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.

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.

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.

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.

Day 14

What a strange two weeks it's been. I believed that two weeks of praying for my "enemy" would enlighten me, but I had no idea that I would learn that ...

1) Forgiveness is an act, not an emotion. Each day, I prayed, whether I felt like it or not. Halfway through this, I realized I had to let her off of my psychological hook, whether I felt like doing that or not either.

2) Life changes in an instant, and in ways we can't imagine. If you'd told me two weeks ago that P would be sitting in prison right now, I'd have been shocked. It's easy for me to think that the way life looks at a particular moment is the way it will always look. I have been dramatically reminded that life has it's own pace.

3) HP really is in control. Others can do things intending their actions to harm me, but HP can use those very acts of theirs to benefit me.

4) This disease is no joke. I just had a ringside seat for someone's relapse and subsequent imprisonment. I have relished this reminder that while sobriety is fellowship and service and friendship, alcoholism is jails, institutions and death.

Gone in 60 Seconds

I did a small job for our area's upcoming Gratitude Gala recently, which allowed me to meet the District officers and volunteers. The chairman of the Gala committee was 2 years sober. He seemed really enthusiastic about the event.

He relapsed this weekend, and the money the District fronted him for the event is gone.

You know, I couldn't really care less about the money. Really what gives me the heebie-jeebies is the concept that in seconds, all my sobriety can be gone. Years of work, vanished. The trust I have earned inside and outside the recovery community, ruined.

It's terrifying. It makes me grateful for my sobriety. It reminds me that the enemy still stalks me, and my HP is my only defense.

Always and Forever

I believe that I have always been an alcoholic, from the day I was born. I remember sipping my mother's gin-and-tonics and thinking about how great it would be to be an adult and have one (or seven) all of my own - and I was five!

I don't ever remember having one drink, ever. I drank until a) there was no more booze in the zipcode I was partying in or b) I passed out. I sometimes hear folks referring to "becoming" an alcoholic - sorry, can't relate.

The Big Book tells me that I must accept that I will never drink like a normal person, assuming I ever did in the first place. I spent several years wondering if I had a drinking problem. Ironically, normal drinkers don't wonder if they are alcoholics!

I have probably sat in thousands of meetings. I have no idea how many times I've read the BB or the 12&12, but I know it's several times apiece at a minimum. Every single day of my life for years, I have spoken to at least one recovering or wanting-to-recover alcoholic.

But this is not rehab. All of that listed above does not eradicate my disease. There is no chemotherapy for this. It helps me hone my spiritual dimension that in turn makes me able to go one more day sober. Then I will get up tomorrow morning and God willing, do the same things again, with the same result.

I have blue eyes, horrible vision, a great sense of humor, and alcoholism - it's who I am, and who I always will be.

I believe that she believes!

I have a new sponsor, whom I meet with most Monday nights. Last night I asked her about her employment history, not as an interview question, but because she really appears to me to have it all together, and I'm going through a not-very-all-together season in my life right now with this putrid job at the courthouse.

As God would have it, she told me that when she was about as sober as I am now, she had a job at our local sheriff's department, and she hated it. My mouth was probably hanging open as she said, "When I say that I know what you're going through, I really mean that."

What never ceases to amaze me about this program is how a bunch of folks you would never dream in a million years would be spiritual develop spiritual lives that save our very lives! No two paths completely the same, and most widely varied.

Then the really amazing concept is that the program itself has thrived for seventy-odd years. Sure, there's more alcoholics in the world than the world wants to admit, but none of them want to join until things are really bad (I tell newcomers that by the time some entity is discussing incarceration with you, you are officially a drag on society). As a group, we have more divorces, bankruptcies and prison time than most social strata in the world, and yet it works!

So last night when my sponsor told me to believe that she believes, I agreed, and I do. She has good reason to believe!

"No outside circumstances will offer us full time and forever the security we all long for. And in like manner, none will adversely interfere with our well being, except briefly and on occasion." - Each Day a New Beginning

I was sharing the other day in a meeting that I chose to drink at almost five years of sobriety several years ago.

I did that because I secretly viewed the program as a game show: surely for having given up the love of my life (booze), there will be cash and prizes: perfect man, perfect children, perfect lifestyle, perfect finances. I mean what the heck do we read those promises for anyway?

But when I read the Promises closely, they actually do not describe the acquisition of things, but of feelings: feelings of courage, optimism and usefulness. They do not promise me money, but losing my fear of financial insecurity.

