Through the Red Door Blog

“We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” I remember hearing this portion of the 9^th Step Promises from pages 83-84 of the Big Book in my first days of not drinking. I use the term not drinking for I did not have a clue about what the recovering life could look like at that point in my life. My 29+ years of drinking had come to an embarrassing, painful, anger-filled, and life saving intervention by my boss and others who loved me. As I slowly started hearing how the work of the Twelve Steps could lead to these promises being fulfilled, I thought “maybe for others, but not for me.” I so desperately wanted to SHUT the door on ALL the regrets I had from this past, especially as they impacted my wife, our son, and particularly our daughter.

For 18 years, she had weathered the storms of my alcoholic behavior. The profound depth of those effects came to bear in her teen years. She was the “Mini-Me” most families find occurring in parent/child relationships – a perfectionist, often flares of deep anger, then regret, then despair, back to anger. Although we did not overlay expectations upon her for school work or other activities, she pushed herself harder and deeper. At thirteen, we dragged her, and I mean I literally threw her over my shoulder to drive to the therapist! Her first sessions she refused to leave the car, so she sat in the back seat while the therapist stood next to the slightly cracked open window. This all happened while I was still active in my alcoholism which continued for another five years – because, as you might understand, I was not the problem!

As I continued working the steps to #8 and 9, the amends making was not possible with my daughter. She was one whom we learn of the latter portion of Step 9 “… unless to do so would injure them or others.” She tolerated being in our home because of her love, care, and protection of her mother from me. So I learned, accepted, and PRAYED that in God’s time a window for making my deep amends to her would open. Over the years following in recovery – now 18 years, matching her age when I began this journey – the windows of opportunity cracked open at times. They usually came after she had drunk too much, did something she now regretted, and was wallowing in that valley of feeling worthless that I had known so well. When she opened a little, I would try to share my experience from times just like this in her life, and ask forgiveness for how I had hurt her in this life. Sometimes my amends were heard and grudgingly accepted, and other times vehemently rejected. I accepted her side of the street and did what I knew I could do in becoming a sober man and father she might forgive and embrace someday. I just kept doing the next things as right as I could, and asked for forgiveness when those character defects popped up again. I just kept coming back as best I could, one day after another after another after …

I offer this part of my story this day for on Saturday, October 17, our daughter will celebrate her marriage to a fine man … and I will be walking her down the aisle! Eighteen years ago, and even eight years ago, I am pretty sure I would not have even been invited to be any part of the blessings of this day in her life.

For this reason, I now embrace this promise of the 9^th Step … and for that I am grateful!

Paul G.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Tacoma, WA (Diocese of Olympia) seeks to support recovery in two ways that may be of interest and encouragement to other congregations. Of course we make our facility available to several 12 step meetings, including AA and Al-Anon. The first is to designate one Sunday every September as Alcoholism Awareness Sunday. On that Sunday, the sermon focuses on alcoholism and substance abuse and on recovery for the person and their household. In place of the regular sermon, we may have a speaker from AA or Al-Anon, a speaker from our diocesan Commission on Alcohol and Substance Abuse, or I as rector may speak specifically about the “disease” of alcoholism and how our Christian faith offers hope for recovery. Simply dedicating one Sunday to alcoholism and substance abuse is a powerful and welcome message to our congregation that this issue can and needs to be talked about. Many members each year express their appreciation that this simple observance offers an opening to talk about this challenge they carry in their household and/or family history which is generally taboo for discussion.

Second, after much discussion, St. Andrew’s now offers a chalice of consecrated juice as well as consecrated wine at our Sunday Eucharists. I confess that as rector, I resisted this because it seemed logistically awkward and because just receiving the bread was “full” communion. However, we were offering gluten-free communion wafers as an alternative to the consecrated bread, and some parishioners did feel that excluding them from the cup denied our acknowledgement and commitment to recovery. After consultation with our bishop, we instituted a trial period and now have been offering an alternative chalice for the past year.

The logistics have gone very smoothly, and the alternative chalice has been appreciated by more folks than I expected – those refraining from alcohol as part of their recovery, those who choose to refrain from alcohol because of other medications, and several children who do not like the taste of the wine.

