Is A.A. a religion?

On 17 March 2009, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued an opinion in an appeal of the case of Glenside Center, Inc. [a clubhouse hosting meetings of various twelve-step programs] v. Abington Township. A lower court had found that the Glenside Center violated local zoning laws, after the Township received numerous complaints regarding an "adverse parking situation" that "made driving difficult and dangerous and prevented emergency traffic from getting through." There were also complaints about "urinating in public, using obscene language and trash which had been left by members attending meetings." Excessive noise and loitering are also mentioned in the opinion. (Clearly demonstrating the danger of these kinds of totally inappropriate, inconsiderate and non-sober behavior at any A.A. meeting.)

The appeal was on the basis of four issues, namely that the Zoning Board:

1. had incorrectly found that the use of the building did not meet the requirement of being primarily used as an "office,"
2. had denied the clubhouse its rights under RLUIPA¹,
3. had violated the clubhouse's right to free exercise of religion by determining that the clubhouse was a "Community Center," and
   
4. had failed to prove a compelling governmental interest and had failed to use the least restrictive means to further that interest.
   

My interest is only in the 2^nd and 3^rd issues insofar as they relate to whether or not A.A. can legally be considered a religion. In its opinion, the Court essentially determined that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religion:

Glenside argues... it is a protected entity under RLUIPA because its activities are a religious exercise.... Glenside argues that AA is not a religion, but its activities and programs constitute a free exercise of religion under RLUIPA. It contends that the 12-step program that AA follows is certainly based upon a belief in a higher power, and various AA members testified that they found a connection with God by attending AA meetings. Glenside directs our attention to a New York Court of Appeals case, Griffin v. Coughlin,... which held that an AA meeting constituted an exercise of religion.

The Board, however, argues and we agree that Glenside presents no binding authority for its proposition that an AA meeting is a religious exercise as that term is used in RLUIPA.² Glenside failed to prove that any of the meetings are administered by a religious leader, i.e., a minister, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader. Glenside does not hold any religious services or have any religious affiliations. Its Articles of Incorporation state nothing about being incorporated for a religious purpose, but only to assist people in recovering from addiction. Similarly, Glenside’s printed materials state that Glenside is not a religious organization and do not require that members possess any religious belief to participate. While Glenside argues that members have found a connection with God at its meetings, clearly, the primary purpose of the group meetings, whether they be for AA, NA or DA, is to support individuals who are recovering from alcohol, drug, gambling and debtor addictions, not to advance religion. Particularly where AA and NA meetings are concerned, the primary concern of those meetings is to treat substance abuse. Moreover, Glenside and others on its behalf testified that members come from all religious walks of life whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or non-believers in a higher power. The fact that the 12-step program is used and it contains references to “God” and a “Higher Power” does not mean that all members believe that they are partaking in a religious experience when they are attending an AA or NA meeting.

Good for the Court, bad for Glenside Center, Inc. Bad, not because they lost their appeal, but for (1) encouraging the courts to consider A.A. a religion, (2) giving the appearance of violating A.A. tradition of having no opinion on outside issues, and (3) for providing a forum for a number of members of A.A. to violate A.A.'s tradition of anonymity at the level of press, radio and film (not to mention on television and on the Internet).

Glenside Center is not in any sense A.A. or part of A.A. It is a separately organized enterprise with the [presumable] purpose of providing meeting space for various twelve-step organizations. From the point of view of A.A. groups, it is in no respect different from a church, municipal building or community center providing space for meetings—all these entities are nothing more than landlords.

However, I suspect that all the principals of the Glenside Center are members of A.A. As stated in the opinion, many of those who testified on behalf of the Glenside Center are also members of A.A. One was identified by full name as a member of A.A. for 53 years (you'd think he'd know better after that long). The Center's argument included the following:

While AA or its related organizations do not claim to be an established religion, the constituent groups can and have been viewed as engaging in an exercise of religion. The Act broadly defines religious exercise to include "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious beliefs."

I became aware of this ruling when a friend in A.A. sent me a link to an entry about it in a Washington Post blog named "Under God." In it, David Waters argues that the Court made a mistake on the basis of four objections. After each objection, I'll give my objections to Mr Waters' objections.

Objection 1: Any person of faith can be a spiritual leader.

Actually, I would go even further than Mr Waters. Lack of "a religious leader, i.e., a minister, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader" should not preclude a gathering from being religious. A prime example would be an unprogrammed meeting for worship of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers.

Objection 2: Assisting people in recovering from any addiction is a religious (and spiritual) purpose.

Accepting this argument would make every rehab and detox in the U.S. a religious organization. It would also make seeing any health-care practitioner for help with an addiction into a religious activity.

Objection 3: Any group that advances the healing of bodies and souls (and the forgiveness of debts and debtors) also advances religion.

By this argument, entering into any course of psychiatric or psychological therapy, participating in any of numerous self-help organizations or classes, going to see the doctor, going to the gym to work out, or seeking credit counseling would be considered a religious activity. This is patently absurd.

Objection 4: Clearly the court is unaware of the history and purpose of AA.

Clearly Mr Waters is not fully aware of the history and purpose of A.A. Let me address each of the facts he cites in support of his objection.

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded as a spiritual program, direct outgrowth of the Oxford Group at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York.

True. But it's also true that the Oxford Group (known since 2001 as Initiatives of Change) considered itself non-religious. Furthermore A.A. separated from the Oxford Group at least in part due to the latter's belief that alcoholism was a sin rather than a disease, and to sever what might appear as ties to a Christian organization.

AA meetings include recitations of The Lord's Prayer and the Serenity Prayer.

Actually, this seems to me to be a reasonably good argument. It's one reason I do not participate in saying the Lord's Prayer at meetings. Not all meetings use the Lord's Prayer, though I'd have to say that most in the U.S.³ do. As for the Serenity Prayer, so far as I know, it is not perceived to be associated with Christianity, despite its purported author being a Christian theologian. As insightful as it may be to us drunks, the idea would seem to be quite universal in thought and application among those who consider and practice such things. Indeed, the essential idea can be found in a Mother Goose rhyme:

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

Back to Mr Waters' argument:

"AA indirectly derived much of its inspiration from the Church," Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Church, said in 1955.

Key word: indirectly. I'd say that a huge number of institutions of Western civilization were indirectly derived from Christianity, not the least of which is the United States of America. Furthermore, citing a single person—a non-A.A. member at that—saying this in a single speech is not much of an argument. Bill W., co-founder of A.A. and a much better source to cite, said of the phrase God as we understood him that it was "tremendously important," "a ten-strike," enabling "thousands to join AA who would have otherwise gone away," opening the door to "those of fine religious training and those of none at all," making "one’s religion the business of the AA member himself and not that of his society."⁴

AA's Twelve Traditions includes No. 2: "For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience." Seven of AA's famous Twelve Steps reference God, including:

• 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
• 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
• 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
• 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Newcomers to A.A. are commonly encourage to find a power greater than themselves even if that power is nothing more than a doorknob or an ashtray. Many A.A. members attain long-term sobriety using A.A. itself as a higher power (God is sometimes identified as an acronym, standing for "Group of Drunks"). Even casual acquaintance with A.A.'s program makes it clear that this higher power can be of whatever conception one so chooses. See also the quote of Bill W.'s referred to above.

