March is a difficult month for my family. Years ago we lost three family members to the same disease I have. This wasn't the first time for my family at large, but it certainly was for my sisters and I.
To honor them, I want to finish March with honesty ... and let someone else say what can be found in my heart.
Months ago I met Joe at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. “Hi sweetheart, how ya doing,” is his line. Usually to my sponsor, not to me.
Before tonight I knew this about him:
1. He’s very handsome- in a boyish, charming way.
2. He got sober at 16 because he fell off a bike and scared his mom. He didn’t want to become his Dad, so he joined AA.
3. He recently celebrated 25 years.
… And the real old-timers, men and women with 30, 40 years, always tease him for being a wimp (playfully, of course, and with respect.)
Tonight he sat next to a woman, Doreen, who shared about her husband’s recent death. After a week of not being able to find him, she came home to a voice message: the coroner had called. Her husband had died the night before in a motel 6. She identified his body this morning – when she shared she was shaking, and sobbing, and screaming – she found him in the bathroom, splayed out among bottles, vomit, feces… he had been there for 20 hours before anyone discovered him. He had 4 years of sobriety, and relapsed a week before, because he wanted to “show them.” Resentments are our greatest foe, says the big book, and I believe this to be true.
After she spoke Joe raised his hand. As always he introduced himself: “Joe, alcoholic.” But this time he turned and stared at her. He said,
“Hi Doreen, I’m Joe. I want to tell you something. Last year, eleven months ago, a car hit my fiancée. She had just received twenty years of sobriety. She was rollerblading, on the sidewalk, and a car swerved off the road. It was a freak thing – game over. I’ll never forget that night – I went to the hospital, and she died, dead, she was there, dead. She still had my ring, her ring, the ring that promised forever – on her finger.” He was still staring at Doreen, looking her dead in the eye. “So I walked out of the hospital room – numb and shocked and confused – and there was my sponsee, standing against the wall. I don’t know why I said this, and I have no idea where it came from, but I said, ‘Now you watch me. Now you watch closely. Look at what alcoholics anonymous does. Look at what I do and what I am, and see how alcoholics anonymous works.”
He can’t remember much after that, everything was a blur. But he stayed sober through it - he maintained his grace, his dignity - and kept his head high through what could have been his demise. I know this because every share after him was from people who had been there. People who helped him, and held him, and supported him in every step.
All I could think was: what a privilege this is. What a fucking privilege. To be able to sit here, listening to these people- not only to listen to them but to watch them walk through the pain and the tragedy – so that I, my sponsor, my fellows – we can walk through it later.
And just as these words were going through my head, a young woman shared almost verbatim the same thing.
This is what it’s all about.
