dearest moon + stoners,
I just finished the latest Complete Tarot course, and it was such an awesome mix of people and energies. I held two Live Q&As a week with that course, plus filmed a class each week, plus a layout class, and then of course, some bonus videos. My favorite bonus is something close to my heart, which are the Greek Myths that tangentially appear in the Major + Minor Arcana of the Tarot. You know, an hour of myth exploring and storytelling is my idea of a good time.
But, y'all, it was a lot. I left a situation at Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy where we had a team of eight people basically launching classes, which were the same classes twice a year. We had it down to a proverbial science. And it still wore us out, burnt us out, but I also felt like I knew how to do it in my bones. So, when I was putting all my energy into the Moon + Stone and launching classes, I thought, "HOW HARD COULD IT BE?!?"
It is goddess-dang hard, yo.
Neck deep in the middle of a session of the Complete Tarot, I had a total mental breakdown where I just went into a catatonic state and stared at a wall for 90 minutes. I had nothing left in the tank. My kids needed a chauffeur, lawns needed to be mowed, and still I just stared. I was waking at 3:30am just to finish stuff before I had to do more stuff. Still, I was posting classes at the literal 11th hour. I fell asleep staring at the wall. My tank wasn't just empty. I exploded the engine all together, so there was no amount of gas that would make me run, but I still had to run.
I say this only to say, in the midst of that, I had this commitment to share my story (in recovery, we call it experience, strength, and hope) at one of our main celebration days in AA called Founder's Day. It is always an honor to share your story, because it means someone thinks you have something hopeful to share. This was my local Founder's Day picnic. I am in Central Pennsylvania and our Founder's Day picnic has a nice turnout--150 people.
Founder's Day, in case you don't know, is the day Alcoholics Anonymous was founded. It isn't the day Bill Wilson got sober. It is the day that Dr. Bob Smith got sober. Pull up a chair, I'm going to tell you a story.
Bill Wilson was a stock analyst who also happened to be a real alcoholic. He lost most of his money in the crash of 1929, and went on a hellish drinking spree that lasted for a long long time. He was unemployable, destitute, living with his in-laws, drinking himself into oblivion. At that time, alcoholism was seen as a moral failing (hey, in some circles, it is still seen that way). If you were an alcoholic, you ended up in an institution--jail or the sanitarium--or you ended up dead. There wasn't much hope for drunks.
Bill was in and out of the hospitals, the asylums and was basically told he would die or end up with wet brain. One day, his friend Ebby** came to visit. Bill and Ebby drank together many many times, and so Bill was excited to have a fellow drinker visiting. That is when Ebby told him he had quit drinking because he found God. Ebby had joined the Oxford Group, which was an evangelical Christian organization founded by the American Lutheran minister Frank Buchman in 1921. Buchman believed that fear and selfishness were the root of all problems. Further, Buchman believed that the solution to living with fear and selfishness was to "surrender one's life over to God's plan".
Bill really didn't want to hear about God, but he was intrigued that Ebby was sober and completely transformed. So, he tried it, but couldn't stay sober. They had steps to do and ways to take responsibilities for your life. Bill ended up in another institution in a few short months.
This time, though, he had the Oxford Group's ideas about being of service to your fellow man in the back of his mind, so in the midst of his Delirium Tremens, Bill W. yelled out to God and asked to be shown God. According to Bill W., while lying in bed depressed and despairing, he cried out, "I'll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let Him show Himself!" He then had the sensation of a bright light, a feeling of ecstasy, and a new serenity. He never drank again for the remainder of his life.
Bill W. joined the Oxford Group and tried to help other alcoholics, but succeeded only in keeping sober himself. So, I say all of that for background, here is what I really want to share about this story. Bill W. travels to Akron Ohio for work. He has a terrible day. The whole reason he was there was to do business, and his business deal falls through. In AA, we always say he had a failed business trip. So, he walks into the lobby of his hotel. On one side of the lobby is a bar. People are laughing and drinking and having a good time.
He wants a drink. I mean, for the first time since his God experience, he wants a serious drink. But he knows that at the core of his sobriety is helping someone else. He stayed sober all this time by helping other alcoholics in the Oxford Group. Granted, they didn't stay sober, but he did. So, he is at this crossroads. He could go into the bar and have a drink or he could get out of his comfort zone and help another alcoholic.
I think about that crossroads every day. I am not exaggerating. I think about Bill W. standing there with all the laughing joyous people on one side of the lobby drinking alcohol and a bank of phones on the other side of the lobby. It is 1935, remember and he is somewhere where he knows no one. Obviously, no cell phone, no meetings (he hasn’t invented meetings yet), no companion, no other alcoholics.
What would you do?
He goes to the phones and calls a Church. RANDOMLY CALL A CHURCH, and basically says, "I need an alcoholic. Stat."
Actually, he does call a church and talked to Episcopal minister Rev. Walter Tunks and tells him that he is an alcoholic who wants to drink, and he has found when he helps another alcoholic, he doesn't drink, so the good Reverend sends him to a woman named Henrietta Sieberling, who is part of the Oxford Group in Akron. She had been praying for this alcoholic every day, so she sends to the guy. Dr. Robert Smith, a prominent Akron surgeon, whose drinking is affecting his practice, his life, his marriage....After delaying the meeting for a day, Dr. Bob agreed to a fifteen-minute encounter.
When they met, the fifteen minutes became six hours. Bill W. told him about his own experience as an alcoholic, he talked about what he had learned about alcoholism and then spoke of his own spiritual experience. Dr. Bob drank again within the month, but less than a month later, had his last drink. His sobriety date is considered the founding date of AA. From there, together, they found a drunk in a hospital and talked to him, and then another person. They decided on principles, ideals, and what helped. One alcoholic talking to another alcoholic.
