The Difference Between A Drunk Show And A Real AA Meeting – Tom W.

my name is Tom and I am an alcoholic and what else is true I'm I'm 41 years old I haven't had
to drink or use since the day that Gerald Ford was nominated for president
of the United States if you remember him that was in August middle August 1976 I
was watching the Republican Convention wondering what happened to Nixon I had
been very busy for a couple of years there and lost track of a few things so
sobriety for me has been a lot of discovery and a lot of learning things
for the first time that a lot of other people have known for years and this is
ongoing for me what else is true my home group is the Tuesday night group that
meets at 2910 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland whenever I travel to San
Francisco I refer to Oakland as where we have real AA gets them all excited I
like that I'm I'm an Aries if that's anything to you I'm an ENFP on the Myers
Briggs and I'm a 7 on the Enneagram for those of you who get excited about odd
stuff
I was doing a presentation this past year on alcoholism and the spiritual
values of our program and practical stuff to a group of health care workers
pretty scary group to talk to and I was I was doing they were people who worked
in treatment centers and nurses who were getting certain certificates and things
and there was a bunch of them and I talked about God and program and the 11th
step and at the end of the day they did that evaluations and these are health
care professionals you know and most of them liked it and said thanks for the
information we enjoyed it was not an awful day considering and one person
said good information but Tom has a soon is severely mother conflicted is her
mother who really loves her daughter when she sometimes didn't get her birth
filled with anger, and crippled with type A behavior.
Now, the only thing I objected to in that was the severely mother-conflicted.
I thought I'd worked through a fair amount of it in the last 11 years.
But my response was, well, of course I know things,
and that's why I continue going to meetings, you know.
And this isn't news, so I just want to let you know all of that right now
so you don't have to spend the next hour figuring out
where I fit on any particular scale you know already, all right?
So, I've heard it said in some meetings that we don't take inventories.
I do.
I've always considered it to be one of the gifts.
So, what else is true?
I'm also a Catholic priest.
I was ordained sober.
I'm still.
I'm still in good standing, which surprises me sometimes as much as it surprises them.
I was asked last night, someone I hadn't seen in a while,
they said, I hear you got married.
I said, I don't think so.
But, you know, a lot of times you don't know what's going on in your life
until you hear the rumor anyway, so.
The work I get to do is a lot with alcoholics and addicts,
which is something I never thought I'd be doing
and I sure never wanted to be doing when I was out there.
And a lot of this is a big surprise to me.
I don't have a great drunk-a-log.
I really do wish that I did.
I've heard some wonderful ones.
And this was a bit of a thing for me for a while
because I felt real inferior coming to meetings
because I...
I had no jail time at all.
I worked part-time as an associate chaplain at San Quentin.
But that doesn't count, you know.
I mean, I got to leave.
I've never gotten a drunk driving ticket, ever.
Although I drove zillions of miles loaded, I've never been stopped.
Oh, that's not true.
I have been stopped, but I never got a ticket
because I didn't slur that badly.
And I'm such a bad...
I'm such a bad drunk that I've never even gotten a tattoo, so...
When I was put in treatment, and they put me in treatment,
can you imagine?
Me!
I was...
There were women and men in my facility
and I was the only one there without a tattoo.
I felt real insecure about that.
So I kind of put my hand over my arm
hoping they'd think I had a tattoo underneath.
You know, I'm willing to do anything to fit in.
That's one of the gifts.
Also, I've heard stories where people have had a couple of social drinks
in a fancy hotel and have gone into a blackout.
Came out of the blackout six months later.
Standing in a motel room in Rio de Janeiro
with $600,000 worth of cocaine and a dead body in the room.
So they call AA, you know.
Thank you.
It's not my story.
The story of my drinking is mostly depression.
I was sober a year before it was explained to me
that there is a law out there in the universe
called cause and effect.
And that certain causes bring about certain...
effects.
And that if you take vast amounts of a depressant
on a daily basis for years into your system,
you get depressed.
I didn't know that.
I thought it was my mother or my father or the pope
or, you know, the president.
Those are good reasons.
But I had been consuming alcohol on a regular basis
for a very, very long time.
I didn't get into any major trouble
but there was kind of a manic depressive pattern
where I was able...
I was able to do the work of four people
or I was able to do the work of no people.
Went back and forth.
When I was able to move, I was quite something.
And I just wish that I had been able to move more often.
I'm a teacher by training.
I'm a member of the Jesuit order
and we're usually trained as teachers.
And my first job, the first time I felt alive
and connected with anybody
was in 1971 when I entered the classroom for the first time.
And as long...
as I could be in a classroom with kids,
everything was wonderful.
It was a major up for me.
But soon as I left the classroom, my life was over.
The only thing I lived for was that relationship
and it only went from 8.30 until 3.
And then you'd prepare class for the next day
and then what do you do?
Well, you have to do something to relax.
You know, and something to take the pressure off.
And I would be drinking every evening
and in the classroom every morning.
I never drank in the morning.
I did not know you could.
I didn't.
I was very ignorant when I got in here.
But I sure followed that pattern of crash and burn
and crash and burn.
And as long as I could stay very, very busy,
everything was fine.
My trouble came with vacations,
summer times,
all of a sudden vast amounts of time
with nothing to do but fill it up drinking.
And I did that a lot.
I...
There's alcoholism in the family.
Ha! Surprise!
And...
We never called it alcoholism.
We never did.
One half of my family is Irish Catholic
and we referred to people who were characters.
They'd say things like,
ah, you know, Sean, he's such a character.
That does not mean get to know him.
That means don't let him drive.
I didn't know that.
Uh...
Because I...
I didn't know how to read between the lines
for a real long time.
I just took things at face value.
If we...
If no one says anything's wrong,
nothing's wrong.
Um...
On the Swedish Lutheran side of the family,
we didn't have any alcoholics either.
We had people who were real nervous.
And some of them were so nervous
they had wine sores,
but it was nerves.
And every so often,
they'd get so nervous,
they'd be hospitalized.
And then they'd come out just fine
and have a few beers
and get nervous again.
One of my cousins,
there was a family gathering
and he was going to show up sober.
That was the rule.
You had to show up sober,
or at least look sober.
And he overshot and went into DTs.
As you know,
it's a matter of hours there
between sitting there like a grown-up
and convulsing
and he just mistimed it.
So,
before you know it,
years afterwards,
we referred to this
as his nervous spell.
