 Prayer Beads And Recovery Jewelry Made Exclusively For The Twelve Step Community SHOPS {PRAYER BEADS {JEWELRY |
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 BACK 1. Please introduce yourself, first name only and include your sobriety date. Hi, I'm Tom. I took my last drink/drug/chemical/any of that stuff on July 11, 1978 2. Briefly tell us about your last drunk. My last one wasn't very notable, I just a swiped slug or two of whatever was in my dad's liquor cabinet. That was after my second-to-last attempt at cleaning up, which followed my second-to-last drunk, an approximately nine-month bender which cost me my job, my wife, my friends, half of my teeth and left me sleeping under bridges. In Chicago. In mid-winter. That's enough to make a fella yell for help. 3. Describe your first day of recovery. My first day of the current string of days was spent with my tail between my legs and my head in my hands, wondering how in the world I managed to screw up yet again. After all, I'd just come through one of the very best treatment programs/facilities in the world and here I was, two weeks after discharge, flat on my keester again. I didn't deserve another chance, but I was begging for one. I was readmitted that day. My counselor let me have it with both barrels and nobody talked to me for two days after that other than the most basic and necessary communications, just to let me stew. That first day and the two days after were what turned the corner for me. 4. In what part of the country did you get sober? St. Louis, MO 5. How old were you when you stopped drinking? I was 26. I had been drinking and drugging since I was 13, and doing so abusively since I was about 17. However, I was pretty much an "instant alcoholic". Add a few beers to a gawky, very insecure adolsecent kid, and you've got an instant King Kong. I wanted that all the time. 6. What are some of your earliest memories of meetings? I was in the hospital the last time for about two months. When I got out and started going to outside meetings, they were quite different than what I had experienced in Chicago in my earlier attempts at sobering up. Those earlier ones had been kind of a "put the plug in the jug and grit your teeth until you die", kind of mentality. These new meetings were populated by people that were obviously happy. They were productive, had jobs and lives and stuff. Some had been under the bridge drunks, others were more high-bottom, but in any event, they were a durn sight better off than I was. I was happy to be there and scared to death at first. One guy, maybe a few years older than me, with a couple of years under his belt would always greet me with "Don't worry about it." I'd ask him what he meant and he'd just say "Whatever it is you're worried about. Don't worry about it." The biggest impression I got was that a lot of these guys had not only not drinking as a priority, but also learning how to live again. Since then, I've come to regard this (in my own head) as the 4% / 96% split. Only about 4% of the 12 Steps are concerned with alcohol/drugs/what have you. That's the first part of the first step. Once you get that part down, the rest of it has to do with getting the rest of your life back in balance. The other thing I remember vividly was these guys getting their one, two, three year chips. I was pretty sure that they had to be God or something to accomplish that. But I wanted what they had and was willing to go to any length to get it, so I did what they did and got there too. 7. How many meetings did you attend weekly in early recovery? At first I went to three meetings a week. I should add, however, that I was going to an outpatient aftercare program two evenings a week and I was also working at the hospital that had just treated me (twice). I'm pretty sure they just wanted to keep an eye on me since I flopped so miserably the first time through. As an aside, I worked there for about 3 1/2 or 4 years, so I ate, breathed and slept recovery pretty much 24/7. Given what a tough nut I was to crack, I'll always be grateful for that set of circumstances, which surely saved my life. For those of you keeping score, and just for the sake of clarity, I should clarify a timeline at this point. 1977, I was in Chicago, went through some sort of half-baked detox and wound up under bridges, shoplifting to eat and drink, etc.. In the spring of 1978, I yelled for help and was hospitalized in St. Louis in May. I was an inpatient for about 4 weeks and got out and was expected to do just fine. I expected it of myself, too. 2 weeks later I was back on their doorstep, having landed on my nose in a matter of days. This time I got put through the total wringer repeatedly for nearly two months. Going in, even before my counselor let me have it with both barrels, I came to to major turning points. One: I wasn't smart enough to get and stay straight. Two: I finally became willing to go to ANY LENGTH to get it. After that two month wring-out, I was discharged one morning, went home and did a load of laundry and came back to work the second shift at the same place that had just spit me out. 8. Did you join a home~group right away? Yes, because it was populated by the guys I referred to above. They had what I wanted. I went back there recently and that group had become a victim of it's own success, four times the size and 1/4 of the camaraderie, unfortunately. I guess you can't go back sometimes. I'm grateful that that original 20 or so guys were around when I needed them. 9. What were some of the first books about recovery you were introduced to? In earlier hospitalizations, I'd been given the Big Book, but only read it back then when I was either bored or remorseful. Later on, it became essential. Another important one for me was Search For Serenity, since, early on, my mind was squirming like a frog in a skillet. The "12 and 12" was a daily read as was the little One Day At a Time book. That one is still a constant. 