I thought about Tim and Elena today. At a meeting a newcomer was totally baffled by his repeated failures to stay sober, even going to meetings. I met Tim when I was 6 months sober and he was even newer, and Tim was not getting it, In fact he was not staying sober and being a royal pain at the same time.
Tim would stash beer in the bushes outside the church where we held our meetings, he’d call up drunk pleading for a ride to a meeting and not be there when I went to get him. Worse yet, he’d call up drunk for a ride, “This time I’m serious” he’d say, and when I got there he’d end up burning a hole in my car seat or some other equally annoying thing.
Finally after a couple of years of this he disappeared, and no one knew what happened to him, although we all suspected the worst. Then one night I was chairing a meeting and in he came, late as usual. I remember thinking to myself “here we go again.” And at the end of the meeting when we were giving out anniversary chips he got up and took a chip for one year. I about fell out of my seat. After the meeting I went up to him and said “You bastard, you went and got sober without my help!” Tim’s 13 years sober now and that whiny twit has blossomed into a real friend.
As for Elena, well she made Tim seem like an AA poster child. I remember going up to her one night after she’d relapsed yet again and telling her “Elena, you are unclear on the concept here, it’s one anniversary chip not 365 1 day chips!” She failed to see the humor in that. One night she showed up yet again, but this time her porch light was on, and Elena became a loved and valued member of my home group. Four years later she went to a doctor complaining of a sore back and was dead in 6 months.
And probably the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever witnessed in Alcoholics Anonymous happened. Elena, a woman who could not get sober, showed us how to die sober. So I think of Tim and Elena a lot when I see a new person struggling. And if they let me I tell them about my friends Tim and Elena.
Thank you for sharing this, John. It' so true, the miracles happen, for every one of us. How reaffirming it is when even those we are sure are destitute and will never make it thru the doors again, turn up in our lives. Makes one humble. And grateful. Wren
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i found god in myself/and I loved her/i loved her fiercely--Ntozake Shange
When I was last in AA, the longest I ever went sober was about 30 days. Never did actual meetings drunk, though. However, one thing I used to do that REALLY pissed people off was to ring them up (AA members who had given me their number, that is) when I was smashed. Actually, often people were pretty nice about it, but I remember one time that really upset me - and made it very hard for me to go back to meetings. I had become very friendly with this woman who was a few years older than me, and had only been doing AA for about three or four months. She was a lovely, intelligent person, and we got along like a house on fire - often had long coffee evenings at eachother's houses after meeetings, made eachother laugh a lot. I was really privileged when this woman told me that she wanted to go away to the country for the weekend - for a sort of retreat - and that she wanted me to come! I was really flattered that this smart, well-off woman with a great job and everything (at the time I was only 27 and a post-grad student on the bones of my butt, money-wise) would want to share her retreat time with me. And I blew it by getting drunk about a week after she'd invited me and ringing her up. The first time this happened she was nice about it and tried to be supportive. A few more of my drunken calls and she politely retracted her invitiation for me to go on holiday with her. Eventually, after I had called her up drunk at about five am in the morning on a work day, she lost it, got pretty angry and told me she didn't want to talk to me anymore. I was SO upset and humiliated.
My relapses were my own fault, and I'm even if certain things had not happened - eg, my getting '13th stepped' by a man - I would have relapsed anyway. But my 13th stepper was, to be honest, a bit of a bastard. He was sober but (like the story of Tim in first post) he had spent years going to meetings when drunk or out of it, pretending he was straight (he probably didn't fool anyone!). By the time I had met him he had finally 'got it' and had been sober for a whole year. But he messed me up a bit, and perhaps this was becuase he was not entirely with it still, being only a year sober. We were both attracted to eachother as soon as we met: he was ten years older than me, but we had a lot in common as he was a musician and I was (at that time) really into going out to see local rock bands. I'd actually been a big fan of one of his groups when I was only 17! (used to use fake ID to get into clubs to see his band play- and to drink, of course). So it was like I had met one of my teenage idols, slightly. We found ourselves talking and talking a lot, on the phone and in his car (he used to give me ride to meetings): one night, during one of these car conversations, we started kissing. I honestly can't remember who 'started it' as such - probably me, although he evidently was interested, since we went on to have a brief affair. But then (who knows, was it guilt?) I began drinking sporadically again and he cooled off toward me. So in addition to all the relapse problems I was having, I was feeling broken hearted about getting dumped by this guy that I really liked. When the thing with Rob (my 13 step man) fell over altogether, I simply stopped going to meetings. Both him and my ex-woman friend were at my home group and I felt like I couldn't face either of them.
