I'll do the best job yet.
And I did. The Friday night programs got more interesting. I found different ways to bring everybody out, get them to speak. I passed around the “Twelve and Twelve,” got people to read in turn. The group hadn't done that before. They thought it was neat. I photocopied sections of the Big Book and the Hazelden guide to get folks into the Fourth and Fifth Steps. People were responding. I felt good, proud even.
Frank kept saying, “Hey, Bruce, be good to yourself!” And I kept trying not to be annoyed. But now there was a slightly sterner tone in Frank's voice. The smile was there, but he was serious.
After I'd been sober in the group for a year, I had moved from coffee maker to chairperson to program chairperson to chairperson of the group. I didn't know that groups had chairpeople. I had been to some that didn't, but mine did and when I found out there was a leadership ladder, I was in my element. Set your goal, son. I did, in AA as out there, and here I was, at the top of this group. And I was secretly memorizing not only all the Steps but chapter five in the Big Book and key passages from the “Twelve and Twelve.” I wondered if anybody had ever been able to recite, in perfect order, the names of the people whose stories were in the Big Book. That would be impressive! I resolved to do it.
Then it began to hit the fan. One Friday night an older woman named Maude couldn't read the photocopied sheet I had handed out because she had left her glasses home, and before I could show my flexibility and initiative by switching to another format or reading it for her, the next guy said, “Why don't we forget this reading stuff and just talk about it?” And before I could smile and accept this, the next guy and the one across the table were shoving their sheets into the middle of the table and growling a little. Shambles. And then John said that the woman who was making the coffee had quit showing up and what was I going to do about it. And a week after that, a small delegation, all old-timers, pulled me aside after the meeting and said (I forget the exact words, because I was so steamed): “Too much is changing. People aren't used to it. Maybe it's time for you to give somebody else a turn.”
Two hours later, Frank found me. Corner table, neighborhood bar. Drinking soda. Thinking. Tired. Thinking. Lonely. Thinking. Angry. I told him, as he settled into the other chair, a little smile on his face, a nonchalant order to the waitress for “what he's having,” that I was totally demoralized.
“What do you think the problem is?”
“I don't know. I was trying my best. I thought I was doing a good job, but Tom and Suzy said—”
He raised his hands. “Whoa. Tell me that part about trying your best.”
“Just that. I tried damned hard to give something to the group, to make it better, if I could.”
“You think that could be the problem?”
“I upset the group by really getting involved?”
“Right now I don't care about the group. I'm looking at you.”
“You see a guy that's about ready to give up.”
Frank took a leisurely drink of his soda and wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked me in the eye and I looked away, down into the glass in front of me. But I was all ears. Frank was talking: “You know what being good to yourself means? In your case, I think it means don't try so hard. Getting sober is not some contest you have to win. You're not being good to yourself by putting yourself into a stressful situation. And AA sure is not the place for stress. It's just the opposite.”
It's been more than twenty years since I left that bar with Frank, and my understanding of AA and what it means to me has grown from that moment. “Easy Does It” is not something that comes naturally to me. But within AA, it has come to make sense. Since that shaky beginning and the talk that night with Frank, I've found my place in the Fellowship. It is not up front, trying to be in charge. I try to contribute when it's my turn; I lead a meeting when asked; if chairs need setting up, I do it for fun and not as Chair Master. Relaxing in the program, in Frank's philosophy, and not trying too hard have become the gift of daily sobriety and a new way of life. Every day, every meeting, there's something more to learn. I am sober. I am being good to myself.
And occasionally I will spot him—the guy who is so uptight, the guy who is beating himself up because he's not perfect, the guy who is trying so damned hard to get it right—and I'll meet him for coffee or talk to him after the meeting. I'm not Frank; I can't say to him, in front of the group, “Be good to yourself!” But I'll tell him my story, and how I came to understand that trying too hard in AA isn't good for me. Sometimes the guy will say that it makes sense to him, too.
Bruce H.
Arlington, Virginia
Honeymoon
January 1975
Anybody who grabs the program and makes it past the end of the physical hassles—the shock when your liver finally realizes it's got a new shot at life and starts functioning normally again, when your digestive system starts to see food again, real food, and not that strange chemical that kept putting it out of whack—anybody who makes it that far enters what many repaired drunks (“recovered” sounds so medical) call the AA honeymoon. It's that wonderful period, lasting from ninety days on up, when life is so damn fine, when everything works so … so right, somehow, that it's hard to believe you're just returning to normal and not becoming some kind of superman.
The honeymoon strikes people differently, depending on individual traits, depth of addiction, withdrawal problems, and the like. Some become ebullient, bubbling with smiles and joy; others walk around in a seemingly permanent state of euphoria or shock; still others can't believe the feeling and seem stunned. (A good friend who caught the stick the program offers told me, “Do you know, really know, what it's like to suddenly be able to tie your shoes with both eyes open?”)
I went insane. Quite starkly mad. Perhaps not clinically (although everybody in the program seems to know all about psychological terms and what they really mean), but if outward actions are any indication, I was ready for the men in white coats and the quiet, screened rooms.
For one thing, I couldn't say no—a clear indication of insanity. At one point, when I'd been dry about six weeks, I had accepted five full-time job offers and was seriously considering the sixth when my wife ran screaming from the house—babbling something about my blank eyes and wide smile—to get my sponsor and save me from myself. I firmly believed I could actually do all five jobs at the same time. Worse, I accepted invitations to four parties—all on the same night. And we made all four, too, though it took my wife nine Al-Anon meetings before she mastered the twitching. She still, though I've been dry over a year now, automatically says no to everything.
On top of my inability to say no, or perhaps coupled with it, was the seemingly automatic compulsion to buy things. Anything. If I wanted it, I'd buy it, completely on impulse. I now own and will probably own forever (unless my wife sneaks things out of the house) a six-foot-high, spine-leafed Dracaena marginata, probably the ugliest plant in the world. The saleslady called it a “decorator's delight.” I've since named it Igor, because I think it might be carnivorous. There are fewer flies in the house since I bought it a year ago, and we haven't seen a turtle I couldn't refuse since the day it got out of its box. To go with the plant, I got an amazing deal on a Great Dane named Caesar (who I know is carnivorous and who sleeps wherever he wants, usually on my bed). In the yard is a genuine 1951 GMC pickup that doesn't run and never will run unless I can find an engine. I bought it anyhow, at a garage sale. “Don't worry, darling,” I remember saying. “Think, just think of how much money I was spending on booze. Besides, we can always use it as a planter if I can't find an engine.” I also have two lamps (genuine 1934 modern chrome), a folding typing table designed by a maniac (it folds all the time), six new coffeepots (no, I don't know why), a stool made from an old milk can and a tractor seat, a case of canned smoked oysters, and an antique sausage-stuffer with—as nearly as I can figure it—eleven parts missing. There is more—you can buy a lot of stuff in three months or so. But the rest is worth mentioning only as (I wince