I had a really great breakfast with Matt and I hope you’ve had a chance to listen. If not, I get it, things happen. Fortunately, it’s a super-easy problem to fix:
When Matt sat down at the diner for “breakfast”1 the first thing that struck me was that he’s a powerful person. I don’t mean he was performing random but impressive feats of strength, although he’s totally capable of that. What I mean is that he exuded a very calm power. When you hear him tell his story there’s a resolve and a directness that is very compelling and I was really struck by a number of things Matt said, like how the words of the Big Book and sobriety can lead us to the path that was intended for us all along.
Matt describes himself as a “Big Book Thumper”2 and I would put myself in that camp as well. When I first started trying to get sober I did read the Big Book but I definitely didn’t see the words as a specific prescription for how to recover from alcoholism. I saw the Big Book and the Steps as more general and aspirational in nature and wasn’t entirely convinced that I needed to work all of them to get sober.3 Not surprisingly, I never managed more than six months of sobriety during that time.
Matt found it was the literal words of the Big Book that helped start him on his way to sobriety and that was what helped me turn the corner, too. Like so much of the Program, it was always right in front of me, just waiting for me to see it clearly. The second sentence of the Foreword to the 1939 edition gets right to the point and explains the purpose of the Big Book:
To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book.
After Bill tells his story, he launches into: “There is a Solution” and makes his intention plain from the very start:
If you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking—“What do I have to do?” It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically.
Big Book, p. 20
And then of course, the opening words of “How it Works,”
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path..If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it—then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all of the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.
Big Book, p. 58
So the words matter and I think they matter in lot in connection with the Third Step:
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood (God)4
There are a lot of elements to parse in the Third Step, but Matt identified a really critical one: Listening for God. I can make the intellectual decision to turn my will and my life over to God, but actually accomplishing that task requires much more than just saying the words aloud. Understanding God seems like a tall enough order by itself, but the Third Step also requires actually establishing and formalizing the communications channels and protocols. Turning my will and my life over to the care of God necessarily required coming to some understanding of what it is that God wanted me to do in a wide variety of circumstances, big and small. That requires an open and effective channel of communications.
Matt’s description of how he listens for God is really eloquent and simple at the same time. Most of us addicts and alcoholics are a pretty strong-willed and stubborn bunch; it took a lot for me to learn to stop trying to impose my will in every situation and it took even more to learn to listen and be silent as a way of connecting to God and the Universe. As Matt said, most of the time when he manages to manufacture the quiet and listen, the answer and the path become pretty clear pretty quickly. We might not always enjoy that moment of clarity, the path ahead is not always a sandy walkway to a beautiful beach. Listening for God is a simple way of acknowledging the existence of a Higher Power and that alone can be enough to start us on our way:
Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed. They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking.
Big Book, p. 50
When you listen to Matt describe his spiritual awakening and how it restored his life, you can hear the power and confidence that flows from an active connection to a Higher Power. Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of attraction and relies heavily on the power of example. Matt saved his life by listening humbly for God and living his life in accordance with what he heard; by sharing that simple approach, he’s been able to help hundreds of other alcoholics. That is pretty powerful stuff and it’s why I think Matt is a powerful person.
I do want to take a minute to acknowledge and thank everyone who has been listening to this podcast and following Thanks for Letting Me Share. We passed 2k downloads and 100 subscribers yesterday and that seems like a big deal to me. When I started this it seemed like an interesting and fun way to help spread the message, it gave me a chance to write and and it definitely helps keep me sober. To be honest, it also seems a little insane. Maybe more than a little. But it’s already turned into much more and that’s because of the great people who want to share their stories, the great people who help me put this together and you great readers and listeners.
I have been experimenting with formats and content, going forward, new episodes of Breakfast with an Alcoholic will get released on Fridays and hopefully someone will manage to get the Liner Notes out on Sunday afternoons. I’m also going to start doing an Extended Version of the Daily Gratitude List on Tuesdays and including a new section, “Things I Heard at Meetings.” If you hear something great at an AA meeting and want to pass it along, well, I’ve got you covered!5
When I was thinking about the schedule, the idea of publishing the Liner Notes on Sunday seemed very, very right to me. The next thing you know I was thinking about my first gig: WLHA radio at the University of Wisconsin. As the new guy, I was assigned to the Sunday afternoon slot, 4pm to 8pm. I was able to ascertain pretty quickly that there were very few people, if any, listening to campus radio during this time period. I didn’t care, I loved it. A bit of backstory. It was the Fall of 1980, I was a freshman and my girlfriend went to Northwestern in Chicago. We’d try to see each other for a weekend here and there, but my Sunday afternoon shifts often came right after the end of those weekends and that definitely imparts a melancholy vibe. You’ll see what I mean.
I usually started the show with The Love I Lost. I really, really loved and still really, really love that song, plus I could talk up that long groovy keyboard intro.6
Then I would cut to this sequence:
Why am I telling you this? 7The last thing that struck me about my breakfast with Matt was realizing that a big part of the sober journey is about self-discovery and self-invention. I’ve heard people talk about addiction driving them away from the person they were meant to be and I know that was true in my case. I think bottoms are the horrible moments when we realize just how far away we are from that person and the life they were supposed to be leading. Matt re-discovered himself in sobriety; leading Big Book study groups, running meetings, teaching yoga. Once I stopped drinking, the real me started showing up, too. The real me loved sharing music on Sunday afternoons, even if no one was listening, and now I guess I get to do it again.
Thanks for Letting Me Share
Owing to schedules, this “breakfast” took place in the early evening. I would like to say that I did eat pancakes in an effort to maintain artistic integrity.
Not a species of rabbit.
During this period of time, I also tried to limit my program to the even-numbered steps. Note: This is not an effective way to get sober.
The original 1939 Big Book version says “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him
That title is not set in stone. If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.
My radio name was Wilson St. Croix and it was WLHA, 640 on your AM dial, Lakeshore 64, if that helps generate the mental image.
Yes, that’s an actual song by the Partridge Family. I still listen to it and “I Woke Up in Love This Morning” and am very sad I don’t still own the album