BioRythms & the Bermuda Triangle

If you're as old as I (is anyone as old as I?) you remember something from the 60's-70's called "biorythms" which charted 3 different cycles of something that governed your love life, career and something else.

Well, I'm convinced that I'm bottoming out on my chart these days. One of my sponsees has picked up (booze), I seem to be bleeding cash these days, the holidays are coming and I'm just feeling "blah."

Now watch how I turn all this around in the next few paragraphs.

I mention the holidays because anyone in recovery will tell you that we are now entering what's known in the business as "the Bermuda Triangle" of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, into which many an alcoholic has sailed, never to be seen (or heard from) again.

It's at this time of year that many 12-Step Clubhouses have around-the-clock "Alk-A-Thons" which are continuous meetings during the peak of the holiday season. They're generally packed. I tell my sponsees to not even THINK about "going home to see the family" unless they are well-armed with two things... 1. a meeting list (for wherever they're going) and 2. a getaway car.

People who are new in recovery, still steeped in egotism and thinking that it's "all about them", will often refuse to be prepared to duck out and go to a meeting because "someone might notice." They never minded, of course, when people "noticed" that they were falling down drunks, but God forbid anyone should notice that they're trying to get better. This is the insanity of the disease at work. It WANTS them to stay put and be uncomfortable until they can't stand the pain anymore and might, just might, pick up a drink. Nothing would please the disease more.

I remember how fragile I was, way back when I was new in recovery and trying to survive those first "drinking holidays". I was (literally) afraid of being "struck drunk" when some emotional straw in me snapped. Fortunately, that didn't happen. And I did get hold of a meeting list and a getaway car. And I got over my fears, and excused myself when I needed to do so, and returned when no one really noticed and I got better.

And so did everyone else.

All things considered, it could be worse. I could be drunk. Thank God I'm not!