We purchase small, 6 oz. bottles of grape juice – individual serving size – which do not need refrigeration before opening. One bottle is sufficient for both 8 am and 10 am services, with any remainder discarded. So there is no issue of refrigeration.

The chalice used is distinct from our other chalices – ours is ceramic rather than silver plate. The filled chalice is placed on the Altar at the Offertory. I make the following announcement every Sunday: “When the wine is offered, if you would prefer a chalice of non-alcohol-bearing, consecrated juice, indicate by placing your hands together, palms down, and that will be offered.” (We use the same signal to indicate a preference for non-gluten bread when that is offered.) Then when the Eucharistic Minister bearing a chalice of wine sees that sign, they pass that person at the communion rail and another Eucharistic Minister, bearing the chalice of consecrated juice, steps up to serve. (At 8 am, the one Eucharistic Minister may return to the Altar to exchange chalices if an assistant is not available.) Over-all, this part of our liturgical service has flowed very well.

These two practices have been much appreciated in our congregation and have inspired visitors beyond our parish. Regular members find this a gracious expression of our welcome to all God’s people.

Yours in Christ,

The Rev. Martin Yabroff

At times I felt alone; at times I battled with the idea that I was the maker of my life. When I was caught up in a constant desire for fame and material wealth, my partner was not with me. I was alone, trying to figure out the path to happiness. Drug addiction gave me the illusion of control. Many years passed of trouble, with the law, with the family, and with the job. I met my end when alcohol brought me to the place that an alcoholic knows well: loneliness, an indescribable sadness and fear. I reached out for help in the physical world, to the people in twelve step recovery.

I started to walk in the sunlight of the Spirit, life did take on new meaning,and I found the friend who I thought had left me behind. But my lessons were not complete. For 12 plus years, fame and fortune threw applause my way and I thought that I had “arrived”. One day while in Dover, England, after carousing around the links, I left my friend for my old acquaintance: addiction. The walls did not come immediately crashing down, there was no black cloud, my bank account was not emptied, and my wife of 10 years (who also had 15 plus years of recovery) suspected nothing. Yet the slow return of loneliness and despair was inevitable and it felt like torture. Eventually I was alone again; or so I felt.

Leaving prison and living in the big northern city did not fulfill that desire in me which I could not identify. I turned to the country in South Georgia. While seeking fame in an anonymous fellowship, I met with a Vicar who freely offered his church's space for our new recovery meeting. He had moved here and became Vicar of the church only two weeks prior to us meeting. Things developed and I struggled with staying clean but was never judged by the members of the congregation, and certainly not by the Vicar or Youth Minister. I had never made my own decision to become a member of a congregation; that decision was made for me as a youngster. This time the decision is mine: to follow a path that is not clearly visible yet, but my thoughts about my purpose are clear: carry the message of God, using recovery, to reach the man on paper, the mother hiding from her family, and any needing help, to mend the shame and prejudice surrounding the addiction and recovery process.

Say the word “God” and watch how addicted people react. Exhibit an “act of God” and feel them respond. The words are not useful until the spirit is open to them. One cannot graft a new idea into a closed mind. God has put me in a position in my life I never imagined, given me an opportunity to carry his message, through my experience, to a community I have grown to admire. Homelessness, treatment, affiliation with the rich and poor, prison, popularity, fortune, children and my family relationships are some of the experiences I carry.

Our Church now has more recovery meetings of any place in our county. We plan to show the documentary “The Anonymous People” for the community in October. We are praying for guidance to discover our signature mission.

I am taking more time for prayerful meditation and the worldly clamors are becoming quieter. My journey was always with God. The practice of discernment has become a base for my faith and my continuing relationship with God. 

-Anonymous

As I reflect on my sobriety and the struggles I have had in the past with self-medicating through alcohol, I invariably come back to the idea of grace. I am here by grace, and it is through grace that I find the courage to stay sober. I don't know when or if I will slip up. It could be today or tomorrow. It could be years from now. But what I do know is that grace will be there to pick me back up.

