Here Come Uncle Joe

I was back at the downtown meeting today.  I like this meeting a lot.  New people tend to share from their hearts and that's always more inspiring than listening to people like me share from their heads.  Sometimes people with significant sobriety shift into lecture mode - the message comes across as dry and somewhat hectoring in tone; as in "Here's how you should do it" or "I remember when."  I hate I remember when; that's usually when somebody tells a humorous story in great detail that they allege happened in a blackout.  I don't think they have a good grasp on what a blackout is. 

The flip side of the rigged coin that I use is that I need to be around people sometimes who have gotten sober and stayed sober, too, and to meet some people whose life experiences are similar to mine. If you have kids, for example, it's going to be helpful to swap war stories with other people who have kids.  It just makes sense.  So I doubt that I'm going to meet my new best friend at this meeting but in the meantime I'm sure hearing a lot of great stuff.

I got called on to speak today at this meeting for the very first time.  It's a pretty big meeting and I sit in the back row, against the wall.  Frankly, I get to talk about myself enough and there are clearly people here who need to get things off their chests.  That being said I NEVER pass up an opportunity to talk about myself to a captive audience.  This meeting uses a podium with a mike, as if I need amplification with my Foghorn Leghorn voice.  I gave my sobriety date before I spoke today which is not something that I can ever recall doing.  I have enough of a problem with my ego as it is but I thought it was important to let people know that it's very possible to stay sober for a long time.  "Don't drink and don't die," my sponsor responds when asked how he did it.

And I ran some of my shtick past the group, too.  I have these little routines that I trot out from time to time.  I apologize when I trot them out at regular meetings.  I don't have many stories and I forget who I have told them to.  I repeat myself, I'm redundant, I say the same things over and over.  Today I wanted to see if anyone - anyone at all - would laugh.  People with no job or money, homeless or nearly so, newly sober, at 7 AM , in a church basement, can use a chuckle.

I shared my anecdote about sitting in my parent's living room in my mid-20s at 10 in the morning, sucking down bong hits from this 3 foot long purple monstrosity that I had - where did I hide that thing, anyway? - watching Petticoat Junction or Mork and Mindy, agonizing on how great a loss it would be to give all of this glamour up if I decided to quit drinking.  Or saying early on, totally serious, to the earnest man who was trying to impress on me the importance of finding a higher power and working The Steps: "Is there someone else here I can talk to?"  I was looking for some quick answers to my immediate problems revolving around a lack of money, power, and sex, not some vague promise of future peace of mind.

Here comes Uncle Joe,
He's movin' kind of slow.
At the Junction.
Petticoat Junction.