Through the Red Door Blog

Tomorrow morning, I will catch a flight to Washington, DC, to the World Convention of Narcotics Anonymous.  This will be the fifth one I’ve had the privilege to attend.  It is an amazing event. My first one was in the mid-90s about a year after I got an internet account and searched for NA and found chat rooms and email lists and discussion boards full of recovering addicts from all over the world and it was an exciting time because many of us met up in person at that convention!  Each one I’ve attended my circle of recovering friends has grown exponentially from the previous one. When we stay in the middle of the boat, and get involved with service at various levels, that is one of the results.  At the last one I attended my friend who was newly coming back from a relapse was amazed that everywhere we went—every meeting, workshop, meal, hanging out in a sitting area—I would see people I knew.  That’s an amazing thing when you’re looking at 21,000+ folks from all over the world!

Not only will I get to reconnect in person with many friends, but I will also celebrate my belly button birthday and turn 69 years old.  If not for recovery and all that comes with it—a renewed relationship with God, 12 wonderful steps and 12 wonderful traditions and all the great literature that tells my story—you would have thought they intimately knew me and were writing about me personally in our literature–this would not be possible!  Like many of you, I probably wouldn’t even still be alive if not for the gift of desperation that gave me the willingness to go to any lengths to stop using.

Recovery Ministries has also been a very significant part of my recovery as well.  I was working at a church when I got clean and one day something came across my desk from the local Episcopal Addiction and Recovery Commission, and I was thrilled that the church had such a committee! And lo and behold, there was also a national Episcopal recovery organization—at that time called NECA (National Episcopal Coalition on Alcohol), and later NECAD (National Episcopal Coalition on Alcohol and Drugs) and even later RMEC (Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church) as we know it today.  I’ve been pretty much involved locally and nationally since hearing about them back in 1987. 

My 12-step fellowship was there for me when I got clean, my Episcopal recovery organizations were there for me—and one thing I learned that has stuck with me all these 37+ years—if I want to keep what I have, I should give back to others what was so freely given to me. My gratitude speaks when I care and share with others… And I thought today would be a good time to sign up for a Red Door Blog post!

One of my fondest memories of 3^rd grade was how our teacher, Mrs. Vantrese, read books to us. The only one I remember was one about a little girl who could make herself very small and visit the ants that lived under her backyard stairs. I too loved ants after that and would lie in the grass in summer and watch them. Later when my daughter was 10 or so I got us an ant farm. I told her that it could be a fun science thing, but she wasn’t very interested. It really was for me.

On my daily walks in Arizona, I walk on the cart paths of a golf course that went belly up and the owners donated the course to our county as a park. You can walk the whole course on the paths, perhaps 5 miles. It doesn’t much look like a golf course any more as the desert has reclaimed the manicured green grass.

Most days, I see hundreds of ants crossing the paths. They often look very random. They bump into each other and seem to not have any idea where they are going or what they are doing. I am reminded of ME before recovery. I was on fire running around trying to stop the chaos and flames and never noticing anyone else and all the while wanting someone to help me!

Sometimes, I notice one little ant carrying something that seems way too large for this small creature to hold, let alone, carry. I watch as she tries to move a crumb of something, and I feel sad for her. I too tried to carry my disease all by myself. I could manage it alone, thank you very much, but it was hard. My life was unmanageable.

The other day I saw what looked like a red pebble on the path. It was the size of a dime BUT it was MOVING! I got closer, bent down to look, and saw an amazing thing. It wasn’t a pebble; it was some organic thing, and it was moving because a dozen ants were moving it! They were working together in a way that seemed to indicate that they had done this many times before. Their survival depended on working together. The ant hill nearby was their destination and there too were ants working together to maintain their home.

So, I think it is with recovery. Meetings and fellowship and reaching out to those who still suffer is the selfish thing I do to keep my sobriety. It also keeps me connected to and in fellowship with others to support and nurture us in our recovery. Carrying and supporting each other as we Trudge the Happy Road of Destiny.

