Frank is Emptiness

February 9th, 2020

I have been doing a lot of driving during the last month. I have not necessarily been going places that are of interest to me. I have been acting as a chauffeur for a young lady who often needs a ride.

The young woman does not have a drivers license. I don’t expect that she will get one in the near future. She has four drunk driving convictions, and even in the State of Wisconsin, where drinking beer is considered a sport, four OWI’s is a bit excessive. The girl is going to have to jump through a number of hoops before she can legally get behind the wheel again. In the meantime, I drive.

Generally, I don’t mind taking her places. Most of the trips are necessary. She needs to attend twelve step meetings, therapy sessions, and doctor appointments. She goes to the gym almost every day. She wants to buy art supplies for her new projects. These journeys are worthwhile.

She likes to play music in the car as I drive. Her ADD kicks in, and she rapidly goes from song to song. Sometimes the young woamn switches stations after only a few seconds. I find that to be distracting at times.

We don’t often talk in the car. She, like most members of her generation, tends to be obsessed with the information on her smart phone. Occasionally, we talk about music or movies. She is a big fan of Chris Farley and Carrie Fisher. She understands them pretty well.

Most of the time, our travels are without incident. But not always. Two weeks ago we drove to central Wisconsin to visit my younger brother, Mike. It’s almost a three hour drive from our house, and I have made it many times in the past. After so many iterations, the journey gets boring. When I get bored, I tend to drive faster.

Uusually, I try to find that sweet spot that is above the posted speeds limit, but still keeps me in the general flow of traffic. The speed limit on the highway heading toward Amherst is 65 mph. However, everybody is going seventy-five. As I drove through Waupaca, I nudged our car up to eighty.

Oops.

That’s when I saw the state trooper. I looked at him, and he looked at me. I imagined briefly that he hadn’t noticed my excessive speed. I was nearly a quarter mile part him before he pulled away from the median. There was already another car between myself and him. He sped up, pulled in front the vehicle behind me, and turned on his flashing lights.

Busted.

I pulled over to the side of the road. The trooper stopped behind me.

The young wman asked me, “Were you speeding?”

“Yeah.”

She gave me the faintest of smiles.

The cop tapped on the window. I rolled it down. He spoke,

“Sir, I clocked you three times. You were going at 80 mph each time. That’s way too fast. Is there any place you need to be in such a hurry?”

I shook my head, “No”.

“Sir, can I see you drivers license?”

I handed it to him.

“Do you have proof of insurance?”

I handed it to him.

He said, “I will check on all this, and determine what I need to do next.” He left.

I said nothing.

The young woman asked me, “So, should I call my mom about this?”

“If you want.”

The minutes crawled.

The trooper returned to our car.

“Sir, I checked. Your record shows ZERO violations. That’s what I like to see. I noticed also that you did slow down for me when you saw me coming behind you. I appreciate that. I am issuing you two warnings. One is for your excessive speed. The other is for the sticker on your license plate. You may not be aware of it, but state law requires you to have the year sticker in the lower right corner of your plate. You have it in the middle. When you get a chance, go to the DMV and get another sticker to place on your license plate. Now, get moving, and drive safely.”

I waited for the trooper to leave, and then I pulled back into traffic.

I asked the young woman, “So, are you still going to call?”

She seemed oddly disappointed. She said, “There is no reason to now. You just got a warning. If I had been driving, I’d be in handcuffs now.”

“That’s true.”

She asked, “Are you going to take care of that sticker right away?’

“Absolutlely.”

She just stared at me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 8th, 2020

“Attachment is the source of all suffering.” – Buddha

“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

A young woman goes to AA meetings every single day. I know this because I usually drive her to these sessions. The meetings seem to be working for her. I used to go to twelve step meetings many years ago, but they didn’t work for me. However, Zen practice helps.

I started participating in Zen meditation fifteen years ago. I’m still no good at it, but these things take time. Zen is a practice, with the end result possibly being enlightenment, although that goal is elusive. Zen meditation brings about change, often slowly and imperceptibly. I can honestly say that I am different because if Zen. “Different” is not necessarily good or bad, it’s just, well, different. 

I have been thinking about how Zen and twelve step programs relate to each other. Maybe they don’t. I think that there are similarities, but perhaps I see connections where there are none.

