation. say love heals all, and I am confident the bottom in nude dancing establishments. I found I could make more money by When I came to my senses, on June future is bright. It was fun, and I loved to dance, cre- tricking with the customers when I was 5, 1985, 1 realized my dancing days Christina P, Sun Diego, Gal$ ate shows, and practice my routines. I off-duty. It wasn’t difficult. Some nien sewed all my fancy costumes, even sold took me to nice motel rooms. Some pasties I’d made. But I couldn’t get on camouflaged their car between trucks. stage to strip unless I drank a bottle of Some parked under freeway off-ramps. apple wine-vintage whatever year it Anyway my fee was $20.00. The barwas. The dancers were chauffeured to tenders set up the deal, and I gave them different night clubs in a pink Cadillac, a per-trick tip. and I took LSD and smoked marijuana I drank a lot and took drugs in the in the car. Unfortunately, 1got mixed up clubs, and lived for many years in that with an outlaw biker called Dirty lifestyle. I never knew what to expect. Charley who made me sell drugs in the I ran into a lot of dangerous characters, clubs. Inexperienced, I was caught and and nearly died after several attempts 4 fired on the spot. My beautiful job was had been made on my life. I was fortu-

August

She gets out of bed and intensely attempt at polishing them yesterday. showers, attempting to scrub her soul She could not keep her hands steady. as well as her skin. She finds a traffic As the reprimand continues, ‘she finticket in her purse and notices that her jshes the pack of cigarettes that had recigarettes are as soggy as her money. placed the morning’s wet one. “I need Her ex-husband always told her she ‘ to calm down,” she thinks. “Maybe drank tcx, much. In fact, he said that I’ll just stop for a couple of Johnny was the reason he left. He never men- Walker Reds, then treat myself to dintioncd the other men she had been ner. After that, I’ll go home, take a with-tnaybe he didn’t know. “Maybe cool shower and polish my nails.” I should stop drinking,” she thinks, With renewed h o p for a better eveand 01.1. to work she trudges. ning, she leaves work. What a plea- Her supervisor in the dtxtor’s oftice sure to escape from that nag and those Itx)ks at her and scowls at his watch as snobby, self-righteouscltds she works she cntcrs. “Never again,” she silently with. She is grateful that Chee-Chee’s r esp)nds. Her ex-husband’s pretty, is cool and comfortable. She goes to new wife arrives tbr an appointment the juke box and Ronstadt begins to , and is full o f enthusiastic tales of how sing “When Will I Be Loved.” well the husband is doing at work. By The alarm is ringing. Colorless fin- 4:OO PM her headache has gotten gernails hit the snooze button for the worse and the shakes have begun on third time. Outside, the already hot, schedule. As her boss is reprimanding humid August day is going to be as . her, she angrily looks at her long, col- oppressive as the last eight. orless fingernails and remembers her Lynttr J., Loyq Brut~ch,N.J.

he sometimes attractive woman in question. She wonders where she is. her late twenties painfully turns She is home, but doesn’t remember over and shuts off the alarm. It has how she got there. Her last memory is been ringing for more than half an of Chce-Chee’s dim, clinking interior. hour. Thick, oily, 80-proof sweat She remembers the noise. The juke oozes from the woman’s pores. The al- box, full of her quarters, blasting the ready hot, humid August day is obvi- smokey air with Linda Ronstadt singously going to be as oppressive as the ing “Desperado.” She is then cursed last seven. Two thoughts emerge from with a vision of her vacant, drunken her pickled brain. The first is of her face reflected in the gold-veined mirbody demanding something cold and ror across the bar. She had turned wet to drink. Her second thought is a away from the image in disgust.

August 1992

soon as I felt better I started pushing myself again, thinking I had control. I didn’t real- 1 had some pretty painful interactions ize it, but I with my family that left me really devastated. Ihad no defense against any stopped my of these and my reactions were way out of proportion to the situations. conscwus con- What I didn’t know was that these situations wcre beating humility into tact with God on me. I was becoming humble! Thank . God Ididn’t have to drink to go back to Step One! Ijoined a women’s Stcp meeting and the first night we read actively been living the Steps. I say Step Twelve. We read the part about that from experience, not in a way to AAs “two-stepping,” which is exactly beat myself up, but because I now what Ihad been doing for quite somc know my experience can benefit time. others!) Istarted to feel the distance When I came into the program. I from God Ihad once felt before Iwas was told i t was a threefold disease: sober. physical, emotional, and spiritual. I I got married and returned home was also told that I could have recovith five yeiirs of recovery under closer Iwas having muscle spasms in from my honeymoon only to find I ery on those three levels i f I didn’t my bclt Ithought i t was time to my back from the stress of the plan- began to get obsessed with being the drink and tried to live the Steps in my “lighten up on the program.” Oh, I ning. Resentments were taking me “perfect wife,” never asking God what life. Well, I’m slowly working my way continued to go to meetings and spon- over. I went to a lot of meetings and his will was for me. Iwas pushing my- toward recovery again. Is t i l l run on sor pcoplc. I called my sponsor every shared what Iwas going through, but self into the ground and 1 was losing my own will, but I am aware of i t few days or so. I was getting on my never made any changes. Ithought the hope. Having moved, Iwas in a new sooner and am able to stop i t times knees every morning nnd cvcning, but confusion would just go away. Iwould area and Ihad new meetings to go to. during my day and ask for God to whi~tI wasn’t doing was pract icing go to a Step meeting here and there 1 felt very disappointed by AA and for guide my thoughts and actions. these principles in all my affairs. The and every time 1 did we would read the first time felt unable to reach out. I recently got a “Step sponsor” spiritui~land emotional parts of this Step Two. I knew I needed to be re- I would ask for telephone numbers, and that has been wonderful for me. disease wcre not being aildrcsscd. stored to sanity, but Ididn’t have any but not use them. Icalled my old AA I am working on my ow11 program I wits in a tremendous amount of clues how it would come to be. friends and (thankfully) didn’t change and trying to keep my nose (and l i x r of nioving, getting ~narricd, I didn’t realize it, but Istopped my sponsors. ego) out of what others in the prochange, etc. and Iwasn’t in touch with conscious contact with God on a regu- Iwas sober almost six years now, gram are doing or not doing. I need ilny of it. I t was safer to feel the anger lar basis. Iwas caught up in the wed- all of the “outsides” in my life were to identify, not compare. I have deand resentments that Ithought were so ding planning and everyone told me better than they had ever been, and yet cided to stop playing God and pray justified. I had gotten engaged after that i t was usual for the bride to be Iwas depressed and disillusioned. I to be just another alcoholic who has months of trying to discern whether or “off the wall” during this time. (Today, got on my knees one Sunday morning surrendered to the wisdom of Alconot i t was God’s will that Imarry my I believe I would have been able to and asked God for a word or sign 1 holics Anonymous. husband or not. As the wedding got plan i t a lot more effectively if 1 had could hold onto. Igot relief, but as Kelly L., Framingham, Muss.

Oct

forms is one art that has eluded me peace of mind just by removing some for a long, long time. of the dust and the smudges from my In a book of household hints, 1 environment. found out how to take the odor out , Another friend has learned to cook of sneakers – a little ammonia in the , breakfast for himself since becoming rinse water. They were like new when sober (and single). He seems to take 1 took them out of the washer, and I some pride in this feat. So far he only was delighted. I hung them on the scrambles eggs, though; frying is too line with the clothes, to make them advanced. smell really fresh. I laughed when he told me that – Such a small thing. But it’s so dif- but why is it any crazier than my ferent from the way I did things when realizing in middle age that sneakers I was drinking. When things got dirty, can be cleaned, or noticing one day or fell into disrepair, I let them get that I’ve never washed the curtains worw. Whether it was something con- I’ve had up for years? crete, like a rusty bicycle or dust on In sobriety I find that growth is the tabletop, or something Inore ab- often unpredictable. We don’t learn stract, like relationships with people, things, necessarily, according to con- 1 rarely did anything to try to fix it. ventional timetables. Emotionally, I always hoped it would go away, or for example, 1 often feel like a teensomeone else would come along and ager, or younger. But rather than take care of it. Of course, it usually focusing on the difference between ;

got worse. my feelings inside and my outward I liked to blame my mother for my appearance, I rejoice that finally I’m domestic inadequacies. But my beginning to allow myself to accept Il t’s a perfect autumn afternoon, quiet, with a blue sky and the sun making the leaves on the trees was I;ure drudgery, to be gotten over with as quickly as possible. Carrying a basket of wet clothes outside with siblings knew how to do all those life on its own terms, to be who I am. things, and they were raised right And 1never expected from sobriety sparkle. The breeze washes over me a hangover was a complex and stren- alongside me. that some of my greatest joys would like water. uous task – not fun at all! So now I’m sober and getting come from the daily accumulations I’m out here hanging clothes on Bobbing on the line are a pair of clean. It’s progress, though, not per- of such small acts – telling a friend the line. I pick up our clean clothes, my daughter’s sneakers, clean and fection. Another lady in the program something real about myself, enjoysmooth each piece, secure it to the fresh-smelling. These are a source of tells me she’s had a hard time, too, ing the patterns and colors of leaves clothesline with a wooden clothespin. pride, because I just learned how to with cleaning. against the afternoon sky, watching I watch as the clothes flap up and get them clean. Until recently I had “I used to clean one room and that the pile of soft, sweet-smelling laundown, begin to soak in the sweet sun- been throwing away rotten sneakers was all I could do for the day,” she dry slowly fill up my basket. shine, and I feel good. Hanging up as soon as I could afford to buy a says, laughing at herself. 1 hoist the basket on one hip. the wash is one of those simple plea- new pair. Then I overheard someone “That’s where I’m at now,” I con- breathe deeply’of the cool air, and sures that was always available when talking about washing her kids’ sneak- fess. “For me, that’s good. I never carry my family’s clothes upstairs, I was drinking, but somehow just out ers every week, and I took note. It used to clean anv rooms.” thanking Gcd for another beautiful, of reach. In those days, Iaundry – sounds silly, but I hadn’t thought of I take it a little at a time, and it’s sober day. like everything besides drinking – doing that. Cleaning in its various amazing what I can do for my own L. D . , Carbondale, 111.

October 1992

starting to wonder if 1 had lnade a first AA meeting, a women’s – . .meet-

terrible mistake. ing, where 1 was made to feel sate When Matthew was about seven and welcome. I cried tears of happimonths old, 1 went to check on him nsss at that meeting because, finally, 1 one night about midnight. 1was home I had found a way out of the hell I’d been living in for sixteen years. I went alone because mv husband worked I never went in much for those “geographical cures” while 1 was an active alcoholic – moving was far odd hours at the-time. As I picked Matthew up from his crib, he squirmed out of my arms and fell to every day after that, often taking Matthew with me, because I was willing to go to any lengths to stay sober. ‘

too much of a hassle for me. So, when the floor, crying. The people at the meetings grew very I was thirty-one, and my life was to- It was at that moment that I hit my attached to him, watching him learn tally unmanageable, 1 decided that knees – and my bottom – and sent to crawl and walk. He felt safe with having a baby would be the answer out a desperate cry to God for help. them too, moving from lap to lap durto my problems. I would have to be- As long as I felt that my drinking ing the meetings. come responsible as a mother, only affected me, it was okay. As After I received my ninety-day pin, wouldn’t I? I wore it every day. One night, I soon as it affected my son, this child So I got pregnant. I even stopped I had waited years to have, who noticed it was missing and I was truly drinking while I was pregnant, except trusted me and loved me uncondition- distressed because it was my most of course for an occasional glass of ally – that was more than enough for valued piece of jewelry; I had paid wine or a beer around the holidays. me. This was what I needed to break dearly for it. I searched my house, I gave birth to a beautiful son and through years of denial and face the but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I had named him Matthew, which means fact that 1 was an alcoholic. I thankbeen so many places that day that I “gift from God.” God that Matthew didn’t get hurt and gave up all hope of ever finding it. The day after he was born, my best 1 got the miracle 1 needed in order to Several days later, at my regular friend came to the hospital, cham- Wednesday noon meeting, Matthew, pagne and beer in hand, to celebrate. e very next day, I attended my who had just turned a year old, Boy, had I missed that celebrating crawled over to me, raised his hand while I was pregnant. Nine months up to me, and there, face up, was my is a long time! ninety-day pin! The look on his face My beautiful son turned out to be was as if to say, “Is this what you’re a colicky baby, and if you’ve ever looking for, Mommy?’My sponsor’s had one, you know how hard it is to mouth dropped open; she said she cope with the incessant crying. So, never would have believed it if she to take the edge off, I had to have a hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. ‘ few drinks every night. This solution Gift from God’? I think so. I know was not working out right at all. In- so. I know my son is special. I tell stead of cutting back on my alcohol him that every night. 1 thank God consumption, I was worse than ever every day for sending this precious – and this baby was a lot of work! gift to me and for giving me a new Life was a hassle, every new stage and sober life. with him was a hassle, and I was Maureen G . , Mr. Pleasant, N .J .

October 1992 their friends in another room. Some- share with others from my home and tiuies I have to drive farther to get to in my spare time. these groups, but it has been well .By writing to GSO in New York, worth it. I >was quickly supplied with all 1

1 ASober Mom 1 My husband generally watches the kids in the evenings so that I can attend a variety of AA groups, and also in the early niornings so that I can needed to get started, and have since been blessed with a number of AA penpals scattered around the world. As a Loner Sponsor, I can thus help have time alone to work the Eleventh home-bound or seafaring or other- Step. He’s well aware that my getting wise isolated AAs enjoy the kind of

D o you have a new baby in your life? Are the ever-demanding little person’s needs so high above your get to a meeting, for whatever physical reason, we can call on fellow AA members to bring a meeting to our to plenty of meetings and taking time to otherwise communicate with God and my fellows is essential to the sharing we have at regular meetings. Letter writing is great when I need to spend some quality time on me and own that you frequently don’t get to home. I have since been to several maintenance of our family harmony. my program. your regular meetings? Are you start- such meetings. There’s a common However, my husband travels often It’s been wonderful to share the ing to feel the discomfort that comes feeling of gratitude for the lbelfth and there are many times when I must joys and frustrations of parenting with with self-neglect – e.g., prayer and Step in action at these events. arrange child care in order to get to others in recovery. Because so many meditation constantly interrupted by When I did manage to get back on meetings. This is difficult because I of us have had the experience at one baby’s cries, exhaustion from night- track, I quickly discovered that meet- hate asking for help, and am slow to time or another, I find that much suplong feeding marathons leaving you ings refreshed and energized me and help others. Therefore, it’s been an port and understanding, as well as a cranky and confused, so absorbed in gave me exactly what I needed to face important experience for me to have greater feeling of fellowship with all ‘ baby you forget to call AA friends the next baby-challenge waiting on to find competent friends, neighbors human beings, has come along with and sponsor? If so, I know. I’ve been the home front. Through talking with – even the occasional fanlily member having babies. Being a parent has also there too, and managed to stay sober. others and consulting the local AA – to trust with my children. helped me better appreciate the par- There is hope for you, too. desk, I’d discovered a group of AA Once out the door, I say a simple enting that was done for me by two My first child was born exactly women which welcomed small babies. prayer, turning my children over to young people who struggled with nine months after I attended my first I took my son to this meeting regu- that loving Power that is really taking drinking problems and did not have AA meeting. The fog had barely be- larly for three years. With all those care of us all. At the meeting, I try the gift of sobriety, as I do now. gun to lift when I found myself in the loving “sponsors,” he came to have to focus on the sharing going on in What a blessing it is to be a sober midst of a major life-changing event. positive feelings toward “Mommy’s the group and forget about the chil- mom! I have a special closeness with (And they told me to avoid any changes meetings.” dren for the time being. I listen extra my children and an extraordinary in my first year!) For ten days after When my second child was born hard because 1 know I need extra AA gratitude for my own continued sobrithe baby was born, I did not attend in my fourth year of sobriety, 1 found strength to take home to that exhaust- ety. How people raise kids without a single meeting, and that proved to an AA group that provided a play area ing routine. the ‘helve Steps is a mystery to me. be way too long a stretch for me. By for older children, while babies were Once I conlplained at a meeting that Like anything else in sobriety, where God’s grace, I did not drink, but I also welcome. This has been a great 1 felt unable to do much service work there’s willingness there’s a way. I was mighty squirrelly nonetheless. I way to get an additional meeting in while my children were so small and believe I have gone to the lengths had AA friends call and visit me at without having to leave my children. demanding. Afterwards, a woman told necessary to keep sober – even with home, but I didn’t know I could have I’ve also found a few other meetings me about the Loners/Internationalists small children. And if I can do it, held meetings with them in my house. around town that supply hired baby- Meeting – AA meetings conducted certainly so can you. That’s one suggestion: If we can’t sitters where the kids can play with by newsletter – through which I could Victoria F., Cheverly, Md.

October 1992

that would keep the family together, the same place at the same time – at in the meantime getting ripped apart least not for today. myself. This went on for years. I believe 1 have now decided to let It continued into my recovery. ill of AA into my life. So many times When I got sober. I put “Getting the I have heard people say that AA bewas the first time the family would family back together” on the top of came their family and 1couldn’t idenall be together in one room since the my “Things To Do” list. It is just re- tify with that. I have been active in blowup. In anticipation of the emo- cently – in fact, in the last few days service all of this time but there was tional outbursts I knew would occur, – that I have decided this no longer still that small emptiness that would I got drunk before the funeral. 1 belongs on my list. If God, as I under- appear now and then. I think I have rationalized that my grandfather stand him, can’t fix my family, I cer- found what that was. I need to let all would want me to be that way for his tainly can’t either. It hurts unmerci- of AA into my life – the young funeral. We had so much in common! fully to see resentment fester in such people, the bleeding deacons, the (My grandfather died drunk.) a huge fanlily, with no two members elder statesmen, and most impor- The death of my grandmother came talkilig to each other. But the beauty tantly the newcomers. They are ala year and a half later. We were all of it is that I have removed myself ways there to listen and tell me what brought back together again in the from the pain. I have gotten great 1 need to hear and not what 1 want to same funeral parlor. Once again relief from our two AA slogans “Live hear. Without their help I wouldn’t be y familfwas a large one, full of animosity filled the air. And once and Let Live” and “Let Go and Let where I am today, to share another many aunts, uncles, and again I was in my typical frame of God.” I no longer feel responsible. one of those promises which has cousins, making holidays and cele- mind – stewed – to deal with the This is a huge burden lifted from come true for me: “We will intuitively brations’ large and festive. However, circumstances. The scenario was my shoulders. My recovery can now know how to handle situations which there was a big blowup over some- similar to that of the Hatfields and take another turn. I love each and used to baffle us.” Thanks to my thing trivial, and suddenly it all fell the McCoys. every member of my family dearly, AA family. apart. The death of my grandfather All this time I tried to be the glue but I accept that we all can’t be in Mary Frnn B . , Morristown, N.J.

trict Grapevine display should be set There are so many things we can up during both the district meeting do;- a far cry from the description and our workshop. one disgruntled AA member gave of n n..r- – – result– – -nf- .. – the -. workshor, was Grapevine representatives as “magazine peddlers:” Call us what you will, that our committee has beconie still …-.- active. nuwe . One GSR asked us to we are proud and honored to serve make a short presentation to her ~lcohol~cs Anonymous. We want our 66 f we keep taking the Grapevine group what the Grapevine and the 1 for granted, then one day it will workshop meant to me. My tears got no longer be here.” These were the their attention (though I don’t recomgroup. We are working on this and will notify all the groups that we are members to support the Grapevine through subscriptions, and we also available to do the same for them. want to make the magazine available powerful and frightening words that mend this): everyone sat perfectly We plan to have a box at district meet- to the alcoholic who knows little or were spoken to me as I was organiz- still. I had never had the courage to ings (and maybe even at the group nothing about our beloved Fellowing our district’s workshop on the stand up in front of a group before, level) for collecting old copies of the ship. Grapevine. Another AA member re- and I really didn’t have it then – I Grapevine; these c m then be recycled Mary Anne B . . Montgotnery, Ala. sponded, “Why have a workshop on borrowed it from my sponsor and AA the Grapevine? It’s just a magazine, experience. My sponsor always says, isn’t it?” “Service work allows me to care When I was selected to be the dis- about something more than myself,” trict’s Grapevine chairperson, 1 had and I now know what she means. I only two months to prepare for the cared more about sharing the imporworkshop and was just nine months tance of the Grapevine than I did sober. I was homfied at the thought about my performance before a group of leading a workshop when I felt so of people. unqualified, but I knew I had a good I truly believe, as I have heard in sponsor and a workbook of informa- meetings, that trying is what’s importion about all aspects of the Grapevine tant. I wanted to put on the best workoperation. shop I could, and I had help in doing So, the fateful day finally came. I so. h o of our GSRS presented the told my sponsor that I was nervous history of the Grapevine, the magaabout standing up and having every- zine contents, special items available one look at me. She told me not to from the Grapevine, and the uses of think about the audience but to con- the magazine. centrate on what the Grapevine meant Our Grapevine committee also to me and on the importance of doing took an active part in planning the the workshop. As I stood before my workshop. Someone suggested havdistrict committee and guests Ishak- ing a drawing. We sold enough tickets ing from head to toe), ~kmem’bered to give out two Grapevine subscrip- I her suggestions. I started to cry un- tions to the winners, with a couple controllably while trying to tell the of dollars left over (we wanted our

January alcohol.” Instead, it is: “I feel hurt, and talk about my alcoholism. angry at my boss, mad at my mother, My lengths of sobriety are getting etc., but since I’ve got ten years of longer, thanks to AA, but I feel like sobriety, I know it won’t make me 1 have to compete with others in the drink.” After ten years, they are still Fellowship during a meeting to get a miserable and let everybody at the chance to even speak briefly about meeting know and they do it week my problems with alcohol. I get very after week. My sponsor says that I upset and leave the meeting, even should talk to her about my personal though I know it means I may drink problems and go to AA to talk about over this resentment with an AA my alcohol problem. group. I honestly have to go to hospital Most meetings have a one-year meetings to hear anyone discuss prob- sobriety requirement before members lems with alcohol. A lot of people can talk at a meeting, give a lead, or think AA will solve their marital prob- sponsor anyone. How the hell are we lems, their problems with jobs and supposed to stay sober? I have never co-workers, their overeating or read anywhere in the Big Book of anorexia, their sex and drug addic- such a thing, and wish we could just tions, and their “just plain lonely” go back to the old-style,.meetings of problem. I believe that this is not the just a bunch of last-gaspers who have ,

W ere are some words of experience, strength, and hope from . a chronic relapser. My name is Rita that is where we have been told or ordered by the court to go. What we hear is, “Shut up and maybe you’ll right program to take on every problem in life, especially if the problem has nothing to do with staying sober. a drinking problem, who come together to talk about their problem with alcohol. Am I being unrealistic and I am an alcoholic. Today is my learn something.” We hear from I sincerely doubt that Bill W. or Dr. or unfair? I realize I may sound like sobriety day, and it is the only day I people who have high bottoms, have Bob could have stayed sober for one a typical alcoholic, complaining I can stay sober. I came into the pro- suffered a few serious consequences, minute in today’s meetings! I know about the program, but I wonder if gram of Alcoholics Anonymous in and enjoy the fellowship of this pro- I can’t get one word in edgewise any of your readers agree with me? April 1987 and have put together gram because they are so-0-0-0 about my alcohol problem with all We alcoholics have an obsession about eighteen months of sobriety in spiritual. They’re so perfect, in fact, the different compulsions people with alcohol, a fatal attraction. We those three years. I’ve been labeled that we wonder if they ever took that bring to the meetings. Maybe nobody cannot stop drinking all by ourselves a “classic alcoholic” since I took the first drink! These perfect human be- agrees with me, but I was led to un- without the continuous help of others first drink. Now, twenty years later, ings boast about sobriety every t* derstand that this program was for in the program who have long-term I am still on the bottom because of chance they get, run the meetings, alcoholics. sobriety. The whole focus of AA my drinking. and talk the longest when they share, 1 am so desperately ill, I am dying meetings should be on helping the Let this letter be a gentle reminder whether in a discussion, Step, or Big , from this disease. I want recovery newly sober person stay sober, beto those who have years of continuous Book meeting. We unrecovered folks more than anything in my life. I have cause we are the one totally defeated sobriety and release from the obses- feel like fish out of water. no doubt that if we went back to the and demoralized by alcohol. sion of alcohol: We who continue to Does any of this sound familiar? basics, more people like me would First things first, folks – help us destroy ourselves with alcohol come When I go to meetings, day after day, find continuous recovery. It really who cannot help ourselves. We too to an AA meeting to talk about our I rarely hear anybody say, “I have a confuses me when I cannot go to a want to be happy, joyous, and free. problem with our drinking because hangover” or “I have a problem with meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous Rita G . , Columbus, Ohio

‘*’ January 1993

escorting his wife to meetings, treat- stead on being grateful for the fact ing her to dinner, and wanting to dis- that things had gone no further than cuss our intimate life with him. My they had. husband blew up, of course. I then I hope newcomers and old-timers called my new male sponsor and told alike will take heed and listen to some him about my husband’s angry explo- advice: I ) Women, get a female sponalmost fell sion. C. said he couldn’t see how I sor. Men, get a male sponsor. 2) Lean could stay sober with a spouse like on your Higher Power; don’t lean on for that, and should he come over? I said, another member of AA too heavily. *

the “No!” quite emphatically. Several We all have clay feet – i.e., we are ‘thirteenth stepy days later C. told me that he wanted not perfect. As Tradition Five states, “Each to come to my home so he could pick n the first day I attended a Step of three-and-a-half years. me up and take me to a shelter for group has but one primary purpose and Big Book study group in The following week, C. presented recovering women alcoholics to get to carry its message to the alcoholic my area, an extremely friendly guy me with a guide of the “right” way me away from this “abusive” husband who still suffers.” AA is not a place named C. introduced himself to me. to do a Fourth Step. He later told me of mine. At first, I was angry at my to try to pick up members of the op- He was all smiles and very warm and he would like to sponsor me, to which husband for blowing up. One of my posite sex. welcoming. I decided to make this I promptly replied, “Women should shortcomings being naivete, I went Tradition l b o says that there is but my home group since at one time I sponsor women and men should spon- along with C. I agreed that my hus- one ultimate authority, a loving God had been advised to attend a Step sor men.” He said this didn’t neces- band was being abusive and won- as he may express himself in our study group on a regular basis. I kept sarily hold true at all times. I still felt dered what to do about it. group conscience. Our leaders are but coming back to the meeting. this vague sense of unease, but he Several days later, after much up- trusted servants; they do not govern. The following week, my new AA kept saying, “Don’t worry, I’m not heaval, I consulted an old and trusted So one AA member can’t be an aufriend offered to give me rides to the trying to get in your britches!” So I r friend in the program about all this. thority over any other member. Even meeting every week and treated me thought, “Oh, what the heck!” After My friend helped me realize that my a good sponsor can only give guito dinner when our group met at a all, he had been sober for eight years, original unease was well founded. I dance and helpful advice. No member nearby restaurant an hour before the he knew the Big Book like the back realized – albeit rather belatedly – that of AA should ever tell another meeting. At first, I got a funny feeling of his hand, and he seemed to this character C. was definitely per- member to break up a marriage. in my gut, but I said to myself, “Don’t genuinely care. My current sponsor forming a masterminded “thirteenth And just as each AA group ought be paranoid! He’s just trying to reach was out of town for long stretches step” on me! Right away, I terminated to be fully self-supporting, I believe out and be very welcoming.” So I fifty percent of the time, so I agreed my relationship with C. completely. that I as an AA member ought to fully went along with this. to let C. co-sponsor me. However, I I ;topped blaming my spouse for support myself and my endeavors C. heard me comment at one of told him I would not discuss sex is- being as furious as he was, and was when I can afford it, declining outside the meetings that I still got thoughts sues with him, as I would only discuss reassured that in fact he had been contributions. of drinking occasionally, even though this with another woman. He treating me quite well all along. Well, this experience has sure I really didn’t want to drink when it promptly and enthusiastically tried to After all this happened, I was very taught me a couple of lessons! By came right down to it. He came up talk me into having a deeper trust in tempted to take out the whip and give passing on my experience, I hope that to me after the meeting and said I him. He said he hoped I could discuss myself a good beating for being so others will avoid this same problem needed to do another Fourth Step. I anything with him, including sex. dumb! But my friends in AA said, – especially newcomers. After all, I told him I was already working on a My husband got wind of the fact “Don’t be too hard on yourself.” I want them to keep coming back! Fourth Step with my current sponsor that this man, a stranger to him, was nut the w h i ~awav and focused in- Jennifer R., St. Louis, Mo.

j”‘

February 1993 what we used to be like. . . or “drinking” were almost never heard. which our founders borrowed many And I have come to regard with pro- wonderful ideas, and I have nothing found suspicion anyone who says, against evangelicals. But that is not “What I want to talk about tonight is what I come to a meeting for. I come my recovery.” to help me stay sober. This has been going on a while The basements are – or used to be and, if nothing else, has reassured me – full of drunks of all denominations that age has not dimmed my power who in the past had sworn on bibles

I YKY hen I came into the program have kept me from picking up that years ago, most meetings were first drink. to fly into a splendid rage. In the last few weeks I have discovered a new twist in the ongoing of many translations, often in the presence of priests and ministers, that they would not drink again. As they open meetings with three speakers In those long-ago days, the talks determination not to tell war stories. are the first to relate, it didn’t work. and the talks were fairly structured: consisted of stories that were pretty My title for this phenomenon is “How Churches, with the best of inten- The alcoholic described how he picked much what an unappreciative sponsee I found God, got rid of my character tions, did not get us sober. Sober in up his first drink, how long and how of mine recently called “catalogues”: defects, and became a perfect per- AA, we are free to attend any church alcoholically he drank, and what fi- “And then I threw up and then I fell son.” Drinking or being drunk – if of our choice, or no church, and to nally brought him to AA. I say. “he” down and then I passed out and then referred to at all – is awarded a pro adhere to any doctrine. But the two because in those days in New York I got fired. . . .” forma mention. There’s a born-again – AA and church – should not, in my City, the ratio of men to women was But then as now, I sat drinking them quality to such talks that makes me deeply-held opinion, get mixed up. about six to one. all in and they made a fine substitute exceedingly nervous. Once or twice Recently, at just such a testimonial- M a y I often hear such talks refer- and cure for what I had drunk before I have wondered if by chance or sheer flavored meeting, I, a believer in a red to, apologetically, as “war stories.” for a quarter of a century. stupidity I have strayed into the Higher Power, found myself stamping “I won’t go into my war stories or It’s true that at that time I particu- wrong basement of the wrong church out at the meeting’s end a raving (if give you a drunkalog,” is a statement larly looked forward to hearing women where there is a meeting of, say, the temporary) atheist. I frequently hear now and I always speakers who, in addition to the former Oxford Group or a gathering Please let’s go back to telling war sigh with disappointment. I like war catalogues, described how they felt of testifying evangelicals. We in AA stories. stories. I love drunkalogs. I love them while all this was going on – some- owe much to the Oxford Group from Isabelle H., New York, N.Y. more than anything else – more than thing the men almost never did and Step meetings, analyses of the Steps, which I found enormously helpful. opinions about the Steps, the exquis- How things have changed! ite dissection of the speaker’s feel- In many, if not all, of the meetings ings, the even more exquisite dissec- in my area today there are more tion of the feelings of those who women than men and the focus is very “share” from the floor; I certainly love much on feelings. Once upon a time them more than the fashionable depth there was a saying heard often in psychology currently focussed on the meetings: Feelings are not facts. They dysfunctional family (which produced are now. And they receive all the defthe abuse in early childhood which is erence formerly accorded historic presumed to have caused his or her events, such as the fall of the Roman alcoholism). More than all of the Empire. I have sat through entire above, drunkalogs and war stories meetings in which the words “drank” Some have lower bottoms than others.. .

