DisplacedGRITS

I have had two opportunities to be of service recently and I just thought i'd share.

A friend of mine who I chat with on occasion messaged me on Facebook. His girlfriend is a bipolar alcoholic and he's very concerned. I messaged him back and called him after work today. Unfortunately, his girlfriend came home shortly after I called him so we ended the conversation quickly and will be talking again tomorrow or Monday. I am honored that my friend felt that he could come to me. I've been pretty down since my Uncle's suicide. I've felt very distant from my family and quite useless as I can't be there to help my mom deal with him and his partner's possessions. I hope that my experience can be of use to my friend as his girlfriend. It reminds me that as terrible as my past has been, it can be used to help others. I am grateful.

The other call came quite unexpectedly and required me to make a personal sacrifice I had never intended on making. I just started working at a pet store and today, after some time on the sales floor, I was called into the salon to finally start assisting in grooming and bathing dogs.

So there I am, happily washing a dog and generally feeling good with the day. The first conversation in the salon was one of the girls talking about becoming roommates with a mutual friend. The other girl was taken aback. Apparently, the potential roomie has negative behavior when it comes to her drinking.

They had my attention...

I listened and was finally able to get the basic picture. Girl A (my coworker) is friends with Girl B (potential roomie) but B has a bad habit of drinking too much, losing keys and general drunk behavior that is potentially deal breaking for a roommate situation. Still, B is trying to get her act together so A is considering rooming with her.

The dog is being washed but I would be lying if I said he had my full attention. I'd been in the salon maybe 10 minutes before this conversation. I had a choice. I went with my heart. I asked if I could join the conversation and after they said yes, I said "well, I'm a sober recovering alcoholic soooo..."

....Girl A smiled and said "you know! You know what I'm talking about!" Well, I shared some with her and let her know what's worked for me, what hasn't and how people in my life have participated in my recovery and what that's done for all parties involved. Turns out B has reached the point where she regrets drinking, swears off for a while, drinks after she thinks she has control and repeats the process. She's entering a treatment program soon. After my shift, I went home, picked up one of my spare AA schedules, called my sponsor to get some recommended meetings on days I usually take off, made notes on some of the meetings, put my number and my sponsor's number in the book and took it back to work for A to give B.

I don't know why I let my coworkers know that I'm a recovering alcoholic. I think it's because I'm a sober alcoholic and I don't think that's something to be ashamed of. I'm not particularly proud of it, but my alcoholism is no longer a great cause of shame. I think I weighed the keeping of my secret against the good my experience could do for someone and I found that my secret was not important enough to risk not helping someone.

I'm a little afraid of it getting around the store. It's a small store and I don't know how people will react. What I am is confident that my actions will continue to speak for themselves. My actions when I was drinking spoke loudly and violently. My actions as a sober alcoholic speak softly but confidently.

Hi. I'm Lisa. I'm a grateful, sober recovering alcoholic. How can I help you?

instant

Hope it all goes well for those involved. I think the whole 'disclosure' thing becomes less of any issue over time.

Grungehead

Your post reminded me of a couple of the 9th step promises:

"We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us".

"We will realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves".

DisplacedGRITS

I never ever, ever thought that the promises were possible when i first started AA. I thought that they were just hoaky "promises" that Bill made up to give us false hope. I thought that they were sneaky little lies that those Big Book thumping, AA Oldtimers told us to keep us newbies in their cult. We would stay there forever, hoping these lofty promises would one day come true.

I have never been so happy to be so wrong.

ReadyAtLast

It's great you were able to help others with your experiences.

Grungehead

Same here Lisa. I spent many years in AA not working the steps and thinking all of the promises in the book were not realistic. When I came back from my last relapse I was desperate and was willing to try doing the steps. I didn't even care if all of the promises didn't come true as long as the one promising that the obsession to drink would be removed did come true. To my amazement all of them did come true, especially the 10th step promises.

DisplacedGRITS

*"No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others."

Everytime I hear this, I wanna jump up and down, wave my hands and say, "that's me! That's me!"