Precious Memories Newsletter 4th Quarter 2007 page 15

Life = Cold Hard Facts But Hope

The stresses of being a single mother were unbearable.   I was drinking heavily and was finding it difficult to hide the progression from family. I thought if I could find a way to solve my financial problems, and at least provide for my children I wouldn’t feel so much guilt and shame.  Then I wouldn’t drink so much. So, the brainstorm solution to my alcohol problem was a geographical cure. I would move to Middle Tennessee and a return to college to finish my degree.  However, only a few short months later I found myself in worse shape than before and with no family to help I crawled into the back doors of Alcoholics Anonymous after a drunken suicide attempt.

                 I remember pulling up to the building for the first time. There were no big signs that announced “ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS”. I had an address:  202 23rd Ave. North. There were no words that identified the building as the place Middle Tennessee Central Office had directed me. And, I had no idea what to expect. I was in a place I had never been before and I was terrified. It was already dark and I wasn’t even sure I was at the right address. I remember walking in the door that night to find a simple hand drawn sign that said “FRIENDSHIP HOUSE MEETING SCHEDULE” That was my sign of hope. I knew immediately I had found the right place. I remember vividly that first sense of relief.  There was a whole list of meeting times for every day of the week; Five, Seven, sometimes Eight meetings in a day.  Maybe it wouldn’t be as  hard as I had first imagined.  There had to be a lot of people to need that many meetings. Maybe I wasn’t alone. Maybe there was another way to live.  The meeting I attended and the people I met just brought that hope into reality. I got a book, a sponsor, and began to follow the suggestions, work through the steps, and a whole new phase of my life began.

My children had a sober mother, finally. But recovery was still 180 degrees from the direction I had been going for 30 years and sometimes was just simply hard for me. Facing life sober was new; handling situations was sometimes baffling; life happened and I struggled to keep up. But, from that day forward; instead of running to the liquor store I would run into that building to check the sign against the clock to see how long I had to wait until there was a meeting.  That simple sign was a schedule of hope, laughter, compassion and sharing for this helpless hopeless drunk.  And, when I began to work with others, it was easy to identify them even in a large clubhouse like 202 (Friendship House) where it was impossible to know everyone.  The person standing in front of that sign for the longest was the person you greeted.

I moved away from Nashville a few years later, but I visit Friendship House periodically and no matter how many times I visit I walk in the door and go straight for the sign.  They have a new one.  It’s much more professional and has lots more meetings scheduled.  After all, it’s just a sign and everything changes, especially meeting schedules.  But, I always wonder what happened to the old one.

 On October 3rd, 2007, 18 years will have passed since I first saw the sign. During that time I’ve moved to Murfreesboro, raised my daughters, had a wonderful career, and like most of us have had many successes and some heartbreaking failures. I’ve received great gifts and suffered grave losses. And Alcoholics Anonymous has carried me through them all without a drink.  But in the last few years, as I approach what my friend David refers to as the “FALL” of life I went through some changes that everyone goes through as middle age arrives and the “Winter” of our life rapidly approaches. The kids grew up and left home. My father suffered several heart attacks and became very feeble.  I would look at my Mother’s hands literally gnarled with arthritis and realize their physical limitations.  My eyesight was deteriorating so quickly getting new glasses had become a full time job. It was frustrating.  I was growing older and facing my own mortality. And, It seemed like every week, another long time friend of AA had become ill. The room number in the hospital, nursing home, and funeral arrangements were being posted on the Board.

 And, I just simply wasn’t ready for all that. I can tell you in hindsight that I made some changes in life specifically designed to avoid all that, too.  My sponsor used to tell me that whatever I refused to look at was the very thing that was running my life.  And, it had crept up on me and was now demanding my attention. I rebelled. I needed more time. I needed more time to teach things to my kids, more time to reach my career goals, more time to finally get IT right.   “IT” being everything in my life and nothing in particular.  IT being the me that’s supposed to get better. I was not yet satisfied with the progress I had made towards the goals in sobriety we hope to achieve… a happily and usefully whole member of society, a friend among friends, a worker among workers, a good parent,, a better person, and most importantly for me a good servant to my Higher Power. And, I just hadn’t grown to where I thought I should be for THIS phase of my life. Let alone be ready for another. But life happens on it’s own time and on it’s own terms. So, before I was ready, I didn’t get up and go to the same office to do the same job like I had for over a decade. No kids came home from school or even from College. They were married and had homes of their own. I woke up in the morning to the saving grace of my golden retriever who greeted me with his wagging tail.

I reasonably expected my dog would be my companion for many years into this phase of my life. He was only three years old. But, as if the universe just wouldn’t let up, was diagnosed with cancer and lived only a few weeks.  He developed a rapidly growing tumor at the base of his stomach and was in a lot of pain. His once wagging tail was tucked between his legs and he looked at me with just the most unbelievable sadness.  It was like he was trying to tell me he was sorry for whatever he had done wrong that was causing this pain and punishment.  He had been a beautiful friend and companion and in literally days had withered away and was a picture of sickness and death. This was just the very last straw. I sat with my loyal friend knowing it was only a matter of hours until he too would be gone, and my heart just broke into a million pieces and it was if my very soul poured out through the tears that began to flow. He was a symbol of all of that change. 

