Through the Red Door Blog

Recently I came across a piece of paper on which was written, The Lakota Way of Strength and Courage." It begins like this: “I will always be thankful for any amount of good health I have. I will always be grateful to wake up to a new day. …I will not let the good or the bad of the past own me, but I will let it teach me...I will never forget those who have helped me along the way, and I will endeavor to forgive those who tried to hinder me…..”

I have read this more than once since I first got it and it fascinates me in terms of my own recovery. In the beginning I was neither thankful nor grateful. Also, as time passed and I slowly began to come out of the fog and into recovery, I learned from others about my old behavior and attitudes which brought to my attention just “where I came from.”  Initially, I had the attitude and belief that “I’m not that bad.” “I never did that .” “No matter how drunk or high I would never have…” "Oh yeah?”

I have not been nice about a few of my acquaintances who have forgotten just where they came from. To listen to them one would think they arrived in this world with a silver spoon in their mouth. Just because I remember where I came from physically is not the same as where did I come from in terms of my sobriety and my addiction.

I did not like my first A.A. meeting because they were sharing stories that hit home to me and I did not want to hear it. In fact, it took another ten to twelve years before I was able to hear about where I had come from.

As I grew into the program, I realized more and more that my initial attempts at the steps were a farce, were completely superficial as I attempted to just ‘look good” and get away with superficiality. My superficiality was like a banana peel on which I slipped and fell into the darkness of a dry drunk for a few years. Trying to forget or ignore where I came from was keeping me from growing, keeping me from taking a daily inventory, keeping me from the ‘maintenance of my spiritual condition.”

“You really want me to tell you what you did?” asked a friend to whom I had gone to make some amends. I was not prepared for his honesty nor his compassion. I listened. Then I had to remember there were others who told me things I denied but they never quite went away. As I became willing to entertain the possibility that I did XY& Z then my mind was open to hear what else I may have done, what other amends did I have to make?

In the sayings of the Buddha I read, “Do not make light of your failings, saying, “What are they to me?” A jug fills drop by drop, so the fool becomes brimful of folly.” How often in my early years had I participated in a drunkalogue, “Let me tell you…” and we laughed. Yes, I remembered the past only as a way of having a better story than the other person. Then, as I really remembered where I came from, those stories had to be put away; the stories that I could no longer verify their truthfulness I stopped telling. Instead, I began to remember where I came from with a deeper sense of humility, a sense of connection to others, an awareness of my humanity. Where I came from was that place many of us have been, dark and empty.

“It’s Okay. I’ve been there, done that. Hang in with us and you will be okay.” This is the importance of “I will never forget where I came from.” Remembering where I came from is the place where I can intersect with the newcomer who is still in the dark and I can be there to bring the message of hope that others brought to me. Now, I remember.

One of the reasons I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this blog is that doing so allows me to consider the whole of my life as a priest in recovery. There are times in meetings when my reflections are too “churchified” to be a suitable share. Likewise, sermons are not the appropriate arena for program talk. For me, then, these occasional musings occupy the intersection of these two worlds.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been listening to Jesus describing the kingdom of heaven with agricultural images. Having just moved from the East Coast to the Midwest to take up a new call, the parable of the sower, and that of the wheat and the tares, have a new resonance.

I think back about my first couple of months in the rooms. There was wisdom being scattered everywhere: slogans on the walls, the literature, the old-timers. But I was so broken and fearful that I poo-pooed much of that wisdom. I knew that they just didn’t understand me, I thought the slogans were simplistic, and on and on and on. I was the hardened path and the rocky soil and the thorny thicket – all at the same time.

Still, my yet-to-be friends kept at it. “Keep coming,” they said. And then one day, without my noticing it, some of those seeds of wisdom found a little sliver of good soil. And something took root and began to grow.

My now-new-friends taught me how to care for that new shoot, and rejoiced with me at my growth, telling me that it was now my turn to help someone else. My new life was off to a good start, but it wasn’t as smooth a road as I would have liked. “Oh,” I thought, “that’s what they mean by people, places and things.” Well, there’s a parable for that, too.

