Episode 251 -- December 15, 2022

It's easy to have a few pre-conceived notions about unfamiliar places, people or activities. Putting ourselves out there to try new things can feel uncomfortable. We may find ourselves automatically writing things off that feel risky or could be embarrassing. But what if we actually tried the things we assumed were "silly" or "useless"? Our recovery journey—or even life as we know it—could improve!

In his book Second Year Sobriety: Getting Comfortable Now That Everything Is Different, Guy Kettelhack explores the growth and challenges that can come in the second year of recovery. In this book, real people in recovery share their experiences and insights about dealing with long-suppressed feelings, including anger, loss, guilt, love, and self-acceptance.

In this excerpt, we jump right into a personal story from Jack, a member of AA who is learning what acts of service can look like in recovery. We see how his perspective shifts as he leans into the humility that volunteer work offers. A little help can go a long way, and something as simple as making a pot of coffee can make us feel more connected to our community and ourselves.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

After Jack had been going to meetings for a year, his sponsor suggested that he get involved in some kind of formal AA "service." "My sponsor doesn't talk much," he says. "He didn't give me a whole list of wonderful reasons about camaraderie and the joy of getting involved and knowing that you were really helping people and learning about cooperation and all the other stuff that people talk about when they say how great it is to do service.' Mostly he just told me, Don't drink. Go to meetings.' He's the kind of sponsor who, if I gripe too much, tells me I don't have any real problems as long as I don't drink. Sometimes that exasperates me. Other times it sort of bursts my balloon, gets rid of anxiety, brings back some kind of perspective. Refreshing guy, my sponsor. So when he told me to start making coffee for my home group and go to a business meeting, it surprised me. It was the lengthiest and most specific advice he'd given me in a year."

Jack says he didn't mind the idea of going to a business meeting. He imagined it would be just a different kind of AA meeting, maybe more boring, what with agendas about how much literature to buy, or whatever it was they talked about. But he's gone to enough business meetings in his work life not to feel especially interested in or intimidated by the prospect of going to an AA version of one.

However, making coffee was a different kettle of grounds. "I have to admit, my ego got in the way of that one," Jack says. "I didn't say this to my sponsor or anything. After all, I'd heard enough about how important humility was in sobriety to know that it wouldn't go down real well to say I felt above making coffee at a meeting. And hell, it's not like I wasn't humbled by alcohol and drugs. Somehow I'd managed to perform well enough in my job to keep it, but everything else sucked. I was up to my ears in credit card debt, my wife and kids left me, I defaulted on my mortgage and ended up camping out in a tiny, messy studio apartment in West Hollywood with a woman I'd once had an affair with when she'd been my secretary We were a piece of work, lemetellya, passed out every night on quaaludes and vodka."

Life, Jack says, had been hell. "And God knew I didn't have any illusions about being superior to anybody, or that I was anything but powerless over alcohol and drugs. But still—making coffee." Jack says he couldn't help wincing at the idea. "Even when I was drunk, once I got into the office I had secretaries and clerks who worked for me. I was still kind of a big shot, even when I was at my worst. Fact is, I'm used to running things. Getting other people to do what I tell them to do. So why hadn't my sponsor suggested that I do something more in keeping with my temperament and experience? I mean, I could imagine chairing an AA meeting, maybe. Or doing something else that made use of my managerial skills. But I wasn't a cook or a waiter." Jack pauses for a moment as he recalls how he felt. "But the real secret was I was scared. The most embarrassing thing about it was I didn't know how to make coffee. I'd never cooked anything in my life. When I couldn't get a lover, my wife, or an assistant to make something for me, including a cup of coffee, I lived on take-out. This wasn't going to be a lesson in humility. This was going to be humiliating."

Perhaps you won't be surprised to hear that Jack ended up experiencing something quite different than he thought he would, once he actually volunteered to help out with "hospitality." "My sponsor had never steered me wrong before," Jack says, "and even though I felt uncomfortable, I went ahead with it. Got there early and met the hospitality person' whose job I was taking over. A real nice young grad student from UCLA, quiet guy with glasses who said he'd never had his nose out of a physics book until his sponsor suggested he help out with the coffee at this meeting. He knew exactly how I felt. In fact, when I realized it didn't take a genius to dump water in the coffee maker, put in the coffee basket, cover the coffee maker and plug it in—I couldn't believe that was all you had to do!—I had a few good laughs about it. But it ended up being nice in another way. Other people came in with cookies, put them in baskets with paper napkins, then we all set up chairs, joking about what control freaks we all were. We each had separate ideas about how far apart the chairs should be spaced, that sort of thing. But it was fun. We laughed a lot.

"In some ways, I felt more connected, doing this kind of service, than I ever had before in AA. I was actually doing something here—something very concrete. Though I did feel like a nut case when the first people came into the room and headed for the coffee urn. Would they like it? Was it strong enough? Hot enough? Would they spit it out? Had I put in the right amounts of water and coffee? Oh Lord, suddenly I was sure I hadn't! Maybe I should have gotten a whole bunch of herb tea bags out there, or more instant decaf. Why hadn't I thought to buy some fresh fruit so they'd have an alternative to all those cookies? This was California, after all—a lot of people here were health food freaks. My mind was racing. Before the first cup of coffee had been poured, I'd made plans to revamp everything, put in ferns, have some nice, quiet New Age music in the background, supply whole-grain, all-natural breads, muffins, and pastries, and turn this into one of southern California's first and best Alcoholics Anonymous clubhouses, a twenty-four-hour cafe for recovering people!"

Jack laughs. "I'd never worried about stuff like this before! And then when somebody actually poured herself a cup of coffee, took a sip, and didn't spit it out—boy, I can't tell you the satisfaction I felt. I'd actually done something for someone. I'd never realized before when I'd sat in a chair, taken a cookie, or filled my cup that someone had actually set up my chair, put that cookie into a basket, and prepared the brew I was drinking. It was funny and amazing how something so simple could be so satisfying."

About the Author:
Guy Kettelhack is an analyst-in-training at the Boston and New York Centers for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies. He has written seven books on recovery. He lives in New York City.

© 1992 by Guy Kettelhack
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