BLOBBY'S BLOG

I've made no secret here about my former love of the drink. Mostly beer. I still like it. I still drink it. I still drink. I just kind of accepted the responsiblity of not putting away a 6-10 beers four nights per week. Anymore, I doubt I drink 6-10 beers a month. No judgements on anyone else. Honest.

I don't necessarily believe in 12 step programs. 'They' say accept a higher power than yourself and 'they' claim that power doesn't have to be g-d, but that's what they want. That's what they expect. Those are the same people who use 'it's g-d's will' when it is convenient and that you and I have 'free will' when they want to associate blame. Fuck them.

And quite honestly, who has the time to apologize to ALL the people I may have hurt? Unless there is a salary and benefits attached to that task, I can't take on that full-time job.

I am not an alcoholic. teehee. I know what you're all thinking.

Back in the late 80s (?) a friend of mine was passing through town and stayed a few days with me. I'll call him "Jack" - mostly because his name is Jack. All I'll say about him is that he was in a 12-step program that wasn't for substance addiction, but Columbus didn't then have a meeting for what he was going through, so he had to substitute an AA gathering. He asked me to go with him.

I had never been to an AA meeting. Interesting only begins to describe it. It was exactly and nothing like I thought it would be.

To start off, we were the only two who weren't smoking, let alone chain smoking. Cross-addiction is a wonderful thing. Ruckiry (not Jon's boss), I was raised by parents who each smoked two packs a day, and I frequented bars a lot, so I was used to the atomsphere somewhat.

Actually to start off, they did something that was at least familiar to me: the serenity prayer. If nothing else, Sinead O'Connor starts her I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got disk off with it. But after that, this group never launched into "Feels So Different" - so I was a little let down!

Anyhoo - this was one of those long term gatherings where everyone knew each other, at least by sight, so the new folks were honed in on early - and often. It didn't help when they asked new people to introduce themselves. No last names, obviously.

Jack did his deed, stood and stated his name, who he was/why he was there. Then they just looked at me. I sat. I looked around behind me like someone else was there and ready to say "Hi, I'm (fill in name here) and I'm an alcoholic". But there wasn't anyone else - they were lookin' at me. I fumbled with something to say and am sure I finally uttered something to the effect that I was not an alcoholic and was just there to support a friend. I'm sure every single person was thinking 'admitting it is the first step' and that I was clearly in denial.

I thought the one of the steps in these programs was to take responsibility for your actions - but the two featured speakers didn't do this. It was all about the blame. Why they drank. Who started them down that road. Who thwarted their recovery attempts. It was never them. Everyone in the group seemed to be ok with this.

I don't know what, if anything, Jack got out of the meeting. I didn't.

Afterwards, we went to a bar.


The funny thing about this post is - I came across this comic and it made me smile. I was just going to post it with out any real text. And now you get a few hundred words. Maybe the cartoon isn't as funny now.