Monday, December 28, 2009

The swiftness of complacency ...


sleepy raver
Originally uploaded by lomokev

A chain of events this evening brought to the forefront of my awareness the fact that I have been experiencing some mild levels of complacency in my recovery program. This has shown up as: daydreaming during meetings, half-listening because I've heard that person's similar share a dozen times, tuning in to only key pieces of a story or reading because "I know this stuff", contemplating skipping certain meetings. Unchecked and given enough momentum and speed, complacency will thrust me into "self-will run riot", as it states in the Big Book. And, once I've entered that territory, I am but an arms' length away from picking up a variety of things that are harmful to me, the worst of which is, of course, alcohol.

And, as the old saying goes: "When the student is ready, the teacher appears". Tonight, she came in the form of a falling down drunk. I was with a therapy client and her parents out for dinner as part of a regular family session I facilitate. My client had gone to the ladies' room and came back out looking quite distressed and requested my help for a lady in the bathroom that was falling all over the place. I went into the ladies room and found a very large woman, lying sideways on the dirty tile floor. I did not yet know what was wrong, considering that perhaps she had a stroke. When I asked what happened and if she was alright, she began to talk incoherently, the f-bombs flying out freely. I didn't even have to get much closer to her to know what I was witnessing: she was drunk as a skunk. I asked her if she could get up and she could barely lift her head up, just more mumbling and curse words leaking out. I went out to talk to the wait staff to explain what was occurring. Several large bouncer-type guys went in and were unsuccessful in lifting her. I suggested that an ambulance be called and that is the action that was finally taken. I returned to the table with my client and her family and had to "de-brief" with my client, who was visibly shaken by what she saw and I realized that perhaps she had never witnessed this before. I tried to explain to her in the best way I could about the effects of alcohol and what it does to a person, so that she could make sense of what she viewed.

As I drove from this dinner session, I had the feeling of totally sobering up. Like having been thrown into a shower or my face sprayed with water, then given a full pot of high-test coffee. If I had any slight notion that complacency could continue to occupy space in my being, it was thwarted after this experience. I saw vividly the ugly messiness of what alcohol is capable of and what it did to me on a repeated basis. And how its aftermath affects others, like my client. I can't say that this woman was definitively an alcoholic. What I can say is that she lost any control she believed she had in terms of what she consumed. It is indeed cunning, baffling, powerful. It robs you of dignity. And of sanity. And any assemblance of appearing to be a civilized human. Meeting all of this head-on tonight was an invaluable, impactful lesson about the swiftness of complacency.

I had no hesitation on my drive to get myself to the Monday night Big Book meeting. In fact, I arrived early ! I grabbed the "How It Works" sheet immediately so I could be the reader of this passage at the start of the meeting. And, as synchronicity would have it, we read the chapter on "How It Works" tonight. I hung on every single word, sitting up at attention. I raised my hand early on to share about my experience at the restaurant and about my awareness of how complacency had entered into my recovery program. I listened intently to each share. I remained after for awhile to talk to some old-timers.

The last line of the How It Works chapter is still reverberating in my head, especially after tonight's experience: "That being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself." Seeing the woman on the bathroom floor was a time machine to my past. It was the aspect of my alcoholic behavior that I never had an objective, outside-looking-in view of. I wonder how many countless, innocent by-standers were subjected to seeing me in the very same state I saw this woman tonight ? How many did I offend? How many did I traumatize and terrorize with my behavior? Did I , by chance, help a recovering alcoholic remain sober because of my disgraceful, disgusting demeanor ?

These are the questions that have swirled about me in my travels tonight. I need these questions to make grand appearances from time to time. This is what keeps me from drifting off into complacency. This is what keeps me coming back. This is what keeps me sober.

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