“Therefore, we who are alcoholics can consider ourselves fortunate indeed” There was a fellow named Sam sitting on a bench at the beach in California. It turns out that Sam survived a plane crash five years earlier. When Sam breathes in, he fills his lungs with the salty air, taking the last pull to fill his lungs top and bottom. The smell of the ocean brings back the memories of a thousand summer days past. Sam pays close attention to the steady breeze as it blows through his hair. He is acutely aware of the gentle evening sun on his arm, cooled by a whispering crosswind. Ever since that plane crash five years earlier, Sam has become intensely aware of his life experiences and a desire to live in the present moment. If you were to go up to Sam and ask him if he was glad he was in a plane crash, he’s not going to tell you, “It was great. You should get into a plane crash.” Nevertheless, that plane crash changed his perspective. It changed the way Sam looks at life. Addiction is just like that. Active addiction is going to change your perspective. And it’s going to change your perspective, whether you survive it or not. If you don’t survive active addiction, your perspective will become bleaker and bleaker, ending in incomprehensible demoralization and death. If you do survive active addiction and learn to live a sober life, your perspective will, in time, be rooted in gratitude as you become “happy, joyous, and free” and “happily and usefully whole”. And if you survive, there’s a good chance that your family will recover as well. Best of all, if you survive, you’ll have forged a path out that surely will be helpful to someone else.
Like many of the slogans, acronyms, and catch phrases I’ve come across in Alcoholics Anonymous, this is one I heard a lot. This is also one of the phrases that has brought to light new and different insights as my recovery progressed. In the early months of my recovery, this phrase advised that if I were an alcoholic, I would never be able to drink safely, no matter how long I’d been sober. From what I’d heard in the meetings and read in the literature, I came to believe that this was indeed the case. 2002. I’m about 18 months sober. I was at the Saturday night meeting in Wolcott, CT, and was again asked to consider just what the phrase “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic” means. I raised my hand to share. “I get it,” I stated. “If you go in my car right now, you’ll find 12 bags of jelly beans. Not one or two, but 12 bags…6 pounds of jelly beans!” You see, I still have it. I wasn’t drinking, but I still can think and behave alcoholically. Fast forward about three years to 2005. Same meeting, same topic. My hand goes up. “I’ve got good news for you, my friends. Now that I’m further along in my recovery, I’m taking better care of myself. I’m going to the YMCA, I’m watching what I eat, and losing some weight. If you go into my car, you’ll find no jelly beans. Now that I’m 5 years sober, I don’t eat jelly beans at all. I eat grapefruit sections, no sugar added.” Now grapefruit sections come in two sizes: a 32-ounce jar and a 4-pound bucket. The question here is not which size I buy. The question is, how many 4-pound buckets do I buy at a time? I buy two! Five years sober, active in my recovery, and I’m still inclined to excess. Practicing the program of Alcoholics Anonymous gives me the tools to keep my inclination to excess from getting me drunk. Five years sober, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic reminds me to keep doing the things that keep me away from that first drink. Update: 2012 I’m 12 years in and shopping at Ocean State Odd Lots. Ocean State Odd Lots has no fewer than 10,000 different items and at least 75 “must-haves” that are essential to every household in America. Everything from candy to carpets. Blenders to bathing suits. I went into the store determined to buy only the two items I intended: club soda and biscotti. I'm pleased to tell you I walked out of the store with just two items: club soda and biscotti. I spent $178—10 cases of soda and 5 cases of biscotti—240 cans of soda and 40 tins of cookies, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. I’ve still got it, and “it” likes to come out and play. Today, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic reminds me that my only hope is to embrace the solution so that with His grace and your help, I can manage the cunning, baffling, and powerful problem.
How much weight does the toilet paper hang in your house? Over or under? In my house, all the toilet paper hangs over. Every roll, every bathroom. The reason the toilet paper hangs over every roll in every bathroom in my house is because that’s the way my wife likes it. I don’t really care one way or the other. Over, under, behind the toilet, it makes no difference to me. I’ll get to it no matter where it is. But for some reason, it’s vitally important to my wife that the toilet paper hangs over. My pet peeve is dishes in the sink. The faucet is 11 inches from the bottom of the sink, and the dishwasher is 11 inches from the bottom of the sink as well. In 22 inches, it can be both rinsed and put in the dishwasher. When I get home tonight and I look in the sink, it's going to be free and clear of pots, pans, cups, dishes, and cutlery. Do you want to know why? The sink is going to be clean because all the toilet paper hangs the right way. Sometimes the importance of this point is overlooked. Mr. Obvious gets right to the point. If you want people to be attentive to what’s important to you, then you’ll need to be attentive to what’s important to them.
