Stay Close!

Happy Sober Holidays!

We’re knee deep in the holidays and my thoughts always take me back to my first sober holiday season.  This time of year was always so emotionally painful during my drinking years.  Spending time with the family that hated me (and I hated right back), always being surrounded with opportunities to drink.   Hearing songs (mainly Elvis’ Blue Christmas) that reminded me of better times.  I was just a sobbing wreck on the inside with a tough outside. 

The bottom line, I passionately hated the holidays. 

Getting sober changed all that. 

It was around mid-November when I was standing at our local facility with a crusty “old timer” .   We were talking briefly about the holidays.  He looked over when an “older timer” came in and said, “this is his first sober Christmas”.  The Older Timer was a guy named Lou that used to fall asleep in meetings wearing an old hat and some of the most striking plaid paints I’d ever seen.  Despite the look, he had to be the most peaceful person I’d ever met.  His 21 years sober seemed like an eternity then.  Old Man Lou looked at me with foreboding eyes and simply said “stay close to the program.”

I was grateful that year that there were lots of copies of Box 459 around me that had the Twelve Tips For Keeping Your Holiday Sober and Joyous (thanks Santa Barbara AA for posting!)  I did what they said, I accumulated lots of telephone numbers and remembered that I might be helping others as much as myself by reaching out.  That is a habit that has stuck with me since then. I attended extra meetings and tried to help out, I went to AA holiday events and most importantly, I burried (only for a month) the Ax I had against organized religion.  Doing everything I could to keep my attention on my recovery did the trick.  I was pleasantly supprised at how much fun I was able to have SOBER!

Despite all the changes in life since then, the Holidays can still be a slippery time.  So whether this is your first sober holiday or your 50th, Stay Close to the Program!

What’s Up with Agent Orange?

The Angry Orange

A few months back, I was sponsoring someone special.  An educated man, this guy was down on his luck and was guided to AA.  We could relate to one another because neither of us was excited about the religiosity commonly found in AA.  We both had scientific backgrounds and both had similar views on the subject of the 2nd Step. 

After a while, my new friend started asking weird questions and forwarding me psychiatric journal articles that mentioned AA.  As his sponsor, it was a bit of a concern.  Sort of like someone going to the car dealer and buying a Chevy then 6 months later going to the library to research the decision. 

As things went, an attitude of hostility and defiance followed the research and eventually my friend disappeared. 

In reading the Orange Papers I’m reminded of my pal. 

The Orange Papers is an online book with the apparent aim of discrediting AA in any means possible.  In its pages, AA is referred to as a cult and that the “AA Treatment” is statistically worse than  having no treatment at all.    There are critical stories of one of the co-founders (probably both in there somewhere) and some works propagating discension on how our financial affairs have been handled.  All and all, its quite an enterprise.

The author of the entire site gives his credentials, saying “ I have at least attended lots of A.A. meetings, and have been through the 12-Step “treatment” mill.”   Obviously he has quite an ax grind with AA.

In thinking about my friend and the Orange Papers, I get grateful and sad.

I’m grateful because I was blessed, when I reached the same place inside AA where I was questioning things and really angry…I got involved in General Service.  I can TOTALLY see myself getting frustrated with the cliche’s, the strange suggestions and everything else that our collective seems to pick up.   At that point in my sobriety (3 year mark), I festered on the outskirts of AA for about a year, then slowly started to get active.  Eventually I did a complete 180 and got to be immersed in General Service.  Serving my group and the general public as an AA member put me in some interesting places.  It deepened my understanding of AA and of how fortunate I am to be sober today.  Just going to meetings turned out to not be enough for me, as I expect may have been the case for ”Agent Orange.”

I was sad because in reading what dissenter’s have to say about AA, I know that there are some truths to their arguements.   As a whole, we can not control the 2 million plus ‘knuckle-heads’ that call themselves members.  There will be some members that think its okay (for them) to do things that are completely opposite of AA principles.   As a loosely organized, totally voluntary, non-hierarchal group, we will always be an easy target for someone wanting to exploit some problem within our ranks.  It’s just sad that there are people so hyped up and eager to slander a fellowship that has so much goodness and self-sacrifice put into its mission of helping alcoholics stay sober.

One thing I can say about the Orange Papers, they certainly devote a tremendous amount of time to their work.  I don’t have that much time to devote to arguing each false claim they make.

What I can say is that getting involved in General Service, going to Regional Forums and meeting the trustees and workers at our General Service Office, that AA is open to everyone; even Agent Orange.  My first Regional Forum, there was a few people that had a beef with some decision made at GSO and they came with the express purpose of making it known to EVERYONE that they had a problem.  These people were given every opportunity to express their concerns and were treated with dignity.  The decision they disliked was explained  patiently and while they may have still not agreed, they were at the very least INFORMED.   Thanks to the 12 Concepts and 12 Traditions, our fellowship can make it through our times of trouble.  In studying AA history and my own experiences, the leaders in AA do make mistakes.  ”We are NOT saints!”  Orange Guy seems to like to criticize Bill W.   I think we’d be worse off if our leaders were perfect.  Who in AA would follow some goody goody?

In my journey in AA, I learned so much about our fellowship and its founders.  I learned about the dissention between members and the troubles we had in our early days. Many of these things Orange covers.  Given our beginnings its a wonder that we didn’t have more problems than we did!

The AA Principles allow us to recover and learn from our problems.  The real benefit lies in being able to help others and help our fellowship grow instead of resorting to vengance and hostility. 

Message to Orange:   Drop the AX!