Anonymity

Mark posted over at A Dozen Steps a very interesting item about being "too anonymous", something I have never pondered before.

When I first came to the Program several years ago, I told no one until I had 45-60 days of sobriety (I can't remember exactly how much time I had, to be rigorously honest). Then I started "coming out" to people. This is how I found out that everyone knew I had a drinking problem, but few said anything about it. I would muster up the courage to tell family and close friends, and no one had the decency to act shocked or ask me if I wasn't being a little bit rash. Instead, everyone said, "Oh M, that's wonderful!".

Like I was the last one to know or something! Sheesh ...

So now I'm in to win, but I still have to be mindful:

I don't volunteer it, nor do I hide it. When I am offered a drink by a so-called-normal person, I decline politely. If it is offered again by the same person, I state that I do not drink alcohol. If that person then asks why, I reply that I am allergic. Yes, I am then tortured by the standard tale of Someone-They -Sort-Of-Know-Who-Breaks-Out-in-Hives-If-She-Drinks-151, but I have not made the Normie uncomfortable by stating that I'm in recovery.

I put others' anonymity before my own. The vast majority of my friends are in recovery. If a normie asks how I met a recovering person, I simply say "Through friends" or "At a get-together." I may not care that the normie finds out I go to meetings, but my recovering friend might!

I accept the fact that in some arenas, recovery makes normal people nervous. When I lived in Dallas, I was told by several folks that there existed a super-secret meeting close to a major airport only for airline pilots. It was invitation only. I know that this is a potential violation of Tradition One. In reality, I want airline pilots (and doctors and lawyers and all other professionals who often hold the course of other's lives in their hands on a daily basis) to be able to get this thing, and if that means super-secret meetings, so be it!

I think about my internet usage carefully. Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook pack a double-edged sword: they help me meet others in recovery, but they also have all kinds of vehicles for breaking others' anonymity.

And so do blogs, so as usual, I sign off with no name!

What "if"?

So it's the end of August, and being month number 8 going into month number 9, many around here are gearing up to do their amends, or at least to brag about doing them in meetings. It's a heavy subject going in and a freeing experience going out, Here's what I've learned about the process along my way ...

1) I can owe amends to people even if they do not appear on my 4th step list. I have found this to be especially true for those newer in sobriety. The 4th step list is my list of resentments/fears/generally nasty feelings. However, I can harm people without even knowing it. This is why the twelve steps differentiate between a "fearless moral inventory" and "a list of all persons we had harmed". These can be two separate and different lists.

2) I should not attempt to make an amends if I'm not really sorry. Having a resentment is like active alcoholism: everyone can see it, regardless of how I think I'm covering it up. If you know deep down that you're not a bit sorry for what you did, you will almost always make the situation worse with a new act of dishonesty. The Big Book says that in this case we should pray for the willingness to make amends in these cases.

3) I should not make a direct amends to someone in order to manipulate them. When I did my first amends list, I couldn't wait to go to an old flame an apologize for the way I would sometimes speak to him when I had been drinking. I was genuinely sorry about that, but what I truly wanted deep down was to show him that I had sobered up and that now he should give our relationship another chance. Selfishness and self-centeredness was about to become the root of yet another problem! If I am still trying to control others' behavior, I am going to drink again, and luckily my sponsor saw through my sanctimonious b******t and forbade me from contacting him in any way.

4) I should remember that Internet is usually the easier, softer way. If my sponsor authorizes me to make a direct amends to someone, I need to see that individual in person. Anything else is cutting corners, with a couple of exceptions:

• You physically can't appear before them - you are a soldier deployed to a combat zone, you are incarcerated, etc. If someone has a protective order against you, DO NOT VIOLATE THE ORDER.


• They refuse to see you - this is their right, and we respect that, no questions asked.


• The expense of travel will be a financial hardship on you or your family - if you need to make amends to someone who is now a missionary in Pongo Pongo, airfare would certainly bite into the budget of the average family. We are responsible for our family's food, basic clothing or shelter in all stages of our recovery.

So, with this said, have a happy amends list! If I've left anything out here ... I apologize!

Bonus post for moms!

If you're a mom on the road to recovery, check out the ladies at SoberMoms:

http://sobermoms.ning.com/

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!

Weary

CAUTION: WHINING FOLLOWS

It's called "trudging" for a reason ...

From 24 Hours a Day:

"Never yield to weariness of the spirit. At times, the world’s cares and distractions will intrude and the spirit will become weak. At times like this, carry on and soon the spirit will become strong again. God’s spirit is always with you, to replenish and renew. None ever sincerely sought God’s help in vain. Physical weariness and exhaustion make a time of rest and communion with God more necessary. When you are overcome by temporary conditions which you cannot control, keep quiet and wait for the power of the spirit to flow back."

