Made A Decision

(73)

                              A Death in the Family

Jay was my first AA death from our disease. He died almost 40 years ago, but the shock of his death reverberates throughout my sober life every time a beloved member of our AA family leaves us and then dies.

Jay was six years sober when I arrived in AA. He was the "old timer" in our group of struggling brand newbies. He was our rock. He gave me a copy of the Little Red Book when I most needed it. He helped everyone in our group in special thoughtful ways like that.

I truly doubt I'd be alive today to write these words were it not for the hand of AA Jay consistently reached out to me in my struggling early days of recovery.

We were only allowed to share after we'd had a full year of sobriety in those days. Shortly after I became qualified to speak I was asked to share my story at a treatment center 40 miles away in a small town I'd never heard of. But Jay knew where it was and, without hesitation, drove me there and back for the occasion.

And then, when he was ten years sober Jay drank again. 

At first none of us in our group believed it. Then we did. Then we struggled with what to do, how to handle this situation, how to get Jay back into recovery?

But mostly, because we didn't know what to do, we just talked about it with each other. 

I called Jay a couple of times in the months that followed and invited him for a coffee. He always said we would get together. But we never did. And then he died. 

Our laughing, pipe-smoking, wonderful storytelling, dearest, kindest, caring Jay was dead. 

Forever dead.

The details, one by painful one, followed. 

Jay had been living apart from his family in a small scruffy apartment. His job was gone when he began drinking high alcohol content mouthwash at work. 

On the fateful night, drunk, he fell and ruptured his spleen. He bled to death, alone, in his apartment.

Our group huddled together like wounded animals. We cried at his standing-room-only funeral. We felt shock, and sorrow, guilt and fear.

 

Guilt that we hadn't done more to try and get Jay back safely into the rooms of AA.

Fear because we knew, if it could happen to Jay, it could happen to any of us!

I've known many AA members who have died from our disease since Jay's death. Some from alcohol itself, others from alcohol-induced suicide. Death and alcoholism go hand in hand. And as the years add up in our recovery we will attend a lot of funerals. The faces of those we've lost will always haunt us.

And this week we lost another. We lost "Nurse Julie." A beautiful, talented, kind, nurturing young woman with a glamorous mop of dark auburn hair and eyes that lit up when she smiled.

Julie slipped back into the clutches of our chronic, terminal illness awhile ago. In recent weeks she had tried to make it back to AA and had attended some meetings, but it was too late for another remission of our disease. 

Today all who knew her in recovery are in shock and mourning.

A friend in the states just reminded me of another alcoholic death some years ago and of her shock when a fellow member said others have to die so we can truly understand the severity of our disease.

"I thought then, and I do still, that was the cruelest of statements," she said. "But it's also true. And it's the cruelest of lessons." 

I have also, reluctantly, come to understand that the death of a known and loved AA member is always a vivid reminder to us that AA is not a social club, it's a treatment center. We go to meetings to keep our disease at bay for one more day. 

While in our meetings we make friends, we laugh, we share, we stop isolating and we embrace our society. That's all part of recovery. It's often the very best part. But it's also very easy in such comfortable circumstances to forget why we meet!

So a death in our AA family is always a shock, a sadness, a reminder that our disease is indeed cunning, baffling, powerful, patient - and deadly.

Julie will be remembered, missed, and her death regretted by all who had the good fortune to know her.

And if one person holds onto their recovery with both hands going forward after learning of her death, her death will have served its brutal purpose.

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; Love leaves a memory no one can steal.”

There’s a beautiful Jewish condolence meant for sharing in times like this:  

“May her memory be a blessing.”

                                 

 

Made a Decision.

(72)

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Recovery is a serious business. Staying away from alcohol (and all the other drugs) requires a daily commitment. It is the most important thing we can do, because without our sobriety we stand to lose everything ...  family, job, health, life.

But, as our book tells us, "We are not a grim lot." Nor are we meant to be. In addition to being serious business, recovery is also meant to be joyful. 

