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03-26-2011, 12:25 PM
THERE IS MORE TO QUITTING DRINKING
THEN QUITTING DRINKING
We don't have to drink to die of alcoholism. We buried him yesterday.
The County Coroner had published the required notices for next of kin and
nobody had claimed the body. It was just myself, and his sponsor. Not even
a preacher, the county doesn't pay for those.
Not much of a send-off, and not the one David had asked for. A cheap
coffin, a backhoe digging a hole, and that was it, another old AA gone.
He had been sober over 20 years and in AA over 30, a stern and rigid
man who tried to soften his edges and never could. He was a loner, single,
an isolated man at the edge of life's good things. He hung in there...and
in the end hung himself.
I don't know why; I can't know. I know there had been a diagnosis of
senile dementia, and I know that the doctor had added cancer to the list.
But, I've seen AA's deal with such things before. I don't know why David
decided he couldn't.
It isn't the first time I've been through this in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I've known several over the years who just up and walked out life's door one
day. Sober, but not happy. Sober, but not at peace. Sober, but they died
of alcoholism. Our disease doesn't need us to drink in order to kill us. I
wish more folks knew that, and appreciated it.
Alcoholism is the only disease that is entirely capable of fighting
back, of taking care of itself, and of emerging in new places and new forms
when it isn't properly treated, whether we are drinking of not. That's
because of the spiritual malady. Most people think that has something to do with
prayer or with God. It doesn't. It has to do with 'our spirit', that force
which animates, motivates and propels us. There are aspects of alcoholism
that are mental, psychological and spiritual, which need to be healed with
more than just not drinking. That's why there are twelve steps, not just
the first one.
As an alcoholic, parts of my spirit are blocked off. It is left
unconscious, unrealized. My character, or basic nature, doesn't work right.
At its root, it is a fundamental and seemingly irresolvable insecurity, a
hole that can't ever be filled. It is an instinct run rampant, a desperate
need for acceptance and love that cannot be met. It hurts. It fills one
with fear. The selfishness and self-centeredness of the alcoholic lies
here, we are totally preoccupied with what is going on with ourselves on the
inside. The slings and arrows of experience warped by this need drive us to
the fringe, and the voices of the committee in our head keep us there.
We are obsessed with ourselves, and from this condition of mind, the
insanity of feelings gone haywire, we become self-mediators eventually. We
discover alcohol or something else, and the stuff quiets the voices,
provides the relief we've never been able to find in any other way. It
isn't any wonder we drink, or drug, the way we do. And some of us don't
develop an addiction, in attempting to meet these crying demands of our
blocked spirit, we develop other malformations of behavior, and suffer in a hundred
different ways.
God broke David's obsession to drink. But, I don't think David ever
truly understood his disease. I say that because I watched him struggle
with those old unresolved issues of his heart for years. His rigidity,
coldness, aloofness, isolation and difficulty with other people were a reflection of
the pain in his heart, of the disease of alcoholism gone deep inside, still
active even though he hadn't had a drink in many years.
Alcoholism didn't need David to drink in order to continue trying to
kill him, and in the end, it succeeded. In the end, instead of self
abandoned, David abandoned hope and discovered a bitter end.
Our recovery from alcoholism through the Steps must be a three-fold
process. It is not one-dimensional. When we say, in AA, that our solution
is like a triangle, recovery, unity, service, we mean it. In working the
Steps, I clear a pathway for three purposes, first, to come into a group of
human people and away from the fringe of society where I have spent most of
my emotional life. Secondly, to awaken spiritually to the parts of our
spirit that have been blocked off and left unconscious. And thirdly,
discovering "belonging" and continued spiritual growth through service to the people
within that group. It is only this entire, threefold process that heals.
It is especially true for alcoholics, since we have suffered from the
spiritual malady to a great degree. Perhaps the 12th Step says it best:
"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps (recovery),
we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics (service) and practice
these principles in all our affairs (unity).
You see, I cannot hold back. I must not continue to suffer that
shyness, aloneness, that overwhelming sense of separation in the different
aspects of my life. I must get involved in a group of people to practice
these principles in all my affairs. Only the total approach is healing.
Anything less is little more than driving my disease deep, and if I do that,
it will continue to eat away, trying to destroy me.
It destroyed David. This is a memorial to an old AA who gave it his
best shot, but there were a lot of old ideas about self that David never
fully dealt with by using all of the solution AA has to offer.
He is at rest now. But it says somewhere that "no matter how far down
the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others."
David cannot speak to his experience any longer; I am speaking in his
memory.
And I think that if David could talk to us today, he'd say "Understand
your disease thoroughly, and work the complete program of recovery!"
