Tag Archives: AA

Alcoholics Anonymous: We Surely have no Monopoly

Posted in AA Sobriety, Recovery, Sobriety by

Recovery Options“Love and tolerance of others is our code” (Big Book 84).

I am not a very lovely and tolerant person. I’m just not. I try my darnedest, but… no. Quiet, though, I have improved upon. Pausing when agitated. Walking away. Not engaging. This morning, though, I woke up to yet another email explaining to me the fallibility of AA. Ugh. When I posted last week that this conversation bores me, a man called me a coward. He said that since his opinion differed with mine, I was scared to acknowledge him. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am sorry he feels spurned or neglected or failed or whatever it is by AA. I know such feelings exist. I just… I don’t know what to say about it.

I know there is a lot of hostility towards AA out there. And I know some people feel the need to express their dissatisfaction, but let me set something straight, once and for all. This is my blog. I write it. I draw the pictures. Its about my life, my perceptions, my recovery. I make no bones about it. I’ve have my reasons for breaking my anonymity. I wrote about them in in my post Part Three: Why I Write about my Alcoholism: (https://annkroger.com/2014/09/26/part-three-why-i-write-about-my-alcoholism/) But this, this is not a Celebrate Recovery blog. It is not a SMART Recovery Blog. This is not by the sheer force of willpower blog. And I do not feel in the spirit of equanimity that I have to give equal time to any of them because my blog is not about the many forms of recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. It’s about my recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. And I’ve chosen AA.

With that said, I have never once said any other approach does not work. I never would. I have no basis on which to judge anything. I have not looked into them. I do not know what their methods are. I do not know what they teach. I’m not a coward; I’m just busy. I have two jobs, two dogs, this blog, my art, a family, a wedding to plan, and a fiancé who just had open-heart surgery. I have neither the time nor the interest to participate in a discussion that affects my life in no way whatsoever.

Furthermore, I find it odd that anyone would even engage in that discussion. The Big Book tells us, “In all probability, we shall never be able to touch more than a fair fraction of the alcohol problem in all its ramifications. Upon therapy for the alcoholic himself, we surely have no monopoly,” (xxi). I have a more than a couple friends in Celebrate Recovery. I have friends in SMART recovery. I, as well as most of my friends, engage or have engaged in some form of therapy/ psychoanalysis. Many AAs are on some kind of medication for anxiety or depression or any number of things. AA says some of us may need outside help. It encourages hospitalization when needed.

Well… the sun is nice and high. I’ve had a cup of coffee. Writing this has cleared my mind and my mood has drastically improved. So, here is what we’ll do. I will make a one-time offer. If you send me an email at agkroger@gmail.com summarizing your program of recovery, regardless of what it is, I will post it. Explain the program’s advantages or why you like it. Whatever you want. I would prefer it if you did not criticize other programs, but simple tell us about yours. I will not edit it. I will not voice an opinion. If you want to send original artwork, I will post that as well. This is your chance to voice whatever it is you want about whatever it is you are doing.

I will accept emails until hmmmm… April 5th and I will post the blog on April 12th. I hope everyone has a great day.

Lessons in Sobriety that I Learned from my Dogs

Posted in 28 Days, AA Families, AA Puppies, AA Unconditinal Love, Dogs in sobriety, Lessons from a Dog by

Dio DrawingFluffy Drawing

Anyone who knows me knows that I love my dogs. I got my first puppy, Dionysus, when I had about 2½ years sober. I had moved into a little efficiency apartment in the Heights area of Houston. I was struggling with loneliness and isolation after sober living. One day, a friend in the program posted on Facebook that his dog had a litter. He lived close by and impulsively I thought, “Well, I’ll just drive by and look.” When I picked up the first puppy, she wriggled and squirmed. The second, a shockingly tiny thing with big, fluffy ears promptly fell asleep in my arms. I feel in love instantly. I took her home that day and never looked back.

So today, I bring you: Lessons in Sobriety that I Learned from my Dogs.