We wouldn't let our car chug along burning oil, thumping forward on a flat tire or with banging noises in the engine. Just so, we need to pay attention when recovery feels like it is all work and no play.

If we're sober, but depressed. 

Sober, but unhappy. 

Sober, but feeling like it's all a bit boring ... 

It's time for an AA tune up.

Freedom from alcohol and drugs also frees us to enjoy our recovery and every other aspect of our lives. We find those things that make us happy. We find the fun!

In my first year in sobriety, a friend of mine with the same amount of sober time decided sobriety wasn’t much fun - and I agreed. So on the following Friday night we got all dolled up and went out looking for fun. We ate at a nice restaurant, which was nice, but at that point we drew a blank. Our “fun” had always involved barroom drinking, dancing, and flirting. We discovered we had no idea what to do next. 

What we did was end up at the kitchen table of another friend in early recovery where we drank pots of coffee, gossiped happily about every other member of AA, told each other more of our drinking war stories, and laughed hysterically into the wee hours of the morning. 

For many of us finding fun things to add to our lives means going back in time to our childhood to remember what fun looked like then: 

Roller skating? Football? A doll house? Jumping rope? Bike riding? Drawing pictures? Reading? Building a tree house or snow fort? Hiking in the woods? Playing with our friends?

Once we've scoured memory lane for those tidbits we can consider doing some of those things again. We'll probably find we have outgrown many childhood pleasures, but a few might surprise us by still being quite a nice fit.

We can even invite our children or grandchildren to share in our rediscoveries ... or not.  

We can always opt to share our fun, but we also have the right to be joyous, happy and free on our own if we so choose.  

Sad to say, our years of substance abuse took away our simple delight in just being alive, but recovery can restore it. 

 

Many alcoholics are also workaholics. When we find ourselves forced into having some down time we use it sit around worrying. 

Where's the fun in that?

Discovering the ability to leave the job at quitting time, to rest when we're tired, to discover what we most enjoy - from building a house to just pottering around in the one we have - is the best part of having a sober life.

We must always remember we have a disease of perception. How we view our activities can brighten them with glitter or turn them black.

Prayer and meditation center us, educate us, lift our spirits, provide companionship, and offer us a journey of adventure - 

and/or - 

prayer and meditation are just something we do hurriedly (if done at all) as just one more recovery box to tick.  

Perception!

Service work is where we can grow our recovery by leaps and bounds. Becoming active in our home group, taking a turn chairing, serving as a greeter, helping plan and deliver special events can turn out to be some of the most fun we've ever had ... 

and/or ... 

Service work can be a drudgery to nourish our resentments: 

"THEY expect ME to do everything. Wah, Wah, Wah."  Perception!

If "they" aren't doing-the-doing, "they" aren't reaping all the benefits recovery has to offer. 

It's their loss! 

And they put themselves at risk of a relapse by not doing-the-doing. 

Learning the steps, learning how to use them as tools for living a balanced life, offers us the opportunity to get to know who we really are, to discover our strengths, to experience our talents to the full. 

To not do the steps, to not work them, use them, treasure them - all of them - is to deny ourselves all the benefits of a joyful recovery.

Meetings are our ongoing medicine for treating our disease. And getting to our meetings is one of the best parts of being a member of AA. Knowing we'll see our friends there, getting to laugh with one another, getting to help one another through our bad patches, and celebrate our good times together, is hugely important to our recovery.

It's a good idea to ask ourselves from time to time, 

"Am I having fun yet?" 

 

If my answer is "no," I may be taking myself far too seriously. 

Our lives didn't end when we got sober, they got a reboot. 

Recovery is meant to be fun, too. Go find some!

 

Made A Decision

(71)

                                 Balance

"My definition of balance is being able to obsess equally in all areas of my life."

I read that quote above recently and, while it made me chuckle, it also felt waaay too close to the mark. 