We are told that the kingdom of heaven is like someone who has sowed good seed, yet an enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat. This is not good news, right? I identify with the household servants, and squirm at the messiness. My fear-driven sense of control wants to fix it. I want the world to make sense to me. I want that to happen now.

But Jesus says, “no.” Actually, Jesus says “no” and “wait.” Hmm. Why insist on patience and restraint? Why are we told to accept his timing instead of ours?

And then I picture myself as a triumphant toddler, standing in a big pile of flowers, having “helped” in grandma’s garden. Then slogans like “easy does it” “live and let live” “clean up your own side of the street” and “let go and let God” echo in my mind, and the “why” becomes clearer.

I have to be reminded constantly that it's not my job to remove anyone from the power of God’s redemptive love by taking the work of judgment into my own hands. The good news is, if I can manage to leave the judgment bit up to God, I am freed to take up the responsibility for caring for my little corner of creation. It is God’s job to defeat evil and death. But I can do the work that God has given me to do. I can care for my neighbor, I can speak out against injustice, I can support those in need.

In other words, I can do exactly what I learned to do in my first months. I can surrender the fear that used to drive every aspect of my life. I can work to maintain my spiritual condition. I can offer to someone what was given to me without cost, a testimony that God wants to restore us to sanity.

Just think, it all started with a little seed. Come, ye thankful people, come!

Paul J.

One of the newer attendees brought up this topic. Lots of good comments, each from a different perspective and many good ways each achieved that status.

I’ve come to believe that a spirit-based manner of living is simply another way of describing the surrender experience. When we surrender, we turn our will and our lives over to the care of a Higher Power who in my case I call God. What are we to mean when we “turn it over”? We give up the feeling that we were in charge and when we were, we got into trouble. We couldn’t manage our lives 100% the way we wanted. We became anxious, fearful, and sought escape in our abuse of substances. What does it mean to “turn it over”? Perhaps a lot of things, but it certainly means that when we’re in a situation we can’t manage or change to our liking, we ask: ”What is God’s will for us in this situation?” We don’t give God a list of options. The issue is how do we react to what we have learned from the message of the Program. What’s the next right thing to do when we can identify that. We meditate and look for His will for us and the power to carry that out. We quietly ask God.

How do we reach the stage when we can come to know we found His will for us? Ah, the $64 dollar question: Takes time to see His will. We can’t clutter up the search with suggesting our own options. We have to shut-up and listen. It’s a “letting go” experience. We can bring it to our sponsor or to the group as a topic for discussion. We can sit and read the Big Book and think of what this passage is calling us to do. It’s finding and implementing that “next right thing.” It takes practice but it will come to you. Keep at it. It is after all the only option we addicts have available for we messed up when we thought we were in charge.

Jim A, Covington, Kentucky – St. X Noon

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39

On June 18 at 10:45 pm the love of my life, my partner, my mate, my best friend and confidant John A., a priest of the church and a recovering alcoholic, died of a chronic condition while I was asleep in the recliner next to his hospital bed. John always listened to my TtRD blogs as they were in process, offering occasional suggestions and unfailing encouragement. John supported me in whatever I chose to do – write blogs or sermonettes, play the piano, sing, work extra hours at my paying job, drive hours to visit grandchildren for an afternoon or try once again to establish an exercise routine. How can I manage without his support?

Because it’s crazy COVID-19 time, for the first half of his three-month hospice sojourn it was just him and me and the visiting hospice angels here inside the condo – I was afraid to let anyone else into the house for fear that the coronavirus would make John’s last days even worse and would take me down also.

We had planned a trip to Florence and Rome that we canceled in February after one of his hospitalizations, knowing he wouldn’t be strong enough to travel. So we took some of our travel money and poured it into our front garden. We worked with a designer and  bought many mature perennials that John could enjoy as soon as they were in the ground.

