That Damned Onion

You can't be in recovery long without hearing about the Onion: the work we do refines us on the inside, going deeper and deeper, getting to parts of our psyche like layers of an onion. As sick as I am of this metaphor, I have once again come up against the layer in me that always leaves me stuck, and stuck is something I can't afford.

I am 39 years old, but you wouldn't know it in the way I respond to my parents. I do not have adequate boundaries with them. When they are unhappy with me, I make myself physically sick with worry and anxiety. I'm a black-belt al-anon with everyone but them.

It ebbs and flows, and it is making me sick again. Whenever I tell them something I know will make them unhappy (mostly things beyond my control), the cycle begins: they go into a rant and I try to disappear inside myself or block them out or reason with them (never works).

Last night, I got a new sponsor, and told her all about it, that it was making me sick and I don't want to participate in the vicious cycle any more

So The Trudge Report is taking a bit of a turn, growing with my program. There's going to be a lot going on here about dealing with my parents. I'm finally sick of the onion making me cry.

If you've been in recovery for a few 24-hour periods, you've met them in meetings: alcoholics whose drinking has brought them to a fork in the road of their lives: stop now and keep everything they have or continue and lose it all.I know all of us faces that prospect, but I'm talking about people for whom alcoholic destruction is no longer a theory, like a woman I met I'll call Meg.

Meg is a former army officer (one of the few active-duty women who have actually staffed combat missions). She has a bachelor's degree in a technical field. She is physically attractive. She drives a late-model sports car and owns a home in the nicest area of town. She married another army officer, and they have an adorable toddler together.

A couple of years ago, Meg lost her military career when she tested positive for cocaine. She quit that habit to focus on (more legal) alcohol. Here's what that's gotten her, just during the past year:

• A driving-while-intoxicated arrest and conviction
• A divorce
• A Child Protective Services investigation into her parenting
• A custody battle
• Bills putting her near the verge of bankruptcy

Meg started coming to 12-step meetings once her husband moved out, wanting to get sober in order to maintain custody of her daughter. She got a sponsor, got a Big Book, worked with her sponsor every week for several months, and went to at least one meeting a day. She picked up a 6-month chip a few weeks ago.

Child Protective Services got out of her life.  Her soon-to-be-ex was ordered to pay child support. Her DUI was dismissed after some time on an occupational drivers license. Everything was looking up for Meg!

She spent yesterday very drunk.

And so, the $64,000 question: why? She could lose everything she's worked for! It could get even worse for Meg if she keeps drinking!

Page 24 of the 4th edition says this, and it sums up for me the nature of the disease:

We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousnesses with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

So often I hear in meetings "If you don't take the first drink, you won't get drunk!", usually followed by guffaws of newcomers and the easily amused.

That's not in the Big Book, and for good reason (stated above): I'm without defense against the first drink! It's not that I didn't realize that alcohol is intoxicating.

If someone like Meg can look at all she has to lose and still drink, can't any of us? If her self-will could have prevented her relapse, surely it would have yesterday.

Robert Frost described two paths before him in a forest, and he chose the path that had carried fewer travelers thus far. He concludes that "... made all the difference."

 I hope there's a road less traveled ahead for Meg.

It still sucks, even with gadgets

If you're fighting to the urge to drink, make sure you do it away from any electronic devices, for society's sake. Case in point? Gizmodo's post on the subject

Gift ideas for those in recovery

Here's some ideas, big and small, for the 12-stepper in your life, complete with an Etsy link...

Reusable beverage sleeve
For some reason, we tend to start guzzling gallons of coffee once we get sober - make it a less dangerous, more comfortable habit for us!
Journal
Always useful.
Personal ash tray
Don't fight our smoking habit - it richly beats the alternative!
Bookmarks
Reading is an important part of our lives - can't have too many bookmarks!

Length matters little

I talk about my sobriety date once per year - when I pick up a chip.

I was "raised" in a group that took sobriety dates very seriously. When we introduced ourselves at meetings, we gave our sobriety date. Old Timers heard the soft ooohs and aaahhhs of newcomers. Newcomers received smiles of encouragement as they recited that they had now made it another day. I ooohhhed and aaahhhed as needed and smiled encouragingly as warranted. At first, I had days of sobriety, then months. Most of the people that got sober around the time I did vanished. Then I had a year, then multiple years.