In my family,
alcoholism
was exactly like
having a rhinoceros
in the living room.
Everyone knows it's there.
They're hard to miss.
But as long as you don't talk about it,
you know,
there's no problem.
So,
we'd decorate the rhinoceros.
We'd put table flops over them
and cute little lights
around the horn,
especially around the holidays.
And rhinoceroses sleep a lot,
at least they did in my house.
Passing out is the technical term.
And when they woke up mean
and ran around the house,
what our job was
was to, number one,
get out of the way
and throw up against ourselves,
up against the walls,
preferably in the form of the cross,
and wait for the rhinoceros
to stop moving.
And when the rhinoceros stopped moving,
we'd come down from our crosses
and my mother would say,
act like,
nothing happened.
And we just lived like that.
That was perfectly normal for us.
So,
I entered the order
when I was 18 years old
and most of my drinking
my family didn't know about
because I'd been away from home
for so long
and I never drank around them.
So, it was kind of a big surprise.
I was home for Christmas in 1976.
I was living in Berkeley
going to school
and my folks lived in San Jose.
And I was sober
about three and a half months.
Raw.
Just.
Just.
Just.
Just.
If you remember
to three and a half months,
you know,
jerking around.
When I was in the hospital,
we were in group a lot
and I was, I guess,
clean and sober that time
about two weeks or 19 days.
And suddenly my arms and legs
felt very painful.
It was very scary.
It was like I slept on them
and the blood started rushing.
It was that,
pins and needles,
very unpleasant.
And I jumped,
I jumped out of the chair
and I said,
my arms and legs are coming off.
And the nurse said,
that's called sensation.
She said,
it's returning.
And that's a very good sign.
Okay.
Well,
I'm sober three and a half months
and I'm home
and I'm still experiencing
early sensations.
Real uncomfortable.
And any minute,
a whole bunch of
Swedish Lutheran Republicans
and Irish Catholic Democrats
are showing up.
And I was kind of pacing
back and forth
and a little whippy
and my mom said,
Tom, what's wrong?
And I said,
well, here's a moment
for mother-son intimacy.
Because in the program,
they tell me to be honest,
you know,
and tell the truth
and let the chips fall
where they may.
And, you know,
let's build a whole new relationship
and cure the family tonight.
And I said,
well, mom,
what's true is that
I'm an alcoholic
and I haven't had a drink
in over three months
and I just feel
real nuts inside.
And she put,
she was setting the table,
she put the knives
and forks down,
looked at me
straight in the eye
and said,
you'll ruin Christmas.
See?
Because I used
the A word,
you know.
I knew I had made
a major mistake
and I retreated
by saying,
actually,
it's only a drinking problem
and she was relieved.
Oh, well.
Whew.
As long as you're not
an alcoholic, you know.
So, um,
I, uh,
I enjoyed my drinking
for a long time.
And if I could still enjoy it,
I don't know.
I could still be doing it.
But it changed.
I was doing, uh,
a presentation, uh,
I guess this was
two years ago now
with a physician
in San Francisco
who's been sober forever.
A fellow named Gil,
Dr. Gil A.
And he's a French-Canadian,
uh,
with a heavy accent
and works a lot
in recovery and,
you know,
Irish Catholics
think they're tough.
But that's because
they haven't met
French-Canadians.
French-Canadians
are, you know,
they're tough.
And there's just, uh,
an incredible amount
of resiliency.
Anyway, Gil and I
were giving a presentation
to some nurses
and people who would be
working with alcoholics
and addicts
for the first time.
And they wanted a physician
who was sober
and a priest
who was sober to come
and, you know,
let them know,
you know,
with any luck at all,
anybody can get this disease.
And it is,
as Dr. Paul mentioned
last night,
it is, you know,
a medical disease
with a spiritual solution.
And here we are,
you know,
it was Mutt and Jeff
presenting things.
And so we were
discussing stuff
and we were clear,
I thought.
Gil talked about
physical things
and I talked about
steps and God
and spirituality
without sounding
too awful about it,
you know.
And, uh,
hands came up
and one woman said,
well, you know,
doctor and father,
um,
but she was talking
to the doctor,
the one who knew things,
you know.
Um,
she said,
alcoholism is a disease,
correct?
He said, yes.
She said, uh,
with clear
and identifiable symptoms,
yes.
Easily diagnosable
since 1954
by a competent physician.
Easily diagnosable.
Oh, really?
Well,
if someone is showing
early signs of alcoholism,
she said,
can't you just
sit them down,
explain this to them,
and can't they
just say no?
Gil thought for a moment
and said,
no.
He said,
it won't work.
It won't work.
Because, uh,
alcoholism,
she has
three phases.
Phase one
is the fun phase.
This is when
you're having fun.
And if you're having fun,
either the president
and the pope
could sit down
and say,
don't you know
this is killing you?
And you'll say,
killing me?
I'm having fun,
you know?
Phase two.
Fun
plus problems.
This is when
it's still fun.
But you start
to have problems,
you know?
You get a drunk
driving ticket,
you get your
first divorce,
but you're still
having fun.
So then there's
phase three.
Which is problems.
He said,
when someone's
been in phase three
for a long time,
some of them
can get well.
He says,
that's the law.
Now,
I wrote that down.
Because I forget.
You know,
I just forget.
And the book pops,
it was read last night
and never could we
recapture the great
moments of the past.
They were but memories.
Absolutely true.
I had been in the
problem stage
of my drinking
for a good five years
before I was able
to get help.
I was one of the people
who was intervened on.
Members of my community
who had known me
for a long time
started talking
to each other.
Dangerous.
Started going to Al-Anon.
One of them
connected with,
he was,
had a friend
who was in charge
of, you know,
one of the
longshoremen's
alcoholism thing
in San Francisco
and said,
what do we do
with a bad drunk?
Well,
they did it.
And,
what I'd like to say
about that is,
I was not grateful.
I felt ganged up on.
I felt humiliated.
I felt embarrassed.
And I felt ashamed.
But I was not grateful.
And,
I wasn't grateful
for a real long time.
I really felt
I had let everybody down.
See,
the only thing
I wanted to do
was control
and enjoy my drinking.
That was it.
And,
if I could control
and enjoy my drinking,
everything would be fine.
But,
I hadn't controlled it
or enjoyed it
in a real long time.
So,
I was a major failure.
I did start
to go to meetings.
They told me
they would hospitalize me.
And,
I said,
what about AA?
I was hoping they'd say,
okay,
try that.