April 1993

Some of you also know the difficul- sometime the next morning. I didn’t ties I’ve been facing in the last couple take much time to let the reality of of months due to my job.” this enormous change sink in – to Difficulties was a pretty light word figure out what the hell I was doing i, my name is Lily, and I’m for it, I thought. My mom was a coun- in Paris. But this grey cloud of jet an alcoholic. It’s been won- selor for alcoholics and drug addicts lag soon evaporated, and rage and derful to share Christmas Eve with -teenage ones. The problem was that fear came to the surface. all of you. I’m . . . well . . . I haven’t she had been getting co-dependent I went to many meetings, and at mentioned anything to Sabrina yet, with her clients – most of whom were first I seemed to be making friends, so I’m a bit nervous about saying this, friends of mine – and I’d been getting going out to coffee, et cetera. But it but . . .” jealous due to all the time she had wasn’t long before I began to resent My heart sank. Lily’s my mother; devoted to these kids. This had been the fact that I had lost the Fellowship I’m Sabrina and I’m fifteen years old. an ongoing problem since I had gotten back in Oregon, where there had been We’re both recovering alcoholics, and sober six months earlier. many, many young members to whom at that time we were living in Oregon. “To get to the point, I’m not sure 1 could relate, and who were in- “As most of you know,” my mom Sabrina and I are coming back.. . .” terested in doing the things I wanted She looked at me and I felt the to do. In Paris, it soon became clear, blood rushing up to my head. there weren’t any members my age; Everyone looked to see my reaction; in fact, none were less than ten years I think they were just as shocked as older than me. This by no means I was. meant they were old, but there was “I know this is kind of a bomb still a great gap between us. dropped out of nowhere, but I’ve Nevertheless I continued to go to thought about it a lot, and it feels meetings and grew to love many right to me.. . .” people in Paris AA, even if they hov- So that’s how I got the news. I was ered over me like mother hens. My moving to Paris the next day and leav- mom and I, although we had moing everything behind – everything. ments where we were ready to’kill Christmas Day, we got our bags – each other, became extremely close. which had been packed for a two- But extremely close came to mean week vacation – and set off. No good- very co-dependent: Not only did I isobyes, no furniture, no valuable be- late myself from my peers at school, longings, no photo albums, no great but I did absolutely everything with grandma’s favorite antique dish, no my mother. This situation got worse dogs, no money, no nothing – nothing when, as the months passed, I still except ourselves, our sobriety, and couldn’t find a sponsor who could two suitcases. live up to my sponsor in the States. Our first week in Paris was fuzzy Needless to say, I was growing indue to jet lag. We slept until late after- creasingly lonely as time went on, noon, then hit a meeting at night, and and I couldn’t find a way out. returned to bed only to fall asleep At nine months sober, I could feel

an ulcer forming. I even tried to start days in the morning instead of midsmoking again, after I had quit for day, going to double the amount of over three months (thank God I didn’t meetings, praying on my knees mornsucceed). I questioned my sobriety – ing and night and throughout the day, even my life. I knew I wanted to be and accepting the fact that even if sober, and I loved the program, but Paris AA seemed to lack young thoughts started to flash through my people, it would have to do. I started mind like “Well, if you were drinking, feeling better and listening to the you’d make friends really easy . . .” similarities I had with people instead of the differences. I found that the spiritual aspect of the program filled the void I had felt in my sober life. I continued to go to It didn’t happen overnight – for sure. It was, and still is, hard. I miss meetings and g m to the younger people back in the States, love many people and I still don’t socialize much with people my own age. But I know it’s in Paris AA,even okay and it will pass. There are always solutions. For example, a while if they hovered over back I set a goal to earn enough money to go to the Thirty-Fifth Interme like mother hens. national Convention of Young People in AA in Cleveland. I knew that going there would help me keep the faith When my one-year AA anniversary that more young people can arrest suddenly popped up, I knew some- their disease here in Paris as they do thing had to change. Otherwise, there elsewhere. I believe that with this was no doubt I would relapse. Shortly program miracles happen, and thereafter I got a sponsor. I picked a perhaps God has given me the gift of Big Book thumper who wanted me sitting in a well-earned seat as an to call her at 7:30 every morning, and example, so that the next young perthe amazing part was that I followed son will have a less difficult time of her suggestions and did what she said. it, knowing that it is possible to stay It wasn’t long before I was reading sober at fifteen, in Paris AA. the literature constantly, starting my Ariel Z . , Paris, France

Does just anyone have the right to attend an AA meeting? I’m not sure of the answer except that if there is a Tradition break such as a disruption to the group or AA as a whole, then action needs be taken. The most obvious lesson I have had about the Third Tradition concerns Frank (not his real name). Frank attended my home group regularly for several months. He had a hard time staying clean and sober. He had lost his driver’s license (and his job) because of his drinking. His relapses included alcohol and drugs other than alcohol. He attended other twelvestep meetings along with AA. Our group made sure he had a Big Book, greeted him, took him out for fellowship and to activities other than meetings, gave him rides, phone numbers, he only requirement for mem- for themselves.” Well, the mother talked to him on the phone and in (mostly, because these other subbership is a desire to stop stances scared me). chose to stay and after the meeting person. In general, we shared our exdrinking.” This simple statement Several recent stories of my home she let me know she was glad she perience, strength, and hope. Frank clarifies who is an AA member. group come to mind in reference to had because she herself “used to be died as a direct result of his continued In reading the Third Tradition in the Third Tradition. One is of a an alcoholic.” I was suddenly struck use of a substance other than alcohol. the “‘helve and lbelve,” two things woman who attended our closed dis- with how easily I could have inter- I don’t know if we did everything we stand out in my mind: first, that we fered with what her Higher Power could have done for this man. But, I cussion meeting with her son. She do not discriminate, and second, that may have had in mind for her that know we did all that I have learned drove him to the meeting – he had thus far from my sponsor and other this Tradition came about as a means evening. been court-ordered and had lost his of inclusion not exclusion. license due to his drinking. Did either The next week two women fcom a members of AA. nearby seminary appeared at our Frank gave me gifts far greater than In my six years in this program, I mother or son qualify? The mother meeting. They were taking a course I was able to give him. The explicit have yet to figure out who has the asked if it was okay for her to stay. . job of deciding who qualifies for our about alcoholism. They, too, asked if reminder that I have a fatal disease. I wanted to say, “Go to the Al-Anon they were welcome at our meeting. 1 The reminder that if I choose to make program. Fortunately for me, I was meeting across the hall.” It was obvimy own judge. It seems that I drank thanked them for asking and gave my myself the judge of other people’s ous to me that she needed Al-Anon enough, long enough that I heard no and her son needed to have his own sponsor’s response, ending with, “It’s purpose and place in life, I may take , other judgments from AAs except, AA meeting. But I repeated what I up to you.” They chose the Al-Anon on a role that could alter their life in “Keep coming back.” It may have had heard my sponsor say: “You are meeting. They were given a meeting a way I had never intended. And for helped also that I didn’t use a lot of an alcoholic if you say you are. It’s schedule and open meetings were that I do not want to be responsible. pointed out. Karen A . , Columbus, Ohio substances other than alcohol UP to individuals to determine that

Unity May 1993 change the old-timers and was, there- feelings over the phone, I said I hoped fore, a group member and GSR for she would attend other groups. We the wrong reasons. Meanwhile the shared and cared a lot. Her relief in group transformed two of its open sharing, in not being alone was obvimeetings (out of its three weekly ous over the wire. meetings) into closed meetings. Drug I cannot change the old-timers; we abuse and living problems not an- differ on ideas of unity and service. chored to a Step or slogan were verbo- Let me live and let live. They have ten topics. helped my individual recovery, and A fter talking to my sponsee on the Or was it because, in the opinion phone one evening, I learned of some old-timers, living problems that she no longer planned to attend aren’t AA related? Another sponsee Most newcomers today (and when I joined) are dually addicted, young, and vulnerable to peer pressure. They for that I’ll be forever grateful. But times change and AA has to embrace these changing realities – without of a certain meeting in our area. of mine, a single mother, brought up need the socializing spin-off from Fri- course compromising its essentials, “They ignore me,” she explained. a problem with her teenagers and the day night open meetings to discover the lhelve Steps and Traditions, and “They don’t make me feel welcome. chairman told her that was not a suit- AA is a fun way of life as well as a so forth. I feel stupid every time I say some- able topic. In spite of reassurance serious and workable solution to stay- I believe the newcomer – dually thing.” from myself and one of the old-tim- ing sober. Morale of AA as a whole addicted, young, and whatever his or The words had an all too familiar ers, she never returned to that meet- plummeted in our town; so did the her social reality – is just as important ring. I had been a member of that ing. I have always believed it was special closeness of AA and Al-Anon as the rest of us. In fact, the newcomgroup since we moved to this rural living problems that drove me into here. l h o of the new closed meetings ers are the ongoing lifeline of AA. district five years ago. The group’s the bottle’s escape – escape from my discontinued (though an open Friday Let’s not lose sight of AA for tomorold-timers explain the basic textbook personality defects and my skewed night group formed to meet the need). row and AA as a whole. interpretations of Steps, slogans, and sense of reality. After my sponsee and I aired our Kathy F., Parry Sound, Ont. Traditions extremely well. However, These fellows have fifteen and they never bring up the application twenty years or more of sobriety. Obof the program to their current prob- viously, their program by the letter lems. And they seem to forget their of the book worked for them. But it own struggles in early sobriety. I my- didn’t work for a lot of other people. self had begun to feel neurotic regu- Some newcomers went elsewhere larly bringing up living problems and or went back to drinking, others eventually looked to other AA groups joined or formed other groups, one and Al-Anon for answers. woman turned to religion, and Was the difficulty because these another to another program for alold-timers are men? Many psychol- coholics. But I stayed. When my husogy studies compare women’s rela- band stepped down as general service tional, or interpersonal, response to representative and group member, I life with men’s more occupational, stayed. “Principles before personalior “objective” approach. Women dis- ties,” I told myself. “I won’t let anycuss problems with family and one or anything wedge between me friends, and men talk about trucks and my sobriety,” I said, while my that conk out and roofs that leak. husband explained he had tried to

July 1993 nL. Is AA Changing? We have a small nucleus of mem- as the Big Book says, then it is the bers and get more interested and curi- same program that existed when I ous folks from time to time; some came in, in 1939.” become “regulars.” This is a very We recognize that we are but chanclose-knit group. We feel a great nels, vehicles of God’s message, and satisfaction in carrying the message we feel both humbled and privileged in this way, and through these meet- to know that any success we may be ings we are learning how to enjoy our having in this Bookworms Group venfew years ago, the Grapevine Traditions still apply – if we apply own sobriety more and more. ture is far more God’s success than began a series of issues which them. Recently, we were delighted to read ours. We continue to pray for knowasked the question, “Is AA Changing?” Therefore, in the fall of 1989, we in Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers ledge of his will for us and the power My first reaction was “Yes!” after decided to start reading the AA- what an early Cleveland member, to carry that out. witnessing so many changes in the Conference-approved books at our Warren C., said in 1977. We found We are happy to register our group meetings across three states where I home every other Saturday morning, that our own conclusions had unwit- with GSO herewith, having given it had lived and attended meetings. with two equally interested and con- tingly echoed his comments: “I think a six-month trial and finding it to be Yet, for many, many months my cerned AA friends. We started with the program is just the same,” he said. a going concern, and to enclose our husband and I continued to wrestle AA Comes of Age, then we did the “The principles are there; the Steps first contribution in the amount of with this question. More and more, Big Book, The Language of the are there; the practices are there; and $22.29. we turned to AA books and literature Heart, and now we’re reading Pass the opportunities are there. If you do Anita H., Levant, Maine and to the words of Dr. Bob and Bill it On. We keep the discipline of meet- — W. for the answers to our questions ing at a regular time, with a brief concerning what we felt were prob- opening exercise and a rotating chairlems or potential problems with such person. things as rehabs, multiple addictions, We all look forward to each meetspecial interest meetings, disappear- ing, and are gaining more understandance of old-timers at meetings, and ing of and even greater love for the so forth. AA program, its founders and early In the Grapevine and in “Box 4-5-9,” pioneers, which enriches our lives we began to see that we were not and helps us to carry the message all alone in our concerns. After trying the more enthusiastically and effec- (largely unsuccessfully) to justify the tively. manifestation of these changing con- In May of this year, we decided to ditions in meetings as necessary form an AA group similar to our little change in AA, and after many lengthy Saturday morning meeting and began but never finished letters to the to announce our new closed Bookarapevine in answer to its question, worms Group, where we read the AA we stopped short one day, and came books. We finished AA Comes of Age to the conclusion that no, AA is not a while back, are doing Dr. Bob and changing. The program is still the the Good Oldtimers now, with Alsame. The Big Book and the “‘belve coholics Anonymous coming up in a and ‘helve” are still the same. The few weeks.

The next day, I received a call from an AA meetings, my sponsor, AA friends, boys, which kept me pretty busy and friend inviting me to a crafts fair, one of her many the Steps, and the Big Book – keeps kept my mind off of downtown. I outside functions. She explained how busy she is me from losing my sanity, my sobri- went along pretty well for the next with all her activities – a Monday night community ety, my life. ten months. Then instead of going group, al’hesday evening choir practice, a Wednes- Anytime that I compare my pro- out with AA again 1 went out with day evening ladies auxiliary group. gram with that of another sober al- some of the other crowd, and off After these two incidents 1 began to wonder coholic, it seems that I always come again I went. about these people: When do you have the time up short. Am I supposed to follow “That woke me up. I’ve stuck

Time for AA meetings? Where does AA fit into your life? The next night, at another meeting, a lady lamented that she only went to one meeting a behind in the footsteps of the busy, high-profile alcoholics who are on the fast track, speeding into their fupretty close to AA ever since then, taken it day by day, not biting off more than I can chew. . . . I don’t

for week, because she was tired and had too much to do the rest of the week. Another man shared that he has become a workaholic, trying to make up tures of abundance, activities, and achievements? I don’t think I could ever keep up! miss any of the old crowd nor do I miss any of their parties. . . . If something does come along that sort

AA? for all the lost years when he had spent his time drinking away his career. Again these questions came to my mind. Do you make time for AA meetings? Where does AA Today, I am truly grateful that God has seen fit to keep me centered in AA activity, instead of back looking on the outside for another social club of upsets me, instead of walking in and throwing a buck at the barman and asking for a drink, I walk into a telephone booth, drop a dime in the fit into your life? to join, or “in” group to hang out box, and call somebody who was so This sober I’ve heard many people share lately about all with, or a frenzy of activity to be kind as to give me his name and telemember decides the things they have going for themselves because involved in. That’s behavior that phone number to meet such an emerof sobriety. They have jobs, families, children, would probably lead me back to gency. . . . I think I am very lucky to stay close church activities, conimunity involvement, and drinking. that there are people like AAs and an to meetings and hobbies, all because they are sober. I wonder, I must turn my attention to the Big AA program to hang on to and carry not to compare Aren’t we all just one drink away from a drunk? Book for the answer to my dilemma. me through.” One drink away from losing our jobs, families, In the chapter “The Prisoner Freed,” I too am very grateful that there is her recovery children, activities? a man talks about his experiences an AA program to hang on to, not to others’ In early sobriety I was told to spend as much after leaving prison: “So 1 went to an just because it helps me stay sober, time in meetings as 1 used to spend drinking. Also AA meeting the first chance I got, but because it helps me cope with my I learned that people who slipped were the ones and I listened. I started prowling living problems. who, for a variety of reasons, stopped going to around with a couple of these AA h l r m W , Scru Diego, Calif. meetings. I was also told to “stick with the winast night a man in ners,” and the winners were the ones you saw at L my home group with ten years of sobrithe meetings, the ones involved in all kinds of AA service, activities, and commitments. ety declared that due to I am five years sober now, one day at a time, his life outside of AA, one meeting at a time. I still don’t have a regular he was taking on another job. I haven’t become suddenly normal. There are commitment and wouldn’t still days when I struggle to get out of bed, dress, be in the group for the eat, clean up, and get out of the house to make it next few months. to a noon meeting. Staying close to AA – the

January 1994

member the desperation. The miracle redefining of God as I understand then began unfolding. It started with God, and working the Steps as out-

The Answer a children’s counselor who gave me advice regarding my son. She recognized and helped me identify my lined in our Big Book. But at last my prayer was answered and I found the least harmful way to Is drinking problem. The miracle continued with my ability to have an honexplain my son’s absent father. The answer is total honesty. The answer is giving him one whole parent in- Total est glimpse of myself. The miracle blossomed through the hope given to me by the members of Alcoholics stead of fractions of two. The answer is the love and fellowship within AI- Honest Anonymous. The answer to my prayer hasn’t been delivered to me in a flash of coholics Anonymous. The answer is the h e l v e Steps as conveyed to my son through the Alateen program. light. It hasn’t come overnight. It has Today his mother has an identity, taken three-and-a-half years, a two- not just a series of faces: I am a gratemonth relapse, several sponsors, hun- ful recovering alcoholic. dreds of hours of service work, a total S.A., Efingham, 111.

were threads woven into the fabric of fast approaching. each of these identities. Since I have been in the program Months before I was to experience I’ve heard what I think is an accurate my first taste of this Fellowship, I definition of “bottom”: It isn’t the found myself back in church. I could worst thing you’ve ever done, but the now add “salvation-filled Christian” one event that you can’t blame on to that list of personalities. However,. someone else. I was there. that didn’t mean that I gave up any Now I needed to find the least of the others. I was twenty-nine years harmful way to explain to an eightold and having a full-blown identity year-old boy that his father would no crisis. longer be in his life. I thought there One fateful day I received a call was no solution and that I’d never hold from my ex-husband, the infrequent my head up again. One night 1 found father to my son. He announced his myself in a bar relating the whole belief that he was not my son’s biolog- tear-stained, whiskey-soaked saga to ical father and requested blood tests. someone I wouldn’t have breathed a The tests came back indicating that word of it to if I’d been sober. his suspicions were correct. My The next morning, I prayed. I don’t shame and self-hatred sent me into a remember the prayer. I only re-

April 1994 take my child out into another room, if the kids can’t sit through the meet- Kids ‘Ti9 U s and entertain her. And when I’d walk into a meeting all stressed out (and didn’t even know it), someone would ing. I do it because it was done for me. It makes me feel very sad when people say they are made to feel unsee my anguish and pick up my child comfortable in a meeting because so I could sit still in the meeting. they have brought their children. People would take shifts with her so Some are even asked to leave a meet- I could get a good grip on this wonder- ing because their children are being ful program. I never had to worry too loud. Isn’t our primary purpose that they were not treating her well. to stay sober and help others to achieve I just accepted their gift to me. Thank sobriety? Instead of demanding quiet God for those people for their compel- from children, can’t we ourselves ling love toward me and my daughter. take the children into another room Since then, a lot has changed in so that their parents can get a grip on my life. I accepted this beautiful pro- this wonderful way of life? Any time gram and my life has flourished. I’m I do something nice for someone else now married and have two more chil- I feel so good inside. I could never dren, and I still bring them to meet- do that when I was drinking. ings. My oldest child is seven and Alcoholics Anonymous has given she still attends meetings along with me my life back. It’s given my family my three-year-old. a loving and caring sober mother and People no longer get up and take wife. I can’t begin to tell you how my children out of the meeting when grateful I am that my children don’t they start to fuss, and I don’t expect have to suffer the hell of growing up them to. I have enough of a grip on in an alcoholic home. When my oldthis program to handle my kids my- est daughter was three I found her self now. But I often find myself at playing with her dolls, pretending my home group taking care of a new- they were all in an AA meeting. It comer’s children, giving back what made me smile. Because of their exwas so freely given to me. And, yes, posure to this program, my children I have gotten frustrated with’ unruly automatically run up to their friends kids at meetings but if I keep giving and hug them – it’s fellowship in acas much as I received I will truly learn tion. 1 know so many people today hen I first came into the ing embraces. There were plenty of what brotherly love is all about. We that have come to love and care for

W program of Alcoholics times when my daughter would speak Anonymous, I often had to out loud during a meeting (two-yearbring my two-year-old daughter with olds don’t understand the concept of me to meetings. Not once did anyone whispering). There were plenty of now have baby-sitting at my home group so that parents can feel at home and accepted. Whenever I hear someone use the excuse that they can’t go my children as if they were their own. All my sober family is also my children’s family. By the way, most of the people complain when she used to crawl times when she got tired of trying to to a meeting because they have chil- who helped me get sober and watched around under the tables and untie keep still, got frustrated, and started dren, I say, “Yes, you can – I do it my child didn’t have children. They everyone’s shoes. Instead she and I to cry, and when that happened, some- all the time.” I offer to go with them just had lots of love. were met with smiling faces and lov- one in the group would just get up, and watch their kids in another room Jackie C . , Kissimmee, Flu. . –

June 1994 sense to me. 1 could accept it. I could

W hen 1 attended my first A A meeting on April 11, 1939, face a life without drinking, because I 1 was the only woman alco- had to; there was n o choice – my holic there. And 1 might not have hody wouldn’t let me. It wasn’t just i1 been there had there not been one be- question of mental aberration after all; fore me whose story I had read in the 1 wasn’t insane, or hopelessly neurotic; manuscript of a book called Alcoholics 1 had a disease. And thousands of oth- Anonymous. Some weeks before, my er people had it too. 1 wasn’t the only psychiatrist had handed me a red card- one; I wasn’t so peculiar, so different, board-covered document, saying flatly so alone beyond the pale. I had a disthat he had about given up hope of ease! My mind made a song of hope

F rom the special Grapevine publibeing able to help me after nearly a year of intensive treatment in the sanitarium he headed. But, he added, he out of those words. Then came the letdown.

I was still alone cation AA Today – h i d just read something that might help, and he wanted me to read it. Hc This hantlful of men h;rd found an anfirst published in said little more, except to remark that swer to the “obsession of the mind” June 1960 to cele- this group of men ( t h e emphasis is that drove them to drink against their mine) seemed to have discovered a own will, against their own desire, brate AA’s Twenty- way out of the same trouble 1 had – against not only their better judgment drinking. hut against their own good. That an- Fifth Anniversary I took the book in trembling hands swer was God. My hope sank. Th’IS was and went back to my room with a wild not for me. I couldn’t use this answer. surge of hope lifting me up the stairs I had lost God in my teens. 1 had outthree steps at a time. As I read, the grown this primitive notion. I was an hope swelled and sank again and again. intellectual, a worlilly, widely travelled, My trouble had a name: alcoholism. It well-educated, once successf~~l woman. was music to my ears. Alcoholism was A woman. My hope completely disapa disease. Shame, guilt, and self-con- peared. This was a man’s book, entiredcmnation rolled away like heavy fog, ly about men, obviously written by and letting light and air into my heart for men, and a particular kind of men ;~g;iin.1 coulil hrcathe; 1 codd heilr to at that – religious men. Well, that was live. Alcoholism was “an ‘allergy’ of the that. I’d have to find my own way out hody coupled with an obsession of the after all. I was still alone. mind”; there was no known way of re- Until the day came: the day the criversing the sensitivity of the body to al- sis in my personal life did exactly what cohol, therefore an alcoholic could the hx)k had said it would. It raised the never safely drink again. This was the bottom to where I precariously hung, first reason I had ever heard that made and I fell right into God’s hands. Glo-

June 1994 37

my newly found God. I might have was the youngest person there, by far. known you would supply everything I And 1 was a woman. I was fairly well needed. dressed, was currently an inmate of a For a while it seemed the hook held rather expensive private sanitarium everything I needed. I was reluctant to (they didn’t know I was stony broke, meet the actual people. Would the re- was there on a “scholarship” for free), ality of flesh and blood spoil my ecsta-and was obviously from a “good” backtic dream? Was it a dream? ground – well-brought-up, well-edu- Weeks passed and the good doctor cated, and apparently meeting the took matters into his own hands; he specifications for that old-fashioned lamade a date for me to meet one of bel “a lady.” These things are not usuthese men and his wife, and to go with ally associated with drunken women, them to a meeting in Brooklyn. I was even in the minds of drunken men. warmly received; first names were the This I knew from my own experience. rule, they told me, and Mrs. M. – So I identified myself, and found my- Sandy -made me feel more than wel- self telling the naked truth &out my come. We had dinner and set off for drinking as I had never heen able to do Brooklyn, to Rill and Lois’s brownstone even with my doctor. And I noted the house. The first floor seemed crowded small intake of breath, the widening of as we entered. 1 saw many women eyes, the retreating but still donnant ‘ among the crowd, but no one looked suspicion in some of my questioners. as if they had ever had a drink. It But for enough of them I made the “That’s my Ted, always getting into something he can’t get out of” looked like any friendly gathering in grade. 1 was accepted as an authentic any home, with far too many strangers alcoholic, and therefore a qualified parfor my taste. I flew upstairs to leave my ticipant in the meeting. This night coat and lingered there. Lois came up was an occasion: the first printed and ! riously, joyously, ecstatically surren- the doctor said, “for I believe you have and put her arm around my shoulder. bound copy of the book Alcoholics dered to complete faith in a Power had an authentic spiritual experience. “We want you down with us,” she said. Anonymous was on display, I knew 1 greater than myself. I was free. God Hold on to it, and go back and read “YOU are very welcome.” And she was in when I was asked to sign the supported me at a level 1 had never that book!” looked as if she meant it. I think I have copy, along with the rest. And I further dreamed was possible, and there was no never seen such sheer lovingness shin- knew I was in when I found myself prison – neither of my own making, ‘A Woman’s Story’ ing out of a person – it warmed and talking almost exclusively to the men nor of the wood and stone that made I did, and it seemed a different book. comforted me. Lois, a nonalcoholic who were alcoholics. They so surthe sanitarium, nor of gravity itself – True, it was still obviously by and for wife, taught me about love. But that’s rounded me, and asked so many questhat could contain me. I was free! The men, but it held truth for me and I gob- another story. tions, that I knew I was indeed a rarity grass had never been so green, the sky bled it up. For the first time, I read it -something of an occasion myself. so blue, people so nice and so good. through to the end. And there I found, Will it work? As soon as I decently could, I asked T h e world was a divinely beautiful among the personal stories, one enti- I was made welcome, and yet – did I about the woman whose story was in . place . . I was free. “Perhaps you are,” tled “A Woman’s Story.” Thank you, notice just a flicker of uncertainty? I the book. She was much older than I,

“” with grown children. Her name was ing a woman might appear, find me, zeal to help others. Now there were cause of this have committed every sin Florence. No one seemed to know her know that she was not alone and three of us the country over – but in the book, are inclinecl to look down except Bill and Lois, for she was in unique, and stay. Florence came, and three is a crowd. Three can he neither their noses at women who have suf- Washington where one of the earliest left, without any real contact being es- alone nor unique, and we were all three fered the same mishaps, and for the members of the group, a man named tablished between us – she did not too different to be the same kind of a same reason. Fitz, was trying to get something start- seem to want to talk. I saw her only freak! The double standard has created aned. He was having a rough time, for all once again, sober, and then she died on other hazard for the woman seeking the prospects, including Florence, kept a drunk. Against the odds help in AA. Men are not supposed to getting drunk. I breathed a prayer of I found it difficult to convince the We used to hold long discussions as to care too much about “what the neighthanks that she had stayed sober long older members that I wasn’t a freak, the why it was so difficult to help women, bors say” or “what will Joe think of enough to write her story – for me. only one of my kind, and to convince why they couldn’t stay sober, couldn’t you,” but womcn most definitely are. Bill said that she and Fitz would be the newer men that there was such a iwake this program work. Girls are brought up to I coming to New York soon, and I could thing as a woman alcoholic and that I Some of the men thought consider other people’s meet her. There were hopes, Bill said, was one. The newer men often found it was hec:iuse women opinions of thcm, first that the one other group, in Akron, it difficult to conceal their disgust at were more Jishoncst than iintl foremost. When a might have a woman member soon – the idea, and more than once 1 heard, men, less direct. But 1 woman starts drinking too they were working on one. But here in “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s to thought I understood the much, and then uncon- New York I had to face the fact that I see a woman drunk!” They just reasons for this – and 1 trolledly, this becomes a was, indeed, alone. Unique. I didn’t couldn’t believe that women couldn’t still think they are the rea- prime bugaboo that like it. I had been feeling alone and help it any more than they could. Most sons that keep many haunts her soher mounique for far too long. At least the of the men were wonderful, and fully women from success in ments. Unfortunately, the men here were like me. Or were they? accepted me as one of themselves, but AA. name Alcoholics Anony- I began to understand the faint un- there remained a curious loneliness, We have a double stan- mous is frequently all certainty, the wariness, the disbelief. Inonetheless. dard in our society. Many mixed up in her already began to wonder myself if this program Finally, in October, came Nona, things that are acceptable, mixed-up thoughts with would work for women. I could deal whom I had met when I entered the or at least forgivable, in the total unxctiptability with their questions about my rights to sanitarium nearly two years before. She men are not in women. of alcoholism, alcoholics, the title of alcoholic – I had qualifi- came in wholeheartedly, a quiet girl Although the high and everything to do with cations to match anyone’s -but only not wanting to be noticed, but she was pedestal on which women both, to most of the peotime could deal with their unexpressed there. In November I went with Bill used to be enthroned is ~ l eshe knows and whose doubts as to the ability of a woman to and Lois to Akron and called on a slowly descending to a more realistic opinions of IAshe has been taught to live their program successfully. And woman (drunk in bed) for whom they level (and most women are duly grate- value above all else. How can she fly in only time did the job. had had hopes, but I was no more suc- ful for this entry into more comfortable the face of all she holds most dear, and cessful than the men had been. I went realms), it is doing so only in fits and pin this taboo label on herself? Better Carrying the message on to Chicago where Sylvia lived – starts, like a balky elevator. There are to hide in the bowels of the earth, or The first year was the hardest. I had Sylvia who in October had gone to still areas of behavior that are forbid- the bottom of a bottle. plenty of prospects but few results. All Cleveland to find AA in the home of den to “nice” women, and excessive These, 1 think, are some of the valid that long hot summer I went into New an early member, and who had re- drinking is one of these. Many men reasons why the growth of the number York once a week to the meeting, hop- turned to Chicago full of sobriety and who are themselves alcoholic and be- of women in AA was painfully slow at

AA Grapevine

first. Yet growth there has been, and a humbled and proud of my sex as I see who make statistical studies claim that the men in their practice. Certainly in 1 I commensurate change in attitude both the growing numbers who dare – for there is only one woman alcoholic for the big cities, one often finds the within and outside of AA. Women the sake of all those others still unde- every five-and-a-half men. The records women outnumhering the men at who have embraced AA have found clared, still suffering the tortures of the of public outpatient clinics seem to closed meetings. Is it just that women the God-given courage to hold on to damned, alone. bear out this figure. But there are many alcoholics more readily find their way their sobriety and to build from it a physicians in private practice, where a to the anonymity of the big cities? Or good life, open to the most critical in- Women pioneers confidence is considered as sacred as in are there more of us than even we spection; to accept new values that do Things move. During the late 1940s 1 the confessional, who state categori- think? not give weight to “what the neighbors had many letters from lone woman cally the women alcoholics outnumber Marty M., New York, N.Y. think – or say”; and to rely on their members, seeking comfort, company, own conscience in communion with and advice on how to find and bring in their own God as they understand him, others. Then in the 1950s I began to for judgment of their worth. be asked to come and speak at lun- But it is a long, slow process. In the cheons and dinners of just AA women. spring of 1944, five years after I came I thought the corner had been turned, into AA, the several large AA groups that no one could ever again imagine in Pittsburgh asked me down to speak AA was “for men only.” Imagine my at a public meeting. They told me out- shock and horror when in December right that they wanted to show Pitts- 1959, twenty years and eight months burgh that there was such a thing as a after my solo landing in AA, a woman woman alcoholic, and that she could member in a great midwestern city I recover. Still, it was many months af- was visiting told me of several AA ter that before they got their first groups there who would not receive woman member. Groups have written women as members -stated flatly that me from all over the country to say they did not want women in their that after four and five years of intense groups. Several men with us corroboactivity and growth, they had yet to rated her story, adding, before I could have a woman member; I have made catch my breath, that it didn’t matter countless trips and many speeches to so much in a big city like theirs where show myself and give evidence of the there were plenty of other groups a possibility. This was a major reason woman could go to, but what bothered why I temporarily gave up my precious them was the fact that this was true in anonymity when I entered public work many small cities and towns where in this field. No one was ever happier there was only one group, so that in efto resume that protective cloak after fect this meant denying AA to women two years of both veiled and crass re- alcoholics. marks and looks. It takes great faith There obviously remains much to be and plenty of sheer strength to be an done. After twenty years, women cornavowed woman alcoholic. 1 am both ing into AA are still pioneers. Those

January 1995

when the going got rough between us. hear his loving words in my ear. All the while, I knew that he had con- On May 24, James called me again tinued to use other drugs and lied to in a desperate attempt to reach out to people’s faces while continuing to lie to someone for help. As soon as he realme. I prayed every day that God would ized our relationship was over, he had intervene in this situation and James begun drinking again. He told me how 1 would see the light I saw. Then he was sick and miserable he was and how he arrested on a probation violation he’d didn’t want to go on with his life. I told neglected to tell me about. 1 felt so be- him all the things you’re supposed to trayed and used and foolish. I wanted tell a suffering alcoholic: call your to drink that day. I got through the sponsor, go to a meeting, get to a treatnext few months by using my sponsor ment center. He was in so much pain and AA friends, and in no time I had that he just wanted a quick fix and he gotten back my self-esteem and self- wanted it from me. But I knew I confidence. I prayed and worked a lot couldn’t fix his life for him. I remindat keeping my life together. I vowed ed him that he knew the program of never to let James darken my doorstep Alcoholics Anonymous well enough to again. know how to get out of his pain. When he was released from jail, he I felt a dark dread all the next day. I

J ames and I met in a bar four years kept saying to myself something I’d ago. It was a one-night stand. We learned from the Bible about having met again two years ago when a unconditional love for someone. Every relative and I were on a Twelfth S t e ~ time I tried to end the relationship, call in a local poolroom. Although I James wrapped his loving arms around called all the time and came up to my house at all hours of the night. 1 lost every bit of self-confidence 1 had gained in his absence and I gave in to him again. Insanity is doing the same feared that he would kill himself, and I wondered if 1 had done the right thing. The next day James called me to apologize for the night before. He told me that he was alright and was thinking knew James was still drinking and us- me and swore that he would change thing over and over and expecting dif- about going into a treatment program. ing other drugs we began a relation- and that together we would make ferent results. Finally, after six more I wanted to believe what he said, ship. I fell so deeply in love with him I everything work out all right. months of insanity, I realized that I had though I knew he would say anything could not resist the strong attraction James began attending AA meetings to let go and let God. To keep my san- to get me back in his life. 1 didn’t offer we felt for each other. I forgot all with a friend and then with me. I real- ity and sobriety I ended our two-year him any false hopes that we could get . about certain suggestions of the pro- ized that he wasn’t there because he relationship. back together. I’ll never forget the holgram of Alcoholics Anonymous – wanted to be, but because he would go you know, the ones about not getting to any lengths to keep me. But I figured / It was very painful and difficult for me but 1 tried to go on with my life. low dread I felt when I hung up the phone. in a relationship with someone who that maybe he would realize that he Every time I began to feel as if I might That night, at about 9:30, I received has less than a year of sobriety or is needed this program for himself. He live again, James would call me. I be- a phone call. 1 was told that James had ‘ still a practicing alcoholic. became so dependent on me to keep came closer to my Higher Power dur- been killed in a car crash. The man Within months James had lied to me him sober that I tried to push him off ing this time to help me keep up my who was driving had lived; they both numerous times and stolen from me. I on the AA men I knew and reluctant- strength and courage, but I spent many had been drinking. had the gut feeling that I shouldn’t be ly he began to get involved with oth- nights lying in bed, physically aching I’ve spent the past month in self-rein the relationship but I ignored it. I ers. He got a sponsor but used him only for his tender touch and wanting to crimination. I’ve gone from feeling re-

sponsible for his death to anger that he ety, is a gauge by which I can measure couldn’t be more honest with himself my growth. It is what I do with pain and others. I’ve been raging at ;I God that counts: do I go ahead and feel it, who would take a vibrant young man grieve over the loss of ;I loving man, through death’s door. My only hope is learn from it, use it to help others, and that maybe a newcomer or beginner, or grow from it?Or do I take a drink? practicing alcoholic – someone who Getting back on my spiritual feet is needs the lesson – will see that this the hardest part, but I will not regret same disastrous event can occur in the past nor wish to shut the door on their lives too. Without any warning or it. Drinking is not an option for me toany last words, any one of us can be day. swept off the face of this earth by the Memories of James will always live cunning, baffling, powerful disease of within me, and I have faith enough to alcoholism. know that my God will heal my aching My love for this man was deep, and heart as he has done for many others the pain is still almost unbearable. But before me. pain, as I’ve learned since early sobri- R.W., Wushington, N.C.

February 1995 1 . C

–

An Island of to make contact with the other. Nor could I find a listing for AA in the island’s phone directory. My cherished AA sponsor came to mind, but I felt no need to try to contact her. Some personalized artwork with recovery themes hung on the wall. I had no idea how all this had happened. Yet here was A A – replete with literature from G S O – in a

Sanity Instead, I ballooned into a fullblown vacation spirit. Oh, I was having a glorious time. But a little too much so, maybe? After several days of island delights shared with my hushalfway house, as it turned out, with a small fellowship room and seven residents upstairs. My new Bahamian friend with five months of sobriety returned with two more beaming A A band, I felt an inner tug to get to work. members from the back room. Intro- Sloppiness was creeping in. Thankfully, ductions and A A warmth began inwith help from God and my Big Book, stantly. One of the members expressed I made some needed corrections and excitement about the new piece of carfelt more spiritually balanced. peting. Another shared his hope that Then I found myself driving my mo- “we will soon have an AA telephone.” torbike down a narrow little street in About thirty minutes of precious town when a hand-painted A A logo laughter and talking followed. I felt jumped out at me suddenly. I jammed grateful and blessed beyond words. packed my Big Book before leaving tender deploying so many bottles for on the brakes and brought my bike Here. Now. To be sober and part of with my husband (a nonalcoholic) someone’s lone drink, 1 couldn’t refrain onto the porch of an old wooden such a magnificent pulse of love and .for a vacation on a remote, tiny is- from asking, “What’s that you’re mak- house. A sign said to call out if no one selflessness. land in the Bahamas: Harbour Island, ing!” In a lilting Bahamian accent he answered the door. I called out. These early-sobriety members were Eleuthra. (My guess is, it has a year- responded, “It’s our house drink, a A smiling Bahamian man came to quite familiar with the Twelve Steps. round population of 500 residents.) I Goombay Smash.” Whatever a the door. 1 introduced myself through They even had some awareness of AA’s also had in my possession two phone “Goombay Smash” was, I could relate the screen. He warmly greeted me and efforts in the field of public informanumbers from AA’s confidential di- to it. I silently thanked God that I was opened the door. He invited me into a tion, which stunned me. Fortunately, rectory. This adventure would be my not smashed. simple room where we plopped down their weekly A A meeting occurred first A A experience outside the U.S. The next day, I tried to track down together on one of two couches. We that very night, the night before 1 was So we were off – by air, land, and, a telephone since our room had n o were mutually excited to see each oth- to leave for home. I felt privileged to ultimately, water. I felt thrilled to be phone, and the hotel lobby phone was er. We talked briefly, then he excused attend. I hoped to meet the anonyalive and sober as we skimmed over quite public. This wasn’t going to be an himself to a back room. mous soul who had carried this message turquoise ocean toward the small island easy assignment since public tele- Alone in this room, I looked around. here. I never did. ahead of us. I was happy, joyous, and phones were scarce. Thanks to the A stack of Grapevine magazines and The next morning, as my husband free. kindness of a shopkeeper, I wound up assorted A A pamphlets covered the and I pulled away from the dock, I When we arrived, the small hotel calling my two local AA numbers from tabletop between the couches. A large knew that 1 had just visited a place far dining room hadn’t opened yet, so we a phone in a small grocery store a mile desk had more A A pamphlets and a bigger than a small island in the Bawent into the adjoining bar to await from the hotel. I discovered that one of well-used copy of the Big Book on it. hamas. being seated. There, 1noticed the bar- the AAs had moved, and I was unable There was coffee behind the front door. Anonymous, Jacksonoilk, Flu.

May 1995

The AA Grapevine

“Just Give Me Something time it took to get my first year – I was slipping away from AA. I was now working on my Master’s degree, teaching college, and maintaining a 4.0 GPA. It was 1990 and I to get help. By October 1991, 1 decided 1 couldn’t stand to live in my head any longer. 1couldn’t stand the fear of graduating and losing the womb of the uni-

to Ston the Pain” fib was nine years sober. 1 was attending a half-meeting a week (one I didn’t like), but speaking whenever asked (which was often), preaching “sobriety and A A first.” I forgot that A A is a proversity where I’d practically lived for seven years. I couldn’t stand knowing that the college wouldn’t hire me back due to budget cuts. 1 couldn’t stand knowing I’d no longer he able to use gram of action and that we can say so- the student health center and counselbriety and A A come first, but if we ing services. I couldn’t stand knowing aren’t actually putting them first, we how much 1would miss all the familiar can prepare to drown. As the Big Book faces, from the cafeteria workers to the says, “The spiritual life is not a theory. other instructors. 1 couldn’t stand We have to live it.” knowing I’d have to move to a cheaper Because 1 had all of those years of place and job-hunt at the height of the A A learning, and because it was so recession. I couldn’t stand, most of all, natural for me not to drink, I found the loneliness of all that. If only I’d still very often that I needed to study been in touch with A A , 1 wouldn’t This “pure” alcoholic found herself longer, I needed to plan my classes, I have felt so alone. I might have been needed to work on a novel I was writ- able to recreate my life. If only . . . drinking cough syrup and hooked on pills ing -I needed to do something all the S o with a mind nearing insanity, time, and it never had to do with AA. seven months before my MA gradua- My life had largely been wasted, you tion and my eleventh year A A birth-

M y sobriety date was May 17, 1981. Through going to two meetings or more a day, doing all the Steps, reading the Big Book so much I could quote from it, and doand rapidly achieving higher and higher grades. I graduated with a 3.5 GPA at eight years sober. By that time it felt ncrmal not to drink – the thought of drinking had understand -after all I was over thirty. I had to make something of myself while there was time. So much for balance. In the meantime, bills were piling day, 1 literally ran to the student health center with one thought racing through my mind, over and over: “Just give me something to stop the pain something that won’t get me stoned.” ing lots of A A service work, my life become as repulsive as the idea of up, 1 could no longer afford my ilprt- That something should have been AA. had changed dramatically. putting my hand in a hot flame. It was ment, 1 had no social life, my school Rut even though I had learned all the I’d grown up in a violent family, as if I had recovered completely. After work was becoming more difficult, 1 A A things to do, I was now, almost . been hooked on alcohol-fortified all, doesn’t the Big Book say the prob- was having run-ins with my students, belligerently, denying them for a pill cough syrup at the age of five, been la- lem has been “removed”? my sneaky al- and the 1992 California recession was me, who had chanted “Don’t drink or beled as mentally “slow,” and drank al- coholic mind would ask, cleverly hovering over me like Godzilla. Worst use no matter what” for years, even coholically from age fifteen to omitting “so long as we keep in a fit of all, I had n o one to talk to, since I though I was certain I was a “pure” altwenty-five. With a clear and sober spiritual condition.” had lost touch with AA. It was as coholic. I had never had a drug probmind, I was now attending a university And slowly – like the one day at a though I had amnesia. I forgot where lem, I boasted . . .

