Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Still not here. Tom’s gone from the rooms of Alcoholic Anonymous . With not a word to anyone, Tom, who attended at least a meeting a day, shared often and achieved a few years sobriety, slipped away.

“Anyone seen Tom,” I asked after a meeting. One person said they heard he had a new job and had moved. Not likely, I thought, He’s a stalwart local.

Jeff said, “He’s out there, no one knows where.”

“Out there” means relapse, as in he’s out there drinking again. Where is “there.” They say in church basements it’s either jail, hospital or the morgue. I wouldn’t have believed it of Tom, he seemed so solid. He was always bright, open, chipper and very funny.

Slips are so sudden. You’re walking along not a care in the world then, BAM, you slip and fall. Newcomers to the rooms of Alcoholic Anonymous are brought face to face with the reality that no matter the quality or length of a person’s recovery, nothing can be taken for granted when dealing with addiction.

That, after all, was why Tom went to meetings every day. He did not trust that his alcoholism was past simply because, for all the world, he felt well and normal.

The possible causes are laid out in the literature. The Big Book, AA’s Bible, speaks of minute changes in a person’s well being status caused by failure to grow spiritually, by harming others, or by harboring resentments.

All of which are vague. The authors might as well have said they don’t know what causes relapse. So the lesson of Tom’s disappearance is that slips are mysterious and baffling. That is not to say that AA doesn’t work. It does, and church basements are full of millions sober one day at a time to prove it.

For Tom, there may still be success. Frequently serial relapsers at last stop for good. Tom always said “I know I have another drunk, but not another recovery.” Tom proved himself wrong time after time.

Hurry back , Tom.

Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

If dreams are wish fulfillment, do an alcoholic’s drunk dreams indicate a desire to drink?

Luckily we have Sigmund Fraud to twist dream analysis into a pretzel for us. According to Freud, nightmares, like drunk dreams, are wish fulfillment signaling that the alcoholic is working through the fear of relapse then wakes up relieved that it was all “just a dream.”

So how about Jane, who shared that she has drunk dreams so scary that they leave her with hangovers as bad as if she’d really relapsed?

Freud notwithstanding, alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in church basements usually surmise that drunk dreams are what they the seem to be on their face, a frightening admonition not to drunk anymore.

Drunk dreams are common among alcoholics and sometimes whole meetings end up dealing with individuals’ dreams and how real they seemed to be.

They tell of getting lost, losing their cars in the morning after a bender, and generally smashing up their lives (if not the furniture or a spouse).

No crazy wish fulfillment here, just garden variety terror. They come to believe the drunk dreams are a reminder of just how destructive their lives had become, and how much guilt they still had to deal with.

Sam keeps dreaming about Cincinnati, wandering there confused. He figures that’s because Cincinnati was where the worst of his alcoholism occurred.

It is not uncommon for alcoholics conjuring drunk dreams to have hangovers, too. The physical symptoms, like Jane’s, might be rare but the emotional are not — dread mixed with remorse — and strike many as being as bad as if as if they had been drinking all night.

So when she shared about experiencing a real hangover from a dream, Jane was not taken as crazy.

What would have been crazy is if she had believed the whole experience was “wish fulfillment.” Now that’s crazy.

Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Cookie was distraught, so when the leader asked, “Before we begin, did anyone have a problem staying sober today ?” she raised a manicured finger.

“Yesterday when I got up at 10 in the morning and looked outside I realized the gardener, who was supposed to be trimming the hedges, failed to come.”

Cookie was serious and taken as so by the large Alcoholic Anonymous contingent at the 9 a.m. meeting at the old Unitarian Church on Waspocket Inlet’s Shore Street.

The others had heard it before. Cookie, they knew, was so involved with her gardens that when anything went wrong she spun into a tissy, and thought about a morning pick-me-up.

She shared in quavering voice, felt better for it, and then the meeting began with a talk by Ted, who was suited up for work. It was was not a basic drunkalogue. Rather Ted shared his thoughts about the psychological underpinnings of his addiction, what his doctors had believed, how much he appreciated the fellowship of Alcoholic Anonymous.

There are many roads to the rooms of AA. Inlet’s members, for the most part, were drawn to Inlet’s morning meeting from New York City’s affluent precincts .

None had wandered the dangerous underground of New York, home to so many who hit bottom. More likely they had gone from imported beer and hash at college, to far too many highballs at the clubs and lounges in the city.