Finally, after many weeks of tears and prayers, confessions of concerns and conversations with allies, I was able to let go of my fears and so family started to visit inside. Sometimes I would get away to walk the dog with friends wearing masks. Once or twice I went into the guest room and just slept for a few hours. I wanted to let John and his kids be alone together without my hovering presence. The day came, though, when it became apparent that home hospice and I, along with some amazing 24-hour friends and family members, couldn’t provide enough care for John and so he had to move to the hospital. That was hard.

The afternoon before John died, he crashed and it was touch-and-go, but his medical team finally got him stabilized. I was away visiting the kids, but Jamie, the rector of our church, was there with him. She had brought communion and made an altar out of the bedside table, moving aside IV kits and nasal cannulas and basins. Jamie started the service but John stopped her and whispered, “Invite them all in…” and so in came the doctors, in came the nurses, in came the LNAs and they encircled John’s bed and they communed.

And so it was evening and it was morning, another day. John was awake and agitated part of the time, but then became comfortable enough to sleep. Our golden retriever was allowed to come in to say good-bye and John moved his fingers when Bridget licked his hand, trying to scritch her on the head the way he always did.

So John died when I was asleep on the recliner next to his hospital bed. I think I woke up just as he entered the gates of larger life...

And now I’m writing my Red Door blog and trying to figure out how I can do this without my greatest encourager and advocate proofing my manuscript and praising a phrase or asking for an example.

But my point is – nothing can separate us – nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Loss and loneliness aren’t the only things I’m feeling today. It’s not even two weeks since John died so there’s also a lot of numbness, a lot of not feeling at all. But I am becoming aware of a deep well of gratitude. I’ve had many, many years of training in Alcoholics Anonymous in how to live one day, one moment, at a time without drink or drug. I’ve had the support and the example of thousands sober people who have shown me that there is nothing, nothing in the world…that can separate us from the love of God. And that love is made manifest in our Fellowship. You have shown me and taught me how to recognize God’s love all around me. An old-timer – was it John? – said to me recently that sobriety is growing to recognize that God is everywhere. Love is everywhere. Gratitude is everywhere.

So I’ll end with a list: I am grateful for the sober years that John and I had together. I am grateful for the easy sober laughter we shared. I am grateful for the sober spats and the sober reconciliations. I am grateful for going sober to church and for going sober to meetings together. I am grateful for our sober dinner parties. I am grateful for our sober symphony concerts and sober Red Sox games. I am grateful for the garden, a gift of our sobriety.

And most of all, I am so grateful for sobriety, for recognizing that God is here with me now, and that God always has always been with me--has always been with us.

Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

Christine A. H.

Saturday we will celebrate July 4^th,  the passing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia by fifty-six delegates of the Second Continental Congress in 1776. The cry was freedom from being repressed by a power that had become foreign and was now interfering with their lives. The fourth of July is a day to honor those who decided “enough.”  It was “a moment of clarity.” The delegates heard a call to an alternative life where they could become the people God had created them to be.

I suspect the delegates did not have all the pure motives for breaking away from England as we hear about in the orations in the days to come. Some motivations must have been financial.

This commemoration is beginning to sound unusually familiar to us in recovery. By some miracle, we have a “moment of clarity,” a moment of truth that gives us courage to make a decision for change.  My experience also is that even when our motives are not pure, we are still led to a change that will save our lives and the lives of so many others.

I think about my moment of clarity. It was not because I was driving with small children in the back seat of our car after I had had too much to drink. Rather, it was because I feared I might lose the career I had worked so hard to accomplish. Others also come to recovery not to seek help for themselves but because of a relationship with a spouse or child or employer or a court. They had not yet realized how they are captive to a disease that is unrelenting and will only get worse.

I remember when I first came to recovery that the promises spoke most clearly to me. I give thanks for the person who put the promises on the wall of our recovery room. “We will know a new freedom and happiness.” (Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 83)  NEW FREEDOM. NEW FREEDOM. Freedom to become the person God created us to be. Freedom from hiding alcohol. Freedom from carrying alcohol hidden in a suitcase on every trip in case there was none there. Freedom to speak and not fear that my speech would speak to my inability to speak. Freedom not to drink before a party so I could drink “socially” there.  Freedom to be an alert, awake, and conscious part of my family’s life.