"Would that the Church were like this," Shoemaker said in 1955, "ordinary men and women with great need who have found a great Answer, and do not hesitate to make it known wherever they can - a trained army of enthusiastic, humble, human workers whose efforts make life a different thing for other people!"

Is Mr Waters saying that a non-religious group of people cannot exhibit these same characteristics? I suspect that any number of political activists would be happy with such a description.

If a group that meets under spiritual precepts, performs rituals, and seeks to heal its members isn't religious, what else is it?

Rituals? To what rituals does Mr Waters refer? He hasn't mentioned any up to this point in the article and doesn't mention any after this either. And without rituals, all that's left is a group that uses spiritual precepts and seeks to heal its members. In at least one sense of the word spiritual, a vast number of groups satisfy this description.

Indeed, much of the argument comes down to whether or not there is a difference between spirituality and religion, and what that difference might be. From the American Heritage Dictionary:

spir·i·tu·al
ADJECTIVE:1. Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. See synonyms at immaterial. 2. Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul. 3. Of, from, or relating to God; deific. 4. Of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred. 5. Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.

As will be clear to anyone who is familiar with A.A. and its program of recovery, A.A. itself would not accept any definition other than one with the broadest possible meaning. The meaning of A.A. being a spiritual program could be that it is religious to the member who is herself religious. That meaning could be only that it is intangible or immaterial to the member who is himself not religious. A.A. itself doesn't care. A.A. is areligious.

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¹Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act—a federal statute passed in 2000 to provide stronger protection for religious freedom in the land-use and prison contexts.

²The opinion footnotes this sentence with the following:

RLUIPA defines “Religious exercise” as follows:

(A) In general. The term “religious exercise” includes any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.

(B) Rule. The use, building, or conversion of real property for the purpose of religious exercise shall be considered to be religious exercise of the person or entity that uses or intends to use the property for that purpose.

³I know from personal experience that the Lord's Prayer is rarely used in Australia, and that because of this Australian members of A.A. pride themselves on being more consistent with A.A. principles than A.A. in the U.S. is.

⁴Full quote, from A Conversation with Bill W., A Synopsis of the Question-Answer Period following Bill W.'s talk at the NCCA Syposium in New York in 1960:

When these Steps were shown to my friends, their reactions were mixed indeed. Some argued that six steps had worked fine, so why twelve? From our agnostic contingent there were loud cries of too much “God.” Others objected to an expression which I had included which suggested getting on one’s knees while in prayer. I heavily resisted these objections for months. But I finally did my statement about a suitable prayerful posture and finally went along with that now tremendously important expression, “God as we understand Him” — this expression having been coined, I think, by one of our former atheist members. This was indeed a ten-strike. That one has since enabled thousands to join AA who would have otherwise gone away. It enabled people of fine religious training and those of none at all to associate freely and to work together. It made one’s religion the business of the AA member himself and not that of his society.

Still above ground and sober

For anyone who's wondering, I'm doing okay. I got elected to another Area office and expect to continue in General Service for another two years. Nimue is divorcing me after nearly three years of separation. Despite that, I feel as good as I have in a long time. Despite some heavy bouts of depression over the last nine months, I recently thought to myself, "Ah, so this is what it feels like not to be depressed! I had forgotten."

Despite the fact that I haven't posted for over nine months, every now and then, someone adds a comment to an old post. This, if nothing else, sporadically reminds me that I'd like to taking up at least semi-regular posting again. Absolutely no promises, we'll see.

Today's reflection

The entry for March 4th in Daily Reflections has long been among my favorites:

The essence of all growth is a willingness to make a change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 115

By the time I had reached Step Three I had been freed of my dependence on alcohol, but bitter experience has shown me that continuous sobriety requires continuous effort. Every now and then I pause to take a good look at my progress. More and more of my garden is weeded each time I look, but each time I also find new weeds sprouting where I thought I had made my final pass with the blade. As I head back to get the newly sprouted weed (it’s easier when they are young), I take a moment to admire how lush the growing vegetables and flowers are, and my labors are rewarded. My sobriety grows and bears fruit.

The Bill W. quote inspires me, and the garden metaphor is beautiful and accurate. It describes where I am, where I have mostly been for quite some time.

I am a product of God's grace and mercy. Of his grace, because I got something I didn't deserve; of his mercy, because I didn't get what I did deserve.

Bad language in meetings

The groups in one of the Districts in our Area are having trouble finding locations in which to meet. They've been kicked out of certain churches and the word seems to be spreading among those churches that we're not very good tenants. The two primary issues are (a) too much bad language and (b) smokers congregating around the entrances and leaving butts lying around.

My home group has a requests in our format bearing on these issues and we have [usually] dealt with abuses as they come up. It's something I highly suggest that other groups consider with regard to what their group conscience should be. Every time I hear someone using language generally considered impolite I shudder, imagining some pillar of the church congregation passing by in the hallway at that moment and overhearing us. Personally I have little objection to people using whatever language they wish, but I also think it's important that many people do take offense at such language and that we need to be especially wary with regard to our landlords.

Not too long ago I heard something that covers my feelings on this subject very well:

The absence of profanity offends no one.

Studying the steps as laid out in the Big Book

IMNSHO, there's no way to become familiar with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous like doing a study of the Big Book, paragraph by paragraph, in a group, with plenty of time to comment and discuss with each other.

Tuesday night my sponsor, in his home, started [what I think is] the fourth such annual study group. Most years, including this year, we use what I recently learned is the Hyannis rotation to determine which pages in the Big Book to read for which steps. It comprises "The Doctor's Opinion" and chapters 3 ("More About Alcoholism"), 4 ("We Agnostics"), 5 ("How It Works"), 6 ("Into Action") and 7 ("Working with Others"). While not specified we usually read Appendix II ("Spiritual Experience"), which of course was added after the first printing of the first edition to clarify that not every alcoholic need have a as vivid an experience as Bill W. had in order to recover. Last year we also used Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

It was originally my suggestion that we follow the Hyannis rotation. I knew about it because of a regular Big Book Step Study group that I attend whenever I can. At that group's meeting, we read a page at a time rather than a paragraph at a time, but the discussion generally stays focused on the step being studied and is usually quite excellent. I've learned a tremendous amount there.

That Big Book Step Study group was started about a dozen years ago and originally used the chairperson's guidelines (somewhat loosely I believe—I only started attending later) and the Hyannis Preamble, modified so that only those who had worked all twelve steps could share. Early on, by group conscience, they abandoned that requirement, as well as the one in the Hyannis Preamble that only those who had worked the step being studied could share.

So far as I know this group was never—and is still not—listed in the Hyannis directory of "official" Big Book Step Study meetings. I'm just as glad. The idea of putting an "official" seal of approval on any group disturbs me. I'm not exactly sure why, though the first—and, so far, only—thought that comes to mind is that it may violate the Third Tradition: an A.A. group can have no other affiliation than that with A.A. itself.