I have many reasons to stay sober. From the love of my mom to the smiling faces of my nieces, or the responsibility I have to my younger brothers to provide a good example of what a good man does, or the hope of fulfilling the dreams I have implanted on my heart, there are real, incarnate reasons that remind me each day that I have a good life and I need to entrust my failings and my doubts to the higher power of the Grace of God. If I can surrender my need to try and control everything, I can see that grace alive and vibrant in every moment. And, I can realize that alcohol cannot make anything better than it already is!

Alcohol, for me, is a "stumbling block," to use the words from Jesus in Mark, Chapter 9. It is an impediment that keeps me from being my best self, from whom God created me to be. It soothes the pain, or so I think. Really, it simply numbs the pain, making me think things are ok. But the pain is still there; I am simply ignoring it. And when I recognize that the alcohol has not really made my problems go away, I get mad or depressed and I take all of the anger and sadness out on those around me, on those I love. And God was one of my favorite targets. What I have come to realize is that not only does alcohol keep me from being my best self, but it becomes a barrier to a full, deep, enriching relationship with God.

And while I know God is big enough to take my railing and wailing and anger, my love for God keeps me from drinking. My desire to be who God wants me to be stops me from picking up a bottle. My desire to love God as God loves me strengthens me to not drink. And when I fail, if I fall, God's grace will pick me up and cover the gap that I cannot fill.

James D.

"What's The Gathering?" I asked her. To this day I do not know how the name of the annual conference was chosen. It took me a long time to arrive at this gathering of recovering saints. Not because the flights were long or the taxi drivers were slow to arrive or the trains were delayed. It took me a long time to get to The Gathering because it took me a long time to finally choose sobriety.

Choosing to live a sober life was certainly the very best choice I have made. My family said they had missed the real me much. I was turning to alcohol, running away, making unhealthy choices, and finally hurting so very much that it was my only choice left. I was finally able through the path of recovery to know that I had been forgiven and that I could choose to forgive. I found a loving God full of mercy and grace who heals, redeems, reconciles and restores. And I was given peace.

After a few years of my new life, I discovered that many people gather together (there it is, the name!) in the path of recovery in many different organized events, from different countries, speaking different languages, worshipping in many different ways. And when The Gathering, an annual conference hosted by Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church, was introduced to me as a place I could go, as a conference I could attend, as a retreat I could give to myself, I registered, booked my flights and hotel room, and waited.

I waited because I was not really sure what was ahead. I waited because I did not have any idea who would be there. Would they be people that I could relate to? I wondered. Will I meet anyone that I will enjoy knowing? Will they understand my journey in recovery?

My journey in recovery from alcoholism and other addictions had required that I thoughtfully and prayerfully rebuild my broken relationship with a loving God and with the church. Gratefully, I found that almost everyone attending shared a very similar journey.

My journey in recovery also included discovering service work. Service work shows up in all places and in so many needed ways. I was surprised when I realized that I could be of service to others in recovery through this important fellowship of Recovery Ministries. So, as I walked through the conference, attended the lectures and experiential events, worshipped with fellow recovering folks surrounding me, I was touched deeply. I was surprised by the depth of the meaning of this Gathering of souls who have walked paths quite similar to mine. I laughed and cried. I attended meetings that touched me very deeply. I heard lectures that I recall years later in my heart and mind. I savored the marvelous worship. I made very dear friends. And, after a few years, I was invited to serve on the board of Recovery Ministries. I have found great depth in my fellow board members. I have repeatedly prayed to God to direct me and use me in this unique and precious service to other alcoholics, addicts, and members of recovery in the church.

Oh, all of this is not necessarily guaranteed by the organizing committee for each attendee. But indeed, surely goodness and mercy shall pursue us as we Gather together in Seattle in October. May God's grace and mercy pour over each person preparing for The Gathering booking flights, hotel, and transportation, and waiting. May God bring to each of us the gifts that only God knows what each person truly needs.

Anonymous (thank you)

On Sept. 5^th I celebrate 43 years being clean and sober. And like the first meeting I attended on Sept. 5, 1972, the lead up to my birthday has things stirring inside.

My mother asked me to attend an AA meeting with her when she was perhaps six months sober. I was just a few months past my 21^st birthday; she had gotten sober while I was out of the country and wanted me to understand why she had been the way she had been while I was growing up.

