HERE’S TO YOUR HEALTH
This week’s Here’s to Your Health is a continuation of Dennis’ story: The old-timer’s in Charlotte, North Carolina didn’t want to break my anonymity so they called me, “boy”. Those old guys sat in the back of the room and slept while I read How It Works and by the time I was reading the promises they were snoring out loud. They slept until I said something dumb and then they all woke up at the same time and asked me questions like, “Boy, where did you hear that?” “Boy, where’s that at in the Big Book?” And, the question I hated the most was, “Boy, who’s your sponsor?” I didn’t have a sponsor because I wasn’t intending to get sober. I didn’t want a sponsor because I didn’t want anybody else telling me what to do. Why would anybody go out and find somebody to tell them what to do? I’ve got a wife and a boss who tell me what to do and sometimes the Highway Patrol stopped me and told me what to do and I didn’t want anymore people telling me what to do.
Now, these old guys wanted me to find somebody else to tell me what to do? I didn’t get a sponsor. I complained a lot and didn’t really want to get sober.
We’d go out after the meeting, smoke a cigarette and complain about the old-timers who kept pestering us about getting a sponsor. Those gatherings after the regular meeting were sort of like group therapy; we all smoked the same cigarette. The old-timers had their own pack of cigarettes. They didn’t have to share, and we thought they were showing off?
We complained about our wives, judges, the Highway Patrol and we wondered why they didn’t just leave us alone? One time I was complaining about the Highway Patrol arresting me for drunk driving when one of the old-timers said, “Boy, I haven’t been charged with drunk driving since I quit drinking alcohol!” I said, “Man that’s profound, I had never connected drunk driving with drinking!” I should have asked that old guy to be my sponsor right then, but I didn’t.
Those old guys’ loved us more than we ever knew and they outlined a simple program of action for us. They said, “Don’t drink and they told us exactly which meetings we should go to and they was the same meetings they went to. At first they told me to go to just one meeting, a step discussion meeting on Tuesday night and they told me not to say anything because they didn’t want anybody to know that I knew them yet.
One night I walked into the Fisher Park Meeting looking as brilliant as I could and still feeling self-conscious. I had red pants on that night and it’s hard to look invisible when you’re wearing red pants. A man named AG walked over to me and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was glad to see me. AG told me to come on over and sit with him because he’d diagnosed my problem. I already knew what he was going to say. I thought he was going to say, you’re a young gifted black, the world doesn’t understand you and they hate you for it? But that’s not what AZ said. He said, “Boy, you’re suffering from malnutrition between your ears!” But that didn’t bother me none because I didn’t understand what he said?” I didn’t go to any treatment centers and I wasn’t detoxified, I just showed up there and I was dumb. About two weeks later I was mowing my yard and it hit me. I said to myself, “I believe AG called me stupid?” I shut my lawn mower off and went to the phone and called Ivory my new sponsor and said, “Ivory, I believe AG called me stupid!” He said, “That was two weeks ago!” I said, “Yea, but I just figured it out!” It took me about three years to figure out AG didn’t think I was stupid he just wanted to get my attention. AG had recognized in a few weeks something that I still hadn’t recognized; it was something that anybody in my life could’ve recognized. I had reached a point where the only way I could feel good is to pick up the very thing that was making me feel bad.
To be continued…
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