As I grieved for the injustice of his short life, I found myself grieving for so many other things in my life.  I grieved for other things that had happened their own way in their own time that had somehow just slipped past without the benefit of pen and paper.   I grieved for opportunities I knew in my heart I had missed with my children.  I grieved for my aging parents.  I grieved for friends who were ill and suffering. I grieved for the many faces that I had seen pass through AA over the years never receiving this wonderful gift.  I grieved for my own shortcomings: shortcomings I could see all too clearly in hindsight.   I grieved for all the times I claimed progress rather than perfection because in my mind at the time it was practically sainthood compared to my drinking behavior. When in hindsight and reality sometimes my “progress” was a poor excuse for principals and an alibi for avoiding the pain of aiming for perfection. I grieved for the times I spoke arrogantly about the importance of humility. I grieved for the times I had all the answers, but had forgotten to truly listen with compassion to your problem.  There is a glaring clarity that comes with hindsight and as I looked back over my willingness “to grow along spiritual lines” and the message I carried of a “God who has all power” I could see just how short I had often fallen from the chosen ideal.  Alcoholism is a cunning, baffling, and very powerful disease.  And, alcohol is a subtle foe. And, as the tears came, so did the surrender. 

The tears continued to fall for some time that day. And, with regrets fresh in my mind I spent the last few days savoring every last moment of my dog’s life with a newfound appreciation for every moment.  When he died, with him went the last shred of familiar structure and routine of my sober life. Everything was gone or had changed in some way. And, it had come like a thief in the night all without my permission. There is a line in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions that reads,  “our bankruptcy as going human concerns is complete”.  Alcohol and the lifestyle I had led before AA had bankrupted me spiritually and physically. Alcoholics Anonymous had raised me up and given me a wonderful new life.  The end of which had brought me to the bottom of “going human”. And, I knew exactly what that line meant and a new level of bankruptcy was complete. 

I was very empty after that. I was unsure of what life would look like. I hadn’t come home to an empty house in over two and a half decades. I had never done it sober. I was at a place in life I had never been before. And, I had no idea what the future would hold.  Signs change. People change. Life changes. I’ve been taught that when I don’t know what to do; I do nothing. I suit up, show up, do the next right thing and see what God unfolds.  I knew of one thing that never changes. It’s the first 164 pages of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The life saving program of Alcoholics Anonymous always remains the same. And, with it comes those life saving, closed-mouthed understanding friends who are there for us when we get lost and can’t find our way. They listen with their heart and the response is to open the book to just the right page and begin to read and remind us of that never faltering solution without judgement and with unconditional love and understanding. They share their experience strength. It is the key that releases us to move forward in this process when we find ourselves bogged down in self.  It’s the “WE”; the very important first word of all the steps that centers us once again and points us in the right direction.  It’s the true meaning and purpose of the “Fellowship”.  And, I am so wonderfully bless to have a few.

Even the Area 64 Archives was adjusting to changes since Charlie M. had passed away. And, badly in need of the “Fellowship” over a good lunch; I walked through the door of the Archives building calling out so David would know it was me. And, as I waited for him to finish what he was doing, I looked around at all the memorabilia of AA’s change. Photographs of members no longer with us, who carried this message and paved the way for so many to come. Big Books, letters, articles, and memorabilia of past Assemblies I attended over the years and some way before my time.  As I wandered past the glass cases and moved around the room to see more, I was flooded with memories of this journey. I remembered the night Jim D. and I sat at my computer well into the night typing up an agenda for a State Assembly. I remembered the scores of people that would crowd into Jimmy G’s hotel room for the meeting after the meeting at the Assembly. There would be so many you couldn’t see the floor, never mind getting to the bathroom after gallons of coffee. As my mind traveled through the past and settled back into the moment I found myself staring at a sign hanging in the Archives. It read “Friendship House Meeting Schedule”.   And, I saw in my mind the woman I once was, a 30 year old mother, helpless, hopeless and dying standing in front of that sign 18 years ago. I got so excited. I yelled “I wondered where this went! I thought about that brand new blue book they gave me and that blank page, so much like my life was then; where I put my name and sobriety date.  And, that was all I knew about a sober life. I was sober today.  As I stood in front of that sign I knew that no matter what changes come, no matter how different life may get, with your help I would again find my way.                                                                                                                                        A few days ago, I noticed a young man standing only a few steps inside the door of Murfreesboro Group.  Suspended in time. Not moving a muscle except his eyes scanning the room. It was already dark and he probably wasn’t sure he was even at the right place.  He stood there for the longest as I too scanned the room waiting for some of the other young men to greet him. But, the few people that were there were talking and no one noticed him but me.  So, I put out my hand and introduced myself. He whispered, “This is my first time here and I just want to sit in the back and listen.”  I told him he didn’t have to say or do anything. This man, younger than my youngest child followed and sat with me in the meeting: and, afterward to a group of young men for introductions and phone numbers.  And, as I waved goodbye, he was already sharing about alcohol and school and work and life and there was hope in his eyes.                                               In AA there is no mortality, only a living legacy.

    Page 1   Page 2   Page 3   Page 4   Page 5    Page 6     Page 7     Page 8     Page 9     Page 10     Page 11    Page 12     Page 13     Page 14     Page 15    Home