Keep Doing What You You're Doing, Keep Getting What you"re Getting.

I like simple phrases, They are easy to remember. The bonus comes when life proves them to be true. This phrase is still as true today in my life as when I first heard it. Some say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting the results to change. Oh how true that is.
Today is no different from when I first got sober.  I get a daily reprieve based on our spiritual condition. I am further away from my last drink, but just as close to my next drink as I have ever been. This fact remains prominent in the way I conduct myself today. If I continue to behave sober as I did when I was drinking, I will drink again.  This is just the truth. If I keep on doing what I am doing; I will keep getting what I am getting!
 I was 41 when I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a lifetime to perfect my insanity of repetitive behavior expecting the results to be different. At the end I was left hopeless and helpless.
At the meeting room I went to they had the 12 STEPS on the wall behind the speaker,The topic of the discussion was the 4 step. People were speaking of their character defects, I was confused because what they referenced as defects were in fact my character traits. I had no clue. These character defects as the referred to them were the very things that I used though out my life and in fact the things that had kept me alive. They told me that the only thing I had to change was EVERYTHING.
From the very start there were three things that concerned me in How it Works. The first is, "Those who do not recover are people who can not or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves, they are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way."  Second is; "Some of us hold on to our old ideas, and the result is nil until we let go absolutely." And third is; "Half measures avail us nothing." I realized from the very beginning that this was not going to be easy. My hope came from the first line; "Rarely have we seen a person fail that has thoroughly followed our path." I had no where left to go. This had to work or I knew I would Die. There I was and here I am today, my goal, to thoroughly follow this path. To develop a manner of living that demands rigorous honesty, and to abandon myself to this simple program.  The truth is if I keep doing what I have been doing I will keep getting what I am getting, and that has proven to be beyond my wildest dreams. The only thing in life that does not change is change. Keep coming back, it works if you work it.

Don't Drink, Go to Meetings, Make your Bed

I heard that I needed to go to at least 1 meeting a day for 90 days, 90 in 90 they called it.  I did 287 meetings in 90 days.  I had nowhere else to go.  I hated being alone with myself, so if I wasn’t working I was at a meeting.  A typical day went like this: 5:00 a.m. I get up, make coffee, turn on the computer.  I drink my coffee and start doing paperwork, and then things start turning to shit.  I am learning to do my books on line, and I just didn’t get it. By 7:00 a.m. I needed to get to a meeting.  Day Openers was the group, and there were usually 75 to 100 people there every day, 365 days a year. I would go in and whine about my life and struggles.  The people would always tell me “Don’t Drink. Go to meetings and Keep coming back”  Went to breakfast, then to work. I was a basket case.  Went to a noon meeting, back to work. After I was done working I went to the 5:30 p.m., a 7:00, and then stay for the 8:30 meeting. Home and bed by 10.  I remember asking in a meeting, How many meetings a day can I go to before you people think I am a complete looser?

A young woman came up to me afterward and told me that there were like 368 meeting a week in the area where I lived.  She handed me a little booklet she called a  “Where and When”, it lists every meeting in the area, places and times.  Just go to different locations for the meetings, then no one will have to know how big a looser you are. 

Ha, Ha.   That was my first trick I learned in AA. 

I didn’t sleep much that first month, maybe 3 hours a night, and those were some of the longest nights I can remember. I was really needing that 7 a.m. Meeting.  It was full of some real characters. One of my favorites was “Make Your Bed” Bob.  He always had something to say and when he was done he would always say Don’t drink, Go to meetings, and Make your Bed.  After the meeting I asked him why he said that?  He asked me if I made my bed every day?  I told him I didn’t.  “Make your bed and you will know”. He said.  Why don’t you just tell me?  He just smiled and said “Make your Bed”.  The next morning I made my bed, cleaned up the clothes thrown into piles. Moved them out of sight anyway, and went to the meeting.  I made a point to tell Make your bed-Bob what I did. He just smiled.  That night when I got home after the last meeting I went upstairs into my room, it looked great, no clutter, neat.  I noticed a difference in the way I felt inside, and it felt good.  The next morning I did the same thing, I also straightened up the kitchen before I left for my meeting.  If it worked in the bedroom maybe it will do the same with the kitchen.  Bob came up to me and asked about the bed.  I told him how good it felt to walk into my room and it wasn’t a total wreck.  He smiled and said, “Remember Messy Bed, Messy Head”. And then he said: “Jim, you will never be able to think your way to good behavior.  You have to behave your way to good thinking.  Move a muscle, Change a Thought”. I loved that guy.  He had I think 23 years sober then.  He had learned a few tricks about this sober thing over the years.  I got it, I understood.  My mind was racing all the time, I had lived in chaos for so long that now since I wasn’t drinking and adding to the chaos, my mind didn’t know what to do. So I think it would create shit in my head to give itself something to do.  I was so busy dealing with the shit in my head that I never cleaned up around my house. My house was a mirror reflecting my state of mind.  God what a mess.  The action of making my bed, washing clothes, folding them, putting them away. Cleaning the house, began to change my thinking. I liked it.  My life still sucked, I felt lost and confused most of the time, but that feeling of safety that I felt when I was at a meeting never left. I really needed to feel safe.