I said,
instead,
they said,
try that too.
So,
I went to my second meeting
of Alcoholics Anonymous.
My first one,
I was in college.
I was studying philosophy
up in Spokane,
Washington,
which is a pretty good reason
to drink every day
for two years.
And,
I went out
to an Indian reservation
in central Washington
called Nespilim,
where Chief Joseph
is buried.
And,
in the little Catholic church there,
they had an AA meeting.
And,
it was the first time
I was there.
This was probably in 1970.
And,
it was a group of
Anglos and Native Americans
sitting around
drinking black coffee
and smoking cigarettes
without filters.
And,
they talked about
their feelings
and gratitude
and day at a time
and overcoming loneliness.
Now,
I was very moved
by what they said.
I identified
with 98%
of what they said.
And,
they said,
would any of you visitors
like to say anything?
And,
I told them
how much I admired them.
Because,
I wasn't done yet.
And,
that was 1970.
My second time
at an AA meeting
was 1976.
There on a Friday night.
And,
I went to a group
in Oakland.
I called AA's central office
and someone answered
the phone.
And,
I'm very grateful
for whoever it was.
I don't even remember
if it was a boy or a girl.
But,
whoever it was,
thank you.
And,
I said,
is there a meeting
of Alcoholics Anonymous
anywhere in the Bay Area
this weekend?
You see,
because my life is so long.
And,
my life is over.
And,
I have to do something
about my drinking
and there's no hope
anywhere for anything.
And,
she said,
Friday night central office.
So,
I went.
What she didn't tell me
is that it was an old-timers meeting.
And,
everybody was 800 years old.
With short hair.
And,
they were clean shaven.
I'm only clean shaven
by about two weeks,
by the way.
I just thought,
this is like a geographic.
You know,
you're going to shave
and see if anything gets better.
I will do anything
rather than change my behavior.
Anything rather than change.
Anyway,
back to this meeting.
They were all happy
and the room was well lit
and they drank black coffee
and smoked cigarettes
without filters.
The chair was just
this side of a thousand years old
and he said,
we all knew his story
and so he wouldn't bore us with it
and he laughed
and they laughed.
I laughed right along with him.
I did not know
what was funny.
But I know
that if everyone's laughing,
laugh with them.
Because otherwise,
they think you're an outsider
and they ask questions
and then,
you know,
you look odd.
There was a man,
the next,
we went around the room
and there weren't that many there
and there was a guy
who said he had a real good week.
I think that was the topic.
How was your week?
He said,
I had a real good week.
He said,
yesterday I got up enough strength
and energy and pizzazz
to cut the front lawn.
And I did not want what he had.
Nor did I have a front lawn.
That's very important to say also.
Right now I do
and I'm of the opinion
that if you can cut the front lawn
and do laundry in the same week,
you get the mental health award for the month.
Convinced of that.
But I didn't understand spirituality at the time.
Um,
then there was a married couple at this meeting,
male, female,
and
they were married to each other.
Talking with each other.
Touching each other affectionately in public.
I hadn't seen anything like that in years.
And then it was my turn to talk.
I mean,
how do you talk after that?
And I said,
hello,
my name is Tom
and I'm an alcoholic.
And they all shouted back,
hi,
Tom.
And I said,
which is a shock.
That really is.
It took me months to get used to that.
Um,
it sounded like the Rotary Club or something.
I was ashamed of it.
Uh,
then it was not cool.
Then I said,
um,
this was a Friday night meeting.
I said,
I haven't had a drink since Tuesday night.
And when I said that I hadn't had a drink since Tuesday night,
this room full of women and men
with whom I had nothing in common,
um,
what so ever burst into applause that had never happened to me before.
Um,
there had been times when I tried to stop drinking and people would notice and they would say things like,
how long since you've had a drink,
Tom?
I'd say two weeks.
They would not clap.
Um,
they'd look embarrassed,
you know,
or change.
They'd change the subject or they'd ask the children to leave the room to leave the room.
I was sober and clean five years and I was living in Los Angeles and I went up to the man who was running the school I was teaching at and I said,
today is my fifth birthday.
I haven't had a drink or a joint or a pill in five years.
And he said,
I'm so sorry.
They don't know.
They don't know what the appropriate response,
what the appropriate response is and you have to let them know that the appropriate response is passionate hugging and wild applause.
That's the appropriate response.
And then they say,
why do you keep going to meetings because of passionate hugging and wild applause?
It's one of the things that makes a difference.
So,
uh,
that happened.
What occurred to me as they were applauding was that this group of men and women with whom I had nothing in common understood.
What it meant to not have a drink since Tuesday night stay understood that and that gave me a little glimmer of hope and not a lot.
I did not say,
boy,
am I home?
Sure does feel good to be here.
I was real glad to not be out there,
but I was not real glad to be in here.
Okay.
It's kind of a gray area in between.
There was a woman who went to meetings,
a lot in Berkeley named Mary,
and she did die sober.
She was an older woman.
Um,
she died though pretty much as a result of her drinking because her insides never really snapped back.
I mean,
there's a lot of damage for years and years of drinking and whenever she was called on,
she'd say,
hello,
my name is Mary and I'm so grateful to be an alcoholic and I love this program and my sponsor has saved my life and I am grateful every day for each and every one of those beautiful 12 steps.
I just thought she had been out too long.
I really did.
I said,
here is someone who has very little brain left and whenever I talked with her,
I was very patronizing.
I used to treat her as if she weren't all there.
Yes,
Mary,
I understand,
but you know,
I didn't share in the gratitude at all and because I was cool,
you know,
I was also only 29 years old and she was 700 and you know,
she should have stopped drinking.
My problem when I,
when I stopped,
I thought it was really unfair.
You know that I should have been able to drink till 65 which is retirement age anyway and to be cut off short just as I was hitting my stride,
you know?
Oh,
it felt really awful.
So I was very sorry for myself and very angry and this is unfair.
Um,
I was sober a year or two and I had moved to Los Angeles and I went to a meeting out in the San Fernando Valley and I sat in the back.
Judging and the,
there was a guy speaking and the only thing I remember about him was that he seemed to be a middle aged white male.
I don't know.
I know if I met him again,
I would not recognize him.
But what he said was he said,
I'm not grateful that I'm an alcoholic and I just sat up straight in my chair.
I said,
there's two of us,
you know,
thank God I finally met someone,
you know,
and then he said,
but I'm real grateful that you are.