So I went to a general practitioner taking handfuls. Finally I lost my re- knew me as a speaker. People thought I who knew nothing about alcoholism, spect for alcohol and began drinking knew what to do, but they didn’t unand he gave me a drug that, true, didn’t alcohol-laden cough syrup along with derstand 1 needed their help to remind seem to get me stoned, but was a high- the pills. And so for the first time in me. And I was too prouci to let them ly addictive tranquilizer. over ten years, I was drunk. Drunk on know. This tranquilizer became my new cough syrup. It didn’t take very long to face the higher power. We had a love affair for Two months of this hell relegated me fact that I was simply a newcomer and seven months before things got ugly. I to a worm with no sense of dignity, no needed help. When I humbled myself, was far enough removed from A A that sense of accomplishment, no sense of the hand of A A was there. At seven I was once again, sadly, master of my being part of anything, and certainly months sober, I had the wonderful and destiny. And what a nightmare of no contact with God. Then came the trying experience of relocating to Oreevents was about to occur! realization that I was no longer sober. I gon. It took another two months for For seven months I’d time myself was no longer taking pills as prescribed. the desire to drink and use to go away. perfectly. I’d take that half-pill every I was a full-blown drug addict and I was It took a year and three months for not four hours, as prescribed, even less than drinking iilcohol (via cough syrup) too. drinking or using to feel natural. It took prescribed at times, and I merely felt In January 1993, the miracle came. a year and a half to lose the thirty-five calm. 1 didn’t see I was slowly being I finally got a job -but that wasn’t the pounds I had gained the first two robbed of my memory and was losing miracle. The miracle was losing it two months of my newfound sobriety. And my ability to communicate with oth- weeks later due to my drug use – me, at one year and eight months clean and ers. I often forgot what I was saying. I the “pure” alcoholic. Then I tried to sober, when 1 was resigned to being an often “lost my place.” And people start- withdraw from the pills cold turkey, office clerk with an MA degree for the ed giving me strange looks. then I kicked in a storefront window rest of my sober life, God blessed me I somehow graduated with a 3.89 with canvas shoes, then I was almost with another second chance – a GPA, and then all my worst fears came arrested, then I gave my final paycheck teaching job. true. I half-heartedly sent resumes to to the store’s owner, then I went to the Now I attend at least five AA meetover fifty posted writerleditor jobs, emergency room because my foot was ings a week. 1 rely on God and AA for ,

knowing I wasn’t fit to teach, but in six damaged, then I was put in a seventy- my every move. My every win is a glomonths I had only two interviews for two-hour hold unit at the county hos- ry to the God of second chances. And editorial jobs. I blew the first one by pital because the doctors feared I’d kill I can say for you “pure” alcoholics, beweaving and tripping on the stairs on myself, then on February 17, 1993 – fore you think of using i1 pill to fix your my way out. I blew the second by be- thank God – I came back to AA. mental state, try i1 meeting or try working too stoned on tranquilizers to pass Six months prior I’d been an A A ing with mother alcoholic like me. a simple logic test. speaker, taking an eleven-year cake un- You really don’t want to he n new- I lost my apartment and $1,200.00 der false pretenses. Now I was once comer again – trust me. Not because rental deposit because I was too “calm” again a newcomer -the worst kind. I you will lose face with other AAs to stand up for myself. 1 had to rely on was a newcomer who knew AA inside (that’s the least of it), but because it is the county health services where I was out, knew all the right things to do, but hell to get sohcr again. Rut for the given 180 tranquilizers at a time. Then no longer knew how to function with- grace of God, my story could be yours. I lost control of the count. I’d end up out mind-altering chemicals. Everyone Pattie B., Lake Oswego, Ore.

June 1995

hard enough adjusting to a new state but when I found out, to my dismay, that there were no AA meetings in Juneau, I felt like Bill W. must have when he tnade his first trip out of town. It was Tales of rumored there used to be AA meetings in town, but that the whole group had gone out and gotten drunk. Out of desperation, I did what came naturally to an AA member – I rented out a room in the basement of a church, ran an ad in But my Nomad the Juneau newspaper, then sat there waiting for the first drunk to appear. When no one showed up after four weeks -while I sat there by myself Higher reading the Big Book -I was tempted to go Power finally down the street to the infamous Red Dog Saloon and pull some poor drunk off the bar stool presented and sober him uv, whether he wanted it or not! Spotwordb+ & a m m tfor tbw AA a n 2 a But my Higher Power finally presented me with me with a keydtone to ber dobriety – wherever dbe b e y 6e a live one, a man named Bill. After Bill sobered up, a woman appeared and then other drunks live one . . . started attending the meetings regularly. After one year, our little group had grown to ten sober members. It was going so well, we decided to start Al-Anon meetings.

T hanks to Alcoholics Anonymous and my Higher Power, I now have over twenty-two years of continuous sobriety. In 1970, I attended my first AA meeting. I went to meetings religiously every night for the first three years. I then tapered off to five meetings a week up until my tenth year of sobriety. Since then I have averaged The hardest part for me during this first year in Alaska was not having an AA sponsor. Then, one day, Margaret, an Al-Anon member, asked me to be her sponsor and show her how to work the Twelve Steps. I told her I would do so on three meetings a week. one condition, that after she completed her During these years of sobriety I have lived in California, Alaska, Ninth Step, she would sponsor me in return. , Washington, and Massachusetts, and am now living back in the Seattle I She smiled and agreed. For the next four years area. I want to state that it is not easy moving to a new area, whether she was my sponsor (and a great one at that) unyou’re one day sober or ten years sober. If I could have taken my first til I moved to Washington state. AA sponsor with me, maybe it would have been a different story, but she wasn’t willing to be kidnapped. TOO BUSY FOR SPONSORSHIP? I was sober five years when I made my first move – to Alaska. It was With ten years of sobriety under my belt, I start-

,%d ed attending AA meetings in the Seattle area. When I first arrived, I A week later, I had a problem with my son immediately looked for a sponsor. There weren’t many women attending and needed someone to talk to. I remembered meetings with more sobriety than myself. But I finally met two AA Nick’s offer and found his phone number. I women who each had over twenty years of sobriety. After listening to called him and we talked for over an hour. He them for a few weeks, I approached them after a meeting and told them had the time for me and the right words, and I I was new in the area and was grateful. needed a sponsor. The first I learned over time that Blind Nick was truly woman said she was too busy a humble man. He believed fervently in working A few weeks sponsoring newcomers to help the Twelve Steps and in the power of prayer. He me. I looked at the second used to say to me when I was troubled, “What later; I woman and before I could ask are you pretending not to know!” And invariher the same question, she told ably, I would find the truth deep within myself. found my me she didn’t have time to He was my sponsor for five years until the day sponsor anyone either, her life he died. sponsor. was too busy. Then they turned and walked away. PASSING I T ON TO OTHERS Rather;! . Close to tears, I left the meet- At sixteen years sober, I moved to Massachuing room and walked out to setts. And, once again, I had difficulty in finding should sax my car. On the drive home, I a sponsor. There were no women in town who wondered what went wrong. had even five years of sobriety. So I did what I he found They knew I wasn’t a new- had to do: after taking one of the women comer, that I wouldn’t need as through the Twelve Steps of AA I asked her to me. much attention as a beginner be my sponsor. would. Maybe they just didn’t A few years ago I moved back to Washington, like me! I prayed then and but this time to a new area. Luck was with me. asked God to please send me a The first woman I asked to be my sponsor acsponsor soon. cepted joyfully. Today, she is my dearest and best friend. FINDINGSOMEONE I now know from experience that when a TO TALK TO member of Alcoholics Anonymous moves to our A few weeks later, I found my sponsor. Rather, I should say, he found 1 area and starts attending our meetings -no me. Blind Nick was his name (he had gone blind from diabetes). He had matter how long the person has been sober close to twenty years of sobriety. When hearing me speak one night at a he or she will be looking for a new sponsor. And meeting, he said he would be my sponsor until I found a woman sponsor. if I am asked, I hope I will never be too busy to .I had been taught early in sobriety that men sponsor men and women help anyone. sponsor women so I was taken aback at first when he offered his help. Ginny M., Grapeview, Wash.

June 1995

Old-Timers haven’t worked so hard since. My hus- mous that has a bead on this drinking band belonged to three golf courses, I thing. I’ll call them and see what they belonged to three bars, and I never let do.” Then Katharine told me that her his golf interfere with my drinking. I husband’s best friend was an AA memhad terrible hangovers but I’d take care ber, and she asked me if I’d like to see of them with the hair of the dog that him. I said yes just to get her out of the bit me. I kept a stash of booze in a room. roasting pan in the kitchen. 1 made I don’t know how it happened, but I sure I always had a backup. didn’t finish that bottle, and somehow 1 couldn’t stop drinking and I knew I got up, got dressed, and waited for Mr. it; I also knew that I’d drink for the rest AA. He didn’t show then and he of my life. I loved to didn’t show the next drink. I onlv felt nor- day. On the third A Lifetime ma1 when -1 drank; when 1 wasn’t drink- I couldn’t day, I called my sister and said, “Where is ing, I felt very, very this genius whopsgoweird. When 1 cam; ing to stop my drinkinto AA, they asked ing?” She said, “He me if I took a morning and his fellow mem- Sobriety drink. “No,” 1 said, “1 don’t get up in the drinking bers are discussing whether or not you morning. But I take qualify for AA.” I a drink as soon as I and I had a short fuse, and get up.” I was incensed that

M y first real contact with Alcoholics Anonymous was made in Yonkers, New York, where I grew up. I had an asthmatic sister in the hospital; she told me that in my life and was confronted with raising eight kids – I’d start!” She began to laugh, and she laughed so hard she coughed up all the congestion, and her lungs cleared up, and she left My sister Katharine tried everything to get me sober. One dav she came to my house with knew it anyone would think I wasn’t eligible for AA. ~aFer, the man’s ten-year-old a chocolate cake; a doctor had told her son came over with the Big Book in a she was dying and she wanted me to the hospital. All the nuns (it was a that what alcoholics really wanted was brown paper bag; he shoved it at me raise her eight children. Catholic hospital) were saying, “It’s a sugar not booze. So there I was in bed, and ran. I liked children, and 1 was dis- We had two other sisters, but for miracle.” “No,” I said, “it was me.” about halfway through a bottle, and I turbed that he was so scared of me. some reason she wanted me to raise 1 knew I had a drinking problem; I couldn’t wait to get rid of Katharine I read the book from cover to cover; these kids. “There’s only one thing, knew drinking in bed wasn’t social and she knew it. “If you’ll eat a piece of I couldn’t put it down. I saw myself on Nancy,” she said. “You’re going to drinking. But I had an image to main- this cake,” she said, “I’ll leave you to every page. And the stories: I could see have to stop drinking.” “Katharine,” I tain. I was a decorator; I had to look your drinking.” “I can’t eat the cake,” I that the way they drank was the way I said, “you’ll just have to stay alive be- good. I put a lot of money into clothes, said, “but give me the Manhattan tele- drank. I could see that it had gone bad cause I will never stop drinking. Fur- beauty shops, and massages. I had to phone directory – there’s an outfit in on them and I knew it had gone bad thermore, if I had never taken a drink look rich and that was some job. I New York called Alcoholics Anony- on me too. I put the book in the fire-

Old-Tlmars Corner It- –

place behind the logs – it was sum- “What do they look like!” and he said, 1. It was the first drink that activat- ‘I’llremember you mertime -because I didn’t want any- “They look just like you.” “Well,” I ed the obsession – if I took that first for the rest of my life’ one in the house to read it and decide 1 said, “they must be gorgeous!” drink, I was gone. At three months I had to speak ought to join. I didn’t want to join. 1 1 went with him to the meeting. 2. Alcoholism is progressive – everybody did. I had to go over to Jer. had looked at the Twelve Steps and I There weren’t any women. This was once an alcoholic, always an alco- sey. I was sick and nervous, throwlng didn’t think a spiritual way of life was 1944 and there were maybe a total of holic. up all day, and I called Lois K., my for me. three or four women in New York, and I talked it over with the member- sponsor, and asked, “Why is this good I continued to drink until the fall of that was it. There were six men at this ship. I told them yes, I knew I would for alcoholics?”She said, “You’re thinkthat year. Then one morning 1 was meeting – three lawyers, a butcher, a I have to quit, but I was only thirty-one ing about impressing them tonight having a very had time of it, and I cop, and a guy who worked in a malt and 1 wanted to wait until I was in my that’s not the purpose. The purpose is called my brother-in-law’s friend, the factory who said he couldn’t stay sober forties. They didn’t tell me no. They to help one other person in the room, if AA member. “You know,” I told him, because the malt went into his pores. told me to put my car up on blocks – you can.” When I spoke that night, I “I read that entire book. I know all That was solved easily enough – we don’t drive. A fellow who happened to told the group what my sponsor had there is to know about alcoholism; I’m very well informed. So how come I’m got him another job. I loved it; they were wonderful men. I decided that be a guard at a woman’s hospital told me that if I landed in jail, he knew said and how nervous 1 felt. After the meeting, a blind woman came up and . still drinking?” He they were far too wonderful to have to someone who could get me out. Mean- asked me, “May I feel your face!” She stay sober. “Give me three months,” I while, this thing kept kept hammering touched my face and she said, “I knew told them, “and I’ll get us all out of in my brain: “What are you waiting you looked like that. 1’11 remember you this.” I thought that if we had all for?What are you waiting for?” for the rest of my life.” I went home crossed over this invisible line, I could Suddenly I decided it would be a and cried for an hour and a half, to find that line and we could all cross good idea if I became a member of think that I could help someone who back again! They knew I was an alco- AA. I wrote an acceptance note, like was blind and in an alcoholic mess. For holic and they just let me go about my you would do for a wedding invita- the first time in my life, I realized I had What’s it business. tion: “Nancy 0.accepts with pleasure done something worthwhile. That was like!” He the kind invitation of Alcoholics my first taste of humility. . said, “Every- Taking it on the road Anonymous to become a member.” one there I decided to do some research, to inter- Along with the acceptance, I put a Working with others will be just view AA members. There weren’t clean piece of paper that would be a When I was new, I was the only ‘ like you many meetings in those days; you had letter of resignation if I slipped (every- woman around, so team leaders would – an al- to travel. I covered a radius of about one in those days talked about slips call me up to be on their team to speak coholic. 100 miles, which included Manhattan, because a lot of us were slipping). with them. My family was having fits Y o u ‘ l l Long Island, Westchester County, Al- Nobody ever gave me a hard time, because I was doing this, and finally feel very bany, and parts of New Jersey and Con- nobody tried to reform me. How smart they said to me, “Nobody has ever discomfort- necticut. I’d go to meetings, listen to can you get? They knew how it was graced us like this.” I said, “No, we all the stories, pick the best one, and in- with me because they knew how it died, and I want to live.” One person terview that person. This was hard was with themselves. It was love. And said to me, “It’s like wearing a sign on work and I was plenty thirsty – it was all of sudden – sober now – there your back, Nancy.” Well, 1 took excepnuts. In about three months, I came to was this tug at my heart, the love of tion to that, so I went out and bought a the conclusion that: one alcoholic for another. fire-engine-red dress. Whenever I

day, and we did a lot of Twelfth “but not for hurning tents.” She was Step work together, helping women in in because she had burned her apart- Westchester County, and it was hard. and I was succeeding. I told whole book ment and been labelled a pyromaniac. The first women’s meeting was at my him that I had a story and he didn’t. at first. I’d underline parts like the jay- I explained to her jailers that she was house. It was Lois who came up with He had the education, but I was an al- walker, the Steps, “no human power,” an alcoholic – possibly a pyromanaic idea for the Grapevine. Lois was also coholic with a story that she identified and anything I thought they could too but definitely an alcoholic. I’d been very involved with her sponsor, Marty with and understood. I talked to the identify with. This would prompt them to her apartment and taken out a M., and the National Council on Al- woman, told her to cooperate with the to go on and read the rest of the book, bushel basket full of bottles from uncoholism. I could have been, but 1new doctor, and maybe she could be helped and then they’d call me. It helped me derneath her mattress. She was a er cared for the idea. I liked working by him. I did Twelfth Step work with a great deal, and it still he1p.s me. It schoolteacher, a very, very quiet with alcoholics in AA better. this doctor for five years; we did a lot , keeps my sobriety green, it keeps it woman. I took her to meetings with My group was very active working of good work with alcoholics. I said to alive. I’m not one who says, Let the me, and then she went hack home to with alcoholics in jails and hospitals him, “Don’t ask them why they drink. newcomers do it. There’s plenty of start a group of her own. That’s how and mental hospitals. One day I went They don’t know. They expect you to , work for old-timers. 1haven’t been into AA grew in those days. That’s how we to see a woman in the hospital, and on know, and you don’t know either – jails for a while, but I’m still doing hos- helped each other. my way out, her psychiatrist asked to nobody does. So don’t ask them.” pital work. Once a man came over from speak to me. He told me that his par. The second woman I ever sponsored Bronxville to ask our group to help him ents had spent thousands of dollars on Keeping it green was a prostitute. She was always land- start a group there. During the discushis education, and the woman I’d just I’d give people the Big Book and tell ing in jail, and they would remand her sion that followed, someone said, seen wouldn’t say two words to him. them to read what I’d underlined be- to my custody. I didn’t care that she “There are too many snobs in He wanted to know why he was failing cause I knew they wouldn’t read the was a prostitute but I did care that she Bronxville. Nobody will come to a

group there.” I said, “I don’t see why didn’t, left and started another group. alcoholics who were in relapse, and 1 the home group. That’s where we reach snobbery should carry the death penal- I remember I called my first sponsor did this exclusively for the next seven out to newcomers, we greet people. ty. 1 think we should give this man our one time and exclaimed, “I don’t know years. The first question I would ask Everything comes out of the home support.” Later on the man thanked what I’m doing!” “None of us do,” she someone was, “Were you on the twen- group: invitations to speak, people to me, and when I asked why he was replied. We used to take alcoholics off ty-four-hour program!” I never got a sponsor, being active in AA – it all thanking me, he said, “Because I’m a stools in bars and bring them to meet- yes. You work differently with relapsers; comes out of the home group. Bronxville snob.” ings drunk. Finally somebody said, “I they’ve been around AA, they know don’t think we’re doing the right people, they know open meetings, they From wagon trains to jets Growing through trial and error thing.” And then the publicity prob- know closed meetings, they know I sometimes get asked if AA has At this time, we called AA a loosely- lems -alcoholics bragging about how names. Sometimes they’re well-known changed since I first encountered it, knit organization. I said, “It’s so loosely they saved this one and that one. We because they used to do a lot of Twelfth and I think how, when I came in, peoknit we’re all going to fall through!” It made a lot of mistakes. On the basis of Step work themselves. When I was liv- ple were fascinated by the wagon train wasn’t an organization because nobody our mistakes, Bill W. put together the ing in Westchester, I’d pick people up feeling of AA – that we were small, could organize us. We wouldn’t accept Twelve Traditions. He did it with a and take them into Manhattan to one and all knew one another, and were any outside contributions because we whole lot of help from all of us. The of the big meetings. This was 1951 or close despite our differences. Now it’s didn’t want anyone telling us what to early members brought us one Tradi- later. I’d say, “We’re going to sit in the like the Concorde jet. It’s fast. People do. There were no leaders, so we had tion at a time, in the long form – for back; never mind the speaker, just look come in, they get sober or they go out, to figure it out for ourselves, and that our group conscience and vote. We dis- around the room and tell yourself that they get busy with life, they move was mighty difficult. cussed each one, took out anything all these people are getting sober. They away, they go to other groups. When I There were many differences of that we didn’t want, made amend- don’t know me, they’ve never seen me came in, the membership was estimatopinion, and that’s the way the Fel- ments, and then voted. I consider the before in their lives, they’re just getting ed at 5,000. Today you and I are memlowship grew. Let someone get a Twelve Traditions to be the foundation sober the way I am. And if I practice bers of an international Fellowship of restentment and we’d have a new of AA. There were a great many other the AA program, I’ll get sober too.” I more than two million alcoholics. group! For instance, there was a things that contributed to this founda- would never talk about anything ex- Think about that! When we go to woman who baked a cake every week; tion, but this was the first really proges- cept getting reestablished as a member sleep tonight, there will be alcoholics we called it a nut cake – good name sive step for our Fellowship. of AA, that and the twenty-four-hour working with each other somewhere in for it! -but some people didn’t think program -and so I was forced to prac- the world. It never stops. That’s a long it was a good idea, so we had a contro- A twenty-four-hour program tice it. way from 1944, when I came in. One

versy over this foolish cake. Those who When I was about seven years sober, I There’s probably nothing more im- thing will never change, though: I need wanted the cake stayed, and those who started doing Twelfth Step work with portant than a home group. I’ve been you just as much as you need me. We going to the same home group since 1 need each other – and our Higher moved to California, thirteen years Power. That’s where the strength is. ago. I couldn’t have gotten sober with- Nancy 0., Lafayette , Calif. out a home group. What I like about a home group is this: you never have to make a decision, it’s automatic. You This article was adapted from an interview conknow that’s where you’re going. This is ducted by Lee). that appeared in High Sobriwhere the Twelfth Step gets fulfilled, in ety, an AA newsletter published in Sun Mateo all meetings really, but particularly in County, California.

August 1995 AA Grmperlne

sitting on a patio overlooking Lac him if he was a member of AA, al- Tremblant, drink in hand, visiting with though at that time I knew absolutely, another woman. Our visit was inter- nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous, rupted by the arrival of a car with li- except that drunks went there. He very cense plates from Westchester County, modestly told me that he was one of where I lived at the time. I ran over to the “founders.” I thought that this was the car to greet the man and the a bar joke! But the man I was talking woman in the car, as I was happy to see to was Bill W. someone from home. (I also knew that As it turned out, I walked many they would speak English.) I intro- miles in the Laurentian Mountains duced myself, telling them that I’d with Bill, while Lois was working on a been to Mont Tremblant on several new book for Al-Anon, and Bill told previous occasions, and I offered to be me about Dr. Bob (then deceased), and of any service. They thanked me. the part that he had played in the birth The next day, I played golf and af- of AA. We discussed many things, terwards, 1 went back to my hotel and mostly of a spiritual nature. Only God sat down in the bar. George the bar- could have foreseen my need for the tender came to take my order. This was beautiful program of Alcoholics not a barstool kind of bar, but rather a Anonymous a while later, and this is cozy room with loveseats placed around how he chose to introduce me to it. circular, glass-topped tables. George 1 am eternally grateful for this experibrought me a double martini on the ence. rocks, and told me he was going into My membership in AA has not only the staff kitchen to have his dinner. He provided me with sobriety and a deepasked me if anyone came into the bar ening relationship with my God, but to please come and get him. with many friends and opportunities to This AA member tried to buy Bill W. a drink – I’d just settled down with my marti- grow. I’ve been invited to carry the ni, planning to read the Montreal pa- message of recovery in AA at two and got an earful of AA instead per, when one of my Westchester United Nations Congresses, one in friends approached and asked if he Geneva, Switzerland and the other in

I f it hadn’t been for an event that took place in August 1963 (which I later came to believe only my Higher Power could have arranged), I doubt that I’d be among the living tothat time, I lived in New York State. I’d been to Mont Tremblant, Quebec, on several occasions to ski and had been encouraged to come back in the summertime by the owners of the hocould join me. I inquired as to the Havana, Cuba, and several times at the whereabouts of his wife (I didn’t like International Congress on Drugs and sitting in bars with other people’s hus- Alcohol in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Isbands), and he told me that she was rael. But my favorite way of sharing is having a little beauty nap but would still one-to-one. day. tel where I always stayed. I couldn’t join us shortly. At the end of my drinking, I was Because of a separation agreement imagine Mont Tremblant green instead I offered to buy him a drink but he praying to die. Now, I am praying not with the father of my five sons, I was of white, but I decided to return. told me that he hadn’t had a drink to! There is so much work to be done. alone during the month of August. At Soon after my arrival, I found myself since 1934. I was shocked and asked Joan B ., Toronto, Ont.

August 1995 Secondin a series of articles and Felicia served us coffee and cook- to get – and stay – sober in AA. on authors of Big Book stories ies as we talked about AA and her recovery from alcoholism. Marty became Felicia’s sponsor: “She was my sponsor until the day she died. In her Big Book story, Felicia tells 1 still miss her very much.” When Feabout the turbulent times of her drink- licia was sober less than a year, she ing: from her chauffeured “self-guided” wrote a short piece for the first issue of tour of Europe’s wine countries to being this magazine, in June 1944 (she was the down-and-out habitue of a Green- then known as Felicia G.). Over the wich Village bar, where the other cus- years, she wrote a number of articles for tomers took to moving their stools to the Grapevine and worked for a time, avoid her. Drinking wasn’t a pleasant without pay, reading and editing manexperience for her; it was, she wrote, uscripts. During the 1970s, she was aclike getting a “tap on the head with a tive on the Grapevine’s Editorial small mallet.” Felicia told us, “I had low Advisory Board. self-esteem and behaved accordingly- Felicia has written both novels and and so of course I got into trouble all nonfiction. She published several nov-

Don’t FaII” the time.” Her analyst was one of the earliest members of the psychiatricprofession to learn about Alcoholics els while she was still drinking, as recounted in the Big Book. She said, “Of course 1 used to write when I was drunk Anonymous; Felicia explained, “Bill – my writing was quite a mess. Since had addressed a bunch of shrinks, you getting sober, I’ve written some things see, and my analyst heard him. She said I’m not ashamed of.” How did she FELICIA M. back lane. Several big evergreens were to me, ‘You’ve been coming here either write her Big Rook story?”1 was down in the front yard; in the backyard, a drunk or hungover for a year. And I in Florida, and it just came out – I

F elicia M . is eighty-nine years old and bird feeder hung from a bare tree. Inhas been sober for over fifty-one side, her house was cozy. A whole row years; she joined the Fellowship in of cookbooks filled a shelf over the the fall of 1943, when it was only eight kitchen door. The walls were hung years old. Her story, “Stars Don’t Fall,” with pictures – western scenes with think these people have something.”‘ The psychiatrist gave Felicia the Big Book to read and sent her to meet a man named “Mr. W.” Bill W. suggested that Fellcia meet didn’t correct at all; it just

is in the Third Edition of the Big Book. men and women on horseback, a Marty M., the first woman painting by a grandson, a large oil by a well-known abstract painter of the nineteen fifties, and some watercolors On a clear cold afternoon last Janu- by Felicia herself, who began painting ary, the managing editor of the during one period when she couldn’t Grapevine and an editorial assistant write (Felicia is a professional writer). drove up to the small town in Con- The three of us sat in Felicia’s small necticut where Felicia M. lives. We book-lined living room, where the winfound her modest house on a quiet ter light filtered through the draperies,

“My life,” Felicia said, “is so much said, “I’ve always had trouble with my better in sobriety. The main thing is temper and with speaking out. I rethat I believe in God and I can appeal member Bill had a room in the old to him and I can get results.” She Hell’s Kitchen clubhouse on Fortyadded, “If 1 hadn’t stopped drinking, I’d Fifth Street, and one day over there I be dead: if you had buried me with an lost my temper and I went for this acorn in my mouth, I’d have raised an woman – actually went for her. She oak tree by now.” started crying and Bill just comforted One of the benefits of Felicia’s sobri- her and said nothing to me. 1 was very ety is that she and her family were able ashamed. Oh! I still remember it. I to make amends. “The thing that I’m need the ‘soft word that turneth away very happy about is that I was able to wrath.’ I’m still working on that. I’m make friends with my mother before trying to learn to be tolerant and unher death. We forgave each other. My derstanding of those who differ with daughter and I didn’t get along for me.” quite a while but now we’re really good As we were preparing to leave, Fclifriends – and I get o n with my four cia told us, “I don’t know what more I grandchildren. I’ve gone out to can say. I can only tell you the differ- Wyoming to see them, and they’ve ence between then and now: I have a been back East. And this is all because belief in God. My life is happy.” of my being sober. I can look back six generations in my family and see only fighting and hatred, and now it’s stopped. I go back and pray for my fighting antecedents! I think that’s why I was put here – to put an end to the whole business of discord in my family, to break the cycle.” Are there any regrets? “I didn’t marry the right man. I wasn’t able to live a happy life in that way. I hope that in the next world, I can do it.” T h e process of change hasn’t stopped simply because Felicia has been sober so long. She tries to go to a meeting a week, and she stopped smoking “fairly recently.” She still battles what she called in the Big Book “my mortal enemy – the inner me.” She

September 1995

From Hell to Hope A taxi ride to sobriety

I t was another night at the bar with As we drove along, I started to beone of my fiivorite &Inking p u t – come i~larmccl when I realized lie ners, Mary. We’d heen drinking wasn’t going in thc tlirection of Iny since we left the office and were feel- house. He was in ;I part of the city 1 was ing no pain. Mary and I loved to drink unfamiliar with when he pullecl over to togctllcr, an'{ clid so on a rcgulx hasis, the curh sutldenly, stopped outsitlc a which was easy in Sm Francisco since restaurant, and ;~skednie to wait in the there were so many places to do just car. As soon ;IS he was out of sight, I that. She occasionally indulged in us- jumped out of the car and ran down ing cocaine, a drug I’d been very ad- the street. It had started raining and I dicted to but had recently given up. I was still in my work clothes, which was only drinking at that time and consisted of high heels, nylons, and a was trying dcspcr;ltcly to holtl onto tlrcss. I spotted ;I pay phone on the the thought that it re;~llywasn’t a street and ran toward it, looking back problem for me. Anyhow, Mary told every few minutes t o make sure the me that a supply of cocaine was e n hirtencler’s hrothcr wasn’t coming aftcr route to the bar and I’d better get out me. 1 reached the phone, inserted a of there. She pointed out a man sit- quarter, and stopped. I had no one to ting at the bar and told me he was the call. It was truly a pathetic moment as bartender’s brother and that he would I realized I didn’t have a soul to rely on drive me home. That was fine by me. in this world. There was no one to

come and pick me up. Then I realized I night (for free). He told me he was in could call a cab. I opened my wallet to Alcoholics Anonymous and that I check how much money I had only to could get help there if I wanted it. find that it was empty. Scared and frus- I believe that cab driver saved my trated, I started to cry as I wandered away from the telephone and down the street. I would have to try and find my life that night. He made a difference in my life and my getting sober. I cannot think about that night without crying Searching for Balance way home on foot. with gratitude. Out of nowhere, a taxicab pulled up I’ve now been sober almost six years, in front of me. There was a young man and I have always wanted to thank that at the wheel. He asked if I needed a young man. SA to the cabbie who ride, and I told him 1 had no money. picked up a girl in 1989 in San Fran- The difficulties and challenges of juggling He said, “Get in.” Although I was still drunk, and I don’t remember much cisco and took her home: thank you from the bottom of my heart and God marriage , meetings , and kids about that night, I know he spoke the bless you. whole way as he drove me home that Katherine C., Charles Town, W.V.

I am an alcoholic, thirty years old, and in recovery since July 1992. I am also Mommv, to ,.losh, ., Katy, five, and Alysa, four months. eieht, , meetings because the children aren’t alcoholic. Had I not wanted so desperately what you people had, I would have told you all to kiss off and then While Josh and Alysa are normal, left to find the nearest liquor store. healthy children, Katy has epilepsy To be fair, 1 must admit that often and is retarded and hyperactive. Not someone offers to take the children out only can I not afford babysitters, it’s of the rtxm so I can listen to the meetnext to impossible to find someone to ing. While I should he grateful for such care for a disabled child. help, I always feel I’m depriving some- When I first got sober, as now, I had one of a meeting. no choice but to take my children to Since gettlng sober, I’ve married a meetings with me. Small children tend man also in recovery. We’ve found a to he very fidgety and disruptive when center which cares for disabled people forced to sit still and quiet for an hour, and wc ciln sencl Katy once a week, so which can make meetings a very we can attend our home group. A “serenity-zapping” experience. group of wonderful people in the pro- What makes matters worse, though, gram comes to our house once a week, . are the nasty looks and glares I get giving us another meeting. when the children act up, as well as However, Katy’s seizures have bethe comments, such as, “Why don’t come much more frequent in the last you try to find a sitter for them!” or be- six months, usually preventing us from ing told 1 can’t attend certain closed going to any other meetings and often

canceling our home group attendance. their needs ahead of my desire for more My husband and I can’t even go to meetings and find other avenues for remeetings separately, because a chronic physical condition prevents him from being able to safely care for the chilcovery. Please, don’t judge us parents of small ch~ldren.Instead of glaring, try smiling. Tell us our kids were very good No More Shame dren. or very patient, even when they Recently, I gave a lead for my father, weren’t. We don’t need excuses to stop who is also in recovery. When 1 got to going to meetings, we need encourage- “What I’m like now,” I described my ment to keep coming back. Don’t tell Leaving the stigma of alcoholism behind program of recovery. 1 said that I have us we should find a sitter unless you can phone contact with fellow AAs, my volunteer. One extra meeting ;iweek

T oday I spoke with a Catholic sponsor or one or more of my sponsees would be like heaven to my husb;ind ings have been available for a long daily, that my husband and I have fre- and me. priest who in the course of his time, they are usually attended by quent “meetings” together, that I read Instead of b;irring us from “;ilcoholics work encounters women who men. The sober alcoholic woman is a A A literature or the Grapevine as only” meetings, welcome us and realize h w e ;I problem with alcohol. I want- rarity at these meetings. It is not that much as possible (my father keeps me that children could care less ;~hout ed to enlist his help in spreiding the my brother alcoholics are uncaring or in a continuous supply of Grapevines), who’s there and what’s being said. They word that there is a place to go if you do not welcome us. It is our fear of and that I work and live the Twelve will not break anyone’s anonymity. If are a woman who “habla espafiol,” what people will think that keeps us Steps of A A to the best of my ability you truly want to help us by taking care who thinks that she may have a from seeking help. A woman who is every day. of the chilJren, Ict us know we’re not drinking problcm. I-le told me t h ; ~ t drunk is equ;ltcd wtth a wotnm of the 1 also told about Katy, Josh, and depriving you by telling us you’ve made the number of women who need help streets. Many in our culture do not un- ‘ Alysa, and that it’s very difficult for me plenty of meetings this week or that is great and that he’ll do all that he derstand that alcoholism is a disease,’ to get to as many meetings as I’d like. you’ve already heard this lead before. can bec;iusc he knows that women are not a moral dilemma or a weakness. And what comment do you think was My friend, Linda, offercd to care for ;~fraidto seek help “because of the Now there is a place where answers made to me after we closed? the children one night a few years ago. shame.” He and I share a frustration can be found and a wornan can get on “You really should get to more meet- When 1 told her no thanks, she needed in knowing that these women are the path to sobriety. Every ‘Tuesday , ings. Why don’t you try to find a sit- a meeting too, she explained that she’d h;trd to reach. The hopelessness and night in my area, there is an Alcoter!” But when 1 asked this man what lost her temper with her son the night shame that these women feel in ad- holics Anonymous meeting for Spannight h e was volunteering for . . . before and needed to help me with my mitting that there is a problem with ish-speaking women. There you will silence. kids as a way to make amends. This alcohol is so great that many die with- find other women who are recovering The point is, all these well-meaning made me feel like 1 was doing her a fa- out ever knowing that there is a solu- from the disease of alcoholism. If you people are identifying the problem but vor and I’ve never forgotten her gen- tion to their alcoholism. A t times, are a woman who thinks that she may . offering me no solutions. As do other erosity and compassion. they ;ire protected by well-inten- have a drinking problem, come and recovering parents in this program, I My husband and I, as thousands of tioned family members, who have no listen. Hear the experience, strength, must balance my meeting schedule others, must “trudge the road to happy idea what can be done or where they and hope of women just like you who with my parental obligations. 1 know I destiny” – with three in tow. Please, can go. O r they are told that they will are recovering from alcoholism. You must put my sobriety first if I want to help us find solutions, instead of reaf- be ostracized if they go “outside” the can find the support you need to live recover from our disease. For my chil- firming our problems. family to seek help. a sober life, one day at a time. dren’s welfare, however, I must put Bonnie P. , Columbus, Ohio While Spanish-speaking AA meet- Nikki S., Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

September 1995

Life Is Meant with my sponsor. At work I avoided ad- made, letters to be sent, Twelfth Step ditional responsibilitiesand treated my- work to be done, responsibilities to be self like a fragile person to be protected assumed, and honest talks to be had from stress at all cost. I even gave some with loved ones. Life is meant to be

to Be Lived room in my head to the idea that I was now an AA old-timer and didn’t have the energy for very much Twelfth Step work. lived by facing the challenges it brings. Otherwise, I’m not living, just existing. God didn’t give me this gift of sobriety to sit in a rocking chair, imagining my- I was at a dead halt – spiritually, self as some wise old woman who has mentally, and physically. Depression arrived somewhere. smothered my muffled thinking even There is no easier, softer way. To more. Serious illness came along, and bring the great escape act into sobriety She decided she didn’t want “rocking chair” yet it took me awhile to understand is to travel with a companion that led what was happening. Thank God, I me to despair long ago. The teaching I never gave up on meetings, so my receive in Alcoholics Anonymous Higher Power finally got through to about courage and love helps me to me. I realized I’d been playing the great continue to grapple with the challenges of life as they are given to me,

w escape act all this time. en some of my foggy think- escapist in me would just automatical- I know now 1 have a lot of work to one day at a time. ing began to clear in the ear- ly disappear the moment 1joined Alco- do. There are more amends to be Louise A. , Spring Hill, Fla. y days of my sobriety, I holics Anonymous. Now I realize how realized how often I had drunk to es- cunning, baffling, and powerful are the cape the realities of life. As a result, I old ways of thinking and behaving. worked hard at facing my alcoholism In fact, I allowed the old escape act head-on, practicing the Steps, and con- to seep into my family life in matters vincing myself that I was, at long last, that were most important to me. At on a journey of discovery. It was excit- home, I refused to take an honest stand ing to think I could become a learning, on issues or ask the questions that growing, changing person, accepting might have led to a deeper understandmy limitations, somehow finding the ing of my loved ones, or my own role as courage to seek a personal honesty for wife, mother, or grandmother. (Then 1 the first time. wondered why I struggled with depres- 1 was conscious of the intricate sys- sion so often.) tem of intellectual game-playing I had Very gradually I became a champion used to avoid the truth about my drink- people-pleaser, a kind of emotional ing. I had gone to any lengths to pre- jellyfish who discovered that the silent serve my right to drink and smother the martyr role at home was an “easier, healthy woman within who desperately softer way.” What honesty I had was wanted to be free. I naively assumed the confined to the rooms of AA and talks

November 1995

Old-Timers blacked out entire memories and somehow lost the whole six years. There’s Corner nothing like forgetting your elementary school years to make you feel stupid. It amazes me that people can remember schoolmates’ names, teachers’ names, favorite subjects. 1 Eventually, I returned to live with my biological mother and my stepfather. According to my report cards, my ‘ grades slipped quite a bit in junior high and were low for what part of high school I attended. Sobriety i s a That brings me to the present. Two years ago, after seventeen years of sobriety, I suffered an industrial injury. Learning This opened up a whole new world to me. First, it took me out of a job that was physically killing me; second, it Experience opened me up to an opportunity that I wasn’t even looking for. Through vocational rehabilitation I was able to go to college. I never thought college was for me. Remember, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was stupid. As a mat-

A funny thing happened in my seventeenth year of sobriety: I found out that I wasn’t stupid. I’d listened to people in AA saying that alcoholics were extremely talent- I lived with them are filled with memories of the best-ever mashed potatoes and gravy, quiet evenings in front of the TV,warm flannel pajamas, and the softest lap in the world to sit on. ter of fact, many people close to me had drilled this idea into me. As it turns out, I have kept a 4.0 average; oh heck, I’ll just say it -I’m an “A” student. So when I hear AAs talked people; over-achievers; very bright. What I have no memory of is the ing about alcoholics being over-achiev- I had a sneaking suspicion that I was elementary school classroom. I was dif- ers, I can quietly feel I belong. once again different. ferent from my classmates in that I I’m now qualified to be a preschool I’m a product of two alcoholics and didn’t live with my mother and father. II teacher and have a job lined up. I will was raised for most of my growing years In the nineteen-forties and fifties, di- always try to remember that little peoby foster parents. These people were a vorce wasn’t as accepted nor as preva- ple have delicate feelings. I want their gift from God. I was taken into their lent as it is today. In trying to protect ‘ preschool years to feel like warm pajahome and their hearts, and was loved myself from the shame of not having a ‘ mas and a soft lap. as one of the family. The eleven years mom and dad like everyone else, I Barbma S., Puradise, Calif.