Even for the well-heeled and -bred, addiction, whether fed by Thunderbird wine or Black Label scotch, is a personal and family disaster. There may be a safety net and polite acceptance of peers at the Inlet, but the pain, progression and hopelessness are the same for executives or their cloistered wives as for dusty bums mumbling to themselves on park benches.

A visitor from a meeting with working class majority was tempted to feel superior, as if the well-groomed alcoholics could not be like himself and his chums upstate.

But as sharing progressed, the similarities, common feelings, and precipitous slides had the same common truths the visitor had heard so many times in more modest settings.

Still when the basket was passed, filled with five and tens and even a few fifties, he withheld his carefully folded buck.

They may need me and my experiences but not my money, he thought, slipping his offering back into a shirt pocket.

Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Mail weighed heavily on the minds of several alcoholics in church basements Tuesday.

Out of the blue Judy shared, “I hate mail lots of time, and just let it pile up.”

Surprisingly several other alcoholics told similar stories. When they were drinking, they concurred, it was simple neglect. But it continued long after they became sober, and they wanted to know the meaning of this strange, irrational experience.

Bill spoke up, “I’ve often let the mail pile up, not because I’m particularly afraid of what unpleasant message it may contain. It’s more like I’m hiding from everything, and I just don’t want to know. Not now, not anything. Somehow that might lead to trouble.”

Sally, on the other hand, said she worried that the mail would release some frightful memory of destructive events that occurred when she was drinking:“I feel ashamed, and I don’t need to be reminded of it all. “

Alcoholics bear all sorts of strange fears and phobias, usually associated with using drugs and alcohol. Memories are often splintered. Instead of seeing the whole continent only islands emerge from the fog.

Most say they only share these tidbits at Alcoholic Anonymous meetings. They don’t want to be thought crazy — not a problem at AA meetings. They are not a hot bed of sanity.

“I’m terrified of song birds, their singing, “Larry said. “Every time I hear them, I get shivers and try to get out of earshot. I told my kids this one time. They laughed and thought I was crazy. Not far wrong.”

He knows where his fear of bird songs comes from.

“When I was drinking, I passed out at a friend’s house. I woke up. It was light out. The birds were singing that special way they do in the morning and as evening approaches. I was not sure whether if it was morning or evening. I was terrified. Still am.”

For most of us getting and staying off alcohol and drugs is a struggle. These quirks take on outsized concerns that they may be harbingers of relapse. Even folks with 20 or 30 years, tell of quirky fears that have stuck with them.

We’re not at the AA meetings church basements because we’re whole, just trying hard to put ourselves back together. For most it’s the hardest thing they will ever do.

Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Jilted by his girl friend and desperate, the boy had written on his arm, “Without you, can’t live. “ Then he got into his dad’s methadone stash and killed himself. Experts in the field have studied relapse more than any other aspect of addiction, and have so far arrived at few useful answers.

In the church basements, where the real experts gather, relapse is a constant topic. Preventing relapse, after all, is why most of those “in the rooms” are there. They learn as much about this mysterious syndrome as they can from books and academic studies.

“One thing I know for sure,” Tom shared, “is that relapse begins long before I pick up.” This observation is widely accepted by alcoholics. Something happens in the way they think or feel that leads them to begin again. A few will point to stressors as the cause, like, “When I buried my brother I picked up again to ease the pain.”

This reasoning, though, is rare because alcoholics know that the addiction is really “baffling,” as AA’s Big Book bible teaches. It is baffling because there is a major element of irrationality in relapse.

Harry, an alcoholic and a drug counselor, tells this story:
“A patient of mine had been sober for 26 years, active in AA, constant meeting goer, and 12 stepper. He was returning from a regional AA meeting in New York, and drove past a bar he once patronized. ‘I just pulled in without thinking, and began drinking,’ he told me. No warning, no reason. He stayed out for three years.”

Cliff has “Don’t forget the pain” tattooed on the back of his drinking hand. AA members talk a lot about “keeping it fresh” — every day reminding themselves of the destruction their drinking caused. Although this device is obvious, it remains one of the primary ways addicts control their demons.

Still, alcoholics, in hindsight, believe something mysteriously changed in their “thinking” long before they relapsed, and they spend a lot of time in church basements probing for a description of that “something.”

As they say, “relapse is not required,” and many members avoid it for their lives. AA members use the “tools” taught them in AA — relaxation, living in the moment, finding strength in a “higher power,” among many others — and find they work most of the time.

Yet AA meetings that turn to discussion of relapse, are among best, members say, because they gain strength in the recovery of others and the support of other alcoholics.