And that I remembered because that was also true for me.
I wasn't grateful that I was here,
but I sure was grateful you were because you gave me a place to come to that was safe and you gave me a place to come to where I could be just nuts.
And I was very,
very tense and manicky and wild and lots of emotions that were not fun to feel or observe for a long time.
And,
and you just let me keep coming back.
It was,
it was gracious of you to do that.
And then if I could be grateful for your being here,
little by little,
I could be grateful for my being here.
I was around three years clean and sober before I unclenched my jaw.
That's true.
I was afraid that if I let go,
I'd get drunk.
I mean,
I was,
I was just soaked.
Someone said,
what do you do for a good time,
Tom?
I said,
go to meetings.
They said,
I mean,
don't you ever like go to a movie?
Or go bowling or fishing?
Oh,
no,
I'd get drunk.
Well,
the day will come with any luck at all.
I've been given lots of tools to use in the program,
and I guess I'd like to talk about those this morning.
The danger of speaking at a conference like this for me is that I will get theoretical and tell you what it all means.
Now,
the danger with that is,
is I,
I,
the thing that's true is my own experience,
and I can tell you what I've done and what I haven't done.
But I mean that it's all,
you know,
let me tell you what it really,
no,
okay,
pull back.
I was headed in that direction.
Um,
sponsor time.
I was sober a couple of months and people kept saying,
do you have a sponsor?
Well,
um,
I'm a people pleaser,
so I got one.
The reason I got one was,
so I could say,
yes,
I have a sponsor.
Then they'd get off my case.
What they didn't do was say what you did with your sponsor once you got them.
I mean,
do you move in?
Is this dad?
You see,
do you pay his bills?
Does he pay yours?
I mean,
a lot of funny sponsors,
sponsee relationships get worked out.
So I went to meetings to hear,
how people talked about it.
And this is what I heard.
You look around for a long time to find someone who is a combination of Jesus Christ and the Renaissance man.
Then you say,
will you be my sponsor when you get his phone number and you put the phone number in your book and you put the book in the top drawer and then you wait and you wait until there's a crisis and then you wait until about three in the morning and then you call and you say,
hi,
remember me six months ago,
I asked you to be my sponsor and I have this crisis and it's three a.m.
Now your sponsor is supposed to be grateful.
You call,
remember you vividly.
Oh,
sure.
I know who you are.
You're the one with the wild eyes.
And then your sponsor is supposed to listen patiently to what you have to say,
especially if you're swearing a lot and insulting him and condemning the program for not working.
And then he's supposed to give you advice.
What you're to write down.
That's why you want to keep a pad and crayons by the phone so you can write this down.
Now you don't have to do it.
Instead,
take that piece of paper to your home group meeting and read it to the group.
Say,
I called my sponsor and my sponsor said then the topic for the discussion is whose sponsor is the biggest creep.
You mean your sponsor makes you go to meetings?
That's awful.
You know,
where's freedom and stuff?
And dignity in the program and that's how I fully expected this to work and I was having problems.
Now,
what were the problems?
The problem was like my arms and legs.
I was starting to experience sensation and a lot of it was emotional.
I hadn't felt an emotion in a long,
long time.
That's not quite true.
Um,
I felt emotions that fit right in here,
you know,
just in a tiny little space and the great emotional life that's out here.
I just had divorced myself from,
but as I withdrew from,
from drugs and alcohol,
um,
my space of emotions got bigger and bigger and bigger and I started feeling things that I had never felt before and I concluded I was going crazy because I was,
you know,
something sad would happen and I'd get fat.
I must be going crazy.
Uh,
I remember traveling down the road one day and I don't,
when I was drinking,
I never listened to country Western music,
but I lived country Western music.
I didn't listen.
But then I,
I was listening to a,
you know what?
I just love all these great songs of it's three in the morning and I'm drunk and alone and who cares and let's have another beer and,
you know,
put that in 12 varieties.
So,
but I was listening to one of these schlocky songs about a little girl and truck drivers and I just burst into tears and I knew I was losing it.
You know,
this is or I would,
something,
something would happen.
And I'd feel angry.
I just,
this rage would come up and I,
I never responded like that before or something would happen and I'd feel fear and I'd say,
good heavens,
I'm really out of control here.
So I called my sponsor to explain all this and he said,
what step are you on?
What step am I on?
What are they talking about?
See,
what I was doing was I was following what I heard at my first meeting.
After,
I was done sharing my little story and they clapped a man next to me said who'd just been out of prison for 10 days got sober.
There he said,
we here in alcoholics anonymous go to lots of meetings.
We don't drink in between meetings and we don't use no dope,
which I really didn't know.
I had been smoking non-habit forming marijuana every day for seven years.
A,
a,
especially when I wasn't drinking.
I mean,
how else do you take the edge off,
you know?
And as far as pills,
I've maybe taken a dozen Valium in my life and all of those I stole.
So I really don't think that counts.
So,
but when he,
I mean,
that became my program.
I went to a lot of meetings.
I didn't drink and I didn't use.
Now,
if you go to a lot of meetings,
don't drink and don't use period,
you become in a short period of time,
what the other program refers to as stark raving sober.
People start saying things to you like you were a lot easier to live with when you were drunk all the time,
waving the gun around the room for your birthday.
Your children give you booze.
Please use something.
Well,
you haven't laughed since you've stopped drinking.
There's nothing to laugh at.
Sobriety is a serious business.
All right.
And as you know,
our motto is heavy,
does it just happy?
Does
so when James said,
what step are you on?
What I was going to say was I'm going to a lot of meetings.
I'm not drinking in between meetings and I'm not using no dope.
That's the step I'm on.
But you can't say that.
So I said,
well,
I guess I'm on step one,
which as a matter of fact,
I was,
I mean,
that's the,
but I didn't know that I did.
And we were on the phone and he said,
well,
what does step one say?
You mean he doesn't know,
you know,
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I mean,
I knew he didn't get out of college,
but still,
you know,
I,
and I was a graduate student.
So,
so I've got my little teacher's voice and I said,
well,
step one,
I opened the book.
This was on the phone three in the morning.
I said,
step one says that I admitted I was powerless over alcohol.
My life had become manageable.
He said,
no,
it doesn't.
I had been,
I don't think I was in the 37th grade by this time.
And
I had some teachers who wanted you to reword things,
you know,
especially in education classes.
How does this feel to you?
What color does the fifth step remind you of?
Deep stuff.