Forgiveness: It is embarrassing to say, but I seemingly made it to adulthood with fully grasping the concept of unconditional love and forgiveness. I just didn’t get it. Instead, I judged people. I held them to impossible standards. When they inevitable let me down, I walked away. I rationalized my behavior in the spirit of self-preservation without ever understand the chaos and hurt left in the wake of my actions.

I still had not learned this lesson when I got Dio. I stayed home for the first couple of days I had her, but eventually I had to return to work. I was a server, so my shifts were relatively short, and yet, almost every day, I would come home to damage. She chewed through my cable wire, speaker wires, multiple pairs of shoes, my couch cushions, and my linoleum tiled floor. One day she even ate the side of my door. I tried to protect my belongings. I bought her chew toys and bones to no avail. Every single day, everything I owned laid in perpetual danger of being destroyed. And every day it seemed I would come home to some new and totally incomprehensible form of destruction. I would get so angry, Dio would momentarily hang her head. I would instantly forgive her; she would instantly forgive me. One day, I realized that there was nothing Dio could ever do that would cause me to stop loving her. She taught me how to love unconditionally.

Acceptance: My little apartment had floor to ceiling windows in the front of the apartment. It was one of the selling points of the apartment. But I had not envisioned owning a puppy at that point. Now, had the windows been a normal height, my tiny Dachshund would never have been able to bark at the mailman, people walking their dogs, the neighbor’s cat, my landlord, bicycles, or any of the other countless distractions that exist in the Heights.

The barking is frustrating; I won’t lie. It tends to happen the most just as I am lying down for a nap. As much as I go “Dio! Shush!” She does not listen to me. Do you know why? Because she is a dog. And dogs bark at things. It is in their nature to do so. So, on some level I had to let Dio be Dio, an insanely protective, vicious, barking attack puppy.

Addicts are like that too. We have a shared bond of insecurity and fear, bad judgment and self-centeredness. These shared characteristics are what make us relate so well to each other, and yet, when I see them in you, it drives me crazy. Just sit through a whole meeting for once, dang it! No crosstalk. You can go an hour without smoking. Stop smacking your gum. No need to curse. Eventually, though, I learned that my taking your inventory is not going to do anyone any good. You will not listen to me. Most often, the life lessons we learn are a direct result of our own personal experience, not things told to us by other insanely controlling people. I learned to let addicts be addicts too.

Responsibility: Every family sitcom over the span of television has had the episode where little Johnny brings home a dog. He wants to keep it. The parents have the inevitable conversation about how owning a dog will teach Little Johnny responsibility.

Dogs require a tremendous about of time and money. Before we go any further, let me tell you that I am not coming at this one from a place of moral superiority. My love for my puppies is equally matched by my procrastination. Even as I type this, I know I am a month overdue for their vet appointment.

There is something about a dog, though, that will eventually warm the heart of even the most cold-hearted, miserly, and selfish addict. Anyone who has a problem sharing their resources should get a pet that requires much from them. Having dogs has taught me that my time and money do not always belong to me, that I have cute, lovable, little furry beings that are totally reliant on me for food and safety.

I remember the old Sandra Bullock movie, 28 Days, when they tell her to get a plant. If she could make it a year without the plant dying, she could get a dog. If the dog made it a year without dying, then she could get into a relationship. The movie is terrible, but the sentiment is good.

Learning to be a contributing member of society requires one to give of themselves. Sometimes this is difficult. Other people’s character defects can grind on us. Our own behaviors can push people away. But a dog’s love loyalty ring true. I honestly feel my sobriety today has been improved by the forgiveness and character of my fierce, little dogs.

Dio papertowels

This picture is not photo-shopped. That’s a honest to goodness self-satisfied grin.