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P.S. On an entirely unrelated note, the fortune cookie that came with my Thai lunch said, "You are the master of every situation." Ha!

I'm baaaack

Well, that took longer than I had expected. LOL! I'm not sure what "that" was, but I never intended to go almost six weeks without posting. I appreciate all the people who checked in with me to make sure I was okay.

Several things happened. First, in early December, I was consumed with preparing for a meeting of the Area Committee. Next I had to get my affairs in order because I was leaving town in mid-December. Then I actually left town, traveling across the continent for Christmas with my four grandchildren (and daughter S-Cat and her husband Revson). Finally, after my return, I had some trouble adjusting to my normal life again. I hope I'm now back in stride.

Late in November I started up on a new med. I'm still not quite sure how I'm doing. At worst, the nature of my depression has changed from being angry and pissed off all the time to merely having trouble getting out of bed every day—part of what I meant above by "trouble adjusting to my normal life." At best, I'm doing much better and the difficulty getting going has been due to jet lag, not having any work and my natural laziness. I need to check in with my therapist and I'll be seeing my primary care guy late in the month. I am having some other physical symptoms that may or may not be due to the sertraline: muscle clenching, some congestion and a mild cough.

The congestion and mild cough may be something I picked up from my grandchildren. In any case, I sure enjoyed it. It wasn't exactly relaxing and I didn't get a lot of sleep—the four grandchildren are all age 6 and under. I slept in the living room and the oldest got up like clockwork at 6:15 AM every morning. He made sure I got up then too, usually by coming in and jumping on top of me. It's been many years since I spent Christmas morning with small children and that was a real delight. The four of them got a huge pile of presents. I worry that they're going to be spoiled, but I didn't hesitate in contributing to that, hehehe.

My son-in-law Revson and I spent the afternoon of the day after Christmas fishing the with two older grandchildren. What a blast! The two of us started off by hooking the fish—spotted bay bass, and we were catching and releasing—then passing the rods to the two kids. But we had three rods, so the oldest grandchild started hooking and catching his own. In the end the two of them pulled in well over a dozen fish. He got a few more than she did, but she got the biggest one of the day, so everyone was happy.

Revson has started attending A.A. since I last visited so I got to attend more than my usual number of A.A. meetings. That was a real treat; I met some wonderful people. There were a number of things I noticed about A.A. there that are different from A.A. here. (1) We have anniversaries: e.g. 30-, 60-, 90-day ones as well as yearly ones; they have yearly "birthdays" (and actually sing "Happy Birthday"), while milestones of less than a year are "special occasions". (2) When reading "How It Works", they recite in unison, "God could and would if he were sought"; here, we don't. (3) Their chants after closing (generally with the Lord's Prayer, just like we do) are longer and more enthusiastic than ours are.

I heard early on that the single most common thing that alcoholics communicate with GSO in New York about is a complaint along the lines of "I just moved to this part of the country from somewhere and they don't do A.A. right here!" One time when I visited GSO I asked if this was true. Turns out that it is. I can't help observing that while A.A. does seem to be practiced slightly differently in different parts of the world, people everywhere seem to be able to stay sober. And that's all that really counts, isn't it?

Atheists come to believe (or not)

Monday night was my home group's monthly speaker meeting. It was the first time ever in my 15 years that I've seen (or should I say heard?) a group sung to by a speaker. He sang the opening lines of a couple of corny tunes that I didn't know and certainly don't remember. His singing voice wasn't even very good.

Much more impressive was the story of how he, as a one-time atheist, found God. I always find such stories very moving. Just last Saturday night, at the Came To Believe meeting I attended, I heard another such story from an atheist, which moved me nearly to tears. At that same meeting, still another person said he had been brought up an atheist and had been angry at all the same things his parents had been angry at, whatever they were, which of course made us all laugh. These sharings reminded of what the Big Book says about the purpose of including selected people's stories: "Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God."

I must say too that I know several people—not many, but a few—who have what appears to be good long-term sobriety without what I would call a God in their lives. I can think of one in particular who continues to use A.A. as her Higher Power, and she's been coming around regularly since several years before I started to. Every now and then I hear people comment on how it seems like everyone who stays in A.A. and works the program eventually comes to believe in a personal God, but I'd say it's certainly not everyone.

Follow-up

OK, it's Tuesday afternoon and I finally added the pictures to my Thanksgiving post.

I also saw my primary care provider not long ago and, apropos of my other post yesterday, he was less than enthusiastic about tricyclic antidepressants. I left with a prescription for sertraline, better known by its trade name, Zoloft.

Still unmedicated

I remain unmedicated for my mental condition. I haven't posted vis-a-vis my lack of fluoxetine (generic Prozac) for over a month now (that post is here). Last Wednesday, I met with Macron Larks to discuss getting back on something. He suggested I try a tricyclic antidepressant, specifically either amitriptyline or nortriptyline, which, if anything, should help me sleep better (one of my big problems with the fluoxetine is that it seriously disturbed my sleep). He thinks they're rarely prescribed these days because (a) they're old and boring rather than being new and hip, and (b) the pharmaceutical companies don't push them since they don't make any money on them any more. This means they're "cheaper than dirt." Despite what the link above says about amitriptyline, some references indicate that using it can result in excessive weight gain¹, which I really don't want to have to deal with. So I'm more inclined toward nortriptyline. I have an appointment with my primary care guy tomorrow and I'll discuss it with him.

Again I want to thank Doctor A for warning me about the dangers of going back to any antidepressant without supervision.

Actually the main reason I went to see Macron was to discuss my marital situation and some thoughts I've had about what to do about it. A most interesting discussion it was too, and eventually I'll probably post about it, but to do so now would be premature.

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¹One of these—undated I should note—reports the interesting fact that tricyclic antidepressants are "the leading cause of death by drug overdose in the United States." Such irony!

Thanksgiving

[Before I get started on my topic here, I'll just note that I tagged eight more of my fellow bloggers with the recovery meme I posted on Wednesday at the behest of the Junky's Wife.]

I started this post last Friday afternoon. Unfortunately I simply don't have the time to do all the things and be all the people I want to in the limited amount of time available. Sigh.

I spent Thanksgiving day at an mini-alkathon¹ in a river town a little over 30km from home in an adjoining Area. There was a nice turkey dinner for anyone who showed up, plus breakfast for those who were there early. It was something like the 10^th year for this event, although I don't remember ever hearing about it before (another advantage of attending a new set of meetings—I get to hear about goings-on that I didn't know about before). There was a speaker every hour on the hour from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Most speakers spoke for 30 minutes and allowed discussion to follow. At least one used the whole hour. I was lucky enough to be invited to speak in place of a no-show for the final slot.

Having heard they needed help, I showed up around 9:00 AM. They let me help alright, but not with anything so important as cooking: instead they let me take out trash, make donation cans, run errands and, of course, help clean up afterwards.

I took some photographs². It was held in a church that I'm told has been very eager to have A.A. folks put on this event. It's a great facility in which to do it.