And so I said,
all right,
he wants me to reword it.
And I said,
all right,
step one says that I acknowledge that I had no control over booze and dope and that my life had become a real mess.
That's what it says.
He said,
no,
it doesn't.
I said,
James,
what does it say?
And he says,
if you look real carefully at the 12 steps,
nowhere in there does the word I appear.
He said,
we admitted we came to believe we made a decision.
We humbly asked,
we sought through prayer and having had a spiritual awakening.
We,
he said,
Tom,
if you're ever going to get well,
you're going to have to leave your room and join the group.
I hate that.
I still hate that.
It's one of my most unfavorite things about the program.
When I became 10 years clean and sober,
I really had a day there where I thought that my picture should go up next to Bob and Bill.
And you know,
I have sponsored people.
I have a sponsor.
I've read the book.
I go to,
I have gone to meetings and I've even given retreats.
For people in recovery.
I shouldn't have to go to meetings anymore because part of me vibrates real strongly with the image of the Marlboro man.
Where you know,
when when things get tough,
you hop on your horse and right off to the High Sierras and smoke cigarettes until it gets clear.
And someone explained to me that the horse was his relationship.
I like that.
There's a program for that too.
Anyway,
James told me that if I was going to get well,
I'd have to start taking my horse to meetings again.
I mean,
I'm not just showing up,
but actually participating if it's one of my brothers.
Quote,
unquote,
try to AA,
you know,
he went to three meetings.
It's like trying therapy.
I went once.
Yeah,
no good for me.
So I've when I left Berkeley,
I was a year sober.
I was supposed to be ordained a priest at the end of that year.
I've been in the order for,
you know,
12 or 13 years and and my class was being ordained and my ordination was held up because someone told them and we all know who they are that you shouldn't make a major change.
That you shouldn't make a major change.
That you shouldn't make a major change.
You change in your life for your first year sober.
And so they said,
we're going to delay you now when you're clean and sober year,
if you'd still like to do this,
it's fine with us.
But right now,
no,
that hurt tremendously.
It just hurt tremendously.
And one of the voices I love last night when Paul mentioned the voices,
I like I Dr.
Jekyll,
Mr.
Hyde,
you know,
is only two.
I also had a very bad case of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
And I never knew which one would come out,
you know,
sneezy,
your dopey,
your doc,
you know,
high gays and grumpy.
So,
or Snow White on occasion.
Um,
so let's go back.
Now we got distracted.
That last drink connected brain tubes that shouldn't be connected.
I'm convinced of it.
Gone.
Oh,
being held up for ordination.
That was it.
Anyway,
you just have to go back.
You'll find it.
See,
now that's a real change in my behavior.
There was a time when I would not have been able to go back.
See,
I just would have kept right on going,
you know,
right up,
retrace your steps.
When,
when I was held up,
it really felt like a rejection.
And one of those voices said,
they don't think you're ever going to get.
Well,
they have no hope in you.
That data,
them,
them,
them,
you're doomed.
You're isolated.
I felt in tremendous pain from the rejection of it.
It felt like a rejection.
And the only place I found solace was an alcohol.
It's anonymous where I could go and feel the pain.
And what the folks there said was,
Tom,
you get to hurt.
You just get to hurt and talk about it,
but don't run from it.
You get to hurt.
Well,
I was,
I left Berkeley because school was over and it's time to go back to work.
And I found,
I went back to the classroom.
And it was like,
I had never been there before.
It was terrifying to me.
That whole first year back in the classroom,
sober was constant fear and constant anxiety.
And I said,
the only thing I could do was teach all day long and then prepare my classes and bolt some food down and go to a meeting.
And that was every day.
And I said,
you know,
where are the promises?
You know,
I had no social life whatsoever.
My second year of sobriety,
I was just terrified and nuts.
And the only place that took the edge off was alcohol.
It's anonymous.
And I went to a lot of meetings,
but leaving Berkeley for LA was scary because Berkeley AA,
first of all,
wasn't big then.
Now we have a fellowship and a lot of folks hanging out doing stuff,
but a big meeting was 30 people.
And that was the Wednesday night meeting.
And we had one meeting a night in town.
So if it was Tuesday night,
you didn't have to figure out where are we going tonight?
You went there.
And if you went to five or eight meetings a week within a couple of weeks,
you knew the fellowship.
And it was a real set.
It was like a small town.
I went to LA and there were a thousand meetings a week.
In places I'd never heard of before,
you see.
And I,
the first one I went,
or one of the first ones I went to was on Sunday night on the corner of Wilshire and Normandy,
where 500 of our closest friends got together and clapped every other minute for a lot of things.
I had never,
I had never experienced people clapping at an AA meeting before.
Because in Berkeley,
we thought that was uncool.
We nodded if something really went well.
And we just didn't explode into this emotionalism.
And I knew they used the same 12 steps and followed the same 12 traditions.
But when I moved down to Southern California,
I thought I was with a bunch of religious fanatics,
applauding and cheering and bursting into tears and,
oh, thank God,
and wearing dark glasses a lot.
I just didn't know,
you know how it was very hard to readjust.
Before I left Berkeley,
I wrote the Cardinal and I said,
I'm coming into LA.
I'll be ordained sometime next year.
I'm sober and Alcoholics Anonymous.
And is there a priest anywhere in the Archdiocese who's sober I could talk to?
And he wrote back and said,
call Terry R.
You know him.
He's a very desperately ill man,
you know.
So I got to LA on a Friday and went to a meeting Friday night,
two on Saturday,
two on Sunday,
and called him Monday morning.
And I said,
no, I didn't know anything about him.
I didn't know what he looked like.
I didn't know what he thought about crucial issues of our day.
I didn't know who he voted for.
I mean,
I knew nothing that was important about him,
except that he was also a priest and he was also in recovery.
And I called him and said,
hi, I'm Tom Weston and I'm just over.
You're sober now and I need a sponsor.
Will you be it?
And he said,
how long have you been in town?
I said,
since Friday,
he said,
been to any meetings?
I said five.
He said,
I'll be your sponsor.
And then we began this dance,
you know,
I mean,
he said,
well,
this is a Monday and he has his favorite meeting is on Monday night in downtown LA called the white flag.
Men's stag dreariest meeting I have ever been to in my life.
Well,
as you know,
a room full of men is pretty dull to start with,
but this was,
you know,
Terry's friends and they all thought,
he was wonderful.
So I showed up there and we started going to this meeting every Monday night and he picked me up.