As we all celebrate the birth of our nation, this fourth of July, I hope we also will celebrate the birth of an alternative life of freedom for each of us. It is truly a milestone to honor and give thanksgiving for our higher power who led us to “the moment of clarity” and for more people than we can number who carried us with them along the way. It is indeed a historical event.

Joanna Seibert

I've noticed lately that something in my ego bristles at the word “surrender.” I can't shake off the military connotations, and that throws my whole relationship with my Higher Power into an adversarial mode. Then, when I try to soften my heart and become willing to let go of my way, my will, I stubbornly don't want HP to have Her way, either.

But reframing the story in my mind, I feel the release and relief of a different kind of surrender. I can imagine being lost in a dark forest. Thorns and clinging vines block my passage, the sun's bright face is obscured by tall trees. I don't know what wild beasts or poisonous creatures are stirring, to my right and to my left. Darkness is coming and I am cold, hungry and afraid. In this situation, I would gladly surrender to anyone who could tell me which direction I needed to go. Thrashing around in an unknown place filled with hidden dangers doesn't usually lead to good outcomes.

If I was turning myself over to someone I know and trust, it would be an even easier decision. And I do know this Higher Power who demands my surrender. She is the one who fills my life with the tender love and care of my friends and family. My Higher Power offers me birdsong and flowers, sunshine and dramatic, sweeping storms. The third step invites me to turn my will and my life over to God's care, not to an indifferent commander of an opposing army.

Surrender itself is not the cause of my pain or discomfort. It's the resistance to surrender that makes every decision seem a burden, every step a hard slog. Giving up on having things my own way means difficulties begin to melt away and choices become more clear. When I let go of the idea that I am the sole keeper of life's answers, it is humbling – but it feels infinitely better than forcing my way alone through a hostile landscape.

Surrendering my own will and waiting for an understanding of what my Higher Power wants for me often seems an impossible task, especially when I view it over a period of weeks and months. On the days I have managed it with any kind of success, I have moved minute-by-minute in a careful dance of “do the next right thing.” Do the dishes. Call the doctor. Pay the bills. Take a nap. When I am able to trust my actions moment-by-moment, I build hours and then days on a foundation of God's will.

But moving forward, I can't always know that I am surrendered to HP. It is only looking backwards in time that I see how those “next right thing” moments stack up and offer me direction. It takes perspective to see the long-term fruits of the program. When I am surrendered, with a moment-by-moment dependence upon a kind and loving H.P., my program promises me a life filled with God's “ease, balance and grace.” That's something worth surrendering for.

-Karyn Zweifel

Our regular weekly noon discussion meeting of “St X. Noon” occurred this year on Memorial Day. We had finished the usual readings of the Steps and so forth and then the search for a topic raised its head. Identification of a topic is usually not a problem. Recovering alcoholics, it seems, don’t have any hesitation speaking out in an AA Discussion Meeting but for some reason the request for a topic this time fell on deaf ears. I’ve always thought that “Gratitude” was the final safety net for identification of a topic for discussion. So, I suggested it and we were “good to go.”

I had a couple recent occurrences for which I was very grateful: my brother-in-law reporting that just before Memorial Day he had been declared clean, if that is the right term, from the usually deadly onslaught of brain cancer. It has been several years since he started treatment which proved successful.

Another thing for which I was grateful was remembering on Memorial Day those in the Program who were the “old-timers”, those who were there when we finally showed up, usually last resort for us. They were there to provide aid, comfort, to keep us on the straight and narrow path — in some ways these folks were as important to us as the troops who paid the full price of a defense of our country. The old-timers assisted the resurrection of our being from that death spiral we were or would have been riding had we not walked in those church basement doors.