November 1995

were friends. My tongue loosened up and I was able to think of things to say. Conversations consisted of more than just “How are you?” and “Fine.” I wasn’t afraid to be the first to stick out my hand. I took my sponsor’s suggestion and began to volunteer for jobs at my different meetings. I even started to call other AA members on the phone. I don’t know how it happened, if it the next morning; her husband, who’d was all of a sudden or gradually, but y relationship with AA was my life got better. been in AA for many years, answered somehow my hardened heart was softnot love at first sight. It took All around me people were laughing the phone. I don’t remember exactly ening. Everything AA was saying to me a long time to realize how and having a good time. I wanted to be what I said to him, but what he said to my head 1 was finally letting into my much I needed AA and even longer like them but I didn’t want to start any me will always stick in my mind. He heart. I was letting others in. for me to enjoy the Fellowship. I can relationships if I wasn’t really supposed said, “We’re all here for you, Julee, I know I have a long way to trudge still remember how I struggled to de- to be here. My first two years were mis- waiting for you to come join us. We down that road to happy destiny, but cide whether or not I belonged there. erable. My head was filling up with love you, Julee.” My first reaction when I’m learning to enjoy the journey. And ‘ One week 1 knew I was an alcoholic AA, but my heart was not in it. I felt I hung up the phone was “Yuck! How this is onljl because I choose to not go and the next week I was talking my- like I was watching everybody through corny!” But over the next few weeks it alone. I’m accepting the love that’s self out of it. I had lots of reasons why a television screen and I just couldn’t something strange happened. I began given to me in Alcoholics Anony- I didn’t need those meetings. But for be part of their world. Finally I knew to see people differently. People no mous, and I am loving right back. some reason 1 kept coming back and the inevitable – I was as alcoholic as longer looked like strangers – they Juke M., Belleonce, Neb.

December 1995

Old-Timers spread the message to our area. timing and the whistle were important We rented a church hall for an af-. to the progression of the meeting. Corner ternoon on the last Sunday in April* We raffled two books, Dr. Bob and Since a lot of old-timers can no longer The Good Old 7imers and Pass It On. drive at night, we wanted to be sure We felt those were significant to the everyone who wanted to participate meeting. There was 387 years of sobricould. Ken B. and I brought the cof- ety among the speakers, 99 attendees feepots, bought the coffee, fixings, and who hung on to every word that was . cake; and then we prayed to God that spoken and a lot of cheering and laugh- AAs would show up. ter. A wonderful time was had by all. One week before the meeting I had We knew the meeting was a success finalized ten speakers and two who beyond our wildest dreams when we

A Wonderful wanted to be introduced but didn’t w n t to speak, so we were ready with a re-printed program, medallions, and heard a newcomer say, “This is the best meeting I’ve ever attended. It gave me so much hope. If they can stay sober

Time.Was Had someone to tape the speakers. Bud E., our intergroup chairman, chaired the meeting. Nine old-timers that long, so can I.” EUie B.,Lakeland, Flu.

All spoke and we introduced three. Each old-timer had eight minutes each to tell a little about “what it was like when they came to Alcoholics Anonymous.” I had a stop watch and a whistle so they wouldn’t go beyond eight min-

0 ur intergroup committee vot- knew of someone who had thirty years ed in favor of having our first or more of sobriety. Old-timer’s Meeting. Since I Allison, our intergroup newsletter made the motion to sponsor the meet- editor, helped me put together a flyer ing, I was named chairwoman and or- which we made available to all the utes. I blew the whistle a few times and everyone loved it, especially those who hadn’t been to this kind of meeting. Old-timers can be lengthy (after all, they have a lot of experience), so the ganizer. Since I’m fairly new to this groups at the district meeting. We also area (I got blown out of Miami by handed them out at the intergroup of- Hurricane Andrew), 1 didn’t know fice and at the monthly intergroup who all the old-timers were, so I had meeting. It wasn’t long before 1 had a to seek help in finding their names, nice long list of old-timers compiled, groups, and whereabouts. I did this by complete with phone numbers. Every going to our monthly district meeting group got very competitive and if they and attending meetings I didn’t nor- had an old-timer in their group they mally attend. I asked everyone who wanted to see that he or she spoke at came to our intergroup office if they the meeting. So you can see we really

December 1 9 9 5

ing and I was shaking. I was no longer I still didn’t really believe that I was going into the meeting as a casual ob- powerless over alcohoi. I hadn’t taken server, but as a person in pain who the First Step. needed help. I was open and willing. I The minute I felt the glow of that remember how safe I felt in that room first drink of rum 1 wanted more. that night and how the things people Everyone else was sipping their drink talked about made sense to me. Being slowly, enjoying the conversation, there with those people gave me the while 1 became more and more obstrength to make it until the next sessed with how I was going to get the meeting. next drink without drawing too much I kept going to meetings; one every attention to myself. I couldn’t stand day, and I found myself feeling better the thought of sobering up before I fell and better. I listened to hear what peo- asleep, so after I poured myself two

I remember my first introduction to AA. I had asked a friend at work ahout how she was able to stay sober, and she offered to take me to a meeting. 1 wasn’t an alcoholic of bly had no other life to fall back on. O n the other hand, I still had a job, friends, and a family. And besides, alcohol wasn’t my problem. 1 said thank ple who used drugs were calling themselves. Cross-addicted seemed to be acceptable so that’s what I’d say. I tried to get the word “alcoholic” out a coumore good-sized drinks, I went to bed. The next morning when 1 woke up I was flooded with anxiety and a sense of foreboding. The feelings were strangeyou very much to my friend for her ple of times but it just wouldn’t come ly similar to those I had felt a little over course, but I was starting to spend a trouble, but I was not using anymore because I didn’t believe it. 1 talked to a six months earlier on that morning 1 little too much money on the drugs I and 1 was sure that I could handle it few members about how I felt and they had made the call to Alcoholics was now using on a daily hasis. Sure I from here. told me that as long as I had a desire to Anonymous. At that moment 1 began drank, but I could take it or leave it. I For six months I stayed clean and stop drinking I belonged and that if I to get a glimpse that I might have a knew that my friend had been sober sober. Each day was a huge struggle. My kept coming back, I would figure out problem with alcohol. for some time. Maybe what she was friend would check in with me every for myself if I was an alcoholic. I did I started back to the meetings. Three doing to stay sober could help me stay once and a while to see how I was do- have a desire to stop drinking because I months later 1 was let go from my job off the drugs. ing and asked me if 1wanted to go to a knew that alcohol would lead me back and decided that maybe 1 should at- One Tuesday night we opened the meeting. “No thanks, I’m just fine,” to the drugs. tend a rehab program. By this time I door to a crowded smoke-filled room. was my reply. Inside I was becoming ; Six months went by and I experi- had changed the way 1 was talking The images 1 remember were mostly more and more restless, irritable, and 1 enced all the stuff that goes along with about my recovery. Instead of saying I’d i those of older men. Everyone greeted discontent. Then the day came. Surely early sobriety, the fears and mood been sober for three months, I was each other warmly and many came after six months I’d proved that I didn’t swings, the physical cravings, and the telling people I had been “around the over afterwards to shake my hand. The have a problem. One day 1 picked up relationship problems with friends, program” for nine months. My denial ‘ sharing was honest and open, and I re. and the physical compulsion returned. family, and coworkers. One night when was very strong. member being impressed by that. 1 My disease was active again. I was staying over at a friend’s house, I The counselor 1 was assigned in the went to several other meetings with my Two years later I picked up the was offered a drink and I took it. I had treatment center was an AA member friend but never felt like 1 belonged. 1 phone and called AA. I still didn’t be- been restless that day and the thought with twenty years of sobriety. After lisremember thinking that these people lieve I was an alcoholic but I didn’t of a drink to relax seemed like a won- tening to me talk for twenty minutes must really need all these meetings be- know where else to turn. That night I derful idea. It never even occurred to about why I was there, how I had emocause they were lonely and they proba- sat in the parking lot before the meet- me that there would be consequences. tions and mood swings to deal with,

and how I wanted to learn to live with coholic. Today when I’m in a meeting myself and others, she questioned me and I hear somebody share that they’re ahout my alcoholism. I told her I knew I couldn’t drink because it would lead me back to the drugs. She told me even i ot sure whether or not they belong ecause alcohol was not their primary drug of choice, 1 can extend my hand though 1 had many other issues to deal and tell them that 1 understand. I tell with, what I really needed to do was to them what was told to me: Keep an work on Step One: my powerlessness open mind and keep coming back, and over alcohol. you will find the answers for yourself. It was there that 1 wrote my first Some people stay and have the same drinking history. As I went back I dis- experience that I did. Some leave and covered many things that had some- find their home in other twelve-step how escaped my notice. The first drug I programs. had cver picked up was alcohol. I had 1 believe that it is important not to started drinking three to four nights a dilute AA’s message and that our sinweek after only a few weeks of drink- gleness of purpose should be preserved. ing and always to get drunk. 1 was sus- Many of us do have other issues to deal pended from college because of a low with and the Big Book encourages us grade point average, and that was di- to go for outside help in those cases, rectly related to my drinking. As I re- but in AA meetings, I want to hear viewed all the crazy, desperate, how people are staying sober. I’ve been unmanageable times in my life, alcohol able to deal with some of those other was always present. It had affected my issues by going for outside help, but life physically, emotionally, mentally, without my sobriety, none of it would socially, academically, and spiritually. It have been possible. was as if my eyes had been opened for When I first came into the program, the first time. I was powerless over al- I didn’t understand anything about the cohol and my life was unmanageable. I disease of alcoholism and how it had was an alcoholic. made my life unmanageable. I thought When I returned from treatment that people, places, and things were the and went back to meetings, I was able real problems. It took AA members to stand at the podium and say, “My with good long-term sobriety to help name is Lynn and I’m an alcoholic.” me get the focus back on me. When The words came freely because they newcomers come in talking about outwere coming from my heart. I’ve been side issues, it’s my responsibility to keep sober a few years now and I owe my life things on track in the same loving and to AA. I’m grateful that those people 1 careful way that others used to walk me met when I first came in didn’t reject through my early sobriety. me because I couldn’t say I was an al- Lynn J., SaintJohn, N.B.

Response to Some possible ‘Women in AA’ solutions From Humbk, Tex.: From Eureka, Calif. : Things I had thought were 4. Sponsorship -get a sponsor, unique to my experience as a I’ve been reading the Grapevine I n the September Grapevine, take the Steps, then be a sponsor. woman alcoholic turned out to be for ten years and have always iden- Bonnie from Ohio asked that we Sponsors and sponsees can visit experiences shared by alcoholics of tified with so many of the stories, help her find solutions. She has each other’s homes and bring their every description, including men. It but never as much as with Bonnie three children and child care prob- children. was both humbling and liberating in “Searching for Balance” in the lems that make it difficult for her 5. Strive in all that you do to to learn that I was just not that dif- September issue. to get to meetings. Here are some understand rather than be under- ferent. And thank goodness, the I started going to meetings with possible solutions: stood. Twelve Steps have worked just as two young children in tow, one Abandon the big city belief that Barbara M . well for me as they have for all severely disabled. I have experi- recovery depends on “getting to those other drunks. enced all the same things she wrote more meetings.” Rural, isolated, Now, 1 believe that if my being a about: the nasty looks when my physically challenged, and non- ‘No More Shame’ female at meetings has any special children were being children, the North American people frequently From Columbia,Md.: value, it is to attend AA meetings suggestions of a sitter, and advice get sober and live sober on no more that are open to all alcoholics, and about attending more meetings. than one meeting a week plus a 1 am responding to the article “No show by example how a sober Fortunately, I also had people tell generous dose of the following: More Shame” in the September woman participates in the larger me to keep coming back no matter 1. Participating in the Loners 1995 Grapevine, which discusses community. And I still have plenty what and that we were giving these Internationalists Meeting (you can forming a women’s meeting. When of time before, after, and outside of others an opportunity to practice find out more about this from the I first came to AA, I was frightened meetings to work with other this program. I chose to listen to General Service Office). of men, especially alcoholic men. women. the latter. 2. Listening to audio tapes – Initially, I dealt with that fear by Concerning fear of fellow AA Today, my fifteenqear-old three AA publications are avail- attending women’s meetings only. members, I am grateful that as a daughter still requires constant care able from AAWS on audio tape, Fortunately, my sponsor pulled me newcomer, I was advised to take and it is more difficult to find a sit- the Grapevine has many taped arti- up short on this practice. She time to look for the “winners.” ter than it was when she was small, cles, and audio tapes of speakers at warned me that I would deprive They were the AA members who but she is as much a member of our AA meetings are available from myself of the broader range of expe- were practicing the principles of the group as anyone else, even in many sources. There may even be a rience, strength, and hope that Steps and the Traditions in all their closed meetings. lending library at a meeting you meetings open to all alcoholics affairs. Among other things, these Teni B . attend. If not, ~erhapsyou could would provide. Moreover, it was a “winners” seemed to make it their work with others to create one. symptom of my disease to believe business to keep Alcoholics 3. Using the telephone -first that I was a special kind of drunk Anonymous safe for newcomers to by calling others, then by serving as who needed special kinds of meet- be part of the Fellowship and work a volunteer on your local answering ings because 1 was a woman. a program. Their example showed service or hotline. Recovery through the Twelve Steps that I could tmst the group as a did not depend upon’my identity as whole, with all its varied memberanything other than an alcoholic ship, even if I was not comfortable willing to go to any lengths to with every individual in it. It also recover. showed that keeping the group safe for the new person is a continuing responsibility that belongs to all of us. And I am very grateful. Jill M.

February 1996

life turned inside out and upside down Make no mistake. I’m not talking by a work-related injury. He was twen- about a group of self-pitying, bleeding ty years sober, in his early fifties, and deacons. This was no whine and wail, serving as our area’s alternate delegate. group depression meeting. It was about Both his recovery sponsor and I en- finding the solutions within the spiricouraged him to live the Steps and to tual principles of the Steps and Tradishare his experiences with other alco- tions, and passing on that learned holics. So off he went (reluctantly, I experience to the new generation. might add), trying to be as open and All of us in that workshop had anhonest as he could with other AAs – other common bond: we had all served just as the Preamble suggests. The re- ‘ AA as members of the General Service sult?Not an uncommon one in the last Conference, and many of us have re-

T he words of the Preamble, does depend upon those coming to our ten years. He was hit with one verbal ceived the same get-lost-we-know-it- “share their experience, halls today. slap on the hand after another. Exam- all arrogance when attempting to pass strength and hope with each When sharing at AA meetings, I al- ples? “You’ve been sober twenty years on what we’ve learned from yprs of other,” jumped into my head when I ways try to include a thank-you to -you should be able to handle this!” service to AA beyond the home group. . read the Grapevine’s invitation in its those old-timers who wrapped their “You’re having difficulties?Your sobri- What I am saying is that there’s a grow- . June 1995 issue. The text?”Old-timers collective arms around me and showed ety must #%&a!” Hello?Excuse me? ing personality-based disregard within ‘ are the heart and soul of the Fellow- me the way out. Just as importantly, I’m A year and a half ago, at a regional AA today for- the lessons learned ship, but young people are its future. grateful that I was desperate enough to event, I was asked to step in at the last through first-hand experience. How can old-timers reach out to a listen. minute to chair a workshop. The top- The war cry heard at group, district, new generation of AAs?” How, in- Old-timers passed on to me the im- ic was “Walking Through Adversity and area level is, “I’m not sure what my . . deed? portance of embracing and living the with the Twelve Steps.” Of the three job is. No one stayed around to show Nice idea: old-timers reaching out to Twelve Traditions; they told me that panelists, two were sober more than me.” When those of us who have been a new generation of AAs. But perhaps without adherence to the Traditions, thirty years and had had to contend there attempt to pass on what we’ve another question needs to be addressed our AA groups will die (as my first with extraordinary emotional and spir- learned, the reaction is, ”When are you first. If and I suspect that is a ques- home group did, which is a story in it- itual trauma in the preceding twelve going to rotate?” The information is tionable “if’ if old-timers do reach self). They taught me, for example, months. They shared that the response thrown away and we’re criticized for out, will the new generation really lis- that while Tradition Three threw AA’s they’d gotten at the local, home group not knowing how to “let go.” ten? doors wide open, it did not give me the level was no different than the experi- I have no doubt that us old-timers , From my own learned experience I right to dilute AA’s singleness of pur- ence of my service sponsee. One by (whether in years sober or in years in can share that, yes, there are many pose. one, many of the forty AAs in the service) will continue to make the efyoung-in-age AAs, as well as those So what’s the problem? In the last room confirmed that they, too, had fort, to reach out to the new generayoung in sobriety, who hunger for decade, I have seen first-hand a rapid similar encounters and they shared tion. The question is, will the new knowledge, who want to investigate increase in the harsh rejection and their relief at discovering that they generation stop, look, and listen? Ex- AA’s beginnings, who do make the rude dismissal of AAs sober twenty, were not alone in their painful experi- perience, strength, and hope: I hope . time for AA in their fast-lane sched- thirty, and forty years by the newer ences. Not exactly a resounding testi- that’s what we’re still all about. AA’s. ules, who do actually read AA’s histor- generation of AAs. About three years monial for the condition of our future depends on it. .<,ical literature. AA’s future and unity ago, one of my service sponsees had his meetings. Annemarie M ., Raydam, Mass.

February 1996

er, the Fourth and Fifth Steps, and Sometimes 1 reach out aggressively things I should and shouldn’t do to stay as I did with one young woman I sponsober. sor. I first saw her at an early morning Sometimes they talked so much I meeting where she was reading to us thought my ears would fall off. But I from a book she had borrowed from her knew they cared and I was staying church library. She did this a couple of sober so I knew they were right. I loved times before I asked her if she would the way they talked to me: right up stay and talk to me after the meeting. . front, no games,no foolishness, just the She was sober about a month and truth. had no sponsor. When I asked if she These sober alcoholics gave me would like me to be her temporary things I never knew existed – love, sponsor until she found a permanent time, acceptance, honesty, fun, laugh- one, she said, “Yes.” She is now sober ter, breakfast, showing up, coffee and four years, and we are still sponsee and doughnuts, and me. sponsor. n the early days of my sobriety, I anyone else. I was carrying around a

I asked this guy sitting next to me at load of guilt that was killing me, and I a meeting, “Do you think I’m too hated my’self and everybody else. young to be alcoholic?” AA taught me how to live my life “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “What without taking a drink by teaching me So how do I share my glorious gift of sobriety with young people?How do I reach out to them?What form does my Twelfth Step call take in 1996? Another woman I sponsor is an alcoholic and drug addict. When she first asked me to be her sponsor, I said, “No.” She cried so much I said, “Let I attend four or five meetings a week. me talk to my sponsor in Louisiana.” are you: &rty-four, thirty-five maybe?” how to live the Twelve Steps. It gave 1 am visible, verbal, and available. I My sponsor told me that I could cer- “What!” I shouted. “I’m twenty- me an understanding of the disease I celebrate my anniversaries to demon- tainly go through the Steps with her, three.” was living with and how it manifested strate “eternal vigilancen when it share my experience, strength, and “Honey,” he said emphatically, itself in all areas of my being: physical- comes to staying sober. I have a home hope as an alcoholic, and be there “you’re in the right place.” ly, mentally, and spiritually. And it gave group. when she needed me. We agreed that Indeed I was and I am. me a Higher Power other than booze. When called on to talk at meetings I we would talk only about alcohol and Shortly after that, I asked my spon- Because the desire for a drink didn’t talk about my AA experiences: how she would attend NA for her drug adsor if she thought I was “too young to leave me for a long time, my fellow al- the Steps work, on a day-to-day basis, diction. She listens, she follows direcbe in AA.” Since I hadn’t had any luck coholics spent hours and hours and to help me live a sober life. I talk about tions, and she is sober two and a half with “too young to be alcoholic,” 1 days and days talking to me about the my Higher Power. years. tried “too young for AA.” AA program at meetings, in all-night I hang around after my home group The third woman I am sponsoring is “Kay,” she said, “you are a fortunate coffeeshops, in the park, in the zoo, at meetings and fire off my one-liners: you twenty-three and has over two years of young woman – we’ve got what you the beach – anywhere and every- did good, come back, do you have a sobriety. Two statements she says she need.” She paused a minute and then where, they were there. sponsor, just don’t drink, hang in, hang hates to hear are: “Oh my goodness, said, “Let’s get with it, huh?” They talked about every aspect of tough, here’s my phone number, call you’re so young,” and “You’re only And I “got with it” -May 22,1962. the Twelve Steps and Twelve Tradi- me anytime. And if they call, that’s twenty?” She says these statements 1had no idea how to live without al- tions, the principles, the disease, spon- great; if not, that’s okay too. I don’t make her feel as if she couldn’t make a cohol. I didn’t know how to work, sorship, Twelfth Step calls, establishing have everybody’s message but if we decision about being alcoholic and she cook, eat, talk, care about myself or conscious contact with a Higher Pow- keep them coming back somebody will. couldn’t know the pain and devasta-

tion of acute alcoholism. have to be to die from drinking?Yo!” For my sake as well as the well-being she said, “Gimme respect.” of the women 1 sponsor 1 stay within Yo! kid. You’ll get it from me as it what I know. I tell them I’m not moth- was given to me. Young people get my er, sister, favorite aunt, therapist, coun- attention and my understanding for selor, guru, spiritual advisor, AA what they’re trying to do to stop drinkauthority, and sometimes not even a ing and change their lives. I love them friend. I’m just another drunk who because they know they have a probdidn’t drink and didn’t die for thirty- lem with alcohol, and they have the three years and I know how to stay guts to do something about it. Alcosober one day at a time in AA. I share holism is not an old person’s disease. my experience, strength, and hope. ~obod ~ to AA by mistake. gets Also in order not to cloud the issue Young people need the same accepof getting sober and staying sober in tance, love, understanding, consisten- AA, I stay away from terms such as re- cy and time we give anyone who walks late, relationships, co-dependency, in- through the doors of AA for the first ner child, dysfunctional, adult child of time or after a slip or after twenty-five an alcoholic, drugs, the Bible, etc., etc., slips. I hope by our words, deeds and etc. It is my experience that these con- presence we make it known we are cepts get in the way of learning the AA willing to give them what they need. way of life, and quite honestly I don’t The AA I knew back in 1962 told know what they mean in relation to so- me, “Come on in, we’ve been waiting briety. for you, we’ve got what you need.” The Each generation has its own unique AA I know today says, “Come on in, problems; times change, people we’ve been waiting for you, we’ve got change, and language may change. But what you need.” the disease of alcoholism does not If old-timers don’t tell young people change. It always kills. In thirty-three this, w h ~ will? years of sobriety I have not seen this Pass it on. change. Kay P.,Beaumont, Tex. The resolution of active alcoholism is death or AA. One time when someone had pulled the “You’re so young” routine on my twenty-year-old sober alcoholic, she asked, “Where in the Big Book does it say you have to be forty or fifty to stay drunk all day! Where is it written there is an age requirement?How old do you

February 1996 –

was trying to become a saint in AA, program has to offer. which is a good way to end up drunk. My first sponsor “sentenced” me to “Have you called your sponsor!” was a women’s meeting when she found out a frequent question I was asked. Of I didn’t particularly like women. Ancourse, I usually hadn’t. other gal reminded me when I griped, ‘ When I “passed” when called on in a “You’d better learn to like women. You small daytime meeting, somebody cor- are one.” nered me after the meeting ended. When I groused about how I “Why did you pass?” wouldn’t even be able she asked. to drink champagne at “I heard other people my wedding, I was doing it,” I answered de- bluntly asked, “Are you fensively. “I just didn’t engaged?” I wasn’t. have anything to say to- Another thing I Keeping It day.” She replied, “My heard was, “Emptying ashtrays and putting away chairs will keep sponsor told me, when I Simple was sober about as long as you are, that I wasn’t well enough to pass.” you sober.” It sounded silly, but it got me out of myself for a little while. Even now I almost “Get in line and thank never pass when called the speaker,” someone

I sobered up in a major Southwestem city at AA meetings held in a club. I was taken there one morning after trying to put an.end to my shakes and my gagging with jelly glassdilemma of the day was), but slowly I learned that there was a direct connection between the two. As I became willing to work on myself, a lot of my on to share. When I consider it I can hear her voice reminding me, “You aren’t well suggested. This was another way to focus my muddled mind on something other than mvself. . living problems began to straighten enough to pass.” es full of vodka. Thank God, those of out. “What do you want out of this pro- The sayings oh the walls were reyou in AA let me stay. “Got a headache!” someone asked gram?” a young woman about my age peated often: “Easy Does It,” “One Day AA members fed me coffee and me out of the blue one day. (with much more time than I had) at a Time.” “Live and Let Live.” The honey while I was “shaking it out,” and When I replied, “Yes,” he went on, asked me as we left a meeting one day. only one that didn’t apply’to me was, told me that if I just held on, I’d never “there’s a little ache around your shoul- “I want to stay sober,” I answered “Think Think Think.” I was told, “You have to feel that bad again. der blades, too.” honestly. aren’t well enough to do that yet.” Many times during those early “Yes,” I replied again, amazed at his “Not me,” she said. “I want a whole If I began to ramble when I was talkmonths, AAs asked me, “What Step intuitiveness. lot more than that. 1want it all!” ing in a discussion meeting I was interare you on?” “Your halo’s too tight and you’re ny- I had no idea what she was talking rupted and asked to share with I couldn’t see how that question re- ing to sprout wings,” he said. “Don’t try about. It seemed like a very selfish someone after the meeting or somelated to the fact that my electricity was to get too good too fast.” statement to me. Today I understand, times just told with finality, “Thank about to be shut off (or whatever my His statement was right on target. I and I want it all, too everything this you.”

Beginners Meeting

I know that many people have stayed I see coming in today, and I know that sober after coming into AA with less some of them need to be told how we firm guidance than I experienced. do it, just as I needed to be told. Maybe we all get what we need when Thanks for having the courage to tell we first walk through the doors. me. As Bill W. said, “Thank you for my But I don’t think that I was any dif- life.” ferent than a lot of the men and women Fran D., Oceanside, Calif.

March 1996

nobody had anything really. I don’t anywhere else. And there was a humean we were hungry, I don’t mean manity in all of us for each other. I was that. 1 had an apartment and so forth. so welcome. It was the first time I felt But we were all sort of starting from welcome. scratch. We used to go down to Greenwich Village .and eat for fifty cents by GV: You did a lot of Twelfth-Step calls candlelight. in those days. There was great camaraderie in the Nancy F.: Oh yes, we went everyclubhouse. It was on Ninth Avenue where. We’d go on buses all over to and Fortv-First Street. Nobodv was on speak. People’s houses, or rented rooms. Ninth Avenue and So many lived in Forty-First Street in such lonely rooms, those days, so the all by themselves, no first time I went to a bathroom. “The Independent meeting, I thought there would be a When I came into AA I was about thirbunch of bums. ty-nine years old. Then I thought, That was in 1945. you’re one too, so There was another you better get over woman who was as there. I decided not young as I was, and to get dressed up be- they ~ickedus to go NANCY E being interviewed. I never thought cause I didn’t want to to hospitals and drymuch about my story, to tell you the look better than ing-out places be-

, N ancy F. is the author of “Thelndependent Blonde,” which appeared in the Second Edition of the Big Book. She was in-ewed in the Grapevine’s ofFces by the Managing Editruth. I don’t even think I knew it was in the Big Book.