Now I'm going to the meeting,
but I'm checking Terry out the whole time because I don't know anything about him yet.
So you throw out a topic,
see how he responds.
I watched how he handled other people and he seemed to handle real crazy folk pretty well.
So I thought that was important.
It didn't occur to me that he was doing exactly the same thing with me.
And I was there.
A bit.
And I said,
I need to do a fourth and fifth step.
And he said,
you sure do,
you know,
he's not a pushy person.
He's only forbidden me to do one thing just cold,
you know,
which I don't have to get into here tonight,
but he,
so I started this fourth step and I wrote about resentments and I wrote about fears and I wrote about sexual stuff.
And I wrote about finances pretty much along the book,
which was a surprise to me.
I didn't know that was in the book.
And because I'm so busy,
I just didn't have time to read it.
And I said,
well,
let's set a date and do this fifth step.
And he said,
fine.
And I said,
I hope to be done middle of August.
He said,
I'll be there.
So we got a time and a date and I finished my fifth step and I read it to him.
Now,
the step says we admitted to God to ourselves and to another human being.
It doesn't say your sponsor because some sponsors don't qualify,
as you know.
But I wanted to do it with my sponsor.
And the reason was because I didn't trust anybody.
I mean,
I really didn't trust anybody and I had to learn how to do this.
And again,
I didn't know I was doing this at the time,
but looking back,
it's very clear.
I did a fifth step with them to talk about the exact nature of my wrongs so that he would know who I am.
And it was kind of a real jump in the dark because I didn't know.
Really how he'd feel about some of my better ideas because they had never come up in conversation.
And I did my fear as we were doing the fifth step.
I read it to him.
I admitted to God myself on the floor,
the exact nature of my wrongs and Terry happened to be in the room.
And I went through the list of stuff and on one occasion I had to clarify one item that was a little ambiguous.
So I clarified it and went on and I was done.
No response from him.
He's an introvert and they tend to think to themselves.
I think out loud.
He thinks any rock back and forth for a few moments,
which he does very well.
And then he said,
one thing's real clear.
Now,
I don't like people for whom one thing is real clear.
Because I've always thought they were superior to me.
Because for me,
not very much is clear.
You know,
it's all this part of the cosmic dance and gray to me,
but he clearly had some ideas and he kind of hunched over and which he also does very well.
He said both you and I need this program very much.
And he got up and left the room.
I was thrilled to see him go.
Now,
I did not feel this huge.
Spiritual rush.
All I knew is if I went to a meeting that day,
which he recommended,
he may have.
I don't know.
I was so numb.
He said I'd go to a meeting and I'm not going to drink today.
And you know what?
People said,
what's up?
I'll see.
I just did my fifth step.
Fine.
Get very businesslike.
I was very businesslike about this,
but I did not call him the next day.
And the reason was because I was afraid to see.
I didn't know if I could trust him yet.
Because when I trust somebody,
it means,
I need to be able to tell them whatever's going on,
knowing that a,
they will not run from me.
And B,
they will not run to me.
You know,
it's all here.
Let me fix you.
See,
I practice is a pretty good out on program.
And I was afraid.
I'd call and say,
hi,
this is Tom.
Remember me?
We talked yesterday.
Let's get together.
And he'd say something like,
I don't sponsor psychopaths.
Or does the Archbishop know about this last scam?
You know,
so I didn't call him.
He didn't call me because he's an introvert
and they don't call.
So the next time he wanted to give me space.
He is a Californian.
So I didn't see him at all.
And I stopped going to his Monday night meeting
because it was such a dreary bunch of people.
And besides,
he was there.
And the next time I saw him was by mistake.
Rabbi Magnin was the chief rabbi at the Wilshire,
Boulevard Temple.
And every year he before Passover,
he would have an ecumenical spiritual service running through the Passover ritual
for clergy who were not Jewish.
And I was invited and Terry was invited independently.
And I showed up and he showed up and we were all there celebrating the piece of going
into a celebration of the Feast of Passover,
which is a celebration of the March from slavery to freedom kind of program.
And I looked across the room and there he was.
My.
Sponsor.
So I wandered over to him and I said,
how you doing?
He said,
okay,
how you been?
I said,
when I get together,
he said,
sure,
let's have coffee.
And it was like everything was okay.
Now that at that point,
I was two and a half years on the program.
Ten zillion meetings later,
having done a fourth and fifth step,
met a lot of people.
And it occurred to me that night that I have finally found someone I trusted.
I think I was real fast.
Because I know people on the program who have been around a lot longer,
who haven't found that person yet.
And I'm very grateful for that.
And if I can trust one person,
I can start trusting more than one person and I can start trusting whole rooms full of people.
And I found that my world since my fourth and fifth step has become an awful lot safer for me.
Not immediately,
but I noticed that after I did my fifth step within six months.
Or so I was laughing more frequently.
I was I was measurably happier,
which was kind of a big surprise to me.
I he's still my sponsor.
We still keep in pretty close contact.
And for now,
almost 11 years,
it's it's really a powerful experience for me to have a person who knows me real well.
And who has helped me walk through real craziness.
And I just didn't know how to do it without him.
I think that's one of the real rewards of recovery for me.
What else is true?
The hardest step for me in recovery has not was not four and five four and five were just inconvenient.
I think we make them into the hardest steps.
I think that there is self-fulfilling prophecy.
And I think when we get newcomers and sit them down and say,
now your fourth and fifth step will be an excruciating experience.
It'll take 10 years to do.
They take 10 years to do it and it becomes an excruciating experience.
If we sat them down and said,
listen, it's no big deal.
Get it done tonight and bring it to me tomorrow and we'll get this through.
They do it, you know.
I mean, it's very strange how that works.
The hardest step for me has been step two.
The hardest step for me has been step two.
Which brings up this God business.
I think and this is an opinion, but I am right.
I think that a lot of people go into psychiatry and psychology
because they wonder if they themselves are crazy.
And I think that's true.
And I think a lot of people go into ministry
because they have problems with God.
Now, that's a suspicion of mine,
but I sure have and I bump into folks who find it amazing
that a priest could have problems with God.
I mean, I think most of us do, you know.
Well, it's part of being flesh and blood, I think.
My problems may be different from your problems
and I'm going to talk just about mine.
And my problem with God is this.
I've always believed in a God.
Now, we weren't always speaking.
You know, but I always knew there was a God there.
And what I believed about God was good stuff.