Bill and Dr. Bob told us that the Program was merely one drunk talking to another. That’s what we did at meetings. And so we moved from a selfish attitude toward life in general to one of empathy, a realization that the universe didn’t need us that much, that we weren’t the most important people in the scheme of things. We learned to appreciate our differences and to build strength on those differences. We learned others had trod the same path as ourselves. We also learned to emphasize with and remember those who didn’t make it. We ourselves had probably failed before so it’s no great surprise that others have stumbled. We don’t defile them, we comforted them — perhaps with some tough love, but at least with empathy and a hearty reminder that all of us had already played games with the Program at various levels of intensity.

We have to remember that the Program tells us that the Steps describe us to take positive action on a variety of human levels — from our souls to our relations with others — and with ourselves.

So, next year, when Memorial Day rolls around, I’ll recall Bob, the Plasted Plasterer, Dr. Father Scanlon, Ladder Bob, and all the gang that was present when I finally decided to walk down those steps into the basement of the First National Bank for the regular Tuesday East One gathering of those seeking life’s comforts through the Program and sharing with newcomers what we had learned.

Jim A/ St. X Noon

How are Pentecost, the Birthday of the Church, and June 10, The Birthday of Alcoholics Anonymous alike?

They both begin a season of sanctuary. A time of love, acceptance, understanding and peace.

The message of Pentecost is very, very clear: speak in a language clear enough so that everyone can hear the message. The message? God is love. You are a beloved child of God.

The message of Alcoholics Anonymous is equally clear: speak your truth out loud so that someone else might hear the story. The story? You don’t have to drink: you can talk to me instead.

On the day of Pentecost the Good News of God’s love was spoken so people could hear it in their own language. They understood. They got it. They were safe, among friends.

How many times have we gone to an AA meeting and left with wonder, saying “That speaker tonight told my story…I am not alone…there is a way…”

AA is a practical guide to living a life of love. Recovery starts out with acceptance of who and what we are: alcoholics, unable to manage even our own lives. But through the power of AA, through the fellowship and the program, we learn to love ourselves. And then that love can spill out and we can start to love other people. We take responsibility for our actions. We learn that we matter. We learn that what we do and say and think affects other people and we decide what we want that effect to be. We have choices. We are free.

So what do I mean, “season of sanctuary?” What season? What sanctuary? The season is now. Now is the time when things are happening. Right now. This is the season of love.

What sanctuary? The halls of AA--the undercrofts and basements, the upstairs rooms and Serenity Clubs--the halls of AA are safe places. People can come and be accepted. People can come with all their sadness and anger, their restless, irritable discontented selves and they will be listened to. And they will learn to listen to someone else and in doing so, they will become human.

What sanctuary? The chambers of our hearts that are open to love. The real, tough love of accepting other people as they are, knowing that in God’s kingdom they are doing okay.

We work very, very hard to offer sanctuary--acceptance, love, peace, understanding--to whomever we meet, wherever we are. We respect the dignity and worth of every human being.

And we show that by listening. We listen. We honor. We accept.

We are sanctuary.

Christine H.

When I came into the program some forty years ago, I heard the then old timers say, “First, I came to the meetings; then “I came to believe in the program,” and then. “ I came to believe in a Power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity.” How cute! Oh, did I have a lot to learn.

I came into this program thinking I had so much to offer giving my background of having been a minister, a counselor. Yes, I had a lot to learn and a lot more to unlearn.

I sat in meetings judging people for what they were saying, the cheap clichés, the jokes, the drunkalogues. What was I doing with “these people?”

Thanks to my Higher Power and my arrogance I stayed around long enough to get sober. Initially I wanted to show my boss that I could stop drinking as well as show my Aftercare Counselor I was doing more work than those in our Friday evening group. In fact, all I was doing was going to meetings. When I look back at that time I realize, “I came” to the meetings and, what I heard was sinking into and changing my stinking thinking.

For almost five years “I came” to the meetings and that was it. Oh, I did “Do” the steps. In fact, “I finished them.” Then I had an experience that got my attention, that I needed help. Doing the steps, superficial as I was, was getting to me and finally brought me to the realization of my powerlessness

“I came to believe” in the program. Yes, no one could explain to me how or why it worked. It just worked. Go to meetings. Read the Big Book. Talk to your sponsor.