Anonymous
Received in email
THEN QUITTING DRINKING
We don't have to drink to die of alcoholism. We buried him yesterday.
The County Coroner had published the required notices for next of kin and
nobody had claimed the body. It was just myself, and his sponsor. Not even
a preacher, the county doesn't pay for those.
Not much of a send-off, and not the one David had asked for. A cheap
coffin, a backhoe digging a hole, and that was it, another old AA gone.
He had been sober over 20 years and in AA over 30, a stern and rigid
man who tried to soften his edges and never could. He was a loner, single,
an isolated man at the edge of life's good things. He hung in there...and
in the end hung himself.
I don't know why; I can't know. I know there had been a diagnosis of
senile dementia, and I know that the doctor had added cancer to the list.
But, I've seen AA's deal with such things before. I don't know why David
decided he couldn't.
It isn't the first time I've been through this in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I've known several over the years who just up and walked out life's door one
day. Sober, but not happy. Sober, but not at peace. Sober, but they died
of alcoholism. Our disease doesn't need us to drink in order to kill us. I
wish more folks knew that, and appreciated it.
Alcoholism is the only disease that is entirely capable of fighting
back, of taking care of itself, and of emerging in new places and new forms
when it isn't properly treated, whether we are drinking of not. That's
because of the spiritual malady. Most people think that has something to do with
prayer or with God. It doesn't. It has to do with 'our spirit', that force
which animates, motivates and propels us. There are aspects of alcoholism
that are mental, psychological and spiritual, which need to be healed with
more than just not drinking. That's why there are twelve steps, not just
the first one.
As an alcoholic, parts of my spirit are blocked off. It is left
unconscious, unrealized. My character, or basic nature, doesn't work right.
At its root, it is a fundamental and seemingly irresolvable insecurity, a
hole that can't ever be filled. It is an instinct run rampant, a desperate
need for acceptance and love that cannot be met. It hurts. It fills one
with fear. The selfishness and self-centeredness of the alcoholic lies
here, we are totally preoccupied with what is going on with ourselves on the
inside. The slings and arrows of experience warped by this need drive us to
the fringe, and the voices of the committee in our head keep us there.
We are obsessed with ourselves, and from this condition of mind, the
insanity of feelings gone haywire, we become self-mediators eventually. We
discover alcohol or something else, and the stuff quiets the voices,
provides the relief we've never been able to find in any other way. It
isn't any wonder we drink, or drug, the way we do. And some of us don't
develop an addiction, in attempting to meet these crying demands of our
blocked spirit, we develop other malformations of behavior, and suffer in a hundred
different ways.
God broke David's obsession to drink. But, I don't think David ever
truly understood his disease. I say that because I watched him struggle
with those old unresolved issues of his heart for years. His rigidity,
coldness, aloofness, isolation and difficulty with other people were a reflection of
the pain in his heart, of the disease of alcoholism gone deep inside, still
active even though he hadn't had a drink in many years.
Alcoholism didn't need David to drink in order to continue trying to
kill him, and in the end, it succeeded. In the end, instead of self
abandoned, David abandoned hope and discovered a bitter end.
Our recovery from alcoholism through the Steps must be a three-fold
process. It is not one-dimensional. When we say, in AA, that our solution
is like a triangle, recovery, unity, service, we mean it. In working the
Steps, I clear a pathway for three purposes, first, to come into a group of
human people and away from the fringe of society where I have spent most of
my emotional life. Secondly, to awaken spiritually to the parts of our
spirit that have been blocked off and left unconscious. And thirdly,
discovering "belonging" and continued spiritual growth through service to the people
within that group. It is only this entire, threefold process that heals.
It is especially true for alcoholics, since we have suffered from the
spiritual malady to a great degree. Perhaps the 12th Step says it best:
"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps (recovery),
we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics (service) and practice
these principles in all our affairs (unity).
You see, I cannot hold back. I must not continue to suffer that
shyness, aloneness, that overwhelming sense of separation in the different
aspects of my life. I must get involved in a group of people to practice
these principles in all my affairs. Only the total approach is healing.
Anything less is little more than driving my disease deep, and if I do that,
it will continue to eat away, trying to destroy me.
It destroyed David. This is a memorial to an old AA who gave it his
best shot, but there were a lot of old ideas about self that David never
fully dealt with by using all of the solution AA has to offer.
He is at rest now. But it says somewhere that "no matter how far down
the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others."
David cannot speak to his experience any longer; I am speaking in his
memory.
And I think that if David could talk to us today, he'd say "Understand
your disease thoroughly, and work the complete program of recovery!"
Anonymous
Received in email