I’m grateful for another great meeting. I’m grateful for letting things unfold. I’m grateful to see the mistakes and misjudgments. I’m grateful to let them go. I’m grateful to be right where I’m supposed to be. I’m grateful to be sober today.
We had a great meeting last night. I’m referring, of course, to the “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (Tuesdays at 7pm on Zoom).
I was going to write about something very different this morning. We finished “More About Alcoholism,” and I was going to write about the whole self-knowledge thing not providing a defense against the first drink, etc. I’m sure I will in the not-so-distant future. But I was actually struck by something in my own gratitude list this morning. I know that sounds hugely egotistical, but bear with me.
I began writing the gratitude lists in 2021. Back then, I’d sit on a chair in my living room and tap out a list of things I was grateful for and send it to my Sponsor and a few friends. It quickly became the centerpiece of my recovery; it re-framed my day, put the ghosts and demons that had been floating around all night back in their little box, helped transport me to and anchor me in the right now. They helped me see how much good there was in my life. Somedays, many days, I think they’re kind of banal and repetitive, but I’ve come to realize something new:
It’s less about the words on the page and more about the process
I mean, I put myself into this a few times a week and you, lovely readers, are the collective straw that stirs my drink.1 So, the words on the page do matter, but I think the process of putting them there unlocks some kind of secret portal and some pretty powerful and strange magic. Quick diversion on the subject of Ouija Boards. Among Bill W's many peccadilloes was a belief in the power of the Ouija Board. I recently purchased one and was looking forward to convening a small group of alcoholics to see if we could chat with Bill or any of the other great alcoholics out there roaming the ether.
I somehow missed this, but people are terrified of Ouija Boards. I’ve approached a number of alcoholics, addicts, too, and everyone is pretty much hinked out at the prospect of accidentally opening some kind of portal that will bring evil and chaos. That sounds pretty interesting to me, but also pretty unlikely. My experience with Ouija Boards goes back to the 1970’s— I think most of the messages we “received” from the spirit world were mostly exercises in our limited vocabulary of bad words and subtle, undetected finger pressure. Weirdly, when my younger brother was in attendance, the universe almost always sent the message “douche.” I thought that was kind of harsh, but there’s the Universe for you.
Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on the Bill W. seance. Still not what I wanted to write about today. What I want to write about today is believing my own nonsense, or, as some like to say, “eating your own dog food.” I’ve gotten to this weird, kind of precarious, very unsettling spot. I’m 60, at a time when a lot of my friends are winding up careers, heading out on boats, knocking that handicap down, whatever, I’m looking at re-inventing myself. It’s completely terrifying.
The problem for me is that sobriety really did change everything. It wasn’t volitional, I didn’t set out to “change,” when I finally got sober. I just wanted the pain and chaos to stop. It wasn’t part of a carefully thought-out or well-executed plan. I finally found ‘willingness,” sitting on the back deck of an upper east side sober house, smoking cigarettes. I finally realized that the life I’d managed, curated, planned was pretty much a shambles and I was out of tricks.
I love and hate early mornings. Dark, early mornings, when no one else was up, when no one else could see me, when it felt like I had the world to myself for a little bit, were magical. Delivering the Des Moines Register, pants wet with the early morning dew, might have been my favorite thing to do. Plus, I got paid.
Early mornings, when there is no one else to see me, when no one else is up, when I feel alone in the world, is also when I see how badly I fucked things up, how far off course I veered, how many people I hurt, what I could have been. What I could be now. It’s when I feel pretty much all of the fear that’s out there. I honestly don’t know what comes next for me in life—that’s not how I was wired and it’s profoundly uncomfortable. It’s profoundly frightening.
This morning’s gratitude list was a function of this latter version of the early morning. I spend a fair amount of time thinking about the “what might have beens,” I used to think of them as “what should have happened,” but I guess all of it is just thinking about more stuff that I don’t have—and that focus doesn’t take me farther away from that first drink. As I was mulling my position behind the 8-ball this morning, getting in a pretty good round of self-flagellation even though Lent is long over, the words of page 417 of the Big Book popped into my head.
Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today.
And that’s because: “Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.” What struck me this morning is that you kind of have to believe that, for reals. As long as I see my current position as the product of things that didn’t go the way I wanted or that represent failures and mistakes by me, well, that’s not a great place to wake up every day. That little seed of willingness, apparently fertilized by cigarette smoke, sprouted into the belief that there was a purpose for me. I don’t mean some grand achievement accompanied by groovy walk-up music. I mean the opportunity to be of service to others. That’s where the magic of the Program lies. That’s how I finally got sober.
Today is a day when I really need to believe there is a purpose unfolding for me. Today is a day when I really need to believe there is a Higher Power doing something, I’m not quite sure what, but somehow at work in the world bringing weird unlikely pieces together, helping people find new paths, or rediscover the ones they lost. I know that fear is the great poison and that hope and faith are the antivenin. Today I have to believe that all of the mistakes, the missed opportunities, squandered chances, burned bridges and consequences were the vehicles that brought me here. My challenge is to discover the purpose in all of that.
A couple of hours ago, the sky was dark and foreboding, the eastern horizon was bound with an ominous blood red ribbon—sailor take warning. As the sun came up, the red drained away into orange and then light-yellow, and now the sky is light blue and thin clouds breezily slide past the window. I don’t what will happen today. I have no idea about tomorrow, or any of the rest of my future. But I believe today that I’m right where I’m supposed to be. So, I’m going to work with that. The sun was always going to come up, it’s up to me to decide what to make of it. That’s what writing a gratitude list helps me do. Of course, me being me, a song also popped into my head when I thought about page 417—so here’s my song of the day:
That’s not dirty, it’s a baseball thing. Also, “I tip my hat and say they are my daddy,” weirdly a baseball thing.
Where do I sign up for this seance?
While it might be a scary place to be, I find it wildly exciting, chock full of possibility!<--autocorrect was desperately trying to throw “Chick-Fil-A” in there. I’m glad your planned writing was derailed for today. This is really good stuff!