Rubber Meets The Road

The intent behind Singleness of Purpose is to prevent AA from being all things to all people. The idea was not germinated in the “Rubber Capital of the World” Akron, Ohio – but that is where the idea took off to the wholesale level.

The reason Roland Hazard (New England) was able to help Ebby Thacher (New York State) who was able to help Bill Wilson (New York City) who was able to help Bill Dodsen (Akron) who was able to help Clarence Snyder (Cleveland) and on and on – (You, me and the world) was because they – we - were ALL alcoholic.

They could have been a whole lot of other things too – over-eaters, coin collectors, drug addicts, douche bags, fly fishermen, introverts or transvestites – it did not matter what else they were as long as they had that one common condition of mind and body – alcoholism. (AA’s description – not Dr. Drew’s)

The breakdown that occurs in the fellowship happens right at the level of sponsorship which is Primary Purpose. It does not happen in monthly business meetings. It does not happen when someone doesn’t go to enough meetings. It does not even happen when someone fails to mention “doing the steps” from the podium.

It happens at eye-ball-to-eyeball level, right in the main trench of our own battlefield. On the firing line. When one alcoholic fails to talk to another alcoholic about the spiritual solution to alcoholism.

A look at this in our history testifies one hundred percent with my own experience today. I have NEVER been able to Twelve Step a non-alcoholic – call him addict, call him whatever you wish – if he isn’t an alcoholic, he just will not click at the deep level necessary to allow the deep inner and intimate trust necessary for the prospect to make the corresponding inner and deep commitment to so drastically change the way he lives.

He may get on knees and take Step Three – He may buy a notebook and start writing his fourth step – he may even do a fifth step – Hell, he might make some amends too! But he’ll skimp somewhere.

He’ll balk at some place in this process. His fourth step will be incomplete or he will hold back something vital in his fifth step or he’ll leave an amends unfinished. He may not sponsor others – putting it off for months or years. (Which has benefit because he will not have recovered either) Even more devastating – he could tart talking to newcomers as if it were OK to do it “his way”. The outcome will not be good.

All the while – if he were directed into the RIGHT Fellowship he might find himself recovered, useful and back with hi s Creator.

The turning of his life and will over to God is so major a decision that unless he knows that I have walked in his shoes, in his footprints – then the level of trust necessary will breakdown – especially once the pain of the last the debacle diminishes. The link that occurs by simply being, “two fucked up guys – with DUIs” is just not strong enough. IOh yeah, it is strong enough to hold together a “not drinkin’ today” social gathering of ‘happy joyous and free’ meeting goers - who share “experience, strength and hope” a few dirty jokes and a cup of coffee – but that is where it ends.

Changing “alcoholic” to “alcohol addict” or lumping everyone into “addictive personality” or whatever other word play that has become popularly espoused by outside interests – not AA – is irrelevant to the truth about alcoholism.

The folks who do this have money on the line and that is their truth that they wont’ admit to. I am talking about the ‘addictions” treatment industry.

The truth is that I am not a drug addict and therefore am not credible enough to a drug addict to be able to gain his extreme trust. At some point that addict tells me something about himself – maybe it’s how he sucked some guys dick for a vial of rock or how he bought some unidentified white powered from some unidentified person and cooked it and pulled blood out of his arm and mixed it up and shot it back in – and then looks me in the eye and thinks to himself, “Holy shit! This guy doesn’t know what I am talking about” or maybe even “God, I have no idea what he means when he talks of alcohol that way” and then he is dead — because the disconnect is right there and then.

He then says, “Well maybe that Danny is being a little drastic here – after all he doesn’t understand me – so maybe I CAN wait awhile on some of these amends.” Or maybe, “I can NOT sponsor anyone just yet until I have at last a year.” Or maybe, “I don’t have to finish my 4th step by next week. He’s a little drastic”.

DEAD DEAD DEAD! He is back out looking to score. Back into a detox. Back into a sober home and to meetings again and then back out on the street, saying “I must be a real piece of shit because those people in that detox and in that transitional services facility must be right – I DID NOT WANT IT BADLY ENOUGH!”

Wanting sobriety badly is NOT a sufficient reason for a real alcoholic or a drug addict to stop. It never has been.

I have killed drug addicts myself – arrogantly imagining that I had been given the power to help drug addicts. Where are they today? They are skeletons in the dirt. Their families and loved ones have lived without them now for years. Those families have no idea how they died except that they died of drug overdoses. They have no idea how intimate their loved ones had been with me and how much some guy named Danny knows about why they have lost their beloved. They have no idea of what I know about the exact reason they are now gone. And I cannot tell them. It is too late.