10. What was your first commitment? I left the hospital with about a dozen. The first one on the list was to stay clean and dry. The second was to hit the meetings. The rest covered that other 96%. 11. How soon did you begin working with others? Almost immediately. My first job at the hospital was more or less to be a second and third shift orderly. What it really meant most of the time was to have big ears and offer a little advice, which was usually to ask somebody smarter than me or to try to explain how it worked for me. 12. What is your definition of anonymity? I never really defined it, but, having worked at a treatment facility covered by a pile of federal and state laws concerning the subject, my take is that anonymity is absolute unless I hear directly from an individual that divulging anything about them is OK, and to what extent. 13. Did you have any problems believing in a power greater than yourself? If so was there a turning point that helped you come to believe? I was raised Catholic, but I can't say I ever bought into the Catholic religion lock, stock and barrel. But that didn't stop me from believing, at least on an intellectual level, in some sort of Higher Power. But that was just intellectual claptrap that didn't have much to do with my core being. The really hard part for me, was Steps 2 and 3. With regard to Step 2, I could only come to believe when I came to believe that my 'marvelous marbles' (AKA my smarts) weren't going to keep me sober. THEN I had to believe in something greater than and oustide of me. It was believe or die at that point. As for Step 3, well, the things eased that for me were twofold. One was the verbiage "made a decision". OK, I can do that. The second was the bit "as we understand him". OK, that meant I didn't have to buy into the whole Catholic dogma thing and, as far as the program was concerned, I could turn my will and my life over to the chair I was sitting in if I truly believed that it had the power to restore me to sanity. It sounds pretty delusional and paranoid, but I just decided I was going to call my HP "Boss" and go from there. As for actually doing it, the turning over my life and will to the Boss, well, sooner or later you have to take the old "Nestea Plunge" and, being convinced that my half-baked way was no good, and having decided I was willing to go to any length, I had to put up or shut up, so I just gulped and did it. And kept doing it, and still do it today. At first it was the scariest thing I had ever done. These days it's a relief and a great source of comfort. It's not unlike your first public performance that scares you to pieces. Your heart is in your throat, you feel vulnerable and exposed and scared to death you'll screw up, but after a while, you can't get enough of it. 14. If you had one sentence to pass on something you have learned to a newcomer, what would it be? Read the first five or so pages in "How it Works" and keep reading it and keep reading it. There's not a wasted word in it and if you truly digest it and let it get under your skin, you'll do just fine. Beyond that, it's just details. (OK that's several sentences). One sentence? You can't think yourself into acting straight, but you can act yourself into thinking straight. 15. As a sober musician how has your sobriety affected your creativity? There's always a bit of discussion surrounding that, it seems. In my case, I'd say that early on, in my early experiences with a given drug, my creativity was genuinely enhanced and I made some new connections between me, whatever instrument I was playing, and the language of music in general. However as time wore on and the chemicals took their toll, they served more as an impediment. Just as booze, heroin or reds will make you talk like you just came from the dentist, so they will impair your ability to speak the language of music. Other than the novelty of a new experinece opening your brain to new perspectives, once you've done that, it's a dead-end. The flip side is that, even though time and living life seem to have gotten in the way of practice and such these days, an idea is far more easily expressed, and I'm a lot less susceptible to aimless noodling whilst calling it "art". :-) 16. Any "suggestions" for other sober musicians? One musician-specific thing that comes up quite often is the subject of going back to gigging after you sober up. For a lot of us that were playing the bars and clubs, that can be a real trip-up. I'd say don't do it if you don't think you're comfortable. But don't let anybody deter you if you are. For myself, I worked at that treatment center for over three years, was going to meetings and all the rest. For me, playing in the bars had always been just going to work, and I actually consumed less on the stand than I did in the alleys back then. I got a band together with a couple of other guys in recovery and we played the joints pretty regularly. But we'd also play any number of non-alcohol oriented events. One of the guys has passed on (sober) and the other is headed that way soon, sadly. But they were living proof that gigging under almost any circumstance can be done sober, and without being a threat, but only if your foundation is strong enough to begin with. These days, I'd rather not play an alcohol-serving place, just because as I've grown older, I seem to suffer fools a little less gladly, and you sure meet more than your share in places like that. Thanks for letting me spew all of this and, to quote Fr. Joe Martin from one of his terrific "Chalk Talk" flicks, I wish you God's sweet peace when each day is done. Tom |
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