Both Zen and twelve step programs deal with attachments/addictions. Attachments and addictions are the same to me. The idea in both traditions is to let go of things. Letting go is a strange process. It can’t be forced. A person has to actively desire to give up something, but that same person also has to patiently wait for the “letting go” to happen in its own way and its own time. Letting go is not like throwing something away. It is more like just dropping something that is no longer of any use or interest.

“If you want something then you lose everything. If you don’t want anything then you already have everything.” – Seungsahn, founder of the Kwan Um School of Zen

In Zen we sometimes talk about the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha. We take refuge in those three things. To use a very crude analogy, “Buddha” may be equivalent to the “Higher Power” in the twelve step world. “Dharma” means the “teaching”, so that might be a little bit like what is written in “The Big Book”. The “Sangha” is the “community”. For twelve step folks that community could be the people who show up for the meetings. I thnk that, in both traditions, these three things are essential. The terminology is different, but I believe that the underlying meaning is the same.

To me the sangha is the most important thing. I need to be part of a community where I care about people and they care about me. I find that within my Zen group. The young woman finds that with her AA friends. The Buddha and the Dharma are only real if they show in the actions of the members of the Sangha. I think that is also true in twelve step groups. Otherwise, it’s all just talk.

Zen and twelve step diverge in many ways. Zen is primarily a practice of silent meditation (sit down and shut up). AA and its various permutations all involve a lot of talking. That is not to say that nobody talks during a Zen session. We do converse, maybe too much. We also chant, and I don’t think that twelve step groups do much chanting.

Zen is all about getting rid of attachments, even attachments that may seem to be positive. There is even a Zen aphorism that says, “If you meet the Buddha, kill him!” The idea is not to cling to anything. In AA it sometimes seems like a person simply switches from one obsession to another. I know a man who got sober in 1985. For years he hid in a bottle, then he hid in his meetings. He went from a chemical attachment to an attachment to total sobriety. In the end, he never really let go of anything. He is still stuck.

In Zen there is the desire to have a clear mind, to see things as they are. That is the point of meditation. I think that twelve step programs attempt to achieve the same goal. They try to cut through the “stinkin’ thinkin’ “.

No matter which path is taken, a person who is active in a practice is just trying to see  what is there.

It just is.

 

 

 

 

 

February 6th, 2020

The impeachment trial is over. Thank God.

What did that accomplish? What did it change?

I seldom, if ever, watch the news. I don’t listen to talk radio. I look at the news on the Internet, but I do so warily. I read articles from the standard American sources, but I also read reports from Al Jazeera, Der Spiegel, and the BBC. There is no such thing as an “objective news source”, so I don’t even try to find one. I attempt to view things from multiple perspectives. That doesn’t mean that I give each news source equal weight. It just means that I at least try to see some truth in whatever they say. In this day and age, most, if not all, generators of news are biased. This is our world. I try to separate the wheat from the chaff.

There was nothing objective about the impeachment trial of Trump. It was all pure politics. It was impossible for it to be anything else. It had almost nothing to do with justice or morality.

Is Trump immoral and unjust? Of course, he is. However, the trial was about power. It was about control. It had nothing to do with right or wrong. It was all about who was running the show.

I always find myself in a strange place when there is talk of politics. I have found that most people prefer simple answers to to complicated problems. They always want to identify a bad guy, and maybe find a good guy, if it is conventient. It doesn’t work like that. At least, it doesn’t work like that for me.

I am a pacifist who is also a West Point graduate. I am a father whose son went to war in Iraq, and I still accept his decision to do so. My son, Hans, suffered immensely (as did the people he killed). I know classmates from USMA (United States Military Academy) who totally believe that Hans and his comrades in arms are heroes. I believe that it was all a disaster, but I also think that Hans and his compatriots really tried to do the right thing. However, I have friends in the peace movement who condemn my son and others like him in the military as murderers. Fuck that.

In the progressive movement, there is a party line that encompasses a wide spectrum of issues that may or may not have any sort of link. The line includes these things: being pro-choice, being in favor of gun control, being pro-immigrant, being pro-LGBTQ, being pro-indigenous people, being in favor of Medicare for all, etc..

I buy into some of these ideas. I am passionately interested in the rights of immigrants. I think that everybody should have health care. I am very sympathetic to the needs of indigenous peoples.

However, I have no use for gun control. It simply can’t be done. I know gun owners, Hans included, who will never give up any rights to their weapons. It’s a lost cause.

