DIMENSION OF OBLIVION

ONE ALCOHOLIC TALKS TO ANOTHER

At the risk of sounding my usual pompous self I relate this short story:

5 AM...Monday morning. The last thing I desired was to 'rise-and-shine', greet the new day, the new week. So I set my sights on a 7 AM meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Figured I could fall asleep while some of the old-timers bloviated. Outside the 24-Hour Club were standing nearly 100 Peeps, all talking, shouting, laughing—SOBER!

This scenario often appears when I least feel like it: in the midst of the cacophony stood a solitary fellow, who had obviously spent the past few weeks/years living in the Everglades 'woods' (means: HOMELESS!). He looked terribly 'uncouth', ya KNOW what I'm sayin'--and claimed he stayed sober for 2 years...TEN YEARS AGO...and knew me from AA meetings then. He has been homeless for 8 years.

He refused to introduce himself as a returning Peep, also did not wish to go into the 'Beginners' room. So we stayed put. As a topic unfolded, (“What are YOU doing to help others stay sober?”) I whispered to him, “We're OUTTA here”, as I scurried him over to the 'newbie' meeting.

And we ran right into a discussion of Step 3. “Made a decision to turn our life and will over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Guess who--out of a room of 25 Peeps—was called on to 'share'. MY PEEP!!! So he DID get his 'Baptism under fire', so to speak.

Later, outside, we talked about several who said they had “relapsed”. To me, if a sober alcoholic drinks again it is not a “relapse”. It is, that the Peep MADE A DECISION to drink. Call it what it IS. “Relapse” is when a cancer returns after 6 years of cancer-free. My opinion, Peeps.

Oh, one more thing, a painter-friend--after the meeting--gave my new man a job for the day, painting! I could see God working all over the place Monday morning.

My schedule for Tuesday morning...you guessed it! Up at 5 AM, meeting at 7 AM. (Now—GO TO BED, Steve!)

  
NOTE:
"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." - Robert Louis Stevenson