I’m a big fan of red seedless grapes. Particularly in the late summer and early fall. The early crop coming out of California is thin-skinned and as crisp as apples. They are magnificent. So, it’s late August, and I’m at Stop and Shop, the local supermarket in my neighborhood. I’m in the self-checkout lane, loading my items onto the belt, waiting for the customer in front of me to finish. I start running my provisions across the scanner. I pick up the bananas and place them on the scale, then push the banana icon: $2.68. I’m grabbing the red seedless grapes to put on the scale when I’m struck with a really good idea: “If I push bananas, I can save like $16.00.” And there you have it, a really good idea that sucks”. Seventeen and a half years sober, active in my recovery, and working what I consider a pretty good program. I step back and assess the situation. “Can I go to the meeting tonight and share with the group on how to save on their groceries”? “How would I explain this to a police officer if I got caught”? Even if I got away with it, there would be a slight hesitation every time I went to put a grape in my mouth. I pushed red seedless grapes. I always push red seedless grapes—every time. And every time I push red seedless grapes, there’s a part of me that’s thinking about bananas.
April 17, 2001. Waterbury Connecticut. If you’re in Connecticut in the early spring and you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes, and it’ll change. But by mid-April, you’re likely to have some really magnificent days, and so it was. A gorgeous spring day, warm enough for me to go and put on my sexy shorts. I know it may be hard to imagine, but at one time I did indeed have a pair of shorts that fit quite nicely. I put the shorts on, and when I went to button them, I couldn’t quite get the button into the hole on the other side. I couldn’t even get them to talk to each other. This would not do. This was unacceptable. These, after all, were one beautiful pair of cut-offs. It was D day. That’s right, Diet Day. Of course, I knew what it was to diet. I’ve heard the word before, I’ve even attempted it once or twice. Dieting means you change what and how much you eat. Dieting meant that when we went out for coffee after the meeting, I would have to stop ordering four-scoop sundaes with extra sides to ensure I was getting enough calories. I would have to stop eating my breakfast cereal with half-and-half. And don’t knock it if you’ve never tried it, it’s absolutely delicious. Effing incredible. However, it’s also 12,000 calories per bowl, and there’s a two-bowl minimum. I also understood that if I exercised a little bit, the weight would really come off. So there I was, I knew about dieting, I understood exercise. Two months passed, and I stepped on the scale. I gained two lbs. How is this possible? I knew about exercise. I understood dieting. How could I possibly have gained two lbs. The fact was, I didn’t do it, I knew about it, I understood it, I didn’t do it. It turns out that recovery is just like dieting. You can know the Big Book chapter and verse. You can lay quotes with page numbers included. You can understand the benefits of all the suggestions and slogans, and still end up drunk. All the knowledge and understanding in the world won’t keep you sober. Our daily reprieve is contingent upon the actions we take. This doesn’t change whether you’re one week sober or have over 40 years. It's an axiom Roses are red, Violets are blue, It’s not what you know, But about what you do.
Admitting unmanageability was not a difficult thing for me to do. I recognized unmanageability in my life long before I even considered that I might stop drinking and using prescription (and then non-prescription) drugs. Indeed, I would identify drugs and alcohol as the principal means of emotional regulation beginning at the age of 12 with the junior high homecoming dance. My mother dropped me off at the middle school. On my way into the gymnasium, one of my buddies grabbed me by the coat sleeve and took me into a wooded area where three other friends had just opened a bottle of Cold Duck (Google it). It took the five of us just three minutes to finish off the sparkling wine. Three minutes later, my extreme shyness melted away. I developed an incredible sense of rhythm in my feet, and I was funny. I mean, I was hilarious. Talk about a sense of “ease and comfort”! Through my teens and twenties, I found more and more situations in which alcohol would take a leading role. When I needed to summon up the courage to ask a girl out, I turned to alcohol. Trying out for the school play, I turned to alcohol. Integrating into new social situations in college, stress or frustration at work, loneliness, boredom, and anxiety. Even positive emotional experiences would be celebrated with alcohol. What I’ve come to understand is that managing my life with alcohol is like managing body odor with cologne. At first, a spritz or two, and I was good to go. As time went on, I needed more and more (or more potent) cologne to make it out the door. In the end, no matter how strong or how much cologne I would put on, I still stank. It stopped working. When I approached recovery, I readily admitted I had a cologne problem. I also had to admit unmanageability. I lacked many of the basic skills to manage life successfully. I was going to have to learn how to manage life without alcohol and drugs, all the while wondering when my life would become manageable. At what point will I be able to manage my life successfully? Spoiler alert…never! “Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well”? bb pg 61 Hmmm…I’ll get back to this point later.
