It's Fixed, Now Shaddap

I’ve noticed a recurring theme in relapse-related sharing in the rooms I’ve been in.  It’s probably not just that I’ve been ‘lucky’ and hit every meeting where this goes on, I’ve heard it listening to speaker ‘tapes’** online.  I’ve ‘heard’ it reading blogs and personal stories in print.

I’ve heard a lot of stuff that boils down to, “I thought I was fixed”.

Let me explain.  I don’t mean they went to the vet– er, doctor– and came back without some personal internal items.  I mean I hear people say they stopped going to meetings, that they started hanging around their old watering hole so they could party with old drinking buddies, that they stopped talking to other alcoholics, that they stopped reading that boring old recovery stuff, that they lost touch with their sponsor and didn’t either call or get a new one or that they figured after being sober so long that they really ought to be able to handle one little drinkie-pooh with dinner.

That’s a lot of stuff.  I’m sure I’m forgetting several other stuffs.  And I’m sure even if I remembered, there are new and fascinating permutations on the loose, like rare and unique insects in the Amazon basin, just hanging out and waiting to be discovered.

But they’re just bugs.  By which I mean, it all boils down to, “I thought I was fixed”.  They take lots of words to say it, and they usually say it lots of times in different meetings, to friends, family, other AAs, sponsors… you know.  We’re talky creatures, humans.  We like to chatter.  I’m not up on my high horse, either.  If you think I throw a lot of words around here, ask my wife how hard it is to get me to just shut up and be happy sometimes.  I’m as talky as the next smart hairless ape, and more than most.  It’s normal.  The bigger the deal feels to you, the more you need to talk about it.  Better out than in, in this case.

When all the words are out, though, it means that someone let themselves think that all that hard work, all that thinking and reading and talking and doing steps and writing inventories and not drinking and being honest meant that they were done, and now it’s reward time.  Sometimes it feels like the work is finished, I’ve built my house of sobriety, now I’m going to go and sit down on my sofa of stepwork and put my feet up on the coffeetable of serenity.

And have a little drink.

Well, it’s not fixed, so don’t– DO NOT– shaddap.  You’re not done.  You don’t get a reward.  Well, unless you count living your own life in a way you can respect***.

Look, let me put it this way.  When you’re hungry, you eat.  Do you get hungry again later?  Of course you do.  You don’t find the perfect meal and eat it the perfect way so that you never, ever have to eat again.  Say you build a house.  You build a house with your own two hands and move in.  Do you think you might have to paint it again one day?  Reshingle the roof?  Replace a window?  Patch a wall?

Yeah.  You’re gonna have to eat again.  You’re going to have to reshingle the roof, or call a plumber to fix some pipes, or whatever.

And you’re going to have to maintain your recovery, too, for all the same reasons that you have to do all those other things in your life.

Because nothing is perfect, nothing is forever, and everything worth a damn must be worked for.

Nothing’s fixed.  Now go to a meeting, and don’t ever shaddap.

**Much like ‘dialing’ a phone or ‘tuning in’ a radio, this is a now-meaningless term that is used because of the inertia of dinosaurs like myself.  Gads, I’m beginning to start to get old.  Get off my lawn! 🙂

***This is my personal reward.  It’s not the only one, but it’s the core reward from which all others spring, for me.  Your reward may be different… but I’m betting not by much.  Not much at all.