One day, as I introduced myself in the customary fashion, I mentioned that I had been sober almost 5 years. In the beat of quiet between my introduction and the next person's, I heard it - softly - but I heard it still:

"Wow."

And then began the churning of my magic, magnifying mind: Yep, all hail the badass. Betcha want to be like me someday, huh?

It took one whispered word to activate my ego. My ego began to whisper back that I no longer belonged at that group - or any meeting actually, because there was something good on TV that night or I was tired of hearing Woe-is-Me Wanda recount her latest dope-fueled drama (again). So I stopped going to meetings as much.

When it occurred to me that I wasn't going to meetings as often, I then recalled members who often said that they always called people who had quit showing up. This activated the indignation cycle: where was my phone call? Didn't they care about me?

Cue righteous indignation: after all I've done for that sorry place!

These are the sounds of my spiritual condition eroding. I am now focused on me, rather than on my purpose. All over one whispered word of admiration over my sobriety date.

When I was growing up, my father refused to tell my brother or me how much money he made at his job. If we asked, he'd say "Enough." or "Why? Did you have some allowance to return to me?"

He didn't tell us because he didn't want us to blow it out of proportion: to think we were rich (we weren't) or wonder whether we had enough (we did). We didn't need to dwell on that issue.

Today, I rarely even think about how long I've been sober. Yes, I tell newcomers, but only when asked. I don't need to dwell on quantity. We all have today, and regardless of whether you've been to one meeting or a thousand, that's enough.

100 Ways to Screw Up Your Life

Love this post - ditch the concept of New Year's resolutions and instead, internalize what's written here as needed!

Just in case you're pondering a drink ...

... hide the Sharpies!

Emotional Sobriety and Duct Tape

The other night at a meeting, a guy I'll call Jim shared his misadventure with his cell phone. It seems the battery panel wasn't holding the phone's battery in any more. Wanting to save some money on a replacement phone, he purchased one on Craiglist.

Alas, phone number 2 does not work, and as the reader can guess, the merchant is nowhere to be found for a refund. Angrily, he duct-taped the battery panel onto the original phone and stormed out of his house to a meeting, where many shared about how to make lemons when life hands us lemonade (or whatever non-alcoholic beverage you would make with a blackberry).

I asked him how his phone worked with the duct tape. Great! he enthused. So I asked, why did he buy a replacement phone when the duct tape fixed the problem?


"Because I didn't want people to think I couldn't afford a new phone."

On the surface, it looks like this guy's problem is scammers on Craigslist, but I think he has a part to play in his own misery.

Jim purchased the replacement phone out of pride. The duct tape solved the problem, but he wanted others to be impressed with his new gadget, and maybe therefore with Jim himself.  He wants life to improve based on an external condition: the ownership of a cooler-than-yours phone.  To make matters worse, Jim can't afford a new phone, so when he started prowling Craigslist, he did it to bolster a false image to others!

If Jim wanted to save time, money, and emotion, he could have adopted a grateful attitude for a cell phone that's working with such a simple fix. No Craigslist drama!

I know it's wrong to sell bad stuff to people - I get that. But "anger is the dubious luxury of normal men", and I am not normal. I need to focus every ounce of emotional energy into my sobriety.  I don't have the luxury of spending any of it on Craigslist crime, or whether or not people will think less of me if I have duct tape on the back of my phone.

Giving Freely

"We make a living from what we get. We make a life from what we give." - Sir Winston Churchill

At my home group, we have a woman who brings a homemade lunch for the entire group almost every Tuesday. No one has asked her to do this, but everyone heartily digs in and lavishes her with thanks.

She is also a raging Al-Anon. Her husband still drinks heartily, and most weeks her catering is attached to sharing about how much people love what she does for them.

She has taken a job that requires her to be out-of-town for two weeks at a time. Yesterday she was back from her first tour of duty, and since she had been working, did not bring food. No one expressed any dismay.

The chairperson of the meeting called on folks to share, instead of having people just jump in. He did not call on her until the end of the meeting. She said this (loudly):

"I haven't been at a meeting for two weeks! I didn't come to have the chairperson call on people! I wanted to pick the topic of the meeting, something that's upsetting me! This wouldn't have happened if I'd brought food!"

And with that, she stormed out.

My immediate reaction to this mini-rant was that this meeting is not about her, but about a disease everyone in this room shares. As I thought about it though, I realized she might suffer from something a little deeper: giving of herself, but not freely. I suspect she feels entitled to select the topic of the meeting because she feeds people.

