Don't Stay on the Edge

I was talking with a friend today. Though we’ve known each other a long time, she’s new to recovery. It’s an honor to be welcoming her aboard the USS Recovery.

When we talked I asked her what her recovery looks like, and you’ll not be surprised to hear that she’s fallen in love with the program—the meetings, and the humor, and what people talk about, and the slogans and sayings—they are all fresh and new and surprising to her.

But when I asked how she was building her support team, and did she have a sponsor yet and a home group, and was she gathering a team of sober woman around her? she said, “No, not yet, but I’m going to a ton of meetings.” 

I remember that time of surprise and wonderment—all these people and all this recovery, and all this language and lingo and new concepts. And the thrill of being in meetings where people share such intimate details and –mostly—let go of pretending. 

But I also found myself saying to her, “If you like that part of recovery, come on in to the deeper end.”

I told her that meetings are great and going out for coffee is great but really being a member comes from moving to the center.

What I wanted to say was, “Sitting on the edge of the pool with your feet in the water is cool—and even refreshing --but jump in—all the way in—and swim with us.” 

What I mean is: get a sponsor, sign up to do service, go to at least 3 or four meetings a week, make one of them your home group, and read the Grapevine Magazine, the Big Book, As Bill Sees It, and other literature about recovery and about AA. And go to regional round-ups, and conferences. These are your people now. Show up where they are, make sure they get to notice you and to know you.

The same advice applies if later in recovery you move to a new town. Even after many years of recovery you have to start over in a sense and dive into the center of your new recovery community. 

The water’s great. Jump in!

When I Envy the Newcomer

After many years of recovery I can still feel shame when this happens. And it happened again just this week: A man in my home group celebrated 6 months and he was glowing. His life was transformed, he had found a deep faith in his Higher Power, his surrender was total; he had completed his step work and was quoting the Big Book. His “share” was more lecture than personal story, but still I bit.

I was jealous. 

I know better. I knew better. But I could feel myself become envious and annoyed. I knew that I should be happy for his newcomer’s pink cloud and his new life but my own smallness revealed my envy. After all these years and all this work—I’m still trying to surrender, have absolute faith, and be a perfectly perfect person.

I know, I know.

This is also why I wrote “Out of the Woods”. In this book I talk about the awkward things, the difficult things and even the embarrassing things that can happen to us in long-term recovery. Envying a newcomer is just one of them. 

It is times like this that I wish for regular meeting for people who have ten or 15 or 20 years. Not to leave other people behind but to be able to say,  “Does anyone else feel like this?” and to laugh at something like my envy of the newcomer. 

I know better. You know better. We all know better. But still.

I’m know that I did exactly what he did when I was new to recovery. In fact, I was the young woman bringing recovery literature to my family Thanksgiving dinner and passing it around like hors ‘dourves. 

So you’d think I’d have more compassion.

But what I know now—and what I have written about in “Out of the Woods” --is that life happens to all of us, and that we need those pink clouds and happy days to give us the ground under the harder parts of our recovery. And as we stay in recovery a long time those harder parts will come on their own.

My red-faced humility is this: When I hear those newcomers speak of their rapidly transformed lives and the perfect, lasting peace that recovery has given them, I still want what they have. 

That’s why I keep coming back.

Newcomer Envy

After many years of sobriety I can still feel shame when I do this. It happened again this week. A man in my home group celebrated 6 months and he was glowing. His life was transformed, he had found a deep faith in his Higher Power, his surrender was complete; he had completed his step work and was quoting the Big Book. His “share” was more lecture than personal story, but I bit.

I was jealous.

I know better. I knew better. But I could feel myself become envious and annoyed. I knew that I should be happy for his pink cloud and changed life but my own smallness revealed my envy. After all these years and all this work—I’m still trying to surrender, have absolute faith, and be a perfectly perfect person.

I know, I know.

These are the moments I wish for a meeting for people who have ten or 15 or 20 years. Not to leave behind the other meetings but so that I can say, “Does anyone else feel like this?” Is anyone else with long recovery secretly ashamed of their own petty reaction when someone with a year or so tells the group how perfect their life is and how they have incorporated all of the wisdom of the 12 steps?

I know better. I really do. But still.

I’m sure I did this too. No, I know I did this. I was the girl carrying AA literature home to family holiday dinners and passing it around like hors ‘dourves. I was the one who lectured every friend about the “principles of the program” and yes, I was the one blowing my anonymity hither and yon because I was so wise, so very wise.

So you’d think I’d have more compassion.

And in my heart of hearts I do. I much prefer that this new man be here and feel the guru than be out there drinking his life away. And I’d rather he lecture us in AA than his own family—which only delays their ability to hear about this marvelous thing we have. It’s just that when I look at my own “progress not perfection” life, and I see the intractable character defects and the amount of fear that is still underlying so much that I do I have to fight my snarky inner commentator who wants to say to the perky, pastel-hued newcomer, “Oh, just wait.”

But what I know is that life happens to all of us, and that we need those pink clouds and happy days to give us the ground under the harder parts of our recovery. The pink cloud days help us to make friends with other newcomers so that we have a gang to hang out with, which means we’ll have peers to call when the harder parts of recovery inevitably happen.

My red-faced humility is this: When I hear those newcomers speak of their transformed lives and the perfect peace that AA has given them I still want what they have. So I keep coming back.

What We Don't Tell the Newcomer

This is one of those days that I think: 25 years of recovery, an equal number of years of therapy, every self help book underlined and memorized and still...and still…

Working too hard, doing too much, feeling bad about a relationship, not letting go, trying to control, criticizing myself, worrying that I am unhealed and unfixable. I have all this and knowing I am changed and changing, loved and loveable, knowing that it is progress and not perfection. But still…and still. I wish I were different and I wish circumstances were different and I wish I had not caused pain or received pain.

We don’t tell the newcomer that you can hurt just as bad 25 years later, and in fact, maybe even more because you have fewer things to mute the pain.