If you're heading from Waterbury to Torrington, CT, you'll get on Route 8 and head north. About seven miles out of Waterbury, on the right-hand side, you'll come across an electric substation. Around it, there is a 10-foot-high fence, and two feet of barbed wire on top of that. On the front side of the fence, there's a huge sign with the words "Keep Out" and "High Voltage" in big block capital letters. Electricity is dangerous, and if you walk in there and bump into something or touch the wrong thing, it can kill you. When you're plugging in a hair dryer, you'll notice A tag by the plug. A big tag. Oversized. On the tag, it warns you to keep the appliance dry. Unplug when not in use. Do not take it into the shower or bathtub with you. If the hair dryer gets wet, it can short out and send an electric current directly through your body, which can be fatal. Now, if you're in Waterbury Hospital and your heart stops. You flatline. You've got no pulse. They load up two paddles with electricity, tell everybody else to get out of the way, "CLEAR," and ZAP you with electricity. Quite the paradox. Yes, it'll leave a mark, perhaps a little scar tissue, but it's the only thing they have left to do to get your heart started again. Extreme measure, yes. A 100% effective no. And certainly not something you'd want to rely on in maintaining good health. Relapse can be looked at in a similar light. Before you return to drinking, using drugs, or an addictive behavior, your recovery can be seen as having flatlined. Dead on the table. Unable to rescue you from the insanity of the first one. Perhaps a relapse can be used as a means to jump-start your recovery. Extreme measure, yes. A 100% effective no. And certainly not something you'd want to rely on in maintaining your sobriety. Even a car battery can only be recharged just so many times.
From my earliest memories, Sunday always meant jelly donuts and cream bells from Pakula's Bakery in Spring Valley. Every Sunday my father (a very early riser) would head out to the bakery and return with bags of fresh baked breads and boxes laden with sweets. If I was lucky, I would be up in time to go with him. I was lucky a lot. Having experienced the power of pastry as a child I wanted to create a similar bonding memory for my children. Pakula's was long gone and the closest "old country" bakery was too many miles away. So we turned to brownies. We weren't making snacks we were making memories. As such, it was important to me that these brownies were an expression of my love. So brownies became super brownies...then super duper brownies...then super duper Daddy brownies...you get the idea. Over time I became quiet creative in this expression of my love. Sometimes I would crunch up Butterfinger candy bars and add it to the batter. I would sprinkle malt powder on the top of the brownies to make them sparkle and glisten. If the recipe called for a stick of butter I used a stick "plus" to make them "extra buttery". All this creative energy was in search of perfect, Super Duper...Ever-Loving, Daddy Brownies. One day I was held up at work and came home late. I really didn't have time to fool around with the brownies so I just grabbed the box and followed the directions on the back. I hopped into the shower and a few minutes after I got out the timer went off. I pulled the brownies out of the oven and left them to cool. I was cutting the brownies for desert that evening and had what I call "cutters pay"...a small portion of about half a brownie. I took one bite and I have to tell you those brownies were wonderful! Those brownies were buttery but not greasy, both cakey and fudgy at the same time, with a strong but subtle essence of chocolate. Those brownies were perfect...and all I did was follow the directions on the back of the box! It was then I realized that although my intentions were good my actions were misguided. Betty Crocker has been working on making perfect brownies for 105 years. They have a fully staffed brownie department and probably a whole building dedicated to nothing but perfect brownies. All this time, money and effort applied to brownies and the first thing I do is go maverick and ignore the recipe. I would like to tell you that I was able to take this life lesson about taking direction and apply it liberally in all areas of my life. At best I can tell you I've made significant improvement...but not perfection. I will tell you that when I applied it to my early recovery I made wholesale progress. I will tell you that for me the solution was following not modifying the directions.