They hung a sign on the street to let everyone know that this was the place.

It was held in a gymnasium behind the church known as "The Lord's Gym."

Probably a couple hundred people flowed through the facility during the day. A few people I knew showed up, including the man who was Delegate in our Area when I was a DCM. Mostly though I hadn't known the people I met that day. I heard a number of good things throughout the day. The one that has most stuck with me came from one of the cooks who spoke. He said, "If I could drink normally, I'd drink all day long." Is that alcoholic thinking, or what? I heard at least one person say that if it hadn't been for this alkathon, they'd have had no place to go that day. Another admitted that she had planned on getting drunk that day, but a friend had called her and convinced her to come to the alkathon instead.

All in all, I felt very good about the day. I'd never done anything like this for Thanksgiving; I'd always spent it with family and friends. The group that put this alkathon on also has them on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Last Wednesday I bought plane tickets to fly across the country and be with my grandchildren for Christmas, but maybe I'll go back and do it again for New Year's. It sure would beat getting drunk and wearing a lamp shade on my head.

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¹Anyone have an opinion or knowledge about how to spell this word? Google reports the following number of results for each of the spellings shown:

	alcathon	655
	alcothon	355
	alkathon	1,770
	alkothon	2

²I'll upload pictures later this evening, after I get home to my camera.

Recovery meme

I'm not entirely pleased about being tagged with this. In general, these things remind me of those stupid chain e-mails I get all the time. Or the sickeningly smarmy religious, spiritual, joke or greeting card e-mails I get from people I otherwise think of as friends. Of course, in general, I can be a really self-righteous intellectual asshole concerning just about anything.

If part of the rules said I'd get seven years of bad luck or other bad things would happen to me if I don't comply, I absolutely would not. But they don't, so I'm gonna do it. If for no other reason than because of the tremendous respect I have for the Junky's Wife, who, after all, says she loves me and wants to be my BFF.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven things you're grateful to have learned in recovery.
4. Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

Note that I'm doing this without having read what anyone else has written in reponse to this. That will help me ensure that these are really mine.

Seven things I'm grateful to have learned in recovery

I see it's specifically about the things I've learned in recovery. Well, that narrows it a little bit. The first two are things that I often refer to in telling my story or just sharing in meetings.

1. I'm grateful to have learned that my Higher Power didn't hold all those awful things I did against me, and therefore I don't have to either. The way I usually say this is that the first great gift I got from A.A. was the ability to look myself in the mirror every morning, and feel good about who I saw looking back. Over the 26 years I drank, the load of guilt, shame and remorse became so heavy that I thought I'd never feel this way again.
2. I'm grateful to have learned that I'm nothing more than a garden-variety drunk. I'm essentially no different in that respect from anyone else who has ever come in the rooms, or who will eventually come in the rooms, or who is qualified to come in the rooms but will die, be institutionalized or be jailed before they make it. This is a lesson that took four years to learn well enough to pretty much stop having the thought that I'm somehow different.
3. I'm grateful to have at last learned how to truly serve and worship the God I've always acknowledged in my life: by working the 12 Steps of A.A. in my affairs.
4. I'm grateful to finally have discovered a grand and real purpose to my life: that of helping still-suffering alcoholics recover from alcoholism.
5. I'm grateful to have learned that I want to be like so many of the people around me in this Fellowship and particularly in service to this Fellowship. It's like have a second, but much larger and more widespread family. This is truly ironic in that it's these very people I used to scorn and to scoff at when I was sitting on my barstool.
6. I'm grateful to have learned that I'm not always right, that it's not even important that I be right. I still quite often forget this, but usually—I think—eventually remember it. Even if I don't tell anyone.
7. I'm grateful to have learned that time is not all that important. What's most important is today's sobriety. The only worthwhile thing about time is the way I may have used it (i.e., to form good habits, to identify who's got what I want (so I can mold my habits around what they do), to make myself ready to have God remove my defects, to make amends and, above all, serve others—this list could be extended ad infinitum).

This last item is particularly poignant to me right now. I've come across an astonishing number of people lately who had lots of time, went out and, now that they're back, are obsessed with the time they had. They say things like, "No one can take away the 20 years I had before I picked up." Saturday morning a small group of friends and I confronted another friend who was in denial about having gone out earlier in the week. She was saying things like this. It was crystal clear to me—heart-breakingly so—that we were arguing with the demon Alcohol, not with the person I love.

OK, I did it. What's still left is to tag some folks. I'm gonna take the seven pretty loosely. One comes immediately to mind: Daily Piglet, you've been tagged. I'll find some more later and post an addendum.

(BTW, I have one final complaint: is this really a meme? Or did someone just pick the word because it sounds all hip and technologically cool?)

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Addendum, posted 23 Nov 2007:

I'm also tagging my fellow bloggers at Down from the Mountain; Geisha, Interrupted; Letting go; Recovery Archive; the smussyolay; Stay-at-Home-Mayhem; This can't be it and Thorn In My Flesh (née Stay-At-Home Motherdom). I was also gonna tag Vicarious Rising but Scout beat me to it. Yeah, I know that's nine; I can count. So what?

Separated

Did I mention that Nimue and I are separated? But living in the same house? No? Sorry 'bout that.

It's so. It's been so, for going on 3 over 2 years. It was her decision. Something to do with giving better attention to her children, which I didn't really understand. She asked me to move out. Her request astounded and infuriated me.

When we married, she came with very little in the way of financial assets (but did bring along a history of two recent bankruptcies). I brought significant assets, the biggest of which was the house. It seemed like an ideal place for her children to grow up. So we agreed that we'd live here, even though it's the house I lived in with my first wife and in which Bitter Cookie and I raised our children. I bought out my ex-wife out and re-financed (which, among other things, means that my mortgage lasts until I turn 79). I moved back in shortly before Nimue and I married.

Now she was asking me to move out, to continue paying the mortgage and utilities, and to find a place of my own in which to live. I flat out refused. She wouldn't leave either, because "it's the kids' home and they don't want to leave," so she sleeps in what used to be the family room.

Shortly before she made her decision that we should separate, we had been seeing the therapist, Macron Larks. He'd been therapist to both of us from long before we got together, so he was a natural choice. She mentioned in one of our last sessions with him that she'd had this strong intuition that a separation might be good (for her children). Macron allowed as how it could be important to pay attention to such perceptions, but stressed that if we did separate for the sake of Nimue's children, it was very important for the marriage that she put set a date when the separation would end. When the youngest turned 18, or 21, or when the last one had finished high school, or college, or something like that.

I reminded her of this caveat a year or so into the separation—when we still seemed able to have rational conversations—and told her that one of my big fears was that she'd never set such a deadline, that one thing would always lead to another and there'd be no end of good reasons to continue the separation a little longer. At the time she allowed as how that was probably true. I remember how my heart sunk when she agreed so readily. It was like a punch to the belly.

All this came up tonight when she asked if I had decided about going back to see Macron Larks, something I had agreed to think about. I reminded her about his caveat. Now she has no memory at all of him saying it at all. "Besides," she says, "I have no control over when my children will be ready to leave."