I am not enjoying this season of sobriety: a job I was so excited about has melted down before my eyes. I am seeking something just to keep the rent paid and food on the table. More than likely it will involve less money, a more strenuous schedule and the public perception that my life is going backwards, not forwards.

But what other people think of me is none of my business.

Most of the world has not had to give up the substance they love the most in order to survive, so most of the world doesn't understand that I would really like a nice round of applause at the end of the day for not drowning my sorrows in a swimming pool of margaritas. But that applause is not coming.

I need to find the reason to keep doing this inside myself, every day. I need to keep my daily reprieve.

"I pray that I will find happiness in doing the right thing. I pray that I will find satisfaction in obeying spiritual laws." - Twenty-Four Hours a Day

So much temptation to not do the right thing! I daydream about lashing out at these maladjusts that for some reason I have been given as coworkers.

But now I get emotional hangovers when I lash out at people, whether they deserved or not! My conscience is no longer silenced by booze. When I act in ways that conflict with my HP's standards, it haunts me emotionally until I make it right. My HP says I should pray for my enemies.

It's work to be sober!

So today, I will not tell any of these in-duh-viduals to bugger the f*** off, put exlax in the coffee to watch them kill each other getting to the potty, or remove the ball from every mouse in the building and watch them inundate IT with their ignorance.

My HP also says "Better a dry crust in peace than a feast with a cantankerous woman," which authorizes me to look for a new job.

Let the resumes fly!!

Normal People

"Opinions vary considerably as to why the alcoholic reacts differently from normal people. We are not sure why, once a certain point is reached, little can be done for him. We cannot answer the riddle." ~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, There Is A Solution, pg. 22~

There was a point in my life at which I was so far-removed from the concept of "normal" drinking that a doctor actually had to explain it to me. After I had honestly told him about the volume of alcohol I typically consumed every day (well, more honestly than I ever had before - I'm sure I was still rounding down to the nearest quart), he told me that there were people in the world who might have one or two alcoholic beverages in an evening and call it a night. I couldn't picture it! Frankly, I still can't.

Last night I met with my sponsor and told her all about my fears in dealing with a workplace bully. It occurred to me as we talked that WB is not talking over her issues with me with anyone right now; she has no sponsor, she has no program. Statistically speaking, she's probably not got any issues with alcohol (Little Debbies, maybe, but I am not to diagnose another individual).

It's true what I hear in meetings so often (damn it): the person I resent probably doesn't give a flip about me - I am only harming myself. WB gets up in the morning and does what she feels is her best every day. She was a WB before I got here and she'll be one when I leave.

My son is going through the "why" phase of life - his response to everything is "why?" When I don't know the answer, I tell him that God made it that way.

Ironically, being normal prevents her from experiencing the fellowship of this program. Last night in the midst of my anxiety crisis, I felt very loved by the people in the program I have come to respect and trust.

I do not need to drink over this, over though I don't know why this is happening.

Fear vs. Faith

"You can rest in the faith that God will take care of you." - 24 Hours a Day

I am struggling with my anxiety in ways I haven't had to since my custody battle over a year ago. I am freaked out about my job, my son's father, and my bio-family. I'm distraught with worry to the point that I have physical symptoms.

Today's Language of Letting Go devotional reads, in part "The choice is ours. Will we let ourselves feel? Will we take a spiritual approach, including gratitude, toward the event? Will we question life and our Higher Power by asking what we're supposed to be learning and doing? Or will we use the incident to prove old, negative beliefs? Will we say, 'Nothing good ever happens to me... I'm just a victim... People can't be trusted... Life isn't worth living'?"

That's the way I used to handle this, along with lots of booze. If mounting the pity pot worked for me, I would probably go back to that pattern, because it's easy - it's what I know.

But it doesn't work. Pitypotism has gotten me nowhere in life.

Gratitude towards the events is tough. I know I am grateful for income coming in. I know I would not miss knowing my wonderful little boy even knowing what I know now about his father. I am grateful for HP making me able to do my best with him, and people tell me that my best with him is pretty darn good. I am grateful for my non-biological family in the program.

My Search for Meaning

Hazelden's recovery thought for today from The Language of Letting Go reads, in part "Too often, we try to gain a clear perspective before it is time.That will make us crazy.We do not always know why things are happening the way they are.... In hindsight, we will know. It will become clear. For today, being is enough. We have been told that all things shall work out for good in our life. We can trust that to happen, even if we cannot see the place today's events will hold in the larger picture."