Then someone said to me that when I go to meetings, I needed to listen to what “those folk” shared and ignore the differences. I needed to Read the Big Book and apply it to myself. I needed to talk to my sponsor and also listen to him.

“I came to believe in a Power greater than myself.” Yes. I believed in God but, the God in which I believed was a vengeful one. My God was “out to get me.” I lived in fear of the God in whom I believed and prayed to. I knew there was a loving God and I talked about him/her. And then I read “create your own image of God.” This brought me far outside my comfort zone. Now, I needed to talk to my sponsor. I needed to talk to those who not only thought as I once did but also to those who thought differently from me and who could challenge me and my belief system; take a good look at step one again and ask myself, “Would a healthy person do what you did?” “Do normal ethical people do what you did?” The answer was staring me in the face; hit me on the back of the head like a hammer. My behavior was that of one who not only had lost his values but also insane. I had a difficult time in accepting that kind of insanity. “It wasn’t my fault. I just drank too much.” “I don’t remember that. I can’t imagine me doing that.” “I can’t imagine me saying that.”

“I came to believe in a power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity.”

That Higher Power helped me accept myself as a human being; as one with a disease called addiction; that I made, can, and will make, mistakes and I can now go on living. Sanity is accepting that I am not perfect in any form. Sanity is to be responsible. To be responsible is to be able to respond and not always react. To be sane is to have peace of mind even when I make mistakes. To be sane is to enjoy the here and now of living in the present.

In returning to Steps one and two I finally understood the process as I came to believe I had to work and live steps one and two before I could learn to trust self, others and the God I would call my Higher Power, and a Higher Power I can call God.

Sometimes before I turn out the light I ask Siri to tell me a joke. A part of my mind sneers at this, that I would turn to an artificial intelligence for company or solace. But the better part of me defends my little habit. It’s a random bit of self-care, virtual company as I whistle past the graveyard. Being alone at the close of the day brings up a sort of primordial fear in me: perhaps I’m afraid of being unconscious, unaware and undefended. That fear is something shadowy, lurking around the edges of my consciousness and nibbling at my sanity. It’s almost embarrassing to think about, but I am afraid of going to sleep. Or perhaps I fear the release that precedes slumber, the letting go of all the day’s plans and hopes and little failings.

Letting go means looking hard at the illusion of control. Although I may believe I have some control over other people, places and things, that’s usually false. I really only control what’s inside my hula hoop. When I do a tenth step at bedtime, it helps me sort out what bits of my day I actually had under my control. I have health problems, and sometimes those twist my day out of shape. But I have no control over my cancer, its symptoms and the side effects of my treatment. When I continue “...to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it,” it gives me a way to catalog my day, accept responsibility for my shortcomings, and let go of the rest.

Maybe it’s my expectations deviling me at bedtime. Perhaps I’m just clinging onto every day, unsure that there will be another. These are more manifestations of my inability – or unwillingness – to let go of what is not mine. Yet I have placed my prayer life and my recovery as the linchpin of each day; since I have been sincere in my efforts to pray for God’s will for me, then I can relax into the knowledge that She has never failed me yet. And if, in my stubbornness, I need proof, it is near. I have a safe place to live, the wind outside stirs the trees with an invisible hand, the birds sing, I am loved.

Remembering that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, that HP and I have been in good contact and I am actively working to stay in Her will, not my own – perhaps I need to remind myself of that at the end of the day. Or maybe I should let go of my sleep difficulties altogether. What does it matter if I sleep till noon? As long as I do not fill those damnable hours of midnight to dawn with recriminations, anxiety and fear. As long as my waking hours are productive (or mostly not counter productive) then what does it matter what time I sleep?

Today, I said my “morning” prayers at 4 in the afternoon. It will be dark soon. While that fear may return, I don’t need to know the origins of it, or know its shape or volume in order to contain it. I can simply give it away, ask my Higher Power to remove it. And while that removal is taking place, Siri can keep telling me jokes.

“Letting go means looking hard at the illusion of control.”

Karyn Zweife