Twelve Step "Calls" Work

With the email I get it seems that many people aren’t familiar with how a Twelve Step “Call” works – so maybe I can clear up misunderstanding for the uninitiated. Do not follow THIS as the directions! I am just generalizing here and this is MY understanding of what the Big Book directions say and call for. Clear? Good.

There are two approaches each with very specific tasks to perform and results hoped for. I cover it all when I do Twelve Step workshops but for now I will generalize and not get into the minutia of it, but you can easily reference the Big Book for the details – what to say, when to say it, what not to say, what to do – it is very clear and precise.

And it’s interesting too, especially if you are not familiar with the process – (And effective!) Your mind would boggle if you saw what I see doing this work in the field. It warms the heart and soul and so encourages one to continue with the work. It is immensely satisfying work.

To see families reconcile – lives and health restored and then to watch as these folks then carry it on to other sufferers with the exact same results is sometimes astonishing! To see men who upon meeting are lying in a fetal position for days and sometimes weeks at a time, in their own vomit and diarrhea, near death – eschewed by hospitals, failures of ten or twenty treatment center residencies – and just a few weeks later are up, holding a job and reuniting with children, parents and spouses, well frankly it is just too much for words. Even for someone as verbose as I.

First it’s helpful to know why we do this work and why it is so effective when “run” properly:

“Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember they are very ill.” (89:0)

So let’s take Bill Dodsen as an example – the well known “Man in the bed”. Bill and Bob go after him. Once again in noticing the method used in the twelve step work Bill and Bob were performing:

“The man in the bed was told of the acute poisoning from which he suffered, how it deteriorates the body of an alcoholic and warps his mind. There was much talk about the mental state preceding the first drink.” (157:5)

Deterioration of the body? What were they talking about? Liver cirrhosis – Wet brain – Pancreatitis - Hangovers? Not likely.

They explained to him the progressive sensitivity to alcohol and how if any alcohol whatever enters his body the phenomenon of craving would kick in.

Here we hear much confusion, even amongst our own members. Alcoholics don’t CRAVE alcohol until the first drink has been swallowed. (Or alcohol has somehow entered the body through alcoholically contaminated foods, mouthwash, medications, ect)

We alkies don’t sit at home or in our offices “Jones’n” for a drink when there isn’t any already in our bodies.

So if we cannot have any alcohol in our bodies without experiencing a craving for MORE, and we don’t CRAVE more until the first alcohol is introduced, then why can’t we “Just Don’t Take The First Drink”, thereby avoiding the CRAVING for more problem?

They explained this to Bill D. They talked “Much” about the mental state preceding, BEFORE, taking the drink. That means they explained to him the obsession, or in other words the alcoholic insanity of taking that ONE DRINK even though his past history adequately demonstrated an inability to stop (Craving more) when he needed or wanted to stop.

Once he “Got it” – then “Getting it” was not enough. He recognizes that is hopeless. (HE took Step One)

Finally:
The two friends spoke of their spiritual experience and told him
about the course of action they carried out. (157:1)

They wrap the presentation with their solution to the problem – that is the “What happened” part you may have heard of in the formula. What happened was that they had a spiritual awakening/experience that came about by “Action they carried out”. Then they outlined that program of action to Bill D – the Twelve Steps.

Now all our friend Bill D needs to do is acknowledge that the spiritual solution will work (Step Two) and to make a decision to follow the course of action they outlined to him. (Take Step Three).

It’s a simple effective formula for carrying this message.

• Explain the allergy/craving
• Explain the obsession/insanity
• Explain the spiritual experience (Which can’t be done if we haven’t actually HAD a spiritual experience ourselves) and explain the 12 Steps. (Again – can’t be done if we haven’t taken them)
• Tell him what life is like now AFTER recovery. (It’s going to be GOOD)
  

WARNING: If the prospect can’t identify with my explanation of allergy AND obsession – I may not be dealing with a real alcoholic. Even if he IS, he may not really WANT to stop. (SO I ASK HIM!) If so, there will be no need to proceed. But I have still been helpful – now he is free to seek help for whatever OTHER problem he may have that has brought him to this horrible juncture.

“After satisfying yourself that your man wants to recover and that he will go to any extreme to do so, you may suggest a definite course of action.” (142:4)

Have any of us ever gone on a “Twelve Step” call prior to actually understanding the disease – been able to explain it as Bill and Bob have done – had a spiritual experiences and recovered through the twelve steps?

I have. Shame on me – and shame on anyone who hasn’t experienced the solution, hasn’t learned how to explain it – yet attempts to pass it on to another alcoholic whose very life sits in our hands.

If the guy/gal is a real alkie – willing to go through the simple process of the Twelve Steps and adopt its new way of living on a continuing basis – then these folks WILL HAVE a spiritual awakening that BLOWS THE MIND! So much so, they are sometimes ridiculed and eschewed by contemporary “meeting goers” and others who call themselves “still recovering” alcoholics who have not done or experienced what he has.

But they never drink again and they pass on to others exactly what has been passed onto them in the same way it was passed to them. It’s fast acting.It’s effective and I have NEVER seen it not work for any real alcoholic willing to really try. (Heavy drinkers and problem drinkers hardly EVER “really try”. They don’t HAVE to! They can just moderate or quite ON THEIR OWN – they put the “plug in the jug” and leave the fellowship OR they stay and avail themselves of the social benefits. Some even go on the Internet passing on their middle-of-the-road solutions which worked for THEM but is deadly for us real alkies who’s malady can only be conquered through a spiritual awakening. And spiritual awakening is the ONLY purpose of the 12 Steps – not “not drinking anymore”)

I hope this give you a good idea of how the twelve steps for alkies like me work and why I am so passionate about recovery and Twelve Steps. It’s not only for what it has done for me – but what it does for others.

