Daily Reprieve

From Bill Wilson in the Grapevine, Jan 1958:

“In the first six months of my own sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics.  Not a one responded.  Yet this work kept me sober.  It wasn’t a question of those alcoholics giving me anything.  My stability came out of trying to give, not out of demanding that I receive.”

82

AA COMES OF AGE, Pages 69-70

In my first conversation with Dr. Bob, I bore down heavily on the medical hopelessness of his case, freely using Dr. Silkworth’s words describing the alcoholic’s dilemma, the “obsession plus allergy” theme.  Though Bob was a doctor, this was news to him, bad news.  And the fact that I was an alcoholic and knew what I was talking about from personal experience made the blow a shattering one.

You see, our talk was a completely mutual thing.  I had quit preaching.  I knew that I needed this alcoholic as mush as he needed me.

“I had quit preaching.”  What a relief when others quit preaching, or when I no longer feel the need to do so.  Let’s just talk.  Be real.  Get honest.  Realize that we are all in this together.  I love the freedom and reality of this spiritual program.  I can also feel it when that religious spirit seeks to hijack the program into social acceptability.  People start saying the right thing.  We start verbally dressing up who we are.  And it doesn’t matter what group you are talking about.  Wiccans and Pagans do the same thing as Christians, Jews, and Muslims.  When we become fractionated into identity booster groups, filled with some form of protective religious pride, our fortress becomes an isolating prison.

OH MY GOD!  I am preaching about not preaching!  Ok, the reality for me is that I am free.  When I am not afraid or feeling guilty or angry, I really like who I am.  For me, it seems that gratitude is easy when I like who I am and when my disease isn’t right in my face.

83

From Bill W. in the Grapevine, 1962:

“I was the recipient of a tremendous mystic experience of ‘illumination,’ and at first it was very natural for me to feel that this experience staked me out as somebody very special.

But as I now look back upon this tremendous event, I can only feel very grateful.  It now seems clear that the only special features of my experience were its suddenness and the overwhelming and immediate conviction that it carried.

In all other respects, however, I am sure that my own experience was essentially like that received by any A.A. member who has strenuously practiced our recovery program.  Surely, the grace he receives is also of God; the only difference is that he becomes aware of his gift more gradually. “

From a letter written by Bill Wilson, 1960:

During acute depression, avoid trying to set your whole life in order all at once.  If you take on assignments so heavy that you are sure to fail in them at the moment, then you are allowing yourself to be tricked by your unconscious.  Thus you will continue to make sure of your failure, and when it comes you will have another alibi for still more retreat into depression.

In short, the ‘all or nothing’ attitude is a most destructive one.  It is best to begin with whatever the irreducible minimums of activity are.  Then work for an enlargement of these – day by day.  Don’t be disconcerted by setbacks – just start over.

I quoted Bill W. above because it seemed appropriate in the spirit of preparing for the holiday blues. 

I raised my right head today, to serve as a soldier once more, in the US Army Reserve.  It finally happened.  I went to a meeting tonight and there were many military personnel there from a treatment facility.  I hope that my experience dealing with this disease will be helpful to others in uniform. 

I do not feel brave.  I face difficult situations the same way I face a roller coaster ride at Six Flags.  I concentrate in getting in line, and just mindlessly walk forward.  Don’t consider the enter scope of what I am about to face.  This becomes increasingly difficult the longer I have to wait.  The building anxiety makes me impatient.  I don’t know how much longer I can restrain the desire to escape, to protect myself. 

It finally happens.  The moment of truth.  All I really have to do now is sit down in the seat and buckle up, the rest will work itself out.  The metaphor breaks down when comparing to military service as a leader.  Taking the oath is no longer just about challenging fear and feeling the exhilaration.  I am expected to lead based on my accumulated years of service.  Others will count on me to perform.  This roller coaster ride could be for several months, even years.  I am responsible.  I want to be responsible.  I want to do well.  But I have more faith in the manifestation of my shortcomings than I do of my strengths.

Maybe if I can take what I have learned in the program to this devotion, I will do better this time.  I help others because it helps me.  We work together because we will die individually.  Humility in order to insure connection.  Ask for help when I am in need.  Seems to fit.

84

WARNING WILL ROBINSON, WARNING!  ITS THE HOLIDAYS!  OK, if you are not familiar with an ancient TV program I used to watch as a child called “Lost in Space,” that might not make much sense to you.  But if you are alcoholic/addict, the threat of the holiday blues can be lethal.  I would advise you to do a few things to protect yourself.  The first time I relapsed was during the Christmas holidays.  If I could go visit myself prior to that episode, these are some of the things I would like to say.  Maybe it will be helpful to you.

1.  NO ISOLATION.  Stay as connected with recovery minded individuals as you can arrange.  Remember that you can be alone in a room full of people if no one has any ability to relate to you.  Plan ahead if you are going out of town.

2.  NO MORBID SELF REFLECTION.  Avoid times of introspection.  Get out of your head.  Slap yourself if you need to, or masturbate, or both.

