I’m grateful for two great meetings last night. I’m grateful for energy and enthusiasm. I’m grateful for the new stuff I find every day. I’m very grateful for the library and that reading room by Stack 12. I’m grateful to be sober today.
We had an excellent AA meeting last night, actually there were two meetings. Your Sponsor/My Sponsor Tommy was speaking at a meeting down by Union Square and of course there was the “Anyone Anywhere” meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I left the library around 4:15, hopped the 6 downtown, grabbed a coffee and sauntered over to 16th Street for the “Grateful Group Meeting.”1
I grabbed my coat about 18 seconds after Tommy finished speaking, no disrespect intended, places to be and trains to catch! Back to Union Square, hop on the subway, order from the Shake Shack on 86th Street, jostle along a bit and then when the doors open, it’s time to play one of my favorite games, “First Off the Subway.” Maybe “Race to the Top,” sounds better. This game is pretty self-explanatory, I try to beat my fellow passengers to the sweet smelling air found at the top of the escalator, make it to the surface first.
Of course, there is no official tally and there are some stations where there is really no point because of the size and layout. W4th Street for example. The Q station on 86th Street is the best owing to the long escalator rides; a big part of this game involves rapid locomotion up the escalators. As the train slows, I plan my staircase strategy, it’s important to get clear of the crowd that clusters around the puny 30-foot escalator from the train level to the station. Please. Oh, there needs to be appropriate music. This one has been working lately:
There’s a little safety-patrol haughtiness as I pass the young people lolling about on the escalator, watching for changes on their phone screens. Friendly Note: If you are on a date on the subway, it’s not necessary to stand next to each other on the escalator. Thank you. The word “dashing” pops into my head while I jog up the escalator, and people do turn to look, but they probably think I just need to go to the bathroom. Given the 14 liters of coffee I drink each day, that’s probably not a wrong assumption. However, that’s not why I’m pushing to win an imaginary race against no competition.
At least one of you inquisitive readers is going to ask, “How do you know you’ve actually won?” Good question! That’s a bit of a problem, but basically, I decide. If I get to the top of the escalator on 86th street and there’s no one east of me, then I think I probably won.2 An obvious flaw is that I have no idea what happened over on the 83rd Street side of the station during my race to the top—it could be that my evil dopppelganger is playing the same game, except he always chooses the 83rd Street side for his race. I enjoy the "Race to the Top,"3 and after the second AA meeting last night, I began to realize "The Race to the Top" might be slightly reflective of my alcoholic personality.
We started reading “How it Works” last night. While I often profess my profound love for“Bill’s Story,” I get pretty emotional each and every time I hear “How it Works.” Back when I was desperately trying to get sober, I’d go to meetings very frequently at the Dupont Circle Club, it’s on Connecticut Ave, nw, just north of the Dupont Circle Metro. The meeting I attended most regularly included that reading in their introduction and I volunteered to read it every chance I got.
I knew the words were aimed squarely at me:
Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault: they seem to have been born that way.
Big Book, p. 58
Of course, I also knew then that AA was not really the answer for me. Me being me, I believed there was more of a bespoke solution out there with me in mind. I was pretty confident there would be some really special, unique way for me to resolve the problems that other people seemed to have with my drinking, while hopefully being able to maintain an appropriate level of alcohol consumption. That approach might have been called “Project Easier and Softer.”
As we were reading and discussing this section last night, it occurred to me that Bill W. is actually flagging symptoms of the disease in this chapter and this is pretty amazingly revolutionary given the views and knowledge of the medical establishment around alcoholism in the 1930’s.4 Self-dishonesty is the one he flags in this chapter, that and the propensity and desire to control the world around us. I will tell you based on my own research, which has involved talking to literally hundreds of alcoholics, they pretty much all think this way. They can convince themselves of fantastic lies and they organize their lives around this flawed belief:
Is she not a victim of the delusion that she can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if she manages well?
