Cults of Kindness and Desperation

Calling for August Check-Ins.

TSB is funded entirely by paying subscribers. Your money helps pay for all our editorial and Edith Zimmerman’s fantastic drawings.

If you can’t afford to pay for a subscription at this time, email me: ajd@thesmallbow.com and I’ll hook you up.

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Just to check in …

I finally went to my home group on Sunday morning to celebrate my sober birthday. In LA, there's a little ceremony: usually, you, your sponsor, and some of your key rotation people from your program all stand with you in front of the meeting and give you a cake. (Sometimes it's a real-deal sheet cake, but I got a little plastic symbolic one.) And then everyone at the meeting sings "Happy Birthday" loudly and energetically.

This tradition always made me a little uneasy. I never bought into the "AA is a cult" rhetoric, but I understand why it exists. I can imagine being new to AA, new to sobriety, and then, after watching this sort of ritualistic display, wondering if one of the requirements for membership is late-night volleyball.

And, believe me, I'm susceptible to cults. I'm cursed with that combination of childhood abandonment, codependency, anarchy, and desperation to be suffocated by love that I feel like I'd be an easy mark.

After I blew out the candle, I shared for about two minutes on how I maintained my sobriety for the past year. I was a little sheepish, since I'll admit my AA felt wobbly. I've drifted from my sponsor and haven't done much stepwork. I told everyone there I've adopted that meeting as my home group, and as I stood there, I realized that maybe I should have asked them first. Nobody booed, everyone seemed cool with it, and many there seemed church-warm and happy that I'd chosen them.

I know that not everyone who reads TSB is in AA, and a 12-step program is not necessary for your success in changing whatever needs to be changed in your life. But Sunday was a good reminder that I definitely need some of these people to pull me up this hill. Without them, I got no chance.

So if you haven't found your people yet, find them. Start there. Figure out the rest later. But those people are out there waiting for you, too.— AJD

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Our August—goddammit! August!—Check-Ins run next Tuesday and we need your help. Tell us what's up with your recovery—share your triumphs, setbacks, or whatever else is lifting you up or holding you down. Help us help you help everyone.

The perfect length is 150-300 words.

Here's a GREAT example of what we're looking for.

“I had a moment last week where I slipped into self-pity and drove around manically telling my girlfriend that I think God either hates me or doesn't exist. The trigger was getting a commission check from a past client which reminded me how badly I fucked up to have lost my past career and how much their new manager is making because I fucked up my career. With all my financial insecurity, you think I'd have been happy to get paid. Nearly everything in my life is perfect these days - great sober girlfriend, new perspectives, better relationships, a house with a backyard, etc. However, I'm still unemployed, and I'm still building my career as a higher priority. Before joining AA, on paper my career was flourishing, but my personal life was a never-ending source of chaos, which included unhealthy relationships, stacking up enemies, and being miserable and ungrateful nearly all the time. My life is the inverse now, and that should make me happy but I just wish God would give me back the chaos of the past.”

EMAIL THEM HERE: tsbcheckins@thesmallbow.com

SUBJECT: AUGUST CHECK-IN

It will be published NEXT TUESDAY.

A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:

Broken Promises

by David Kirby

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I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;   

I have seen them playing cards under a single light-bulb   

and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,   

knowing I would only let them win.   

I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,   

coming back late from the interval   

long after the others have taken their seats,   

and in deserted shopping malls late at night,   

peering at things they can never buy,   

and I have found them wandering   

in a wood where I too have wandered.   

This morning I caught one;   

small and stupid, too slow to get away,   

it was only a promise I had made to myself once   

and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me   

and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach   

in their long, sad faces.

When I drew near them, they scurried away,   

even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.   

I hate them for their ingratitude,   

I who have kept countless promises,   

as dead now as Shakespeare’s children.   

“You bastards,” I scream,   

“you have to love me—I gave you life!”

— “Big-Leg Music”

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ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN