I have been asked to speak at an event this weekend to a group of clients that currently reside in a rehab facility. It just so happens to fall a couple of days after my “sobriety date,” April 20th, 2020, marking my second consecutive year without a drop of alcohol. Nights and weekends, too! As I did after reaching the “one-year” milestone, documenting what it was that I had to say in that “speech,” here is the Two-Year Manuscript:
Hello, everyone. My name is Josh, and I am an alcoholic – among other things. I’ve thought about speaking to you all tonight for quite some time, what it is that I am going to say, what message I would be trying to convey. I can’t help but start with this: Because I have sat where you guys have sat, listening to somebody with multiple years of sobriety under his belt, thinking to myself that I will never achieve what this person has achieved, I do not have the will or the strength to do what this person has done, this person is more intelligent than me, has more money than me; therefore, this person is better than me, and that is the way the world works. Some people are able to do things that others are not. You know, I always believed that I could complete a single year, but anything beyond that looked like Mount Everest. Well, after about 730 days of continuous sobriety, let me tell you the primary realization that I have come to throughout it: I apologize for deviating from the rhetoric into a less professional dialogue, but the primary realization is that I do not need alcohol to completely fuck it up. Not at all – I can mismanage my life in several different ways, and believe you me, I have tried a plethora of them. In the last month or so, I have made a mess of it, and I suppose I am saying this to you all to say that the idea that everything is sunshine and rainbows just because one has more “days sober” is an illusion. At least it could be an illusion, and it would be dishonest of me to stand before you and pretend like shit is all sweet. If we unpack that primary realization a bit further, a sub-realization, let’s say, that comes is that you find out through Alcoholics Anonymous that no one person is better than another, despite what they may present or not present. To the bitter end, we are alcoholics just the same, and while it may not appear to be so at the moment, that is quite a wonderful thing. I’m far from a Liverpool supporter (hopefully, there are some football fans in here to understand that reference), but I’ve always loved the gates of Anfield. Before you walk into the ground, you see a sign: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” That is exactly how I feel walking into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. You are not alone, and there is a solution. A way out on which we can absolutely agree and upon which we can join in brotherly (and sisterly) harmonious action.
Anyway, I have been preparing for tonight for a while. It has been a time of “push-come-to-shove,” having to answer questions such as, “do I deserve to be here speaking,” “am I qualified to be here speaking,” “what is it, if anything, that I actually know,” and “what is it that I even have to offer?” You, or I, have to consider the answers that I would least like to hear – because what the hell do I know!? What could it be that I have to offer, considering some of the large-scale mistakes that I make every single day, some of them of the worst variety, betraying my own morals and values? The only answer that has sprung to mind – because that’s how these answers come when you legitimately ask yourself something. There is a difference between talking to yourself over a question and those sort of “light-bulb answers,” so to speak, that just arrive from somewhere. In any case, the only answer that has come is that God, the Supreme Creator of the Universe, has allowed this to happen, so there must be a message to pass onto you that He has entrusted me to articulate in a sophisticated enough manner. Okay. Fair enough. What do I know, then? What’s the message?
The long of the short of it is that it can be done. That’s the message. In the event that some of you doze off, let’s just get that out of the way. If you take nothing else, understand that it can be done. Well, what is “it” exactly, especially at this stage of the game? It can be done – you can stop drinking (or using). “No shit,” the normies might say, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? We aren’t normal – not normal drinkers anyway. How? How do we stop doing something that we cannot live without but will surely die from if we continue? Onto what I know. A real alcoholic is beyond human aid. Alcohol is not my problem; it was my solution. This “program” has virtually nothing to do with alcohol but rather has everything to do with recovering what we had lost or given away. Is that not what recovery is? When a football team puts the ball on the ground, does not the team who fumbled attempt to “recover” the ball? Carl Jung said, “His craving for alcohol was the equivalent of … the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed … as the union with God.” Somewhere along the way, I had replaced that spiritual wholeness or that union with God with another “spirit.” He, Jung, continues on by saying, “Alcohol in Latin is “spiritus” and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum.” We are not recovering the wife or husband, the family, or a job. One might, as a side-effect, recover those things. I didn’t, and you may not either. What we are recovering is faith and love – in the sense that we are able to give it without the necessity of receiving it, a certain wholeness within ourselves. We are recovering hope. All things that, as an ideal, God, whom we had abandoned, represents.
