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- - - - - - - - - - T A B L E++T A L K Christmas and Chanukah: Who gets presents? How much do you spend? Discuss holiday giving in the Mothers area of Table Talk
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R E C E N T L Y Imaginary friend Making the list Jews for Jesus Second Thoughts: Twinns Kids just want to have fun BROWSE THE WORD BY WORD ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - Mamafesto - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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| MY ADVENT ADVENTURE | PAGE 1, 2 So I called my Jesuit friend, Tom, who is a hopeless alcoholic of the worstsort, sober now for 22 years, someone who sometimes gets fat and wants to hanghimself, so I trust him. I said, "Tell me a story about Advent. Tell meabout people getting well." He thought for a while. Then he said, "OK." In 1976, when he first got sober, he was living in the People's Republicof Berkeley, going to the very hip AA meetings there, where there were nofluorescent lights and not too much clapping -- or that yahoo-cowboy-hat-in-the-air enthusiasm that you get in L.A., according to sober friends. Andeverything was more or less all right in early sobriety, except that he feltutterly insane all the time, filled with hostility and fear and self-contempt.But I mean, other than that everything was OK. Then he got transferred toLos Angeles in the winter, and he did not know a soul. "It was a nightmare,"he says. "I was afraid to go into entire areas of L.A., because the only placesI knew were the bars. So I called the cardinal and asked him for thename of anyone he knew in town who was in AA. And he told me to call thisguy Terry." Terry, as it turned out, had been sober for five years at that point, soTom thought he was God. They made arrangements to go to a meeting that nightin the back of the Episcopal Cathedral, right in the heart of downtown L.A.It was Terry's favorite meeting, full of low-bottom drunks and junkies -- peoplefrom nearby halfway houses, bikers, jazz musicians. "Plus it's a men's stagmeeting," says Tom. "So already I've got issues. "There I am on my first date with this new friend Terry, who turns out tonot be real chatty. He's clumsy and ill at ease, an introvert with no socialskills, but the cardinal has heard that he's also good with newly soberpeople. He asks me how I am, and after a long moment, I say, 'I'm justscared,' and he nods and says gently, 'That's right.' "I don't know a thing about him, I don't what sort of things he thinksabout or who he votes for, but he takes me to this meeting near skid row,where all these awful looking alkies are hanging out in the yard, waiting fora meeting to start. I'm tense, I'm just staring. It's a whole bunch ofstrangers, all of them clearly very damaged -- working their way back slowly,but not yet real attractive. The people back in Berkeley AA all seem likeDavid Niven in comparison, and I'm thinking, Who are these people? Why am Ihere? "All my scanners are out. It's all I can do not to bolt. "Ten minutes before the meeting began, Terry directed me to a longflight of stairs heading up to a windowless, airless room. I started walkingup the stairs, with my jaws clenched, muttering to myself tensely just likethe guy in front of me, this guy my own age who was stumbling and numb andmaybe not yet quite on his first day of sobriety. "The only things getting me up the stairs are Terry, behind me, pushingme forward every so often, and this conviction I have that this is as bad asit's ever going to be -- that if I can get through this, I can get throughanything. Well. All of a sudden, the man in front of me soils himself. Iguess his sphincter just relaxes. Shit runs down onto his shoes, but he keepswalking. He doesn't seem to notice. "However, I do. I clapped a hand over my mouth and nose, and my eyes bugged out butI couldn't get out of line because of the crush behind me. And so, holding mybreath, I walk into the windowless, airless room. "Now, this meeting has a greeter, which is a person who stands at thedoor saying hello. And this one is a biker with a shaved head, a huge gut and a Volga boatman mustache. He gets one whiff of the man with shit on hisshoes and throws up all over everything. "You've seen the Edvard Munch painting of the guy on the bridgescreaming, right? That's me. That's what I look like. But Terry enters theroom right behind me. And there's total pandemonium, no one knows what to do.The man who had soiled himself stumbles forward and plops down in a chair. Afan blows the terrible smells of shit and vomit around the windowless room,and people start smoking just to fill in the spaces in the air. Finally Terryreaches out to the greeter, who had thrown up. He puts his hand on the man'sshoulder. "Wow," he says. "Looks like you got caught by surprise." And theyboth laugh. Right? Terry asks a couple of guys to go with him down the hallto the men's room, and help this guy get cleaned up. There are towels there, and kitty litter, to absorb various effluvia, because this is a meeting wherepeople show up routinely in pretty bad shape. So while they're helping thegreeter get cleaned up, other people start cleaning up the meeting room. ThenTerry approaches the other man. "My friend," he says gently, "it looks like you have trouble here." The man just nods. "We're going to give you a hand," says Terry. "So three men from the recovery house next door help him to his feet,walk him to the halfway house and put him in the shower. They wash hisclothes and shoes and give him their things to wear while he waits. Theygive him coffee and dinner, and they give him respect. I talked to theseother men later, and even though they had very little sobriety, they did notcast this other guy off for not being well enough to be there. Somehow thisbroken guy was treated like one of them, because they could see that he wasone of them. No one was pretending he wasn't covered with shit, but there wasa real sense of kinship. And that is what we mean when we talk about grace. "Back at the meeting at the Episcopal Cathedral, I was just totallyamazed by what I had seen. And I had a little shred of hope. I couldn't haveput it into words, but until that meeting, I had thought that I would recoverwith men and women like myself; which is to say, overeducated, fun to be withand housebroken. And that this would happen quickly and efficiently. But Iwas wrong. So I'll tell you what the promise of Advent is: It is that Godhas set up a tent among us and will help us work together on our stuff. Andthis will only happen over time. "For you, Crabby Miss, and for me; together, over time." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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