Through the Red Door Blog

Not sure how I got there, to St. Smithers Hospital. I recall coming home from a dinner party and found myself leaning on the hospital’s registration desk. The floor seemed slippery ‘cause I had a hard time holding myself upright. A gurney appeared and I was told to “get on” and with a couple of folks holding and pulling me, I sorta fell on this bed-looking thing. Someone was pulling at some straps running over my chest, legs, arms. I was a bit confused, my mind fuzzy so I couldn’t raise any protest.  Someone at this desk said, “Go to Rm 3-37” and off we went to Room 37, 3^rd floor. The door looked strange. It was 2 doors, a door in a door. The room was small, a bed and a chair which both were rather large, heavy -- looked like one of those over-sized brown plastic loungers with a lever and cup holder on the side. A nurse handed me one of those sheet-like gowns so popular with the medical profession, “Put this thing on,” she ordered. Still in my suit and my arms and legs belted down, still kinda fuzzy, I eventually wrestled out of my suit and on with the gown. I was handed a pair of grey socks that had rubber cleats on the sole, an IV plugged into my arm. Of course, they had earlier taken my belt, shoe laces, a pen, phone, pencil, calendar and briefcase. Forgot to tell you, but I had a bracelet put on by the people behind that registration desk. They also gave me some stuff to read, a dark blue book whose cover I couldn’t read, a pamphlet with a bunch of dates and times for what looked like meetings. That first night, even drugged by the IV just inserted in my arm, I didn’t sleep very well probably because nurses kept waking me, “How are you,” they’d ask, a different one it seemed each hour, and always checking the IV.

So began a program I had placed myself in to examine whether I needed treatment for alcoholism. I say “I had placed myself. That wasn’t the whole story. Let’s put it this way: my spouse said, ‘It was the Program at St. Smithers or I was out.’“  

I remember leaving the hospital in a week and attending my first AA meeting. Actually, I enjoyed the stay in the hospital. Couple AA-ers dropped by and we talked about their Program, what they did, and they made some recommendations for meetings. I had time to consider what was happening to me. I of course wasn’t blind. I knew I was using alcohol to deal with life and alcohol didn’t provide much relief from what I termed my bag of problems. I felt a new focus of what they were saying at St. Smithers. I saw there were other options, that my use of alcohol was a false and dangerous drug that was killing my relations with myself, family and others, an addiction which was pulling me downward and deeper into a dark pit. This awakening didn’t exactly come overnight but my eyes started to open at St. Smithers. This experience finally put me on Recovery Road and I was anxious to get out so I could spend the time working the Program. There were bumps in that road, all was not smooth, there were a couple detours but those were short and painful. I stuck with it. I had almost given up at St. Smithers but people came to reach out to me sharing their experiences with their drug of addiction.  

So, I have to remember, there is help available. I was not alone. It seemed as if we joined hands and traveled similar paths. It works but it takes time and work on the elements of the Program. But it is a life-giving experience which “works if you work it.” The Program has been a “life saver” for me and my family. I am grateful.

Jim A, St. X Noon, Cincinnati

In the Yom Kippur confessional, we read: “Before a person is healed, he must acknowledge his illness. Before a person finds light, she must know her own darkness. And before a people is forgiven, it must confess its sins. We confess our sins and those of our fellows for we are responsible, one for another. Heal us Adonai, and lead us through darkness to light.”

Living and working the steps is a journey from darkness to light, from powerlessness to an understanding of that power ‘greater than ourselves” that can restore us to sanity” and we “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for His will for us and the power to carry it out.”

I was four and a half years in the program doing everything right for the wrong reasons and so, when I had my spiritual awakening, I began to acknowledge I am an alcoholic, that my life was unmanageable. I had not lost a job, a home, or transportation. What hit me most was I had lost myself; I had lost my values. Was I sick or what? Yes, I was one sick cookie and I needed to be healed. For this reason, I let people know I am in the program forty-two years but I’m only sober thirty-seven. had to acknowledge my illness. As used to be said in therapy; “You can’t deal with something you don’t own.”

Before I found the light, I had to acknowledge my own darkness. It never ceases to amaze me that, here I was, a priest, a counselor, walking around in darkness and thinking I was a light to the people in Alcoholics Anonymous. Knowledge of an illness does not mean that one can see one’s own illness. Just because I know about the signs and symptoms of an illness does not mean I can recognize them in myself. Denial is an outstanding blindness for victims of this disease. Not only was I blind to the disease, I was spiritually blind. I could not see how my behavior was impacting myself and others. I could not see the goodness of my Higher Power directing me to those who could and would help me if I sought them out. I could not see that my use, abuse, addiction to alcohol and other drugs was killing me slowly.

To be forgiven, I had to confess my failings. This was near to impossible. I had no character defects (Pride!!). I had to be taught. And, I was. I was taught by a gentle and compassionate layperson who did not attend any church but understood spiritually much better than I did. I learned humility and gratitude.

Mentally, Emotionally, Socially, and Physically I was dying. Some weeks after I “graduated” from treatment, I returned to retake some IQ test and, uncomfortably and happily, discovered that my brain was functioning much, much better. Emotionally I came to realize I was functioning on two cells; anger and fear. I had to learn to say “I feel____” without the use of “ think; or, like” in the sentence. I also had to stop saying “You make me feel___” Socially, I realized, I had surrounded myself with people who drank as much if not more than I did. I was Spiritually deceased. I was among the walking dead.

I look back and see that it was those who had already confessed their failings who became wounded-healers for me, helped me see my own failings, own them, and then let myself be healed through confession, forgiveness of self and others, accepting forgiveness and asking for God’s power to be my source of power in the future.

Bill W. said that the steps of AA could be found in any religion and philosophy. Here in this Jewish prayer for the day of atonement (at-one-ment: Becoming whole) is pretty much the steps I and others used to grow from powerlessness to being given the power to carry out the work we are called to do. “Before a person is healed, he must acknowledge his illness. Before a person finds light, she must know her own darkness. And before a people is forgiven, it must confess its sins. We confess our sins and those of our fellows for we are responsible, one for another. Heal us Adonai, and lead us through darkness to light.”

Séamus D.

Greater New Orleans Area

A month ago, I revisited the church where I first walked into my first Twelve-Step meeting. This meeting, held in a local Lutheran church, sets adjacent to the school where I spent years as a teacher. Perhaps I had avoided returning to this particular meeting for years because outside of the meeting room window sat the wreckage of my past and the amends I had been procrastinating for years.

As alcoholism consumed my life, there was little doubt: I had lost the ability to function. The light of passion that once filled my days of teaching was extinguished. It was easy to see my: tardiness and the absent days, and the hallways I had once filled with student work were bare. As hard as my administration tried to compassionately talk to me, I found it baffling to imagine how to escape my self-inflicted hell. I knew the end had come, and I resolved myself to quitting.

The shame of my failure only deepened the darkness of my alcoholism. I was lost and was not sure if there was a God, and if there was a God, I did not feel worthy. I wandered aimlessly like a lost sheep. In desperation I in walked into my first 12-Step meeting, but for several months, fear kept me from coming back. I was desperate, but filled with the fear of what life would be like without the lull of numbness.

It would be several more months of misery before I would walk back into a Twelve-Step meeting and attend outpatient treatment, as a last-ditch effort to not die. Reluctantly, I found a sponsor. If it had not been a requirement of treatment, I am sure I would not have done so. I was steadfast to my self-will. To be frank, willingness and I would not get well acquainted for years to come.

As my half-measure sobriety spiraled and in the midst of the pandemic, I found myself in a dark place again. This time there was no pink cloud filled with the excitement of the naïve new, but rather a prayer I repeated, "Please God, guide me into willingness." Slowly, my prayers were answered. I rigorously worked with my sponsor, I took suggestions, and I attended meetings daily. I continued to pray for willingness.

I became willing to go any lengths for sobriety. Part of those lengths involved attending a meeting at the Lutheran church I had visited years before. Just like I did in the prior visit, I peered out the window and saw the school. I knew it was time to face the wreckage of my past. It was time to make the amends that I had been avoiding. I immediately called my sponsor and told her it was time. I prayed for willingness. I put my trust in God rather than fear.

As I reached out to my former principal, I prayed for willingness, "Thy will be done, not mine." In the arms of God my fears were calmed. The day came to make the amends. The morning was filled with a connection from God that he was in control, and my being was filled with peace.