I think that abortion is wrong. I have seen the effects of abortion, and they are chilling. I have taken the time to talk with people from Planned Parenthood, and I think that I understand their position, at least a bit. However, I can’t be pro-choice. It doesn’t feel right to me.

I am a political refugee. I don’t belong anywhere.

I have noticed that almost nobody in any party wants to end our nation’s endless wars. There is bipartisan consensus about maintaining a constant state of war. That makes me less than partisan. I don’t believe in either party, because they both believe in the same corrupt system. Both parties believe in violence.

This essay has taken me far from the trial of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is a symptom of our society’s problems. He is not the cause. People sometimes compare him to Hitler. That isn’t fair to Hitler. Hitler actually believed in something. Trump reminds me more of Mussolini. Look at photos of Mussolini and then look at pictures of Trump. Tell me what you see.

There is a sickness in our culture, something deep and pervasive. Both major political parties are infected by it. Trump is a catalyst that makes this moral disease apparant. He shows us for who we really are. In a perverse way, he may be necessary to our recovery.

The impeachment showed us that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 4th, 2020

“My ACTIONS should draw people to the God I serve, not my SALES PITCH. If people want what I have, they’ll ask me how to get it. If not, that’s their business.”
― Stefne Miller

“I want to be where there are out and out pagans.”
― St. Francis Xavier

I have a friend who is a missionary. Well, I think that he is still a friend, but it’s hard to tell. I am almost certain that I have offended him, and he may have finally given up on me. In any case, he is an Evangelical, and he has been in Germany for the last ten years. He is absolutely convinced that he is doing the Lord’s work there. I am not so sure.

For a decade now, my friend has been telling anybody who cares to listen about his ministry in Germany. I finally wrote to him last week and said that I cannot make any sense of his work. I told him that I don’t see how his activities relate to Christianity at all. He seems to be constantly busy, but I can’t comprehend how all this busyness brings God into the lives of other people. Basically, I called into question his entire career path, and I do not expect that he appreciated that.

I just don’t get it.

When my friend moved to Bonn, it was under the auspices of a large missionary organization. He quickly started a blog, and sent out monthly updates on his life overseas. The posts read like a travelogue. He always seemed to be going to beautiful, exotic places in Europe for seminars, conferences, and workshops. I was never able to figure out what he actually did. All I know for certain is that at the end of each post, he would ask for prayers…and money. I stopped reading the posts. They were redundant. I stopped sending him money. I still send prayers on occasion.

So, what is he really trying to do? His standard answer to that question is that he bringing the Gospel to a people who “have forgotten that they have forgotten about God”. What the hell does that mean? How is he bringing the Gospel? By going to an endless succession of strategic planning sessions? By attending Evangelical lovefests? What is he actually doing for anybody?

I know some other missionaries. I met Father Peter and Sister Betty in Ciudad Juarez back in October. They live in Anapra, one of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods in Juarez. They have been in Mexico since 1995, living among the people, as members of that poverty-stricken community. These two elderly missionaries have the same standard of living as the folks that they help. They reside in a tiny house, and their material needs are minimal. They share whatever they have. They do whatever they can to support their neighbors, especially the women. Sister Betty and Father Peter never asked anybody for money while I was with them. I don’t know where they get their financial support, but somehow they make do.

I totally admire those people. They are bringing Jesus to the residents of Anapra by being Jesus to them, not just by talking about Jesus.

My friend lives a first world lifestyle in a first world country. I am sure that he makes some sacrifices. After all, he is away from his loved ones most of the time. However, he isn’t making sacrifices like Peter and Betty. I know that my friend has his struggles. He has some serious health issues, but he also has access to good health care. He has access to decent food and clean water. He is not in danger of being shot down on the street. My friend went from a comfortable way of life in America to another comfortable way of life in Germany. Is that how missionaries are supposed to live?

My friend has interacted with immigrants in Germany, in particular the Kurds. I give him credit for that. Maybe he has performed countless acts of compassion during his decade in Germany, actions that I don’t know anything about. He has seldom, if ever, talked about doing simple acts of kindness. His emphasis is always on major events, the big time.

Other missionaries I know talk about what they have learned from the people they have met. I am not sure that my friend has learned much from the locals. He has always been interested in teaching about Jesus. It has always felt to me like he is doing other people a favor by just being there. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he has learned many things from the people he’s met. I don’t know.

My friend is often asking for money. That is a standard topic in his posts and his conversations. Does it have to be that way? There is a biblical alternative. In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul pays his own way. He works as a tentmaker, and he never ask for support from anyone during his journeys around the eastern Mediterranean. Paul works for a living. That’s an interesting concept.