As for exactly why relapse occurs anyway, the rl experts in church basements continue their often self-destructive research.

Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

After some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings you hesitate to drive home.

Drunken driving, arrests, jail, home incarceration, injury, death and long prison terms are commonly shared by recovering alcoholics at meetings. (Seventy percent of all serious automobile accidents are caused by drunken driving.)

Take Stanley. When he first stumbled down the steps into church basements he was beaten, splotchy faced, jerky, shaky, fidgety. Like most beginners he was sick with fear and shame. After a year sober he was much improved

Then a few weeks ago he disappeared. Now he’s back after spending three days in a Duluth jail. “My court troubles aren’t over,” he whispered. His DUI arrest there was his seventh. After his sixth Stan had taken a leave of absence from his high school teaching job and joined our group. Earlier this summer he was looking forward to teaching again.

Now his three-day bender may earn him a three-year stretch in a Michigan prison. For now he is back with us — a wreck again. Ankle bracket on, and registering with the leader after each meeting. The judge won’t allow a skip, or he’ll toss Stanley back into jail to await sentencing.

His license revoked long before he joined us, Stan nevertheless continued to drive. Then after his year of sobriety he suddenly relapsed, proving once more that the only certain way to keep active drunks off the road is to keep them in jail.

Judy, another member of the group, told us that for 25 years she had never driven sober until at last, driving drunk, she killed a neighbor’s kid. She’s never driven again.

There are several truck drivers in my meeting. They all have driven drunk. One guy said he drove a concrete truck drunk. Another is an operating engineer who told us he operated a construction crane in the city for many years. Drunk. A longtime member said he was always drunk and high when he captained a tug boat.

So it’s no surprise that several recovering alcoholics ride their bikes to meetings each day.

The struggle back to sobriety is hard. There is so much damage — broken homes, angry spouses, grown children who won’t talk to you, homelessness, divorce, jail sentences to be served. The recovering alcoholic must heal not just the body, but his or her soul and life.

When any of these goes wrong, an alcoholic may use it as an excuse to relapse. But other AA members know that drill, and they always step in to help the beleaguered recovering alcoholic. Having been through it all themselves, they are the last, best hope.

Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Jilted by his girl friend and desperate, the boy had written on his arm, “Without you, can’t live. “ Then he got into his dad’s methadone stash and killed himself.

Weeks later his father Steve asked his group for help controlling his remorse and free-floating anger. "If I can’t get past this,” he shared, “I’ll pick up.” Meaning he would relapse.

These days AA meetings are about addiction to all mid-altering drugs, not only alcohol. Most of the younger AAers have been cross addicted. “My drug of choice is more,” Tom told the meeting one day.

Steve’s dead son was one of a cluster: three unrelated deaths of local teenagers who OD’d on methadone. Wendy was the parent of one of them, who died two months ago.

Alcohol and drugs had already consumed her family. She buried her husband last year after he died at the end of an alcoholic binge. Wendy herself is trying to recover from alcoholism and heroin addiction. That’s why the methadone that killed her son was in the house.

The local newspaper covered that death and the other two. But In church basements the back stories reveal a background that more fully explains what happened.

A few days ago an AA member relapsed, weaved off the road, and killed a gardener. She’s back now hysterical, consumed with guilt over her relapse after eight years of sobriety. She’s facing jail time and has already lost her kids to Child Protective Services.

Many in the rooms have heard it all before — sad stories of personal and family destruction, strange doings by drug addicts and alcoholics. And the recalled details are only a fraction of the whole story because blackouts are commonplace.

With few exceptions the listeners will dutifully repeat, “Thanks for sharing,” regardless of how weird or horrifying the story. They are thankful because these stories are the medicine that helps guard against relapse. For many they’re the most valuable part of AA meetings. They call it “keeping it green,” green being the memory.

Green is the new bleak.

Andrew W. resumes Church Basements, his tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

In church basements alcoholic men and women are asked to tell others “How it was, what happened, and what it is like now.” Often their physical wounds, too, bear witness.

Among AAers Scars are ubiquitous, long or short, gouged deep or superficial. Most members who end up sharing “how it was” at AA meetings carry that message someplace on their bodies. Even if many scars are covered by clothing, it can be alarming (and sobering) to witness how much of the members’ past is writ on their bodies.

Missing limbs, digits, eyes, ears and arms are among the many manifestations of long drinking and drug careers. As members share “how it was,” explanation of the scars often comes to light. Automobile crashes, fights, falls, suicide attempts, burns and limps are a common history shared in one form or another by members. Abuse, too, leaves numerous scars outside and in.