GV: So your story was picked because someone knew you? everybody else, and when I got there, Park Avenue was there and everybody was there. So I cause we were younger .and pre- ‘ sentable. In those days, if you were a drunk from a rich I torandastaffmember. Nancy F.: We all knew each other in learned mv lesson – family, they put you those days. Because we were all in one never think you’re better than anybody away. You were hidden in hospitals and clubhouse. else, just go. It was quite an education all kinds of places. So she and I bought to see how everybody was suffering the little hats with flowers on them and we GV: How did your story get in the Big GV: It was a small world, wasn’t it? same disease. I met people like Felicia had little black dresses andparls, and h k ? Nancy E: Absolutely, and we were all [see “Stars Don’t Fall” interview in the that’s how we’d go. I was very naive; I Nancy F.: We had several writers together. In those days, nobody was August 1995 Grapevine]. I never knew said, “Gee, there’s bars on the windows around and they wrote my story. I anybody. Not like today. Nobody had a princess before. I never knew a and no doorknobs.” I saw so many didn’t write the story – someone any money, everybody was poor. Every- countess before! I can tell you, I never young, young rich women, incarcerated wrote it for me. I don’t even remember .body was coming back from the war, so could have gotten anything like that by their families. I

+” Once we went to the apartment of “You’re jealous of me because I’ve had a Miss X [a celebrated actress] and she few drinks and you can’t have any.” I told us such wonderful stories, we for- said, “You’re so right.” The rich ladies got why we were there. We didn’t have used to come down from Connecticut the nerve to tell her that she was a on Friday night and they’d look at Andrunk. Later she did get sober. nie, and she was poor, she was uneducated, she had nothing, and she was GV: Did you take literature on Twelfth having a ball. She was having the best Step calls? time she’d ever had in her life. And Nancy F.: There wasn’t much litera- there was no way, looking at Annie, ture. We’d just go and talk and be that you could complain. These friendly and say how long we were in women couldn’t say their alimony was AA and where to go to meetings. But cut off or they were getting divorced our intensity when we were talking to because Annie was sitting there with a

drunks was very effective, because they not a word of complaint. She had a knew how we felt. They knew that we quality that was so easy, so simple. She cared about them. And nobody had used to curse a lot when she spoke and a cared about them in so long. So that’s a priest would be in the audience and I how it worked for us. We didn’t have she’d say, “Excuse me, Father, but I’m any spiel of any kind. We’d say, “You’ll trying to be careful.” . be okay, and you’ll go to meetings with us and we’ll come and get you, and if well, I could hardly wait to go on those something’s got to be wrong with you GV: Was this Annie the cop-fighter, you have any trouble, call us right Twelfth Step calls. I didn’t care if some- or they wouldn’t have thrown you out. whose story was also in the Big Book? away.” It was very simple but very ef- body lived in Philadelphia or Hoboken And they tell me that psychologically Nancy F.: That’s right. She lived on fective. or Zmbuktu, I would go. I was so eager I felt abandoned by my mother. So First Avenue across from a church. She I didn’t like the families in the be- to give what I had. I went right from here I was in AA and there were peo- got sober and then she got drunk again ginning. I was mad at the families. I the First Step to the last Step. For me ple who told me I had something and and she went up to High Watch Farm, wouldn’t talk to anybody but the alco- it was just wonderful. I got in with peo- that they had the same thing that I had and when she came back, I said to her, holic. A friend of mine said to me, ple and I cared for somebody. You see, I – you can’t imagine how important “Now you have to make an amends “Nancy, 1 think that it’s time that you had never cared for anybody, not even that was. list, but don’t tell me your story because begin to accept families.” And I said, myself. When you care for somebody, One woman at the clubhouse was a you’ll hate me if you do. You’ve got to “Do I have to?”She said, “I think that you begin to heal yourself. You don’t scrublady and I think I learned more find somebody you can tell your story it would be a good idea.” I respected even know it.. from her than anybody. She lived in a to. You can have a priest or Dr. Silkher but I thought, I’ll think it over but I left home when I was fourteen. My tenement house, happy as a lark. Her worth or whoever you want.” She said, I’m not ready yet. mother died when I was three, my fa- name was Annie and she came in “I’ll take a priest.” So we found a good I had never felt like I was anything ther remarried when I was fourteen, when she was sixty-seven and she died old fellow of a priest and I said, “Now in my whole life, that I had anything and my step-mother threw me out. when she was about seventy-four. I was remember, he’s no better than you are to give and then here I was told that 1 When you’re thrown out, you don’t in a beginners meeting when she came so don’t be afraid of him. This isn’t had something to give someone – feel like you’re anything. You know in. And she laughed at me and said, confession, you’re just going to tell your

Every time somebody want- Nancy F.: I don’t think he was inter- the money at bars – threw it away. ed a job, I’d grab them and ested really. It just wasn’t his main Now go home, search your conscience, give them a permanent thing. He knew he wasn’t any good write a check, and send it in. Let’s wave, set them up to get the and he didn’t care and it wasn’t really move out of here with honor.” And most. important to him. He always used to that’s what we did. say, “If they want me to get sober on,

[ worth. GV: You mentioned Dr. Silk- Did people regularly they’ll never get sober.” He meant if you wanted Bill W. to get you sober, GV: Do you see a big difference in meetings today? talk to him or see him? Nancy E: There’s not as much giving that’s the first thing that would get you Nancy F.: Oh yes. If we were in drunk. and Twelfth Step work. People are busy trouble, we’d go to Dr. Silkworth. and working harder, I guess, than we If we were in a situation and we GV: What about meetings?Did you go did. We seemed to have more time. didn’t know how to get out of it or to one a day? But I don’t know. 1 know we didn’t get were afraid we might get drunk, we Nancy F.: I went to the clubhouse eased off alcohol as people do now in could talk it over with him. He was a every day from eleven o’clock in the treatment centers. We went through it very simple, wonderful man. He said morning when they opened up until and I think it was a different experiwhole story.” They met at my apart- to me once, “The day that you can sit they closed at night. It was the only ence in humility and suffering. You’d ment and I made coffee and then I told down and just be honest with yourself place I felt safe. It was a church and be getting off a drunk for days. And Annie, “You come over afterward to in this situation, you will know what to they held the meetings in the church never be so miserable, never. I didn’t the meeting.” We had a Friday night do.” That was the kind of a man he part and then in the basement they know anything about pills. I never meeting a couple of blocks from there was. had a card game, which I never knew. knew what a sleeping pill was. If you on Fifty-Eighth Street. So she came But I heard later there were very hot were not in that “set” you didn’t know over afterward and she was so relieved. GV: You knew Bill W. Did you ever go card games down there. You could eat about drugs. I never heard of cocaine, The first time she did go to confession, to Bill to talk? at the clubhouse too -upstairs we had people didn’t have it in those days. So she said, “Father, 1’11 tell you every- Nancy F.: No, no! a restaurant. You could have coffee any it was different. It was only alcohol. thing, but don’t ask me how many time of the day and night. Eventually Now it’s quite different. People will say, times.” GV: Why not? we went broke. I remember we had two “I’m a druggie,” and make some of the I was in the hairdressing business Nancy E: I was in awe of Bill. It would refrigerators and we used to say that alcoholics mad. I think if you’re sufferand Annie used to come to the beauty be like going to God! Also I didn’t only drunks would buy two refrigerators ing, you’re suffering, but I don’t have a shop I had and I used to charge her a think that was his job. But he was since we only needed one. Excessive strong opinion about it. dollar because I never wanted her to around all the time. behavior cost us. We were $5,000 in think I just gave her anything because debt and the landlord didn’t trust us GV: Tell us more about your early days. . she was very proud. So I’d charge her a GV: Did he speak at meetings a lot? and wanted us to get out. Norman B. Nancy E: I was in a women’s group for dollar. One time she got a job up in the Nancy F.: Yes, he did and he was a was a great member and he gave every- many years. Marty M. had asked a country and they charged her six dol- lousy speaker. He said so himself -he body money; he was a rich man when woman named Elizabeth to have a lars and she said, “Hell, I can get it laughed at himself. He always thought he came in and he gave all his money women’s meeting in her home, because ‘ done for a buck up on Park Avenue.” I it was kind of funny. away. We had a meeting of a hundred she lived on Fifty-EighthStreet in midgave more permanent waves to people people, and Norman got up and said, town Manhattan. Elizabeth’s husband ,’ ;who had never seen a beauty shop. GV: Why wasn’t he a good speaker? “You bunch of drunks, you’ve spent all was the alcoholic; she was not. For fif-

teen years I went there every Friday take lessons in speech.” So she sent me wasn’t going to work for her. I want to to and I said, “How can I prevent mynight until she gave it up. to George Dixon who coached Rex tell you, I never had such a difficult self from being frightened of old age? Once I had to hospitalize my land- Harrison in “My Fair Lady.” He had a thing. But I had to do it. I wouldn’t I’m watching a friend of mine who’s lady; this woman was a drunk and I put sign up over his door which said, “Cre- have liked myself if I didn’t. scared to death about getting old her into Knickerbocker Hospital. And ate yourself; everything else has been and she’s got a companion and chilthat night Elizabeth said, “Nancy did done.” I went there for a year. I went GV: You were married? dren and everything. How can I prethe most wonderful thing today.” And everywhere: churches, psychology, Nancy F.: I met my husband when I vent it?”And he said, “Go to school.” I thought, what did I therapy. Whatever she worked on a ship. He was an officer on So I did. do? I had never been suggested, I would do. a ship; he was a big tough man, very praised before and I She was the one that handsome. He was in the Navy during GV: What did you study? felt so warm inside and taught me that there the war. He could drink and never get Nancy F.: Behavioral science. A lot of I thought, This is won- was something inside drunk. Well, he got drunk but he was psychology and sociology. derful. And then I of me – that I could never like I was. I was sloppy. Somethought, Maybe there do things. times I’d go to sleep and some- GV: Did you have a career goal is something about me You know, Marty M. times I’d fight. I’d say that she sees. If a [a founder of what is things that I didn’t have woman like that sees now the National the courage to say when I something in me, Council on Alco- was sober. One day he Nancy F.: I just knew I maybe there is some- holism] was going to beat me right down to a wanted to spend my . thing. Elizabeth started hire me as a speaker. pulp and I took care of time in some way and I me off, she encouraged She sent me to Yale to myself from that day on. loved to learn and I me. Whatever she told take alcoholic studies When I left him, I just me to do, I did. She and I was thrilled. Oh took my coffeepot, no furtook me in sort of as a my God, I thought, I niture. He put his mother in member of their fami- won’t have to work our house. She was a sweet ly. For the first five hard, I’ll go there and lady, and I went up to see her out. I alwavs went out years, I did nothing but I’ll go around speaking. and I looked at that furniture and on Saturday night. And at six-thirgo to AA, I couldn’t do anything else Oh it will be marvelous. ~ecatkeI had I said to myself, ‘The next time you be- ty on Sunday morning, I’d get up and -didn’t know anything else to do. to go out to hairdressing shows and I little yourself for sticks of wood, let me write my papers. I got people to help was scared to death to do that; I had to know.” And I never asked anybody for me. The day I passed algebra, 1 was GV: Then you started your hairdress- improve my skills and work hard and anything again. I found the answers in coming down Fifth Avenue and I was ing career? go into business and learn about labor myself, which was the greatest thing crying and laughing. I thought, “I know Nancy F.: I was in business for twenty- laws and all that. See, I didn’t want to that ever happened to me. what makes me happy -accomplishsix years on my own. I always said to do that. Then Elizabeth said to me, ment, doing something that I never Elizabeth, “I’m afraid of everything.” “Do you think you should earn your GV: You went back to school in sobri- thought I’d be able to do.” I was exhil- And she said, “But that never stops you living over what’s wrong with you?” ety? arated. from doing things.” She just nurtured “Oh,” I said, “is that what I’d be doing? Nancy F.: I went to high school in my A friend told me, “Work hard and me. I told her 1 should take lessons in No, no that’s not what I want to do.” fifties and went to college when I was try to get an A.” He was working for English, and she said, “No, you should. So I came back and told Marty that I seventy. I called up a therapist I’d gone me to get cum laude and I didn’t know

what he was doing and I said to myself, was mad at men and I didn’t want any “I’m lucky if I stay in school, let alone authority figures. I had a human being get an A.” But he nurtured me, you in my mind as God. I didn’t know if I know. Everybody nurtured me. I gradu- was more scared of God or my father. ated cum laude. I really enjoyed it. But after I got sober I went everywhere. When I graduated, the graduates had I went to a man who taught that if you to walk several blocks – I was on my think right, you’ll be all right. I went to cane then – and all my friends were places for two or three years. I went in the car driving along behind me. searching around. I believe that there’s They thought I was going to faint and a universal something in the world. they said, “Get in the car.” And I said, And 1don’t question it too much, but I “Get in the car? My God, I worked know it’s there. If I behave right, I’m nine and half years for this. If you think tuned in on it. I believe in a force be- I’m not going to walk in this parade, cause I experienced relief from myself you’re crazy!” It was a wonderful expe- and my emotional problems when I rience. first got sober. You know, everything comes up, one right after the other. GV: Do you miss it, a little bit? It makes you dizzy. Nancy F.: No, I live in a Quaker community where there’s a lot of things be- GV: So whatever defensiveness or ing done. I’m teaching English to feistiness you had about the Eleventh migrant workers. Step, you managed to resolve it. Nancy F.: Yes, but I didn’t go deeply GV: Are you a Quaker? into a lot of things. For example, mak- Nancy F.: Yes, now I am. I’ve been a ing amends -there was nobody left to Quaker for two years. They do things. I make amends to. I was by myself. But I like that. It impressed me that a lot of went back to my job, because I had women had lived wonderful lives, men quit my job, and I made amends like too. So I said to them, “How do you get that. But I didn’t do very much other to be a Quaker?” And they said, “You than work with people. I’m much betjust write a letter.” So I said okay, and I ter that way than I am on trying to wrote a letter. solve the mysteries of life. Working with people, that’s where I get my sat- GV: How did you feel about a Higher isfaction. Power when you came into AA? AA has given me so much. AA was Nancy E: I didn’t believe in God, and the greatest education I ever got. I didn’t want to hear anything about it. Where else could I have gotten that But I said maybe there’s a power with- kind of education?For nothing. For a out him. I was mad at my father and I dollar a week? q

April 1996

Old-Timers Corner

Facing the Future. ~t was a little – over thirty years ago spects Alcoholics Anonymous, and I’d that I had my last drink. My higher like to see it stay respectable in case ei- .–

Without the Froth power remains the sense I have that ther of my beloved granddaughters, AA is a power higher than I am, and now very small, should ever need it. part of greater whole. I still don’t And there are other people’s children

w know how to talk to it, though some- and grandchildren to think about too, en I came to AA, they told was a power among these people that times when I say the Lord’s Prayer at to say nothing of me. me my higher power could was even stronger than the continuing meetings that does seem like a good So I get very passionate in defense of be AA as a whole. They told pull of the booze. I could turn my will way. I do meditate, and that seems to AA and its Traditions. So passionate me that a lot, because the only thing and my life over to it, and had, almost keep me receptive to it. that my voice sometimes gets shrill, that bothered me about this amazing in spite of myself. And it was doing But when I’m thinking about the and the old impatience begins to take outfit of alcoholics I’d found was the great things -I wasn’t drinking. strains on AA’s Traditions that I see, over again. Some of my AA friends way they went on about talking to God So I went to meetings and stayed like anonymity-breaking and the con- have helped me to look at this, and I and Turning It Over. I hadn’t had any plugged into the power, and they told fusion of AA with other twelve-step can see that the more upset I get about luck talking to God in a long time; I me sooner or later it would turn into programs, treatment modalities, and so onslaughts on the Traditions, the more wasn’t so sure that God existed. When God, and I could talk to him the way on, I can get pretty worked up pretty my concept of a higher power narrows. . I tried to pray I had a strong sense that so many of them did. Gradually, with fast. I don’t want AA tumed into some I see AA as in danger, and that means nobody was listening. But my sponsor the help of the Steps, I learned how to New Age refuge for dysfunctionalswith that God as I understand it is in danhelped me to see that booze had been stay away from the booze, and I learned , endless disorders and a piece of jargon ger. a power greater than any power I could a lot about living without it, enough to for every human condition. It looks to One of my AA friends has diagnosed muster to get myself out of its clutches. “intuitively know what to do in situa- me as if the rest of the world still re- me as spiritually stuck, and she may be I And I could see for myself that there tions that had formerly baffled” me.

right. I don’t feel as if my sobriety is in Okay, AA has been my salvation. danger at all but it could be, if I don’t But I begin to see that it can’t be my learn to separate my concern for AA’s sole higher power. You learn something hture from fear for my own “salvation!’ new every day in this outfit. What I’m Salvation is an odd word to use if, like working on now is learning more about me, you have trouble calling your high- God, as I try to understand it. ‘ er power God or even “him.” But AA Marcia T., Twcson, Ark. has been my salvation, and the danger of its dilution by well-meaning souls who want to use AA to heal all the ills of the world scares me, a lot. And you can imagine how I react to the notion that anonymity is an out-of-date idea. A little fear, as lots of us know, can be a good thing. It can motivate me to look at the Traditions and reflect on their importance, But if in the process I get so righteous about anonymity or singleness of purpose that I’m close to frothing at the mouth, I’m doing neither me nor the AA cause any good.

A p r i l 1996

V I The Peter Principle tions) until I was twenty-nine years old. Then, faced with a physical probe inch, 225-pound baby boy out of the crowd. We spent three days together. lem that made it impossible for me to He is a happy, healthy, well-adjusted A sober mother gets a call from the son force a drink down my throat, I en- young man who has had an “ideal tered AA in Dallas. childhood” (his words). The promises she gave up for adoption I’ve stayed active in the Fellowship came true for me when we were talksince then. I have worked the Steps, ing down by the river. He was telling been sponsored, done service work, and me of his likes and dislikes, his sucsponsored others. When doing Step cesses and the people in his life. After Nine, I contacted the adoption registry a pause, he said he would like to tell board where Peter had been placed for me some things that he had never told adoption. I made myself available so anyone else. I said that would be all that should he ever wish to contact me, right and I listened to the recital of his he could do so. 1 would not intrude in few sins. Silence followed. Then the his life because I believed that was not whole program of Alcoholics Anonymy right and I felt it could possibly mous fell into place for me when I was harm him. In working with my sponsor able to say that I, too, had done things I readily acknowledged that I had a son like that. I told him that there were a but truly I felt that his absence in my few things that had worked for me, and life didn’t affect me. I told him about AA. In August 1995, I received a phone Two days later I boarded the plane call from my father saying that Peter to return to the States, with a bouquet was looking for me, and at eight that of flowers in my hand from my son night I called Canada and heard my who had thanked me for the decision son’s voice for the first time. In the I made twenty-five years ago. I was so olent twists which will alter our lives

I n 1969, when I was sixteen years space of five minutes, all the pieces of very grateful to AA: That the woman old, I had a baby boy whom I for the worse. This appears to have my life fell into place. He asked when my son had found was healthy, happy, named Peter. I saw him once, im- been true with me as I went blithely we could meet and I told him that, un- and sober, instead of a prison inmate mediately after he was born, and then on with my life, never discussing what believably, I was leaving in twelve in Texas, a patient of a psychiatric hos- I gave him to a social worker and he I had done or even thinking much hours for a planned vacation in Cana- pital in Nevada, a drunk in Las Vegas, was +ced with his new family. With about it. In fact, I told people that the da, a short distance from where he or merely the record of a suicide in this he passed from my life completely. baby had died and later I denied ever lived. Had the call come the next day I California -any of which could have This event, which to most people having had a child. However, my drug would have already left for a cottage been my fate if I had continued drinkwould have been an agonizing affair, and alcohol intake increased rapidly. with no telephone, and wouldn’t have ing. We hope to develop a relationship affectecl me on the surface very little. By nineteen, I was living on the heard of his search for me until I had now and I am willing to be of help to Rut the “Twelve and Twelve” tells us streets and in the throes of alcoholism returned to Alabama. The following him in any way I can. I thank God for that damaging emotional conflicts that was beyond belief. I stayed drunk Thursday, I walked into the lobby of a this opportunity. which persist below the level of con- continuously (unless I was in jail, psy- hotel and immediately picked my Anna A., Gulf Shores, Ah. sciousness may give our emotions vi- chiatric hospitals, or mental institu- twenty-five-year-old, six-foot-three-

June 1996

# 0 0 came my intimate companions. The deep inner wells, from which springs the very “self,” were drying out. The walls were beginning to echo. After Many of my early hours in therapy focused on Step One, and on dealing with the panic and anxiety. I attended AA meetings every day. I

on a H&h Bottom some time, the lonesome, hollow sounds of my own inner echoes began to grow louder than the frenetic pace of my daily, outer life. had that eerie experience of listening to strangers describe my feelings and my drinking escapades, but still, I c l e g to the paper-thin belief that I was only Finally, in May 1992,I hit my per- present by default. That my “high botsonal, emotional bottom. It so hap- tom” qualified me as a “runner-up” alpened I was alcohol-dry -abstaining,

“I in jail.” never lost a job because of drinking. I still have my marriage. I’ve never spent the night

When I hit my bottom, these stateand water (pilfered from my father’s liquor cabinet). Looking back, I believe I drank specifically to tame my inner “lion.” It worked, for awhile. I was a periodic drinker until I graduated from because I was pregnant with my second child. Without my shield of wine, 1experienced physical withdrawal symptoms without a clue as to what they coholic – not a full-blown “winner.” With this came the ancillary thought: that maybe I wouldn’t have to toil quite so hard in AA as some of those “low bottom” drunks. ments were all true for me. I used them, college. Around that time, I began to were. I felt completely, utterly alone, I also had the mistaken idea that I early in sobriety, as a measuring stick, experience frightening bouts of free- unconnected, dislodged, somehow, could win a sobriety “lotto” -become and so I determined that I was, indeed, floating anxiety, which I “cured” with from the stream of life. sober for life, and never have to work a “high-bottom” drunk. my now daily consumption of white By the time I reached six months’ the AA program again unless I felt like But, in time, as I began to work the wine. pregnancy – still “dry” – I was en- it – if only I could do all the Steps AA program, I came to believe that my After graduation, I found a good job during panic and anxiety attacks so se- perfectly the first time around. “bottom” had been lower than I’d and maintained it. I married my college vere that I questioned my very sanity. These illusions proved to be shortthought. Much lower. sweetheart. I had a few friends. But my It surprised me to discover that insani- lived. As I continued in therapy, I discovered that my “yardstick”was drinking increased. Looking back, I see ty hurts. I wanted to die. I couldn’t worked with an experienced sponsor, irrelevant. For me, “hitting bottom” a young woman constantly in battle imagine living on and on with this and learned a little something about couldn’t be defined in terms of exter- with a poor self-image. And the more fierce inner pain. humility, I gradually became aware of nals, like my job. Rather, it had con- I drank, the less important seemed the A blind phone call (and, I now be- how much I needed AA. I didn’t know sisted of a sort of slow, catastrophic need for me to fight that battle. lieve, my Higher Power) connected me how to live life on life’s terms without leaching away of what I can only call Then, somewhere along the line, I at last to a lifeline: a therapist with taking a drink. 1 hadn’t even known I . my soul. large sections of my personality began twenty years’ sobriety. She sent me to was unaware of that fact. I have a long history of “stuffing” my to shudder and close down. Gradually, AA after our first session. I was so sick, With the help of AA’s principles, its negative emotions. Like so many oth- I stopped talking to my friends. I con- so frightened, so desperate, that I people, and my Higher Power, someers in AA, I grew up with a seemingly tinued to suit-up and go to work (hor- obeyed her. In my unhealthy imagina- times I now am actually able to “do the innate need to please other people: I ridly hungover, but managing to get tion, I saw this therapist as a person next right thing, leaving the results to was quiet, oh-so-polite, “nice” at any by). I think I even continued to main- standing on the shore -watching me God,” price. tain my persona of being “nice.” Deep bobbing, far out at sea – and con- Today, I focus on the simple fact that At age twelve, I had an ulcerative inside, though, a profound loneliness nected to me by a single piece of string. I am an alcoholic. Then, I get on my stomach. At fourteen, I discovered the was taking root. It seems that powerlessness ought to knees, and I thank god for AA. amazing curative properties of scotch Fear, isolation, resentment: these be- have been easy to admit, but it wasn’t. Peggy S . , Howton, Tex.

July 1996

ble day I was released. I was so scared. I came into the prison every week, saydidn’t want to leave prison! I knew I ing, “When you get out, go to a meetcouldn’t live out there. It wasn’t my ing. There is a solution.” I walked in world. My world was behind those tall the door and I was greeted with smiles fences with barbed wire with guards and handshakes. They asked me my who told me what to do all the time; name and told me their names. In the my world was structured by someone meeting I heard my story all over else. I had nothing to go home for, just again. I felt welcomed and I knew I the same life that had put me where I was really home, and everything would was. I just couldn’t do it alone! I made be okay for that day. a suicide plan. It’s been years since I left prison. 1 fi- 1got to the town I once called home nally found out why that old lady and with nothing but my prison clothes, a those strange people wasted their free list of AA meetings, and a lot of fear. time. I hear it in the meetings often: I remember walking up to a big you can’t keep it if you don’t give it house with the letters AA on the door- awav. way, not really having any hope. No La. one could know how I feltsAll Icould

y first experience of Alco- there was telling my story. I realized I holics Anonymous meetings wasn’t so different and so alone. was in an Oklahoma state About two months before my reprison. I went to the meeting to get lease from prison, I started noticing out of sitting in my cell. I wasn’t real- that other inmates, who were released ly interested in the program, just in to the outside world, were returning to getting out of the cell. There were prison. Most of the reasons given were three people who came in from an that they couldn’t stay sober and clean outside group in the city to sponsor out there. I knew I was getting out our prison AA group. It was hard for soon and I was afraid. I talked with a me to understand why these strange sponsor from the outside and she told people gave up their free time to me I had to go to an AA nieeting as come into prison and waste it on con- soon as I got out. She gave me a list of victs like me. meetings in my home area and sug- I

I I’m not sure when the light shone gested that I make ninety meetings in on me, but I started to listen and par- ninety days. ticipate in the meetings. Everyone I’ll never forget that terrible, terri-

July 1996

any years ago, I was impris- It is good to be a worker now, and oned for a crime committed good that AA seeds continue to be while in the grip of alco- planted among those in lock-up. Many holic insanity. While insidk, I attend- of the inmates are young people; deep ed five AA meetings – sometimes down, they are as bewildered and , just to get the doughnuts. Ignorance frightened by their condition as is soof the disease thus persisted and I ciety. Their lives are on the line. dreamed of the day when I would be Nonetheless, they don’t need sympafree to drink my fill. Upon release, the thy; they need facts, facts that only the “party” began in deadly earnest, fol- experience, strength, and hope of AA lowed by twenty years of tormenting- people can provide. Whether or not we ly gradual alcoholic decline. alcoholics are physically free, the pro- Today, it is my privilege to go into gram helps us to achieve an inner, spirlock-up carrying the AA message. Es- itual freedom – surely the most pecially in these days when a fearful so- treasured. ciety says, “Lock ’em up and throw I’ve just come from a meeting in the away the key,” it’s a real blessing to of- county jail. The prisoners were open fer a program of change wherein sobri- and eager to learn. The police exety, service, and true freedom are pressed their appreciation for our work achievable. with the prisoners. God was surely in The years in prison were a time the meeting too -encouraging us all, when I was at least kept from harming prisoners and free people alike, and ofothers or myself any further. Most im- fering his all-powerful and loving spirportantly, it was a time when the AA it. I am so grateful to know that no one seed was planted, however impercepti- has ever sunk too low to be lifted -to bly. When utterly beaten by the dis- begin a new life bv God’s Grace. eke, that seed cake to life. ‘ Donna H. [ Albuquerque, N.M .

July 1996

Old-Timers ,, to feel much better physically. My new friend agreed to go to a meeting. It was found friends in AA helped me to feel decided I was well enough to take her. Corner much better about my inner self before That would have been fine but in a very long. later phone conversation between the Only ten days after my last drink, I two of us, we decided that since she was taken by an older member on my liked to drive and I didn’t, she’d pick first Twelfth Step call. A Twelfth Step me up. This is never a good idea with a call is when you carry the message of new member. I soon learned this the h o ~ eto a . . ~ros~ective hard way. (Now I wonder if there is any member. members use the (Some … YOU don’t otherwayforanalco holic to learn anv- Steps to climb out of ‘The Harder We the mess they are in and others see fit to ignore them. This is have to be thing!) She arrived on time to pick me up – a good omen I

Chased Them, the safe for a while, but as the years roll by it is easy to see which drunk a// the thought. B U ~I soon noticed she was driving “funny.” I didn’t time to be an Faster They Ran’ path has been followed.) smell anything, but I wasn’t knowledgeable On my first Twelfth Step call, I was frightalcoholic about pills at that time. It’s obvious to ened out of my wits. me now that she

I t came as a shock to most of my family when I went to AA. Both my grandmothers, along with my mother and several aunts, were active in the Women’s Christian Tempercouldn’t predict with certainty which times. The last and worst year of my drinking I was given a national award for distinguished service to children by “Don’t be nervous,” knew all about the the older member told me. “The only little bottles of pills along with the big thing you have to do is keep your bottles of alcohol. mouth shut and your ears open. Watch She drove rather fast, and I must say a well-known and much-respected or- what I do and listen to what I say and it startled me when she used a part of ance Union. The favorite and most ganization. So you see, you don’t have the sidewalk for a U-turn. I hesitated someday we’ll give you a drunk of your treasured piece of jewelry my mother’s to be drunk all the time to be an alco- to say anything about her driving own to work with.” mother possessed was her “White Rib- holic. I wasn’t drunk all the time but We soon pulled up in front of what habits when we had just met and all. I bon” pin. She wore it with pride and I’m an alcoholic. appeared to be a haunted house. The held my peace and somehow we got to in between wearings kept it on a pin One spring day in 1950 I landed screen door was hanging at a crazy an- the meeting safely. cushion on her bureau. I never met with a thud in AA. I cried a lot, I They say that God watches over gle with its screen tom out in uneven her but I heard about the pin from an shook a lot, and sometimes my teeth patches. Inside we came upon a de- drunks and fools. That day was a busy older relative. Luckily she was spared chattered. I had a convulsion on the spondent lady amid remnants of burnt one for him, because he had one of the unhappiness of seeing me drunk. sixth day after my last drink. each. The older AA member soon detoast. At the worst of my illness I was able After medical advice and help from I can’t recall the “magic words” spo- cided our newcomer belonged in a rest to function well sometimes, but I my doctor, I dried my tears and began ken bv the older member, but our new home. Where she really belonged was

— – – – ii”

in a hospital, but hospitals weren’t all It was simple, like so much in the pro- that night I’ve gone to every hospital can do for me. Out there are the peothat willing to accept alcoholics in gram: “Please, dear God, don’t let this or jail I could reach and I’m glad I ple who need you.” those days. They often used another di- damn fool kill me now that I am have. However, I’d never recommend How bravely he went. As long as I agnosis, a tactic sometimes still em- sober.” it as a place for a person to make their live I’ll remember things he taught me ployed I’m sony to report. Not much of a prayer, but a start. I first talk. It’s frightening to go to a state (mostly by his own good example). It was snowing hard the night we still find prayer a comfort and a help. hospital or a jail when you have never He was the best friend I’ve ever had “poured” her into a rest home. We got Most days I would hate to try to get been in one -yet. or ever expect to have. Oh, the drunks back home at three in the morning. through without it. “Yet” is a key word in AA because we chased together in the early days. She left two days Time rushed by alcoholism is a progressive illness. We had yet to learn that the harder we later, complaining and the next thing Many people come to AA and never chased them, the faster they ran. bitterly that there I mentioned you know I hadn’t , drink again, although most people do Before my friend died, he operated a was no TV and all had a drink for two it one day at a time. Others come and recovery home for alcoholics. He they talked about and a half months. stay for a while and go out to try it helped hundreds of people. One of was how to S ~ O P wasted effort; It was almost time again. Some of them try so hard they those he helped to find a new life was drinking. to start sharing the die trying. There are those who are my much-loved nephew, who is now l…miffedover Ihavecome to help I had been welcomed back sadder, wiser, and able to be a good father and a decent all the wasted time given. The secre- teachable. They learn to stay away husband.,He makes furniture that’s and effort, to say tary of the group from one drink one day at a time and beautiful to behold. Many lives are afnothing of the risk know that there was trying to find soon develop a preference for sobriety. fected when one person is able to reto our iives in the speakers to go to Over the years I’ve been in AA I’ve cover. snow storm. I had a My friend and I had several people lot to learn. Later I is no such thing the state hospital. He asked me to go met the most wonderful people in the world and a few of the most difficult who led us on wild chases. There was helped put a man in and make my first ones as well (like anywhere else you go, one who was about to be thrown in the a reat home and he as wasted effort talk. I was too new really). “slammer” because of his peculiar had the presence of to know that some There are some who stand out in my drinking habits. We prevailed upon the mind to call a cab. people won’t speak mind. Some are among the living and judge to let us put him in a hospital in- He was home before in A4 at all and others others have passed on. Some are drunk stead of jail. The judge agreed with sevwe were. never speak at hos- and others are sober. eral conditions. To wit: we were to The last word I pitals or jails. In One was a French Canadian who referee all family fights that had been had from my newcomer was a postcard AA you don’t have to do anything you was short of stature. His formal educa- running the local gendarmes ragged mailed in the Far West. It was signed don’t want to. But I didn’t know that tion had stopped at the third grade. He and we were to report back to the judge “Gypsy Girl.” From that time I wonder either. had a natural gift for speaking in pub- once a month. We readily accepted what happened to her. The group secretary had said the lic or in private. He held people spell- these terms and rushed our man off to 1 mentioned wasted effort; I have state hospital was the place to start. bound. He was a humble man and such the hospital. It is sad to relate, howevcome to know there is no such thing as The patients couldn’t get out and an inspiration to me in my early years. er, I don’t think he drew a sober breath wasted effort in AA. It’s true we would have to listen. I have no recol- 4 I recall when he was old and dying of from the time he got out of the hospital weren’t able to help Gypsy Girl but she lection of what I said on that notable cancer. Some of us went to the hospi- until the last day I saw him when he helped me. She taught me to pray. I evening but I was still alive and well at tal to visit and he said, “Don’t waste left the area. , well remember my first prayer in AA. the end, which surprised me. Since your time here. There is nothing you One day he had gone home as drunk

– –

as a warlord, and his daughter had sang the praises of the priest who oper- sob and beg to see the good father who she prevailed upon me to ask the sisters thrown cold water on him. He called ated it. Only the good father under- was the only one who could help him. to collect old and broken rosaries from the police to report she had doused stood him and only the good father Through clenched teeth I explained the whole school. She assured me she him with boiling water. The police could help him. He babbled on and on what had just transpired in vivid detail would fix them and return them to the rushed to his home to offer assistance. about the good father so that we were and in the vernacular. He continued to sisters who could send them to a mis- He met them at the door, refused to let pitifully grateful to see the hospital beg and plead to see the good father, sion of their choice. Sounds harmless, them in, and added insult to injury by come into view. who was the only one who understood doesn’t it? demanding to know if they had a With a sinking feeling in our stom- I him. My friend and cohort took his The sisters were thrilled and sent my search warrant. A policeman’s lot is not achs we realized it was an anniversary courage in both hands and went back daughter from room to room collecting an easy one! celebration of the opening of the hos- into the hospital to ask for one more beads. She collected quite a large bag- , Another time we were asked by AAs pital. There wasn’t a parking spot for 6 chance. I remained on the sidewalk ful. I gave them to my newfound from California to meet an incoming miles around. with the patient. friend, and she absconded with the drunk at the airport. He had been on We double-parked, unloaded our I noticed a policeman starting to beads, and I never saw her or the beads the way around the world when he fell passenger, and rang the bell to be let in. ticket our car for being double-parked. again. among evil companions in California. We gingerly made our way up two I rushed over as fast as I could and told The sisters I saw often, and they We dutifully met the flight and waited steep flights of stairs dragging our pre- the policeman my tale of woe. He told were always inquiring about the beads. with mounting apprehension as every- cious burden. Usually, attention to pa. me to move the car. I rushed to do so I never knew just what to tell them. one except our drunk came off the tients was immediate, but tonight we only to find the keys were in the hos- There was another old dear with a plane. were up to our ears in visiting doctors. pital along with my companion. The penchant for drinking vanilla extract. It turned out that he was ensconced Our man grew restive. He then tumed policeman generously offered to care She had more than enough money to in a seat on the plane and refused to be belligerent. By the time the good father for the drunk while I went for the keys. pay for it, but she felt so ashamed and moved. They had had an ambulance arrived on the scene, “downright nasty” On the third flight up I came upon my guilty about her habit that she couldn’t ‘ on the field in Chicago and he was the best description of our patient. friend and the good father who was stand to buy it for fear everyone would wouldn’t get off there either. The air- His bloodshot eyes fastened on the taking off his jacket as he rushed down know her secret. She hit upon the line personnel were extraordinarily good father, and he lurched to his feet. the stairs. He looked like he had blood novel idea of dropping a bottle in her glad to see us. We went into the plane Simultaneously he called the good fa- in his eye and murder in his heart! purse while shopping. When she was with a wheelchair and he recognized us ther a fatherless child in the vemacu- When the good father appeared, the apprehended for the second time, she from former and happier days. He was lar and threw a punch right on target. patient threw his arms around his neck simply gave the store manager my glad to go with us. We packed him into He then made it to the top of the stairs like they were long-lost brothers. Arm- name and phone number and assured the wheelchair along with his bottle with us in hot pursuit. I tried to grab in-arm they disappeared through the him I would explain everything. I did. which he refused to relinquish. We him and he shoved me so hard I doorway. We jumped into our car and Then I explained to her what I would loaded the whole mess on a platform dropped my purse. All of its contents I the policeman waved as we drove off do to her if she ever pulled a stunt like usually used to lower baggage. slithered and bounced down the stairs. into the sunset. that again. She didn’t – at least not As we nonchalantly rolled him The good father was a little less than There were several ladies who with me! through the airport, he took to crying delighted and told us in no uncertain caused me embarrassment. One of Another sober lady and I often and slobbering. People tried to be po- terms what we could do with our pa- them was fond of mixing religion with worked as a team. We still meet for lite and not stare but few of them could tient. alcohol. Her avocation was to repair breakfast once a week and enjoy a very pull it off. We finally got him into the Back on the sidewalk we made an broken rosary beads for the missions. warm and close relationship. We had a car and all the way to the hospital he interesting tableau. Our man began to Since 1had children in Catholic school woman in a rest home and every time

— – -.-

we went to visit her she would speak of bottles. The trunk wasn’t able to ac- would say so maybe I could kick away they found a wonderful grandfather her worst fear: she was on probation commodate one more bottle and I had some of the things he was clinging to as waiting for them. How happy he made . and had left some empty bottles at a huge boxful on my lap. You probably “reasons.” He surprised me when he his wife and how they enjoyed their home. She said she just had to get rid wonder what we did with them. What said, “I don’t have any reason to drink, last years together. of them before her probation officer we did was ride around until we found but if I needed one, I could invent one.” My life in AA has been a full one. saw them and took away her children. a garbage truck. We smiled nervously His honesty impressed me. We The curse of my drinking turned into a We were laboring under the delusion and gave the men some money. The talked some more. I told him I didn’t blessing that enabled me to have a part I she had perhaps a dozen or so bottles, last I saw of the bottles they were tin- have any reason to drink either, but if I in changing many lives for the better so we promised to go by and whisk kling and crashing as the truck ground wanted to I had the best excuse in the (first of all, my own). them away. We went on the appointed them up. The garbage men looked world. I told him of my little girl who In 1971 I was stricken with cancer day to the three-story mansion where quizzical and we fled. had died seven weeks before. After and while I was still in the hospital my she lived. Well, she did indeed have There was a man who sticks in my more talk we planned to meet the fol- oldest daughter became legally blind. bottles – hundreds of them. They mind while his memory lives on in my lowing week because he worked nights. She completed her master’s degree just were in the oven and the kitchen cab- heart. What a dear friend he turned out Frankly, I never expected to see him before she died. inets, and three flights of stairs were to be. When I met him he looked so again. He did come the next week and I’m not glad I’m an alcoholic but I’m l i d solid with them. There were box- sad and so lost. He was all alone at the wonder of wonders, he was stone-cold grateful that since I am one, there was es full in the old servant’s quarters. meeting so I went over to talk to him. sober! He stayed sober from 1955 until AA to go to when I needed it so des- It took us several hours of tugging, He had been in AA for over two years he died last year. He was such a good perately. AA is still there and it still lugging, and carrying to get them all and was often drunk. I asked him why man. When his daughters were mar- works. I recommend it wholeheartedly out. We had a big Buick Roadmaster he drank. I knew he didn’t know why ried, he was able to give them away. for anyone who wants it or needs it! which was filled from floor to roof with he drank, but I wanted to hear what he When the grandchildren came along, Marie K.,Inine, Calif.