I have no problem with people going to faraway places to serve the needs of others, whether those needs are material or spiritual. More power to them. I am happy to help them.

I just want it to be real.

 

 

 

 

February 4th, 2020

“I screwed up.”

I hate it when she says that.

I was driving the young woman back home after her workout session at the gym. Against my better judgment, I asked,”

“How so?”

“I relapsed on Thursday night.”

“How so?”

She was near tears. “I got high on dextromethorphan.”

“You got high on what?”

“Dextromethorphan. It’s in cough medicine.”

“Oh.”

“But I didn’t drink!”

Then she went on, “I’m trying to do the twelve-step thing and be honest! I don’t like this!”

It was quiet for a minute.

She asked, “Should I tell my mom?”

I replied, “You might want to wait on that. Call your sponsor, and ask her what to do. She would know who you should tell, and when.”

Then I added, “I’m not saying anything.”

The girl called her sponsor, and then told her mother what she told me. The response was surprisingly subdued.

Eventually, she also told her therapist and her parole officer. The PO didn’t seem terribly concerned. The therapist told the young woman to start going to weekly group therapy meetings, in addition to her weekly private therapy sessions. That sounds like a good idea, except for the fact that I have to get her to these sessions. The girl has no drivers license (four drunk driving convictions will do that), so I have to be her chauffeur.

She asked me, “Are you mad about this?”

I told her, “No.”

I’m not mad. I’m a bit frustrated perhaps, but I am glad that she fessed up to what she did, and that she is taking the necessary steps to avoid it happening again. That is a big step for her, and it is something new in my experience. I am not very worried about the relapse. Everybody relapses into bad habits at some point. It’s part of the human condition. We all fall down, and then we get up. We fall down again, and then get up again.

It is essential to look at the big picture. How is this young woman functioning overall, now that she has been out of prison for a month?

She is doing pretty well. She goes to twelve-step meetings every day. She works out at the gym every day. She calls her sponsor every day. She studies each day. She reaches out to friends, both new and old. It looks like she may have job in a couple weeks. She expects to be working as a barista at a new coffee shop in the local area. The owner is willing to display and sell the girl’s artwork.

The young woman is starting to draw and paint again. This is huge. She has always been a phenomenal artist. She has a gift for finding the best color, perspective, and proportion. She has an intuitive feel for how things should look. The girl’s emotions are visible in her work, sometimes in subtle ways. For years, she has avoided her pencils, pens, and brushes. Now her Muse has returned, and the images are beginning to flow.

Healing takes time, and it happens in its own way. There is both growth and failure. Maybe failure is just a necessary part of growth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 28th, 2020

Last October, I went with thirteen other people to El Paso/Ciudad Juarez to learn about the struggles of migrants and asylum seekers on the southern border. It was an intense period for everybody in our group. We participated in a five day immersion program, and we all came out different. It changed us.

Now, we have had time to sort through our feelings. Some of us have put together a very brief video of our experience. I generally do not put videos on this blog. However, this one rocks.

We are all part of the Catholic Coaltion for Migrants and Refugees, in case you care.

This is the link to the video.

Borders by Frank Pauc

January 27th, 2020

Last Friday our congressman came to town and held a one-hour-long listening session at the Oak Creek City Hall. I attended the meeting. I found it curious that the gathering was called a “listening session”. At times, it was hard to tell if anybody was actually listening.

Everybody in that room had come to talk, including Representative Steil. Congressman Steil is a first term Republican. He was elected in 2018 to take over Paul Ryan’s old district. I have had a bit of face-to-face interaction with the congressman during the past year. Steil is young and ambitious. His whole goal at this point is to get re-elected. He is in favor of veterans, puppy dogs, and apple pie. Steil does his best to steer away from controversial issues. He is perhaps wise to do so.

Although I disagree with the congressman on many issues, I still like him. Of course, liking him does not mean that I would ever vote for him, but he seems to be a decent guy. He tried to set the tone for the meeting by saying,

“Things in Wisconsin are a lot different than in Washington. People here know how to ‘disagree without being disagreeable’. Right?”

I’m not so sure about that. The guy in the front row with the MAGA cap made me a little concerned about how this session was going to go. People who show up for listening sessions or town hall meetings tend to be very passionate about a particular topic, otherwise they wouldn’t bother to show up. The challenge for Steil was to get these people to participate in the discussion without it turning into a free-for-all. I could tell that it was going to be a struggle.