–Libbie S, Sober Sisters, Green Valley, AZ

Reading Affirmations for the Inner Child by Rokelle Lerner, I came across this affirmation: “I belong to nature, and I live within the order of nature.”

Growing up in the country in Ireland just before a neighbor bought a combine harvester and before television, I loved the hands-on work in nature. Dad dug the potatoes, and I picked them, put them in the bucket to bring home. I’ve walked behind my uncle as he cut the corn with a scythe, picked up an armful and then took a handful and tied it. When possible, I took my brother’s bicycle and rode around the country as the hay was being cut and I loved the aroma of fresh cut hay. Animals died, stray animals were shot or drowned. Such was life in the country of the time. 

I do not recall thinking of myself as a self. Instead, I knew only too well I was “Annie D’s son” and I had to live up to that image – a happy, loving family. I was different from others but not in a healthy manner.

Then I went to seminary and got my head into books. I became acquainted with Jack Daniels et al. I got a motorcycle, then a car and these instruments of travel put distance between me and nature.

As a priest, I have celebrated Mass at the seaside, on a rock on the side of a mountain, by a stream or river. I got out into nature, but it was only a location, a place with which I no longer had that sense of belonging. Somehow, Jack Daniels and friends were hiding me from myself and nature.

As Lerner points out in her Affirmation “I did not learn about my body and facts about the natural world. Nature reproduces, but sex was a shameful secret in my family.” There were a lot of secrets in the family, and I learned early not to talk about the family to outsiders. We were a churchgoing, hard-working family.

 “You are a child of the Universe, no less than the stars and the trees. You have a right to be here.” This line from the poem Desiderata was something I loved to quote to clients in counseling but in private it made me cry. I did not belong. I was an outsider. I had secrets which I could no longer tell the trees.         

Then came recovery. Initially, it was a long slow process because I couldn’t admit to myself the secrets I spent years burying. Living up to the expectations of another was difficult to change.

Finally, after some four years of a dry-drunk, working the program for all the wrong reasons- just to look good to others especially my boss- I hit bottom. I admitted I am an alcoholic, I am powerless over alcohol, I have an addictive personality, I am an adult child of a dry drunk,  and my life had become unmanageable. What a weight to be lifted off my shoulders. Now what? The journey of recovery had just begun.

Everything I learned over the years had lodged in my head. I could give a good talk, teach, make you think you knew me and all the while hiding, even from myself, in plain sight. Now, all that I learned was trickling down into my heart, and, like the Skin Horse in The Velveteen Rabbit, I was beginning to feel love and loved.

“I belong to nature, and I live within the order of nature.” “I am a child of the Universe no less than the trees and the stars; I have a right to be here.” I became free to be who I am, free to be, become and feel alive, free to splash in the ocean and the ocean of emotions within me. 

Today, I love being in recovery, I love the feeling of being a child of God and a child of the Universe. I love to drive into the swamps and smell the sensuality of this land, to see the variety of animals, to feed an alligator from a boat. I love to see, to hear, to smell, to taste and to touch nature and be alive again.

Séamus D is an Episcopal priest in recovery and lives in New Orleans

Three of us met for coffee a couple weeks ago, “alumni” from a noon AA meeting in a church basement where we had met many years ago when we first sought sobriety. We hadn’t been together for several years. We’d gone different ways and changed in that period, one had moved to an assisted living facility, one had a death in the family, the other had retired and was traveling.  But what we immediately saw was that through the years, each of us had continued a very active participation in the AA Program.