Running from my Monsters

Posted in a Drink Can't Make Worse, AA Comics, Early Sobriety, No Problem so Big by

Beer MonsterI tell my students, in the event of the apocalypse, do not try to save me. I’ve watched enough movies with natural disasters, post nuclear fallout, and aliens to know that a mild manner hero inevitably steps out from the rubble to save the day. That is not me. I am the woman screaming and running as the building comes crashing down on her. I am the red shirted lieutenant that never gets beamed back up. So, do not give me the back pack of provisions or hand me a gun. Just shove me in the path of the nearest zombies and save yourself.

I do not deal well with life, and it doesn’t have to be zombies. In fact, its usually the small things that seem the most insurmountable at times: work, bills, chores. And when life hits, I like to run and hide. I use to think if I just shut everything out, nothing could hurt me. By the time I was thirty, my inability to deal resulted in my daily drinking, hoping that my life would simply resolve itself of its own volition.

But then the worst happened. My drinking turned on me. Alcohol no longer became my means of escape but became the catalyst for new and prolonged damage. In my final days, my life was very bleak. I was broke, unemployed, unemployable. Even then, it was only when it became impossible to ignore the disaster that I put down the drink.

Those first days of sobriety were insanely scary. I was terrified. Knowing that living alone would result in my drinking again, I made the drastic decision to move into a halfway house. A couple weeks later, an AA gave me a job as a counter girl in a bakery. I fumbled my way through life for the first many weeks and months.

And every night, I would go to a meeting. Up there on the wall was the saying, “There’s no problem so big that a drink can’t make worse.” And I believed that. I believed that because my new life was so tenuous, one drink and it would all come crashing down around my head. One drink and I would be asked to leave sober living. One drink and I would be fired. One drink away from catastrophe.

And I think that is what people with time tend to forget. We get real jobs and real housing, and then all of a sudden life hits and we revert to our former habits. We forget that drinking makes everything worse. We start thinking that maybe we can escape reality just for a little while. All we would need is one tiny, little, sippy bottle of wine or a couple of beers.

Yesterday, life dealt me a blow. Though I had no desire to drink, I could feel myself wanting to retreat, run away, isolate. And I did, a little bit. Instead of cleaning my house and working on my writing, I crawled into bed and took a nap. When I awoke to a dark room and absolute quiet, I stayed there for an extra hour playing Trivia Crush unwilling to break out of my cocoon.

After a while, though, I did. I just swung my feet from the over the precipice of the bed to the floor and rejoined society. Because as much as I want to revert to my prior behaviors when times get tough, I know the old behaviors are just that, old. They do not work. Its not just that “There is no problem so big that a drink can’t make worse,” its ” There’s no problem so big that my mind can’t make worse.” Today I know I cannot run from life or isolate from pain. I have to face my monsters head on. So, as much as I hate it the idea, hand me the wooden stake and the garlic. I’m ready.

The Eleventh Step Prayer

Posted in 11th Step Prayer, AA Forgiveness, AA Love, Channel of thy peace, Resentments, St. Fransis Prayer by

The Godsponsor“Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, consider this justice a gift on my daughter’s wedding day,” (The Godfather).

In my drinking days, I could never get enough of anything. I was a bottomless pit of needs and wants. I “deserved” comfort and forgiveness. I “deserved” love and joy delivered to me on a silver platter in return for all the love and generosity I supplied others. Cause isn’t that how life works? Tit for tat. I buy you dinner and next time you buy mine? I helped you with your work. Now you help me with mine. Never once was there a sincere, genuine gift made without any thought of reciprocity. No, everything had returned postage.

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace.
That where there is hatred, I may bring love;
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
That where there is despair, I may bring hope;
That where there are shadows, I may bring light;
And that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather
To comfort, than to be comforted,
To understand, than to be understood,
To love, than to be loved;
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is in dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. (Twelve and Twelve Page 99).

Therefore, that the first time I read the St. Francis Prayer (known to AAs as the Eleventh Step Prayer), I was in shock. I practically I looked around for an imaginary audience in order to say, “Do you see this? Do people do that? Do people love without love in return?” I thought that while the St. Francis Prayer may be all very good in theory, no one actually lived that way.