July 1996

understanding dren’s teenage years would not give me Then, and only then, do we really unexperience, strength, and hope -but derstand acceptance.” would instead hand over the instruc- My son turned fifteen years-old not tion manual for acceptance. Then one too long after that meeting, and then noon 1 went to a meeting I usually he turned sixteen -and his decisions

Acceptance wasn’t able to attend. I was less than a and choices kept pulling him in a year sober, and my son – then four- downward spiral. teen -had been involved in a run-in Because I cared and did not approve, with police that was particularly seri- each choice he made ripped at my I ous. I was completely out of answers heart. Acceptance doesn’t mean we This sober mother had trouble finding the key and I knew I just couldn’t apply this don’t feel pain; it just means I underidea of “acceptance” to this situation. stand the role pain plays in moving me to coping with her teenage son The topic was, of course, acceptance, in the direction I need to go. and I had to force myself to stay in my And I never again fought against acchair and listen to yet another round ceptance. I learned from that woman

A t the Sunday morning spiritual breakfast, a woman who has been sober about ten months was talking about trying to cope with her sixteen-year-old son. Those of us had asked how to handle it. How to handle him and how to handle not drinking when I was faced with his rebellion and resentment and anger. The answer I got was to search for of platitudes about “letting go and let- in the noon meeting that I did accept ting God” and Page 449 in the Big him – just not his actions or his be- Book. When I was called on, I said havior. I loved him anyway, loved him something about my son and his cur- with all my heart and soul. rent trouble, and that acceptance just Today my son is twenty-two, and his .

who have been sober longer and whose “acceptance.” I left many a meeting didn’t seem to apply. change of direction came about three children are now older offered experi- just as frustrated and uncertain as when The next woman to speak was an years ago when he was able to escape I ence, strength, and hope. But looking I went in. I didn’t drink, but neither old old-timer with the gravelly voice of that descending spiral. He doesn’t reback on the meeting, it seemed that did I get much help from answers that too many cigarettes and the demeanor member a lot of the details about those there was a certain shallowness in what didn’t seem particularly applicable. Ac- of one who has spent much time years from fifteen to eighteen; he was we said to her. Our experience consist- ceptance of my alcoholism was some- slumped between the stool and the bar. too often lost in the haze of dpgs and ed of telling her we’d been there, too. thing I could understand and even “Acceptance is not apathy)))she said, alcohol. Strength was in letting her know we’d practice. Acceptance of my son’s be- “and it’s not agreement. If we don’t What he does remember is that even made it through, and hope was in the havior and attitude toward me seemed, care about someone, it’s easy to accept in those times when I could not tolersuggestion that she would as well – well, unacceptable. that person’s behavior. And if that per- ate his behavior and refused to let him and that her son would grow out of it I tried the Serenity Prayer – over son agrees with us and does what we destroy the serenity of my life, I always eventually. and over and over – and I even approve of, then acceptance comes loved him. That was one of the few It was only after the meeting, in re- seemed to have some understanding of easy. But when we do care and we constants in the life he continued to fill flecting on what had been said, that I what exactly acceptance was. And I don’t approve . . . ah, that’s the trick to with chaos. realized what we had been offering her knew why I needed acceptance. But I acceptance. Today he is a wonderful young man was not what she was asking for. And still didn’t have the faintest idea of how “Do we love them anyway? Do we who has a life full of friends and family the realization came because of all to practice it. do absolutely everything in our power and the purpose God gave him. He is those meetings when I was newly sober I just kept hoping one of those old- to help them, and then love them any- quiet when he needs to be, and always and my son was newly a teenager, and I timers who had survived their chil- way, no matter what the outcome? generous and kind-hearted. We are

again a part of each other’s lives -and hope on practicing acceptance with it’s much, much easier to express our our teenage children, and as I write love for each other. this, I notice it does sound a little like Today acceptance comes easy. an instruction manual. That’s my experience, strength, and Sarah I., Cencralia, Wash.

August

attending three meetings a week and The next moming, I called some peofinding happiness in sobriety. ple in my home group. They showed After two years of sobriety, I’d for- me a fellowship and friendship I’d nevgotten the pain of my last drunk. I’d er seen before. They weren’t angry and stopped listening at the one meeting a disappointed that I had gone back out; week I was attending. The Steps were they were just glad to see me back. something I’d already worked and I They accepted me with open arms (in didn’t continue to work them on a dai- fact they’ve accepted me at times when ly basis. I stopped asking God for help my family did not). They picked me up and I stopped thanking him for keep- and took me to meetings; they hugged ing me sober. 1 continued me and told me they to hang out with recover- loved me. I only hope I Starting Over ing people, but I wasn’t telling them how I was /’m One of can be that kind of person someday. Today I know what I . taking my sobriety for the lucky with Step One granted. I didn’t think that after two years I’d want and that is to stay sober and do what the pick up again. I believe Ones that people in AA tell me to now – after hearing re- do. I thought I’d always lapse stories and after re- feel angry and disaplapsing myself – that I made it pointed in myself, but I

A ! member of my home group losing my family, I entered a treatment was setting myself up for thank God for taking me suggested I write my story for the Grapevine. At the time I center for the third time because I’d truly lost myself. I thought there was the very thing that I back down fast and hard, and for showing me once didn’t think would hapthought he was nuts, because I had just something that the treatment centers pen to me. I’d stopped do- again just how powerless had another relapse. I thought I was a were forgetting to teach me about Al- ing the things I had done I am over alcohol. four-time loser in the Fellowship of Al- coholics Anonymous. But as you peo. to stay sober and happy. 1 wasn’t treat- I’m doing ninety meetingsin ninety coholics Anonymous. Today I think ple knew, I wasn’t ready to listen. ing my disease of alcoholism. days, I’m asking God for help every that I’m one of the lucky ones who I left the third treatment center with So I went back out for one day. It morning (because I know I can’t do made it back. I can thank my Higher a strong willingness to do whatever wasn’t where I had left off two years this myself or get too confident), I call Power that he kept me coming back. AA members told me to do. I went to and three months before; it was worse. recovering people every day, I read my Today I feel like a winner. ninety meetings in ninety days, I got a Before I entered my third treatment daily meditations, I’m starting over My first two attempts at treatment sponsor, I worked the Twelve Steps to program in 1992, after twenty years of with Step One, and I’m thanking God and the AA program were made to get the best of my ability at the time. 1 drinking, I had no desire to live. With- at the end of each day for my sobriety. people off my back. I was a good liar i talked to God every moming and asked in that one day, the guilt and disap- I’m doing what the members of Alco- . and a good con artist and it worked for him to help me stay sober, and every pointment I felt were overwhelming. holics Anonymous tell me to do, to a while, until I’d do something even night I thanked him for keeping me Again, I had no desire to live. I thank live one day at a time and to never stop lower than the time before. After two sober. Then I chaired meetings and got my Higher Power for getting me home treating my disease of alcoholism. treatment centers and coming close to involved in Twelfth Step work. I was before I acted on my willingness to die. Becky S., Sunnyland, IU. !

August 1996

W hen my husband and I re- pened. I didn’t take a drink or even tired, we moved from the pills, which I’d been offered. Detroit area to a small town Three months later I was told that in Northern Michigan. We hated to my daughter’s policeman husband leave our AA family but found a new had killed her. I was grateful that she one right away. didn’t kill herself. One night in May 1983, a sheriff’s This man has been in prison for deputy came into our meeting and twelve years. I hated him with a pastold me that my daughter in Virginia sion but I kept hearing “Pray for him” had committed suicide. over and over. I finally listened. , I was devastated. Our AA friends I will always miss my lovely daughtook over. They got me home and ready ter, but I don’t hate, and through the to make that long trip to Virginia. grace of God I never took that drink. Somehow, I got through the funer- I thank God every night for my soal. All 1 wanted was oblivion. Why briety as I have done from the beginhad God done this to me. I hated him ning. It is now almost twenty-seven at that moment, Here I was, sober for ‘vears since that last drink. fourteen years, and look what hap- Loretta L.,Holiday, Fln.

August 1996

NEW LESSONS IN LIFE

dance with all the glitter and excite- was that God was holding me, and I

0 n December 20, 1990, my husband (sober eighteen years) and I (sober sixteen ears) attended a black tie party in a huge ballroom. I was to receive recogment swirling around us. He looked at me and said, “Oh Mary,” and in a breath I knew he was leaving me forever. I focused on him and couldn’t see understood that the universal truth was to be kind to one another. I drove home alone that early morning. I know 1 was not alone. My God, As a widow, life has sometimes been lonely and confusing; a whole new lesson in life has evolved. But God has been here each step of the way. Drinking isn’t an option for me. Calling on nition for a job promotion along with or hear anything else in the room. He my Higher Power, did for me what I God to help me through is the answer several others. In attendance were had had a massive heart attack. In the couldn’t possibly do for myself. He has and he does that even when I get ansome three hundred people. Life had moments afterwards, the crowd was remained with me these past five years gry at him. been just wonderful for my husband around him; the attempts to save him ‘as he has done since I came into AA. Mary G ., Cape Canuveral, Fla. and me, due exclusively to AA and were like a dream in slow motion. I our belief in and dependence on a couldn’t get to him. I fell to my knees Higher Power. and started saying the “Our Father” That morning Tom awoke in good and all around people who were not inspkits, went about fixing a few minor volved in attempting CPR were doing household jobs (not his usual forte). the same. We had lunch out and ran errands. On After arriving at the hospital and the drive into the city, tux and all, he just knowing in my heart he was alfinished reading a novel while I drove. ready gone, I sat in a little room with We talked, laughed, reminisced over some co-workers awaiting the news how grateful we were to be sober. from the doctor. People were trying to After the dinner was sewed, the an- get me Valium or medication and in an nouncements of promotions began. I instant I looked up and on the wall distood up to receive the applause and rectly in front of me was the Serenity recognition, not knowing that in a few Prayer. All I could see was the Serenity moments, my whole life would change. Prayer – everything else was a haze The band played and we began to around me. All 1 knew in that instant

August 1996

WO EXCUSE 10 DRINK there were others ahead of me to light the way, just like with my sobriety. It’s now been eight months since my mastectomy. I was out of work for sevduring the darkest hours to give me courage and strength when no human power could. 1 was even asked to lead a Step series of meetings to share my en months while having four surgeries experience, strength, and hope on the and five months of chemotherapy. The Steps. This helped greatly in keeping Fellowship, God, and the Steps did tru- me focused on the solution and out of ly carry me. People brought meetings myself. Instead of letting go of my to my house or drove me to them when sponsees, 1 actually started sponsoring I was unable to drive so I was usually two more women. It gave me tremen- ‘ able to make a minimum of three dous joy to know 1 could help and inmeetings a week, no matter how sick I spire others even during my own trying was. Fellow members loved me even times. when all my hair fell out and I lost fif- I’m happy to report my sobriety date

0 ne frightful summer day at the beginning of June 1995 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I equated cancer with death and felt that at thirty-seven years of age, I was trate on me. I still can’t believe how quickly my thinking became stinking, even with seven years of sobriety. A Higher Power must have been looking out for me, realizing that this teen pounds. Sponsees brought me groceries, made my bed, and held my hand. I’ve never felt so loved in all my life. remains the same. 1 found that even dcaling with “the big C” was no excuse to drink. I now know what they mean when they say, “There are no big too young to die. Fearful thoughts was too big for me to deal with alone. The God that I came to believe in deals.” raced through my head. The commit- My sponsor called me. It seems my while reading the Big Book was there . Debbie B , Hollywood, Flu. tee was in full force and it wouldn’t mother had been concerned and called give me any peace. My body felt as her. We talked and cried for a long tight as a rubber band stretched to the time. She suggested I call her sponsor breaking point. who, as it turns out, had had the same The doctor said I’d need a mastecto- surgery and chemotherapy about my and probably chemotherapy after- eleven years before. She had six years wards. I listened to him relate my of sobriety at the time and told me how prognosis to my family and all at once I she had coped. She suggested that I decided I couldn’t cope with this news. stay close to meetings, share about I needed a drink and some Valium fast what was going on, and not let go of (even though I’ve never had any Vali- any sponsees because they would turn um in my life). These circumstances out to be a blessing. She told me that justified chemical relief and 1 said as as long as I stayed closed to God, the much to my mother. I decided that Fellowship, and the Twelve Steps, I’d dealing with cancer was a big deal and be just fine. She gave me hope, the that my sobriety was going to have to same kind of hope AA members gave take a back seat for a while. 1 also said I me when I first tried to stop drinking. was going to let go of all of the women All of a sudden, I knew in my heart I I was sponsoring, so I could concen- didn’t have to do this alone and that

August 1996

,A

THE TRAP DOOR took over for me. She told everyone what to do, what to take where, and when to take it. I had such a sense of what I was going through. I felt like the condemned prisoner on the hangman’s scaffold with the noose around my desolation and loss as I watched all my neck. But when the trap door below worldly possessions removed from my my feet opened up, a miracle haphome of four years and loaded onto pened. Instead of drinking and dying, I trucks (even though these trucks had was caught in the loving and capable bumper stickers telling me “Easy Does hands of my Higher Power. It” and “One Day at a The”). When It was during this time when I really my Al-Anon friend had to go, she learned that my Higher Power loved handed over her job as foreman to an me. I certainly didn’t keep myself sober. AA friend who oversaw the final emp- Instead, I was granted a daily reprieve.

I t was just before my second an- In my frazzled state of mind, I tying of my house. I asked for help in the morning, even niversary when my husband and 1 thought that meant that she didn’t That night, as I tucked my children though some days I really didn’t want separated. He was getting sober at want to listen to me anymore. I into bed at the “Hell Motel,” I thanked to stay sober. I went to meetings and a sober house, and I was left with the thought that I was too sick even for God for another day of sobriety. I used the meetings as my sponsor. I care of our four children. My landlord AA. I felt so hopeless. For almost two thanked God for both of programs, AA voiced my gratitude every night for anhad lost the house to the bank, which years, people had been telling me, and Al-Anon, and the friends who’d so other day of sobriety. Gradually, I bewas evicting me. I couldn’t afford to “Keep coming, it gets better,” but my generously donated their time, trucks, gan to look around me at all of the sick rent anyplace else on my welfare grant life was only getting worse. When my muscle, and space. It wasn’t too hard to and suffering people at the motel. I saw so 1 had no choice but to join the sponsor asked me to call other people, I stay sober that day because I’d been the effects of their active disease on ranks of the homeless welfare mothers felt she’d abandoned me at the very surrounded by members of my home their children. I became truly grateful who put up at a motel in a neighbor- time that I needed her most. I was group. It was the next few days that for this unmerited gift of sobriety. One ing town. afraid to reach out to anyone else. I were rough. of the women whom 1 used to watch Meanwhile, I was suffering with un- tried. I called people and let them 1 was the only one at the motel who drink was watching me too. We began treated acute depression. I saw little know what was going on with me. But was sober. There was a drug dealer to talk about drinking. I shared my stopoint in living, much less staying sober. I really felt unworthy and alone. across the hall and a few active crack ry with her. I invited her to meetings I thought that I was a bad mother for Three days later was moving day. I users. Those who weren’t using drugs and she came! We drank coffee towhat my children and I were about to hadn’t slept. 1 was now being treated were drinking. I couldn’t blame them. gether and talked throughout the day. go through. I thought my children for my depression, but I’d only been on If I wasn’t sober already, I would have She couldn’t get more than three of would be better off without me. My the medication for one day. I was an , been just as loaded as they were. It was four days together at a time, but 1 sponsor at that time was afraid that I emotional and physical wreck. I had very tempting to take a drink. I had the stayed sober. I don’t know where she is would harm myself and urged me to go wonderful people from my home group perfect excuse for a relapse. Poor me! today, but I will never forget her. God to the emergency room. 1 refused. I felt coming to help me move and 1couldn’t , No one would blame me. I couldn’t call put us together to keep me sober. I that if I could just talk about my bad think straight. An Al-Anon friend had my sponsor and I was afraid to ask any- hope she is sober today; I know I’m defeelings that I could make it the two generously donated her basement for one else to sponsor me. I had no one to lighted and amazed that I am. Sobriety days I had left before my scheduled storage. Another Al-Anon friend came turn to. Sure, I called people, but I held is a precious gift from God. Who am I doctor’s appointment. She asked me to to help me with the move. When I back because I didn’t want to over- to turn down a gift from God? call other people. told her that my brain was fried, she whelm anyone by describing to them Susie K. , Yarrnourhport, Mass.

I August 1996

‘Dear Charlie’ a I stared at the typewriter and then at my mystery novel in process. I figured I’d catch up on some correspondence as I waited for inspiration. Subconsciously I saw the rejection letbut we saw each other often enough to pick up where we left off. When Charlie and his wife could travel to town from their ranch, they always stayed at he must be and frustrated to be half a country away. I sat down at my typewriter and wrote him a letter explaining to him day at a %timeI haven’t had a drink since.” His acceptance of his alcoholism and his eagerness to grab hold of sobriety came through the telephone our home and after everyone else had . that he wasn’t any crazier than any- line. I thanked God and went on about ter that was sure to come right after I’d gotten tired and called it a night, Char- body else and that if he had half a brain my business. submitted my manuscript. My thoughts lie and I would sit up with a bottle of left, he might give Alcoholics Anony- We’ve changed over time; Charlie spun wildly from “Grant me the seren- whatever and solve the problems of the mous a call and see if they could send sold his ranch and moved to town; ity to accept the rejection” to “Please world until we were both comatose. someone over to the hospital to see earned a master’s degree and remarried. give me the courage to admit I’m not a Then in 1978 I reached the end of him. 1 don’t recall what else I said but I’ve spent six years living aboard a sailwriter” to “What is the difference, my “fun” drinking, for it had long since shared some parts of my story that were boat, with five years spent ‘in the God?Please show me.” ceased to be fun at all. But I didn’t lose new to him and not very funny. I also Caribbean. I now cruise out of Braden- Immediately my eyes fell upon my track of my friends and would occa- shared with him some of the humor ton, Florida, so Charlie is still half a friend Charlie’s last letter – it was al- sionally see Charlie. I knew he was un- I’ve found in this Fellowship. “You’re country away, yet we’re closer than ways so good to hear from him. He was happy in his marriage and dissatisfied no crazier than I am,” I assured him. ever in our correspondence. the brother I never had. We go back to with ranching, but time didn’t permit What a recommendation! Thinking about Charlie brought an the early sixties when we were in sports us much chance for in-depth coverage. Weeks passed. I wondered about overwhelming sense of gratitude to me car racing – even spending two sea- Nearly five years into my own sobri- Charlie but knew there was nothing and a sudden knowledge that I was in- ‘sons as racing partners. Those were ety and early into my new marriage, I more I could do. When the phone deed a writer- a verysuccessful writer wild and crazy days of hard living and heard Charlie was in a psychiatric in- rang, I could tell from his voice that who with God’s help one afternoon harder partying which took their toll. stitute following an attempted suicide. things had changed. wrote something that mattered. Over the years our lives had changed I was devastated to think how unhappy “Yes,” he said, “I called AA and one Mindy S ., Palmetto, Fla. ‘

September 1996

—

Old-Timers ing to me than AA. So I prevailed and holies Anonymous. Thinking that these we went to the party. During the party people were booksellers, but so nice, I Corner he suggested that I excuse myself, tell bought their book. It cost $2.50. my friends that I had somewhere to go, I took the book and went home to and he would take me to the AA my apartment. It was a time in my life meeting. Reluctantly 1 went. when I could see (I was thirty-two The meeting was in a room in the years old then and I’m eighty-three tobasement of a women’s residence. day), and I started reading the book Everything stopped and couldn’t put it when I walked in and down. I read until the three people there Thinking that four o’clock in the welcomed me with morning. While read-

‘The Fishing Guide, much warmth and friendliness. 1 sat down and the speaker these people ing, tain my it was lifted. answer, like This a

this curwas is were book- I the ,,Bartender, continued with his talk. He talked about living on skid row in what had looking for. Why been

hadn’t I heard about sellers, but so ,. and Mey Kansas City, begging for money to buy wine. Now it wasn’t nice, / bought it before? The next day I carried my book along with my suits that I was a high-bot- case to the car and tom drunk, but I’d we drove to Jackson their book. I t was the second week of May 1945. I lived in Vallejo, California, and I was hung over and sick when I ran into an acquaintance, also a drunk, who asked me how I was. I told her I’d “No, just give me the address and 1’11 get there myself.” I was married at the time and in the doghouse because of my drinking. When I got home, in order to break never seen times like that, and I was appalled that this dear, sweet, clean man had It cost $2.50. Hole. Stopping at night, I would read the book and a few days later after we ar* rived at JacksonHole had to live in such been on a drunk and she informed me the ice, I told my husband (who didn’t poverty. So that im- I noticed that the that she didn’t drink anymore. My ears drink) about this conversation and pressed me. The meeting ended with book gave the name of a woman to perked up. “How did you stop?”I asked, showed him the address. He offered to the Lord’s Prayer and this really contact at the Alcoholic Foundation She told me that she had joined AA. take me there immediately it must stopped me. I hadn’t said the Lord’s in New York; her name was Bobbi B. I Thinking that she was talking about have seemed like the answer to his Prayer since I was a child, and it em- wrote and told her I was going to be a the automobile association, I said, “But prayers. We were leaving the next day barrassed me, so I bowed my head with lone member for the next four months. I don’t even drive.” “I mean Alcoholics for Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to run a them but I didn’t say anything. My She answered my letter immediately. Anonymous,” she said. “How does it nightclub for the summer season, and newfound friends said, “You’re going to Very shortly after that, another letwork?” I asked. “There’s a meeting on on this particular Monday night, Jackson Hole tomorrow and there isn’t ter came from a sign painter in Salt Monday night; if you want I’ll take friends were giving us a farewell dinner an AA group there. May we suggest Lake City, Utah. He was another lone you.” Right away my guard went up. party. The party was much more invit- that you buy this book!” It was Alco- member who had also gotten the book.

– He wrote that he was going to take a When I was about two months en years talking to different AA groups growing pains, some petty jealousies quick job in Jackson Hole just to come sober, my husband was threatening to that were starting up in the Bay Area. about one-upmanship, but nothing and visit me. He came, visited for a few fire the bartender who was drunk all A lot of Twelfth Step work was going that wasn’t solved easily. I remember days, encouraged me, did everything he the time. 1 talked with him and he be- on, both one on one and also through how hard-nosed we became when could to help me, and as he was leav- came the third member of our group. the central office. The central office someone came into a meeting drunk. I ing, he suggested, “Why don’t you find We were three drunks who weren’t another drunk and start a group?” I would contact the groups to arrange for shudder to think of it today. I rememdrinking and looking for a way to get someone to meet the person who’d ber them escorting a couple of people It so happened will – the~fishinn called in and perhaps take them to a out. It was like the pot calling the ketthat in the night- guide, the bar- meeting. Sometimes people would sim- tle black. Surely if they staggered in club we ran, there was a drunken fish- We didn’t have tender, and myself. ply walk into a meeting, as I had, and they wanted something, they needed We had our meet- someone would reach out to them, something. I was as guilty as anyone; I ing guide. I gathered my courage and I any guidance… ings during that summer, always take them under their wing, and offer didn’t like the disruption and I caused to become their sponsor. When I saw a my share of dissension. approached him. To ending with the One of the highlights of my life was need, and I was available to help, I my surprise, he was perfectly willing to only the Big record. (I didn’t actually say the Lord’s helped. meeting Bill W. His wife Lois was as We didn’t introduce ourselves as al- charming as I found him. I think I was come to a meeting Prayer until I came coholics except to new members, and more impressed with ILois than with with me and the Book and a back, moved to San we didn’t use our last names. 1 always him. next night I decided Francisco, and simply said I was Vi. It was assumed In the meantime, my husband, who to have the meeting joined AA in San at the cabin we power greater Francisco.) You ‘ that if a person wasn’t having trouble with booze that they wouldn’t be there. had so inspired mi? to go to my first meeting, and I were divorced. AA belived in. I was about have to remember, Even when someone introduced me to came my family. I had literally a huntwo or so weeks sober. I don’t know than ourselves we hardly knew speak they simply said, “I’d like to in. dred friends, and it was the greatest what we were do- troduce Vi.” All meetings were closed; experience of my life. In AA I met anwhat we talked ing, we didn’t have there weren’t any open meetings. other man, who is my husband today, about. I read him anv guidance our- We began our meetings with a mo- forty years later. Both of us have ensome paragraphs from the Big Book selves, only the Big&k and a Power ment of silence and the Serenity deavored to live our lives through the and I didn’t even have an extra copy greater than ourselves. We played it by Prayer. The Preamble was not used Twelve Steps, applying them to our for him, so 1loaned him mine (you can ear. The fishing guide stayed sober and lives. then and I don’t remember when we see what firm ground I was on). When we corresponded for many years. The My husband and I relish the joy of started using it. We’d sometimes have our little meeting ended, I told him bartender stayed sober the rest of that a guest speaker. There were no Step or living sober and have many hobbies ! that the group in Vallejo ended with season, but I understand when he went Big Book meetings; all of that evolved and interests. We learned how to paint the Lord’s Prayer, but that I couldn’t back to his home he had some trouble over time. It was simple, not structured. through our local art association, and say the Lord’s Prayer. I asked if he could again with booze. I lost track of him afand he said he couldn’t either. I had a 1 There were just five or six groups in our home is filled with paintings that ter that. 1945 in San Francisco: the Downtown we’ve done. We’re not artists; we’re Group, the North Beach Group, one simply painters – hobbyists. I had a portable record player and a record by a I left Wyoming in September 1945. famous opera star who sang the Lord’s Getting to San Francisco was a won- central meeting on Wednesday night in couple of shows and sold many paint- Prayer with much meaning and feeling, derful experience because I made many, the Fillmore District, and some others. ings. Life has been good. so we used it to end our meeting. many friends there. I spent about sev- The Fellowship was experiencing From the time I came into AA in

May 1945 until now, I’ve lived a life of that we had to go to three or four meetsobriety and happiness. Today I’m al- ings a week in order to stay sober. most blind and very deaf, so because of When I recovered, I reached this this we’re not active any longer in AA, plateau in sobriety of security, knowing but we still do what we can for people who I was and where I was going; it was who need AA. We take them, we di- all right to level off. I had no trouble rect them, we do what we can. My im- with booze; I became a housewife; I enpression, though, of how AA has joyed my home. changed is that we did things more Through all these years I feel I’ve simply when I was young in AA, and been blessed: I never had any temptato be perfectly truthful, I like the good tion to drink. A Power greater than I old days better. am lifted much weight off my shoulders. I don’t think our founders meant Viokt D., Vallejo, Calif.

November 1996

or read any literature for the spouse. from my family. His denial was deep. Later, I confirmed that the room This particular evening I came home where I’d been that night was green. I feeling ~eaceful,like a load had been was unable to retum to that meeting for lifted from my shoulders -as usual af- a while, but six months later I was ter an AA meeting. My six- ear-old asked to share at that group. I walked daughter ran up to me, jumped into my into the warmest, yellow-painted room arms, and wrapped her legs around my you ever saw, and immediately got c waist. She said, “Momma, what color chills, which I now call “spiritual rain.” are those rooms where you go?” I shared my experience, strength, and I thought for a minute and kind of hope, with love pouring from my heart remembered green, but said, “What to these beautiful recovering women. color do you think they are, Mamee!” This story has become a part of my She exclaimed, “Yellow!” recovery story. It all happened a long I said, “Why do you think that?” time ago and I still attend three to Her reply changed the course of my four meetings a week because I still

Is Your Sobriety? recovery. Without blinking, she said, want recovery and I’m so grateful. I’ve “Because you always come home so recovered from a seemingly hopeless sunshiny and bright.” disease and haven’t found it necessary If this was what she saw, it was to take a drink since September 13, worthwhile. The sunlight of the spirit 1979. And my dear Marnee is now was shining through me to my daugh- grown up and is still a loving daugh-

w en I’d been sober three months, after a long struggle with alcoholism, the stress and tension at home could have been cut with a knife. I was afraid of losing I was just finishing my ninety meetings women’s in ninety days and was leaving for a

leaving ing the meeting one night. I felt guilty the house that evening after dodinner dishes. The kids started ter and she could see it. This was the ter to me. first of many affirmations I received Sharon K., St. Louis, Missouri

my marriage, my home, my security, but tugging at me to play games with them, I had the willingness to go to any read a story, or anything so I wouldn’t lengths to stay sober. I still had my hus- leave. I pictured them after I left, mov- I band of fifteen years and two children, ing into a TV coma with my husband. I age six and nine, but the silence from wanted them to feel the love 1 felt at my husband and the distance I felt with the meetings, hear the honest sharing, the ones I loved most on this earth was get the feeling of families coming toawful. I didn’t yet know whether this re- gether. My husband didn’t think I was covery that was so good for me would an alcoholic; he thought 1 just drank ultimately be good for them. But I too much, and if 1 just didn’t drink so wanted my family to encourage me to much I’d be okay. He still didn’t get it. go after this thing called recovery. . He wouldn’t hear of Al-Anon for him

November 1996

I am always quick to acknowledge the our own decisions and lead our own contributions my sponsors have lives. Five years later, we are all doing made to my sobriety, but I often for- well and one daughter has joined Alget the growth I’ve attained from the Anon. ladies I sponsor. I’d never been to a prom so being I became a sponsor for the first time Kim’s bridesmaid and wearing a formal when 1 was eleven months sober. I’d filled that void. Later I was allowed to never read the pamphlet on sponsor- witness the Gkacle of her daughter’s ship so when Tina would call with birth. Phyllis taught me about kindoverwhelming newcomer problems, I’d ness, and Sheila taught me to be a pick her up, bring her to my house, friend. Shirley taught me to never give tuck her into bed with a stuffed animal, up, Rose taught forgiveness, and Vickand say, “We just won’t drink tonight ie taught trust. and tomorrow everything will get bet- I came to AA looking for a way to ter.” Somehow it always did and eight drink like a lady. What I found was years later Tina is a sober mother and hope and self-respect, unconditional almost finished with nursing school. I love mixed with honesty, tolerance, wasn’t so lucky with Beverly. After re- and understanding. By working with lease from a mental hospital, she others I’m allowed to witness the mirachecked into a hotel with a bottle of cle of sobriety and observe the twinpills and a quart of vodka. I learned kling eyes as others learn to speak the that I have no answers, only experi- language of the heart. Like me they ence. If I haven’t lived it or done it, I came to scoff and stayed ,to pray. I need to send the newcomer to some- thank God for lessons learned and pray one who has. that I’ll never be too old or too rigid to Jackie taught me to live and let live. learn from everyone in the Fellowship She gave me the courage to leave my of Alcoholics Anonymous. grown children so we all might make Eileen K., Orange, California

December 1996 Telling the For instance,I’ve learned in meetwe don’t know what we’re doing and ings.that not only bars and cocktail find ourselves on a bar stool again. parties are slippery places:sittingina I believe in AA’s singleness of pur- Truth closedroom or vehiclewith others pose.But lreserve the right to share all smoking pot is a slippery place for me. my experiencesin recovery.And if 1 One woman told includehowIcan’t how her contact take any mind-afhighs led her right fecting chemicals back to beer. She I learned inmyearly because it leads me had a slip for me. back to booze, and if “Learning from days thatwe were to that offends some other’s mistakes so people, I’m sorry. 1 we don’t have to don’t want to offend make them” only ‘practicetheseprinyou;I simply want conveys meaning to live. And in went toameetinglastnight and as tion several drugs besides alcohol.For when others can ciples in all our keeping with our the topic of singleness of purpose him,that’s aviolationof our singleness share their mispurpose of carrying Lwas being introduced,one man of purpose.For me and many others, takes. this message to othstood up and stomped out. It’s an old not to talk about whatwillleadusright It was at an AA affairs’-but there’s er alcoholics, I want battleinAA,one thatbegan longbe back to alcohol is a violation of our meeting where 1 to help other alcofore I got sober in1969.The recurring purposeatameeting.And thereinlies heard that putting holics live. theme is thatunless members discuss our dilemma.If we know that to smoke any mind-altering nowaytodothatif Back in 1969, problemsrelatingonlytoalcoholismin a joint,takeahit of acidorcoke,oruse chemical inmy those who took ofa meeting,they’reviolatingTraditions. tranquilizers will leadusrightback to body would affect allouraffairscan’t fense atmy sharing But what exactly does that mean? adrinknanitynatht my mind,cloud my would ask me to The singleness of purpose statement ourresponsibility to talk about it both judgment,and leave. Now,they most oftenread atmeetings ends with for ourrecovery and in thespirit of carcould lead to a slip. betalkedabout leave.I don’twant the words“confine your discussion only rying themessage.In these cases,ite It was in a meeting any alcoholic leav: as it relates to alcoholism.”Although I lates directlytoourrecoveryfrom where Ilearned ing a meeting. Sinsupportour snglenessofpurpose,ve alcoholism. that the alcohol gleness ofpurpose alwaysfeltthatthiswas anunfortunate WhatI’velearned aboutrecovery in andcodeinein shouldn’tcome choice of words.I’mnot particularly intwenty-sixyears clean and sober has coughsyrupwas likeplayingwithfire across as singleness of predjudice.If we terested inwhatorhow much you comefrom theBigBookandfrom the for an alcoholic.It was in a meeting justrethink that statement and-say drank,which is what that statement experincestrnghandopft whereIlearned about the subtleness of “confine our discussions only as it resounds like.I am interested in how you at our tables.I learned in my early days a disease that can sneak us back to a lates torecovery from alcoholism,we keepfrom drinkingtoday- recovery that we were to“practice these princidrinkwithsomethingassimpleasnot will understand thatwe’re not,violatfrom alcoholism,notjustalcoholism. ples in all our affairs”—but there’s no explaining thatwe are alcoholicto our ingTraditions.We are all-here for the Themanwhostompedoutofour rway todo that if allouraffairscan’t be doctor,who then unknowingly presamereason.Sobriety. meeting left because he heard us men-.talked about. scribesmedicines that drug us so that Shelly M.,West Point,Virginia

December 1996

ing old ideas and doing a lot of deep jot part of my background. But I soul-searching. Pain had prevented me learned that judging others was only a from doing it earlier. Now, painful as it sign of my low self-worth. Finally, I was, I knew it was the only way out of heard what AA tried to teach me my dilemma. that when I stand in judgment, the per- Fear was like mv Siamese twin; I son I judge most harshlv is mvself. needed to sever our to- ~ o d a1′;~ , grateful getherness. By discov- for the incapacitating , ering the origin of my Thus began agoraphobia I experifears, dissecting them enced because it and working through them, I defused them. the journey forced me to deal with my character flaws My wounded pride and move toward the winced at the thought into taking a potential that God y biggest demon has always psychologist’s office, suffering from of being so fearful I has for me. My previbeen fear, which pursued me acute depression and agoraphobia. couldn’t drive for a ous efforts at house- .with a vengeance. I drank al- A few days earlier I’d stopped at the while. One of my deeper look cleaning in Steps Four cohol to silence the relentless voices. supermarket to buy a turkey and fixings sponsees drove me to and Five had left a lot The pain led me to AA where I eagerly crawled aboard the lifeboat. I’d been for my group’s eighteenth anniversary, when a wave of panic washed over me. meetings. What a wonderful demonstraat all the yet- of cobwebs and dust which obstructed my paddling in my rowboat for forty-three Feeling so shaky that I became faint, I tion to me of how view of the true picyears, screaming for someone to bring grabbed my purchases and fled. At much false pride I’d unresolved ture. My denial and me the other oar and teach me how to home I feared another panic attack, possessed. fear kept me from row myself into the coursing current of life. With the love of the people in while just thinking of leaving home paralyzed me. Fears crouched in every When I discerned I was the one who made fears. . . changing what needed to be altered. The AA, and the Steps, I learned to chart comer like coiled snakes. The thought me feel guilty, I di- process has been slow. my way into happier waters. Recently, I of driving or riding in a car was a night- vorced my lifelong companion guilt But 1 don’t have- to strive for spiritual celebrated twenty-six years of sobriety. mare -I was haunted by the thought (though not without the pain that sep- perfection, just spiritual progress. In- But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. that I would fling myself out onto the aration from an old friend can cause). stead of wondering why it took me so For seventeen years after I stopped highway. Jumping into a bottle, how- I The reward: I no longer have to pun- long to face the monsters, I’m grateful drinking, a recurring uneasiness robbed ever, wasn’t a viable option for me. ‘ 7 ish myself with guilt. that at last, with God’s help, it’s possime of joy. Valiant attempts to clear de- Thus began my journey into taking I unearthed my perfectionism and ble. structive character flaws faltered. Like a deeper look at all the yet-unresolved decided I liked being human. Now that Had 1 not faced the demons, I could weeding the lawn, I pulled out the top fears, and the guilt, perfectionism, con- I had become “entirely willing,” I could have lost my life by drinkingagain. My parts but left the deeply imbedded trol, criticism, and pride that were rI see that my need for approval had happy sobriety today is due to a thorroots. Invariably the weeds of resent- keeping me from being happy. I dis- grown into people-pleasing. ough housecleaning. Once I turned ment, anger, and pride grew back. covered my way of thinking caused my Control isn’t easy to spot but I’m do- and faced my fears, I could walk away Fears finally erupted with volcanic panic attacks and that 1 could change ing less of it. happy, joyous, and free. force. On my sixtieth birthday I sat in a my thinking. This involved uncover- Judging and being critical were a ma- Gloria L., Colorado Springs, Colorado

