Never Argue with a Drunk Person

Yesterday morning I put on my Good Deed Hat, hopped on my unicycle*, and went to our local AA Intergroup office. Nancy, the lone office employee, had a pre-paid vacation that she would lose if she couldn't get the time off, and she ran into an unexpected snag. The two people who normally fill in for Nancy were not available; one had recent surgery, and the other is out of the state. Nancy works like a dog, and I hated the thought of her missing her vacation and losing that money, so I volunteered along with others to help her out.


The Intergroup office is in a blocky old building that was built, I'd guess, in the late 1950's. It's all right-angles and long hallways. The only curved parts of the building that I've discovered are the toilet seats, and they are concealed from view by right-angled Sany-Metal partitions. As I was telling Scott, everytime I walk down the hall to the Intergroup office I feel like Jonathan Pryce in the 80's film Brazil.


This office building would have tumbleweeds rolling around the lobby on Saturdays, but since they are round they are banned. I pasted the how-to-get-into-the-building sign on the main entrance, went up the elevator to the sixth floor, visited the curved element in the men's room, and unlocked the Intergroup office. I woke up the hamster that lives in the office computer and got him running on his wheel, took the 24-hour hotline off the night service, and hung the reassuring We're Open! sign on the door. I was prepared for a busy day.

Tick.

Tock.


Tick.



Tock.



I got a few phone calls, but no customers for awhile. The Intergroup office, in addition to administrative chores, stocks books & literature, newsletters, sobriety chips and medallions, jewelry, cult-wear robes, magic wands, and blueprints for Druidic circles for AA members and groups. I bought a book and was reading it when the phone rang.


Here's something I've learned. If someone wants to get sober more than anything else, they will get sober. If someone wants to drink more than anything else, they will drink. Either way, no obstacle will stand in their way if it is something they really want. My caller was a 66-year-old man in Williamsburg. He was afraid he was going to go to the liquor store. He had been sober and relapsed many times. He had lost his wife because of drinking. He was a retired military man and war veteran.


How old was I? Good, he didn't like calling and getting a young person.

How long had I been sober? Good, he didn't like talking to people who got sober the day after the Lord's Last Supper.

Blah blah blah blah blah. It soon became obvious that this man just wanted to talk. Loneliness is a big problem for many active alcoholics, and no wonder. When you act like an asshole, people tend to disengage. I kept steering the conversation back to his problem with alcohol, because on Saturdays the only way a client can get into the building is by calling me from outside and getting me to buzz them in. I asked Mr. Williamsburg if he was looking for a meeting. He was, but not in Williamsburg, because everyone went to the meetings drunk. I had a feeling that everyone meant him.


I suggested a meeting in Richmond, and gave him the directions, telling him that it was at the corner of Monument and Staples Mill. He told me there was no such intersection. I assured him that there was. He said that Staples Mill ended at another street. I told him that I was sure it didn't, because I went to this meeting five days a week. I thought we had settled this, and that he could find the meeting with confidence.


But no, he had to go back there: If you would look a a topographical map, you would see that Staples Mill does not extend to Monument. Well, dang, I must have been driving through peoples' yards for the past year.


"I'll tell you what. You come to the meeting at 4819 Monument Avenue tomorrow, and I'll show you," I replied. He hung up.


It's probably a good thing he did, because Nancy doesn't take any crap on the phone, and I won't either. I try to exert restraint of tongue, so I wouldn't have said anything more than "I understand. I always had to be right, also. But then I realized that I'm human, so I can't always be right, and thinking that I could always be right and then getting frustrated helped me keep drinking." The restraint of tongue would have been not adding "I'll bet these are the kind of stupid arguments you started with your ex-wife, and that's why you're alone now." He probably hung up the phone and made a beeline for the ABC store, thinking "AA is nothing but assholes." As I said, if someone wants to drink, they will drink. At least I got a rueful chuckle, and he got the excuse he needed to drink.


He will drink because it's a bad day. He will drink because it's a good day. He will drink because he is angry or sad, happy or depressed, it's rainy or sunny or windy & cold. Because his wife left him/dog died/truck broke down or his dog left him/truck died/wife broke down. He will seize on any excuse to drink, and blame everyone else for every problem in life as he raises the bottle to his lips. I know this from personal experience.


I am sober today because I want to be sober.


During my morning visits today I found an interesting meme on Lemuel's blog. Here's how it works:

1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence.
5. Tag 5 people. (I'm not tagging anyone. Do this if it sounds fun to you.)


Okay, can you believe the the first three books I picked up didn't have 123 pages? Maybe it's time for me to put the Dick & Jane books away. Then I tried my mother's 1963 diary. No page numbers, and I didn't feel like doing even simple math. Then I found this:

We would not believe that our adult dreams were often truly childish.

That's from Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, a staple of the Alcoholics Anonymous literature.


* If anyone believes that I really hopped on a unicycle, jump up and grab a thermometer immediately. You may be running a dangerously high temperature. I did long for a unicycle when I was a boy, but my mother would have none of that nonsense. She hated spending time in doctors' waiting rooms when she could be ironing clothes or scrubbing a bathroom floor.