My old thinking told me that if I did something for you, bought you something or provided any other service, you owed me. I gave, and so should I get. You can bet that if you did not reciprocate in the manner I felt was appropriate, I got a resentment. I quit doing things for you, and more that likely you appeared somewhere on my list.

Sobriety doesn't hold up to scorekeeping or the anger, self-pity and resentment that follows it. Now, I give things without expecting anything in return. If I bring donuts to a meeting and you eat one, you don't owe me anything.

Nor do I owe you anything if I eat the donuts you bring, either. I assume that your motives for providing something to us are pure.

I will find out soon enough if they aren't.

Keep Calm and Carry On

I spent a good deal of my childhood in London, the capital of a country that bore much of the violence of World War II. Unlike American, many Brits remember their homeland being bombed, and experiencing the fear that Hitler's regime would invade. Americans lost loved ones, certainly, but the UK lost civilians, its mothers and children and grandparents.

During this time, the poster to the left appeared in the country's undergrounds and street corners, giving it's citizens wise advice that I use today.

Booze helped fuel my imminent sense of doom, usually over things that never actually came to pass. This anxiety spurred me to drink even more, and then I did things that really did cause me problems! It was a horrible way to live.

The first fruits of sobriety include knowing where I've been and who I've spoken to. I don't secretly wish I had an interlock device on my cell phone anymore (though I wish others did!).

Later, working the steps with a sponsor taught me discernment in my actions. If I feel stressed about something, I ask myself if it is real or imagined. I pray, turning the situation over to my Higher Power. Then I keep calm and carry on with the day set before me.

Keep Others Simple ... For Yourself

I hear and read a lot about "change" that will now sweep over our nation. Apparently we have all been living in downtrodden misery, and a new president is going to fix Everything (he could start over here by taking a look at my bathtub plumbing, but somehow I doubt he's got me on his book).

When I was drinking, I blamed everyone and everything else for my problems. My blurry bottom line was that life just wasn't treating me right. If life treated me right, I wouldn't drink!

The amazing thing was that I developed peace with life once I stopped drinking and learned through a program of recovery that life treats me the way it treats everyone else: if I'm a jerk, people retaliate.

I once heard this in a meeting, "If in the course of a day, I meet one person that I suspect is an ***hole, there is a chance that I am right about that person. But when everyone I meet is an ***hole, then I am actually the ***hole."

I thought life was about being happy. I was wrong. Life is about taking the personal responsibility to contribute to the world. Once I become a giving member of society, I stand a greater chance of personal satisfaction and sobriety.

That's the change I believe in.

A 12-Step New Year

I believe in making one, doable New Year's Resolution each year. Since sobriety is my first priority, my resolutions usually have to do with the maintenance of my spiritual condition. Here's a few program-related ideas to kick of a more deeply sober 2009:

1) Suit up and show up. Resolve to go to more meetings. Already go to one every day? Then show up to events like committee meetings, picnics, dances, and workshops. If you're feeling a little burned out on your homegroup, resolve to get to some meetings at other groups.

2) Take your relationship with your HP farther. If your HP is of a major religion, visit the house of worship in your area and experiment with worship services or the religious education program. Read some books about others' spiritual journeys to keep your own reflections fresh.

3) Streamline your 7th Tradition. If you have the means, write your homegroup a check for $365 dollars and be done with it for the year (no more fumbling for change during meetings!)

4) Take care of any lurking sponsorship issues. If you don't have a sponsor, get one. If you're not calling her, start calling each day. If you feel stalled, tell her. If you can't tell your sponsor, your program is dicey.

5) Reach out. It's normal to develop a "gang" you keep up with within the program, but it's easy to isolate within that clique. Resolve to call someone who's hurting, even if it's just to say "Hey, call me whenever you want to." Introduce yourself to some you don't know well. Ask someone to join you for coffee after the meeting (or accept the invitation if you never usually go)

6) Amp your service. If you suspect that you don't do enough around the group, change that, even if it's by washing coffee mugs or vacuuming the floor.

A Christmas Message From Bill W.

To all AA members

Greetings on our 10th Christmas, 1944. Yes, its' in the air! The spirit of Christmas once more warms this poor distraught world. Over the whole globe millions are looking forward to that one day when strife can be forgotten, when it will be remembered that all human beings, even the least, are loved by God, when men will hope for the coming of the Prince of Peace as they never hoped before. But there is another world which is not poor. Neither is it distraught.

