Sometimes God Says No

We talked about closing the group that meets at our place on Thursday nights. We did that. We also moved the sponsorship meeting to Thursday night as we talked about. It seemed to be doing okay.

But, I learned a lesson about doing my will instead of God's will. I decided to join another group so that I would still have a home group. There's one I often attend on Tuesday nights. I have been going there for all of my sobriety - 17 years - so it seemed like my best choice.

I also work Tuesday nights but I have just enough time to attend that meeting and if I can get a drive to the bridge, I can make it to work on time. It was a good idea.

For most of the past 2 months, I have either been sick on Tuesday nights, been working extra hours on Tuesday nights or the weather has been so severe on Tuesday nights that I have been forced to stay home and concentrate my efforts on just getting to work.

And if that wasn't enough to clue me in that I had made the wrong choice, there is a major refitting job taking place on the bridge beginning next month. So the transit service has gone through some changes and now in order to arrive at work on time, I will need to leave 30 minutes earlier. So I won't be able to attend the Tuesday night meeting. Or Wednesday night. And Monday and Friday are no good for other reasons. The only night that leaves is Thursday night.

So. It looks like our group will be starting up again. If that's OK with my higher power.

Meeting Changes

In 1998, Nancy and I were living on Rose Street in Dartmouth, up behind Sullivan's Pond. It was a long climb up Oak Street, up a long flight of stairs to get in the building, then 2 more flights up to our flat. When you looked out the living room window you could see Break Heart hill. Or was that Brake Hard hill. It was quite a view either way.

We started an AA group there called the Hilltop Group. We met at our place for a while, then moved it to the Starr Room at the Alderney library and from there it went to the church on Hawthorne & Portland, the same church we met and were later married in. The group lasted eight years.

We moved to Woodside, up on Chadwick Street, another killer hill. In there, we opened the Woodside Group in 2000. We moved that to the North Woodside Community Center but eventually it came back to our home.

During that time frame, I opened a third group at the Hawthorne church. That was a Saturday night group called Serenity Corner. That group lasted eight years.

The Woodside Group shut down in 2006 when we moved to the trailer park in Woodlawn. Well it didn't completely close. We just moved it and changed the name. It became the Trailer Park 12 and 12 Group.

For about seven years we met on Wednesday evenings. A little over a year ago we switched to Thursday.

Those groups were all registered AA groups. We also started a sponsorship meeting which was not part of any registered group. We held that on the weekends. Unfortunately, this job I have now requires me to work every weekend. We tried having it on different nights but it's never worked for long.

So Nancy and I had a talk. The group on Thursday isn't very big. Almost all the members belong to other groups so if it wasn't there anymore, those people would still have a home group. So we decided to close the Trailer Park Group and move the sponsorship meeting to Thursday night.

So there is still a meeting there on Thursday nights. It's just not a registered meeting. It won't be in the meeting list. Format is pretty much the same. We will still have cheesecake or Apple pie. We will still study the big book. The only real difference is that it's only for the people we sponsor or for people who are sponsored by the people we sponsor.

So now you know the password.

Snowballs

It's no secret that I've been unhappy at my job lately. I don't like the hours. I work every weekend and that makes it impossible for me to attend many of the events that I like to go to. And there's just a bunch of little things........

Anyway, Sunday morning I'm sitting outside having a smoke. One of the owners is coming home from working the back shift at a job he has said that he doesn't like. He sees me, big smile and wave and a good morning Bernie. I smile and wave back and good morning to you (and I call him by name).

Tonight I came to work. There was a xmas card here for me from another tenant, a young lady who also smiles and says hello and sometimes we engage in mild chit chat.

Getting the card was nice but what was even nicer was what she wrote inside the card. Thanks for all that you do. It's always nice to see your smile.

Sometimes a bunch of little annoying things can become one big annoying thing, like a snowball rolling down the mountain can become an avalanche. But sometimes a few simple pleasant things can change your perspective. And sometimes it takes a while to see the good things, like rolling a snowball up a small slope to make a snowman.

I'm still looking around for another job but I'm not so unhappy now.

Moments of Clarity

Club 24 is a place we go to socialize. They have various activities. Darts, crib tournaments, dinners, dances. it's down on Dundas now, but it used to be on Canal street.

Because the club is operated by AA managers, a lot of AA meetings are held there. When I finally got back from Wyoming - 17 years ago - I went to a meeting there. My first one in almost a month. It was at six o'clock. It was called Free to be Me.