But the scars themselves are seldom specifically mentioned when AA members share their stories. It’s as if the injuries are a given and so they are largely ignored in members’ stories. Predictably the men carry more, but wrist-slash scars and other signs of self-injury are more common among the women.

Emotional scarring, in contrast, is both evident and usually the centerpiece of a member’s story. Tears are common.

That’s how it was with Phil who once mentioned he had killed a son riding with him when he hit a tree. Phil’s right arm is crooked, most likely from the crash.

These are the emblems of the trauma these people bring with them to the meetings. Badges of dishonor, as it were, because although recovering alcoholics and addicts are told their “illness” is like diabetes, few really believe that. Instead they share with the general population the belief that they are weak or “damaged goods,” as one referred to herself the other day.

Though admonished not to relive the past, some guilt often remains. Why else would our groups be called “Alcoholics Anonymous.” Something needs hiding. After all there is no “Diabetics Anonymous.”

The scars are also testament to recovery, and that is most commonly the theme of “what it is like now.” That is the new reality that AA members are eager to share. While scars are mute reminders of the past, smiles and laughter that speak to the joy of recovery are just as common.

This is the fourth installment of Church Basements. Andrew W.’s tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous

Doris is a self-described “loving” mother of two young sons. Because she loved them so, she said, she constantly rehearsed them in ways to avoid being taken by the Chicago Youth Bureau.

“When we were driving and I was drunk, and I always was, I taught the kids to jump out of the car when a cop stopped me and run in opposite directions. We would have drills. The drills were always sort of real ’cause I was always driving drunk with no license, no insurance, no registration. It would have worked, sort of, if I had ever been stopped with them in the car, but it never happened. I was never stopped,” she shared.

Doris shook her stringy bleached blonde hair and laughed nervously, “How sick is that?”

Others in the room tittered nervously, identifying with the bizarre nature of the story, if not the details. The rooms of A.A. are packed with addicts and alcoholics who tell strange, but sadly believable, stories of their sick behavior and improbable schemes. “Stinky thinkin’,” they tell each other, often precedes relapse, and occurs even if they’ve been sober for years.

Tom shared:

“The doctor was cutting out a cyst on my brother. There I was watching someone cutting on Jake, and me not cutting that guy, Can you believe that?” he exclaimed. It was the miracle of long term sobriety, he said, that allowed him to sit still and refrain from slicing up a person cutting into his brother.

Others shared their weird stories. illustrating how far they’ve come and how their minds betrayed them drunk or sober. Their gratitude came from knowing they had remade themselves in the church basements. How they had become able to tell on themselves and give thanks that they had finally learned, with a little help from their A.A. friends, how to push their demons back.

This is the third installment of Church Basements, Andrew W.’s tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous

The five o’clock group in the church basement was small on Thursday; sleet and ice kept the numbers down. That was a good thing because Stanley was way out there, sharing about how his head was full of dark junk.

“I keep thinking about doing violence, killing people.” Stanley told us. “The only way to stop myself is to drink, that shuts my murderous thoughts down.” Gripping the sides of his chair, he screamed, “Can’t you help me? Oh God, won’t someone tell me what to do.”

The answer, really the only answer, was, “Call your sponsor every time you have those thoughts, and go to meetings even if it means spending most of your time in meetings.”

“How long did you spend drinking every day?” a voice chimed in, “Four, five, 10 hours, well, do the same in recovery. If you do that, the pain will ease and slowly those thoughts will go away.”

Very simple advice. It may work, though. Stanley comes to meeting every day, and he’s never again said that he will murder someone unless he has a drink to quell his demons.

JJ’s walleyes nearly popped out of his head when Stanley shared. He waved his weathered hand like an eager fourth grader dying to answer, his dirty cuffs waving like a surrender flag.

Mostly JJ talks gibberish, but a coherent thought bobs up from time to time. He’s got wet brain, the common AA phrase for excessive brain damage from too much booze or drugs, or both.

“Don’t, don', don’ don’ it, “ JJ stuttered before drifting slowly beyond reason. Like all of us, JJ is tolerated and understood as just another alcoholic. One who lost more of his mind than most, that’s all.

Loss of memory and concentration are common topics at AA meetings. JJ’s not the only one in my home meeting who’s incoherent. The other day Judy sputtered with rage because her husband had broken her anonymity:

“To my aunt, he told on me, told on me, told on me. She’s the one person I never wanted to know. He’s on the couch now.” A pair of girls, young addicts, giggled.