Occasionally, I speak to my students about how we can have gaps in our educational progress. We can get through high school, lead full, productive lives without ever fully grasping how a semicolon functions or why you can’t take a square root of a negative number.

I missed how to forgive. Looking back, I am embarrassed by how little I understood any sort of spiritual life. I was raised well. I went to church. And yet, I became a full-fledged adult who had no capacity for the faults of humanity. Instead, I had some odd philosophical, faulty wiring that told me that if I forgive people who had clearly wronged me, that I would be acquiescing my morally superior ground. Some acts are just unforgivable and if I forgive you, I have somehow lessened your sin to the level of forgivable sins. I use to like that saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.” I used the spirit of self-preservation as a mean to justify hurtful behavior. But the truth is, it is easier not to talk to people than to talk to them. It is easier to be indignant than to be kind. It is easier to become hardened than it is to remain vulnerable. And it is easier to be angry than it is to forgive.

It has taken me a long time to fully understand the wisdom of St. Francis’ words. It did not come overnight. I learned from feeling others love me before I had any capacity to love in return. When I wanted so badly for someone to understand me, I learned first that I must take the time to understand someone else. It came from me making mistakes and watching others either take the path of forgiveness or non-forgiveness. And it took me asking myself which person I would rather be.

I believe in the spiritual experience of AA. I believe that God can enter a person’s heart and alter their spirit. But I also believe a person can just make the simple choice to be better. I think we can just practice at understanding. We can practice at forgiveness. And tomorrow, if I don’t get the love I feel I am deserved… well, I’ll still love ya anyways.

Lydia: Day 27

Posted in AA Fiction, AA Relapse, AA Short Stories, Alcoholism Vanilla Extract, Recovery Fiction by

An Alcoholics Last Resort

Lydia did not know how it had happened. Well, she knew how it had happened, and yet she did not know how it happened. She knew the steps, knew the exact actions that led to her lying in a crumpled mass on the kitchen floor. What she did not know was how a seemingly innocent day could turn so quickly into a nightmare…

As part of her general dissatisfaction with her life, Lydia had started to methodically clean out the large house in Memorial. It had begun innocently enough on a lazy, Sunday afternoon. She had spent the morning reading and sipping tea, but then she turned a little restless, walking from room to room.

She eventually found herself standing in the doorway of her master closet. Once a room of pride, a space that spoke of indulgence and luxury, Lydia now looked upon the space as a choke around her neck. The designer clothes, the pristinely laid Choos and Louboutins, the large purses displayed as works of art, seemed not a reflection of affluence and ease, but a mausoleum dedicated to a former life of indulgence and superficiality. The sight disturbed her. Many of the clothes no longer even fit on her recently acquired fuller body frame, and yet there they hung.

Slowly, and with a feeling of grateful remorse to a past life, she carefully folded and packed away shirts after pants after skirts after cocktail dresses after ball gowns of clothes, once lovingly purchased and adored.

When Lydia finished her room, she moved on to her son’s and then her daughter’s. With each macramé school project and participation trophy, with each seashelled vacation souvenir and mother’s day card, a fond memory was ignited, appreciated, and then quietly closed. The items she did not feel were worthy of keeping, she threw away with no regret. With each passing garbage bag, she felt lighter, freer. The nicer items, the things she thought the kids might honestly want, Lydia set aside in one of two piles. If they wanted them, they would have to come get them. But her and Henry’s house, her house, would no longer be the exoskeleton of a time past. Lydia was living day by day, step by step, and all she wanted was for her surroundings to reflect her new founded simplicity.

So, it was with some confusion that it was a simple sweatshirt that had paralyzed Lydia that Sunday evening. A sweatshirt. Any other day, she might have simply folded it and placed it in his dresser drawer. Old, frayed around the edges, but perfectly worn in. When she and Henry first started dating, Lydia had confiscated the sweatshirt as a form of territorial display. She would wear it up to the hospital and kiss him in full view of the nurse’s station. Not usually a woman prone to jealousy, she knew from her own stay in the hospital that Henry was often sought out and flirted with. Lydia was not going to let him fall through her fingers. She was determined to fight for him, fight for him in the best way she knew how, in his Colombia sweatshirt and a tight pair of jeans.