I believe that this, more or less, defines the alcoholic “illness.” People, myself included, have carried with them the notion that alcoholism is something where somebody drinks themselves into oblivion, only to cop out and declare themselves “sick.” Well, we are sick, but it again has nothing to do with alcohol itself. By the way, if we agree that alcohol is not the problem, does alcohol not get a bad rap, then? Imagine for a second if alcohol itself had the ability to write a rebuttal to the “Big Book” or if liquor, beer, and wine were able to get together in a room and discuss alcoholics? What might they say? Maybe something like, “These fucking people have problems, whether it was socially, a traumatic problem stemming from their childhood, whatever it might be, they come to us to solve it, we give them everything that they asked for, and how do they repay us!? By blaming us!? We did not abuse them! They abused us! All we ever did was be there for them! They told us they were leaving and never coming back, but we never took it personally! We sat on a shelf and patiently waited until they returned.” A bit of a tangent to drive home the point, I suppose. Anyhow, alcoholism is an illness, but it is a spiritual illness that has become exacerbated by alcohol use.
Obviously, this probably goes without saying; in order to heal spiritually, drinking or using has to be stopped. After that, certain things need to happen. We didn’t become alcoholics overnight, and we won’t become disciples or monks overnight either. Besides, the problem at this very moment is still “how do I not drink today?” Although our stories are supposed to disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now, I’ve been meaning to shy away from personal stories even if they depict that I have “been there before.” I’d like to think I have two sponsors. One of them told me how these speeches are supposed to go. He said, “five minutes on what we used to be like, ten minutes on what happened, and fifteen minutes on what it is like now.” After he told me that, I thought about it, and when I saw him at the next meeting, I said to him that I could do him one better – that I could complete that in fifteen seconds, let alone thirty minutes. Here is how it goes for everybody who has found any success in the program. What we used to be like? We sucked. Balls. What happened? Eventually and mercifully, enough became enough. What is it like now? It doesn’t suck as much balls. The end. That’s the story – that’s everyone’s story. Point being, I don’t think anecdotal stories matter much. All that matters is that one way or another, I have found myself in Alcoholics Anonymous.
There is this great scene in the movie The Gambler where John Goodman (a loan shark) is attempting to help Mark Wahlberg (a compulsive gambler). John Goodman opens his monologue by talking about an experience he had while drinking. “Do you know, I got a DUI, and when I went to jail, I actually fell down and pissed my pants. You don’t need to do that twice. I tell you that to let you know that everybody’s been there… Once. If you’ve been there twice, having been there once, I can’t help you.” A compelling scene if you have dealt with any sort of addiction, but in the context of A.A., what is John Goodman saying exactly? There is a point that must be reached before we begin any type of ascent. One of my favorite speakers says that people don’t know what “hitting bottom” actually is because the Big Book doesn’t mention it. I happen to not agree with him – I think it is mentioned. The point that must be reached is “pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization.” How many “bottoms” or incomprehensible demoralizations do we believe we get to hit? Certainly not fourteen! “Everybody’s been there… Once.” I am not suggesting that one cannot go to rehab multiple times. No. What I am suggesting is… Well, here, my sponsor told me a story that I will never forget. He told me that when he first came into the rooms, there was a bar across the street from his home group. His sponsor slid a twenty-dollar bill across the table and said, “James, go across the street and come back in here when you’re ready.” Nothing good can happen until then, anyhow.
How do we know when we have reached the point? How did I know? Before I attended a rehab, I “tried my hand” at going to meetings in several different states, for geographical change was the cure, surely! I would go to these meetings, and I would declare to everyone that my name was Josh and that I was an alcoholic, and yet, nothing changed. I believed this to be true, but I was missing something; I was missing pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization, although I thought I reached that point every hungover morning. Right. Until four o clock rolled around, and I jumped right back on the wagon. I knew I was an alcoholic, but I still had fight left in me. In the Big Book, it says that our lives were filled with countless vain attempts to prove that we could drink like other people. While I did that, attempt to prove to myself that I was normal, my drinking took on a different form “toward the end.” My drinking plight became to prove to the world that I could drink the way I drink and get away with it. There is no such thing as beating the game, my friends. The piper always gets paid. Knocking on my neighbors’ door asking for booze did not demoralize me enough; unhappy scenes in my and the ex’s sumptuous apartment did not demoralize me enough. I can’t even pinpoint it. One day, it just happened. A day where I was so demoralized that I admitted I needed help; but moreover, I allowed myself to be helped. I suppose this is what I mean. How many times does one get to do that? At some point, I would become the boy who cried wolf. If I were to continue whilst asking for help along the way, inevitably, I would be told that there is nothing that anybody could do. I’m forever grateful for that day, whenever it was. For many people, maybe it’s too much pride or just a blatant disregard for existence; that day does not come. It’s a little funny or weird to say this, but whenever I see a newcomer step into the rooms, I secretly hope their life is in shambles. Otherwise, well, here’s a $20 (if I even have that). Go do some more research. That sounds harsh, I know, but I guess I fancy myself an “old school guy.”
