When an AA member,
sober less than a year, stepped alongside and engaged Father Ed in a spiritual
conversation --- mostly about AA. As Father Ed saw, with relief, his companion
was perfectly sober. And not a word did he volunteer about the Pearl Harbor business.
Wondering
happily about this, the good father queried, “How is it that you have nothing
to say about Pearl Harbor ? How can you roll
with a punch like that?”
“Well,”
replied the AA, “I’m really surprised that you don’t know. Each and every one
of us in AA has already had his own
private Pearl Harbor . So, I ask you, why
should we alcoholics crack up over this one?”
*****
My
mind pondered, in the early months of sobriety, what it would take for me to be
so distraught that I would be driven to drink. I thought about the love of my
life, back then, who was addicted to heroin. When she slipped and started using
again, I almost drank as I thought about the possibility that she might O.D.
and even imagined what would be said at her funeral. Such morose reflections were my own private Pearl Harbor … but I did not
drink. This occurred three years before 9/11. 9/11 was a real Pearl
Harbor for the post WWII generations and far more traumatic than
any personal drama I had previously conjured in my mind.
I grieved... simply rode my grief... grief for the victims and their families… grief for the state of mind that steered those airliners and the horror of the passengers on board those planes... indeed, grief swallowed my soul and that kind of grief has its own process. I was stunned…
so shocked that sorrow enveloped my mind and erased all thinking... . I rushed to give blood… I went to a
candle-light vigil and quietly wept until people were provided a platform and
microphone to share their thoughts. What I saw then jolted my consciousness from
grieving while some stood to express anger and others made statements pleading
for peace. I realized that, because of my own private 9/11, I allowed myself to
grieve before jumping to anger or escaping that grief to my personal beliefs.
Allowing myself to grieve was the greatest benefit of the spiritual awakening
that lifted the burden of alcoholism in my own life.
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