Six Notebooks

What did I tell them?

Go to meetings.

Get a sponsor.

Develop a spiritual practice.

Do this or die. Maybe not quite that “do this or die” but I talked about death. I don’t know what else works, but I know what has worked for me. Maybe something else works. I do not know. What I know is what has worked for me. And what works for the other people I know. And I know that when people stop doing these things, they die.

I said, I have buried too many people. I would like to never bury another person.

What I did not say: I know I will. I know I will bury others. What I did not say: Ony some of you will hear. Maybe only one of you. The rest will try softer, gentler ways which will fail. Ways that only seem softer and gentler but are just paths to pain. Paths back to drinking. And every time one does not go to a meeting, every time one does not call their sponsor, every time one fails to meditate/pray, one knows that one is making room for alcoholism. One is conceding ground to the desire to drink.

Cunning, baffling, powerful.

I told them about my friend Bill. With a wife, kids, a business, a nice house and how he walked away from it all. How he died in a bathtub with clothes folded in plastic shelfing cubes. About cleaning out his house. How he came back to one last meeting then went home to drink. He was dead three weeks later.

The sun is coming up. Out my window, the sun rises. The cars on Robert Street are noisy. I have freshly brewed coffee. I have a clean space. At least where I sit. I got a good night’s sleep. Mostly. I have a calmness. From whence this calmness came, I do not know. But this morning, it is here. Just a little calmness.

The hunch or the occasional guess gradually becomes a way of life.

Or something like that.

I could pull out the book. If I knew where the book was. I should keep it here. That book I hate and love. And know that it could not be better. That it could not be worse. That the struggle with it is fruitful. That my struggle with the higher power is useful.

I told them I don’t call it god and I don’t like higher power. Yet, I have a spiritual practice.

I told them I am oppositional. Absolutely and completely. But I have gradually learned to hold my reactions. To not text back. To hold my thoughts when my boss says something that I disagree with. To wait. That it never hurts to wait to respond.

I told them about the night I quit drinking. Sitting in my chair, in the living room, a scotch in my hand, the tv on. Just drinking while my wife and kids slept upstairs. How at 11:30 that night I decided this was my last drink. How at 11:59 pm I poured the rest of that 15yr old Balvenie Single Cask down the drain in the kitchen. How I have not drank since.

I told them how the next day I went to Thanksgiving at my parent’s house. How my sister-in-law was standing in the kitchen with a bottle of wine. She offered me a glass of that wine. I said no. that was the first time I said no to a drink.

For those first days, weeks, for some amount of time, I told them, it was never a day at atime. It was fifteen minutes at a time. Sometimes five minutes at a time. It was just trying to make it without a drink. Then it became a half hour. An hour. It got easier. Until it became a day at a time. That is where it has stayed: One day at a time.

A couple of years ago, I said, I was on a walk with my sponsor. He said, “Paul, you seem like a guy who has really got it. Like you will never drink again.”

I told them I started shaking when he said that. That suddenly it seemed impossible. That “forever” or “the rest of my life’ seemed impossible. That I couldn’t comprehend not drinking that long. That it scared the bejeebers out of me.

“Please,”, I said, “never say that again. I can do one day at a time. But please don’t say I got it and that you think I will never drink again. It makes me shake. Please, lets just stick with one day at a time.”

I set that intention each morning, I told them. Just do not drink today. And each night, I am grateful that I did not drink that day.

Our bodies, I said, heal much faster than our minds. Almost immediately, my body felt better. I wasn’t waking up hungover. Which was a revelation. I did not even really know that the pain I had felt every morning was a hangover. Quitting drinking, that pain stopped quickly. I had energy. I had vigor. The body healed quickly.

But not the mind. The alcohol was but a symptom, as th book says. The mind takes time. But the body feels so good that we start wanting everything. We want a better job, more money, a relationship, a new car, more respect. We want everything because we feel so good in our body. But we aren’t ready. There is work to do. And if we move too fast…

I told them about a friend whose body started feeling better. He tried to get all those things: a new car, more money, a relationship. His mind wasn’t ready. Something went a little wrong and he was back to the drinking, immediately. He got drunk. Totaled his car. Put his head on the railroad tracks. Luckily, he survived. And he’s giving it a go. Again. The not drinking.

I said, it takes time. We have a lot of character defects. The body will heal quickly. The mind will take time.

I told them I know what works for me—go to meetings, get a sponsor, develop a spiritual program.

I told them I don’t believe in God. That I struggle with all the god in the Big Book. That the “We Agnostics” chapter, which I ear in meetings at least three times a year, makes me want to throw things. I told them it’s a struggle for me. But a fruitful struggle. I told them I don’t even like “higher power”. That I stick with other power or Gandalf. That I avoid god in all its guises.

But I meditate every day. That I got to this speaking gig early. That I sat in my car meditating for twenty minutes before I entered the building. I got no time for god, I said, but I do have a spiritual program.