For years I had allowed fear and shame to dictate the narrative in my mind. The truth, the reality of the amends, could not have been further from the lies I had ingrained. When I arrived to make the amends, I was lovingly embraced with a hug. In that moment all my fears faded. My heart and soul were filled with peace. I sat down and the words of the amends came out of my mouth. I was met words of Godly compassion. When I was told I had been forgiven, I knew those words came from a genuine place of God’s love. The fear and shame could not compete with the abundance of grace I found while making the amends.

In that moment, I understood the beauty in willingness and God's Will, not mine.

As a child and teen and young adult...well until I was almost 40...I fought to be the first and the best.

I was the first and only girl in the Boys’ Little League.

I was the youngest, best girl (child) (person) in Taekwondo.

I was the only bassoonist in the band, and the top contrabassoonist in the state.

I was the first girl to be quartermaster for the band, and I was the girl who wore pants even though the drum major uniform was designed for girls as a skirt and go-go boots.

I was the first transgender person in the PhD program at the institution I attended.

I was tired, worn out, burned out.¹

My commitment to sobriety from alcohol and drugs, begun in 2003 and not yet finished - never finished - always learning and growing and changing - yet to which I’m always committed - had not yet adapted to recognize and encompass my compulsive perfectionist behaviors.

For a time, I chose not to acknowle

As a child and teen and young adult...well until I was almost 40...I fought to be the first and the best.

I was the first and only girl in the Boys’ Little League.

I was the youngest, best girl (child) (person) in Taekwondo.

I was the only bassoonist in the band, and the top contrabassoonist in the state.

I was the first girl to be quartermaster for the band, and I was the girl who wore pants even though the drum major uniform was designed for girls as a skirt and go-go boots.

I was the first transgender person in the PhD program at the institution I attended.

I was tired, worn out, burned out.¹

My commitment to sobriety from alcohol and drugs, begun in 2003 and not yet finished - never finished - always learning and growing and changing - yet to which I’m always committed - had not yet adapted to recognize and encompass my compulsive perfectionist behaviors.

For a time, I chose not to acknowledge my feelings and to bury my head in the proverbial sands of people-pleasing, over-committing, continual hopping from place to place, and grass-is-greener thinking.

Then I met St. Benedict of Nursia.

And St. Benedict called me to what I thought was an entirely different recovery life.

Now, I practice this recovery life in a more integrated body-mind-soul, God-me-you way.

I practice emotional sobriety along with drug and alcohol sobriety.

I ruminate on St. Benedict’s Rule with a dispersed monastic community.

I honor the community charisms of prayer, service, hospitality, surprise, inclusion, safety, community relationship, study, growth, lectio divina, and humility.

I continue in my sobriety from alcohol and drugs as I learn emotional sobriety through daily reflection on my interactions around these charisms from the view of my reading of The Rule of St. Benedict. Have I noticed my emotions? Have I stopped and stepped back from those emotions? Have I proceeded mindfully after I’ve observed my emotions, using all these charisms as led and empowered by grace?

I am in discernment with this community of dispersed monastics. Am I following The Way I to Vowed Life in this Community? Will I commit to Conversion of Life, Ongoing Growth, Change, Stability, Obedience, Trust, Wisdom, Balance, Absolute Faith in the Goodness of God, and Prophetic Witness?

You see, I have. I do. Every day that I commit and re-commit to this life of recovery - this life of reflection and contemplation of what it means to choose life each and every moment of each and every day - to accept obstacles as “what you see when you take your eyes off the goal”²  - to choose all these many ways of being a genderfull and open-minded, humble, living child of God - I am choosing to be a vowed Benedictine.

John Edward Crean, Jr. writes in Recovering Benedict: Twelve-Step Living and the Rule of Benedict for 18 August, in his reflection on Chapter 63 (Community Rank) of The Rule,

Seniors in long-term recovery are not unlike monastics who have made a similar lifelong commitment. The addict’s or codependent’s recovery community is the ploughshare taken up but never abandoned. No matter how hard the struggle, with help from my Higher Power I can persist and persevere. (130)

The formal step of taking vows with The New Benedictine Community will come with time on contact, when God, Jesus, Spirit, Community, and I wink together in readiness and awareness. I don’t have to be first or best. I can just be.

