We Alcoholics are not a gum lot. We do and say some things that are very funny looking back from a sober view point. Lets hear about what you have heard or done. Keep in mind that anonimity is our spiritual foundation. No Names, or Specific Places please.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I will start:
At a meeting up North I we were sharing about how we each got to AA. Some came in because they were sick and tired of being sick and tired. Some because of a spouse, some because of a doctor and some because of a DUI.
One fellow Alcoholic said the Dog Catcher got him here. That bit of information sure got my attention. He explained that he was drunk as usual and had procrastinated on renewing his dog's license. The Dog Catcher came to his house to take his dog and he got into a big fight with the dog catcher. In his words he said "thats when I found out that the dog catcher had arrest powers" in court the judge ordered him to attend AA. So he came to the program by being caught by the dog catcher.
At that point I was having extreme trouble breathing because I was laughing so hard. I have been around a few 24 hours but never met anyone before captured by the dog catcher and sent to AA. Took me days to stop laughing. Every little while the mental picture of hime and the dog catcher would come back and off I would go again.
Any one else caught by the dog catcher or somthing else funny or bizarre?
Larry, --------------------------------- Meetings are an archipelago of sanity in a lunatic sea
I was sitting in a meeting and my sponsee who had about 2 months was also attending. We were working on his fourth step and we had just gone over his sexual inventory and I had pointed out we are not the arbiters of anyone's sex conduct but I also shared about the suggestion about no new relationships for a year, and explained why I thought it was a good idea based on my experience, that that rule wasn't in place to protect the newcomer but to protect people FROM the newcomer, and how harmful I had been in my first year of sobriety, so I basically told him he could get his ashes hauled but try not to start a new relationship because we change so fast the chances were he would be harmful to whoever he got in a relationship with.
So anyway, there we are in this meeting, and he's sitting there grinning like a possum eating s**t, and he raises his hand to share, the topic is gratitude, the chair calls on him and he starts sharing about how grateful he was for the program, and how he just got paid thx to the grace of god and the program blah blah blah, then he starts sharing about how he stopped at the massage parlor on the way to the meeting and got a b***job, then he points at me beaming and says "and it's all thanks to working the program and my sponsor, he said it was OK to get laid my first year!!!!"
I don't think I have ever turned so red in my life, I just sat there opening and closing my mouth like a Goldfish, I mean how do you explain that?????
The room was ROLLING.
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Well, the Big Book hasn't changed it's wording since then, and my experience my first year remains the same, so that's all I can share, is the BB and my experience, so I never did change my approach, but one hopes that's one's sponsees don't share that stuff at group level ya know?
He was quite a learning experience that boy, his mother was a world famous psychiatrist and had him heavily medicated on psych meds, I was going through my BB fundamentalist period and the thinking of that group is you can't be on psych meds and have spiritual experience right? My peers were telling me psych meds and AA don't mix etc. So I did some research and found out it was highly illegal for a psychiatrist to medicate her own children, and I had met her a few times, and it appeared to me she was a pretty uptight and domineering woman, so I arrived at the conclusion that she kept her son medicated for the purposes of controlling him, since he had been a pretty wild and crazy partying teenager, so I told him if we were going to continue, I would strongly advise he stop taking his psych meds since his mother was drugging him just to control him right?
A week later he had a screaming panic attack in the middle of the meeting, and we had to rush him home to get him back on his meds, and I had to sit up with him all night holding his hand until his meds kicked in.
Thus ended my career as a psychiatric health professional in AA.
(this was about 15 years ago, since then I have learned a TON about why it's not a good idea to mess with peoples psych meds in AA, it's one of my biggest pet peeves now is watching thumpers tell people to stop taking their meds, I have seen HORRIBLE and tragic events as a direct result of such stupidity and ignorance, I got incredibly lucky)
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
One of my first meetings I opened my share with "my name is Rob and I am an alcoholic. Before that I considered myself a heavy-drinker, as that implies a certain degree of aquired skill."
Some years ago when I had first joined, while I was still getting used to the format; it was a 12 step discussion meeting.... it was my turn to read a step; I said, "Hi, my name is alcoholic and I am a .... oops..Carlotta". Soooo embarrassed but everyone laughed - with me!!
I too have had my embarrasing moments. I have heard stories about other people misreading a passage out loud. At a meeting last year I was asked to read the Twelve Steps and I heard myself say: "We sought through prayer and MEDICATION"
Everyone burst out laughing but I laughed the loudest. It is so great to be able to laugh at our own mistakes.
Larry, -------------------- "Happiness is not a place you arrive at, it is a way you travel."
