Powerlessness By Proxy

The amazing and beautiful Lisa reminded me that it’s been a few days since I wrote anything, and her post this evening brought some thoughts to the forefront that I’d like to share with you.

A few Sundays ago, my daughter and I joined my best friend, Bear, in celebrating his sobriety.  Bear, you see, is an alcoholic.

He and I have known each other for almost twenty-five years, since we stood a very cold midwatch together as pier sentries on Pier 12 at the Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, Virginia.  We made each other laugh, and to tell you the truth, I’ve always considered him to be the funny one.  

And because he and I have been friends for so long, he wouldn’t hesitate at all to agree with me on that point.

If you’ve never been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and you’re invited to attend one, don’t turn it down.  Don’t worry if you’re not an alcoholic, they’ll love you anyway, because that’s what they do.

All through our pre-deployment work-ups in 1981, Bear and I hung out together.  We’d keep each other laughing at General Quarters, because our stations were right next to each other.  We’d make each other laugh when he was doing that whole backwards writing thing that you can only see in old movies, now.  (He once wrote my sister a letter that way, which she thought was the coolest thing.)  And because we were always laughing, we were always getting in trouble for laughing at inappropriate times.  Think Monty Python meets “We’re No Angels”…I was the De Niro to his Penn, the Cleese to his Idle.

Being young sailors, it was inevitable that we would drink.  I’d never had so much booze.  He had more experience overseas than I did, and he suggested (wisely, as it turned out), that we take turns being reasonably sober, so that one of us would always be able to get us both back to the ship.

We had us some adventures, we did.  

Now, most guys who’ve been friends as long as we have would probably look back on their drunken youth with a degree of fondness that simply isn’t there when he and I reminisce about those days.

Not us.  When we talk about it, it’s at an AA meeting, because what it represents for us is the beginning of ten years worth of fuzzy memories for him, ten years of things he’s worked to make amends for throughout the last fifteen years.  He’s lived through a motorcycle accident and a car accident and a thousand more agonies neither you nor I will ever fully understand, and I made it easy for him to start down that path.  

To me, the divergence in the roads we took from that inebriated season is the most incomprehensible difference between us.  When he stands up at a meeting and talks about taking turns getting shit-faced, it feels like an indictment.  In that hall, I will forever be “the sober one”, the one who had control and for a time, didn’t help his best friend.

In spite of my failing, and because of it, the men and women in that meeting nod respectfully as Bear introduces me, and they accept me.  They understand what it is to let a friend down, and my fear that they will judge me for what I didn’t do is unfounded.

They understand the truth: that nothing and no one could have kept him from walking that foggy road.  Alcoholics understand powerlessness.

When I talk with the man Bear is today, I am astounded at the changes in him.  It isn’t simply the absence of alcohol in his life, it’s the depth of character that has grown out of his quest for Sobriety.  He is worthy of it.

In writing that last paragraph, it dawned on me why there is no judgment for me when Bear speaks of trading nights of drunkenness: If we are all powerless ourselves, how can we control the actions of others?