For now, my steps have led me to a time of quiet contemplation - a time and place in which I can listen for the “small, clear voice within”³ as She reminds me that I am a recoverer, lifelong, and God loves me. Amen.

1. Matthew 28-30 (MSG)

 2. A wallet card I’ve carried since 2008, a gift from an important lateral ancestor, affectionately known as GG John - now 99 years-old and still going strong, penned by his wild and precious Jackie.

3. Chittister, Joan, OSB. (1992). The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages, Crossroad, New York. 22.

Brandon J Beck, MFA, PhD, Genderfull
St. Mark’s, San Marcos, TX
tkdpower1@gmail.com

In 1936, in his book, Toward the Future, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote: “The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” We can only wonder if de Chardin was aware that in the previous year a force had been tapped into that would change the twentieth century and centuries to come.

The fire that was ignited was that of two men discussing a common problem over a cup of coffee (and cigarettes)  . The fire was the desire to help other alcoholics find a way to live which, up till then, did not exist. True, there was prohibition; the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, and numerous other ways to attempt to attain sobriety with little success.

The fire ignited was a love for living which was ignited by a Spiritual Awakening to see the world in a new way, through “a new pair of glasses” as it were. “This man spoke my language” said Dr. Bob. In other words, the Bible which he knew so well and taught, did not speak the language he needed to hear. The medical profession of which he was a part, did not speak his language. It was Carl Jung’s concept that, what was needed, was a Spiritual Awakening, that created the spark which ignited a chain of events culminating in Bill and Bob becoming the co-founders of this simple program “which is suggested as a program for sobriety.”

There had to be a fire burning in the hearts of these men as they met with opposition in various forms. After all, where did they go to learn about addiction other than their own devastating experiencing? This same heart that cried out for help; this heart that wanted to be better, that could not find a way out of the bottle, was finally released in an image described as “I became acutely conscious of a presence which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit. I lay on the shores of a new world. ‘This,’ I thought, ‘must be the great reality. The God of the preachers.’”

A third man joined, then a fourth, and more. What were they to do but share their experience, strength and hope as they had little to no other programs from which to draw upon? Rising from the death-grip of addiction, these men wanted to breathe, they wanted to live. These men were on fire due to the love they experienced in their new life the likes of which they had not imagined prior to this. The fire, ignited by Carl Jung with Roland H. who carried that torch to Ebby T. and, from there the fire was further ignited through input from Sam Shoemaker, Fr John Ford, Bishop Fulton Sheen, etc.

Today, millions of men, women, and teens attend meetings that use the twelve-step spiritual program to help them live one day at a time. Some, initially, were put off by the fire of loving concern for one another. “Some of us held onto our old ways.” Sooner or later, that fire which we had experienced drew us back like a moth to a flame. We wanted what those others wanted. We might not have been consciously aware of that (I certainly wasn’t as it took me four and a half years of a dry drunk to get the point).

This past eighteen months have been a pain for so many of us and yet, this past eighteen months have been exciting as people reported being at meetings in Ireland, Australia, England, Germany, etc. The whole wide world (www) of Alcoholics Anonymous was and remains connected by Zoom. Newcomers have arrived in a little square box, asked for a virtual chip and received a virtual hug and they stayed. They stayed because they caught the fire that was burning through the screens of phones and computers, giving support, hope, laughter, compassion, and more.

I have no doubt that if de Chardin were here today he would acknowledge that, in Alcoholics Anonymous (and affiliated twelve-step groups), the fire of love has been harnessed and witnessed as millions of men and women are now living sober and serene lives, are experiencing the love and respect they craved, are now loving and caring wounded healers.

Séamus D

Greater New Orleans Area.

I’ll tell you “why,” I had nine years in the “program.” They weren’t really “high quality AA years” but at least I didn’t have a drink during those years. It frankly was “dry drunk” sobriety. But when I quit going to meetings and said to myself that “I understood the Program” and knew where to get help if I needed it or if I felt a slip was coming, soon, I went back out drinking for 6 or 9 months. And it was a hateful time for me. I knew what was going to happen, and yet, I did it.

So, I know and believe that if I don’t go to the meetings and participate in the inner-workings of the Program, I will get drunk.

