y Slowly: a Story of Love and Recovery
Paul Hina
Copyright ©2011 by Paul Hina
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Little by Slowly: a Story of Love and Recovery
"Let's get together," Russell says from the front of the room, and the small camps of people who have gathered around the room scatter and move to their chairs. There are, as always, though, a few stragglers that move toward the refreshment table to top off their coffee cups.
Sam takes his place at the back of the line to fill his half-empty cup. When he's done, he takes his seat in the chair next to his usual spot. His usual chair is occupied by a new guy, an older man who smells strongly of booze—not an uncommon smell for newcomers. The customary court ordered card is peeking out of the old guy's shirt pocket, all but announcing that he is not ready to be here, not ready to be present and serious about his sobriety. It's rarely a good sign to see someone who is clearly not here of their own accord. It's only a net positive because it lets them know that the meetings exist, and that they're welcome to attend. Still, they're rarely ready to keep coming back.
Before the meeting started, Russell told Sam—after they had seen the new guy come in— that he had seen the guy before. It was not his first meeting. His face was not a new face. It was a tired face, bloated from drink—years and years of drink. And the skin wrapped around his aging face was yellowed and unshaven. It was the kind of face that makes Sam wonder what may have become of his own face if he'd continued down the path he was on.
As everyone settles in, Russell begins the normal meeting preamble. If you come to enough AA meetings, you begin to absorb the words spoken at the beginning and end of every meeting, and their meaning takes on a larger noise that, though still meaningful, float in front of you like background music, as if you're only hearing the words unconsciously. But it is a deep rooted song, a song that resonates. The words are not new words, and yet they still speak to a vital core you've built up over time in the program.
As a child, Sam remembers what it was like standing for the Pledge of Allegiance at school. He doesn't remember ever deeply considering the meaning of the pledge, only how to say it. On the other hand, things like the Serenity Prayer and the Twelve Traditions hold great meaning for Sam. They have been a constant companion in his life these past three months. He's sure that every drop of AA that he has soaked up these past ninety days has supplanted a drop of alcohol he might've otherwise drank.
Russell asks about newcomers, asks if they'd like to introduce themselves. The man beside Sam doesn't budge. When Sam looks at him, he's completely oblivious to all the eyes directed his way, as if he wasn't even aware of being a newcomer, or didn't even hear the invitation to introduce himself. Of course, it is not uncommon at all for a newcomer to ignore this invitation to announce their arrival. It can be an embarrassing, even shameful experience coming to that first meeting. Sam certainly didn't introduce himself to the group that first day.
Today is a Big Book meeting, which means that someone will be reading a selection from AA's Big Book and then open up the meeting for discussion on the selection. Today's reader is Ellyn. She's a middle-aged woman who is very serious about AA, and her face shows its sternness as she reads. Of all the members of the group Sam's met, she is the most humorless. And, unfortunately, her reading is as dry and monotonous as her personality. It's common for Sam's attention to waver during Big Book readings—it's not as if he hasn't read the thing cover to cover many times already. But with Ellyn reading, he will almost certainly be traveling through elsewhere thoughts. Under normal circumstances, he might worry about falling asleep. Ellyn's reading could easily put a normal group of people to sleep. Lucky for her, she's reading in front of a hyper-caffeinated group of people.
Coffee is a staple here. Strong, dark coffee. There's a couple of metal tanks full of the stuff on a table by the entrance stairs, and it's usually everyone's first visit when they enter the basement. Looking around the room, there isn't a hand without a cup in it. These are people accustomed to holding a drink, and they've just supplanted one for another.
This meeting, an all-inclusive—all ages, all sexes—meeting, is Sam's standard meeting place. They meet seven days a week. And this is what originally drew Sam to this group. He wanted to insert himself into a routine that would allow him some sense of immersion in the program. He didn't want to experience a false start. He wanted his first attempt to be his last attempt at sobriety. He didn't want to be the guy sitting next to him, ordered to come and sit, yellow faced, stinking of the juice.
The meetings are held in the stereotypical AA meeting place, a church basement. There's usually between twenty or thirty people at each meeting. The meetings are at seven in the evening, or five p.m. on Sundays and Wednesdays—evening church services take precedence on these days. The basement is a cold place, and, except for the odor of coffee that envelops the room during meetings, it has that stale, musty smell that you would expect from an old church basement.
Sam, as he does everyday, is sitting near the table with the coffee, though today he is one seat further away than usual. He doesn't just sit there because he likes the coffee. He likes to sit near the back of the room so that he can get a glimpse up the stairs to the glass doors that lead outside. It's nice to have a place to look outside during the meeting. It can get pretty claustrophobic in the basement. It's a small space, and sometimes things can get too intimate, too personal. Sam likes to have a place to direct his eyes when he needs to look away. And he often needs to look away.
Right now, there are a pair of legs marching back and forth outside the meeting. This isn't all that unusual. In his three months at these meetings he's seen many sets of legs pace outside those doors. Sometimes it's just a member running late, and finishing a smoke. But most the time it's a nervous newcomer, debating whether or not they're going to take that first step toward admitting they have a problem. After all, entering an AA meeting is a big step toward admitting that you're an alcoholic, and you're not just acknowledging this fact to yourself, your acknowledging it in front of a group of total strangers. Entering a meeting is an extremely vulnerable moment for an alcoholic. It's hard to trust people you've probably never met before with what, up until now, has probably been a source of great shame and embarrassment. The fact that the strangers in a meeting are also alcoholics acts as little comfort for a newcomer.
It's an interesting game—this pacing game—to watch. Will they come in, or won't they? It's usually even odds one way or the other. But it's almost always the case that newcomers enter a meeting late, probably to skip any awkward chit-chat before the start of a meeting. And who can blame them?
The difference between this set of legs and others that Sam has watched, is that these legs appear to belong to a woman more upscale, more professional, than those that belong to this group. Not that all of the people at this meeting are bums, but they're casual, simple people.
This woman is wearing nice black slacks and heels. This is the only group Sam has ever met with, but the meetings have always been extremely casual. There may be meeting places that are more filled with professional types, but this is not one of those meetings. So, even if this woman decides to enter with the normal anxieties that accompany any newcomer, all those anxieties will only be amplified when she realizes she is overdressed and sticking out like a sore thumb.
It's too bad that he can't see her face. The staircase was built in such a way that there is only a small space to see beyond the top of the stairs, and from his loca
tion, he can only see the passer-by's lower body. He hadn't noticed it before, over Ellyn's monotone reading, but he can hear the slightest click-clacking rhythm of her heels on the sidewalk outside. When he thinks of how cold it is outside today, and listens to that hollow metronome of sound, it seems like the loneliest sight he's ever seen out those doors.
He finds himself rooting for her to come in.
After several more minutes of Sam watching her pace, only half-listening to Ellyn's muddled reading from the Big Book, he sees the legs stop and face the front of those double-doors. He hears the high pitched suck of one of the door's opening, feels the