I decided I could go to a meeting and find out why she had been so mean. It was Father Martin’s chalk talk; a two hour presentation that filled the room near Annapolis, MD, to capacity. During the first hour he spoke about what the chemical composition of alcohol does to anyone’s body. During the second hour, he spoke about what alcohol does to an alcoholic.

For the first hour I took my mother’s inventory. During the second hour, I took my own. He described how the alcoholic might initially have a tremendous tolerance for alcohol, frequently seeming to drink others ‘under the table.’ But that wasn’t the good news I thought I had demonstrated; it meant that one’s body had an abnormal response to alcohol. And he described the progression to suicidal depression which I had been in the previous year as I closed the bars night after night. Even more horrifying, he said that for an alcoholic who stops drinking when that person picks up the next drink it is not as if they start over, or even start where they left off. An alcoholic’s body reacts as if they had never stopped drinking… picking up that much farther down the progression. I had proved it just two weeks before when, after a dramatic conversion to Christianity and six months without a drink, a half a beer had me stumbling into the furniture. Me! Who had been putting down between a pint and a quart of tequila a day the year before.

I turned to my mother’s program friend sitting next to me and said “I think I’m an alcoholic.” She took my phone number and for a month hounded me until I agreed to go to another AA meeting. The second meeting was celebrating another woman’s fifth sobriety birthday. I remember listening to her in amazement and thinking she was from Mars. How, in God’s name, did ANYONE go five years without a drink?

Slowly. One does it slowly. And, if we are fortunate, we get remade in the process. 

I was so sure I knew God much better than all the AA people who rumbled about “God as we understand him” and then made it clear they did not understand God at all. But they were willing to trust a loving Presence that might not be there. They were willing to help each other no matter what time of day or night another drunk reached out for help. They were willing to tell the truth, every truth, the most terrible truths, to at least one other person. And to clean up what they could of the wreckage of their pasts. Bottom line, they were staying sober and I was not. 

So I showed up. Haltingly. Resisting suggestions for as long as possible. Choosing meetings attended by those who looked the least like me that I could find. But I showed up and slowly started to experience love that did not have to do with age, or class, or education. Love that sneaks past our defenses; love that sustains us when unthinkable tragedies occur; love that reaches through us to the next person who has called out for help with cries without words. Love in which even/especially God is anonymous. Love that carries me still, after 43 years, into deeper service to my beloved Triune God.

-Marguerite J.

I am a recently retired priest, and also a card-carrying, dues-paying codependent in recovery. I am also Chair of the Board of Directors of a small residential recovery home for women. Working with these women, I see miracles all the time, as Susan A. said on 7/29. Here is one of those miracles, written by a meth addict with just 60 days clean. -Martha Kreamer

Poem
(Written by current resident and used by permission)

It starts at a House on 27 acres,
Letting go of the past.
Becoming friends with 10 strangers.
Suddenly we experience many life changes.
Mornings filled with devotions,
Days, with up and down emotions.
“Rising Above” and making mistakes:
A life or death situation, so do whatever it takes.
Anxiety begins when we look at the future.
Then the term, “just for today,” is crucial.
It all boils down to Faith or Fear.
Get it together, girl; go after that career.
Once baby addicts, now starting to grow,
The person we should be is starting to show.
We have let go of lying, cheating, stealing.
Learning to laugh again, and laughter is healing.
Fight hard to find your Voice,
Cause at the end of the day,
It is still a choice.

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a new clergy friend. We were sitting outside on a beautiful New Hampshire afternoon enjoying one another's company and exchanging views on life and the church. I thought we had pretty similar attitudes until he said, "I'm trying to convince my congregation that the miracle stories in the Gospels are just myths." Startled, I blurted out, "But I see miracles every day!"

My dictionary defines 'miracle' as "an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs." As a recovering alcoholic, every facet of my current life is a miracle. Six years ago a loving Power managed to get through all the blockades I'd erected over the years to keep out any recognition that I was not in any way in control of my drinking. Very quickly the mental obsession to drink which had been my faithful companion (and a substitute Higher Power) for decades disappeared.