We shared recollections of our time spent at this particular “five days a week noon AA meeting”. Usually, all three of us were present. Thirty or so faithfully attended but sometimes that basement floor was packed. We recalled our early AA meetings, the people who reached out to us as newbies, the laughter and support freely given to us by all ... to all.  This was an open discussion meeting...topics on all subjects: our hurts and successes, stories of how folks had worked the Steps, phrases from the Big Book, the whole gaggle of topics you find at any AA open discussion meeting. We applauded anniversaries of others whether years or a day. We shared fun and laughter and a special sadness for people we knew and worked with who had tried the Program but didn’t make it.

Our reunion reinforced all we had found and learned and accepted. For us, the Program had become a way of living our day-to-day lives, alcohol-free, but just as importantly as a way of working through life itself. We recalled times of difficulties we had confronted as we aged—normal issues a recovering alcoholic-and all of us-face in our lives—and yet, and yet, for us, sobriety prevailed frankly because we worked at it each day and followed the discipline of the Steps and went to meetings where of course others were walking the same path.  

We recalled our Twelve Step work of reaching others—one was the father and grandfather sponsor of many, another worked through the court system, the third spoke through substance abuse programs and in hospitals.

We spoke of meetings in other countries. AA, we agreed, was much the same wherever it was, language didn’t seem to be much of a barrier, after all, the readings while in a different tongue were from the Big Book or the “12 and 12” so we three all said we could easily follow.

Yes, this reunion was a grand time of laughter and recalling days of our early years in the Program. It reaffirmed what we are called to do in Step Ten—our belief in the importance of continuing to “work the Steps” of Alcoholics Anonymous.

We closed our gathering as we did all those years in that noon AA meeting in that church basement...

God, grant us serenity to accept things we can’t change, courage to change what we can, and wisdom to know the difference...and keep us coming back for it really works if we keep working it.

Jim A, and for M and P, St X Noon

I lived in Seattle, Washington, for 44 years. I got sober in Seattle. Last fall I moved to Southern AZ to escape from the grey and the rain. This summer I returned for one month to visit family and friends. I didn’t expect to feel very different or see Seattle differently as it had only been10 months since I left.

I was lucky to have two very close friends who invited me to stay with them. Both were in neighborhoods I had not lived in. Staying with friends for two weeks each was wonderful and challenging.  I brought many things to feel at home and for the most part it was good and yet I saw my former city in different ways. It seemed that maybe it wasn’t ‘my’ Seattle anymore.

After 10 months in the desert, I have two great home groups and was learning to love the desert and cactus. I understood why friends who had visited me when I lived in Seattle from other parts of the country would say “It’s so green here!” It is! And the trees are so tall, not like the short Palo Verdes in AZ. The noises were different than I remember. Seattle is a big city so more sirens, more traffic noises, less bird noises and many, many more airplanes flying overhead to the airport.

In both of my friends’ houses there was liquor. Both are normies and I never thought much about it because they rarely drink (maybe they do when I am not around). I house sat for each of them for 10 days while they went away. While in the kitchen looking for something or in the basement looking for where the laundry was, I would see a cabinet of liquor or a wine cellar. I would find myself looking at the bottles as if I had never seen liquor before. Each time I asked myself if the bottles looked interesting to me. I was a stranger in a city that used to be mine. Before I got sober it would have been a great idea to have some? A lot? Instead, I found myself looking and then closing the cabinet and then didn’t really think about it until I was starting to write this blog.

I got sober in Seattle 34 years ago. My home groups were great, but most were still online from the pandemic and those that weren’t were not near me.  Thank goodness that my zoom meetings from AZ and from all around the country were still ones I could get to while in Seattle. I did get to spend time with my sponsor and that was a god send. In addition, my daily readings grounded me and when I felt out of sorts or unmoored, I would walk. I walked in familiar places with good friends and new places on my own. That’s where I talk to and experience God. Even though I was with so many good friends, I would be reminded that I am not alone.

The International AA convention was in Seattle when I was six months sober. It was the very first time I felt NOT ALONE in most of my life. Being back in Seattle, all I had to do was close my eyes and see myself in the Kingdome with 65,000 other recovering people. Seattle may not be where I live now, it may have changed some. I am so glad I went to visit, glad I could move anywhere and find AA, and glad that, one day at a time, a liquor cabinet doesn’t appeal to me.