Life often makes no sense to me from the seat I'm assigned in the present. For example, I am now a couple of months into a job that more than likely is not going to work out, and that has been a great disappointment to me. I have no idea how many times I have thought to myself, "Why is this happening to me?" or second-guessed myself for taking this job in the first place.

If I'm not vigilant, I will get into woe-is-me, and that's not good for my sobriety. The Big Book tells me that "anger is the dubious luxury of normal men" and depression, as many professionals will tell you, is anger turned inward.

I come into this place each day, and I remind myself that I am here to be of service. I do what I know is the right thing at each moment, trying not to worry about what the future holds. This place was not built to fill me emotionally, so to expect emotional fulfillment here is irrational.

My favorite story in the book of my faith is the book of Job. Job is this all-around success story: well-to-do, great family, and respect in his community. One day, God and Satan are talking, and God says, "Hey Jerkalope! Check out Job! He is one of my biggest fans!"

The devil says, "Well sure he is - you've given him everything. Take away his stuff and then see how much he loves you - I dare you!"

And God does, and Job, though miserable in his new, cruddy phase of life does not lose his faith that God sits supreme in the universe, doing everything for everyone's greater good.

The best part of the story for me is that Job specifically asks God why He took everything, and God doesn't ever tell him why. I love that because it tells me that it is not my job to know why things happen. It is only my job to respond properly.

Replacing fear with faith

I am a world-class worrier - if worry were an Olympic sport, I'd have been on a Wheaties box years ago. I have spent many years worrying about things that have never happened. I justified my drinking with the release from worry that it gave me for many years.

Now that I am sober, I have to deal with the same brain. As the country song goes, "I've got this thinkin' problem ...". This is why I need to read each day something out of Dale Carnegie's book Stop Worrying and Start Living. This book's techniques have helped me immensely with my weird need to freak out.

Here's an example: yesterday was the first day of school for my son. This is his second year in the public school system. Just like the first day of last year, my son's father called the school and told them I have enrolled my son under false pretenses (I don't know what that means), threatening to sue the school, the principal, and the district.

Last year, I got really upset about the scene he made - I envisioned him dragging me back into court, giving a judge another chance to take my son away from me. I literally began plotting strategy for a hearing that never took place.

I didn't enjoy it any more this year: I apologized to the school administration and filed his bizarre e-mails in the stack I've had for years now. What's different is that I recognize that he is the same size as me in the eyes of God. The same laws of nature apply to him - if they didn't, they would be called The Laws of Nature Except for Evan J. So this year I'll do some things differently:

I won't throw gas on grill when there's nothing to cook. Because we both answer to Nature's Law, I do not need to get drawn into a verbal pissing match with him. It does no good and wastes precious moments from my life - I didn't divorce him to keep fighting with him!

Get correct perspective. Most human behavior has a pattern, and he is no exception. He sends all parties involved ugly threatening e-mails and letters, demanding that everyone do his bizarre bidding. No one responds, and then one day, it stops like a hurricane losing steam. There will be another soon, but they always pass without any real incident.

Adjust my expectations. I have a court order directing my legal obligations in raising my son, and I obey that court order. He has not. Therefore, it is a reasonable assumption that he will continue to disobey. It is unreasonable to think that one day after 45 years of societal narcissism, he will say to himself, "Hmmm... maybe I should be of service to others, rather than a blight on my community? I'll start by ceasing to harass my ex-wife."

Embrace the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that Evan and I will end up before the original judge again over less than a year's worth of custody, and I can show that I have obeyed every letter of his order, and then show him the stack of e-mailed rants (which I affectionately call the Book of Crazy) and his failure to pay child support. Unpleasant? Yes. But nothing I couldn't handle.

Use same mental energy for something constructive. I turn the mental power I would have misused worrying to keeping documentation of all of this, while working on my ability to stay calm and nonplussed by these outbursts (which isn't easy). Keeping my side of the street clean isn't always easy, but it always rewards us.

Sometimes I think Dale Carnegie might have been one of us!

Detatchment

Even though I am no longer drinking, I still have situations and people I would like to control. Actually, I probably have more desire for control since I got sober because I now know what's going on around me! But sobriety got a lot easier when I truly realized that I do not control anyone.

Now my issue is worry - if I don't control anyone, how the hell are things going to turn out "my way"?