But it was in that moment, in the moment when she raised the sweatshirt up to her nose to inhale his scent that she realized she had not fought for him. She had given him away, pushed him aside as she reached for another bottle. She blamed him. She accused him of desertion, but really, she the one that deserted him. She may have physically been there, but her mind was always fighting and struggling somewhere else. In her heart, in that moment, she could not blame him for leaving.

She looked up and straight into the sideboard mirror. The reflection startled her, for the woman who stared back was not the woman she had expected to see. She had looked in mirrors; she had to have. Always a woman properly put together, Lydia had spent hours applying make-up and coifing her perfectly styled hair. So, she must have look. But had she really looked? Lydia moved closer to the mirror, placed her hand against the cool glass. There, staring back at her was not the dignified and beautiful woman she envisioned, but an aged woman, worn and creased. Her hair, thought by her to be golden and lustrous, was a dried and brittled bleach. Her face was puffy and yet somehow simultaneously drawn. There were circles under her eyes. Her skin had a yellowed hue, the color of prolonged sickness and self-tanner. Instead of cathartic recovery gravitating through her arterial system, a wave of bile, anger, self-loathing, disgust, and hated swelled up from her stomach.

Without warning alcoholic desire screamed at her. It knocked her body backwards with a physicality that forced her to break eye contact with the mirror. Suddenly clinging at the neck of her t-shirt, she couldn’t breathe. She doubled over, trying to catch her breath. After a few seconds, Lydia looked up and ran from the room, the sweatshirt lying on the ground.

She sprinted down the sweeping spiral staircase to the living room. When she got there, she looked wildly around. Think, think. The bar wouldn’t have anything. She had cleaned it out. Think, think. The cabinet above the refrigerator! Lydia pulled over a counter stool and stood on it to reach one of her most favorite hiding places. None. The pool house! Lydia ran to the guest quarters and pulled open the refrigerator, once stocked for parties, only to find it barren. The outdoor kitchen. No.

Panic overcame her as she ran back to the house and furiously started pulling out drawers and looking in behind furniture. She couldn’t have gotten it all. She must have forgotten something, overlooked something, anything. Lydia ran to the kitchen. Sherry, cooking wine, something. Lydia spotted the bottle of vanilla extract. She grabbed it off the shelf. She held it tight in her palm and looked down at it. 35% alcohol. It would work. It would quiet the thoughts until she could get to the store. And then it clicked. In a moment of realization, Lydia realized she was of the variety of alcoholic that would drink vanilla extract. She closed her fingers around the bottle and sank to the kitchen floor.

Sometimes, It’s One Thought at a Time

Posted in AGK, Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholism, Recovery by

Whack-A-MoleI’ve been up in my head a lot this week. I can’t help it really. There’s been a lot going on. Every time I try to combat one errant thought or emotion, another one crops up. It’s like the Whack-A-Mole of the dysfunction. Fear. Bam! Insecurity. Bam! Economic worries. Bam!

But as I sit here, I know all these things I am feeling and thinking are not real. They are manifestations of powerlessness and fear. I have a friend who always says, “My mind is out to kill me.” The melodramatic nature of that comment makes it hard for me to take it seriously, but I understand the sentiment.

If this past month had occurred when I was still drinking, I would not have been able to quiet the self-loathing and anger that dominates my particle brand of crazy. I would have fallen into a depression, the kind that results in lost jobs and torched relationships. I would have spent the coming month locked in my apartment sure that only antiseptic isolation and lots of vodka would decontaminate my life of chaos.

That’s what’s so incredible about AA; recovery is completely counter intuitive. You think there’s no way sober is better than drunk, but it is. You think there’s no way confronting problems head on is easier than ignoring them, but it is. You think there’s no way this stuff could work, and but it does. And then, it works again. And then you stay sober long enough, you realize it not a fluke. It always works. Working steps works and gratitude lists work, service works, talking works. And that is how faith in the program and in ourselves slowly begins to grow.