My first Meeting

There I was, at my first meeting.  Nervous, self conscious, I didn't know what to expect.  We sat down, and almost immediatly I felt something unusual.  I was not sure what it was, but I was positive that I had never felt it before.  I can’t explain it, there was something inside me that felt comfortable there.  Like an adopted bastard son, that never fit anywhere.  I knew I fit there.  The speaker talked about his life, what is was like drinking, what happened to him as a result, and what his life was like after he stopped drinking.  The events he discribed were different than mine, but the felings he expressed were the same.  I understood what he was talking about.  I knew I was home, not my actual home but the one I had always wanted.  A sanctuary, where I knew I was safe, at least for that hour.   

I remember being asked in one of my crises if there was anywhere I could go and be safe.  At the time, because of what I was doing for a living, I was armed wherever I went.   My favorite saying was “Just because I am Paranoid doesn’t mean I’m not being followed”.  That was just the way it was. I was safe because I was always on guard; ready to react to any given situation. Constantly evaluating my surroundings, the people around me.  Planing my escape route should I need it.  I never let my guard down, convinced that the minute I did, I would be attacked.  The stress consumed me.  The question raised an Interesting point. Where could I go and be safe?  My answer was Nowhere!   I wondered what would that feel like?  To be safe?  Able to let my guard down and rest.  Knowing there was someone watching my back. Years later, even after leaving that job, the effects lingered.  Always on guard, knowing that one day, someone from my past could reach out and hurt me or my family.

As you have probibly concluded for yourself that if we are only as sick as our secrets, I was one sick Puppy.

There I was sitting in a room full of strangers, my reaction surprised me, I heard that my Alcoholism was happy with me drunk, but wanted me dead.  Was that the source of my fear?  That sense of impending doom, that followed me everywhere I went?  They read “How it Works” from The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I heard It.  “We deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, and powerful!”   I knew what those words meant. I knew because I had lived them.  “Without help it is too much for us.  There is one who has all power - that one is God.  May you find him now.”  I heard the “God” word and I shut down.  God and I were not on speaking terms, and hadn’t been in a long time.  He had pissed me off years ago and I wanted nothing to do with Him.  

I knew there had to be a catch.  This place was full of religious fanatics!  Although one thing was for sure it wasn’t like any church I had ever gone to.  There was something here that was different.   I wasn’t sure  what it was, but I knew something was very different.   At the close of that meeting everyone stood in a circle, Prayed the Lord’s Prayer, and in unison spoke these words  “Keep coming back, It works if you work it”  I knew I would be back.  I had nowhere else to go!

The Journey Begins

 Here are things that I Know. “ Nothing is over until I say it’s over”.  The “it” I speak of encompasses everything in my life.  The game is not over until I say it’s over.  I cling to people places and things often because I know of no other way. I had a math teacher in the 5th grade that sent me to the office for an offense that I didn’t commit. I hated that guy!  It happened in the 5th grade for god’s sake get over it!  It isn’t over until I say it’s over. 

I Know I am an alcoholic.  I’ve known it all my life.  My Dad, Uncles, Brothers, All alcoholics. We wore it as a badge.  Proud of the fact that we worked hard and Plated hard.  Recovery was for quitters, and losers.  We were Professionals,  My brother imported vitamins from Australia that would cure hangovers.  Oxygen by the bed to clear the head. I had never drank socially, always for the Buzz.  I had narrowed it down to two, Ouzo, and Tequila.  I knew the word alcoholic but had no idea what the word meant.

I Know that I could not stop drinking.  Once I started, I could not stop.  I tried everything.  I was powerless when it came to controlling my drinking.  

I Know that as a result of my drinking, I devastated the lives of my family, and friends. Everyone that was in my life was effected directly or indirectly.

I Know that a time came that alcohol stopped working for me.  I could not get drunk enough to escape what my life had become. 

I Know that as a result I wanted to die.  That was the only logical solution. The only way out. Hopeless, demoralized beyond belief. 

It was after an attempted suicide that I learned some things that I never knew.

I was required to go to se a therapist, who along with other things suggested I stop drinking, and give my weapons to a trusted friend.  I knew that I didn’t have a friend left to give my guns to. So I took them apart, and hid the parts through out my house. That way it would take me awhile to put one together should it become necessary.  The second suggestion was to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had heard of AA but didn’t have a clue what it was. 

One of the men I worked with told me that he went to AA meetings and if I ever wanted to go he would be happy to take me.   I asked him about two weeks later.  The first meeting I went to was at 8:30 P.M. Thursday night April 1994.  That date, that night, that meeting, proved to be the most important event of my life.  I was done drinking convinced that it no longer worked for me.  I needed to learn how to live. And if not I would Die.