They did a special reading from the big book every week. In the third edition it's on pages 560-61. I can't remember the whole reading but some parts definitely stayed with me.

"We learn to differentiate between our wants (which are never satisfied) and our needs (which are always provided for)." And....."we cast off the burdens of the past and the anxieties of the future as we begin to live in the present one day at a time."

A friend of mine used to say the past is like a rear view mirror. When you're driving you need to look in the mirror sometimes but you should also keep your eyes on the road ahead.

When I was at that meeting I should have picked up a desire chip, the 24 hour ones that the newcomers take. I had relapsed so I was a newcomer again. But I reasoned that none of you knew I relapsed and that none of you needed to know, so I lied and took a three month chip. Well, I didn't lie. I just didn't tell the truth. I didn't tealize then that an act of omission is the same as an act of commission.

I did eventually fess up, but until I did I couldn't tell my story the way it happened. My sponsor knew the truth and Nancy knew the truth, but nobody else did. When I finally came clean, I learned a valuable lesson. Nobody cared if I'd be been sober a day or a month. They were glad to see me either way.

The speaker at my 17 year anniversary put it well. When I'm at the podium telling you about my moment of clarity what are you thinking about as you sit in your chair listening - your moment of clarity of course. My story is interesting and often entertaining, but it's because I tell a story well. 

Please God show me what to do - copyright 2011 AA Grapevine

One day I was walking along the beach after a meeting. I saw an old man walking toward me. Every so often, he would kneel down, pick something up and study it for a moment. Then, he would either put it back on the beach or throw it into the sea. As we drew nearer to each other, I noticed that the beach was littered with starfish, washed up by the tide. The old man was searching for live ones and returning them to the sea. When we were close enough to speak, I told him how pointless his efforts were. There were too many of them. He could not possibly make a difference. In reply, he threw a living starfish into the sea, and said, “It made a difference to that one.” Then, he leaned closer, adding, “I could use a little help.”

I have been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for almost 10 years, but I have only been a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for close to six. I became a sober member during a snowstorm on the Trans Canada Highway on the 4th day of December, 1997. I only remember the date because that was the day that I found my higher power. Now, he didn’t come to me in a blinding flash of light. The earth didn’t move. Time didn’t stand still. But, something of great monument definitely happened that day.

I had been hitch-hiking in that storm for 4 days as a result of my last drunk. I was almost dead from exposure. Up until this point, I had rejected the “spiritual aspects” of the program. My, that was a gentle way to put it. In all honesty, by the time I walked through the doors of AA, I did not believe in God , I did not want to believe in God and I did not care if you believed in God just so long as you did your believing someplace else. One of the old timers had always told me, “If you don’t bend your knees, you’ll bend your elbow”, meaning that if I didn’t ask for God’s help, I would drink again. Well, for four years I refused to bend my knees and for four years, I bent my elbow. I had become as willing to listen as only the dying can be.

So, in a little country church just outside of Meductic, New Brunswick God and me had a little meeting. I thanked Him for keeping me sober and alive as long as he had already and I asked Him to keep me sober and alive just a little bit longer, long enough for me to get back home to AA. In return, I promised that I would try to believe a little bit more.

When I got up from my praying, I “knew” that something was different. It’s difficult to explain. I felt stronger. I felt something I had not felt in many years. Hope.

Later that day, in the evening, I was in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on the telephone to an AA member I barely knew, explaining my situation. That man got in his car and drove 200 km in a snowstorm to save me from freezing to death. They say God works through people. That night, he used the two of us to work a miracle. The following day I was back home, in an AA meeting. God kept his half of the deal. It was up to me to do my part.

I was homeless. I was jobless. There were many nights I slept on sofas, and in meeting rooms and in doorways. It was the closest I ever came to skid row. The fellowship carried me most of the way. My sponsor was always there, telling me things he had learned. He used to say, the men who cry for food and shelter before conquering alcohol are on the wrong track. Get sober first, he would say and then all those other “things” will fall into place. Have a little faith he would say. And, so I did. I went to lots of meetings. I hung around with sober members of AA. I prayed every day.

Eventually, I moved into a transition house for men in the early stages of recovery from alcohol and drugs. It was a local place, everyone knew about it. The manager was a sober member of AA. Most of the guys who worked there were in one fellowship or another. There were lots of times when we would sit around and talk program. And, I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t made a difference. I did not live there very long. I managed to find work and met someone who was also in the program and we decided to trudge the road together. As my sponsor had pointed out, “things” were falling into place. The following year, I was forced to leave my job for health reasons and seek employment in another field.