-- Edited by Larry_H on Friday 19th of March 2010 08:21:34 PM
During my last drunk, a friend took me to a meeting. I cried for at least an hour before I went and then through the whole thing. Sobbed really. Anyway, one of the guys that was at that meeting was there the following week. I asked if he was there the previous week (cause I didn't remember 90% of the meeting) and he said yes. When I told him that was me crying the week before he didn't quite believe me at first! My face was so swollen from crying that he thought I was a much bigger person. Told me that to him it looked like I'd lost 20 lbs in a week... Glad there are no pictures of me that night!
I was living in Portland, and in my Homegroup, when I was speaking, and telling this group about how many times I had been in and out of the swinging doors of AA.
I was telling them about an occasion when I had been so bent on suicide, cause I just could not stop drinking, felt I was a hopeless case in AA, had tried for several years, and after ingesting 60 - 10 mg. Valiums, a fifth of Sambucca, 80 pr. and ended up just barely on life support for a day after having my stomach pumped. Well I went on to tell then how, after being released from the Hospital I made a decision to cut way way back on the Valium use. The rooms roared with laughter. Seems like nomatter how sick we have been in the past, there is something funny, I suppose, as in What doesn't kill us, make us stronger.
When you have been a chronic relapser for over 8 years, not really too much humor in that.
By the way, my speaking did turn around into what happened and what is was like now, (then) at almost a year, that was an unbelievable Miracle to me. I had asked God to Help me this time........
Well the title of this Post was for funny or Bizarre things, think I will throw my response into the Bizzare-O hat.
Toni
-- Edited by Just Toni on Saturday 20th of March 2010 08:07:36 PM
The speaker was approaching his bottom, and he was holed up in a hotel room and he decided to take his own life, he put his pistol in his mouth crying, and pulled the trigger
click
he tried again
click click
in rage and disgust at failing to even take his own life properly he threw the gun across the room
it went off and shot him in the leg and he had to call 911
The room was ROLLING, my friends mother looked at him and asked "what is the matter with you people, that's NOT funny!!!!"
So he had to explain why it was funny, how we had all reached that point but were given a reprieve, a new life to help others, but the part where he shot himself in the leg had me dyin
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
My friend Larry's parents went on vacation, they left the car behind, asking him not to drive it. He was 25 or so.
So of course that night he drives it to the bar and gets hammered, leaving the bar he sees someone hit it while it was in the parking lot, it was nearly totaled.
The whole two weeks passed in a frenzy, he begged borrowed and pleaded for shifts, he begged his friends father who owned a body shop to get started on it, he borrowed money, he worked 16 hour days, he got it back the day his parents returned.
That night he was on the phone with his mother, his brother was on the extension, and the conversation turned to the car, his mother asked, "Larry.....umm....did you drive the car while I was gone?"
"Larry replied with indignation, offended to the very core by the very IDEA he would take the car, "Of COURSE not, why would you even ask????"
His mother continued, "Are you sure you didn't take the car?"
He states at that point he went to the old stand by, ATTACK, "Why do you think I would drive the car ma? Would you ask Billy if it was him (the perfect "model" older brother) I am DEEPLY offended that you would think that about me and blah blah blah....why do you ask by the way?"
"Well...." his mother said, "The day I left I was in a terrible accident you see......"
at that point his brother was laughing so hard he couldn't hear what his mother was saying any more
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
AGO wrote:The room was ROLLING, my friends mother looked at him and asked "what is the matter with you people, that's NOT funny!!!!"
I was talking to another member the other day about this kind of thing. We could only appreciate how alcoholics are some of the funniest people we will ever meet in our lives. I don't know if it's just because it's therapudic for us in that we are now able to laugh at ourselves, the fact that nobody in AA will judge you because we have all had our moments, or the fact that we can just leave our inhibitions at the door...
I don't think I've attended a single meeting where I haven't laughed at least once.
some of us declared What? An Order? I can't go through with it!
for me, early on once I'd got past teh I'm Bill and I drink a bit / I'm a heavy drinker / I'm a binger etc. and finally got to I'm an alcoholic (took weeks!) at one meeting I introduced myself as 'I'm Bill Drury and no I'm not, oh shit, oh shit, yes I am, an alcoholic but my names not Bill Drury, never has been, never will be......' and the guy next to me said, 'you still got your picture ID on.'
PMSL
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
My sponsor said that one time he was doing a chair at the real low-bottom meeting in Greenwich Village, NYC. Some guy stood up and dropped his pants halfway through. Everyone kept acting normal and two guys essentially appointed by the group conscience took the guy into the vestibule, saw to it that he pulled up his pants and gave him a coffee. I loved that one!
After I had been around for many years I drank, so I dragged my ass back to AA, and was going to the local club to catch a meeting, my good friend that I had known for many years "Irish James" was sitting out front and he sees me and breaks into a big smile.
"Och laddie, ye made it bock, did ye catch a case while ye weer oot?"