But the answer is really “no you don’t have to go to meetings” for the rest of your life. You just have to go to a meeting today, for it’s a-day-at-a time Program.

If I can’t get to a meeting, I make certain that I have “an AA moment” or more every day: I can write this meditation. I re-read the Big Book and some of the new stories in the latest edition. I can reach out to my sponsor or someone I’m working with, and of course, with the experiences we have had with the pandemic, I can always ZOOM into any meeting in the world.

If we don’t maintain a “conscious contact” with the Program, we’re really on shaky grounds. It is best to be part of that energy of 20 or 30 people at a meeting to keep our thinking straight.

It’s your call. AA doesn’t take attendance. We don’t evaluate someone who hasn’t attended for a period of time. Working the Program brings an honesty we lost while out in the wilderness. We learned to be honest with ourselves and not play games that lead to a return to those old days. When you might be in doubt about this, get to a meeting for “a conscious contact.”  Why chance it!?

And besides, most meetings are a lot of fun -- meeting new people and old friends -- and I’ve learned that no alcoholic drinks are served at AA meetings.

So, see you at Monday’s meeting!

JRA/St. X Noon, Cincinnati

It’s anniversary time again and, receiving a coin with the Roman numeral VII tells me that it’s also a jubilee year – a time that lends resonance to my reflection on the providence of grace, particularly the gift of grace found in scraps.

Recovery, as we know, works one day at a time. Looking back over these 2,558 days, I find myself asking in wonder “how did I get here?” Ironically, it’s the very same question I asked in agony before I found the rooms of recovery. As a way of wrapping words around my gratitude, I offer some thoughts about scraps and pilgrimage.

Last Sunday, we heard John’s version of the Feeding of the 5,000. It's a story of God’s miraculous plentitude that we know well. But only in John do we hear Jesus’ direction: “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.”

Only John tells us how Jesus, with exquisite purposefulness, cares for the fragments. He sees the feast that remains within the leftovers. We might think the miracle is that there is enough food for everyone. Yet for Jesus, having enough isn’t the end of the story. There is always more: a meal that depends on paying attention to what is broken and in pieces, what has been tossed aside.

Fragments. Scraps. Crumbs. Leftovers. Lost. Missing. Gone. These are hard words. Do you consider yourself a scrap? During my using life, thinking of myself as a scrap would have been a compliment.

But in Sunday’s Gospel, John tells us that, in Jesus, God takes extraordinary care of the “scraps,” so that none may be lost. God wants to give us what we don't even realize we need. God knows precisely what we need, which is more than we can ask or imagine.

So, let’s think about scraps for a moment. As the son of a quilter, I automatically think of boxes of fabric remnants. I grew up watching my mother carefully gather up scraps from everywhere – childhood clothes (ours and hers), table skirts, Boy Scout neckerchiefs, even old quilt tops – anything that had a thread of life still in it.

These were then sorted by color and type, and carefully stored against the day when they could be lovingly resurrected; pieced and quilted into something of beauty that hadn’t existed before. Now, somewhere in there, she would say, I remember the perfect little bit of yellow. Warmth and beauty created out of what had been cast away. The Kingdom of God can look a lot like a quilt.

A 12-Step meeting is another sort of collection of scraps. Fellow sufferers, who have been beaten down, broken open and, yet with a thread of life still in them, are washed into church basements and other such places, where each one is lovingly resurrected, remade one day at a time into a beautiful humanity that hadn’t existed before. Through the steps and within the fellowship, hope is created in what had been cast away. The Kingdom of God can look a lot like a 12-Step meeting.

+ + +

I’ve just returned from vacation. It’s the first time I’ve taken two weeks of rest since I can’t remember when. It was a splendid time with friends, family, and happy places in a spot I called home decades ago; it remains important to me to this day.

This trip “home” was different. Without intending it to, it became a pilgrimage of sorts, with stops at places I had lived, favorite museums and restaurants, and graves of long dead friends. Maybe it was because I had more time, maybe it was the particular headspace I was in, but there they were again…scraps. Scraps of my life before active chemical addiction took root. Scraps that reminded me of the wonderful life I had once lived, but couldn’t live into.