That's because the need to create a balanced life has been the one big challenging and recurring theme of my entire time in recovery.

My Higher Power clued me it would be so during the first year of my AA journey, because the word "balance" was everywhere. 

Some examples:

. My laundry detergent offered me a BALANCED washing - with the word "balance" printed in big bold letters.

. The announcer for the high wire circus act on TV stressed how the performers must remain BALANCED.

. A bank statement gave notice of a new and easy way to BALANCE my account.

Fuzzy as my head was that first year, even I couldn't miss that message from my Higher Power on the need for more BALANCE in my life.

So what does a balanced life look like?

 

It looks calm and centered and comfortable. It shows up when we pay attention to developing our spiritual, physical and mental health. 

We do this by making prayer and meditation part of our daily routine, by eating right and exercising (preferably out in the open air), and by attending our meetings to support our mental health.

Plus we need ALL the tools of recovery - from step work to book study groups - to develop and keep our balance. 

Avoiding the busy-ness of ALWAYS doing too much is one component. 

Remembering the AA advice to H.A.L.T. - not allowing ourselves to become too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired - is another.

Alcoholics are too often excitement junkies, creating or seeking stress to boost our built in drug, adrenaline. We use caffeine the same way. Achieving serenity isn't easily done when we're all jazzed up on either.

Balance can be achieved, and it's worth the effort, but it remains subject to change as our conditions change.

We are now - and always - like the high wire walker over a canyon who must maintain balance despite sudden gusts of wind.

Let's say our AA life has restored our family to us, we now have a good job, we have a strong support system in our AA friends and our standing in the community has been restored. All is good! 

But then ...

We are diagnosed with a medical problem; our child overdoses on drugs; we learn an AA friend has gossiped about us; our company goes bust and our job is gone along with it; divorce papers arrive … What then? 

How do we retain balance through any of these scary kinds of situations?

First we check in with the Boss, the Top Guy, Amazing Grace, God, or whatever we chose to call our Higher Power. There we whine for a bit - then surrender the problem and ask for help.

We will also talk to our sponsor and our known-to-be-trustworthy AA friends. We'll step up our number of meetings and talk about what's going on. 

We may whine for a bit to God and our friends, but then must get off our pity pot before it becomes our permanent habitat. 

Besides, by now (after using all our AA tools) we're ready to face whatever facts must be faced - and dealt with - about our changed situation. 

That's our solution for every single life problem we will encounter. That's how we learn to live life on life's terms ... or ... as I prefer to think of it, to live life on God's terms.

Fast forward now, one sober day at a time, when old age arrives with a whole new set of adjustments to be made.

That's when we suddenly find ourselves unable to do those daily tasks that were once so easy we never gave them a thought.

Finding our balance in the strange (and often hilarious) new world of hard-of-hearing, hard to remember, hard to get up from a chair, hard to walk very far, hard to clean the bathtub ... takes a lot of new adjustments.

Finding the balance - when losing it can mean a broken hip - takes a good bit of getting used to!

It's also hard to know just how much of our "hand of AA" is still required of us in our old age. How much should now be handed off to younger members so they, too, can gain what we have from our wonderful program.

Reevaluating one's life while busy living it is never easy, but it's always necessary when we feel out of balance once again. I've spent a lot of time in prayer and thought (and conversation with trusted friends) about this old age balancing act this week. 

I've decided it’s now time to step back from a lot of my AA commitments, but to continue with writing this weekly blog. It's my best way now to continue giving back to our program.

And I will use any free time gained to push forward with a current project to compile all these blogs into book form.

Just writing this down here has already made me feel more balanced.

My work now - as always - will be to keep me that way!

 

Made a Decision:

(70)

When the Honeymoon Ends

Everything about AA is wonderful to many newcomers. The meetings are amazing. The people are without flaw. They make us laugh and they also seem so wise. The program is perfect.

Who knew sobriety could be like this?