May God forgive me, I would like a day off from my life today. I would like to be in one of those sappy movies where I wake up in someone else's life and learn to appreciate my own. I am tired of potty training. I am tired of setting up the new place. I am tired of worrying about money. I am tired of dealing with my soon-to-be-ex husband. I am tired of reporting to this new job and sitting over here in Storage Room B having no one talk to me or give me any direction. I am tired of not getting BF's just-about-total attention. I am tired of being exhausted all day and not sleeping at night. I am tired of having hideously chapped lips from this stupid Accutane (which I might have to discontinue if I keep feeling this way).

A few days ago I called my parents to tell them (prematurely) that I thought we were making some real potty training progress. My mother said to me, "That's great news honey! When I saw you were calling I just assumed something was wrong - I thought 'Uh oh'".

Wow - that's nice. Thanks for the vote of confidence.

How Not to Share in a Meeting

1) Don't introduce yourself as an alcoholic/having the desire to stop drinking in closed meetings. Yes, yes, I know, nowhere in the BB does it say that you have to introduce yourself as an alcoholic. However, by attending closed meetings, you're making that statement with your very presence. If you can't verbally admit it, you probably shouldn't be sharing.

2) Share at every meeting you attend. For HP's sake, do NOT let a meeting go by without your input! Gosh knows some folks only get to hear you once a day.

3) Share even through you're more than 15 minutes late. I understand that doctors and like professionals attend meetings, and that those schedules don't bend to meeting times. However, if one is late because the line at Golden Corral was longer than anticipated, this may be your HP's way of saying you're meant to listen for what little time you have left in the meeting.

4) Go as long as you like. Anything longer than five minutes is ego. Most folks attend discussion meetings in order to hear the thoughts of more than one person. If you would like to take up the whole meeting, please get with whoever coordinates your group's speaker meetings and volunteer to speak at the appropriate venue.

5) Say the same thing, every single time. I sit in meetings with people whose sharing I can literally mouth the words to, like a song. That just ain't right.

6) Share at people. This is the practice of lecturing someone about something in a meeting rather than discussing it one-on-one with your victim. Meetings are not the venue for our personal vendettas - if you have something to say to someone, say it to them offline. If you can't do that, don't use your group's patience as a social crutch.

Please drink reponsibly

Few advertising taglines rouse emotion in me like "Please drink responsibly". This is always muttered at the end of an ad featuring vogue-magazine-urbanites sipping the latest mixed drinks. Everyone is beautiful, rich and happy. Like all advertisements, the implication is the same: if you buy our product, you will be beautiful, rich and happy too.



Booze companies are not legally required to include "please drink responsibly" in their advertising, but most do in order to try to prevent lawsuits when their consumers get a little too beautiful, rich and happy.


I very much wanted to drink responsibly, and I tried everything to master this concept. I tried:


1) Only drinking certain types of alcohol (only the liquid kind)


2) Limiting myself to one drink per hour - lots of clock watching ensued, until I learned to limit myself to 1 quart per hour.


3) Self-hypnosis CDs - yes, I'll admit it. I spent almost $100 on a series of CDs in which a very calming female voice informed me as I passed out each night that I prefer water, tea or juice. After about 4 or 5 nights of this, I had powerful urges to drink my vodka with juice instead of straight - that's all that got me.


4) The vitamin & mineral plan - there is a book still dominating the addiction/recovery category at Amazon.com entitled "7 Weeks To Sobriety". The idea is that alcoholics are deficient in certain vitamins and minerals. I purchased an obscene amount of pills at my local Whole Foods Market (plus a case of hard cider), and over the next few weeks had the most beautiful hair, skin and nails I've had in years. I was too drunk to enjoy them though.


Only through the 12 steps and participation in the program have I gotten sober. I have already performed the BB's experiment of trying "some controlled drinking" and it didn't work. That "please drink responsibly" admonishment is targeted at people who drink like me, and the irony is, I can't drink responsibly!


While researching alcoholism, I have read about the "controlled drinking movement". These are folks who feel that they have moved from problem drinking to moderate, social drinking. Most controlled drinking websites and literature I have read are quite hostile towards A.A., disparaging the concepts that one might be powerless over alcohol and might find relief in a Higher Power's help.


No reciprocal resentment here: if you can control your drinking, I say congratulations! Members of any 12-step program should only seek to be helpful to others who might suffer as we did, not to recruit new members like some Rotary Club for drunks. When a newcomer walks in, I am not trying to sell her anything. Your way of living can be vastly different from mine, and maybe your way of drinking can be too - that's not for me to judge.