In early recovery I heard this advice over and over: “Look for someone who has what you want, and ask them how they got it.” That was, I was told, also how to pick a sponsor. It’s funny looking back. I mean how does a really new newcomer know what someone has? Yes, you can hear a sense of humor or see who bathes regularly. But when I look around the rooms today it’s not always the shiny stars or fine talkers of AA who have what I want.

I’ve been thinking about this because this week I was trying to explain to a sponsee why she should do more step work. “I don’t drink and I don’t want to drink, and I’m really happy about that,” she told me. And I get that, but I tried to tell her that I want so much more than that from AA, and from of my life.

I want so much more than abstinence from alcohol. And I even want so much more than no more “jackpots”. I want the whole enchilada that I believe is possible: peace, serenity and joy (not daily happiness but real joy.) I also want great relationships: with husband, friends and colleagues. And a great relationship with my Higher Power and with myself.

But here’s where it gets tricky. Some of that good, changed life comes with longevity—more time in recovery equals more exposure to new ideas, concepts and layer upon layer of the Steps. But not for everybody. I still have to look around the rooms and ask myself, “Who has what I want?”

It’s possible to have 35 years of sobriety and be obese, angry, gambling, smoking or using some behavior or  “legal” substance and still be miserable. I see it and hear it. We share the rooms with folks who have been around a very long time and are miserable in marriage or on the job. That’s not the recovery I want for myself.

In some ways the pool gets smaller the further we go if we are committed to going all the way. What do you think about this? If you have been around a while what kind of recovery are you still working toward? I want deep change as much -- or more -- than I want long years. In a sense that is where my deep joy comes from—knowing there is some crazy character defect I didn’t even know I had two years ago, that I recognized in myself one year ago, and that I see gradually changing this summer. I’m in awe of that, and I can only want more.

Diane C, from Albany, New York

I don’t like driving mountain passes! For most of my adult life and almost all my sobriety, I lived in the Pacific Northwest where there are MANY mountain passes. I feel anxious going up, fooled in the small valleys in between, and so scared when going down those 6+% grades. It’s even worse if there are a lot of trucks.

Going through the mountains between Oregon and California on a trip got me thinking about how the difficult times in life and sobriety are like going through those mountain passes. Going up you can’t see where you are. It can be hard on the car, like it can be hard on the spirit. There are twists and turns that by the time you get used to them, they change. Some trucks go so slowly, and some cars go so fast. I find myself judging my progress against them. It’s like whatever I do in life—comparing and feeling out of control many times. At the top of the pass there is a vista, and things look very clear for a moment. But then it’s all downhill! And that can be as hard as the uphill climb, will it ever end, can I control my speed!

As I came out of the mountains into California, I saw Mt. Shasta brilliant in the sun! It was amazing and for many minutes the difficulty of the mountains was worth the view. As I got down to the flat of Interstate 5, I went through Yreka, CA. Soon I saw an exit sign for the upcoming exit. I knew I HAD to take it: Exit 770 - Easy St./Shamrock Rd!

I had to get to Easy Street—didn’t everyone want to live there? Would there be big houses and fancy cars in the driveways? Did folks look like they were always happy? Did their luck show on Shamrock Rd.? How could I live there?

What did I find? A rural road with few houses. Nothing special, no great signs of wealth and happiness. Then I remembered: Easy Street is a state of mind not a single place or destination. Probably the people who found their way to this place long ago, named the streets in the hope that for them it would come true—their life would be easy, and I’d like to think it did in their spirit; perhaps it kept them hopeful.