I was taught and I went through Catholic schooling.
I was taught that God was loving, compassionate,
generous and wonderful.
Sometimes I think I'm the only Roman Catholic in North America
that was in that class.
God, I mean, I believe that I believe that God was absolutely wonderful.
But then my alcoholism.
Steps in and changes it just a little.
And I concluded that God was fabulous for you.
But somehow didn't work for me.
See, that's the difference.
Whereas I'm sure that if you jump, there is someone to catch you.
I'm not so sure that if I jump, there is someone to catch me.
This is called arrogance.
There are two kinds of arrogance.
One is the kind that says I'm a lot better than you.
You're garbage.
Therefore, we have nothing in common.
And the rules that apply to you do not apply to me.
And I'm different and alone and isolated in my room.
OK, that's not my kind of arrogance.
My kind of arrogance is kind number two, which says I'm worse than all of you.
And therefore, the rules that apply to you don't apply to me.
And we have nothing in common.
And I'm alone and isolated in my room.
I mean, the results are exactly the same.
But the starting off place is different.
And I knew that if you went to meetings and trusted in work,
steps, God's grace would work wonders in your life.
It just wouldn't happen for me.
Which brings up this question of conscious context.
See, I don't feel God's presence.
That kind of, you know, God is the big pharmacy in the sky.
You know, if you're connected with God, you kind of got a little high.
You buzz all. I just that's not part of my usual.
It's happened once or twice.
You know, I usually after a few social drinks.
But.
One of my experience with God is at consciousness.
One unconscious of God's presence.
I'm aware of it often, but I don't feel it.
But there was a.
One of the stories that makes a tremendous difference to me is it's the old Genesis story of Abraham.
This is Sunday morning. Abraham.
According to the story.
Abraham is 75 years old and pretty well off and pretty well established in this town.
And he has a house and goats and cows and sheep and avocados.
His his wife Sarah is about 70 and they've been together for a long time and they have no kids and they're hanging out.
And one day strangers come in off the desert and it's very clear in the scripture that these strangers somehow are God,
you know, whatever God is, but there.
And they chat and talk.
And Abraham says, you know, let Sarah cook for you like men do.
Go ahead, work.
Then, of course, he said, we fed them, you know, but anyway, she did the work.
Interesting.
And they share back and forth and the strangers say, listen, Abraham, I want you to leave everything, you know.
And everything you're familiar with and your family here leave the town.
I want you to go to a place you've never been to before.
When you get there, they are not going to like you.
In fact, they're going to try to kill you.
They they don't speak your language and it's going to be very hostile and scary for years.
And they do not take Visa card.
And we'd like you to leave this afternoon.
Now, I don't think they said.
And by the way, next year we're going to come back to visit and you're going.
Sarah is going to give you a son by you.
Now, I think Abraham's first thought, although this is not.
Not recorded.
Was I'm going to be 90 years old with a 15 year old in the house.
That was his first thought.
And I don't think that Abraham necessarily took all this as good news.
He went to tell Sarah and he said, we have to leave.
Start packing, please.
I'll be out here.
We're leaving.
We're going to go to this new country.
Never been there before.
I'm likely to kill us and very dangerous.
And by the way, you're going to get pregnant.
And next year we're going to have a little boy.
And Sarah laughed so hard that she had to sit down.
So they named their son, Isaac, which meant she laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Now, see, I relate some to the story because coming into sobriety is a lot like that for me.
I, I'm not one of those people who say, oh, hooray, it's clearly God's will.
Let's go.
I become afraid of leaving the familiar, even though it's awful, but it's mine and going off to this new land.
Now, I know you can do it and God will take care of you, but I don't think God will take care of me.
And sobriety has been just like that.
Leave a world.
You're real familiar with this absolute despair and come into a world where there's hope and life.
And a lot of laughter.
And my first response is it won't happen for me.
Well, try it anyway.
Just jump.
So faith for me is a lot like the I mean, I'm not real willing to go all the time.
I tried to explain this to my sponsor and I have to use small words and repeat myself a lot to get the point across to him.
And he says, oh, yeah, he said, I've always thought that faith is like going into a dark room.
No, you can't see what's there.
But this voice says, hey, come on in.
Trust me.
Trust who?
I'm more than willing to come in.
But can you give me a few guarantees?
And the response is, no, just trust me.
Come on in.
And I can ease into the room when I think of my relationship with God.
I mean, on a real, real good day, I'm resting in the palm of God.
Hand, which is kind of nice, but that's rare.
My usual vision is tug of war over a bottomless pit or Indian wrestling.
You know, me and God and me and every so often I win, you know.
Oh, great. Now what do we do?
Well, wait for the next challenge, you know.
And Nikos Katsanzakis is a Greek writer who wrote Zorba the Greek.
And a few other things.
And in an autobiography of his called Report to Greco,
he writes about when he was a very young boy in his late teens, early 20s.
You can tell how old I am, a very young boy, late teens, early 20s.
And he was filled with fervor and zeal.
He was Greek Orthodox, and he wanted a lot of answers.
And everything in 25 words or less than clarity.
And what does it all mean, after all?
So he went to the holiest place in Greece, Mount Athos.
And he went to the oldest monastery.
And in the oldest place, Mount Athos.
And in the oldest monastery, he went to the oldest monk.
And he sat the oldest monk down and he said, tell me what it all means.
And the old monk said, well, if I had to divide my life in half,
I'd say in the first half I spent it wrestling with the devil.
And Katsanzakis said, what happened?
And the old man said, I won.
And Katsanzakis said, well, what about the second half?
And the old man said, I've been wrestling with God.
And Katsanzakis said, why?
And the old man said, because I hope I'll lose.
That makes tremendous sense to me.
Tremendous sense to me.
And the biggest breakthrough for me was when I could do the second step.
Well, I don't believe in the second step, 100%.
You don't have to, if you believe in it 8%.
Do it.
And I was waiting for it to happen to me.
I'll just wait for the second step to take place.
No.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
I had to say it.
Say out loud and pray out loud that God, I really do believe you're there.
And I really do believe that if I jump, you can catch me.
And I really do believe that even I, as hard and as cold and as shut down as I am,
even I can be restored to sanity.
Even I can get to a place where I can work and I can love and I can play.
And I can lead a human life.
The rules that apply to you apply to me.
That's my statement of faith.
So I had to make a statement of faith in me
before I could make a statement of faith in God.
And then once I could do...
There are times I still am not quite sure of that second step.
