We all are driven by our instincts. But sometimes we don’t watch where we’re going and we trip up. We take our God given instincts, so necessary for our survival, beyond what Mother Nature intended. We drink when the stock market goes up. We drink when the stock market goes down. We take the f-i-g-h-t for our right to parr-tee! We work hard and we play hard. And we decide we deserve another drink or another hit to find the spot that’s just right. But we take our thought, our behavior, beyond normal God given instincts and hurt the ones we love. And we, or rather I, should speak for myself, find myself so busy, I can’t get to work on time. Or I miss showing up for my promise to be on time or follow my obligations.
Such is the dilemma for an alcoholic and addict who can’t stop drinking or using. This is where I found myself before I realized I had a problem with my drinking. I went to the front door on Sunday morning and forgot I made a promise to elope with my girlfriend at the restaurant I waited tables with the night before. I’ll never forget the look on her dad’s face, standing next to her on the stoop, when he saw what condition I was in. I missed my brother’s wedding. I sent a fraternity member next door at a rush social to the hospital with 27 stitches from a broken lead gutter pipe I threw at a window two stories up. I thought putting vanilla ice cream in a schooner of beer was an ingenious concoction I called a ‘beer float’. I missed an important call at work and got fired. I didn’t see the wreckage I was causing because I was in D.E.N.I.A.L. (don’t even know I’m lying). Which is to say, “I don’t got this.”
And so, I ended up in rehabilitation, at a men’s inpatient residence, and learned about, for the first time in my life at age 39, the solution to my problems, my thinking, my instincts–and it is a single affirmation that began the path to honesty and sanity: “I’m Doug, and I’m an alcoholic!”
If it wasn’t bad enough I had to admit my life was unmanageable* and that I had no power against drugs and alcohol, but I also saw I had become unemployable and basically, insane. These two facts were offered in Steps One and Two, which are posted before this missive, and are a part of the progression of all Twelve Steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. I have reduced each step to a single page, in the spirit of the 1930’s and 40’s style used to get newcomers through al Twelve Steps in four one hour sessions. These pages are downloadable after the title, and can be reprinted and reused to understand the principles behind each step, for a better life. A life without drinking.
On page 64 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, is the format for how to take an inventory of our grudge list. We write the person, place, or thing that has us resentful and angry because they done us wrong. We next write down the cause of what happened, and then write down what instincts are affected: personal relations, sexual relations, social instinct, financial instinct, pride and ambition, and so on . . .
We then get to the Bonus Spin where the big balls are, and with the help of another alcoholic, we write down ‘our part’. This can also be labeled as the fourth column, “What could we have done differently? These columns can be divided down the left and right page of a spiral notebook open face, so we get all four columns open on the one view of the two pages. Another cool thing is to actually use a dictionary or wikipedia to find out some definitions, and then write our own personal definition of what they mean to us based upon our own experience. Here’s what I came up with:
Writing a break up letter to Tina, Crystal, Speedy, John Barleycorn, or Mary Jane– whatever name you want to give to your substance or drug–can be a unique and powerful exercise in exorcising those demons, those spirits, you wish to stop bothering and distracting you from a new way of living!
Replace this guy above, with these guys below!
The above download contains the 1940’s Grapevine original inventory checkoff chart.
*unmanageable: Boy howdy, is this a huge loophole! And I’ve come to believe I’m not alone in conveniently denying I have any unmanageability with my drinking!
- I got this.
- I’m not as bad as them.
- One more couldn’t hurt.
- I deserve this.
- I’ll try tomorrow.
- What difference will it make?
- If you had my problems . . .
- Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
- This is the new stuff.
The Dao of Doug: A Bus Driver's Perspective 