People who show up for a listening session also tend to be old. I am certain that many of the folks in the room were retired, like me. The meeting was held in the middle of a workday, so who else would have been able to be there? The demographics tend to skew the discussion. The people at the meeting were much more interested in Medicare, Social Security, and the price of prescription drugs than members of the general public. It would have been interesting to have had more young people in attendance.

Steil spent the first twenty minutes of the hour long session talking about himself. He’s running for re-election, and it was his chance to blow his own horn. He spoke about his successes at bipartisan legislation. Most of the bills he supported involved safe topics. We didn’t hear about any bold initiatives. As a freshman congressman from a swing district, he won’t try anything risky. He kept saying that it will be difficult to pass any bills until after the November election. That means nothing will get done until next year.

Steil opened the floor for questions and comments. The congressman called on people to speak. There were probably forty or more people at the meeting, each of them wanting to give an opinion. That included me. With the time remaining, it was unlikely that more than ten persons would be able to say anything. The atmosphere was tense.

The first person called by Steil wanted to talk about climate change. The citizen cited studies by the Pentagon indicating that climate change was a threat to the national security. When he was finished speaking, Steil said,

“I believe that climate change is real.”

That blew me away. I was unaware that there were any Republicans that accepted climate change.

Then the conversation got murky. When asked about what we should do about climate change, the congressman fell back on saying that technological innovations driven by the free market would fix it all. He also stated that the United States should not make efforts to curb emissions until the other polluters (e.g. India and China) did the same. In short, Steil told us that the U.S. government should do nothing.

The conversations went back and forth. People raged and raved about student loan debt. Steil’s answer to the problem was that students ought to get through college in a shorter period of time, because then they would have less debt. Seriously, he said this.

One young man (there was a young man there) pushed Steil hard about his vote against the impeachment of Donald Trump. The congressman obviously wanted to avoid this discussion, but I think that Steil knew it was coming.

Steil said, “I analyzed the documents and I did not find an impeachable offense.”

End of story.

Honestly, what else would our representative have said? The man who asked the question already knew the answer. The questioner just wanted to make Steil squirm.

Later in the melee, an older gentleman asked Steil about the building of a new Post Office annex in Oak Creek. This new construction was very offensive to this citizen. The man was clearly upset, and he told Steil, in no uncertain terms, that the congressman had not done jack shit to prevent its development.

Steil was dumbfounded. Think for a moment: Steil needs to be concerned about various issues throughout southeastern Wisconsin. That is impossible, even for a man with people who work for him. The citizen who ripped on our elected official caught Steil off guard. Steil did not like that.

The congressman stammered. He had no good answers, but he promised to get back to his angry constituant. That didn’t really help. Steil momentarily looked clueless, and that is never a good thing for a politician.

The session ended with many issues unadressed. I think it is always like that.

I would never want Steil’s job. I could never do it. I admire him because he is at least trying to do the right thing. I find that to be very impressive.

This is what democracy looks like, and it truly a mess.

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 26th, 2020

As I age, I get to go to more funerals. That’s part of the deal with getting old. Mortuaries usually look very proper, and they try to be comforting in a quite, conservative sort of way. Every funeral home is basically a Motel 6 for the dead: each place looks like all the others, and nobody stays in a room for very long.

I went to a funeral yesterday. It felt awkward, but then I think most funerals feel awkward. This one was called a “memorial service”. I am not quite sure what the difference is between a “funeral” and “memorial service”, but apparently there is one.

The memorial service was for Rick. Rick was a friend of mine, although to this day, I’m not sure why. We really didn’t have that much in common. Rick was thirteen years older than me, and his political views were radically different than mine. We would argue fiercely at times, but we were always able to maintain a level of mutual respect and affection. It is rare for people to do that, especially now. I admired Rick for his ability to listen.

We had some things in common. Both of us had been Army officers. Rick had been an Armor platoon leader during the Vietnam era. I was/am a West Point graduate, and I was the operations officer for a helicopter company during the 1980’s. We could talk about the Army. We understood each that way. We both had strong connections with Germany. Rick studied German, and he sponsored German business students when they came to visit the United States. I lived in Germany for three years, courtesy of the U.S. Army, and I married my German wife there. We both participated in a German Bible study group for at least a decade. That brought us closer together.

