"A Little Venting"

I remember being at a meeting once and hearing the Secretary share an interesting observation. She had around seven years and had brought in a speaker with a similar amount of time. She talked about her confusion at how few people there were in the rooms with the 5-10 range of clean/sober time. There were plenty of newcomers, and always those old staple old timers, but for some reason that breath of clean time, it seemed to her, was strangely under-represented.

One of the regulars at my home group, who moved into that time range last year, and I have had discussion not too long ago about how much patience it takes to deal with newcomers sometimes. We have to remind ourselves that we were once new, and that it took time for us to get the Recovery we have today. And of course, that we need the newcomers to remind us of how things were for us when we were new, how bad things had gotten for us, and how downright insane we really were before we had begun practicing the principles of the program. But I think I do get at least part of the reason behind the missing people with time.

I remember, too, when I was in college the first time going to school for my music degree. I was a pianist and a composer (still am), but every music major had to be in an ensemble. For me, that meant singing in the choir. Badly. One day in my first year, a woman in the Soprano section who actually could sing and was a voice major confided to me that she hated singing in the choir. She said it was bad for her. When I asked her why, she explained that younger girls' voices hadn't developed enough, that they sang improperly because of it and because of lack of training. By singing next to them, it dragged her back into all her old bad habits.

As a therapist of mine liked to say, this is what we call a parallel process.

We change and grow through our Recovery. We become different people. Our old ways can become repugnant to us, like the surface of a hot stove we recoil from because we know how much it hurts to be burned. All the insanity of the disease, fresh and ripe in newcomers who've just walked in the door; the crazy codependence and egotism of those with a little Recovery who think they now have all the answers and are on a personal quest to save everyone who suffers; and of course the drama drama drama of lives lived in absence of emotional sobriety. Don't even get me started on the hookup culture. These are all things that fall away as we continue to progress in our Recovery, and being around them can be difficult. Speaking only for myself, I've worked so hard to leave that shit behind.

This is not to say I'm perfect, and I am definitely not in any place to judge, having done all of the above. But people are still people. Newcomers will get involved in relationships too soon and their Recovery will suffer. It breaks my heart to see it, but it happens a lot. I hate having to listen to lies and bullshit, words said out of insecurity and fear. When the disease is running things, we act like total children. I should know; I've done it enough times myself. Sponsees will ask to be sponsored and never call. Active sponsees will refuse to listen, then get angry when you call bullshit on them. I've fired sponsees for consistent refusal to follow suggestions. Because why waste my time giving advice when it's not followed? And more than that, what I want is to see my sponsees succeed in the program. It's really simple: if you aren't going to listen to me, find someone you are willing to listen to.

Even though it might break my heart to see others suffer, even though I know there's an easier way and that all their misery would melt away if they would just do this thing, I know too that I'm not responsible for anyone else, just myself. I can't make anyone listen, and I can't keep anyone else sober. All I can do is work the program for myself, keep on in my own Recovery, and trust in God that that is enough.