Larry M., the fellow who had saved my life in that storm, was working as an Attendant in the transition home where I had lived and he said he could get me a job working there. I figured, what a great way to give something back. Like any place of employment, there were rules to follow. Well, I have this problem. I don’t like being told what to do. My ego reared its ugly head, and I resigned.
I would like to point out here that I was wrong in my decision, but at the time I believed I was right. I sought counsel from other persons. I went to meetings and shared about it. I read literature on the subject. I did almost everything that I should have done in order to arrive at my decision. The one thing I did not do was ask for guidance from God.

I just went ahead and did what I thought God would have me do. I took another job, as a laundry worker, washing dirty underwear for minimum wage. The place I worked in had a five-foot high ceiling. I am six feet tall. Yep. I sure showed them who was in charge. I had lots of time to read on the job. So I read my Twelve and Twelve. I became active in service work and got some satisfaction from that, but something was not right. I couldn’t put my finger on it. My sponsor asked me if I had talked to God about this yet. Well, I hadn’t of course.

So, that’s what I did. I got down on my knees at work and said one simple prayer, “Please, God, show me what to do.”

The next day, my old boss called me and told me that the caseworker had resigned and asked if I would be willing to take the position. Better hours. Better money. Well, naturally, I told him I’d think about it. I guess that sometimes I get so focused on what I believe God’s will is that I am unable to see what God’s will actually is. Sometimes I need to be hit with a two-by-four. Well, that is precisely what God did that night.

I was celebrating my third anniversary at my home group. The speaker was a gentleman about my age. I’d asked him to speak about 3 months ago. Oh, did I mention that he was a resident at the house where I had worked? He talked about how he had respected me for working there and for resigning because of my strong sense of principles. He said that I had made a difference.

Suddenly, it was all so clear . I accepted the position. God found a way to bring me back again. And in case you're wondering, I am not there to get them sober. I am there to keep them alive long enough so that they can get sober. And sure, we talk program. I can only hope to make a difference.

Under the Bridge

It's no secret that I used to be a drunk and a drug addict. Anybody who knows me knows that. I been sober a while. Almost 17 years. If you ever want to know how I stopped, just ask - that's no big secret either.

During the first two months of my sobriety, I was a homeless person. I spent some of that time sleeping under the bridge. It was winter and it was cold. Sometimes I went hungry. It wasn't pretty and I hope I never have to do it again.

Luckily I had friends who were looking out for me and I managed to get into Freedom Foundation. I was there two months. I didn't get sober there. I just slept and ate there in between meetings. I have a lot of gratitude for staff and volunteers of that house for the kindness they showed to me.

Two years into my sobriety I went to work for Freedom Foundation. I spent a number of years there, as an attendant and as a caseworker. I don't have any degrees in social work and I'm not a professional counselor. Well, I took a few courses but nothing to write home about. I just know how to talk to drunks.

I left my job there in the spring of 2012. In September I got talking to some people who thought we should open our own house. And so Last House on the Block Society was formed.

Our intention was to open a transition house for men in recovery. I knew a lot about how to run a house like that but when it comes to opening one I knew squat. So the operation failed before it got started and we were going to shut the whole thing down.

And then, just when it seemed the end was near, we had an idea. Why not scrap the whole transition house idea and try something smaller, Something more within our means. So we altered our mission statement and became a community outreach.

Nancy came up with the scarf idea. She said she could knit some for the clients who currently resided in transition homes. Someone said wouldn't it be nice if we could have some ready in time for Christmas.

And here we are, doing it for the second Christmas. Last year we could only help a few people. This year we plan to help over a hundred. I think that's pretty cool.

Now if there was just some way we could turn this into a job then we could quit our other jobs and do this full time. Oh well. Anything is possible when you try hard enough.

Can you spare some change today

So I'm running to catch the ferry back to Dartmouth. I reach into the pocket of my cargo shorts for some change but all I have are a bunch of toonies and one quarter. The fare is $2.50.

Then I see the panhandler. He always sits at the bottom of Duke Street with a tims cup for any change he gets from passersby. I usually help him out with a toonie because I haven't forgotten what it's like.

I sit down beside him and say man what a day. I was hoping you could help me out. I need change for the bus. He remembers me and starts sorting through his coins.

No no I say. You give me a quarter and I'll give you a toonie. He smiles and we make our trade. It made me humble to think he would have given me bus fare.

I guess he hasn't forgotten either.