During the last couple years, Rick suffered mightily from Parkinson’s disease. I visited him a couple times in the local VA hospital. I was hard to see him hurting so badly, but I’m glad that I was there with him, at least for a little while.

I met Rick’s widow, Teri, at the memorial service. She looked a bit rough, but then how else could she look? I also spoke with Rick’s son, Ricky. Ricky was going to give part of the eulogy.

I told him, “That’s going to be hard.”

He nodded and said, “Yes, I know, but I want to do it.”

I shook his hand and said, “Good for you.”

There were several speakers at the funeral. Most of them were classmates of Rick from when he was a student/ROTC cadet at Ripon College back in the early 1960’s. They all talked about “the good old days” at school. That weirded me out. Maybe it shouldn’t have. After all, most West Pointers usually have a deep nostalgia for their alma mater. I don’t. That shit is over and done. It is difficult for me to understand how people can still hark back to their days as students after forty or fifty years have gone by. I just don’t get it.

Ricky gave his portion of the eulogy at the end. He repeatedly choked up when talking about his father. He did well. His love and his grief showed through everything. I was impressed.

At the end of the service there was a military flag salute and the playing of “Taps”. Two Army sergeants in their dress blue uniforms came into the room to present Teri with an American flag. They moved in a robotic manner, and they took their time unfolding and refolding the flag. It was all part of a ritual, and it was meant to be an honor for Rick and his family. At the end of the ceremony, one of the soldiers bent down toward Teri and said,

“On behalf of the President, and the United States Army, and a grateful nation, please accept the gift of this flag.”

She accepted the flag.

I cannot imagine this happening when I die. For one thing, Karin, my wife, is a lifelong pacifist, and she would be shocked and offended by the entire process. I plan to make it abundantly clear to her that I don’t want it either. I was a soldier, but I am not one any more.

Then the funeral home folks played a recording of “Taps”. It is a beautiful piece of music that can be deeply moving. However, it has a limited appeal.

I don’t want that either.

 

 

 

January 22nd, 2020

“One day at a time, sweet Jesus. Whoever wrote that one hadn’t a clue. A day is a fuckin’ eternity”
― Roddy Doyle, Paula Spencer

Alcoholism.

Drug addiction.

All that bad shit.

And here we are.

I took the young woman to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous yesterday. I take her to a meeting almost every day. I dropped her off at a small Lutheran church in our hometown. The meetings generally last for an hour. I came back for her, and I waited in the parking lot for her group to finish. I stared at the church. I know it well.

I went to AA meetings there twenty-eight years ago.

Twenty-eight years ago I was a mess, an even bigger mess than I am now. I was drinking all the time, and I was out of control. My wife wanted to leave me. Things were bad.

I asked one of my uncles to take me to AA meetings. He did. He had started going to them back n 1985, and he has been sober ever since. I guess he qualifies as a success story, but I’ll get back to that topic some other time. In any case, I went meetings at least three times a week, every week, for about six months. I was involved with three or four different groups. I really tried to follow the program. I wanted to change my life.

I got a sponsor. A sponsor like a mentor in AA. This a person who has a history of sobriety, and is willing to guide a newbie along that same path. Choosing a sponsor requires a high level of courage and trust on the part of the person who is just starting to get sober. Basically, the person who is just beginning with AA puts his or her life into the hands of a totally stranger. The sponsor can and will order their protege to do certain things. In return, the sponsor promises to be there to help their AA apprentice when things go bad, and things invariably do go bad.

Things went bad for me. I was working third shift at a trucking company, running a complicated dock operation all on my own. It was a remarkably stressful job, and I slept poorly. Karin and I had two small children at home. Karin’s parents came to visit us from Germany, and they brought along Karin’s young niece. This should have been a thoroughly pleasant experience, but it wasn’t.

Remember that this is back in 1992. This all occurred when people only had landline phones. There was no caller ID. It happened that the niece’s mother kept calling to check on her little girl. The woman called from Germany every five minutes for hours on end. We could have unplugged the phone, but I had to be available if somebody from work wanted to contact me. So I listened to the phone ring at all hours of the day and night. I couldn’t sleep, and I was ready to have a meltdown.

My sponsor was a guy who had been sober for ten years or so. He was a very active in one of the AA groups that I attended. He was a take charge kind of guy. He was kind of flashy; he liked his bling. I asked him to be my sponsor. He agreed and he immediately gave me a set of rules to follow. He made it clear that he was a busy man, and that he wasn’t going to babysit me. He told me to call him if I was in trouble, but only to call him when I was sober. He didn’t want to risk his own sobriety by talking on the phone with a drunk. I said okay. I only called him one time, and that was when I was in trouble.