Leafing through this scrapbook of memories, what stood out was the gift of friendship and hospitality – sometimes extended, and far more often received. A pilgrimage of any sort, especially the journey of recovery, is unthinkable as a solo act. Hospitality, given and received, is essential. Every time someone welcomes you, or gives you a suggestion, or shares a mystical insight or spiritual place with you, scraps that had been gathered long ago are shared and find new life.

That new life is evident at every meeting, in person or online, where the gathered faces show us each day the gracious abundance of God operating in us and through us – we who are scrappy scraps, and holy remnants. Broken, yet never lost. By living the 12 Steps we, together, are nourished, strengthened, re-formed, and transformed by grace, to do the work that God has given us to do…to show to the world that recovery is always possible.

And then, 24 hours later, it all begins again. And again. And again. Scraps of experience, strength, and hope are shared, and the result of our various pilgrimages, each of us trudging the road of happy destiny with our companions, is always, always, more than we can ask or imagine.

Paul J.

I’ve been thinking about integration a lot—being a person of integrity I mean—as in Eric Erickson’s final stage of human emotional development “Ego integrity v. despair,” that apex of psychic maturity reserved for those of us aged 65+ who have somehow managed to get our acts together as we hit senescence.

One of the best things about the Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church is that we can integrate our faith lives with our recovery lives. We who are bilingual, that is equally familiar with The Big Book and The Book of Common Prayer, find it comforting to be at a gathering (or to read a blog post) where the discussion slides easily from Twelve Steps to Ten Commandments.

When I was still an active alcoholic, I was perplexed by the inconsistency between my profession of faith and my behavior. I longed for integrity, for feeling/being at one with myself. How could a choir-singing, theology-quoting loving mother of two also get drunk regularly and spectacularly? How could my mantra be, “This one doesn’t matter.” I was far from being put together; I was disintegrated.

And then came recovery. I can say without batting an eyelash, “My worst day sober is better than my best day drunk.” More and more my values and my actions have been aligned. By the Grace of God, with respect to picking up a drink or a drug, I have made daily choices that have kept me clean and sober.

And I have not done that by myself. It is only by going to meetings and hearing thousands and thousands of other recovering people talk about how they have made it through life—through unimaginable losses, challenges, and joys—that I have been able to continuously head in the direction of wholeness, peace, and sobriety.

Not alone. On my first sober anniversary, my sponsor gave me a plaque with the Serenity Prayer on the front and her inscription “Alone no more” on the back. I treasure that gift and that truth. The readings at church this past Sunday (July 18, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost) included Psalm 23 (which always makes me cry with its familiarity and its promise of protection) and Mark 6, where Jesus and the disciples go off to a “lonely” (deserted) place” but the crowds were there before them, and Jesus had compassion on them because they were “like sheep without a shepherd.”

We become at one with ourselves, integrated, when we stop trying to do it by ourselves. We recover when our ears are opened and we can hear the voices around us saying, “Alone no more.” One of my hobbies continues to be rumination, relishing all the mistakes I’ve made, all the times in my life (yes, even, and especially since getting sober) when I’ve blundered into foolishness, made terrible choices, or run away from a solution. But the compassion offered to me by Jesus, the structure offered to me by the disciplines of faith and Program, and the fellowship I enjoy both at church services and 12-Step meetings enable me to integrate my okayness and my imperfections and reach out to see if there’s anyone I can help today.

Christine H.

In her book, The RECOVERING Intoxication and its aftermath, Leslie Jamison writes: “The drunk self becomes the self-revealed rather than the self-transformed, an identity that has been lurking inside all along; needy, desperate, shameless.”

How often have we heard it said, ‘in vino veritas” “in wine there is truth.” How I wish I had applied that to myself instead of others while I was active in my addiction. It is fascinating to look back and see how quickly, and, at times, how accurately, I was to spot the problem/addicted drinker/user while I could not see what was happening to myself.

The self-revealed came in emotions spilling out, talking honestly (which I would not do when sober) to acquaintances and a few friends alike usually in the early hours of the morning. Later in that day I would either have forgotten the conversation or, that which I remembered I drowned. I can recall days reading Will the Real Me Please Stand Up by John Powell and knowing exactly who needed to read it. I made notes, so I could quote it in a sermon or talk or in counseling.