I do not need to dull my thoughts today because I have enough recovery in me to differentiate the false from the true. I know which ideas are based in fiction rather than reality, fear rather than strength. Once I pause, once I allow second thought to enter the picture, I can then act accordingly. I can quiet the crazy and move forward. One thought at a time. One day at a time.

Let Go Absolutely

Posted in AGK, Alcoholics Anonymous, Ann G. Kroger, Big Book, How It Works, Recovery, Sobriety by

Let Go AbsolutelyIt is fairly rare that someone says something new in a meeting that I have not heard before, but this is exactly what recently happened. The observation came from a line in “How it Works.” “Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely” (58). The gentleman in the meeting said that his old ideas included a sense of worthlessness, of insecurity, and feelings of less than.

Even though I generally zone out as “How it Works” is read, for the past week, I have thought about little else. I have always thought those lines had to do with drinking, about my old thoughts with alcohol, about the thoughts of whether or not I could ever drink like a lady. Never once had I considered all the other old ideas I had been holding on to. Now I can think of little else.

Which brings me to Thanksgiving. Letting go of old ideas also means letting go of the family that exists only in my imagination. My family is not the Norman Rockwell idealized greater version of ourselves. We are messy and dysfunctional and alcoholic and brilliant and interesting and funny. My family loves with a big heart, yet shows it in ways that are often misguided and uncomfortable. We think we know what we do not know. Words and deeds, meant to help, often lead to hurt feelings, arguments, and the taking of sides.

I think on some level we all suffer from this misconception of what families and the holidays are suppose to be rather than what they are. There seems to be a certain level or denial or delusion that comes with the holiday season. We gift wrap hurt and cover it with large bows of dysfunction because anything less would be to acknowledge that life is not perfect. “Just smile through it and whatever you do, don’t drink.”

This Thanksgiving, though, my love and I did something totally different. Instead of the traditional meal with family, we went to a friend’s house. While the food was incredible, it was the people that softened me. My friend and her husband are both in the program. And so is her family. And so are our friends. Throughout the day, the program was not sidestepped, but embraced. Gratitude was on everybody’s lips and in their hearts.

I really do not think I have ever had a better Thanksgiving, and yet, it didn’t feel like a “real” Thanksgiving. So, even though I had an amazing day, there is a little asterisks by it as if to say, “Really fantastic runner-up Thanksgiving.”

And that is the idea I need to let go of absolutely.

Measuring my insides by other people’s outsides is bad enough; measuring them to my own expectations is a nightmare. If my life or my holiday season does not go the way that I plan it or wish it does not make my life any lesser than it would be otherwise. It does not speak to some sort of failure. Those are the ideas that exist only in my head. Those are the thoughts of envy and fear. They are the ideas of some insane form of unattainable perfection. They are the thoughts that will get me nil results because they do not amount to anything of value.

What does give me results, what does add value to my life are the same things that give me results and value the rest of the year: AA, my higher power, the steps, service. Those are the ideas worth holding on to. When I can stay in the moment and purely appreciate the people and love that continually show up for me, I realize I am so incredibly blessed. It is that feeling of gratitude that I need to carry forward into the remainder of this season.

Lydia: Day 14

Posted in AGK, Alcoholics Anonymous, Ann G. Kroger, Recovery, Sobriety by

Lydia 14

Over the past couple of weeks, as the alcohol slowly left her system, she had been overcome with emotions. Feelings of anger gave way to self-pity, which quickly became elation. The day before, having gotten off the phone with her daughter, Lydia found herself in the awkward place of simultaneously crying and laughing. There was such a pall of depression and despair that clung to her life. And yet, for the first time in a very long time, there was also hope.