December 1996 d ‘ I

,d

M y biological father died an al- whiskey down the trach hole for him coholic death after drinking since he couldn’t swallow. He went constantly for forty years. He into cardiac arrest and died. left my family when I was a small child so 1 never really knew him. I did meet My sister Cindy and I heard about his death and wanted to go to his wake us feel like vampires for requesting this, but we insisted, and they did open the casket. My father was in a jogging outfit and looked like he was just passed out. Most of the people at the wake the impact of a picture telling a thousand words. The cemetery was bordered by a lake on one side and a bar across the street. A luncheon was held in the bar and him a few times over the years. He and funeral, which were being held in were his drinking buddies and they all almost everyone was pounding down stopped by my apartment once for a Wisconsin. I’d been sober for about six slipped small airline-sized liquor bottles the beer and hard liquor. 1 met a step- Christmas drink and proceeded to wipe years and she had about a year of sobri- into the casket. One woman threw brother and .stepdaughter from my out the entire liquor supply and pass ety. We lived in the suburbs of Chicago herself across the casket and burst into father’s third marriage. I told them I out on the couch. We met again at his and rented a car to get to Wisconsin. tears. I asked if she was a good friend of was sober and that it didn’t seem fair or mother’s funeral which was conve- Our brother and sister went with us, his, and she said,”No, 1 was his bar- right that my father just couldn’t get it. niently located next to a tavern. That but they were still candidates for the tender. I’ll sure miss all those twenty- He was constitutionally incapable and was a major booze fest and he was a program. They weren’t quite ready to dollar tips!” had to end up dead because of it. I charming and fun drunk. enlist yet. This turned out to be the best First didn’t care that I broke my anonymity I got sober after a few hospital stays My brother drove us all down there Step I’ve ever had. The only way my to them. I never expected to see or and didn’t have much to do with my and he scared the hell out of me by father could carry the message of being hear from them again. father until we heard from the family putting eye drops into his eyes while he powerless over alcohol and having an Two years after my father’s death, my grapevine that he’d died. He had had was driving down the expressway. He’d unmanageable life was to die from al- sister Cindy did hear from the stepa bad strep throat and was taking an- been practicing the marijuana mainte- coholism. I looked at him lying in that daughter. She’d gone into treatment tibiotics but was drinking on top of nance program just before he picked us casket, with all the booze bottles piled and had been sober for over a year. She them which canceled out their effec- up. 1 tried to remember that it’s a pro- up arounJ him, and I broke into tears. w;a so impressed that Cindy and I could tiveness. He was in a bar drinking gram of attraction not promotion. 1 I thought, but for the grace of God, stay sober, even through an emotional when his throat closed up and he When we got to the funeral home, there the hell am I. 1 got to my knees trauma like our father’s funeral, that she couldn’t breathe. An ambulance was Cindy and I talked to the funeral di- and said the Serenity Prayer over and was inspired to try it for herself. called and he was rushed to the hospi- rector and found out that it was to be over. He was fifty-eight years old when Some people pass the message of tal for an emergency tracheotomy. He a closed casket. We were outraged. We he died and it seemed like such a waste. sobriety through the way they live and was in the intensive care unit for a few didn’t travel all that way to look at a Cindy was next to me praying and cry- some pass the message through the way days, and all of his drinking buddies closed box. We wanted to see him one ing, too. My brother and other sister they die. came by to see him and to pour some , more time. The funeral director made were standing behind us and we all got Donna M ., Downers Grove, lllinois

January 1997

She stopped calling completely. wasn’t too much trouble. No trouble at Pretty soon we would just hook up all, I replied, but please try to call me at a meeting and go out for coffee or a before two in the morning. quick bite to eat. After another couple No calls. I’d see her at meetings and of weeks she wouldn’t make it to the ask how things were going. She’d be meeting, but would want to go out to eager to share with me in person but the coffee shop. Again, 1suggested she reluctant to pick up the phone. A week call, because I needed time to share later I saw her run out of a meeting. I with my friends, and offered to set aside followed and asked if she was okay. She a time every week when she and I was agitated. She told me she had been

A Helping Hand could get together in person. She stopped coming to the same meetings I went to and we didn’t go out for cofcalling another woman in the program every day and that she was working on the First Step with her. She had a sponfee. Eventually, I told her 1 couldn’t be sor, but it wasn’t me. her sponsor anymore. I had to break While I’m disappointed I don’t have this news over her answering machine a sponsee, I feel joy in doing the because she didn’t return my calls to Twelfth Step work that I do. I speak at

I met the woman who was to become a sponsor and if not, I’d be happy to be my sponsor when I had nine days. 1 their sponsor. No luck. A man with forgot what she said that night, but several years told me that approach 1 got the sense that this lady had her probably scared or intimidated them, head on straight. I called her on day so I backed off. her office. My feelings were hurt and my ex. pectations too high. Nothing 1 can say or do can control another’s behavior. meetings. I still give out my phone number. My name is still in the sponsorship books at groups around town. I’ve been on Twelfth Step calls. I act as Here is a prime application for the sloe liaison when called upon, and I’m sectwelve because I didn’t know what else If there was a newcomer at a meet- gan “Live and Let Live,” which re- retary and treasurer of my home group. to do. She told me she had other plans ing, I’d give my phone number to her minds me that the only goal is to be I enjoy going to a coffee shop with oththat night, but surprised me by show- and say I’d be happy to help in any way . helpful. ers after meetings. 1 say hello to new ing up at my meeting. There were no I could. No pressure. No luck either. I Months passed. I’d still give out my folks, and make a special effort to rechairs left, so I sat on the floor and she signed up in several interim sponsor- phone number at meetings and act as member their names. Several of those sat on the floor, too. When the meet- ship books. No luck. I sometimes act- liaison, but no one asked me to be a people, whom I met when they were ing was over, I asked her to be my ed as beginner’s liaison in ‘my home sponsor. Pretty soon, women whom I’d still shaking and sweating out the sponsor. She hugged me and said, “God group. Again, no luck. , watched counting days had one or two booze, are sober now for more than a sent you to me!” She has been my Finally, my sponsor met a woman sponsees. My sponsor even got another year. They remember that I looked . sponsor ever since and is one of the just out of rehab and told me to talk sponsee. them in the eye, said welcome, and exmost important people in my life. with her, take her out for coffee, and Recently, a woman who hadn’t had tended my hand in fellowship. When 1 achieved one year sober, we maybe I could be her sponsor. I did a drink in four days came to my home As a sponsee, I’m joyous. As a sponboth started looking for someone I what my sponsor told me to do. After group. I asked if she wanted to go out sor, I’m perplexed. Maybe I’ll never be , could sponsor, so that I could share the a few weeks, the woman did ask me to for coffee and she said yes. She was ask- a sponsor, but that won’t stop me from I experience of sponsorship from the sponsor her, but rarely called. Wanting ing a lot of questions about sponsorship extending my hand and saying welother side of the table. At first I looked to be helpful, I called her. After a few and 1 offered to be her sponsor. She come. for newcomers, asked them if they had weeks of this, I asked her to call me. said that she would like that, if it Elizabeth H . , New Ymk, New Ymk

February 1997

Corner

Touched by Grace know her. It was my mother. horrors I couldn’t face. I’d scream and I spent the night in the drunk tank scream until I’d get the blessed relief of

I n 1996 1-celebratedtwo birthdays on June 26 – my natal birthday and my AA birthday. I date my sobriety not from the date of my last drink but from the date of my last sent out counter invitations telling his friends not to come. I think it was the latter since he was trying to get rid of me because I was drunk all the time. and the next daywas committed to the state mental asylum. That part is a blur of fog and shadows, and from then on I remembered nothing until after severtranquilizers and would go into the dream world I welcomed. I was retreating further and further into that world where I would run through fields of clover hand in hand with a hand- Anyhow, there was no party and no al shock treatments when I was drunk which started on my birthday in presents, so I started drinking up the shocked into a reality I rebelled at. The some man. 1961. The owner of the winery where I champagne I’d gotten for the party, memories that came flooding back af- On the week before my first AA worked and whose girlfriend I was and I didn’t stop drinking until I was ter every shock treatment were of be- meeting I was sent home for a trial vis- . threw a big party every year on his dragged out of Lake Erie where I had ing brutally treated by men, being it. My stepfather picked me up, and bebirthday and hundreds of people came tried to drown myself, was handcuffed robbed of all my possessions by persons ing a beer drinker he stopped at every and brought presents, so I thought 1 to an iron table, and put out to dry. It who pretended to be my friends, sleep- bar he passed on the sixty-mile trip should have a big birthday party too, was regatta time and I thought I was ing with other drunks in dirty flop- home. And of course I guzzled down all and 1 sent out hundreds of invitations on television or making a movie in houses, lying in the streets in the flats the beer I could and kept drinking after by mail and by word of mouth. The day which I was the star, and I waved and of Cleveland, being pushed out of the I got home. My stepfatherhad to pracof the big party arrived and nobody smiled to all of my fans gathered way of cars by someone who robbed tically carry me back to the hospital for came. To this day I don’t know why – around. And when a dark-haired and raped me, having my beloved chil- I was in an alcoholic stupor. whether it was because I had given out woman came up and asked me to go dren taken away from me by the Then came the rude awakening: I the wrong date or whether my boss with her, I wouldn’t because I didn’t courts. There was abuse, beatings, and was taken to my psychiatrist who eval-

f e ‘

— .

** uated my record and told me I was an aleoh01 in any form. I’ve never been dom because of alcohol as I had, they is Pauline,” March 1967, and “A Miralcoholic. I denied this vigorously, or as tempted to drink since my first AA need stories of hope and the knowl- acle Happened That Day,” August vigorously as is possible when you’re in meeting and that is a miracle. edge that you can come back no mat- 1977),and I tell the group I would like a drug haze. She said she was sending The road back to sobriety and sanity ter how far into hell you’ve fallen. I to tell my story. Usually I get an inviwas the only woman in Raiford prison tation. I have told my story in London, me to an AA meeting. Again I protest- wasn’t easy. I’d get depressed to the one night telling my story to 200 con- Paris, Munich, Athens, Amsterdam, ed. To me AA was a joke – a bunch point of suicide. I was deeply emotionof drunks hanging out. Since I ally distressed and was nearly addicted victs in tightest security, men convict- and Nassau, and in countless cities \wouldn’t go willingly she had me tak- to tranquilizers, but thanks to the ed of the worst crimes. And they throughout this country Los Angelaughed with me and cried with me les, Beverly Hills, New York, Cleveen to the AA meeting in the hospital, Grace of God and the love and help I and when I had finished, they sur- land, Burlington, Vermont, Miami, accompanied by an attendant. I was in found in AA, I was able to give them .rounded me and hugged me and kissed Juneau, Alaska and Sarasota, Florida, a straitjacket, for she’d taken me off up completely. I’d been told at the hosme and the guards looked on and to name but a few. I travel a lot and tranquilizers completely just for the pital when I was discharged that if I smiled, knowing I wouldn’t be harmed. many a lot and wherever I am I share meeting and I had a tendency to go quit taking my tranquilizers I’d be back. I’ll never forget that night. my experiences, hopes, and strengths berserk when they’d take away my But I gave them up and didn’t drink After I’d been sober a few years and with others. drugs. and didn’t go back. my children were raised and on their I was able to make amends to my At that AA meeting what I choose I’d lost my children through the courts and I wanted them back. When own, I returned to college. For ten mother before she died by planning a to call a miracle occurred. I sat there 1 tried to visit them, their father called . years I attended school full time at surprise birthday party for her with her sullen and resentful and I heard beaunight, all year round, and worked days bridge-playing friends in Ohio, and flytiful words of love and understanding me an old whore and threw me out of and obtained a bachelor’s degree in ac- ing her there. Then on another birththat touched my heart as nothing else his house and sent my kids screaming. counting from a major college, getting day I surprised her with a trip to had done. I believe that God reached But I went to court (without a lawyer, I excellent grades. Then I went on to Hawaii for a week. She loved Hawaii down and touched me and healed me because I couldn’t afford one), and with my history of alcoholism and law school and obtained a law degree. and we were planning to move there instantly. After all that work and study, I got the but she died. We were very close and I left the AA meeting, and in my mental illness I didn’t think I’d win biggest setback in my sobriety – I she forgave me for all the awful worries ward that I shared with three other over my husband and his expensive couldn’t pass the bar. I thought God I’d caused her. For fifteen years, I was loonies, I looked at myself in one of the lawyer. I cried all through the proceedwanted me to fight for justice for alco- estranged from a son, but now we’re unbreakable mirrors we had. I saw a ings, but miracle of miracles, I did win holics, as I’d seen so much injustice in ‘close again. He’s wonderful and we see flat, slovenly mess, and for the first custody, and we became a family again. working with prisoners, both in and each other nearly every Christmas. My time in many years I felt shame at my We had fun and troubles galore. I lost my job, I couldn’t pay my bills, and my out of prison, but he must have had other three children and I are very appearance. other plans for me for I never did pass close. There is so much love and The next time I was sent home for a electricity was shut off in mid-winter the bar. But I didn’t drink over it and laughter when we are together, and I trial visit, it was a hot day in August, in Ohio, but I didn’t drink and that life went on. thank God every day for bringing them and my stepfather stopped at every bar saved me. I went to a lot of meetings and fi- I’m blessed by being able to travel a back into my life. I thank God too for for a big frosty mug of beer. I sat beside lot all over the world. When I’m going all the blessings he has restored to me him in the bars we stopped in, watch- nally I was allowed to tell my story and to visi’t a place where I know there are through the beautiful, spiritual group ing him drink my favorite drink, and I I was in my glory. I love to tell my sto- AA meetings, I write to the group, of Alcoholics Anonymous. ordered and drank a cold ginger ale. ry -to have others identify with me. I And it’s been that way ever since. In especially love to tell my story to pris- send copies of my story that have ap- A. Pauline B., one moment I lost my desire to drink oners for I feel that in losing their free- peared in the Grapevine (“My Name Royal Palm Beach, Florida

February 1997

Sobriety’s ship From Utica, Kentucky:

T h e r e has been much talk recently coaching, guiding, and cheering the of old-timers and where they’ve gone. youth that will one day take their I’ve been in AA for a number of place. They are worshiping the God years now. I can remember hearing of their understanding in the in several meetings about old-timers church of their choice. They are and how this person used to say this mowing lawns, mending fences, or do that, and how that person hanging curtains -doing all the worked a great program. I also re- little things that were neglected in ‘member that I felt cheated. If these the midst of their disease. old-timers had all this wisdom and And guess what? Through it all knowledge, then why weren’t they they’ve carried the message. They’ve in meetings sharing their good news shown by deed and example that with those of us who were suffering? there is hope, joy, and freedom to be I was quite vocal about it, too. I found in the program of Alcoholics thought to myself that I’d be in Anonymous. meetings daily for the rest of my life. I I still attend my home group

I would never desert the ship. meeting every week and go to at The days turned to months and least one or two other meetings a the months to years, and the most week. I now understand the meaning incredible thing has happened. I of “AA is not my life but a way of have slowly been getting back in the life.” Countless suffering alcoholics mainstream of life. I now know have come to me at the ballpark, at where the old-timers are and what church, at family gatherings, and on they’ve been doing. the job, and said, “I need help.” They are showing up at their jobs, The old-ttmers are out there doing on time, ready to give an honest what was intended for them to do: . day’s work to their employer. They carrying the message, spreading the are gathering with their families and good news. They haven’t deserted giving them the quality time they the ship; they’ve just ridden with it never could before. They are joining to other parts. with their communities at ballparks Cindy A.

March 1997

thirty years old and had come to AA rushing in, the stiffness had left me and Old-Timers in January of that year. He’d stayed I was shaking violently. My teeth were sober from day one but wasn’t happy chattering. (My doctor was a neighbor Corner about it. He was fast reaching the of mine; I’d welcomed him to the conclusion that he was too young to neighborhood .with half a bottle of be in AA. He nursed that illusion all wine which I carried over in a brown , through the meeting and right up un- paper bag.) He drove me home in his til the moment I car and adminisdropped like a stone tered some kind of to the floor, knock- I finally came heavy sedation. just ing chairs in all di- before the lights rections – I was went out, he told having a convulto AA in April me to be in his ofsion in the front fice every day for row. By the time I 7 950 …Young the next five days to get vitamin shots. came to and was again aware of my The people in surroundings, I was people, thirty- AAl had told me rigid, my teeth were ‘.-. that acute alcoclamped shut, my hands and arms five and under, holism, which was what I was suffering were pulled up and from, was a medical Were as Scarce w couldn’t be moved, problem, and I en I was twenty-one years I finally came to AA in April 1950, and my feet and should see my docold, my doctor told me some when I was twenty-three years old. legs were drawn tor. I didn’t want . people could drink with That was young in those days. Young down. I was unable as hen’s teeth. him to know how safety and others could not. He said I people, thirty-five and under, were as to speak, and the bad my driqking ,yas was one of the ones who couldn’t drink scarce as hen’s teeth. Older members pain in my ribs was so I hadn’t heeded their advice. Had I and I should stop drinking while I still told me there were ten of us in that age so excruciating I could hardly draw a been teachable, I could have saved my- , could. It made sense to me, so I quit. I category in the combined states of breath. self and everyone else a lot of trouble. didn’t quit for one day like we do in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- Some well-meaning girl was trying The one good thing to come out of AA, but for forever! Forever turned vania. (People who did not know me to force a spoonful of coffee between that debacle was that the young man out to be a week and I was off again. kept mistaking me for some member’s my lips. Luckily we had a member of in the meeting decided he damn well Prior to that time, when anyone daughter.) the group who was a doctor and an- better stay in AA while he was there. bugged me about my drinking, I’d say I I will never forget the night I com- other who was a nurse. The doctor in- Good decision! We’ve both stayed could quit any time I wanted to. Now I pleted six days without a drink. I was tervened and I think he saved my life. sober through the years. He celebrated was frightened. I knew I’d meant to making my way to the front row of the I heard him say, “We’d better get her forty-six years of continuoussobriety in never to drink again, and here 1 was meeting. A young man was watching own doctor down here.” January 1996, while I followed in April drinkii again, worse than ever before. me go down the aisle. He was about By the time my own doctor came with my own forty-six years.

-f * “

— -. i. Another rotten thing occurred be- apqn strings, it was just tough! It hurt I think there were older members who that no one could benefit from what fore I completed two weeks of sobriety. my feelings when he gave me such a wanted to go back to the way things was being said. That being the case it There was a male member of AA who short shrift so 1 asked my husband once were. is best to do whatever is necessary to lived across the street from my hus- what I could do. He went to my moth- In my early days, if things got out of remove the source of the problem. I beband’s family. He was more often drunk er and said, “I would much rather see hand, older members stepped in to lieve it is best if the active drunk can I than sober. When he figured out who Marie go out with three men than straighten out the problem. At one be told he will be welcomed back when ‘ I was, he ran over to my in-laws to tell come home with one like she did ,point there were nonmembers at the he is not drunk or drinking. them 1 was a member of Alcoholics when she drank.” inner city groups D U ~addictions Anonymous. He said I was too young My mother never mentioned it who didn’t have a have been a probto be an alcoholic and all I needed was again. This is probably enough to show you I I desire to stop here’ often lem when they are discussed in depth a good kick in the butt to straighten drinking. We welme out. So much for the anonymity I’d that while some members were proud rather than menbeen promised. We can do a great deal and happy to have us in AA, others felt comed them until they began to were n o tioned in passing. ‘ of harm when we see fit to break some- we really didn’t belong there. When I gather around our I’m not sure doors to panhanone else’s anonymity. (I must have had a resentment because when I heard became pregnant, after several years, I was the only “lady in waiting” to be I women o n the whether the problem is from young dle. Some of the he’d died of the illness, I don’t remem- seen at meetings. I recall the male older members people or the way ‘, ber grieving over it!) members being frightened to take me told them they team because things are witk’ A few years down the road, Bob and out to speak as my due date drew near. were welcome to drugs now. I do re- I were asked to be chairperson and secremry for the group. There were mem- Twenty-three is no longer looked upon as young. I’ve met some people come in for coffee or to get warm the f e w we -call the changes that took place in bers who said the young “snot noses” who arrived in their early teens. One but we couldn’t AA once tranwere taking over the group. We just woman had completed four years of so- have them clus- h a d were quilizers became laughed between ourselves. Bob was briety by the time she was eighteen. tering around the readily available. the chair because one of the men al- Others have come to AA a few years entrance so that In New Jersey ways said, “When a man comes before it was legal for them to buy a members were ashamed t o AA, where I spent through that door, he needs to see a drink at all. Many of us have been hap- afraid to come my first forty-five man up there!” When we sent out a speaker’s team py to see the young ~eoplejoin early, before their lives have been wasted bethere. Anything speak. years of ,sobriety, we were given a that interferes it usually consisted of a leader and yond repair. with anyone’s brass pin in the . three speakers. There often were no There have been some problems, ability or right to attend or hear the shape of a triangle when we completwomen on the team because the few however. The group where I started in meeting is a very serious matter. ed our first ninety days without a drink. we had were afraid to speak. When I AA was brought to the edge of de- There are differences of opinion The night I was to be given mine the went it was often with three men. This struction when young people gathered about whether someone who is active- older members were having a very seupset my mother who felt it looked in the parking lot on motorcycles. ly drunk should be allowed to attend a rious discussion. It had to do with an %ad.” One night, at a closed meeting, They laughed and talked while order- meeting. I’ve seen people who were elderly man who was abusing some- I got up the nerve to ask the speaker ing in pizza during the meeting. The drunk manage to hear something at a thing called triple bromides and God how to handle this problem. He said if first “forty and over” group I ever heard meeting that was the start of their so- only knows what else. His face was a I was going to be tied to my mother’s of started because of this sort of thing. briety. Others have raised such hell strange shade of purple; he drooled and ‘

‘shuffled along. He claimed he had a chair. When I was discharged and went right to his three month pin because he to my son’s home, Mike still came to had not had a drink in ninety days. It visit me. He drove a taxi and as soon was only to stop drinking that he had as I could get about with my walker, he come to AA. I didn’t know what to took me to meetings. These young make of it but they gave him his pin people are not only kind and good, but right along with me. The poor soul they take the program of AA very sedidn’t have very long to enjoy – . it be- riously. They study the literature and cause in two we& work very hard to he was dead. He practice and live by had won the battle Now we the Twelve Steps to and lost the war. recovery. Age is not really a factor in drug use. know the pro- Recovery doesn’t happen by accident. I’ve seen people of The program was all ages fall prey to gram Can be planned so carefully the practice of pre- by the early memscribing drugs for bers to make it pose themselves. passed from sible for us to know Now that I’m freedom from the one of the older members of AA, I generafion to terrible lives of prao ticing alcoholics. fall into the catego- Now we know the ry of people men- generation. program can be tioned in the third passed from generaedition of the book tion to generation. I Alcoholics Anonymous.The book says was astounded when I first began to that a full third of our membership had notice how many children of people I yet to be born when we oldsters were had worked with were finding their grown up and in AA. way into AA. In many cases, they set- That brings me to how kindly the tled down and stayed. young people in the Fellowship treat 1 once read that a principle can be me today. defined as truth unchanging. If it is When I first came to California to true today, it will always be true. We live, I was very sick. I was in the hospi- can practice the principles of the AA tal for four months. During that time, program, and age will matter less and one of the young members who was a less as we continue to grow older and friend of my son’s would come to visit wiser together. me and take me for rides in my wheel- Marie K., Laguna Hills, California

A p r i l 1997

A Twelfth Step work has played a role in my life since my grandfather took the First Step of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1966, the year I was I’d remember Grampa’s grace. He was always ready to listen, never afraid to stand up for himself, fiercely self-supporting, and forever tolerant. Now that I’ve been sober for five years, I see that born. He was my first connection to my grandfather was a walking adver- AA service. For over twenty-two years, tisement for AA. His serenity carried he persistently twelfth-stepped me the message to me so that when I was without ever uttering a word about ready to admit that I was powerless AA. Instead, he lived his life as a pow- over alcohol, I knew ivhere to turn for er of example. He had a glow about help. His gratitude was expressed in achim that I’ve since discovered is the re- tions, not just wods. , sult of a solid AA program grounded At my sponsor’s kitchen table one in recovery, unity, and service. evening, I met the man who had taken The raging, careless drunk that my my sponsor to her first AA meeting. grandfather once had been was foreign He was from the same quiet country to me. When I knew Grampa, he was town my grandfather had gone to in like a gentleman angel. I cherish mem- order to realize one of his sober ories of visits with him when I’d stay dreams: being a blacksmith. He smiled up late in his book-lined bedroom and when he heard Grampa’s name. He listen as he recounted tales of his life. told me that my grandfather had been When I was a child, he made me feel his sponsor. So the circle is complete. I comfortable sharing my dreams, hopes, can keep it that way today by being and desires. He was a great storyteller silent and listening. but he was also a great listener. When I serve on the phones at in- Grampa passed away before I got tergroup, I listen, and when I’m sponsober. Drowning in the black confu- soring another alcoholic, I listen. I hear sion of alcoholism, I used to chatter in- Grampa’s experience, strength, and cessantly to fill up every moment of hope every time I listen in Alcoholics silence that came my way. Fear Anonymous. streamed out of my mouth. At times Eliza B., Hoboken, New Jersey

May 1997

district meetings, area assembly mean something to me at last and I – – ——- meetings, workshops, and speaker regularly meditate on them. Trying to receive the benefits of the prayer by meetings with me. I Never Had Through sponsorship, I receive memorizing the words didn’t work sobriety, serenity, humility, and peace for me. Taking action and doing what of mind. But the success or failure the words say did work. A friend of

A tone of my first AA meetings, minutes in the back room of his store of newcomers is not up to me -that’s mine’s coffee cup says about the same I can remember looking out to talk. As he was six foot plus, two determined by them and their higher thing: “There’s No Love Like the across the tables and listening hundred and fifty pounds, and a re- power. Love of One Drunk for Another.” to a long-time member explain how tired World War I1 army sergeant I The words of the St. Francis prayer G . S., Berriett Springs, Mich. to get sober and stay sober. The al- never accepted his offer. coholic fog I was in made the event Soon he began to ask me to come seem almost dreamlike, but it was with him to AA events. There were real. The man’s plain, honest, down- annual dinner meetings, area asto-earth, and often blunt talk reached semblies, out-of-town meetings, and me and guided me into the Fellow- prison meetings. His program was a ship. In my desperation to find a way program of action. to stop drinking, I immediately recog- Frequently he offended people by nized that this person had an answer. volunteering them for service or tak- The answer was the AA program. ing their inventories. More than once I think the topic we were discussing he stepped on my pride and often told ‘ I was sponsorship. When the meeting me to do things I didn’t think I was was over, I went straight up to the ready to do. Sometimes he irritated man and asked him to sponsor me. me and I began to think he was intolcouple of weeks ago, I was so I suggested that I’d have J.R. talk

A He told me he couldn’t do that be- erable to be around. I began to call cause he already had too many people him SOB and “the fat man.” So please answering the phones at our to him. J.R. was much younger than to sponsor. Apparently I wasn’t the explain to me why I’m crying as I intergroup office when a I and I thought the boy would be more first person to recognize this guy had write this article. He was the best young voice asked me, “How old do comfortable with him, since lie kept an answer. sponsor I never had! you have to be to come to AA?” asking how old you had to be. That didn’t stop me from following Today I’ve discovered that my need said that age didn’t matter, that any- J.R. talked to him and after a few him around. I made it a point to sit to sponsor people is as great as the one could come. He asked, ‘!But do minutes the boy asked again, “Why next to him at meetings. I talked to newcomer’s need to have a sponsor. you have to be accompanied by an do you have to be accompanied by him and asked him questions. He A large part of my program is spon- adult?” assured him it wasn’t neces- an adult? I have a booklet that says owned a little neighborhood grocery sorship. And it didn’t get that way sary. He could come with a friend if where the meetings are but it says where I could visit him during the by giving people my number and ask- he wanted, and I asked him how old ‘AN.” J.R. immediately saw the day. I often spent my lunch hour at ing them to call me. I rarely received he was. He said, “Ten.” I thought I problem. “No,” he said, “you’re .this store. a call when I tried that approach. My should get a member in his neighbor- thinking of ‘AA’ as it applies to He told me if I ever wanted to take sobriety is too precious to wait for hood to pick him up and take him to movies, ‘Adult Accompaniment.’ For a drink he’d buy me my first bottle newcomers to make the decision be- a meeting or talk to him, but when I us, AA means Alcoholics Anonyand a banana to step on so I could tween picking up the drink or picking asked him where he lived he didn’t mous and nothing else.” say I had a slip. The only provision up the phone. I get their numbers and want to tell me. “Thank goodness,” the boy said. was that I first had to give him ten I call them. I invite them to come to At this point I was close to tears, Kay M . , Toronto, Ont.

May 1997

wasn’t getting married: I could switch thing. As she hugged me, she said, home groups whenever I liked. Still, I “Don’t be mad at me.” dragged my feet. Mad at her? She’d just given me a I’d been sober for nearly six months tremendous gift. In that one night, I when I started working with a new came a great distance toward feeling a sponsor. She had offered me support part of the Fellowship. Until then, I’d and smiles, several times telling me thought of myself as a visitor at meet- -that she appreciated hearing what I ings. I questioned whether 1 deserved had to say. It was nice sobriety and its early to think that she knew rewards. Hearing the something about me. A couple of weeks It wasn’t applause of so many strangers changed me. At Home later, she spoke at her home group, one of the “me” and It wasn’t “me” and “you” anymore. It was “we” and “us.” in a largest speaker meetings in our area. I’d just passed the six-month “you ” I’ve joined my sponsor in making

Home Group mark. At our meetings, ninety days is the only milestone officially recanymore. that meeting my home group, and most of those hundred ognized before’the first drunks are no longer year. But six months It was “we” strangers. We recently was special to me. I celebrated our group’s well remembered be- and “us. ” 55th anniversary. 1

F or months after I got sober, I re- In the second place, business meet- ing sober only six days, was thrilled to be a sisted picking a home group from ings were too much for me in my new- t still convinced I’d die if part of the preparaamong the many meetings I at- ly sober, no-pink-cloud-in-sight state. I didn’t drink. I’d come tions. With my higher tended. I was making a real effort to I was raw and troubled enough with- I a long way. power at my side, I attend our business meetings – com- I follow all suggestions, and this delin- out finding myself in the middle of a My sponsor was the first speaker. It quency weighed on me. But I was commotion over whether to have a was anniversary night, and the place motion and all – and go out on scared to make a commitment. smoking break. How could I not at- was full. Before telling her story, she be- speaking commitments to other I had excuses. In the first place, I tend the business meetings of my own i gan by talking about a sponsee of hers. groups. didn’t have a car or, later, a place to home group? She was talking about me. She called Being a member of a home group is live, so I didn’t know whether I could My most important excuse for not me up and me a six-month coin, helping me learn how to have sober remake it to a particular meeting consis- having a home group was that I wasn’t something most people had never seen. lationships. When I first started comtently – never mind the fact that, yet sure where 1fit in. I was changing I st& in front of more than a hundred ing around, I stuck with the women so thanks to the efforts of several women quickly, and I didn’t seem to feel com- sober drunks to take the medallion closely that I wouldn’t even speak to in the Fellowship, I arrived at the same fortable anywhere for long. Old-timers from her hand. They all clapped. I men at meetings. Most of them remeetings week after week without fail. pointed out that getting a home group 1 didn’t dare look up, let alone say any- minded me too much of people who’d

hurt me before I got sober. Now, a few My drinking career was all about of the men in my home group are grad- running away. I could pack up and vanually beginning to win my trust. ish in a flash. Now, I can make com- One of those men is the chairperson mitments and become a part of of our meeting. We disagree on every- something. I can let myself belong. thing possible -in the Fellowship and Those actions have my greatest fears out – but we’re developing a loving, and deepest longings wrapped up in supportive friendship nonetheless. I’ve them. But I’m taking the risk to stick only found the courage and willingness around, to just show up and see what to do that by seeing him week after happens. week in the place that I call home. Kelly L.,Kingston, New York

May 1997

Pregnant with my daughter and came when the members of AA The woman in with a one-year-old son, I knew 1 started giving me compliments on had to do something, so with my how I was doing and the smiles I the mirror shaky Catholic faith I decided to returned were genuine because I From Mandan, North Dakota: go to AA for Lent. I kept coming knew I was in fact doing better. 1 back even though I saw my mar- could finally face the woman in the Myfirst glimpse of AA started at riage self-destruct. My husband mirror and smile and be absolutely age twenty-one when the drinking became more abusive; I think he overwhelmed by the gratitude buddy I’d so naively married ended almost would have rather seen me toward God and the members of up in treatment. We both attended dead than sober. Even though I was AA. I’ve discovered from spending a meeting that combined AA and very afraid, with just a year of lots of time with myself that God Al-Anon. I couldn’t admit I was sobriety I left the marriage for a has blessed me with many talents alcoholic but an alcoholic woman welfare check. It was a step up in I’d never have discovered before. at this meeting left a big impres- the world because the longer I was At times I wonder if I resemble that sion on me. She had such confi- sober the more my husband drank confident, serene woman I looked dence and beamed and smiled at and we had started to starve. I up to at my first meeting a long everyone. My soul ached for what didn’t quit the meetings after this time ago. I certainly feel like her she had but 1 couldn’t admit the even though money was tight and and that counts for everything. common bond: alcohol. sitters were expensive. My sobriety Michelle V . At age twenty-two I stumbled was worth every penny. into a clubhouse after a nine-day Thank God the AA program binge. This period of sobriety requires progress not perfection or I didn’t last long because I also dis- would have given up. I used the,Big covered, after being transported to Book as my guide because 1 knew the state hospital, that I was my way had gotten me in the mess manic-depressive, and being alco- I was trying to get out of. The more holic and having this mental ill- faith I acquired the more I turned ness was too much to digest. So I things over to the God of my gave up AA. After my final drunk, understanding. 1wondered if all which had failed to produce a the hell I went through trying to happy evening because I couldn’t stay sober only gave me something get enough alcohol, I started enter- to keep coming back to complain taining the idea of AA again. about. All of a sudden the day

June 1997

Finally I hit rock bottom and real- cried all the way home. For the first ized I was an alcoholic. I looked in the time in a long time I felt there was phone book and called the AA phone hope and that I was going to be all number. I talked to this wonderful lady right. The next morning I got phone who had time to listen to me. She calls from different AA members. talked about herself and where I could They told me how glad they were that go to an AA meet- I’d been at the ing, but I didn’t go meeting. to the meeting that I’ve been going week. ~ ‘ dstopped For the first to meetings ever drinking for thirty since. I have a days at this point. I wonderful sponsor went to the county time in a who guides and library and found loves me. I’m workthe ~i~BOO^. I car- long time ing the AA pro-

nrning it Around ried the book around for half an hour, afraid to / felt there Was sober. gram and learning how to be happy

check it out be- . My life has cause I didn’t want turndd completely . anvone to see me hope and 1 was around. M y m a i

M y name is Tena, I’m an alco- could handle more. I started drinking wiih it. Finallv I riage is better than holic, and I have ninety days beer early in the mornings after I took of sobriety. my daughter to school. I drank all day took it home a’nd started reading it. I going t o be it Las been in ten years. My husband My first drink was at a party when I and night. I started hiding my beer so prayed for God to is my best friend. I was sixteen years old. I drank off and my husband wouldn’t know how much help me and direct a / / right. He has been there on through the years but I didn’t get I was drinking. I was paranoid about me. for me through drunk. At the age of twentytwo, I was what the people at the liquor store I called this AA good and’ bad, and married for the second time. I started thought about me. I was in a blackout lady again and told has been very supdrinking more at home. Beer was my most of the time. her I was going to a meeting that night. portive of my sobriety. My precious drink of choice, and I started drinking I had no respect for myself or my I tried to figure out a way not to go but daughter is such a blessing to me. I am beer all weekend, every weekend. I family. My marriage was going down- God kept telling me to go on. When I enjoying her more now than I ever progressed to drinking during the hill. I was calling in sick a lot at work arrived at the meeting I first have. week. because I was too hungover to work. I thought someone had died – I The wonderful, caring, loving peo- I tried to stop drinking on my own wondered what was wrong with me. I thought it was a funeral because of all e AA are true friends. I never ~ l in more than once. When pressures came had all this hate, resentment, and the cars there! I went inside, shaking before had friends I could call any day around I’d drink again. At one point I anger inside of me. I didn’t sleep at and scared to death. These members of or night when I needed someone tried to limit my beers to two a day. Af- night because I was full of fear. I was AA came up to me and welcomed me to talk to. ter 1 did this for a while I thought I spiritually dead. with open arms. I left that meeting and Tena W., Benton, Arkansas

– —. July 1997

male, straight or gay; it doesn’t matter porary contact program -people who how I make my living now or how I write to inmates, like a pen pal -and made it in the past. An AA meeting in a literature committee. Because most prison is just what meetings have been institutions only have one AA meetsince Bill and Dr. Bob got together: ing a week, the written word becomes one drunk talking to another. more important to inmates, so we’ve When I first started to go to the set up a program in the Southern Wis- Racine County Jail, I’d show up there consin Area to help meet the demand every Thursday night. Sometimes no for literature to our facilities called the one wanted to talk to me, and some- Matching Literature Fund (M.L.F). times only one or two women would After evaluating the need for literacome to the meeting. It probably took ture, we looked at the income of the three to four years before the staff fi- inmate. In Wisconsin, many inmates nally accepted that I was okay. Because only receive a token wage of nineteen it does takes years to establish trust, we cents per hour for an eight-hour day. don’t suggest rotation for outside spon- Even if they go to school while incarsors in our area. I’ve been the outside cerated they only make twenty-eight sponsor of the Womens Group at the cents per hour; the average pay per Racine County Jail for almost ten month is around forty dollars. Out of years. this forty dollars the inmate must pur- Often people don’t want to get in- chase cigarettes and personal items, volved in corrections work because of cosmetics, snacks, etc. So there isn’t a fear. It may be the fear of getting hurt lot of money for AA literature. that stops people, or the fear that they In our area we decided to make eiwon’t relate to the inmates. It may be a ther the group or the outside sponsor lack of understanding that once the al- raise half the money for their literature cohol is out of the person (and that needs. The other half comes out of the does usually happen when you’re in- M.L.F. The area’s part of the fund is carcerated), they are no different from $400 per year. This is supplemented by

‘W hat’s a lady like you do- asked. Their answer: “You’re an alco- you or me. Alcoholic inmates talk the donations from individuals, groups, ing in a place like this!” holic, aren’t you?” I went that Sunday same language, have the same feelings, and districts. We also have a friend I’ve been asked that and have been going to corrections fa- and have the same way of thinking named Millie who goes out around question many times since two burly cilities meetings ever since. that we on the outside have. The only Christmas time “shaking her can” for fellows from AA showed up on my The fact that I’m an alcoholic is difference between them and me is donations. doorstep one morning many years ago. what qualifies me for correctional they got caught. Recently, this subject came’ to have They wanted me to go to Waupun meetings, not that I’ve spent time in a We’ve found that people who aren’t a very personal meaning for me. I have with them. That’s our state maximum county jail or prison, and not that I’m yet ready to go into the institutions can two sons who are both alcoholic and security prison for men. “What would German, Irish, Black, White, or Span- serve the corrections committee in a chemically dependent; my oldest son I have in common with those men!” I ish. It doesn’t matter if I’m male or fe- number of other ways. We have a tem- is in San Diego living on the streets.

