“Don’t drink, go to meetings and ask for help.”
That basic Tenet has been waterboarded into me from the very beginning.
The first two directives are easy, but that third one trips me up every time.
Like many of us, I’m the product of an alcoholic home. Projecting the illusion that everything is great was always paramount.
Those old habits die hard, because it’s much more comfortable pretending everything’s copecetic.
Pride is one of my (many) character defects, and it’s no accident that it’s plastered all over our literature.
When it comes to someone asking me for help, that’s easy.
But it’s a completely different ballgame when I have to admit defeat, reach out and ask for help.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow, and I’d just as soon fall off a cliff. Especially if I’m asking someone who’s inventory I already took.
Yup. I’m totally guilty of that, and I’m covered in shame.
Someone from my past who comes vividly to mind is Dick Lacature.
Dick was an older guy with much more sober time. I first met him when I had about four years, and I’d unfairly judged him. I was always cordial, but regarded him with suspicion, and kept him at arm’s length.
A couple years later, my life became a living ‘Murphy’s Law’, and took a horrible turn for the worse.
My car got repossessed (Ford Motor Company doesn’t screw around) and I found myself stranded and legless.
As it turned out, Dick lived way down at the other end of my street, and was delighted to drive me to our morning meeting six days a week.
We got to know each other pretty well, and became friends.
He loved a good joke, embraced Rule 62, (Don’t take yourself so damn seriously) and proved to be someone I could trust.
To my surprise, I genuinely liked him. He was just a regular guy who wore quirky sweatshirts, smoked too much, and was addicted to lottery scratch tickets.
I told him that if he had a few million bucks he’d be deemed eccentric. As it was, he was just plain crazy. He thought that was funny as hell.
In time I got a new car, and our rides together ceased.
If he ever found himself without a car, he knew my number, and I felt privileged to give him a lift.
Knowing Dick was a classic example of opportunity disguised as disaster.
When he passed, the service was packed, and the outpouring of grief was profound.
At his wake, many scratch tickets had been placed in the casket with him. He would have liked that.
Voltaire said, “God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.”
My Higher power definitely has a sense of humor, and he has a keen appreciation for irony.
He strews learning opportunities in my path, and it’s my job to show up and pay attention.
Here’s the takeaway:
We are here to help each other, to care for each other, to understand, to forgive, and to serve one another.
But first we must allow others into our world.