I have also helped alcoholics because I have been given the power to help them. I stick where both history and my personal experience tells me I should be – with other alcoholics!

This can all be hard to digest when so much information that is contrary to AAs Singleness of Purpose has run so rampant – perhaps in the circles in which you travel – nay . . PROBABLY in the circles in which you travel.

I have had many men undergo drastic spiritual awakenings and experiences right before my eyes and I have others fall apart and die before my eyes. I have these experiences to support what is told time after time, story after story, inside of the Big Book and outside of it, and I guarantee you that Singleness of Purpose – one alcoholic talking to another – is the only way this Twelve Step stuff works for alcoholics.

I don’t care how many people say they’ve “done the steps” via a sponsor with another “addiction”. Lots of people say that they have “taken the steps” and I say “So what.” Lots of people can hold a knife and fork too. That doesn’t always mean that they have eaten lunch.

Working with other alcoholics out in those trenches. THAT is where the battlefield is. That is where the rubber meets the road and that is where the hearts and minds combine. That is where lives are either lost or saved. That is the WHOLE DEAL right then – right there when that absolutely dejected and miserable man lost in his cups hears another man who has walked in his shoes tell him what he has been longing to hear – words of truth pouring out of the heart of someone who really understands the problem – the same exact problem – and who has found the solution. The same exact solution.

Loads of AA meetings, sharing problems, sober picnics, reading about spirituality and camaraderie with others don’t mean SHIT if that battle is not first fought in that trench!

Peace,

Danny S

Addicts Are Cousins – Not Brothers

Once people like you and me and others who actually recover from this thing experience it actually happening to us and then watch as it also works with others to whom WE in turn pass it on, the light bulb goes off and we can see clearly why it works. We can also gain insight into why others methods or half measures fail.

A man asked me to sponsor him a while back, last summer I think, maybe longer. We got together and he told me he was a heroin addict. I said fine, and continued to probe him about his history.

Nice enough guy. Lots of suffering. Truly in need.

But it came out that he really was not an alcoholic, but a drug addict. He was going to AA meetings because he was told that a drug is a drug us a drug, and that AA had a better track record than other Fellowships.

I had to turn him down.

I was looking for another person to sponsor, so it would have been easy to grab him for MY sake, but I swatted my ego away like a buzzing skeeter, and said I would not be a good sponsor for him.

He was disappointed; because he said I was the first person, he met since rehab who seemed to walk the talk and who really understood the Program. He had heard me speaking around and someone actually suggested to him that he find me for sponsorship. (I do not mind being “stalked” under such conditions) He said that he liked my “zeal”. LOL. (My wife jokes about my so-called “zeal” and tells other AAs that her curse is living with a sober cartoon character, whatever that means) He looked so disappointed. He did not understand when I said, “I might kill you.”

What I said to him came totally off the cuff, and it was the first time I had ever said it in these words, but I try to remember those words because I think they were put into my mouth at the right time, not so much for him to hear but maybe for me to hear.

I said, “Joe we may get along just fine. We could become great friends and maybe learn a lot from each other — but at some point we are going to be sitting down at a table from one another, and I am going to be talking, and you are going to look at me, listen to me talk about my experience with booze and say to yourself ” Holy Shit – this guy has absolutely no idea of what I am talking about” . You will be right – and you will be dead, Joe.”

He did not get it then. I hope to God he got it finally.

There is no way that every human nook and every human cranny of a human being can be filled with the amount of unbreakable confidence and incredible trust that needs be placed, consciously and unconsciously, in another person, than what is required for that person to take the drastic and necessary steps it takes to recover from what ails him, if there is the slightest doubt that THIS man has walked one hundred percent in his shoes and has walked the same exact road as he.

Experience with working with others teaches this. Not Big Book theory and round robins at 12 & 12 meetings. Not rehab counselors. Not old-timers. Not hearing things at lots of meetings.

I have harmed my fair share of drug addicts with my own ignorance on this matter – been to their funerals – hugged their wives – cried with their mothers and kissed the foreheads of their little kids. But no more. I have done it too many times only being in this business eight years.
What I have just conveyed above comes from experience, which is only gained through action. Not through reading or listening.

Not by worshipping this Program, not be thumping these pages, not by becoming a Big Book attorney.

Only experience.

Peace,

Danny S