This is the world of Alcoholics Anonymous, where thousands dwell happily and secure. Secure because each of us, in his own way, knows a greater power who is love, who is just, and who can be trusted. Nor can men and women of AA ever forget that only through suffering did they find enough humility to enter the portals of that New World. How privileged we are to understand so well the divine paradox that strength rises from weakness, that humiliation goes before resurrection; that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth. Knowing its full worth and purpose, we can no longer fear adversity, we have found prosperity where there was poverty; peace and joy have sprung out of the very midst of chaos. Great indeed our blessings! And so Merry Christmas to you all - from the Trustees, from Bobbie and from Lois and me.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

How Not to Be My Sponsee

Every few months I get several requests to sponsor someone, and I take each request very seriously. However, often I'm the only person taking it seriously. So if you want me to sponsor you, here's some things you shouldn't do....

1) Get drunk. While this sounds like a "duh" item, many alcoholics aren't quite sure they have a problem, despite their loss of job, freedom, family, friends, credit and home. Something hasn't quite clicked yet. If you're not sure you have a problem, if you think you were convicted of DUI due to a clerical error, please do not come to me.

2) Call me only when you need a ride/money/sofa to crash on, etc. The BB tells us that sponsors (I know, I know, the term "sponsor" isn't used in the BB) are not to be bankers or nursemaids for your sprees. That does mean you.

3) Lie. If I ask you a question, I am expecting a truthful answer. Better you say nothing to me than lie. If you lie, be willing to interrupt yourself and say, "Okay, sorry, I'm lying. The honest answer is ..." This way you will not only learn not to lie, but you will also have the kind of relationship with your sponsor that will help you stay sober.

Judge Not - Unless It's Your Job!

Check out newly-instated Judge Kevin Fine - one of us who just made it all the way to the bench! (the sentencing side of it - not the side being sentenced!)

Stone Cold (Sober) Case - Can You Help?

Please call the Snohomish County Sheriff's office if you have any information in the murder of Kenneth Westphal

How It Works - The Original Version!

A few weeks ago, an oldtimer created a bit of a stir by reading the original version of How It Works at the beginning of our meeting.

Many people (read: newcomers) were visibly uncomfortable with the hardline voice contained therein, but I loved it!

My favorite passage is this one:

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after, have been designed to sell you three pertinent ideas: (a) That you are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life. (b) That probably no human power can relieve your alcoholism. (c) That God can and will. If you are not convinced on these vital issues, you ought to re-read the book to this point or else throw it away!

The hardcore crux of the matter of alcoholism is that the only existing solution is the development of a spiritual life. That might look that the religion of one's upbringing, but it certainly doesn't have to. As long as it's a God of the drunk's understanding, he's on the way.

If you won't work to discover who that God is, get yourself up of that seat so someone who will do the work can have it. You have obviously not hit bottom yet. You may wish whatever drove you in here was your bottom, but it wasn't. You need to go lower.

I was about to write "and may God help you then." But you wouldn't agree with that yet, huh?

One day you will.

Thank you Gabriella!

Please check out Gabriella's blog All WHo Wander Are Not Lost, and not just because she likes The Trudge Report!

Gabriella, not only do I thank you, but BF thanks you for reminding me to post more often!

You're NOT an Alcoholic If ...

1. You don't understand the concept of a 6-pack (isn't one enough?).
2. You question the concept of "Happy Hour" - who would be in a bar for a whole hour?
   
3. You immediately stop drinking when you start to "feel it".
4. You have ever left an alcoholic beverage unconsumed for any reason
5. You have no booze in your home, and that's not because you already drank it all
6. After any sip of an alcoholic beverage, you have ever uttered the phrase "Whoa, this is too strong!"
7. You're not sure where your neighborhood liquor store is.
8. You especially look forward to events that are alcohol-free - no idiot drunks around!
9. You purchase wine for cooking purposes, and you actually do cook with it.
10. On second thought, you do have some alcohol in your home: a bottle of something someone gave you for Christmas, which is still unopened, and now covered in a layer of dust. You totally forgot about that thing! Maybe you can re-gift it to someone this year.
    

It Still Sucks - Career Limiting Version

Somebody please get this poor bastard some aspirin, Gatorade, and the want ads!