Peace,

Danny S

How To Give Hope

This fellow, a chronic relapser and Alcoholic number three (Bill & Bobs first prospect.) was hit with the procedure we know works well – even today. He doesn’t know it yet, but he will never have another drink as long as lives and had experienced his last relapse.

Two days later, a future fellow of Alcoholics Anonymous stared glassily at the strangers beside his bed. “Who are you fellows, and why this private room? I was always in a ward before.”

Bill Dodson is the fellow. He is in St Thomas Hospital in Akron- the year 1939 Sr Ignatia had to label his condition as acute gastritis; but we know what his real problem was. (She did this a lot) He had been hastily put up into what was known as “The Flower Room” which was usually reserved for dead patients awaiting pickup by the city coroners office. Not exactly hope inspiring for our friend. “why this private room?”

But Bill & Bob wanted to get him alone.

“Call on him while he is still jittery. He may be more receptive when depressed. See your man alone, if possible.” (91:3)

If you have ever had to Twelve Step someone with other folks present, then you know how distracting that situation can be – especially when spectators (Like family or friends or even other MOTR AAs) have so much useless information on what they THINK should be done. (“He needs to be in “soberhouse“. “He needs a good couselor.” “He needs to be in a rehab.”) Talk about God does NOT often elicit a positive response right away and when we twelve step THAT is what we are there to do – to talk about God.

Said one of the visitors, “We’re giving you a treatment for alcoholism.”

Of course there is no “treatment” for alcoholism, not a human treatment anyway. They were there to convince our man to let God “treat” him.

“Hopelessness was written large on the man’s face as he replied, “Oh, but that’s no use. Nothing would fix me. I’m a goner. The last three times, I got drunk on the way home from here. I’m afraid to go out the door. I can’t understand it.”

If he WANTED to drink he could probably “understand” it – but Bill D. wanted to “NOT DRINK” – yet picked up immediately after being “treated” by human hands in a detox setting.

This is typical today as well – more historical evidence that flies in the face of “Just don’t drink”. Real alcoholics can’t do it. If they could do that, they wouldn’t be really alcoholic because it would mean that they already HAVE POWER over alcohol – their own power. Will power.

“ For an hour, the two friends told him about their drinking experiences. Over and over, he would say: “That’s me. That’s me. I drink like that.”

Do you think they talked about their silly and horrific episodes, their drunkologues? Maybe – just a little. But whenever we hear a Twelve Stepper’s account of this part of the process in the Big Book it is always characterized as “We told him what we knew about alcoholism.” When we do that, woven into our tales, we have identification with a real alkie. The horrific consequences of over-drinking on a spree too often does not jive with the experiences of another alcoholic.

Not all alcoholics have lost their families, their jobs, their drivers licenses – but ALL alcoholics drink even when they don’t want to and experience craving once they start. THOSE are the common experiences that we convey in “What we know about alcoholism”. We embed these into our stories – we are STORYTELLERS but without a purpose, our stories are nothing but entertaining at best and dry air at worst.

Leave those two elements out, and we might be good story tellers, we might even get a few folks to cry out loud just listening – or laugh and say, “Nice fellow/gal”, but we make LOUSY twelve steppers and are useless in the Fellowship.

“The man in the bed was told of the acute poisoning from which he suffered, how it deteriorates the body of an alcoholic and warps his mind. There was much talk about the mental state preceding the first drink.”

Deterioration of the body, poisoning and mind warp (Can you say “CRAVING & PHYSICAL ALLERGY?) And the mental state preceding the first drink. (Insane obsession.)

THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ALCOHOLISM!

An alcoholic may get a giggle from my story – about the time I puked into my briefcase on the No. 1&9 subway on my way home from work – but he really doesn’t give a crumb about it because he never did THAT! But a sory that depicts obsession and craving? THAT he’ll recognize! IF HE IS A REAL ALCOHOLIC! (In a meeting and if he’s not, he’ll be dissapponted that you’ve failed to entertain him)

“Yes, that’s me,” said the sick man, “the very image. You fellows know your stuff all right, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. You fellows are somebody. I was once, but I’m a nobody now. From what you tell me, I know more than ever I can’t stop.”

WOW! Imagine admitting powerlessness in a simple conversation? No writing! No classes! No pledge of allegiance to a sponsor or a fellowship or even God. No committment to do a “90 in 90″. Just one alcoholic talking to another. THAT’S how it was done!

“At this both the visitors burst into a laugh. Said the future Fellow Anonymous: “Damn little to laugh about that I can see.”

The knew they had succeeded. When a man admits powerlessness over alcohol – hopelessness – as Bill D just did, it IS cause to smile! What a joy! Progress at last! We know that alcoholism only SEEMS hopeless and we can now tell our prospect the good news:

The two friends spoke of their spiritual experience and told him about the course of action they carried out. (157:1)

They told him about the STEPS (Or in this case the Oxford stuff which later became the steps) AND they told him what the result of those steps was A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE!

Peace,

Danny S