So I am going to meetings, admitting to the room that I am an alcoholic, I’m missing incomprehensible demoralization, but there is something else I am missing. I was told not to preach the Big Book, but there is an integral passage in it that I believe must be pointed out. “We learned we had to concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery.” Mickey Bush speaks about this and correctly states that “it is the first step in recovery, but it is not the first of the twelve.” I may have touched on this earlier, but I cannot remain abstinent from drinking if I still have fight left in me. No matter what you think about the Bible, one of my favorite stories in it is Jacob “wrestling with God.” In actuality, God wrestles with Jacob and not the other way around, but for what purpose? God appears to Jacob to wrestle every last ounce of self-will and self-centeredness (for is this not the root of the alcoholic’s problem?) out of him and to humble Jacob in the process. Jacob comes away with a broken hip, I believe, so that every step Jacob takes, he is reminded that he cannot compete against, or compete without, rather, the All Powerful. We must be brought to our knees to begin the process, which is a difficult place to get to when you have played competitive sports for most of your life like I did. I never wanted to quit; I never wanted to concede. Even when my team lost, I wouldn’t concede. “We’ll see you next season.” Either that or I would blame the refs or a “lucky bounce.” Anything but admitting that the other team was better than us. Speaking of which..
“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable.” For the longest time, I didn’t understand why I had to introduce myself in meetings as an alcoholic. If I tell myself something about myself enough times, eventually, it will manifest itself in my life. It felt as if it were negative self-talk. Why is it something that I must do? When a sports team reaches the end of its run, you’ll hear terminology like “they are going through a rebuild.” What does that process entail, though? Well, generally speaking, the team’s core players that were a crucial part of their success have aged, and they aren’t the same players they used to be. Maybe the team invested in players that turned out not to be as good as they thought. Whatever the case, the team has to strip themselves of their players or ideas and replace them with something new. So, what happens? Well, they trade their older players for draft picks or for other promising, younger players. Essentially, what the team does is replace what they are giving away or about to lose with a new hope. There isn’t much of an alternative. The alternative would be to keep pushing with the same core with the illusion that you can still win, although evidence to the contrary has already been provided, and to do that would mean not only is there no present, but there is also no future. The team would be dead in all three tenses. Past, obviously, present, and future. It is the same for alcoholics and addicts as it is with a team that is in desperate need of a rebuild. Some of us tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. If we remove ourselves from our old notions and ideas, if we tear the fabric of our being down to almost nothing, at least then there would remain hope, and without hope, we will not stop drinking. Hell, we cannot live without hope. Mark Manson says somewhere in one of his books that the opposite of happiness is not anger or sadness but that the opposite of happiness is hopelessness. Hard to argue.
One last illustration to demonstrate the importance of admitting to being an alcoholic. Jack Kent wrote a children’s book entitled “There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon.” I’m paraphrasing the premise, but in the book, the child tells his mother that there is a dragon in his room. The mother tells him that there is “no such thing as a dragon.” Well, the dragon starts out small. It is a “baby dragon,” if you will. Women think a baby anything is cute, right? “Aww, it’s a baby dragon!” So, without the acknowledgment of the dragon from the child’s family, the dragon starts to grow. A year later, the child tells his mother that the dragon is getting larger. “There is no such thing as a dragon,” replied the mother once again. You can see where this is going, eh? One day, the dragon becomes so enormous that it winds up burning parts of the house – because that’s what dragons do – breathe fire. The father, returning home from work, sees what has transpired and is stunned at the sight. Finally, the child’s parents admit that the dragon is real, and as soon as they acknowledge the dragon, it starts to shrink. Unfortunately, that’s how it seems to work with alcoholics such as myself. I can see the dragon, I know that it exists, but I won’t acknowledge it as being a dragon until it is burning the house down. Few alcoholics do while there is still time, right?
For blog purposes, we will wrap up with this because I believe it to be a significant part of the “rebuilding process.” “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” It is important to note the verbiage in this step. It does not say, “because you already believe in a Power greater than yourself, just go ahead and skip this part and move to the next step.” No. Whatever we came into Alcoholics Anonymous with was an old idea, which, as stated, the result was nil until they were let go. Sure, maybe one might return to a specific institution that they subscribed to before, but that process must begin from the beginning once again. How could any of us say that we truly believed in a Higher Power, or God, when we were out there engaging in destructive behavior – behavior that constantly betrayed who we believed we were at our core? We could not! I cannot, anyway. Now, all that is required to make my beginning is to be willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Fair enough. However, the process of “finding” seems to be a lifelong journey. I suppose this is just my opinion, but if I find God, if I know where He is, does this not mean that I no longer need to seek? As far as I can tell, that isn’t the game we are playing. The game, by design, is a perpetual, never-ending game of hide and seek. Even if I do find Him in those magical, fleeting moments, the game restarts, just as hide and seek does. It can be done. It could and would be done, by God, if He were sought.
Thank you all for my sobriety. Keep coming back; we need each other.
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