[honeydumplin]

It has been written on this site, and also heard in the rooms of Alcholics Anonymous,
something along the lines of, “If you spot it, you got it.” And oh, how those words have rung true often, both in and out of those rooms.

Early on, there was a group here that met at a nearby library. It was open to people who wanted to go through the steps, and with the basic exception of the more private parts of four and five, it was the soul-baring no holes barred sharing that I get a rush from, just talking about. In going around the room from person to person, most everyone would introduce themselves as alcoholics.

When my turn came, I said, “My name is Kevin, and I am an addict, and an alcoholic.”

Shortly afterwards, this guy who'd been sober for quite some time, introduced himself as an alcoholic. He then went into the routine that I've also grown to love of talking about someone in third person, as if they are not there, all the while with an occasion sideways glance, in hopes of checking to make sure that said person is paying attention.

There were only two things I can honestly say that I remember. One was that he thought that people who introduced themselves as addicts, thought they were special, and the other was that I thought I was special. Nevertheless, that guy lived rent-free in my head practically every waking hour, for the next three days. I actually had to do a little min-fourth step about the whole ordeal, and watched first-hand as I took responsibility for the situation, discovered my powerlessness over his words, and gradually felt this feeling of peace as my resentment toward him slowly vanished.

I can be around him now, and while the thought is still there to a certain extent, its power over me is all but gone, which truly is a testament to how the program works for drunks like me on so many levels. But among the lessons which were learned from all of it, what struck a chord with me more than anything was the concept of unity. A renewed respect for Alcholics Anonymous had taken place, and all I did was suit up, show up, and work the program. Another reason why people frequently told me that I didn't have to exactly like what was going on throughout the course of working the steps in order for them to have a positive impact on my sobriety. I still believe that, because it is in the things that often disturb me the most that I find solutions, instead of this endless search for more problems that I can continually complain about.

This also was the beginning of a period in my sobriety, in which I sank into a personal turmoil into the whole, am I an addict, or an alcoholic fiasco that probably grabs more of us than I can imagine. I found that it wasn't so much the direction of the words coming out of the man's mouth at that meeting in the library, or even the person saying them, but had everything to do with self-identifying as one or the other, and not both, even though at times I was absolutely addicted to what I was refusing to identify myself as. As confusing as it all may sound, and is, it came down to praying for answers, talking to a sponsor about it, and not trying to over-analyze it so much.

What kept me grounded more than anything during that process though, was the third tradition, which states that the only thing that I really need to do to consider myself a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, is to have a desire to stop drinking. With that tradition, I automatically qualified. The rest was either someone's opinion, or a deeply-rooted fear of not being accepted, combined with a constant urge to seek approval from someone who had twenty-four more hours than I did; all of which is just one of the many ways that not only allow me to recognize that I need help in those matters, but to also give me something to do with my time besides sitting around thinking about getting drunk, and high. In either case, it is an opportunity to move in a different direction.

There are just as many paths to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, as there are people who take them. But what unites us from taking that next drink is not how much we drank, how many spouses we no longer have, how many times we were hand-cuffed drunk and disorderly, or how many D.U.I.'s we lived through. Its not wanting to be like that anymore. And in my honest opinion, if I'm telling you that my history in any way qualifies me more than it does you, than that's exactly what I am doing. Whether it involves directly or indirectly shunning a person wanting to stay sober, or an attempt to self-destruct my own abstinence, it accomplishes nil when it comes to me staying sober.

And still, my early days away from both drink and drug were thwarted by my not knowing if I belonged in this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous. Incredible isn't it? How the mind and ego, hand in hand, can somehow seek to crack open what little sobriety I had, and how I'd spent all of these years as a drunk, and yet couldn't honestly admit that I was an alcoholic. Ironically, that is where things started to turn. I mean what right did I have, and better still, what kind of sense did I have one way or another, to determine such a thing. My emotional sobriety was an ebb and flow. One day it would be there, and one day it was fleeting. In effect, after years, the ground was just getting dry, and here I was, making all of these profound conclusions about something that was nothing more than a hill of beans. But something kept telling me that if I hung around long enough, things would change and sure enough they did.

One night in a packed house of over three hundred of us, a guy told something close to my story, and I cried tears of joy. The main difference was that he was a herion addict.
What struck me about his story though, was what he said about the whole thing in a nutshell. He said, “I didn't do drugs because I am drug addict; I did drugs because I'm an alcoholic.”

Slowly it began to make sense. Even though at one time I was 100 per cent totally addicted to crack cocaine like nobody's business, I wasn't doing it for the sake of running up and down the road all hours of the night, hearing voices come out the walls, and peeking through the **** blinds every five minutes. I was doing it because the coke was taking the alcoholic buzz into an entirely different dimension. With all of its poisonous toxicity, the voices from the wall fell on deaf ears, and I didn't care any more about the blinds. This conclusion, I dare say had been lived through prior to that night, when in an unsuccessful attempt at getting high on coke, I had discovered that it was no longer the same without the booze. One part of the puzzle had fallen into place.

Then I actually began to read the book, and like I've mentioned previously, that first page in the chapter titled “More About Alcoholism” was like an epiphany. There's no way I could have been anything but one, all along. And still without working with God, and another alcoholic through it all, it was merely words in a book I was carrying around, waiting to be read. There again, in due time, along with other things that were revealed.

Like the first time I saw the word “sedative” in the big book, not once but twice, while reading Dr. Bob's Nightmare. This guy was telling this story a long time ago.

“During the next few years, I developed two distinct phobias. One was the fear of not sleeping, and the other was the fear of running out of liquor. Not being a man of means, I knew that if I did not stay sober enough to earn money, I would run out of liquor. Most of the time, therefore, I did not take the morning drink which I craved so badly, but instead would fill up on large doses of sedatives to quiet the jitters, which distressd me terribly. Occasionally, I would yield to the morning craving, but if I did, it would be only a few hours before I would be quite unfit for work.”

Alcoholics Anonymous
Dr. Bob's Nightmare
p.176
Fourth Edition

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He also had a good message on tolerance.


“Tolerance expresses itself in a variety of ways: in kindness and consideration toward the man or woman whos is just beginning the march along the spiritual path; in the understantanding of those who perhaps have been less fortunate in eductational advantages; and in sympathy toward those whose religious ideas may seem to be at great variance with our own.

I am reminded in this connection of the picture of a hub with its radiating spokes. We all start at the outer circumference and approach our destination by one of many routes. To say that one spoke is much better than all the other spokes is true only in the sense of its being best suited to you as an individual. Human nature is such that without some degree of tolerance, each one of us might be inclined to believe that we have found the best or perhaps the shortest spoke. Without some tolerance, we might tend to become a bit smug or superior—which, of course, is not helpful to the person we are trying to help and might be quite painful or obnoxious to others. No one of us wishes to do anything which might act as a deterrent to the advancement of another—and a patronizing attitude can readily slow up this process.

Tolerance furnishes, as a by-product, a greater freedom from the tendency to cling to preconceived ideas and stubornly adhered-to opinions. In other words, it often promotes an open-mindedness which is vastly important—is, in face, a prerequisite to the successful termination of any line of search, whether it be scientific or spiritual.

These, then, are a few of the reasons why an attempt to acquire tolerance should be made by each one of us.”

Dr. Bob Smith
Grapevine
July 1944

One more thing, and I'll close off. Wilson's experiments with LSD between 1954-1959 are documented in his book called Pass It On. It consumes chapter 23, and I'll try putting it in the article section soon.

Thanks for your posts too, Jo.