Pulpit Pounders

No matter where I go there will always be “pulpit pounders” of one sort or another. It is tempting to become “one of them” simply because I found the key to my own sobriety. Such neurosis often drives people away rather than my intention of directing them towards a solution suitable for their lives. I recall a time when a German drinking acquaintance of mine suddenly stopped drinking. He still came around to the bar to do a crossword and chat with the bartender. Eager about my own drinking, and an answer to it, I asked him how he did it and how he could sit in the bar around all of us drunks and not drink?

His answer was that he stopped drinking when he realized that all his troubles centered around the bottle. Okay then, I could see that, and I recognized that all my problems might be there too; however, I wanted to know more about how he managed to stay sober…. Did he go to AA or church?  Did he take antabuse? Was he using drugs? I done the church thing way back in my past and knew the churchy ones would never approve of going into a den of iniquity such as a bar.

My acquaintance didn’t attend church and he didn’t go to AA meetings... no antabuse or drugs either. To tell the truth, I never did find out how he did it. Maybe it had something to do with being German… the will and all that. Maybe he had a spiritual experience, hit bottom and found his inner strength… who knows? He did eventually cease coming around the bar and when I met him on the street he was still happily sober. His sobriety still puzzles me but this acquaintance taught me a valuable lesson: There is NO single answer to our problem. Just because AA works for me doesn’t give me the right to demand it ought to work for others… that I ought to mind my own business and the most I can do is relate how I did it and allow others find the way on their own… if they so choose.

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