I'm a miracle who loves to hang out with other miracles. The more I learn about the people around the table in my AA home group, the more I see that their lives too are "extraordinary events manifesting divine intervention." The young woman who'd been homeless, her children taken away; the middle-aged man once ostracized by his family and neighbors. The young woman's daughter came to the meeting a few weeks ago and spent most of it with her head laid fondly on her mother's shoulder; my other friend occasionally has to rush home to care for his grandchildren.

Being in recovery is the big, capital 'M' miracle. But little 'm' ones occur in my life every day as I continue to work the 12 Steps. Just now, having spent the past month with my husband's huge extended family vacationing nearby, I am endlessly grateful for the power of 10th Step inventory. I am at all times prone to resentment, but in July of each year I become a boiling kettle. I seethe, I sulk. But this year I resolved to write inventory on the resentments as soon as possible after they bubbled up. When I followed through on my resolve and even before I read the inventory to my sponsor, I could feel my emotional temperature return to normal. I could see my part in the situation and the all too familiar character defects driving my anger. I'd realize how much of the resentment was based on fantasy. And for the time being anyway, I was able to return to being a loving in-law to my husband's big, happy, chaotic family.

This may seem trivial compared to ongoing sobriety, but to me the defusing of emotional overload through inventory brings one of those little 'm' miracles. By stopping and taking the time to do a 10th Step I'm not fixing myself. That wouldn't be a miracle, it would be self-help. What's really happening is that I'm opening myself to "divine intervention," or as I'd prefer to call it, grace. While I'm scribbling my inventory I'm silently, maybe unconsciously, praying, "Here we go again, God. I know you've heard this all before, but I'm in trouble. I cannot, cannot, do this by myself. Help me!"

And amazing grace saves me once again, just (as I said to my new friend) as grace poured out of Jesus into the eyes, ears, bodies, and spirits, of those he healed.

Susan A.

Why is it so difficult to accept things? Just thinking about acceptance makes me growl and feel sick to my stomach, which in itself tells me it’s time to work my program right this very minute. Before I even started drinking, I sought escape through reading, shopping, and creating elaborate fantasy visions of my future success, “as anticipated for years, the Nobel Prize goes to…. Kirsten H…..” When I started drinking, I could not believe how much better I felt when the weight of all that anxiety I carried around most days just vanished, or faded into the distance. A drink or two helped me feel more relaxed, less worried, more courageous about talking with people. And, I discovered, that when I felt really good after one drink I felt even better after two or three or four or five or….Well, maybe I didn’t feel better after five but I could keep working on getting it right, that magical numbers game of “just the right amount,” that I never figured out. As I drank more, the grandiose fantasies of success just kept spinning out as a deep black hole of self-hatred expanded within.

As I drank more, my desire to drink increased and became a physical, mental, and spiritual disease. I could not accept the most important and urgent part of my life – that I am an alcoholic and I cannot drink in safety. I tried prayer, going to church, but I felt that God had given up on me because I just could not stop drinking no matter how much I pleaded and begged. I refused to accept that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable. I didn’t realize until much later how broken I was on the inside, and how I was trying to play God myself by dictating my terms and conditions for controlling my drinking. I forgot that God is love – and that God loves me no matter what because God is loving and generous, not because of anything I do or do not do. Yet that is more about steps 2 and 3, “came to believe in a higher power greater than ourselves” and “turned our lives over to the care of God, as we understood God.” In order to get to that good stuff, in order to open myself to the sunlight of the spirit, I had to accept that I was alcoholic.  I fought it for so many years, until finally, broken and afraid and out of options, I knew I needed help – from the rooms of the twelve steps.

