The last Fri. of the month is always “chip day” in the group I go to. This past Fri. was no different, except for one person. A man whom I “sponsored”. He got his ninety day chip. Like the rest of the celebrants, he talked about his gratitude and what AA had done for him so far. It was a good meeting to listen to. A definite boost to the day.
After the meeting we were all outside and talking and this ninety day wonder walked up and talked to all of us. Things couldn’t be better.
That night I got a tearful phone call from his girlfriend. It seemed that this man had left a suicide note with his soon to be ex and the children. She was panic stricken and had just come in from driving all over the county looking for him. I got her calmed down to where she could talk and shared my experience with potential and real suicides. We decided his was for show. Then I encouraged her to go to a meeting and talk to some of the women there.
Later that night she called again and informed me he was drunk and the police were taking him up to the hospital for a psych evaluation. She said he had called her and was cursing her out for everything. I told her it was the drink talking and to pray and go to bed.
There are two things here that seem significant to me. One was his never ever having called me in those three months. The other was his rigidity. He was obviously aware of how he appeared to others. Everything was pleasant on ok. Everytime I saw him at a meeting I would suggest a step, particularly the fourth and he would say he was going to get on it.
I was no stranger to these symptoms. My sponsor pointed them out to me early on. He said an oak tree was rigid and appeared strong, but in a windstorm the oak was so rigid that the wind could break it and blow it over, while the trees around it, which were more flexible, would simply bend and then come back to upright after the storm. And, he could always get me to talk about what was going on.
Sandy B. said one time that he wasn’t a saint. He said that he just wanted to look like one so that we all would think that he was. How fragile our egos are. We are told that this is a program of ego deflation in depth. I can’t tell you how many times my sponsor and others punctured my baloon and let the hot air out. The seventh step in the 12&12 talks about our having to go through humiliation, in order to learn humility, until we begin to learn from our mistakes and begin to seek humility for its own sake. If we don’t, a big wind might come along and blow us right into a barroom.
Fear is the culprit here. Fear that lights off the awful pride we suffer from. And, like a string of Chinese firecrackers, all our other character defects follow. We’ve all had the experience of our own fifth step and those of others. We know how humbling that step is. But it’s only the beginning. Yet it acts like a safety valve and lets all the steam out. It’s a process that has saved most of our lives. I wish our friend had gone on and taken that step.
On the other hand, it may be that he had not taken that last drink yet. Most of us have had to go to the edge of the abyss, only to drag ourselves to our real “first” meeting and admit defeat. Yet another example for me to see the perils of witholding and putting on a facade. Even after years of living this sober life, we can all fall into this kind of trap. We’re still not cured.
I remember someone telling me a long time ago about the “alcoholic box”. The person who told me this, told me that, without resources, the alcoholic reaches a place where he’s boxed in. He believes that there are only three choices: to go crazy, to commit suicide, or to drink again. He said when a person reaches this place, the sanest thing to do is to drink. This I believe is the place where we can talk to someone and they will respond with, “that makes sense to me”. Then they drink anyway, because they’re in a place of insanity. A place where only God can reach them…if only they could hear. Like the line in the BB, which begins, there may come a time in the life of an alcoholic, where he will have no mental defense against the first drink.
It happens.