I smiled, got back on the freeway, and pulled over on the shoulder to take a picture of the sign so I could always remember. I can live on Easy Street any time I live in the present moment and embrace hope. That second step is my favorite. It’s the Hope step. This is an excerpt from my book—God Shots: Memories and Lessons, A life is Recovery. Libbie S., Sober Sisters Monday meeting Green Valley, AZ

In his book, Shattered Dreams, Martin Luther King wrote, “Our capacity to deal creatively with shattered dreams is ultimately determined by our faith in God…However dismal and catastrophic may be the present circumstances, we know we are not alone.”

At the age of nineteen, I entered the Novitiate of a religious congregation in the hope of becoming a priest and a missionary. During that year of relative silence, I decided that I wanted to go to Brazil, a new mission of the Congregation.

At the age of twenty-two, I began my final four years of formation in the study of the bible, theology, church history, etc. My dream or hope of being a priest never wavered. That is, until I met two good friends, Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker and their friends. Oh, we had fun times at first but somewhere along the way I let go of who I thought I was and became someone I did not like and did not know how I got there.

I was elected to various committees; I was involved in the city in a number of charitable and wonderful programs including working in a shelter for those who were there because they could not stop drinking. One of them was a brilliant person and a professor but could not stop drinking. I felt sorry for him.

Then I was ordained. About six months before I was to fly to Brazil, I was offered an opportunity to continue studies and, from my low self-esteem position, this was an unexpected jolt. The egomaniac became alive. Continued studies was something I deserved, and the missions could just wait another year.

After a year of studies, and ongoing negative communication with my superior in Brazil, I refused to go to Brazil and, instead, came to Louisiana. At the end of that year, I relocated to California. It could be said I had become a drifter.

I was good at what I did – being a priest, a counselor and speaker – but the external “success” was a façade that buried the broken shattered glass within me. I had no idea who I was, where I was going, or what was going to happen to me. I not only felt alone, but I was also lonely and spiritually dead.

I left the active ministry, got married, and was employed in a hospital setting for teenage alcoholics and addicts. From my days on the streets in Dublin and teaching I had a good working knowledge of addiction. I also had taken a few college courses in addiction. I was the right person for this job!!!   

My Higher Power got tired of protecting me and, after a couple of months, I found myself telling my boss, “I think I have a drinking problem.” Two months later I requested time off to go to treatment. Neither of these two things had I planned.

Four and a half years of chaos followed during which time I got divorced, became a single, domicile, dad of my thirteen-month-old daughter and declared bankruptcy. Somehow or other I had my spiritual awakening. I began to listen to the wisdom of the older folks in the Fellowship and do what I had to do and do it for me.

I let go of the negative judgmental god of my childhood, came to believe in a Power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity; then returned my belief in God. From this beginning, I accepted the help in cleaning up the interior shattered glass. As I did so, I discovered I was not the only one with a hole in my heart, a shattered dream, shattered dreams. It was time to work the steps and then live them.

Life began to return. It was enriched by the diagnosis of depression which was finally treated along with the acknowledgement of my being an ACOA – a dry drunk. The behavior I had adopted in order to grow though childhood and adolescence continued into adulthood and was made more rigid by my addiction.

“Our capacity to deal creatively with shattered dreams is ultimately determined by our faith in God…However dismal and catastrophic may be the present circumstances, we know we are not alone.” 

Looking in the mirror I accepted that I am another human being who has made mistakes, who is living with an incurable disease. The promises for the future, due to living this program, became a reality, continue to be a reality, and my worst day today, is nothing compared to what it could have been and, more importantly, I am not alone.

 Keep coming back is a unique phrase to AA. It is not said in church. I keep coming back so as not to be alone and to be there for others.

My early days of “working the Program” brought changes to my life, some perhaps mundane—like my eating habits, being on time for dinner or picking up the kids, assisting with chores. You’ll know what I am talking about if you’ve really decided to quit drinking and work your way to that alcohol-free life.  