I still can't believe it. As if my heart hadn't sunk low enough already, it has gone into free fall. A veritable body slam to the belly.

Why stay in a relationship with an addict?

Mary P Jones has written two excellent posts over at A Room of Mama's Own in which she gives her answer this question. The first focuses on what addiction is and what it isn't. The second is more about the actual answer to this question. Good stuff.

Personally, I like to think that I would take my commitments, both to the person and to the institution of marriage itself, seriously enough that I would stay married, even if she turned out to be a full-blown addict of any sort. This is largely due to my upbringing and the very strong emphasis in my religious denomination on the sanctity and permanence of marriage. Nonetheless, they are called vows, and I also want to take any vows I make to be taken seriously. Primarily by myself, but also by others.

Staying married, however, doesn't mean living with or putting up with the crap. Frankly I'm amazed that Bitter Cookie stayed with me for almost 24 years. Things went downhill almost continuously during throughout our time together. There was a brief, inexplicable rekindling of our romance for a few months less than a year before she filed for divorce (I'd been sober 3 years at the time), but other than that, the relationship just continued to worsen. It was so bad, that one of my daughters actually told me she was glad we got divorced. In the end, Bitter Cookie decided that she liked me even less sober than drunk and that was it.

Notice I started off saying, "I like to think..." The fact of the matter is that I've never really had to deal with the kind of behavior like that the spouse of an addict like the Junky's Wife describes in her blog. I look at my life today, at the rudeness and inconsiderateness that I put up with at home and how I react to it, and I see that it probably wouldn't be that simple for me. My friends think I'm nuts to stick around but for whatever reason, I seem to lack "courage to change the things I can." Well, that, in part, is what working the 12 Steps on this relationship is going to be about, I guess. Sigh!

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Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

51 years of continuous sobriety

Saturday night I traveled about 25km to attend a group's 57^th anniversary. Another 175 or so had traveled there as well. After the food and fellowship, they had three speakers.

The first was their "90-day" speaker. He actually had 5 months and gave a very coherent, well-thought out talk about the things he didn't accomplish because of alcohol. One of those things he missed out on was a seat in Congress, so it's not too much of a surprise that he was a good speaker.

The second speaker was their "1-year" speaker. She actually had 14 months and did a good job as well. She was somebody I had recently met. I spent a few minutes before the meeting listening to her complain about not getting a program at our Area's annual Convention/Assembly, an event I had a major role in. (We ran out of programs because, despite planning for a 15% increase in attendance, it actually went up more like 30%, to 900 people.) To her credit, she volunteered to be a part of the planning committee for next year's Convention/Assembly. Unfortunately, that committee comprises our current and past Delegates only.

The final speaker, who got 30 minutes where the other two had only 15 minutes, was their "long-term" speaker. He was somebody I had heard several times before and now has 51 years of continuous sobriety. I was in 1^st grade when he got sober! He gave the best talk of any of the four or so I've heard him give, even though it was only an abbreviated version. What made it so good was his gratitude and strong emphasis on service. He was a true inspiration!

Wish I'd written that

A Slob's Guide to Spiritual Growth

1. It is better to watch the game in your undershirt with a can of cola in your hand than a can of beer.
2. When you holler at somebody, you always feel lousy afterward--like a hangover.
3. Life is a steady drizzle of small things--carry an umbrella.
4. Tomorrow is another day.
5. Never give up.
6. Concentrate on what you're doing--it beats thinking.
7. If you let the other fellow alone and don't get so upset about how he's living his life, you can watch more TV.
8. It is more fun to be happy than angry.
9. Don't take anything too seriously, including all of the above.
10. This, too, shall pass.
    

Excerpted from the article, "A Slob's Guide to Spiritual Growth," the full version of which can be found in the A.A. Grapevine Digital Archives [subscription required], in the book, Best of the Grapevine [I think the link is to the correct volume—Vol. I], or here [scroll down to the bottom—the full article begins with the words "IT'S A SQUIRMY word"].

Wish I'd said that

My views on AA's singleness of purpose [are] unshakable.... For too long I ran on self-will. I blamed anything for my state of mind and my train-wreck of a life; anything and everything but alcohol and my relationship with booze. Once, I thought I knew best. I realise now I don't. But I had to wreck my life, hurt others and nearly die to dsicover the truth. To acquire self-knowledge.

The literature is very, very clear. AA can only and must only deal with alcohol and alcoholism. I'm not going to change a program which works. I'm not going to re-write the program to suit me. It's all in the Book.

Thanks for saying it, rootsradicaluk.

A frustrated worshiper

Today I felt like I needed to find a good Sunday morning meeting—one to take the place of what used to be my practice of going to church. I felt the need to commune with my Higher Power and practice some grateful worship and adoration. I haven't been going to church since I long ago in frustration suspended my search for a place of worship that meets my wants. I recalled a "God As I Understand Him" meeting that I spoke at years ago. I was asked to speak on the God of my understanding for about 20-25 minutes. This was in my local clubhouse.

Unfortunately, this is the same clubhouse I despaired of a couple of weeks ago. I went anyway, for the first time since that post. I wish after the meeting got going that I'd tried a new and different meeting.

The speaker was someone who sends drug addicts to A.A. meetings in his professional capacity. He said he was currently working with 33 addicts, had told them all they should be going to A.A. and not a single one was! [His emphasis, not mine.] Did he listen to me read the Singleness of Purpose card (i.e., the Blue Card) he'd handed to me and ask me to read? He made many references to people and things that I didn't understand and left a number of thoughts unfinished, saying, "Well, you know how it is...." I wanted to loudly say, "Actually, I don't; please tell me." But I practiced some restraint instead. Or was it more like cowardice? He talked about getting physically ill and being put on some unnamed medication. He warned us all very strongly that we simply cannot medications that are prescribed for us. Which is total hooey, IMNSHO!

I did share in the second half of the meeting, mostly about how it is possible and sometimes even necessary for us to take medications as prescribed, once the corresponding illnesses have been properly diagnosed by a competent professional. I made reference to the pamphlet, The A.A. Member—Medications and Other Drugs. Someone with 42 days sober who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder really heard me and came up to me after the meeting asking again for the name of the pamphlet. We looked for it in the literature rack, but it wasn't there. She was going to go home and look for it on the aa.org website, so I'm glad to see that it's there.

So perhaps some good came out of my going. I'm glad to have been able to help, and it made me feel good to share what I did without being explicitly critical of our speaker.

Prayers needed

My dear friend the Junky's Wife and her husband G need all the prayers they can get. What she already knew became undeniable a couple of weeks ago, and I feel awful that I haven't been keeping up with her blog.

Bloggers beware!