3.  HELP SOMEBODY ELSE.  Find ways to commit yourself to helping others.  In the military there is a phrase, “its harder to hit a moving target.”  If you sit still, the disease will find you.  Serve at the missions, help provide meals for the homeless, whatever you can come up with.  Obsess with thinking about others welfare in any way you can.

4.  DON’T PUSH THE PANIC BUTTON DURING EMOTIONAL PAIN.  Be aware of the self-delusion of this disease.  Assume that you going to experience some down times, some deep dark times.  The disease will take normal blues that come from heightened expectations and exploit them.  Intense emotional pain can overrule the judgment center of the brain and promote the idea that you need to do something rash to overcome it.  No matter how legitimate it might seem, commit to doing nothing.  Know that it shall pass if you don’t respond to it.  Or you will be better equipped to handle it when normal life resumes after the holidays.

5.  DON’T STAY DOWN!  If you get hit, get back up.  If you are unable to resist and you do slip, shorten the life of the relapse.  Call others in your network as soon as a breath of sanity returns.  Pick up a white chip and start over.  Don’t waste time asking why.

That’s all I can think of right now.  If you get stuck and need someone, you can contact me here on this site.  I will get back to you as soon as I possibly can.  Now, hopefully, I will follow my own advise.  Time to face the music – Nooo, its Christmas carols!  The elves are eating my brain…a little weird.

Rule 62:  Don’t take yourself too damn seriously! [From the 12 x 12, page 149]

NOTE:  If anyone can think of something I have missed here, please comment.

86

I am using the group computer for those of us waiting to go through MEPS tomorrow.  Today is my birthday; 48.  I am getting closer and closer to that life graduation date.  I want to close the circle on this Right of Passage.  I am going to attempt to make a meeting tonight, if it does not conflict with accountability parameters.  I awoke with my slave at My side.  My Father encouraging Me to leave on time.  Me pushing it to the last moment talking with my prized possession.  I will leave tomorrow with a signed contract.  It is time.

89

So once more I return to Montgomery.  This time I should return with a contract.  I am feeling a little burned out tonight.   I did make a meeting, but it was like the entire group was down.  Really strange.  It was like we all could not wait to get out of there.  Anyway, I think I am going to take a cue from My slave and play a game, watch some of the HBO Rome series that her husband loaned us.

90

Bill Wilson from the Grapevine, Jan 1958:

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand.  Let us, with God’s help, continually surrender these hobbling liabilities.

Then we can be set free to live and love;  we may then be able to 12-step ourselves, as well as others, into emotional sobriety.

Should I interpret this to mean that my reaction concerning my sexuality is a hobbling liability?  It was definitely a source of being disturbed.  A dependency leading to a demand that is not good, it is unhealthy.  I cannot ever imagine me being able to become happily independent of my sexuality and living without my wonderfully dark demands.  It is the counter weight for the oowie goowie aspects of sobriety.  Maybe I will have a change of perspective.  I have before.

I think I have been dealing with issues directly related to emotional sobriety these past few months.  It is different than dealing with the actual obsession.  In the last year since returning home from the treatment facility, I think that I may have dealt with a recurrence of the obsession maybe 2 or 3 times.  Only once has it been at a true threat level that had me running for back-up. 

The problems given to me by this lack of emotional sobriety are imbedded within self-delusion.  It takes me some time to realise that the thoughts it spawns belong to the disease and not me. 

The problem that developed this afternoon came from looking at a Maxim calendar of this beautiful young woman, and her ample breasts and deep cleavage and noticing…nothing.  No arrousal, no interest.  I began to search the files of my favorite sexual fantasies, and still, nothing.  My mind traveled to its most forbidden areas trying to get some sort of reaction from Dr. Erectus, and there was simply nothing.  Despair.  Panic. 

I don’t think I can remember one time in my life since adolescence were I could not achieve some sort of sexual inspiration.  And then the thought hit me that I had been able to respond freely when under the influence.  RED FLAG! 

I think maybe this is what makes the second year so difficult.  I have graduated from dealing with the obsession to dealing with the impact of not having strong emotional sobriety.  I respond poorly to stress and illness and medications.  I amplify them and their affects.  My libido is dampened by this process. 

Today, my response was to remain active, to talk to my sponsee, and go to a meeting.  I resisted too much self reflection.  I may work some on Step Two in the  “Explore 164” page.

91

I have passed my physical.  My waiver has been approved.  I went to MEPS to process the contract and sign the dotted line.  But MEPS was unable to get a doctor to acknowledge the waiver in 3 days, and, although I am approved and ready to go, it has to travel through the system and MEPS has to get some sort of special email back.  So, I am still waiting.  On a “special email” to return.  Bureaucracy!  Civilian government workers comfortable in their niche, totally useless if there is anything that requires an extra effort on their part.  I should have been in several weeks ago. 

So it is up to me to use my time to get my body ready for the physical demands that will hit me in a few months.  And I will do what I can to help bring my sponsee forward in the program.  He is doing well since we started meeting together on a regular basis and moving through the Big Book together.  I probably should have been doing that all along.  It is a learning process for us all, I guess.

92