She had heard in the meetings that sobriety could only be reached when the pain of today exceeded the fear of tomorrow. That seemed to sum up so much for Lydia. She was worried about her impending divorce, about being poor and alone. The sensation was so acute, it made her body her body ache with the desire to drink. If she thought long enough about it, her palms would start to itch and sweat would break out on her upper lip. But it was also this gut wrenching, physical need to escape that had managed to keep her dry for the past two weeks. Lydia didn’t know much, but she knew anything that powerful, that existed inside of her, calling for her own self-destruction, was not good. She knew, in these moments, that if she gave in, she was likely to kill herself. And that terrified her.

The AA club had very quickly become a bastion of security for Lydia. As soon as she pulled into the parking lot, a wave of warmth and security began to replace her fear and insecurity. The club, though not especially lush, had a certain feel of comfort. Three overstuffed couches huddled in the far corner of the main room, next to a flat screen TV. Two tables sat in the middle. It was not uncommon for Lydia to see groups of twos or threes eating lunch, doing schoolwork, or playing a game.

But the people who attracted Lydia’s attention the most were the ones huddled over the hard covered, blue book. It was not very difficult to ascertain who was the sponsor and who was the sponsee. Lydia sat near them sometimes, sipping on her tea, trying at decode the meaning of their conversations.

Sometimes it would appear as if the sponsor and the sponsee were reading together. They would occasionally stop and point to certain lines of the Big Book and have a soft discussion followed by much head nodding.

Sometimes, the women looked like they were having fun. The conversation would revolve around a cup of coffee and a laugh. There seemed to be a comradery about these women and a genuine sense of care and affection. Lydia wondered to herself if she had ever had a relationship such as these women seemed to have. Certainly, she never had it with her own mother and she didn’t have any sisters.

But sometimes the conversations seemed earnest and serious. The two huddled together conspiratorially as the sponsee read from some sort of list or another. Sometimes there was crying. Sometimes a pat on the back. Once Lydia saw both women get on their knees and pray right there in the room. No one else took much notice, as if this sort of thing happened everywhere. But to Lydia, who was never much of a pray-er, this had a profound effect. Like her first meeting and her first sober phone call, Lydia wondered if she would ever get to a point where she would feel comfortable praying. It was right then and there, though, that she decided that if prayer would keep her sober, she would do it.

A few minutes later, as Lydia sat in the meeting, she decided it was time to take the step and ask a woman to be her sponsor. She knew the woman she wanted to ask: Tracy, the college professor. Lydia didn’t know what it would feel like to be beholden to another woman or what it might feel like to confide one’s deepest darkest secrets. A part of her recoiled at the idea, tempted to run away. But another part of her was curious. There was only one way to find out. And besides, the pain of today was greater than the fear of tomorrow.

 

Sobering Up a Horse Thief

Posted in AGK, Alcoholics Anonymous, Ann G. Kroger, Houston, Recovery by

Horse Thief

In the past week, I was confronted with two particularly acute displays of the alcoholic mind at work. While both incidents initially inspired a fairly strong emotional response from me, a little sleep and some separation from the tantrums have allowed me to see the outbursts for what they really are: alcoholic cries for attention and control.

As anyone in AA knows, the disease of addiction is three fold. There is a physical component- From the moment my brain registers the intake of a foreign chemical inside my body, it instantly demands more. But there are two more elusive parts to alcoholism. These are the emotional and spiritual aspects of the disease. I think the spiritual and emotional bankruptcies are the parts of the disease that most alcoholics like to disregard in the misguided attempt at supposed normalcy. I’ve come to the conclusion though, as have most of the AAs I know, that that alcoholic’s shared psychological defectives and behaviors are a very real manifestation of our disease.

My trying to figure out my alcoholism is much like the causality dilemma of the chicken or the egg. Was I born genetically prone to alcoholism and developed the emotional and corollary psychological issues? Or did my reaction to my psychological issues result in my dependence upon escape? Ultimately, I’m not sure it matters which came first. Years of selfish behavior, putting our drinking before any and all others, daily participation in the process of demoralization and self-loathing has a lasting effect on the alcoholic. The idea that we, people who have such a capacity for caring, can also be the catalyst for so much hurt, leaves a profound scar on our emotional psyche. We have an uncontrollable need to dominate and manipulate all those around us, sure that if they only did what we thought was right, our life would finally meet our satisfaction. When they do not or when life inevitably fails to meet our preconceived expectations, we get angry. We eventually end up isolating, locking ourselves up in our houses so no one can see our growing insanity and self-destruction.