Some inconsiderate peabrain has been heinously using a bot to SPAM-comment on my other [real-life] blog. I have received literally thousands of comments, almost 10,000 so far. Fortunately I turned on comment moderation after receiving between 1,000 and 2,000 of these, each of which I now have to delete individually. After turning on comment moderation, I received another 7,500 or so, each of which has to be rejected. This part at least I can do 300 at a time, although several times I accidentally clicked on Publish rather than Reject, giving myself almost 1,000 more that I will have to individually delete. I hope I didn't accidentally reject any real comments while doing so. After a while, the mind turns to mush, looking at all these repeating comments with their links to sex sites and sites hawking Viagra, Cialis and who knows what other crap. And while I'm busy doing this, at least half my mind turns to dreaming up horrible punishments that I'd like to inflict on the kind of person that does this.

So, before this happens to YOU, turn on comment moderation. Do it now! Learn from my misfortune. This particular bot was posting an average of over 100 SPAM comments per hour. It doesn't take long for any particular blog to be overwhelmed. It makes dealing with Mickey seem like a walk in the park.

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Updated 4 hours later:

I should have also changed my comments settings to require word verification. Doh! That's the whole point of this setting—to prevent bots from posting comments. I am really getting on in years, at least mentally.

Humility

Yesterday, Sharon over at Fellow Traveler posted three definitions of humility. I was inspired to briefly research the various definitions of humility given in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

Sharon likes the definition of humility as being right-sized. The 12&12 has that definition: "We found many in A.A, who once thought as we did. They helped us to get down to our right size. By their example they showed us that humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed humility first" (p. 30, in the essay on Step 2). The implication seems to be that our intellects easily come into conflict with being humble. That's certainly true for me—I don't have much humility when, as usual, I think I have all (or even some of) the answers.

Interestingly, the essay on Step 1 contains only a single reference to humility, despite the fact the summary for Step 1 in the Table of Contents on p. 5 contains what seems like a major point: "Relation of humility to sobriety." The essay says, "We know that little good can come to any alcoholic who joins A.A. unless he has first accepted his devastating weakness and all its consequences. Until he so humbles himself, his sobriety— if any— will be precarious."

Page 48, on Step 4, says humility consists of getting perspective on ourselves: "For we had started to get perspective on ourselves, which is another way of saying that we were gaining in humility." Or another way of saying right-sized.

My personal favorite is on p. 58 (Step 5): "Another great dividend we may expect from confiding our defects to another human being is humility—a word often misunderstood. To those who have made progress in A.A., it amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. Therefore, our first practical move toward humility must consist of recognizing our deficiencies." It's no coincidence, I'm sure, that the closest feeling to humility I think I ever experienced came immediately after I had completed my 5th Step. I felt—and still feel—that for the first time in my life I had come to see myself in true relationship to my Higher Power. How much more right-sized can one be?

Page 64 (Step 6) makes it clear that humility is necessary for that daily reprieve we all seek: "As they [men and women who pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives] are humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol, the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession." This point is reiterated on pages 72-73 (Step 7): "Every newcomer in Alcoholics Anonymous is told, and soon realizes for himself, that his humble admission of powerlessness over alcohol is his first step toward liberation from its paralyzing grip."

Page 72 says the "basic ingredient of all humility" is a "desire to seek and do God's will." This is from the essay on Step 7, which is of course the only step that actually mentions humility. This essay mentions humility more often than any other, though most of these mentions didn't help me in trying to define humility.

Page 98 (Step 11) says that "self-searching... is a step in the development of that kind of humility that makes it possible for us to receive God's help. Yet it is only a step." It seems obvious that conscious contact with a Higher Power through prayer and meditation couldn't help but enhance our humility.

Page 149 (Tradition 4), says that that ability to laugh at oneself is "the very acme of humility." I like this a lot. I think it makes a very important point about humility. We instinctively distrust people who are unable to laugh at themselves.

Pag 187 (Tradition 12) says that "anonymity is real humility at work. It is an all-pervading spiritual quality which today keynotes A.A. life everywhere. Moved by the spirit of anonymity, we try to give up our natural desires for personal distinction as A.A. members both among fellow alcoholics and before the general public." By today, Bill meant in the 1950's. But today (by which I mean today) I don't know that the same could be said. Is the spirit of anonymity truly pervading our A.A. lives? Does it keynote our blogging on this most public and widely read of modern media? Does it bear any relation at all to what the press has to say about celebrity drunks?

The danger of ignoring these lessons, of not making the effort to acheive true humility, whatever our definition, is clear:

Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles.

The same stern threat applies to the group itself. Unless there is approximate conformity to A.A.'s Twelve Traditions, the group, too, can deteriorate and die. So we of A.A. do obey spiritual principles, first because we must, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are A.A.'s disciplinarians; we need no others.

Wisdom of the Rooms

No comment necessary.

A spiritual experience

I attended a Came to Believe meeting several nights ago. This meeting's format is for a guest speaker to select one story from the booklet of the same name that we read as a group, to give a short lead, then to open the floor for comments.

After the lead, someone shared about his belief that one of his grandparents had helped him get sober, even though that grandparent was not alive at the time. It brought back a memory from my early sobriety, about which I shared later in the meeting.

It was July 1995. I had just under three years of sobriety. I was seeing my therapist, Macron Larks, and dealing with some sexual issues (among other things). I recalled to Mac that after my grandmother—who had died in 1981, 11 years before I stopped drinking—had gotten a drink or two under her belt at family gatherings, she would sometimes start muttering, half under her breath, about a certain unnamed minister she obviously didn't care for at all. Eventually I got the impression—I forget how or where—that there was some kind of sexual abuse involved.

When Mac heard this, he immediately gave me an assignment: to find out all I could about this incident. So I went to my mother's youngest sister, with whom I have always had a close and open relationship. She immediately and without hestitation told me all she knew.

In high school, my grandmother attended a religious boarding school several hundred kilometers from her home. Shortly before graduation, her mother died (her father was already dead) and she returned home to an older sister who was still living in the house they'd grown up in. One night her sister invited their former pastor, who happened to be passing through town, to stay with them. While there, he entered my grandmother's bedroom and sexually molested her. This was all my aunt could tell me.

It just so happened that my sponsor at the time was a minister of the same religious denomination. One of his assignments at the time was curator of the church archives. I decided to go see what more I could find out in these archives about the man who had abused my grandmother. I made an appointment to meet with my sponsor so he could give me a brief orientation as to what was available and how to find things.

My sponsor had absolutely no idea why I was there or what I was looking for. I don't remember everything he told me, but I vividly remember the moment when he went to a set of filing drawers, very similar to a card catalog in a library¹. It was a central index to the information contained in the archives. There were several cabinets of drawers, and several drawers per cabinet, each presumably filled with 3 x 5 index cards. There were thousands of cards, perhaps even tens of thousands. Each contained somebody's name, or a topic, or a description of an event. He picked a drawer at random, opened it and pulled out a single card from the middle of the drawer to show me what a typical card contained.

The card he pulled was the one for my grandmother. Since it was my mother's mother, he didn't even recognize that she was related to me until I told him.

I couldn't believe it. It's still unbelievable. When I shared about this in the meeting last week, I got shivers and a large gasp went up from the group. I got shivers again just now, blogging about it.

Do you suppose my Higher Power thought I was on the right track?

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¹Remember these? They contained drawers full of 3x5 cards, one per book, organized by subject and/or author.

