Upon the qualification I did focus, That some amends could never be made, Trusting the ink of my list could vanish, hocus pocus Leaving the atonement owed, a debt never paid.
Sure I had meant it when I said I was willing to go to any lengths – almost. But what “rule,” oops what “suggestion,” had no exception? All else I had done, to make “A List of All” harmed I was willing – almost. But this person was different, the harm had been enhanced by their deception.
Betwixt I was, as upon “any lengths” no limits had been placed. Sainthood had not been required, just a willingness to progress the aim. Ever more attention did A List of All command, as around it I paced, The hell of a relapse, of death, the price to indulge my lethal bane.
When at last I saw my uniqueness as fantasy, my solution to surrender. Could “That” name be finally scribed and that step serenity render.
Growing up I had three sisters. My dad was a fireman, home away from work 48 hours but then gone at work for 24 hours, making every third day one with me being the only male in the house. Brotherly love was not a concept I grew up learning or knew. In the Fourth Grade, I was allowed to visit a classmate’s house alone, he and I hung out and interacted with his older brother. While that brother had been nice enough to me on the school playground, in the privacy of the family home, this brother was a terror to his sibling and, by extension, to me. That became my understanding of Brotherly Love. Years later when my parents “surprise” child was born, a beautiful baby boy, I left for college just when that boy was getting old enough to be interesting. He learned brotherly from me while trying to play a small joke on a Sunday morning by splashing water in the face of his hung over, passed out, older brother. I lashed out of my stupor and smashed the small but sturdy container [ironically – a shot glass I had stolen the night before] back at him. The glass survived unscathed. My ten year old brother had to visit the dentist the next morning to have his front tooth which I had chipped in my anger, capped. This was my practice of Brotherly Love.
But many things changed as I, so very long after that Sunday morning debacle, ceased drinking one day at a time. Our literature chronicles how these changes played out amongst its authors. Those now following their path are promised many things, some of which might even be considered extravagant, but even as to these I like most just reply in earnest “We Think Not.” My experience, and that of others too I think, is that the “juice comes with the squeeze” but we must be “painstaking” in the process. For if we are painstaking, we do find a whole new attitude and outlook upon life has taken us over and that we have lost interest in selfish things and have gained interest in our fellows. This is Brotherly Love as I now have come to know it, understand it and, buoyed by the training wheels of Progress, not Perfection, work daily to live it.
I have often been its unexpected recipient. This has happened too often to be a coincidence. Such as when attending a new meeting and, after overcoming the obstacles of finding the meeting room at the proper time, I walk in, see the literature set out, empty chairs available and think, “Ah, I’m home.” Whether in a foreign City or State for business or pleasure, the experience has seemed universal to me. I have heard many others say, almost to the word, this was their experience too. In my case, some of the men I interacted with at those meetings are still on my Speed Dial. This is but a facet of the aura of Brotherly Love that has been showered upon me by our program. Then COVID-19 hit and things changed again, just not like anyone ever quite expected, but by some was anticipated nevertheless.
For our literature tells us how the spiritual principle underlying Step Three had its “first major test” in WWII.1 Though not on a Salerno beachhead, anyone who has the disease from which I suffer I believe has been landed upon the Beachhead of Loneliness in the COVID-19 war and may, like me, be struggling to stay alive on it. I have found in that battle, my tool of Brotherly Love works as both a Sword and a Shield. Lucky enough to be able to Zoom to meetings, I have cut through my loneliness and that of others, by reaching out to be a virtual sponsor to those in need of one. While quite different from my experience in the most obvious ways, the power of service revealed in the effort has staved off more than one assault upon me on Lonely Beach where I fight my battle with my disease. At the same time recently, my brothers abroad, and in of all places New Zealand [home of my real passion, rugby, and the Greatest Side in the world], have been my shield against my disease and helped me survive numerous assaults. My favorite Zoom group, meeting daily [tomorrow], bright and early there, produces the same blunt honesty that so attracts me to my 7:00 a.m. meetings in the States, whether my Home Group or a venue I am just visiting. With virtual open arms they have welcomed this yank, and others too, sharing their experience, strength and hope with us visiting and hearing ours. They have exuded Brotherly Love through the two dimensions of Zoom but in that process have kept me living in the Fourth Dimension into which sobriety has so marvellously rocketed me. For their Brotherly Love and that of others in this Program I am and will be forever grateful.
Vapors off the ice Wafted in the glint Of a morning sun Peeking midst the boughs Of trees standing watch Over the solitary pond.
To the wandering eye Disclosing no clue as To the thickness of the ice Or the depth of the water below Revealing only it was Cold enough to freeze.
Which should be enough To warn the skater About whether or not The venue selected for today’s binge Was a wise one or simply a mistake, Thinking this time would be different . . .
From the last time Where ice a body’s weight Did not support. Where freezing cold water Greeted double axel’s landing; Where Thin Ice was.
Insanity only would Cajole the eye to wander to Again, where before had Been disaster, almost death. The blindness of denial A powerful amnesia.
Skater still those bright blades Sharpened and at laces firmly tugged Round leather tongues upon tibia pressed Preparing for today’s foray Upon a pond, into a life, Upon Thin Ice, which lay ahead.
T’was then a thought hit, As shivering as the warming Snow which upon the skater fell From overloaded limb above Finally coaxed by sun’s rays: “Not this time – Not this Day!”
This thought “dropped” quickly From skater’s head to heart Knots, though firm, untied with ease. Wooden runners upon sharpened blades Were likewise now with ease replaced. Snow boots soon shod the skater’s feet.
The Thin Ice a challenge To be faced perchance another day, Just not to be faced: Today. This day would be different. This day the skater had awakened. This day the skater could say “No”.