An irritating postscript: years later, my cousin (who has also sporadically been in AA) showed be an article Rob had written in the local AA rag. It was all about his own journey to getting sober, and included the line: 'Over my years in AA, I have met many pretty girls and women....all of them have gone now, but I have stuck around....'
I wonder what the hell that meant?!? Had he been 13-stepping a lot of people? WHY the AA rag would print that particular line is beyond me. There is no doubt that this guy had indeed sobered up, and I am still happy for his sake that he did, because from what he told me he was really at death's door by the time he was 35 - used to live in his mum's garage, and every night before he went to bed he would put a tumbler of wine next to his bed because he needed to force it down of a morning in order to make it to the fridge to start on the beer. He also told me a particularly gross story about having to fish out undigested Valiums out of his own vomit, because they were his last ones and he was so addicted to Valium that he would have had a fit without them...
So again, I'm happy that he got sober, and I really hope he still is sober. What I wonder about though was had he swapped the booze for pathological 13-stepping? Or was I the only one? I guess I'll never know....
Another funny 'dry drunk', as I used to think of him, was this perpetually pissed off guy who gave amazingly funny shares, mainly because he was perpetually pissed off. He was like George out of Seinfeld. He would be sharing and he just had this really hilarious way of phrasing his pissed-off sentiments and people would start laughing (not in a cruel way) and he wouldn't know what they thought was so funny! One time he chucked a major tantrum during a share because, as he said, he was the only person who ever bothered to by nice biscuits to go with the coffee afterwards. 'The rest of you buggers are SO f***ing stingy,' he would say. 'I buy chocolate biscuits when it's my turn and then everyone else rocks up with f***ing Arrowroots or those horrible biscuits that come in tins that you got for Xmas and didn't want to eat! I don't want to see any more f***ing biscuits out of tins getting shoved in my face!' And the rest of the meeting was practically rolling around the floor laughing. (hope the swearing does not offend, this was just the way this guy talked: it was really funny). Another one of this guy's personal mottos was: 'there are two types of people: alcoholics and f**kheads'. I don't agree with that, by the way. But it seemed to make him feel better. He never relapsed (that I know of) despite his perpetual rage and neuroticism.
Anyway, I ramble. Time to go and play with my daughter...
The rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous are filled with the greatest collection of malcontents and social inepts ever gathered together in one place to do God's work. Had I lived a Mother Theresa kind of life maybe I would have gotten angels in white robes, halos, and harps. But that's not how I lived and I was gonna need angels of the scruffy kind. So I got AA.
Live sober, get a sponsor, read the book and work the steps, clean house and help others. That's the ticket to scruffy angeldom. Then some day you'll learn that AA's, in all their magnificent scruffiness, are your people! And you wouldn't trade them for the world.
Thank you for sharing these stories with us. Many of us were classified, as the hopeless Chronic Relapsers, and only know that hope is gone, when we are gone, 6 feet under.
Until that time, there is no such thing as a hopeless drunk. Just my take.
Have a friend who now lives in Idaho, and she has accidentally rented part of her house to a woman that was a chronic relapser. Swearing off, then drinking into a Blackout on a weekly basis, I emailed here non stop, and she did have some meetings, but she was back into drinking, over and over and over.
She no longer lives with my friend, is back in Jail on a Probation Violation (drinking) from a DUI, that she was in jail for for 3 years.
My friend always brings her name up, and begins telling me how she was really "a real bad alcoholic", making a referrence to her putting Vodka in Soda bottles, to cammafloge them, my friend thought that was so "Terrible". I just laughed and said, there was nothing new to that one. HaHa.
My friend Annie, is constantly saying, she will never get the Program, and I repeat, like a broken record, sort of, that no one has the answer to that, chronic relapsers make it every day, that is a fact of life. I made it, but it does not compute in her head.
Do try to avoid these conversations, my friend has never had a drinking problem, she will Never Understand what it is like to have the Disease living in her.
I used to suggest Alanon, when she was pulling her hair out, with this woman's actions, and she said, No, and I accepted that.
Did not mean to get off the subject, here, just wanted to say thank you for these stories of your friends. Heart warmers for sure.
Do try to avoid these conversations, my friend has never had a drinking problem, she will Never Understand what it is like to have the Disease living in her.
Thank you for this statement, Toni...it's totally what I needed to hear tonight!
