Sunday, December 18, 2005
Yep. 3 am. I must be lonely. Hah! Made myself chuckle.
I gave a lead tonight at The Dove House here in Indianapolis. It's a recovery home/shelter/treatment center for women in early recovery from drugs and alcohol. I gave a lead there last year, too. Anyway, I walked in, and there was Lisa. She was a girl I'd known from meetings in Noblesville back in the mid-nineties when I'd only been sober a few years. She looked like hell. She's been out drinking, drugging, and god knows what else for the last 13 years or so. I'd wondered about her every now and then over the years, because she'd been a bright spot in my early recovery, and had been really doing well. She relapsed, I saw her once or twice more, and then she just disappeared. The woman I talked to last night just didn't have all of "Lisa" in her anymore. I hugged her and remembered her name, and we chatted a little about old times, and then I got up and talked. After, at the end of the meeting, she gave me another hug, and told me she was proud of me.
Last May I was sober 14 years. I was almost 21 when I stopped drinking. That length of time has given me a chance to watch people filter in and out and back in to the recovery community. If they make it back in, they almost always look and sound like hell. I guess that's because they're freshly sober again, and brains and body are detoxing, but it still always seems like a part of the inner self has been eroded away by the use of chemicals.
I think of it as "the lottery to get eaten by a tiger." That's alcoholism. Sometimes, you go into the arena, and the tiger isn't hungry. Nothing bad happens when you drink this time. Sometimes, you go in, and he smacks you around a little, but he's mostly just bored, and doesn't eat you, and you come out of the arena scared shitless over the terrifying experience you've just had. Or, doesn't eat all of you, and you go back into the holding pen with the others, to wait and nurse your wounds. Your number always gets put back into the bin, though. Some people go in there and the tiger eats them, and that's just the end of the story. Maybe they drink and drive and hit a bridge abuttment. Maybe they eat a bullet. Maybe they get alcohol poisoning. Some people go in and out of the arena many times, sometimes without getting hurt, sometimes losing a leg or a driver's license, and sometimes they never come back out. Those that come back out, though, invariably tell you that the tiger is getting meaner to them, that things didn't get any better this time in there with him.
My point, (and I do have one) is that Lisa has been in and out of the arena a lot in the last 13 years. And you can't go in there on a regular basis and not get a little mauled and chewed over the years. And, it shows. If you've been around, you can always tell. It's in the eyes. If you've ever been in there with the tiger, you can't hide it from another arena warrior. We know how that tiger smells, looks, and how sneaky he can be. And we don't want our number to ever get drawn again. And we know by the look in your eyes if you've been in there with him recently. Sometimes, we know by your smell and what you're wearing and where you are.
How do we avoid going back in there with the tiger? Well, we pray, we do service work, and we bribe the hell out of the lottery person by helping other tiger-arena warriors with their wounds. If we're busy enough doing these things, we'll get a deferrment if our number is called. "Lou? He's busy helping the wounded. Throw his number back in a pull another; we're busy." Every year of my sobriety, someone comes into a meeting and gets a startover token, and tells a story of being sober almost exactly the length of time that I'm about to celebrate. My number got pulled, and I was busy helping someone else, so that person was my replacement, and he made it back to let me know that the tiger is still in there, still hungry, and that it isn't getting any better in the arena with him. If we aren't working with others, then we'll end up back in the ring with a hungry tiger. And you don't want seconds on that dish, my friend.
I gave a lead tonight at The Dove House here in Indianapolis. It's a recovery home/shelter/treatment center for women in early recovery from drugs and alcohol. I gave a lead there last year, too. Anyway, I walked in, and there was Lisa. She was a girl I'd known from meetings in Noblesville back in the mid-nineties when I'd only been sober a few years. She looked like hell. She's been out drinking, drugging, and god knows what else for the last 13 years or so. I'd wondered about her every now and then over the years, because she'd been a bright spot in my early recovery, and had been really doing well. She relapsed, I saw her once or twice more, and then she just disappeared. The woman I talked to last night just didn't have all of "Lisa" in her anymore. I hugged her and remembered her name, and we chatted a little about old times, and then I got up and talked. After, at the end of the meeting, she gave me another hug, and told me she was proud of me.
Last May I was sober 14 years. I was almost 21 when I stopped drinking. That length of time has given me a chance to watch people filter in and out and back in to the recovery community. If they make it back in, they almost always look and sound like hell. I guess that's because they're freshly sober again, and brains and body are detoxing, but it still always seems like a part of the inner self has been eroded away by the use of chemicals.
I think of it as "the lottery to get eaten by a tiger." That's alcoholism. Sometimes, you go into the arena, and the tiger isn't hungry. Nothing bad happens when you drink this time. Sometimes, you go in, and he smacks you around a little, but he's mostly just bored, and doesn't eat you, and you come out of the arena scared shitless over the terrifying experience you've just had. Or, doesn't eat all of you, and you go back into the holding pen with the others, to wait and nurse your wounds. Your number always gets put back into the bin, though. Some people go in there and the tiger eats them, and that's just the end of the story. Maybe they drink and drive and hit a bridge abuttment. Maybe they eat a bullet. Maybe they get alcohol poisoning. Some people go in and out of the arena many times, sometimes without getting hurt, sometimes losing a leg or a driver's license, and sometimes they never come back out. Those that come back out, though, invariably tell you that the tiger is getting meaner to them, that things didn't get any better this time in there with him.
My point, (and I do have one) is that Lisa has been in and out of the arena a lot in the last 13 years. And you can't go in there on a regular basis and not get a little mauled and chewed over the years. And, it shows. If you've been around, you can always tell. It's in the eyes. If you've ever been in there with the tiger, you can't hide it from another arena warrior. We know how that tiger smells, looks, and how sneaky he can be. And we don't want our number to ever get drawn again. And we know by the look in your eyes if you've been in there with him recently. Sometimes, we know by your smell and what you're wearing and where you are.
How do we avoid going back in there with the tiger? Well, we pray, we do service work, and we bribe the hell out of the lottery person by helping other tiger-arena warriors with their wounds. If we're busy enough doing these things, we'll get a deferrment if our number is called. "Lou? He's busy helping the wounded. Throw his number back in a pull another; we're busy." Every year of my sobriety, someone comes into a meeting and gets a startover token, and tells a story of being sober almost exactly the length of time that I'm about to celebrate. My number got pulled, and I was busy helping someone else, so that person was my replacement, and he made it back to let me know that the tiger is still in there, still hungry, and that it isn't getting any better in the arena with him. If we aren't working with others, then we'll end up back in the ring with a hungry tiger. And you don't want seconds on that dish, my friend.