When I keep my sobriety and recovery first, I always have a touchstone for acceptance.  When I remember to accept, over and over again, that I am powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable, I remember I also have a solution.  When I face the situations in the day, I remember this powerlessness, as well as the capacity to take the action that is mine to take. Today, when I feel uncomfortable about the word “Acceptance,” I realize I have work to do.  When I am spiritually fit and connected with God and my program, the word “acceptance” is another word, another tool, just part of life.  When I am out of sorts and off the beam, the word “acceptance” makes me want to throw up and fight and run away. Today, I notice this in my body and remember again that oh yes, I must need to accept something. How can  I do that when my head is crowded with disturbance? I can go to a meeting, call my sponsor, call my sponsees, ask for help from another person in recovery. I can read some program literature and take deep breaths to quiet that disturbance within me. I can pray. I always have my higher power, whom I choose to call God. Today I realize that I have to accept that I am responsible for my own sobriety and recovery, as well as my own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. That does not mean I can do it on my own – absolutely not! Yet, I cannot rely on other people to take care of me – that is a holdover from my old childlike fantasies from long ago. I cannot rely on other particular humans, but I sure can trust that God has put some human in my path who can help me. And when I accept that, I open myself to the light and love of my higher power, and I feel hope and relief. I am so grateful to be sober today.

-Kirsten H

Beach notes June 2015
Images of Sponsorship
Edge of adventure

The Edge of Adventure was a book by Bruce Larson and Keith Miller that some of you may have read many years ago in the 90’s about the Christian life and what it is like to start the adventure. I see a metaphor of the adventure of intervention, a 12-step call, sponsorship as I watch this evening from our balcony on the gulf coast as a pageant plays out on the beach below.

It is near sunset. A sleek young couple dressed in black drive up to the beach access road by our condo in their looks-like-new Clays Car golf cart -- black with a white top and leather seats. They get out with the young daughter. The barefoot darling could not be more than two, petite with a wide brim sunhat and a flowing blue sundress ending just below her knees.  As she holds her father’s hand, the top of her bonnet barely reaches his hip.  They walk to the beach to the ocean’s edge, and then she will go no farther. Her parents coax her to put her tiny feet into the surf, but she refuses to get wet. She now wants her mother to hold her. The father goes into the surf and picks out beautiful shells and shows her her first fruits of the sea, but she still will not budge into the water. It is obvious that her parents love the sea and they want their daughter to experience it as well. Finally her parents walk into the surf together hand in hand and the daughter plays and runs about the dry sand just in front of them.

Just a few feet away a shirtless grandfather comes out to the surf with his grandson, maybe 4 or 5 years old. The grandson has on a white shirt and short blue pants. The grandfather strokes his white beard, shows the grandson how to bait his hook and casts his line into the surf. He almost constantly looks back to see where his grandson is. Is he babysitting or is this a lesson in fishing? Maybe both. The grandson is less interested in fishing and more interested in the rise and the fall of the surf. The grandson playfully goes to the edge of a wave’s edge but awkwardly runs away from the rising surf as it comes close to him. He as well decides the surf is too scary or maybe he just doesn’t want to get his feet wet. He tiptoes to the edge and then runs back as the unpredictable surf moves toward him. Then something happens. Either he does not move fast enough or the foaming white surf comes in a bigger wave, but he gets his feet wet.  He quickly runs away from the water, but with the next wave he ventures slightly into the water again. This time he stays a brief period longer. Then finally he just stays at the water’s edge getting his feet wet with each wave. When the wave has more power than his legs can handle he widens his stance to stay firmly in place.

Life at the beach near sunset. A time for young children to venture out when the sun is not as hot. Parents and grandparents care for them, watch them, want to share with them their love and adventure of life at the edge, but  the children must be ready for adventure, but when they are ready, how wonderful to be with those we love when the adventure starts as they get their feet wet and feel the power of the surf. The parents tried to entice their toddler daughter to the adventure, but she is not ready. The grandfather just let his older grandson by a couple of years venture by himself while the grandfather stayed near by watching. The grandson was ready. Perhaps tomorrow his grandfather will take his hand and they will walk farther into the ocean side by side. Perhaps as they go deeper into the waves, the grandfather will give him a life jacket just in case in he slips and falls and loses his grip on his grandfather’s hand.

This is evangelism, what it is like to share the good news.

This is what it is like to share the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. We want to share the message of this new life with those we love but sometimes they are not ready. When they are ready we walk to the edge of this new adventure with them but we have to let them decide when to go in. We patiently wait, and when they are ready, we take their hand and go deeper and give them more protection, the 12 steps, a new life jacket.

--Joanna Seibert