My group of drunks are wild Becoming emotionally sober Women bravely going mild Together is easier than apart Grateful to you for saving me
You are my H.P. personified Recovery evident in your shares Carefully crafted yet honest Minding personal boundaries Conveying unconditional love
I see you every morning at 9 Most of us are out of bed Few hangovers from old wine Happiness and joy always read Recovery and appreciation said
I live my life with you in mind Know a relapse hurts your heart I have been a heartbreaker too Remind myself I’ll see you soon I can survive hard sober days
I had learned that if I was to stay sober, something had to change. That the key to that change was my own, personal willingness to go to any length, to want this like my life depended upon it – because it did. I was promised a “new freedom and new happiness,” a serenity, would be experienced in my journey to a “spiritual awakening” which itself would be a result of working the steps. But I had to work these Steps, not just talk about working them, nor rest on my laurels contemplating my success.
So it was that, when confronted with life on life’s terms, my sponsor recommended I bring the Steps to bear upon the problems which had surfaced, real life problems, issues of home and heart. For my disease was baffling, it was convincing me I did not deserve to be besieged by such calamities as those I faced, I had stopped drinking after all, I could expect better. My disease was cunning, it told me that others were really at fault, their actions brought about my problems, I was certainly justified in seeing how they were not upholding their end of the bargain. My disease was also poignantly powerful, it reminded me that I had been without for so long, this time would be different. It cooed warmly that if for some silly reason just “the one” caused any problem at all, I would certainly know what to do. After all it purred “You’re a double digit AAer, you can handle a problem if one ever came up.” The committee between my ears which comprised my disease was patiently weaving its cords of resentment, it was working overtime on its net to snare me.
Yet my sponsor had been right – no surprise to you I am sure, but a welcome revelation to me in the state to which I had gone. For as I had penned my resentments and taken the inventories of those with whom I had been peeved, I began to see the other side of the street – my side. As I admitted these observations to another alcoholic, he helped me see with greater clarity and precision my shortcomings. If he asked me once, at least a half-dozen times he inquired: Where is your Higher Power in all of this? For the common thread in all was FEAR and I was not seeking to explore this false evidence through any attempt at “conscious contact,” I was just accepting it as real because that was the way it appeared.
Such was my mental deportment, when following these three admissions, I removed my Big Book from the shelf. In that moment, the eyes of awakening became wide open as they had never been in me before. Indeed, I was now entirely ready, but to do what? What was my next step?
I had needed help, I had sought it out, my sponsor and another drunk like me had extended their hands and help in guidance and assistance, I had acknowledged my part and was entirely ready to be rid of it, I knew this would aid me to confront life’s pressing circumstances sober – What was left to do? Then I heard the echo from earlier – Where is your Higher Power in all of this?
All about “me” it had been, that had been my focus. In that moment it seemed to dawn upon me, whether finally or in the rush of a brilliant new sunrise, that I needed to ask Him for help too. In that same tenor and tone in which I scribe these words to those who read them, in just these same real terms, I needed to ask Him for help. More importantly, I needed to know and believe that He heard my request. In that moment, for the first time I could recall, I did know and I did believe my Higher Power heard my request for help. In that moment waves of freedom and happiness and serenity washed upon me. As that flood overcame me, I knew all would be well. I understood as I asked for my shortcomings to be removed, that though things might not turn out as I wanted, they would be well none the less.
The intensity of the moment had come from nowhere, I had just taken the book from the shelf as instructed and reviewed what had led to that action. It seems that by acknowledging my lack of faith, the root of my fear, the shortcoming which had caused me to request help in the first place, I had become open to perceive the gift I had already been given, one wrapped in the certainty that all would be well.
I was no silly sort, amazed by slight of hand Or puff of smoke, nor distracted by marching band. Hard facts alone engaged or engendered trust. They never let me down, rock solid, ‘ner once a bust.
As sophist sounded the brutal choice before me: Put down the jug they said, if you hope to be free. The folly of this logic was all I cared to admit, For drink caused not the problems, those succumbed to wit.
Drink was just this “good man’s fancy,” on this I did rely. A fancy filled with fraud, that life’s truths it did belie. How long I would indulge the lie, a life or death question, That denial would not let me pose, so deep my self-deception.
When even my time in jail, seemed not to be insanity’s brink, Only then did I begin to see, I was destroying my life with drink. If by the numbers this deadly game I would still presume to play, Lost in the bottle I would be and with my life I would surely pay.
Somehow, someway, for reasons I know not, this doom I avoided Whether luck, fate or chance I cannot say, why with life I was rewarded. The karma of this result I pondered not and simply let gratitude bloom, Still I sensed some higher purpose that upon my life’s horizon did loom.
Though the trudging had at times been hard, always it was measured. The gifts it had bestowed already, were beyond worth and treasured. But into the pool I had to dive, wet toes alone were not enough, The change ahead and what it promised, demanded other stuff.
As if the tule fog had vanished, with help I saw It Just Made Sense. To walk this way of life I had been given, with neither guile nor pretense. To give the good and bad to my powerful Ally at last I said “Why not!” And begin thereby to live a life with meaning, no longer just a hopeless sot.
My group of drunks are wild Becoming emotionally sober Women bravely going mild Together is easier than apart Grateful to you for saving me
You are my H.P. personified Recovery evident in your shares Carefully crafted yet honest Minding personal boundaries Conveying unconditional love
I see you every morning at 9 Most of us are out of bed Few hangovers from old wine Happiness and joy always read Recovery and appreciation said
I live my life with you in mind Know a relapse hurts your heart I have been a heartbreaker too Remind myself I’ll see you soon I can survive hard sober days