At the beginning of every meeting, I am reminded that the BB does not cover getting my way, "We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us....We cease fighting everyone and everything."

Melodie Beattie writes in The Language of Letting Go, "We may believe that controlling, worrying, and forcing will somehow affect the outcome we desire. Controlling, worrying, and forcing don't work. Even when we're right, controlling doesn't work. In some cases, controlling may prevent the outcome we want from happening."

A couple of months ago, I had a routine medical test come back with murky results. The doctors wanted much more detailed x-rays to see if I had the disease my aunt died from a few years ago. My family worried about it, asking me daily whether I'd gotten the results back yet and glancing at each other nervously when I replied "not yet".

Luckily, I consulted God on this one, asking Him to take this issue, because I just didn't have the energy to worry about it. This is not like me, to be rigorously honest: typically I worry myself into a sleepless fit. But sure enough, the second round of tests eventually came back showing a perfectly healthy body.

My family's worry, though well-intentioned, did not change my test results. It's not like I had cancer until the fifth straight day my mother went without sleep (in fact, medical professionals will tell you that worry can worsen patient's health - none of them will advise you to worry like hell and then whatever it is will go away).

I need to train myself to view the things I worry about today as false-positive test results - they only look scary on the surface, but deeper investigation reveals nothing HP & I can't handle.

Watching My Language ...

When I was drinking, I loved to tell people what to do. My two favorite phrases were "you need to ..." and "you have to ...". I was the quintessential director the BB talks about:

We are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful.

Once I got sober, I realized that trying to force my will on others is a lot of work, and never truly works. I wasn't too sure what the alternative was, but since I was willing to go to any lengths to get sober, I decided to experiment with life and try not telling every blessed soul what to do.

Here's an example: today I received an e-mail from my soon-to-be-ex-husband about whether or not I should take the washer and dryer with me when I move. Naturally, I think I should, he thinks I shouldn't. Here's an exerpt from his message:

"I also need to know that you will be dropping off the keys to my lawyer after you have moved out.... and until we are totally settled with everything and what is yours and what is mine.... the washer and dryer need to stay there..... "

I got the word "need" out of my vocabulary except when it's really, well, needed (I just love that sentence!! Get thee to a meeting!). "Needs" are things we literally can't live without, such as air, food, water, shelter, etc. My ex clearly wants the keys and the appliances, but no one is going to die if he doesn't get them.

Semantics? Not in terms of sobriety. As a recovering alcoholic, I need to be very careful with the difference between my needs and my wants as they relate to others, and here's why:

1) Overstating my wants as needs helps others see me as dishonest and manipulative. If I say "I want the appliances to stay there until we've worked this out", that's a truthful statement by any standard. Telling someone that they need to stay there just isn't true on any level. People don't like untruth: Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

2) Overstating my wants as needs skews the real importance of the issue. Words are powerful. Most of us choose to introduce ourselves in meetings as alcoholics not because others might be confused about why we're there, but because we need to remind ourselves daily of our condition (occasionally I see someone prooftext the Big Book and pompously announce that that Big Book doesn't require that they introduce themselves as such. Technically that's true, but I'm checking my watch to see how long it takes you to get your drink on.).

I don't need this particular set of appliances. Let's face it, I can get a new set (actually, I've been lusting over the dryers with the new steam-clean settings). However, I don't want to get a new set. I want this set. In my reply, I state this exactly that way. It keeps the issue at hand right-sized in my own mind.

3) Overstating my wants as needs eliminates my HP from the equation. If I'm not careful here, I may start thinking that my soon-to-be-ex is the source of all clean laundry in the universe, that my son and I will be pounding our clothes against rocks in some creek somewhere if he doesn't "allow" me to take the appliances. If I get mired in a warr of words over this, I'm basically saying "Oh David, Great God of Rinse Cycle, how dare you smite me??"

When I did my 4th step, I recognized that my needs are not met by other people, but by God. I don't think it's overstating that case to say that I need some washer & dryer from somewhere. It is God's determination where that comes from. This takes him off the psychological "hook" for me. Now of course I don't like debating all this stuff, but it passes, and I need to not develop a resentment from it.

Now some reader out there is thinking, "But M, he's trying to screw you!" Well, maybe he is (finally), but that's not the point. Other people are going to disappoint me in this life, even though I am trying to stay sober. I don't get some sort of pass on assholes because I like alcohol too much. I have to stay sober in spite of what life presents me.

And that, by the way, is an appropriate use of the phrase "have to".