Judy has blond hair and sharp features, always color-coordinated in a place where matching socks are a novelty. She works as a perfume saleswoman in a New York department store. She’d be beautiful if it weren’t for the sad eyes, so common in church basements. Instead she’s striking, but the glimmer that must once have been there is gone.

Judy would share that she’s on a razor’s edge each day, never trusting that she would not pick up again when she’s out with the girls in Chicago. Meetings are nothing if not eclectic, but too much alcohol and other drugs are the common denominator. JJ and Judy belong together in the church basements where “more of anything and everything” is the most common problem.

This is the second installment of Church Basements, Andrew W.’s tales from the world of Alcoholics Anonymous:

“Today’s my 70th birthday, and I hate it, hate it, I tell you,” the tall, patrician-looking woman said in nasal tones.

“I fucking will not do it. They want me to work out and I refuse!” She raised her bony arms above her head and slammed both hands smack on the table. The seen-it-all old timers and cynical young addicts, new to the rooms, startled to attention.

She had had a hip replaced recently, the speaker went on to explain, and the doctors wanted her to work out an hour a day.

“My son of a bitch of a husband is trying to make me go, but I’ll be damned if I will,” she said, tears rising in her eyes. “I’ll bite his balls off, that’s what I’ll do, and he knows I can.”

So began the meeting in one of the wealthiest communities in a midwest state. The tall woman ranted on, finally petering out. “That’s all,” she said quietly.

The others murmured the usual, “Thanks for sharing,” and moved on to more sharing by less tortured souls.

That bright March morning in the basement of St. David’s, the drunks and addicts of Alcoholics Anonymous were gathered to exorcise their demons by telling grim tales of degradation and renewal.

The stories left unspoken, you wouldn’t want to hear. Those addiction histories that are related are enough to give a clear glimpse into an alcoholic’s private hell. The tall woman’s hell was burning hot that day, and she had spoken out of fear that she might, as we say, “drink over it.”

Church basements are home to a communal confessional that sometimes frightens, but more often relaxes. The listeners can usually “relate to that.” Measured against the most dismal stories they can rejoice in their own progress.

A strange kind of closeness evolves, reminding all that they are on the lip of a precipice: one slip, and they will fall. But if they hold onto each other there is a chance of recovery and a spring awakening.

Andrew W. is a former neighbor of mine who now lives in the midwest. He used to be a heavy drinker, but now keeps sober by attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings almost every day. At these meetings, often held in church basements, he and the others trade amazing stories of struggle and survival, small victories and big defeats, hard lives and sometimes hard deaths. Here is Andrew’s first installment of Church Basements. with names and identifying circumstance altered when necessary to preserve anonymity:

Mary came in Sunday with her son, Mark, a tall fair, freckled-faced boy. He had red hair like his mom, who sat beside him. He was new to these rooms, but his mother was a veteran. Her freckles had bloomed into red blotches, and worry lines slalomed down through them. Mark sat silent holding, as we say, onto his seat.

A few meetings later John, a retired Marine, announced that Mary’s son, “the one we saw last week,” had died of an overdose the day after his first meeting. Others nodded knowingly and someone said, “This is a deadly disease.”

AA meetings in church basements are the valley of the shadow of death. Nearly every member has told stories of children, parents, siblings, other relatives or friends, close and distant, whose premature death was caused by “drinkin’ and druggin’.” Most relate stories of their own close calls, lost weekends, months or even years in a black hole where memory is trapped by addiction.

Mary missed a few meetings to mourn and attend her son’s funeral. During her absence one member said, “At least she has other children.”

“Yeah, but they’re out there too,” remarked one of Mary’s friends under her breath.

The picture became clear. Mary attends AA meeting to keep herself clean. She persuades an addicted son to come to a meeting but it is too late. He dies of an overdose. And her other kids are using, too.

The next week she came back, heading a meeting, but did not mention the death of her son. Instead she shared about how much she loves the meeting. “My life is here,” she said as tears welled up. “I’m at home here with people who understand me, are just like me.”

We could relate because it is true that people with addictive personalities are similar, whether or not they are using. Most of us are compulsive, careless and shy. So when people share at meetings others follow, starting out with, “I can relate to what she said,” and then swinging into their similar character defects.

After one meeting I approached Mary and said, “I lost a daughter to drugs and booze. I always used to say, of my four kids she was most like me, but I never realized how true it was.” I handed her my number and said,“Call me if you need to talk.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Mary whispered.