My appearance changed: I lost 40 or 50 pounds in my first six months in the Program. I could remember the events of the night before or remember to pick up that half-gallon of milk. My evening handwriting improved a bit but, alas, I never did have handwriting that pleased my 4th grade schoolteacher mother. Add some of your own “inebriate-trademarks.”

Thinking back to my alcoholic actions is painful but frankly I don’t want to forget them ‘cause I don’t want to repeat them. Come on, be honest—think of some of your gala flip-flops. But if you can’t recall any, listen to that next “drunk-a-log” lead for that’ll bring back your own days of rage. (I like a drunk-a-log occasionally to remind me of those days, I grimace and recall my own episodes, and recall when the Higher Power reached out His arms for me took me to the Beginners’ Meeting at Oak Street.)

I changed habits with friends—people I’d come to know and socialize with. Take dinner parties: now we ask when dinner is being served and arrive no more than 20 minutes 30 max prior to that time. We leave shortly after dessert. Early on, I’d simply decline an invitation since I was “sick” (which was true, “sick of my alcoholism”). I stopped all “after work” gatherings, club activities, stuff like that, any activities where alcohol was a featured part of the event.

I was focused on dealing with my disease and ridding myself of its harm and these changes enabled me to come to understand and work the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I suppose occasionally I wondered if friends noticed, but soon I realized they were busy with their own lives. But there was a Saturday morning, when, in my front yard a friend, a good friend, a neighbor, Howard, said to me,” I know you don’t drink. I didn’t know you were that bad.” I looked him in the eye, and I said, “Well, Howard, how bad does it have to get before one does something about his drinking?”

Yes, the damage we cause to others and ourselves can be deep and dark, but always remember that through the gift of Christ our Higher Power, the Program gives us a way to make life “happy, joyous and free.”

–Jim A, St. X Noon, Cincinnati, Springboro / Franklin Noon

My daughter and I were as close as any mother and daughter could be.  Therapists would say we were co-dependent. We probably were. I was a single mother for most of her growing up and sober since she was 2 ½. Her dad was a good father and we shared custody well.

In my early sobriety, Rachel taught me many things that I needed to learn to stay sober. Some included not worrying so much (she thought that was silly) and asking for help easily whenever she needed help. I often thought she was teaching me more than I was teaching her. I even wrote a book about what she taught me – God Shots: Memories and Lessons, A life in Recovery.

Our perhaps too close relationship continued though her college years and beyond. She married and had a great job and I noticed that she needed to be separate more and more. That is totally understandable and yet I was not prepared to let go. I wanted to cling to the way we were. When the grandbaby came, I thought I would be there and help daily but that’s not what she wanted. She set boundaries I didn’t like. I thought and kept saying - “I ‘m just trying to help”. Really, I wasn’t listening to her and how she wanted to be a parent.

In my home, two gifts from Rachel were very special to me. One was a ceramic leaf plate that she had made in grade school, and one was an icon of Mary that she brought me from a trip to Turkey she had taken.  One month both of those gifts fell and broke within weeks of each other. I was heartbroken and it seemed that they were saying to me that our relationship was broken for good. I kept the pieces that broke and tried not to think about them.

While doing a tenth step sometime later I had to admit that I owed my daughter an amends. I needed to apologize for the intrusive ways I had been acting and for not respecting her boundaries. Slowly, we have forged a new relationship. Not all of it is to my liking but I have learned that I want to know and love my daughter for who she is now, not for the little girl who needed my help so often.

I learned about the Japanese technique Kintsugi, where broken porcelain is visibly repaired with gold. The repair is a symbol and showed that the brokenness was still there, but it had been repaired with gold so that the break would be honored and acknowledge.

I bought a kit to learn Kintsugi. I used it to repair the gifts my daughter had given me, and I had broken. They remind me of the healing that has happened through my willingness to admit may part, make amends, and change my behavior as a living amends. The pieces are more beautiful to me now than they were before. That which was broken can be healed and remembered without forgetting.

Libbie S.