I finally called my sponsor after the endless phone calls from a psychotic mother in Germany got to be too much for me to handle. I told him what was happening. I can remember his response as if he had spoken to me just yesterday. He sighed and said,

“You know, I don’t think we are good match. I can’t really help you. You need to find somebody else.”

Then he hung up on me.

I went to meetings. I remember going to three of them in a row. I told my story at each of the meetings, and at each of them somebody pulled me aside and told me that my problem was not an appropriate topic for the group. They wanted to talk about alcohol, and only alcohol. I said that all this stress was going to end my sobriety. I was told to tell my sponsor about my issue. I replied that I no longer had one. I was told to find another.

One person actually laughed and told me, “Looks like you need another meeting!”

Fuck all you guys.

I had been led to believe that the people in the AA meetings cared about me. I was led to believe that the people in these groups were somehow more spiritually advanced than the general population. I believed that these people were there for me.

I was wrong.

The people at AA meetings were just people like everyone else. They were no better and no worse. A few folks really did care about me, and I am grateful to them. Most of the people were friendly enough, but they were wrapped up in their own problems as much as I was wrapped up in mine. We had no real connection. We had no real relationship. They were not my friends, not at all.

AA is founded on trust. A person can only work the program if they can trust the other people there. That is one reason the it is called “Alcoholics Anonymous”. The Anonymous part is there to make people feel safe. I didn’t feel safe any more at the meetings, and I did not trust anybody any more. I felt betrayed, and I still feel that way. It was like looking behind the curtain and finding out that the Wizard of Oz was just another schlep like me.

AA obviously works for a lot of people. I am praying that it works for the young woman I know. I want her to get healthy and stay healthy. At this point, I will go along with anything she wants to do, as long as it saves her life.

I have often thought about going into a meeting with her. I have concluded that would be a bad idea. First of all, she would not want me to be in the same room with her. More importantly, I would not be helpful to anyone there. I don’t believe in the program, and I would say so. AA has some of the aspects of a cult. You never question the program. Ever. You buy the entire package or you leave.

I left a long time ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 20th, 2020

It’s been exactly two weeks since the girl got out of prison. It seems like a helluva lot longer than that. I knew beforehand that she would rock my world. That was a given. I just didn’t know how, or when, or why.

That first Monday was brutal. It started with me picking the young woman up at Ellsworth Prison at 7:00 AM. Eight hours later she relapsed. Catastrophic failure. Then there was a series of frantic phone calls to her parole officer, a trip to an ER, and general chaos. We both made it through that day, although I honestly don’t know how we did it. It all ended with Dove bars and Netflix. It could have been much worse.

I think that we were both a bit traumatized for the next few days. We functioned, sort of. On Thursday, Butch, the PO, came to our house with his loyal assistant to do a “home visit”. That went okay. Being a veteran, I established a little bit of credibility with Mr. Butcher.

Time goes on. Because my wife is away, it’s just me taking care of the girl that we love. We are slowly establishing a new relationship. This all takes time.

The last few days have been much better. The young woman has set up a plan to get her life together. She is actively doing things to change her situation. She works out at the gym. She goes everyday to 12-step meetings. She sees a therapist. The young woman goes out with sober friends. She wants to do all the right things. She wants to live. 

The girl told me, “I want to get my head straight before I start looking for a job. I want my mental health stuff to be set up first.”

I wholeheartedly concur with that. We have been spinning together in this dance for over a decade now. Pushing her too hard and too early guarantees failure. This young woman has been though a lot, more than most other humans. She needs to work hard on rebuilding her life, but she also needs to rest when it is necessary. We have time.

I was just re-reading Dracula from Bram Stoker. That book is all about addiction and madness and redemption. It was the right to time to read it again.

Right now, my life revolves around her life. My schedule is her schedule. It won’t be like that forever, but it is now. This is a life and death struggle. I don’t exaggerate. She needs me now. Later, if there is a later, maybe not so much. This young woman needs to heal. She has deep wounds, and they are physical, emotional, and spiritual. Our house is her field hospital for now.

How does this all end? I have no idea. In a way, it doesn’t matter. The ending is not my concern. The girl’s destiny is up to God, not me.

I can only help.