How often have we heard it said, or said it ourselves, “S/He would be a lot more fun if s/he had a drink.” I knew that to be true. I was a lot happier (I thought) when I was drinking/using. It wasn’t the drinking self I abhorred it was the self. Drinking gave me a shot at being happy. It was when I got into AA and began to admit I had character defects that I was disgusted at my former self. What I had lost were my values and had lost them so slowly that I had accepted that I didn’t care what others thought of me. Alcohol released the bonds of values instilled and not digested. I was living a lie to the extent that I disliked myself as being “good.” I wanted to be good and be able to drink and I didn’t know that the drink had taken control of me.

I would never have described myself as being “needy, desperate, shameless.” And yet, when I got into recovery, I was able to look back at a life I could hardly recognize and begin to admit to these defects of character which only became more obvious as I spiraled out of control. RECOVERY, SERENITY, and a good moral house-cleaning brought about the self-transformed whom I learned to love and appreciate. I looked back and saw just how distorted my thinking had become and frankly it scared me, embarrassed me, humiliated me.

As an ACOA, I kicked off my addiction to alcohol and drugs at a time when I thought I knew it all, a college student whose brain was just beginning to open while my mind was closing. This needy, desperate, shameless young adult was looking for affirmation in all the wrong places and unaware that that is what I was looking for. I became a loner to avoid those whose company I wanted to be part of but who had boundaries I failed to comprehend. They could take a drink or leave it, they were comfortable in their own skin, I was anything but that.

After five weeks in a four-week treatment program, I spent the next four and a half years on a dry drunk. During this time, I continued to be needy and desperate. I needed people to like me, I needed to be needed as a speaker, as a person willing to go on 12step calls. What I needed was a sponsor, but I didn’t think I needed one. I needed to read the Big Book and apply it to myself, but I read it to quote it at meetings. I needed to go to meetings and listen instead of thinking I had all this information to share.  

Today, words can’t express my gratitude for all those who talked to me, shared with me, confronted me about my behavior, and were sufficiently patient that I finally experienced what was needed to get into the program - an admission of powerlessness and a spiritual awakening that led to a self-transformed who I could love and like and become comfortable in my own skin.

Séamus D.

Greater New Orleans area

Alcoholics Anonymous is not a “one trick pony” after that Step 4 inventory. But we are called to periodically undertake another inventory and to do so “continuously.

We are humans after all and our lives change, sometimes through drastic changes, but change might be subtle and seemingly appears out of nowhere. We attend meetings and in the discussions we may discover some way we have changed, perhaps a new thought prompts us to ask ourselves the same question this newbie has put on the table. Perhaps we are confronted with a personal problem or sudden family crisis both of which may prompt us to ask, “What’s my role in it?” Then it’s important to sit down, take out a piece of paper and analyze what the issue is all about and map out what you may have said or done that has caused the harm. But just because you haven’t been confronted by one of those “pop-up” crises, you still are on the hook, for Step 10 calls us to “continually” undertake that examination. Who knows, perhaps in doing so you avoid a sudden surprise issue that pops up.

These review efforts provide us with a chance at an honest and complete look-see at ourselves.  We’re human beings after all who at one point in our lives were less than honest with ourselves, and with others, perhaps having engaged in a lot of falsehoods especially as to our conduct.

To do this “continuously” is why this Program is such a grand piece of our living a life that is something more than going through the motions. Here is a suggestion along those lines: use your inventory as a means to checkout your spiritual life. Sometimes that responsibility gets lost with the pressure of our lives in today’s busy world. But a spiritual life is one of the keys to a deep understanding of “who we are, what are we doing” and is “my value system on the proper page?”  An examination of your spiritual life may be the complete focus of your Step 10 work.

At the heart of Step 10 is your affirmation that you will take responsibility for your conduct, face it, and make amends where necessary. Some have done this at set times of the year, perhaps during the Christmas holidays. Maybe after an important project is completed and the usual “down time” before the next one comes along. Perhaps this is that quiet time to work on Step 10. Of course, religious retreats are a natural place to work through some of these issues especially when the retreat involves a facilitator who is skilled at keeping you headed in the overall best and productive direction, and to “call you” when you get off track or start playing games.

Well, Step 10; is another benefit of being part of the life of the Program.

“Gee, thanks Bill and Dr. Bob!”

Jim A/St X noon, Cincinnati