Getting free of the compulsion to drink, making new and wonderful friends, becoming involved in our recovery while planning happy days around getting to our next meeting, feels a lot like being on a honeymoon.

In AA it's called being on a pink cloud. Some of us ride it for a very long time, finding real joy in being alive after years of it being hard to even face another day. 

AA gives us a reason for living. We find breathtaking beauty in nature, where it has always been- but went unnoticed when our lives were focused on getting our next drink.

Old timers smile knowingly when an enraptured newcomer sings AA's praises. Some even burst the newcomer's bubble with cynical comments like, "Enjoy it now, you'll fall off that pink cloud soon enough."

Sadly, the cynics are right.

No one stays on a honeymoon forever. One day we wake up back in life as it’s lived by the vast majority of society. This often happens at the nine-month-sober mark, statistically the time of most relapses.

But at any time in our recovery - without warning - our meetings may suddenly seem full of dull and boring people who don't leave us enough time to talk; we see that our AA friends actually gossip just like the people at work; and we discover our lives aren't all that great.

It begins to feel like our lives will never be perfect, even if we're sober. Maybe our problems at home have gotten worse since we quit drinking? Maybe we're realizing we've hated our job for years? Maybe the whole world feels like it is going to hell in a hand-basket? Maybe ...

Hold it right there.

"Alcoholism is a disease of perception."

And it is here where we start to learn that everything in our lives - EVERYTHING - is about our perception.

We make the choice to view things as either good or bad.

My Alcoholism is always a disease of my own flawed perception!!!

My first reaction to a “perceived” difficult situation is always negative. If I don't immediately change my thinking (which takes a good bit of practice) a flood of negative thoughts can rush in to sweep away my chance of finding a solution.  But just like when caught up in a raging torrent, if we can reach out and grasp just one firm thing - one positive thought  - and hang onto it, we'll be able to regain some stability and haul ourselves to safety.  When the going gets tough(er) we call our sponsors, we reach out to our AA friends, we force ourselves to go to meetings, even that one where we know boring old Jabberon is going to talk away half of it.  (Boring old Jabberon's job, btw, is to teach us patience and tolerance).  We become more willing to move forward with whatever step may need a revisit. How well we can recognize that we're headed for trouble, and deal with it quickly, can reveal to us the extent of our own progress in recovery. Just this past week I had to recognize I was in a sudden lesson of my own and had to mutter to myself, "Well, well, well. If it isn't the consequences of my own actions (now arriving at Gate One.)" I am by nature a solitary creature, as are most writers. I am also about as flexible and spontaneous in my old age as your average wall. I have a daily routine that's pretty much carved in stone and my middle name isn't "Letschangeitup." So when a young AA friend said he was coming to see me, and I replied, "Great, you are always welcome," I was shocked when his next email (five minutes later) showed a picture of his boarding pass from the UK. I then spent that day fretting about me, me, me. Me and my routine. Me and the book I'm now working on. Me and getting a blog written with company in the house. Me and ... so it went. Fortunately, I know enough to connect with friends who let me whine a bit when I need to. And I shared about it at a meeting. And I shared it (gently) with my young friend, too, upon his arrival. It's called "honesty" and it's what we non-saints are required to do to stay sober. My visiting friend is incredibly dear to me and has had some big problems in recent months. He felt the sudden need to visit a friend who might offer some encouragement. I hope I have. I know we've had a lovely visit. (For starters, he washes dishes!) Even after long-term recovery I don’t ever react to surprises with emotional sobriety. I must always first flail a bit before remembering my Higher Power has my back in all situations.  When all is going according to MY plan I can start to believe my work is done. But it is in our lessons where we find our continued spiritual awakening. It doesn't matter how long or short a time we have been in recovery, the learning must continue if we want to make more room for more of the gifts of recovery. And I am nothing if not a greedy bugger. I want all the prezzies that can come my way. (Over time we can learn how to climb back aboard our pink cloud for another wonderful ride, too ... at least until our next "lesson" arrives).