My eyes flicked instantly to my crotch and embarrassed to be called out in front of everyone I replied, "Well yeah but i got penicillin"
He said "NOOOooo ye daft git, a COURT case!!!"
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I'm at a meeting and this grumpy old geezer is telling this newcomer that Alcoholism isn't an addiction, it's a allergy of the body and a obsession of the mind. I'm biting my tongue thinking to myself, "That sure sounds like the definition of addiction to me."
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Work like you don't need the money
Love like you've never been hurt, and
dance like no one is watching.
Well maybe this one will always just be funny to me.
When I was traveling back to California, in Redding California, I had to make a 2 day stop, my brakes had gone out on the Siskayou Pass... and I decided it was so peaceful there and in cognito, that I rented a room, and stayed for the month.
Well everyone in Redding, all men, all woman wear only one thing, jeans, plaid shirts, long hair, so after going to these great meetings, and saw this, said to myself, have to get some Jeans and a plaid shirt, I did that. Then on one night, went back to the same Hall, and it took almost 15 minutes maybe less to see that these MEN were not just woman with bad colds, stood up and said, OOPS, sorry, I just realized this is a Men's Meeting.......When I got to my car I was laughing so hard cause I had not looked at the schedule, was going every nite. And I swear walking down the streets there, you had to really really look to see who was the guy, and who was the woman.
See I told you, not tooooo funny, but I still laugh about it.
At a meeting last night, a 60-something year-old woman was sharing and included a story about reuniting with her first boyfriend from when she was 15. She later made reference to "my 15-year-old boyfriend..."
"I MEAN MY BOYFRIEND FROM WHEN I WAS 15 YEARS OLD!"
A fella around here tells how he was literally tied up and thrown in a car to be taken to his first meeting. Ranted and raved the 40 miles trip to it and refused to listen when there. He went to the next meeting (sober) to give 'em what for but didn't want to interrupt and sat to wait for the end of the meeting to tell them off.
That was about 50 years ago. Whatever works, right?
I really love the way we can all laugh at our wierd adventures. It's is never unkind and most of us have done either that or something equally silly. I think it is just relief that we now know that if we stay on the path it is stuff like that we will never have to be ashamed of again.
not tryin to be rude but when they say "what you hear here STAYS here" means even if you dont disclose who said it or where it was said you still cant repeat anything anyone has said during the meeting outside of the meeting
Nothing is funnier than reality. This is a true story about a sponcee and me.
I have been sponsoring a man for 24 years now and in he beginning, after taking him through the steps which were changing his life for the better, he decided that because he was sober for 6 months at the time, he thought it was about time to get married. I suggested to him that he might want to think about getting divorced first..
Several months later he came to me and told me that he was in fact, now divorced. Since I hesitate to give advise or preach to AA members, I "suggested" that he get into some AA service work and see what happened as a result of that type of commitment first. Our (large) home group was having a business meeting and I knew that they would be asking for a member to volunteer to chair the monthly dance committee. At that meeting I whispered to him that if no one raised their hands within 5 seconds of that request, that it was God wanting him to volunteer. To this day I'm not sure how he remained sober.
After volunteering for this commitment, he found that special woman he was looking for; they both decided that they would be married and become the president and first lady of AA. Twelve years later he came to me with news that, sadly, he was about to be divorced. However, what happened over the years is that he came to love AA service commitments and that he came to hold every service position in Alcoholics Anonymous except Alt. Delegate or Delegate of our Area.
A few years ago, he decided that he would check out the online dating services and went to e-Harmony.com where they say there are 26 levels of compatibility and millions of possible matches. A week later e-Harmony sent him an email stating that they could NOT find a match for him! Discouraged but not defeated, he tried Match.com and an hour later a message came up in his email...they had found the perfect match for him! At last, he thought. Unfortunately...it was his ex-wife!
True story.
DOS 6/27/1986 I like to say that AA has given me the life I never knew I always wanted!
In my first year of sobriety I was asked to read "How It Works" at a large Saturday night meeting in Chicago. When I got to the 10th step I read:" Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly DISMISSED it." Immediately my embarrassment was removed by knowing 200 of you were laughing with me and I had to laugh, too.
A fellow member, L, is a foster mother so she usually can't get to meetings. In fact, she wisely hosts one in her home. But right now, L is on a short break from her work. Saw her last night at the first meeting she'd been to in months... but she left halfway through. The next night, saw L again at a meeting. She shared about having had to leave the night before because of a bad headache that came on. L told us that on her ride home the night before, head pounding away, she asked God: "What is it? Don't you WANT me to go to meetings?!" But in a short while, she had regained perspective because L said: "As if it was God's fault that I had a headache! I mean, He has much bigger things to take care of than little ol' me! And if He isn't big enough to take care of them, then He shouldn't be in the God business!!"