Some meetings are better than others

I've been attending a particular Tuesday night meeting at the local clubhouse, primarily because my sponsor likes to go there. Last night was my fourth visit recently. I saw The Rock the first time, but haven't seen him since.

I was reminded last night of why I don't like going there. The speaker, who had a real wise-guy attitude, started off by announcing that he hadn't been to a meeting in a year. Within minutes he was trashing the 5th Tradition, without apology, saying that after picking up a drink, everybody does something else whether it's drugs, gambling or picking up women. He of course noted that he did all of these. He spent all but the last couple of minutes on his drunkalogue (and drugalogue—fortunately he didn't talk at all about the other two).

I kept thinking, "And this is supposed to help us—and especially the newcomer—stay sober how?" Needless to say, I didn't find much to laugh about in his many funny stories. They seemed mostly to be in his story to entertain his audience. I thought about getting up and walking out while he was still speaking, but didn't. I thought about leaving at the break, but didn't. I also kept wondering throughout how much of this was purely my negativity rather than just a bad job by an unsober person. I did express my opinion to Mr Riches-to-Rags, who was there.

It wasn't all bad. I heard a couple of good comments after the break and got to talk for a few minutes to a man who was District Treasurer when I was GSR eight years ago but haven't seen since. I learned that he's been very active in Intergroup since then. He's a good candidate to speak for me sometime.

Attitudes towards meetings

Last night's speaker identified three phases he went through in his attitude towards A.A. meetings. These all occurred during the first 11 months of his sobriety, while he was in prison. He was in a work release program where, starting with one night a week, they gradually increased the number of nights he was allowed out to attend A.A. meetings, as he continued to not screw up.

At first, he said, he went because he had to. He hated being there and kept thinking, "Is this what my life has come to? To hang out with a bunch of alcoholics?" After a while he entered the second phase, where he realized that he always felt better while at a meeting. He still would have preferred not to go at all, but had to admit that it wasn't so bad. Finally, towards the end of his 11 months, he started looking forward to going to meetings—phase three.

This reminded me of what I was told in early sobriety: there are only two times I needed to go to a meeting: (1) when I wanted to and (2) when I didn't want to. In early sobriety, the number of times I went for the second reason exceeded the number of times I went for the first, but quite a lot. At some point, years ago, that changed. Now I rarely go for the second reason (though it does happen, usually when I'm thinking, "I've got better things to do").

After a number of years of sobriety, I recognized a fourth phase in my attitude toward meetings, namely, to go because I might have something to offer a newcomer, because I might be able to help someone who is struggling. For me, this brings the deepest satisfaction of all.

Ruminations on Beauty

This was the title of a post by the Junky's Wife two months ago. I've been cogitating on it ever since I read it without knowing why. A couple of days ago it hit me.

Some background. For some time now, I've been trying to walk a couple miles a day, just on the general principle that since I have a pure desk job, it's good for me—physically, mentally and emotionally. Usually these were early in the morning or very late in the afternoon. Lately, I've taken to going on hour-long walks in the middle of the day. Being self-employed and setting my own hours, this is relatively easy for me. And I've been taking my camera.

It takes me twice as long, I probably don't cover as much ground, but it's been very very nice for keeping me somewhat grounded. I don't think about anything but what's around me and what might make a good photograph. And I've gotten some good ones. I'm actually pretty good at it, I think (one from today is above, to the right).

What hit me a couple of days ago is that this has become a form of meditation for me, meditation on beauty. As JW said in her post:

So why is beauty so important? And why is beauty so important to me?

Beauty, I guess, gives me that god-feeling...that moment when you recognize something beautiful, when it kind of catches your breath and pulls at your guts, or points at some emptiness in your guts that feels so essential to living...it makes me feel aware of something bigger than myself.

Thanks, JW, that really hit the spot!

Late for a meeting

I walked into my meeting tonight late, as they were just starting. I hate being late, especially when the only reason is because I didn't plan my time well. Even more so when, like tonight, it's my first time at the group. I got to introduce myself by saying my name and that it was my first time there. They welcomed me and then I remembered to add, "I'm an alcoholic." Somebody replied, "Good, at least you know that." Everyone—including me—laughed.

A. was celebrating five years. Assuming I was a newcomer, she turned to me after announcing it, looked me in the eye and said, "It really does work." I smiled inwardly and managed to keep to myself the fact that I had 15 years, even when I shared. Isn't amazing how the ego can pick up on the smallest things and keep reminding one of them all through the meeting?

My prize

If you've been paying very close attention, you know I won a prize over at the Daily Piglet. Well, after a missed connection, my prize arrived in the mail the other day. You can see a picture of it to the left. Piglet told me she perused my blog to get an idea of what would be a good gift and, in the end, it was a toss-up between this and a night-light replica of the leg lamp from the movie A Christmas Story. To the right you can see a picture of the prize I didn't win.

My first thought on opening the package was, "Is it that obvious, just from reading my blog?" Who better to ask than Mr. Sarcastic Ball. You can see his answer here in the picture to the left.

In return for her offer that let me win this wonderful prize, I gave her a chance to win something back (if you follow all the links you'll see I challenged to figure out how I knew the answer to her question). She succeeded. So now I get to look over her blog and see what might make an appropriate prize for her. Any and all suggestions from her friends (and enemies) are welcome. Please e-mail them to me privately rather than post them here, so she can have the same delightful sense of surprise that I got to experience.

My old friend Pain

The last 43½ hours have not been good ones for me emotionally. Nimue and I had a big confrontation Saturday night. She insisted on having her way. I refused to give in. She said she was going to stand next to me, hammering away at me verbally, till I "cooperated." I got in my car and went to a meeting, which helped a little. Sure beats what I would have done 16 years ago: gotten in my car and gone to a bar.

Yesterday, I was at the 4th Step workshop I mentioned in my last post for most of the afternoon. I had picked out a meeting to go to Sunday night and then picked out a park to stop in on the way to the meeting from the workshop. I took a bunch of photographs (I'm an avid if amateur photographer). After the meeting, my old friend ChinBeard took me aside and chewed me out. He asked why I would want to continue for two years to stay with someone who didn't want to live with me. He offered to let me live with him and he would abuse me instead of Nimue. He offered to pray for God to send me even more pain, so I would finally do something. He carried on for almost 10 minutes, very brutally, shredding every "but" that I could come up with. Don't you just hate it sometimes when people love you enough to do that? Damn!

What is ANA?

At a 4th Step workshop I attended yesterday, we heard from four speakers. All were good. The two women obviously had very, very solid step-work backgrounds. One man spoke very knowledgeably and intelligently about the 4th step. The other man spoke movingly from the heart. I talked for a while afterwards with H., one of the women who spoke (the other woman who spoke was her sponsor's sponsor).

She first started working the steps after relapsing and then getting involved with something called "ANA." She said it was another Twelve Step fellowship, and made it sound like a sort of Back to Basics movement for any kind of addiction, with no distinction between alcohol and drugs, for example.

