Wait, wait, what was I celebrating?

I celebrated 3 years of continuous sobriety last weekend. My sober date is April 6, but our groups honor all celebrants from the month in its last week. There are those who celebrate in every group every night of the week; that's ok for them, but I can not take that kind of exposure. I prefer a warm-up at Night Owls on Saturday, because it is in the dark and that just rocks. No one can really see me, I share my experience-strength-and-hope and my heart's worth of gratitude and hurry back to my seat. Also, the struggling friend (found below) was there and gifted me with "Candide", and that was a beautiful thing. Really, Night Owls is a stellar part of Saturday, and on celebration, it is all that and a cake with my name on it. Sunday, however, is a very different story.

I have left and returned to the Sunday group more times than any other. It is an intimidating group of who's who in local AA sobriety, with at least a dozen members having 20+ years, and another half-dozen at over 35. All of my closest friends are there. It is also the most publicized, centrally-located open meeting of the week, so new drunks arrive each week and stick close to the back wall. Fortunately, there is a chair for them to sit in. Unfortunately, they don't get the anonymity clause right away, and I've found myself hiding from familiar (albeit swollen and red-faced) faces. I don't shy from admitting I am in recovery if I am in the right setting; a fund-raising function with colleagues and parents of our students is NOT the right setting. So, I guess I am picky about who knows what and when, and that must remain my problem. Those new folks can get me squirmy, but not psychotic. I leave that to the one I call "the red head".

On Sunday, my dearest AA friend and confidante, a man with 41 years, saves me a seat. If I don't sit in it, no one sits in it, even if I don't get to that room for 3 weeks in a row. Now, for 3 years, I have been sitting, on and off but mostly on, in that seat. So can someone please tell me why the fuck the fucking red-head transvestite had to sit in the seat next to the one with my friend's baseball cap on it last Sunday? And when she saw me coming, moved over only ONE seat but stayed where she could turn her head when she does that really fucked up twisty-braidy thing with her hair nonstop to catch a look at me? When last year she was the secretary and fucking took my name off the member list because I said I'd be away for my celebration? When she checks out what I am wearing every time I walk by, so she sat where I had to pass her? And her toes were skanky and I had to say "excuse me" to her so she would pull her nasty jagged toenails under her chair so I could get past? And she checks out my clothes all the time, although she wears the same fucking clothes every week, except last Sunday she wore a cheap see-through too-big dress without a bra and you could see her friggin brownies pointing at you? And then she popped a Lifesaver while my mentor was giving an emotional loving message, and she rolled it around that hole of a mouth against her teeth and chewed with her mouth open? Because her mouth is always fucking open? Seriously, she doesn't shut it. It is open. All the time.

I was told she clapped when I spoke, and that is nice. When she spoke a few months ago I told my mentor how I regretted missing that meeting. There has to be something in her story to which I can identify, some part of her docudrunkary to which I can relate. Any other day, I guess that is who I am and just how I feel; apathy and "live and let live" sharing the same AA umbrella. Tonight, like last Sunday, I am only disgusted with her. (Of course this leads to self-disgustion. Tenth step. Although, if I don't fourth step her soon, I won't have to worry about seeing her, she won't find me in the County Line.) She leaves a bad taste in your mouth like you've licked a frog out of a catfish pond. It takes me a mighty long time to spit her out.

Birds of a Feather

My heart is breaking for a friend, a crazy-ass drunk who's life is spinning away from him. Usually I don't have much sympathy for alcoholics who know how and where to get sober, yet choose to continue to drink dangerously and complain about "not getting the program" as a bigger attention getter. (I guess that's the German part of me, intolerant even while educated. ) I mean, really, why would you sit down, shut up, listen, and do what others tell you when you can swing from chandeliers, fall down stairs, swerve over the yellow line, and bang rails in the men's room of the County Line til 5 am? (Damn, when I think of cursing the birds at 5, because they were waking and I was NOT sleeping...well, that's why I'm here.)

So, my friend. Whom I took to immediately upon meeting him, because I recognized myself on his surface. He is searching religions for spiritual recovery, searching his sexuality for soul recovery, reading voraciously for intellectual recovery, switching up his exercise regime for physical recovery. This is where his spinning begins, increases, and hopes the end is coming pretty damn soon, or he knows he will whirl away to nothing, a no one, no where. He practices yoga while reading Voltaire. He stays up all night making an origami zoo, agonizing over the recipient, either the latina with the fuck-me smile or the young tough with the fuck-you eyes. He stays at home lately because he is tired of getting pulled over/beaten up/thrown out. He burns CDs with elaborate themes, like "If I Was Your Boyfriend", and "Volume Two", mixing Chicago with Zappa and The Hollies. Yes, Chicago. I mean, this kid is pitiful.

And I get it! I get him! The whole show! The search to try anything at all to bring sanity to life, except of course not drink. This guy gets nothing but sympathy from me, maybe because he tries so damn hard. He's not hopeless, he's got plenty of hope! "Life WILL get better, if only_____happens when I find ______ and can go ______ with ______!" His life is, like my life was, as meaningful as a blank Mad Libs page! And I love him. I wanna chuck him on the shoulder, pinch his cheek, "aw-shucks" him into recovery. Not baby him, so much as call him buddy and pal, and say things like "if-I-can-do-it-you-can-do-it". Which is all well and good if his name was Opie Taylor, but it isn't, and really, he is killing himself. And that is one really heartbreaking experience that folks in recovery have in common: We watch other people kill themselves daily. It's part of our collective recovery. I guess that is part of my impatience with so many drinking drunks, that part of me is freaking tired of watching them. Enough already! "If-I-can-do-it-you-can-do-it". It doesn't get boring, it just gets sickening. For me, at least. Except, with my friend, at least for now. My tolerance can turn on a dime. Maybe I will get bored, or sick, or tired of him. That might not be a bad thing--I got sober when I got bored, sick, and tired of myself.