I’m grateful for a really lovely weekend. I’m grateful for the wispy clouds drifting overhead. I’m grateful for the peace in my heart. I’m grateful for the quiet and being able to listen. I’m grateful I got lost. I’m grateful I didn’t stay lost. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Since I was a little kid, I was kind of obsessed with the ideas of elevators falling. It seems like elevator mishaps were a lot more common back then, movies like the Towering Inferno and all of the cable-cutting in various cartoons, certainly helped promote the notion that elevators were kind of risky. You never really knew when you might be hurtling towards the basement. Obviously, there is some hay to be made around the idea of ten year old me already being fixated on disaster.1
The thing I learned from my time in the Scouts, other than always carry a potato in the event of emergencies and the thing with the finger in lukewarm water might actually work, was always have a plan. It doesn’t matter if the event that is being planned around is pretty unlikely to occur, the point is to have a plan. For example, I think it’s very unlikely that I will suddenly accede to complete power here in NYC, or ever get to host the Joker’s Wild.2 However, if I do, on Day One there will be some announcements that will hopefully strike terror in the hearts of people who honk car horns or stand on the left side of the escalator. Harsh measures are sometimes necessary.
One plan I had (maybe secretly still have), is that in the event of the plunging elevator scenario, I will simply jump up at the exact moment the elevator hits bottom, thereby neatly avoiding the catastrophe awaiting the other non-jumping elevator passengers. I spent a lot of time thinking about this as a kid. I kind of knew it couldn’t work, for a bunch of different reasons, but that didn’t stop me from continuing to think that it was exactly what I would do in that situation.
It’s kind of hard to miss the metaphor here. I applied pretty much the same thinking and strategery to drinking.3 I can’t tell you how many times I sat in bars drinking and assuring myself that we would stop when it was finally time. That we would be able to time that jump perfectly to avoid the catastrophe of the alcoholic bottom. Until then, since you asked so nicely, I will have another.
Somehow, one of the popular conceptions that has evolved is that alcoholics have to hit “bottom,” trying to help before that event is either enabling the alcoholic or wasting the non-alcoholic’s time. The word “bottom” is mentioned only twice in the Big Book and neither time is it connected to this idea. There are several passages that note that people are rarely willing to undertake the kind of drastic change necessary without having a pretty big dose of desperation, but I think that’s an obvious statement that applies to what’s necessary for people generally, not just alcoholics and addicts, to effect changes to their lives.
One problem with this theory is that it assumes there is some “bounce” left in the alcoholic. Bill does refer to the “jumping off place,” that can precede sobriety, but coupling that concept with the idea of “hitting rock bottom,” produces pretty predictable effects—including the very, very high morbidity rates among alcoholics and addicts. It’s estimated that 20% of the deaths of people between 20 and 49 in this country are caused by alcohol. Only about 7% of the people who suffer from this disease will ever even seek help for it. Those are stunning statistics and anyone who thinks that we’re on the right track in treating this isn’t paying attention to the actual numbers. Anyway, that’s for a different day. To me, it shows the need to come up with a different strategy.
I think we misuse and overuse the concept of the “Bottom” and in ways that I don’t think are helpful in terms of carrying the message or encouraging people to seek help when they need to. I do agree that some of measure of desperation is necessary to get the ball rolling. I think that’s true of change in general and reflects the difficulty of change overall, not just getting alcoholics to stop drinking. The thing that finally impelled me to change my life was not so much that I was at a “bottom,” with no where to go but up. There was still plenty of potential for “downward movement,” when I got sober. I had financial assets, a job, there were still moves available on the board.
For me, I just ran out of the capacity to lie to myself. I was finally able to see how far away from myself I had drifted, I saw how lost I really was. I finally saw how alone I was.
I saw that I was about the furthest distance away that I could possibly be from the person I was meant to be.
It’s the moment right before you lose radio contact, before passing over the horizon permanently or into the maw of the lurking Black Hole. In that moment, I began losing my capacity to lie to myself. Somehow, sensing that tremendous distance, and knowing that we couldn’t go any further without completely and eternally losing contact, stripped away the veneer of self-deception that had been under construction for about 40 years.4 For me, that moment was more about sensing that distance and the growing realization that the way I had been living just wasn’t sustainable. I just couldn’t go on like this anymore.