He’ll be thirty years old next year and of twenty-six he read his first book. By has been drunk since he was nine, with the time he left there, he had read six weeks being the longest period of eighteen books, some of them having sobriety in all those years. Both of my to do with AA. He’s now serving his sons have been in trouble and have time, going to school, and going to AA done county jail time. My youngest in a facility that I visited many times. son, after being sober for over three I hope that the next time someone years, decided that he could drink asks you to share your experience, again. A year ago last December, two strength, hope, and money with somedays before Christmas, he was arrested one who is incarcerated, you will reand spent the next four months wait- member that each of those people is ing for sentencing. Out of boredom, he someone’s child. enrolled in the G.E.D. class. At the age Karen N., Racine, Wisconsin

July 1997

life, opening myself completely to an- any length to stay sober -that’s what other, the pain was always there. The it was all about for me. part of me that always said, “I can han- I was able to share these memories dle it myself’ had to be removed. Pride with our tearful fellow sufferer, and as and fear and whatever it is that hold us he again scurried out as soon as the back from sharing ourselves with an- meeting closed, I sent a prayer with other had to be removed. Daring to him. trust, daring to share, daring to go to Dorothy S . , Bradenton, Florida .

I n a recent closed discussion meet- meetings, not drinking, and doing my ing, the chairperson asked for a sug- best to work the Steps, the pain was gestion for a topic. A man with still there. Night after night I walked tears streaming down his face raised his into meetings hurting terribly, while hand and said, “I can’t stop drinking.” pasting a smile on my face and pre- This fellow sufferer has attended our tending everything was just fine. group for several years. He attends When the pain got intense enough, meetings regularly but remains aloof the message finally got through to me and apart from the other members. He that this wasn’t getting me anywhere. I comes in at the last minute; if called began to share – before, during, and on during the meeting he invariably after the meetings – and the miracle passes and scoots out as soon as the of the Fellowship began to happen for meeting is closed. He never has a thing me. I learned very quickly that no one to say until once more he has to tell us had a magic answer for me, but the he’s ~ickedup a drink again. simple act of sharing a problem with This man brought back memories of another alcoholic reduced it by half. my own early days of sobriety when Until I became willing to share the even though I was going to lots of good and the not-so-good parts of my

August 1997

and Bob after that, not knowing what were immediately relieved, and 1 felt to say. This was at the height of my al- great comfort in the fact that I had coholism and I was incapable of un- support right next door to me. Patti’s derstanding or dealing with my glow no longer seemed fake to me, but emotions. Not too instead was somelong after that I ad- thing that I wanted. mitted myself to an I no longer Patti and I spent inpatient rehab. I some time talking and couldn’t fight any- decided to attend AA more, and I didn’t felt the need meetings together, know where else to but she told me that turn for help. I was released to avoid Bob Bob’s condition was worsening. I no twenty-nine days lat- longer felt the need to er feeling hopeful but instead avoid Bob but instead Right Next Door .and recharged, but also afraid and alone. had a strong had a strong compulsion to see him and Just two days after I talk to him. returned home, Patti Bob was a man of knocked on my door compulsion strong faith and con-

T his month marks my fifth smallest things, such as working in the to drop off some victions, and almonth of sobriety. So many yard or cleaning the garage. No matter Christmas cookies though he’d been wonderful things have hap- how busy they were, they’d always drop she’d made for me. I to see him struggling with a fatal pened to me since I chose the path of what they were doing to visit with a invited her in. I felt disease for so many sobriety, far too many to be written off as coincidental. But something ocfriend stopping over or a neighbor walking by. I remember thinking to myself the need to be honest with Patti about and talk years, his love for life and people was powcurred recently which opened my mind that the glow on Patti’s face had to be my struggle with al- erful. Not once durto the knowledge that AA is truly a fake or forced. Nobody was that happy. cohol and where I’d to him. ing the time I shared path of spirituality, and that God will Certainly not me. been for the past four with him in the uphelp me if I allow him to guide me. I Some time passed and I noticed that weeks, so I told her comine weeks would c . need only to keep my eyes open and be Bob was getting thin and appeared about the rehab. I still remember the Bob complain about his cancer or aware of his gifts to me. tired and weak. So I asked Patti one look of joy in her face. Her first words show regret. Instead he could only ex- For the past six years, I’ve lived next day if Bob was feeling okay. That’s were “Thank the Lord.” She began to press his gratitude for the years he’d door to a retired couple. 1didn’t partic- when she told me that he’d been in re- tell me that she just celebrated her fifth been given, and for every new day he ularly care to know them (as a result of mission from cancer discovered over year of sobriety as an AA member, and was alive. Bob and I had several conmy isolation when I was drinking) but I fifteen years ago, and that the disease that she and Bob had been praying for versations about life, God and love did notice how happy and content Bob was slowly reappearing. This was the me for some time. I was so taken aback during those last few weeks. I so adand Patti always were. They seemed to first time I have ever seen Patti cry or by this news that I could hardly sleep mired his strength and serenity. In be able to find satisfaction and joy in the be unhappy. I tried to avoid both Patti that night. My feelings of loneliness talking with Bob, I had the strongest

feeling that I was next to someone who placed in my life when I would most was next to God, because Bob seemed need them. When I celebrate my sixth so at peace with his life and dying. He month of sobriety, I will celebrate life. believed that he was going somewhere Despair has become hope, shame has beautiful; in fact he told Patti that he become esteem, and regret has become didn’t want his burial service to be held gratitude for this new beginning that for at least three days after his death God has given me. because he would be busy meeting God When the subject of spirituality or a and visiting with old friends and fami- Higher Power comes up in a meeting, I ly. tell the story of Bob and Patti, and I Bob passed away early one morning again have the wonderful feeling of beand I cried many tears. The feeling was ing next to God. so powerful to me that both Bob and Anonym, Patti were gifts from God to me, and BaIdwinsviUe, New Yo&

August 1997

Old-Timers holics I had to be the best, and I was and doubts, yet I felt hope. Because I good and graduated with honors. I didn’t have any answers, I took the Felhadn’t crossed the line at that time. lowship on blind faith. I didn’t ask why Corner Meanwhile, one of my children got in’ but asked a million h. AA told me trouble with the law, my son was there are no musts but a hell of a lot of wounded in Viet Nam, and my oldest you betm. I got sober, involved, went married and moved out of state. I was out speaking into prisons, cellars, alone a lot at night. I was working hard churches -anywhere I was asked. I’ve during the day, but my nights were sponsored many, young and old. There filled with pain and guilt. I was certain is no generation gap in AA -we all that God was punishing me through hurt one way or another, at sixteen or my kids. I just hadn’t been a perfect sixty. mother after all. Because I made the choice of doing I almost died in the operating room it the AA way, all the Promises in the as a result of alcohol, then had two Big Book have come to me. I’m filled . more years of trying to control my with gratitude to be able to look up and A Daily Reprieve drinking. It was pure hell. I prayed for help, and went to my say, “Good morning, God,” and turn the day over for his direction. first meeting alone. I had many fears Fhence K. , Venice, Flonda

A s I walk out into the early dawn to pick up my newspaper, I raise my eyes to the beautiful Florida sky and say, “Good morning, God.” wise: I needed help because I couldn’t do it alone. I was a wife, a daughter, a nurse, and a mother of three, and I had no idea who I really was. My life was like a million other It wasn’t always that way. For many women of my era: the house in the subyears I woke up and said, “Good God, urbs, the station wagon detail, and the .it’s morning!” I was filled with all the kids. My husband was a railroad man fears alcoholics know. and worked hard, but he really never My name is Flo and I’m a grateful al- knew or shared my deeper feelings coholic. I’m entering my twentieth about things. The progression of my alyear in the Fellowship. I can still re- coholism was slow: first, a drink to remember how 1felt when I walked into lax, then a drink to face social my first meeting up north. situations, a drink to cope, a drink to I’d been told by my doctor, minister, stuff my feelings, and on and on. psychiatrist, and husband that I wasn’t I went back to school when I was an alcoholic – I just shouldn’t drink forty-one-years old to become a nurse, so much. But my gut told me other- a lifelong dream. Like most other alco-

September 1997 –

ence, strength, and hope. When I’m rigors of academia. She had no idea feeling anxious because I don’t know what was at stake. Maybe, I thought, 1 the answer to a sponsee’s problem or should get a sponsor with a Ph.D.! because a sponsorship relationship isn’t I spent two days justifying myself to working out, I remember those three myself before a radical and heretofore simple things and it gives me focus and unfamiliar concept occurred to me: she clarity. My sponsor taught me that we might have been right. I was stunned don’t have to alter with the implications who we are or recreate The program of of this thought and dethe program just to cided to stay with it a please someone else: while before rejecting

S h e s With we share what has worked for us. I had to learn that Alcoholics it outright. I began to ponder how I might not be Anonymous is utilizing rhe AA pro- Another through painful experience, however. I remember the first time I gram and how I might indeed be turning my the training , life and will over to wanted to fire my sponsor. I was in my the god of academia,

I sit at a window that overlooks a quiet lake surrounded by evergreens; a blanket of snow sparkles in the moon’s full light. I am at a small retreat house in the midwest, a favorite place no problem accepting its implications; I was full of hatred, rage, and self-destruction. I had (and still have) much to learn and one of the major aspects of my rethird year of sobriety and studying for my Ph.D. comprehensive exams, and abject with ground for

loving. .. and I realized the truth I hadn’t wanted to see: my program was in bad shape and I’d justified terror. Having called its shakiness by the to reflect and refind the pieces of my covery has been the relationship I’ve her just about nightly gravity of what lay besoul that get lost in the clutter and ex- had with my sponsor. My first sponsor with my whining and fore me. citement of everyday life. helped me through my first year (and self-pity, I was on the phone yet again I began to think about that dreaded This month marks my tenth AA my first go at the Steps), then moved and my sponsor surprised me. “You word “responsibility.” I was responsible birthday and I know that ten years ago away. The woman I asked to be my sec- know, I’ve told you all I know to tell for working the Steps, not my sponsor; the beauty of this place would have ond sponsor has continued with me for you -the things that have worked for I was responsible for thanking God for been eclipsed by the ugliness in my nine years. Along with careful atten- me when I’ve been riddled with anxi- my intellect, not whining that it wasn’t heart. I came to AA terrified and con- tion to continuing with the Steps (over ety. If they don’t work for you, perhaps good enough. It was my job to ask God flsed.I hadn’t had a drink for four years and over!), she has taught me a great you need to look elsewhere. 1 don’t that I be guided on whatever path my so how could I be an alcoholic? But deal. Has this happened because she is think I can help you with it anymore.” Higher Power had in mind for me. why was I so miserable? a fountain of perfection and wisdom? She also intimated that perhaps I had When my Al-Anon husband and I What I didn’t know was that putting Because she has the perfect answer to made academia my higher power. celebrated our twenty-third wedding the cork in the bottle without having my problems? No. My sponsor has I was furious. Here I was in my hour anniversary this year, my sponsor joked a program was a great formula for in- stuck to a formula that I’ve adopted in of distress and my sponsor was judging that we should give her a party! Before sanity. When I got to Step Two, I had my own sponsoring: share your experi- me. She simply didn’t understand the coming to AA, I left my husband and

son in a rage and lived alone for almost This is the grace of the program, not a year. Early in sobriety I called my that it is another quick fix but that our sponsor in tears over something my Higher Power teaches us -through a husband had done. She heard me out combination of our hard work and the and said, “Yep. That was a stupid thing love of people in AA -to become the for him to do -even dishonest.” Hor- loved people we have always been but rified, I asked, “Doesthis mean that we couldn’t see while we were isolated in shouldn’t be together after all?” “No,” our self-centered insanity. she said, “it means your husband is a The program of Alcoholics Anonyhuman being.” This was the beginning mous is the training ground for loving, of some fresh air blowing through my of this I am convinced. My sponsor has life. I was used to presenting my feel- shared with me gentleness, humor, and ings to therapists, recounting events. friendship, but she has also taught me But to be with a loving and realistic something deeply important about person in the midst of my confusion hard love, the durable love that knits was new to me. I was beginning to us and hold us together in the Fellowlearn about being a member of the hu- ship of AA. man race. AS., Chugo, lUinois

September 1997

Beginners So I got up the next morning and gan to ask me really stupid questions had no problem with the urge to like: How much do you drink?How ofsmoke all day long. As I was sitting ten do you drink? and other weird Meeting down to dinner, I was patting myself on things like that. Needless to say, I gave the back and saying how easy this was. them pat answers: “Oh, I have a cou- This time it was going to work! That ple of beers a couple of times a week.” day happened to be my forty-third They advised me that I’didn’t need to birthdav, and as a birthday present, my be committed, but I could certainly use sister and her family some counseling. had bought me a carton of cigarettes. “If we took There it was again -God kept messing . There it was again – it up. God interfering in my ‘couple’ out Then, as I had also plans. Again, I threw done numerous times my hands in the air in the past, 1 went o f the Mv Mind and said, “I tried, but God messed it up!” into an almost immobilizing depres- Later that evening, vocabulary, sion. A goad portion

and I ‘

I caught myself pac- of that day is a blur. ing the floor. I sat Sometime late in the down and discussed an alcoholic afternoon, I ended ‘ that with my mind. up at the Labor Tem- We decided that I was in my sister’s house, living in I would pick a problem habit and as was nuts. That meant couldn ‘t ple in Seattle, where my cousin Jim was the basement, next to the pool soon as I started to work on it, every- I needed to commit an alcoholism coun- .table,unemployed and for all practical purposes, unemployable. At the thing that happened would challenge my success. After a very short time, I myself to some men- answer a selor. With him I was tal institution for very vague and evafew interviews I did manage to get, I would throw up my hands, yell obscen- drug or electric shock sive. At some point, was vague and evasive. My creative ge- ities at God, and swear 1 had tried but therapy. That was just question. ” he asked me, “Do nius -my mind – advised me there that God had sabotaged me. the thing: put -me you have a problem was something terribly wrong with my Nevertheless, my mind told me, away for a couple of years and then I’ll with alcohol?”f i i s was one of my falife. “This time it will work.” So my mind he all right. Once my mind and I made vorite people in the whole world and I My mind told me, “If you can take and I had this little conversation about that decision, I had a certain sense of wanted to be truthful with him, so.I one problem area and get control of my worst problem. We decided it was peace and slept quite well that night. said, “Not that 1 know of.” . that, then another, and another, you smoking. So my mind and I agreed that The next morning I went to a men- Then he asked me how often I will soon have your life back under starting first thing in the morning, we’d tal health clinic in Bellevue, Washing- drank. I told him, “I have a couple of control and everything will be all quit smoking. Then, once we got con- + ton, and I told them I was nuts and beers a couple of times a week.” He right.” I’d tried this solution many trol over that (in a day or two), we’d go needed to be incarcerated. They gave said, “If we took ‘couple’ out of the votimes before, but it had never worked. to work on something else. me one of those sideways looks and be- cabulary, an alcoholic couldn’t answer

! a question! Now, tell me – have you . his hands. . Wow, I wonder what that wouldn’t take me. Then I ended up confess that by then it had been almost ever wondered about whether or not guy is on. He looks like he came from a here. I like what you guys say, and I re- four years. you had a problem with booze!” That different planet.” B I J ~ despite my in- ally relate to a lot of it, but I’m a nut, Tom said, “Why do you suppose you was in 1976 and the first time I had ability to listen or to concentrate, that not an alcoholic!” are drinking Listerine? It sure as hell wondered was 1954, so I said, “Once or first meeting was a positive experience. And he said to me, “Sonny, why isn’t because of your overpowering twice.” I liked it. In fact, I felt so great that I don’t you make ninety meetings in fondness for oil of eucalyptus!” He said. “People who don’t have a went to a meeting at the old Hilltop ninety days, don’t drink in between, I had to do a little inventory on Lisproblem k i t h booze club the next night. it and then we’ll see what we can do terine. I found I’d kept a bottle in my never wonder about was an AA birthday about your insanity.” That was a lot desk at school; I’d kept a bottle under whether or not they ‘DOYOU SUP- meeting. I was welcomed, enjoyed the better deal than they’d offered me at the seat of the car; I’d hidden a bottle have a problem with the mental health clinic so I agreed. behind the refrigerator at home. I’d booze.” That made so speakers and the cake A week or so after I started going to been going through three to five botmuch sense to me that Pose normal and coffee, and told to meetings, a small security company tles a week. Then I got an “attitude”: I I agreed to go to an keep coming back. In gave me a job I could handle. I went decided, “What kind of trouble can I AA meeting with him. drinkers drink fact, after the meeting, people actually came down to the Seattle waterfront and from midnight to eight A.M., I’d sit in get into for having Listerine on mybreath?” He picked me up and invited me for a guard shack. Three or four times each Tom said those magic words: “Do after dinner and took Listerine more coffee. I loved it. night, I would have to get up, unlock you suppose normal drinkers drink Lisme to a Friday night After about a week a gate, let in a truck, write down its terine on a regular basis!” I had to admeeting at a church in of basking in this ac- mit it did not sound very normal. He Redmond, Washing- On a regu1a ceptance, I decided it number, then close and lock the gate. At that stage of my life, that was about then lovingly advised me that Listerton. They had a be- was time to come the limit of my capabilities. Anyway, a ine hadn’t been a drink of choice for ginners meeting on basis ?’ clean. Since my broth- week or so after I got this job, I was me -it had been a drink of necessity. the stage and a gener- er-in-law and my getting ready to go to work, shaving, It was about 56 proof and I was using al discussion meeting cousin were both “in brushing my teeth, and swallowing the it to keep up my blood alcohol level. in the auditorium. J& told me, “You the business,” everyone knew who I Listerine -when, in the mirror, I saw My last objection was; “If I’m an alhad better go up on the stage.” Well, I was and I felt kind of important. Every- me do that. I had to think about it. By coholic, how come it has been so easy liked that idea since I’d been an ama- one was treating me so nice that I this time, AA had already taught me for me to stop drinking!” teur performer for a number of years. wanted to be honest and open with that thinking for myself was not a good And he told me, “Because God But after I got up there they closed the them. So after a meeting, I went to one idea, so the next day, 1 told my spon- knows what a sick, weak puppy you curtains. I was a little bit miffed, but I of the “old-timers” (someone with over sor. are. He has given you this grace periwanted to please Jim so I stayed for the a year) and said, “1 really like what’s go- Tom said, “How long you been od so you can embrace the program of meeting. ing on here and how I feel coming drinking that stuff!” Alcoholics Anonymous without any Most of the people there were from here, but 1have a problem.” I said, “What do you mean, ‘drink- more objections, excuses, or holdouts. treatment centers and many of them “Yeah, what’s that!” ing’ – that stuff?” So -what are you going to do?” were in pretty bad shape. It proved a “Well, you see, I’m not an alcoholic I He said, “That’s what you did, isn’t I folded! The first half of the first golden opportunity for me to take their -I’m just nuts.” it!” Step made the journey from mind to inventories. “Boy, if I ever get that bad “What do you mean?” I said, “Yeah, I guess so.” heart. . .. Look at that one, he has to sit on “I tried to commit myself, but they “So, how long has it been!” I had to Knoba D.

October 1997

AA a n d Mlnorltlas

W hen I attended my first AA was the only black person in the meetmeeting this year, I was dis- ing – and this was a huge gathering. 1 traught, unhappy with my- immediately felt out of lace and deself, and hopeless. I knew I needed help sired t o flee, but I made it through the with my drinking. k i n g a black lady, I entire meeting. naturally went to a meeting in an area Well, a few tnonths have passed, I’m where I knew black people would be. still sober, and you cannot imagine the The meeting was uplifting and upon warmth, love, and complete under- . leaving I felt that life was perhaps standing I’ve received from my caudoable. casian alcoholic family. As a matter of Then a few days later, a lady told me fact, my sponsor happens to be white. 1 about “a fantastic meeting” on Satur- like it when it is said, “Our primary day mornings, so off I went. I was still purpose is to stay sober and help other feeling distraught, unhappy, and a lit- alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” Isn’t tle hopeless. 1walked in, sat down, and God good? the very first thing 1 noticed was that I Lori,Indianapolis, lndiana

November 1997

Old-Timers our home group. One of our ladies took the New York office. We invited them us aside and said, “Don’t bring him to send speakers to our meeting on a Corner around here!” certain date and they did. When we Talk about taken aback! She sweetly had listened to their suggestions about explained that some of our member- how the problem could best be hanship had servants; she said, “And you dled, we prepared to vote our group know how people talk!” conscience. We had never had a woman as a Lo and behold, we looked up and . chair of our group. One of the male there was a whole bunch of AAs who members used to stand up and say, were not members of our group, who “When a man comes through that were signing up new people so they door, he needs to see a m standing up could vote as part of the group conthere!” I can’t recall who was the first science. Upon further reflection, we

Practice These woman chairperson, but it wasn’t me. A certain faction was attempting to keep women from becoming members agreed that to vote as part of a group conscience, it was necessary to be a member of the group and not just some-

Principles of their group because they said, and I quote, “They will cause trouble among the men.” one who was rounded up at the last minute to carry the day for their way. There is one other example I’d like .

When the first two unmarried mem- to give about the group conscience and

w enever I see people fleeing Some people in our group thought from the opportunity to hear that only college graduates should be a discussion about the Tradi- be members of AA.,(They didn’t say tions, it gives me pause for thought. I you had to bring in your diploma, but I recall some things I witnessed in AA think that would have been next!) bers planned to live together, one of the women members proclaimed, “Membership in AA is by attraction rather than promotion, and that isn’t very attractive, is it?”I think she wanted to throw them out of the group of how helpful it can be in time of trouble. We recently had a secretary in our group who no longer wanted to fill his position. He said if we didn’t replace him he would close the group. That was so patently outrageous that I just before the Twelve Traditions were ac- We had groups in areas where there cepted at our first International Con- were large numbers of black people. there and then. Thank God for the ignored him! vention in July 1950. I was part of the They were listed in our group’s list as Traditions! He had invited me to speak at our discussion our group had about the Tra- “interracial groups.” That meant any- Concerning group conscience: our meeting and I had agreed to do it. I had ditions, which had been suggested but one was welcome to go there, but most group met in a hospital where the staff invited another woman to speak with not yet accepted by the membership as ,people attending would be black. I was representing the hospital was adamant- me. Then my phone rang and it was a whole. We were encouraged to talk taken aback but gratified the first time ly against accepting any money from us, the secretary. He told me I needn’t about them and send back any sugges- I spoke at an interracial group when even when we had explained about how bother to come to speak as he had cantions or changes we wished to recom- one of the members called out to me, we needed to be self-supporting. (It may celed the meeting. I was stunned and mend. This was early in April 1950. “Amen, Sister, Amen!” We took a new have had somethii to do with their tax blurted out, “You can’t do that!” He as- Let me share with you some of the member who was black to an interra- base.) Before it had been resolved, the sured me that he could and would. ideas that came out of our group from cial group so he would know there was whole group was in an uproar. I told him Jen and I would be there well-meaning members. such a group. We next brought him to We were able to agree to discuss the to speak at 7:30 and if anyone was entire matter with representatives from there, we would speak to them. If no

one was there, we would speak to each him it was not unheard of in the old other. 1 told him if no one was willing days for a treasurer to take the funds to be secretary, I would act as one until and go off on a drunk. I said the group they could find someone else. conscience should be consulted about He warned me against getting in- what to do. I am happy to tell you that volved; he said the money from the we did vote the group conscience and treasury could not be accounted for and the group is “hanging in.” I might be blamed for taking it. I told Marie K.,hguw Hills, Califwnia

November 1997 f’* r

Search and I am a woman alcoholic from India. I am also a Brahmin, which is supposed to be the highest caste and very orthodox among Hindus. Seven years ago, I voluntarily retired from a national research institute. I was a successful scientist whose research padaughters were married off without much stress on education). None of my brothers or my sister is an alcoholic. There was no drinking at all in the family history. My father was an educated man who studied the Upanishads and the Vedas and also was a pers were published in American and Sanskrit pandit, or learned man. He British scientific journals, a matter of was a highly spiritual man who deeply great pride to Indian scientists. But believed in the universal power and none of these “great things” in life the creative intelligence, faith which stopped me from becoming an acute he inculcated in us children. I loved to alcoholic, sick of myself and my drink- listen to him talking about these subing, and desperate to stop when I jects when I was a little girl. I never came to AA. Today I know if I hadn’t visited temples and shunned traditionstopped when I did I would have died al Hindu ways of worship but I beor been locked up in an asylum. This lieved in the universal power. The is the truth. I am now nearly fifteen higher power is still my favorite topic years sober. I feel proud to be in the in AA. AA Fellowship, considering the In school and college, I excelled in strong social stigma against women al- my studies, securing a first rank and a coholics that still exists and which I B.S. degree. In college, I fell in love ‘ believe keeps so many of my sisters with Ajit, and we got married in 1962 in hiding. against overwhelming objections from I look back and realize that even at Ajit’s family. Ajit is a Jain and came age four I was maladjusted to life in from a rich family while I belonged to general. I was very skeptical and judg- a middle-class family – which his mental of everyone and everything. I parents despised. We eloped to get never made real friends at school, married which was a taboo and were college, or in the workplace. I was a lon- treated as outcasts (though not by my er and an introvert, serious and reserved. parents). We felt this hurt deeply but Even if I liked someone and tried to our love for each other kept us tomake friends, the ever-present barrier gether even when we were physically inside of me prevented anyone from get- and emotionally worn-out. Later on, ting close to me. I always felt that the we drank together, suffered’together, real me was inferior and inadequate. came to AA together, individually My parents were nice people, simple worked the AA program together, and straightforward in their nature. and are still together, sober. Ajit will They educated us six children (though be fifty-eight soon and I am fifty-six,

and in May we celebrated our thirty- inta,a deep depression. My husband and my skin turned blue-gray, and I had and I went in the same long dress I’d fifth wedding anniversary. I returned to India. bruises all over my body. Suddenly I been wearing for a week. That was my Until I got married I didn’t know The baby we had lost was a daugh- , looked like an old hag instead of a thir- first AA meeting. It was also the first what liquor looked like. It was consid- ter. Eventually my doctor performed a ty-seven-year-old woman. AA meeting to be held in this city. I ered evil and forbidden in my family. 1 tubectomy on me for health reasons, so My drinking got so heavy that I ex- was drunk when I attended this meetremember how I made a scene when it meant we were not going to have perienced shakes. I never took a mom- ing and was shocked to hear the Serenon our wedding day Ajit drank some any more children, not the daughter ing drink since I didn’t have the guts ity Prayer which ten years before I had beer his friends had brought. I said I whom we so much wanted, and this to drink during my lab hours. I started written down in the front page of one didn’t know he drank and I wanted to threw me into a deeper abyss of de- keeping signed checks to have on of my record books. leave him then and there. pression. Perhaps God decided this way hand after I’d had a couple of drinks However, I didn’t go back to these From my first drink, I never did any because I was soon to become a chron- because one time my bank refused to weekly AA meetings until February social drinking. I was always drinking to ic alcoholic and hence an unfit mother, cash my check owing to my messy sig- 1982 because now I was drinking nonget high. I never ever had any taste for especially for a daughter. nature. I lied to the bank that I suf- stop. 1was totally messed up, physicalalcohol, nor could I ever distinguish be- Back in India I rejoined my alma fered from arthritis and then changed ly, mentally, and spiritually. I looked, tween high or low brands -all I want- rnater research institute and worked for my signature to simply printing my felt, and acted like a ghost. John ed was the effect. I had my first drink – a doctoral degree which I completed in name. With all my shakes and bad Barleycorn had all of me and I was it was gin -in 1964.1 hated it and be- 1972. I was drinking on a regular basis, health due to drinking, I was never facing “the hideous Four Horsemen haved crazily, screaming my head off. I first on weekends, then twice a week, hospitalized, nor did I lose my home, Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, and did not like the taste or the feeling af- then every evening, and finally, by family, or my job. I could have easily Despair.” Here 1 was, a Brahmin alcoterward and didn’t drink again until 1980, any time I could, even when it lost my job because I was stealing pure holic! I wanted to die but didn’t have 1967 when I got a job as a food tech- meant neglecting my duties. I lost con- alcohol from my lab which I was dis- the courage to try suicide. I was desnologist in a fictory situated in a remote trol at this time and friends told me I tilling for my research project. I did perate for a solution. village in Nepal. Here I stated drinking smelled of alcohol the morning after. this because women do not buy booze Now came the final blow and a cerlocal wine in the evenings with Ajit. It (It is strange that during the period from liquor shops and my husband was tain spiritual awakening. On February was a primitive place. The nearest house when I drank most heavily, I got pro- limiting my liquor supply. 27,1982 I woke up at around dawn in was five miles away, and there was no moted twice, excelled in my research By 1981 I hardly could eat any food a cold sweat. I’d had a technicolored power, no telephone, and none of the projects, wrote my best research papers, since my entire digestive system was dream in which Ajit and I were in a modern facilities. What else could I do, participated in scientific conferences, full of crater-sized sores from my party among some colorful tribal folk. eh? I was getting bored with this place gave lectures and guided masters degree mouth to the other end. At this time I Only the men were drinking and I was because the factory wasn’t functioning students. And after I joined AA in took a couple of geographical cures by watching them dance with the rest of in full swing and the appointment of a 1982, I never got a single promotion!) running away to my parents’ home be- the women. Suddenly I saw that Ajit food technologist appeared to be a fa- I was suffering terrible hangovers due , cause I was fed up with my drinking, was very drunk. The men put him on cade for some internal politics. At this to endless drinking. I kept a ready sup- wanted to stop, but didn’t know how. a donkey and drove him over a narrow time our two little sons (aged two and a ply to have when I needed to get up at After a period of two months being ridge on both sides of which were huge half years and ten months) were with night, drink, and go back into oblivion. 1 dry, I returned to my home and was pits of seething quicksand. I ran after my parents. Their being away was diffi- With all this I never had a blackout. I promptly drunk and passed-out within him and we both slid and fell into the cult for me to bear, and the climax came fought with Ajit every day. I never an hour. I had reached my rock-bottom. quicksand. We were sinking and there when I lost our third baby purely for made scenes in public, but I was a Suddenly, on May 2, 1981, my hus- was no way out! I woke up at this want of medical care. This plunged me “scene” myself. I lost a lot of weight, band said we were going someplace, point. I knew the dream was a repre- I

that’s how I learned about praying and lost self, my self-respect and self-esmeditation, and that’s how I found my teem, to live a serene and sober life I significant thread -my Higher Pow- with Ajit and win back his love and re-

I er, my God. From that time on I made slow and steady progress in AA. My concept of my Higher Power today is spect, and to make amends to him and our sons. At my workplace I couldn’t resume active research so I concentratsimilar to what my father taught me ed on helping a mentor in planning when 1 was little. and organizing research, seminars, and My sponsor helped me a great deal conferences. After eight years in AA I in my first four years in AA and I am took voluntary retirement and now I indebted to her. Wherever she is today am staying at home being an ordinary I still am fond of her and love her. housewife. For me this is a satisfying Without her it would have been diffi- and abundant life. We recently bought cult for me to be in AA because I was a house for the first time in our life tothe only Hindu-Brahmin woman in gether and enjoy remodeling our sweet our group, and I was oversensitive, home. We have a beautiful and intelliscared, and withdrawn at first. Over gent four-year-oldgranddaughter who the years I have become stronger and fills our life with delight beyond words. more open in my sharing. In 1992, our 1 have learned to be honest; I ab- AA meetings abruptly stopped so now solutely depend on my Higher Power; we have no meetings at all. But I have and I live one day at a time. 1 can help the Grapevine for a “meeting” and my others and am of some use in this sention of my condition. I never forgot drink.” What in the world is the first husband to share with. world. So I have a purpose in my life. this dream. My sponsor, an American drink when incessant gulping down In 1988, I came to the United States On a daily basis AA teaches me the woman, told me to hang on to this was all I did?And, although miserable and attended AA meetings in Com- importance of engaging in prayer and dream. and desperate, I did not believe I had mack, New York, which I made my meditation and quiet time to be in After this I attended AA meetings to totally abstain from alcohol. I home group. I celebrated my sixth AA touch with my Higher Power, taking regularly, had a few deliberate slips un- thought A A taught people “proper anniversary with that group. I made full responsibility for all my actions, actil April 1982, and had my last drink drinking.” I also thought these people many friends and learned priceless as- cepting myself as I am and offering myon May 1,1982. For nearly ten months were drinking on the sly. pects of the AA program. The ultimate self to my God asking him to better me I led my AA group members to believe It took months for me to grasp AA experience of being in the United to be useful to him and to others, sharthat my last drink was in April. I was sharing at the meetings and to begin States was my visit to the GSO office ing all my feelings with AA, trying to scared and dishonest. Finally, before believing what they said. Then I in New York, which was for me a “spir- stay tuned-in, centered, and loving tothe anniversary day arrived, I admitted wanted to find the significant thread itual meeting” with Bill and Dr. Bob. wards everyone, and just shutting up the truth. weaving through AA and helping AA Here 1stood in the reception area and when 1 feel upset and resentful. I do my My first three months in AA were members to stay away from booze and sobbed and said, “I am home at last.” I Step work to come back to normal, and very difficult due to my acutely dam- be so happy and alive. One day my will never forget the affection and at- try to perceive everyone to be an awakaged mental faculty. I didn’t understand sponsor gave me Twenty-Four Hours a tention 1 received from GSO staff. ening being just like myself. simple auths like, “Don’t take that first Day, published by Hazelden, and In sobriety, 1 have tried to find my Rajni P., India

November 1997

a sentence and remember the first part It was my first AA funeral. He had of it, this was a miracle. his ‘Twelve and Twelve” and Big Book At six months, I was sharing in a in the casket with him. There were so meeting about how many people many mourners that they stood on the I’d hurt. Rex stood up and yelled, lawns to listen. I was stunned. This “Girl, pay attention. God ha.$forgiven grouchy old man was loved by so many you. Why can’t you forgive yourself?” people, not just me. X lightening bolt hit me, and I real- That night we had our first meeting. ized how much this old-timer really Five alcoholics attended. Rex’s presloved me. ence was very strong. Rex was making From then on I sat as close to him as sure I was there to open the door, make I’could. I asked him questions before, the coffee, and set up chairs. during, and after the meetings. He still I now realize how very fortunate I yelled at me, but not as loud, for now was to have this man in my early sohe knew I was listening. briety. He picked me to be his sponsee . At about ten months he began pres- since I was too sick to pick a sponsor. suring me about picking a home group. Today, I tend to be hard-nosed like I just couldn’t make up my mind. He ‘ him but 4 try never to yell, unless of told me he was starting a meeting in course someone needs it! Every Floris and since it was only three miles Wednesday night I and my better half away, would I help support it? Since unlock the door, set up the meeting Wednesday night was the only night of Rex started, and wait for the magic of

M y name is Karen and I’m an alcoholic. My home group is the Recovery and Making Progress meeting, held on Wednesday nights at the community center here in did. But get a sponsor -no! They told me I must have a woman, but I hated all of them; not a one came close to passing my “silent interviews.” I adored all of the old-timers except the ,week I didn’t go to a meeting I cau- our home group to begin. tiously told him no. He exploded and told me I would not only attend it but it would be my Karen M.,Floris, Iowa

“home group.” I would attend every Floris, Iowa. for a few, including Rex P. from the Wednesday night, make coffee, and set In 1988, I was a trembling, stutter- Bloomfield group. He seemed to be at up chairs even if both my legs were ing newcomer, fresh from two bouts of every single meeting I went to and broken. back-to-back treatment. I was told to constantly took my sick inventory. I Rex made arrangements for the go to a lot of meetings, to listen to the was terrified of his loud voice and tried meeting with the community center old-timers, and to get a sponsor. to sit as far away from him as I could. and set the date for the first meeting. I went to five to seven meetings a At about five months, it dawned on The Sunday before the first meeting he week for the first three years of my so- me that the things this rugged old rail- was mowing his lawn and had a masbriety. I was so sick I needed every sin- roader yelled at me from across the sive heart attack. He was dead before gle one of them. I listened intently to table had a lot of meaning. And even he hit the ground. anyone who had over five years, as if more surprising, I remembered it later. He was buried on Wednesday, April my life depended on it, for I knew it Since at this time I still couldn’t read 27, 1989.