Big Book, p. 61
Interestingly, the under-cited and apparently rarely-read book by Dr. Ruth Fox: “Alcoholism: It’s Scope, Cause and Treatment” (published in the 1950’s!) makes the connection between that delusion5 and drinking:
The primary addict [like this alcoholic], from his first introduction to beverage alcohol, uses it as an aid to adjust his environment.
p. 142
Substitute “control” for “adjust” and there’s your alcoholic mindset. My happiness required controlling the world around me, arranging the lights, the players, editing the script and even providing detailed stage instructions. As Dr. Fox observed, I discovered the immense utility of alcohol in that endeavor. There’s that tautological bromide, “alcohol works for alcoholics.” It’s true until the day it isn’t.
That mindset drives the resentments, the fear, the anger and the drinking. The answer for that, in the world of Alcoholics Anonymous, is Step 3: Turning one’s will and life over to a Higher Power of their understanding. This is the Step where you really lose people. This Step drives the idea that AA is a crypto-religion, subtly dispensing some cult-like belief system, or involving a full-on evangelical experience. When I hear people talk like that, I usually assume their AA experience was limited to going to a few meetings where random people said random things that aren’t really consistent with the AA program (it’s found in the Big Book) or they had the not-so effective 30-day version of the 12-Steps.6 I kind of know they never really read the Big Book and never seriously contemplated the Steps.
The importance and the real function of Step Three is not the adoption of religion. It is taking the alcoholic out of the driver’s seat—it’s illegal to operate a car when drunk, this is an extension of that idea, writ large. The Big Book makes it clear you don’t have to believe in anything you don’t want to; all you have to do is conjure up a force in the universe that might do a better job of organizing your life or lead you on the path to happiness. A force in the universe that can help change your life, change your thinking patterns and help you stop drinking. In the ultimate exercise of creative freedom, the Big Book invites one to make up that whole thing. You get to make up the world where you are sober! There are some obvious constraints, but you get the idea.
Bill W’s sobriety was the consequence of a series of pretty logical realizations. He turned those realizations into Steps and they somehow are capable of producing great change when internalized and customized. The central realization in Steps Two and Three is that lives managed by alcoholics are really chaotic manifestations of “self-will run riot.” There needs to be new management.
My “Race to the Top” has some of the flavor of the old me. Creating competitions that no one else knew about, that I alone was the judge of and that had rules that were completely malleable to suit my then-current needs. It could be seen as an egotistical manifestation of a pathological need for attention and success. That’s how it would have been for the old me; the new me, relishes a challenge, likes to see what happens if I try this and mostly just likes moving fast with music playing. Maybe those are some of the organizing principles of the new life.
The “Race to the Top” may reflect some of the old me, but it feels more like an allegory for getting sober. It kind of makes sense that for someone who got sober here in NY, the metaphor would involve the subway. I will tell you, the air and the light are way better when you finally get to the top of that escalator. You don’t need to race me, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stand to the right: I’ve got places to be.
I’m going to start posting the Intergroup information for good meetings that we attend or hear about—and would love to hear about good meetings in your area. Maybe we could start a list?
Let’s not get too wound up over the obvious flaws in this game—it’s not like there’s a prize or cash or anything.
Picture an actual split screen race, two people leave the same subway car and prizes and fame await the person who makes it to the top first. This could be a thing.
It’s hard to live in a world where things change so frequently. Fortunately, the medical establishment’s views and knowledge of alcoholism and addiction has not changed too terribly much since 1939.
You could also call this “delusion” a negative thinking pattern that might be altered by working Steps 4-7. That might be part of “How It Works.”
Estimates suggest that as many as 70% of the people who try to stop drinking will relapse in the first year and a staggering 90% will relapse sometime during the first four years.
Yes, in response to your "some ppl.may have experienced only a few meetings..." and don't like AA....
I'm a big fan of AA but I'm a hard-core Celebrate Recovery girl!😂 (Very similar to AA!) We always encourage people to give it at least 6 visits/tries before calling it quits on a meeting since it can take a few times to start to make connections with other people and really get a feel for it.👍