We all know that the impetus for spiritual change can only come from within. The question is whether there is a way to foster that change in non-exigent circumstances. I like to think there are ways. I think sometimes we can present AA in a pretty terrifying, very binary, take-it-or-leave it, go ahead and do some more “research,” kid, har har har, you’ll be back, way. I think sometimes what we share is more a product of ego and self-aggrandizement, rather than some simple words of kindness and hope focused on what helped and how I recovered. I think presenting AA as something to turn to before the bottom would be good.5
The real trick is figuring out how to trigger that spark. My spark was simply a moment where all of the self-deception had finally been stripped away and someone put the Big Book and Zoom AA meetings in front of me. What got me sober wasn’t the fear of the bottom so much, it was the growing sense of hope and faith. The growing sense of optimism and budding self-love. The more I got better, things got better and that made it easier for me to continue the whole getting better thing.
Warning alcoholics of the tragedy to come roughly never works. I know that from ten years of trying to get sober and 13 One-Day chips in a cup. What works is replacing the desolation and the sense of impending doom with hope and faith. How to do that is the tricky part. The traditional focus on recognizing the the consequences of addiction is important to working the Steps, but I think the overall approach to the Steps and the Big Book is far too grim and I think it is pretty likely to turn off a lot of potential customers. I think presenting it as self-love and a way to bring joy and happiness might be easier to sell.
I finally realized this wasn’t about salvaging wreckage. It was building a whole new aeroplane. Looking at things that way is tremendously more exciting and positive-vibe producing than counting days like making marks on a prison wall and waiting for freedom. Bill says we are not a glum lot and I think the point of this exercise is to design and live a happy, vibrant, exciting, meaningful life.
That’s a good thing, right? I’d like to think there’s a way to show people just how fantastic this life is, how even in the dark moments, there is a sense of love and joy and peace that just doesn’t stop. Yes, I haven’t had a drink since October 22, 2019, but that almost seems besides the point sometimes. Things aren’t perfect in my life, not by a long shot, but there is simply no way I’d go back and trade what I have for what I had. That’s sobriety. I’d rather have people join this club out of excitement than as an escape from misery.6
I wish it hadn’t take so long and cost so much for so many people. I go back and forth on the topic of how much of the voyage was necessary to teach me the lessons I needed to learn, but I’ve also learned that’s kind of above my pay grade. My job is to show up and approach life as openly and honestly as I can. I’d like to think face-to-asphalt contact is not necessary to strike the spark of sobriety and begin the transformation I know that my deepening spiritual life is not about avoiding consequences, it’s embracing the life that’s all around me and recognizing the lies I told myself that kept me away. It’s embracing hope and faith and joy.
I live on the 22nd floor of my building, so I spend a far amount of time in the elevator. I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that I think about my silly jumping theory (fantasy) pretty much every time the doors open and I get on. That’s the power of my brain, that old narrative trying to re-assert itself over and over. Here’s the thing, even though “he” may push that button, I know I don’t have to ride that bad boy all the way to the bottom anymore. One of the equations that I think was a big part of my sobriety is this one:
Hope + Faith = Love
And fortunately, there is a button in my elevator marked “L.”
Since my drinking was definitely a post-Boy Scouts thing (also post-Webelos), it seems like the catastrophic thinking might not be a product of alcoholism but one of the things that propels one towards it?
The probability of the latter hovers around zero for reasons previously discussed, so weirdly, it does make some sense to plan for the former. It’s less outlandish than some of my other ideas.
Yes, that’s on purpose and I’m hoping it helps make the point.
Like the perma-scaffolding on many NYC buildings
When you look at messaging around addiction, it can get pretty tragic and dark.
Of course, it is that, too and it is saving lives, after all.
I have been Soo moved, inspired and uplifted by your daily messages of Experience Strength ,Hope & Truth!
I love my Sobriety (18 yrs.) and use the Divinely Inspired Program, in many ways. Thank Y💝U for the time Y😍U put in by “ caring , sharing and carrying
The message”🤗🫶🏼
Many years ago, when I told my then-sponsor that I had hit bottom, he said, “I’m sure you have - but every bottom has a trapdoor.”