I like the statement, sober up a horse thief and all you have is a sober horse thief. It cuts to the chase. And yet, I think it is time to call it for what it is. Sober up a psychologically unstable, selfish, hurtful, dominating, manipulative, angry, isolating, self-destructive alcoholic and what you get is a psychologically unstable, selfish, hurtful, dominating, manipulative, angry, isolating, self-destructive person.

And that is what AA attempts to address. AA truly is not about the not drinking. It is about squaring one shoulders to all the years of bad acts. It is about taking responsibility. And then working daily to not repeat mistakes or fall back on the old behaviors of harmful and callous words or deeds.

This week, when confronted with these incidents of rampant alcoholic nuttiness, I wanted to respond. But then I remembered my old sponsors advice, “Do not engage.” I do not need to match crazy for crazy. I do not need to be brought down to the level of poorly chosen words and bad timing. I do not need to hurt others. Those are the acts of yesterday. I am in today.

Today when I am hurt, I call sober people and go to meetings and work with others. That does not come natural. I was taught that in the rooms. I learned that from the steps. Today, I rise above my lesser self. And tonight, I will sleep easy.

If You are Sober and Stupid, Boring and Glum, Then You’re Doing it Wrong.

Studio 54 Cartoon

Some of my most favorites lines in the big book are, “For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination… am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring, and glum?” (BB 151-152).

Let me start off by saying that I was born in a nice part of Houston, complete with bike trails and trees. My mom took me to church and sometimes bought me an ice cream cone after (Bubblegum of they had it; turtle if they didn’t). I had tons of books and art supplies and after school activities. My parents stressed good grades and participation on sports teams.

So, where I got this notion of drinking, I have no idea. No, no, not the notion of should I drink or why I drank. I got that. I mean the notion that alcoholics and drug addicts are brazen intellectuals and glamourous artists, pushing past the lines of conventionality into oblivion, the notion that alcohol and drugs allow one to experience life on a heightened, more surreal plane.

I decided that my perception of drinking is based not on the reality but fantasy. James Dean. James Bond. Hemingway on the Champs-Elysees. Andy Warhol at Studio 54. Hunter S. Thompson’s Las Vegas, “We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls…Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can, (Fear and Loathing). The realization that all my drug fantasies exist in an era before I was even cognizant of what drugs were, is only further evidence that I have invented my own duel existence.

The reality is, that’s not the way my drinking looked at all. There was no step and repeat in front of the Marshall House. I was a writer that never wrote. A schemer. A dreamer. I was neither glamourous nor charming. At best I was a bar fly and at worst a depressed, isolated drunk.

I am lucky that I am able to realize that my fantasies of drinking and drugging are a fictitious twist of my imagination. That’s not the case with many. There is a guy I hear that speaks of waxing poetically as he drinks. He doesn’t get it. There is a girl who, while she is at meeting, laments about the friends she is missing; maybe she doesn’t have to give them up after all. She doesn’t get it either.

When I got sober, I thought I would never again go out dancing, see a concert, or have sex. I never thought I would have interesting friends hell bent on making up for lost opportunities and time. I never thought of the sober artist as the creative one. That it would be my sober life that was the exciting, daring, fulfilling one.

Everyday I wake up, there is a change to do something spectacular. ( I usually just end up at work, but there’s always that chance). When the book says, “You will gain a new freedom and a new happiness,” I get that. I am no longer held by the confines of the bar stool or liquor bottle. My brain does not hurt. My mind is not hazy. I have passion and ambition and love. If you are sober and stupid, boring and glum, then you’re doing it wrong.