When I Googled for ANA, I didn't find anything like what she was describing. The most relevant links returned was to ANA Treatment Centres, a British chain of rehabs. I didn't see any explanation of why they use "ANA" in their name, but from some of the description, I can see that it might be related.

The next most closely related was for "my friend Ana." (Well, at least I learned one new thing today!)

Does anyone know any more about this? That is, about the fellowship H. was talking about, not about my friend Ana.

Why "pigeons"?

Kathy Lynne wants to know, "Why pigeons?" and adding, "I don't like that."

I don't remember. I do remember seeing something once about where the term came from and, after reading it, feeling that it's not the pejorative term I had previously thought. Where was that article? AAHistoryLovers? Oh yes, here's the post that asked a question similar to Kathy Lynne's and here's the one response it got.

To summarize, the term appears to have originated with Dr. Bob and was in use by 1940. Dr. Bob was heavily into using slang. He called Anne, his wife, "the skirt" or "the little woman" and a kiss "the slobber." When he learned that Benjamin Franklin [follow this link: it has excellent information] had once observed that drunks appeared "pigeon-eyed," it immediately followed that they must be "pigeons". He also referred to sponsees as "cookies." Despite the apocryphal and derogatory explanations one hears from time to time in the rooms of A.A.—that pigeons are called that because they fly around and shit all over everyone, or because if you give them a message they deliver it somewhere but never get the message themselves—the term was originally meant endearingly.

I actually use the term "sponsee" in most of my conversation. But I prefer "pigeon" (and use it more often in writing since I have time to think about it) because it's sort of metaphorical and more colorful rather than technically accurate. When I use it I certainly do not intend it to be derogatory.

If you have a subscription to the A.A Grapevine's Digital Archive, you can find further discussion of this topic in the following articles:

• October 1957, "From the Grass Roots"
  
• September 1963, "At No Cost to Anyone, Here Are Some Free Translations"
• April 1979, "Pigeons"
  
• July 1980, letter from C.B.
  
• November 1980, letter from B.M.
• November 1980, letter from L.M.
• April 1986, "Pigeonperson"
  
• September 1986, letter from S.M.

This is a list of references I got from the first of the two AAHistoryLovers posts I noted above. After reading them, I'm still not inclined to change my opinion, though there are some good reasons not to use the term.

P.S. There may be other articles and letters among the 262 that were returned when I searched the archive for the term "pigeon."

Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you

As predicted, I went to a meeting tonight with my new pigeon, Overseer. That's actually the name of the position of responsibility he has at the rehab he's in—Overseer. I was taken aback when he casually mentioned this to me on the way to the meeting. He's black, and to me this term has strong slavery connotations. I was more than taken aback; I was stunned. I said so, and he agreed, but then used the term again in a completely un-self-conscious way. So that's what his nom de blog is going to be.

We stood in the parking lot for a few minutes talking about where he is in recovery and what's going on. He clearly doesn't know how to be still and likes to talk too much. At least he knows this about himself. And was able to sit in the meeting and just listen, at my mild suggestion.

Somehow in the parking lot we wound up on the subject of prayer. I talked to him about my experience praying for people toward whom I have resentments. I told him how it took over a year of praying to heal my resentments over people like my ex-wife, Bitter Cookie; Idlerich, the boyfriend she left me for and Deadbeat, Nimue's ex-husband (can you tell I'm not 100% over them?). I told him how important it was to continue even when we don't feel like praying at all, that's it important to just mouth the words if that's all we can do. Then we went in to the meeting.

It was a Big Book discussion meeting. And, of all things, we read the story "Bondage of Self." It's amazing that it was a story from beyond the first 164 pages to begin with; around here the stories are only rarely read in meetings. But that is was this story? Wow!

For those of you not familiar with this particular story, here's a excerpt that will show its relevance:

If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don't really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.

Well, as I always say when we read this story, the author must have been a spiritual giant if she got that kind of result in just two weeks (the particular resentment she had was one of 25 years against her mother). But it can still work for the rest of us; it just takes a little longer.

Good discussion after the reading too. I think maybe I'll go back.

Why I don't drink non-alcoholic drinks

Anybeth—who I keep wanting to call "Amy Beth"—commented on my post Mmmmm, Mexican food saying that "a non-alcoholic margarita would taste great." I want to clarify why I ended my original post by saying, "Naw, I think I'll just stick to their food." This is not to criticize Anybeth in any way; I'm hope she'll be able to find some of those margaritas and enjoy them without consequence. But I can't.

For me it would be too much like, too close to actual drinking. More and more questions like those I started asking at the end of that post would begin to fill my head and get me to thinking. I would start remembering all those wonderful times I had when I was out there—whether they were really there or not. Soon I would be stealing a little of what the Big Book on page 101 calls vicarious pleasure from the atmosphere. And next thing you know, I would say to myself in the most casual way, "It won't burn me this time; so here's how!" And after the third or fourth, I'd be pounding on the bar and saying to myself, "For God's sake, how did I ever get started again?" Only to have that thought supplanted by "Well, I'll stop with the sixth drink." Or "What's the use anyhow?" (p. 24)

For me, this could easily be just how it happens. So, again, and just for me, I really do need to stick to only the food. And a soft drink or glass of water.

An okay day

Other than being late for work, it hasn't been a bad day. Had a little breakthrough on one of the problems I've been working on (professionally). Had a cheap but tasty lunch of Phad Thai. Tonight I will take my new pigeon to a meeting and spend a little time getting to know him and on the way will probably grab a slightly more expensive salad for dinner.

Since I was running late, I decided to shortcut my morning routine and thereby inadvertently forgot my morning prayers. Despite that, the universe, a.k.a. my Higher Power, in the form of today's entry from Daily Reflections, is apparently telling me I'm on the right track:

Curbing Rashness

When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 91

Being fair-minded and tolerant is a goal toward which I must work daily. I ask God, as I understand Him, to help me to be loving and tolerant to my loved ones, and to those with whom I am in close contact. I ask for guidance to curb my speech when I am agitated, and I take a moment to reflect on the emotional upheaval my words may cause, not only to someone else, but also to myself. Prayer, meditation and inventories are the key to sound thinking and positive action for me.

Sorta sounds like what I was saying yesterday, doesn't it?

The Riddling Bridge Troll

This is so great, I can't resist sharing it. The Junky's Wife said yesterday of her drug addict husband, "He's a riddling bridge troll I've got to get past before I can move on with my life, and the riddles he keeps coming up with stump me again and again."

This kind of insightful writing makes me very glad I don't have to live with an addict / alcoholic. I suppose it should give me some kind of sympathy for Nimue, but right now I'm only feeling it for JW and all her addict-married friends.

Mmmmm, Mexican food

Last night I ate at a nearby Mexican restaurant that's new to the neighborhood. I noticed going in that they offer "COMPLIMENTARY MARGARITAS!" My waiter offered me one, which I politely turned down. After leaving, I was perusing their take-out menu and noticed it's a BYOB place. What kind of Margaritas would those be? Not the kind I used to drink! I wonder what they taste like? I wonder if they're non-alcoholic? They must be. If so, would it be alright for me to have one?

Naw, I think I'll just stick to their food.