It's 50-50.
And I went to a meeting in Berkeley
and I looked around the room and had a spiritual awakening.
And the awakening was that I noticed
that I was not the only person in the room.
Number two, the second thing,
and it maybe happened ten minutes later or ten months later,
I don't know, I'm not good on time,
but it occurred to me that everybody in the room
had a right to be there.
I was in the room.
I had a right to be there too.
And the third spiritual awakening,
either ten minutes or ten months later,
again, I don't know,
was I realized that everybody in the room
has equal access to God.
And that's why we write about we.
That's why we can write about we.
And I was so desperate about a year ago,
I was actually reading the book.
Which is pretty desperate.
You talk to your sponsor's machine and it didn't help.
It's on page 573, appendix 4.
I mean, this is desperate.
You know.
The Lasker Award.
And the Lasker Award says here
that they're really thrilled about AA
because this is a great venture in social pioneering
which forged a new instrument for social action.
A new therapy based on the kinship of common suffering.
The reason I have hope
is because you've been there before me.
I was in a Catholic circus in L.A. last...
A couple months ago.
15,000 Catholics running around in habits and Roman collars
and talking about God a lot.
Can you imagine?
And I was talking to a priest from back east
who was not on the program,
but he's very friendly towards us.
And he says,
Tom, you know, I'm thrilled at the 12-step programs
and I have a great amount of respect for the secret of AA.
Now, can I say...
I should have just nodded my head and said,
oh yeah.
I didn't know what he was talking about.
And my sponsor says,
when you don't know, ask questions,
which gets you embarrassed sometimes.
And I said,
what secret are we talking about?
He says, oh, you know.
He says, the one where you all get together
and admit you're all broken.
But it's just that some of you have been at this longer.
And that's how you give each other hope.
You know, we're all broken.
But some of us have been at this longer
and we know a few things.
As it was explained to me
in Berkeley,
the reason AA works
is because we're not all crazy on the same day.
I want to end with my favorite story
because it's late and, you know,
we've got to get home.
To our moms.
To our moms.
A few years ago,
I took,
this is my favorite story.
I took some classes in Berkeley
from the Orthodox Rabbi of Berkeley
who was no raving liberal, believe me.
He was lots of rules and regulations
and very rich in his own,
a wonderful teacher,
a very spiritual man.
And it was a class in Jewish theology
for people who were born Jewish
but had never done anything about it.
So it was Ruth's time
or people who were converting
and then there was me.
And he knew I was the Catholic priest.
And we talked shop a couple times.
Which was,
I built my ego tremendously.
This was a fine, fine scholar.
And on one occasion,
someone raised their hand and said,
Rabbi, what is a blessing?
What's a blessing, Rabbi?
And I don't know what you know about rabbis,
but rabbis traditionally
do not give direct answers.
Because if you do,
people don't think.
They just say, oh.
But you've got to kind of
get people to think.
So,
whenever possible,
a rabbi will ask,
will answer a question
by asking a question.
Like,
is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?
A good rabbi would say,
whose picture's on the coin?
Caesar's.
Give it to him.
Next.
So there we were in Berkeley
watching this.
And if you can't,
Rabbi,
what is the greatest commandment?
There are ten commandments,
613 laws.
If you pick one,
you're going to make everyone else angry.
You know, which one's the greatest?
And a good rabbi said,
you're a lawyer.
How do you read it?
Well, you're to love the Lord your God
with all your heart and strength
and mind and soul.
And your neighbor is yourself.
As it was explained to me in theology,
the problem with loving our neighbor
as ourselves
is that most of us do.
You know?
And we mix that up with honesty.
It's just self-hatred
and beat up the world.
Anyway, text resumed.
When you can't,
and then the neighbor,
the lawyer says,
well, who's my neighbor?
If you can't answer with a question,
you tell a story.
A man is going on the road to Jericho
and gets beaten up by robbers.
Okay, so that's the style.
So in Berkeley,
that's what happened.
This woman raised her hand
and said,
Rabbi,
what is a blessing?
And the rabbi stopped
and fooled with his beard,
which is why we have beards.
And
he said,
he said,
when God created the world,
God created the world in six days.
And at the end of each day of creation,
God looked at what God had made
and said,
this is good.
This is good.
So God creates the dry land
and says it's good.
And the sun and the moon and the stars
and says it's good.
And fish and goats and avocados
and says they're good.
And on the sixth day,
God creates the human being
and doesn't say anything.
And the rabbi said,
any conclusions?
And someone said,
people are no good.
And the rabbi said,
that's a possible conclusion.
He said,
and that's why it's a bad translation.
He said,
in English,
good means too many things.
You have a good book,
the good book,
a good person,
have a good day,
for a good time,
call good,
you know,
means a lot,
a very strange thing.
He said,
in Hebrew,
and then he looked over at me
and said,
which is what God spoke.
God looked at what God had made
and said,
this is tov,
T-O-V,
tov.
He said,
what does tov mean?
He says,
tov means it's complete.
Tov means it's whole.
Tov means it's entire.
Tov means it's exact.
Exactly the way it's supposed to be.
It can't be any different.
The earth and cows and goats and avocados are tov.
But he said,
people,
people aren't created complete.
People are not created entire.
We're created empty
and with a lot of empty places.
So what are we supposed to do
in the course of a lifetime?
We're supposed to fill in some of the empty places.
We're supposed to become bigger.
We're born male.
We're supposed to become men.
We're born female.
We're supposed to become women.
We're born male, female.
We're supposed to become humans.
And it takes time
and it takes work
and it takes effort
and it just doesn't happen
by you sitting there.
And he said,
as you're going along your journey,
as you're on your path,
as you're trudging the road,
anything that gets behind you
and pushes you forward,
anything that gets,
ahead of you
and drags you into the next scene,
anything that gets down deep inside of you
where it's dark and cold
and brittle and narrow
and kicks and shoves and pushes
until suddenly there is more room,
the rabbi said,
anything that does that
is a blessing.
And he said,
sometimes blessings don't feel very good
and sometimes we don't know
their blessings till years later.
And you look back on a situation
that you knew was going to kill you
and instead it opened up
whole rooms
that you never even knew were there.
When the rabbi said that,
it occurred to me why alcoholism,
which was a curse,
because of you
and 12 steps,
and the higher power
has become for me
a very rich blessing
full of life
and pain
and joy
and grief
and humanity.
And I've learned that from you
and for that I'm grateful.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.