scheduled over Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, and Max will be off school. Maybe I should do a ski trip with him instead. It would be a good opportunity for Max and me to hang out like we used to before Van was born. I told Charlie I was thinking about going skiing with Max in lieu of the retreat. He was all for it. I emailed Emily that I’d forgotten I’d promised to take Max skiing and canceled.
[Tuesday, January 7]
I went to a meeting that totally pissed me off. Everybody sat at a conference table with a recovery book and a middle-aged guy sitting at the head of the table, the guy who was about to chair the meeting, was talking to a woman who mentioned her sister’s birthday was yesterday.
“Did you spank her?” the chairman asked.
“No,” the woman replied and giggled.
“Did her husband? Did you take pictures?”
Finally the guy noticed it was time to start the meeting.
“We’ll be taking turns reading Step Four of the Twelve Steps: ‘Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.’ In this meeting you can interrupt at any time by saying, ‘stop,’ and say what’s on your mind.”
The woman sitting across the table from me started reading. When she finished the first paragraph she passed and the man sitting next to her began to read the second paragraph. When he finished reading a part that said, “Our desires for sex, for material and emotional security, and for an important place in society often tyrannize us,” the chairman yelled, “Stop.”
“Yeah,” the chairman said. “Your life can be screwed up if you obsess about anything, like sex. If all you think about is sex, and that’s all you want to do all the time, other parts of your life will suffer.”
The man finished reading the second paragraph and the guy sitting next to him started reading the third. “We want to find exactly how, when, and where our natural desires have warped us,” he read. “We wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and ourselves.”
“Stop,” shouted the chairman. “I know a sex addict. Yeah. All he wants is sex. Can’t get enough of it. As soon as he finishes having sex he’s thinking about how he can get it again. He’s zipping up his pants and planning for the next time. His wife is like, ‘Isn’t three times a day enough? We just did it.’ Yeah. There are people out there like that who’re totally obsessed with sex.”
I felt like slamming my book down and leaving, but didn’t. I’d heard people in meetings say they treat other people in meetings who try their patience as an exercise in developing tolerance and patience. Since I desperately need to develop tolerance and patience, I decided to stick it out. The reading continued and we got to a part that read, “Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people—people who
really
need a moral inventory,” and the chairman yelled, “Stop!” again.
“Have you ever thought,
Yeah, I’m going to that meeting because so-and-so will be there?”
he asked. “And you make comments to impress her. And you offer to drive her to meetings because she lost her driver’s license and she takes you up on it. And you drive her here and there, and you go out with her and the group for coffee afterward, and she talks to everyone but you, and you’re thinking,
The bitch is just using me for rides!?”
I wanted a martini, bad.
[Wednesday, January 8]
I went to a meditation meeting that was weird. About sixteen of us met in a conference room and broke up into smaller groups that met in little sitting rooms. My group consisted of me and three guys. We sat on a couch and some chairs. One of the guys dimmed the lights. The woman running the meeting started playing an audiotape that got piped into each of the rooms. The tapes reminded me of the old
Saturday Night Live
skit “Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley.” “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it,
[Tuesday, January 7]
I went to a meeting that totally pissed me off. Everybody sat at a conference table with a recovery book and a middle-aged guy sitting at the head of the table, the guy who was about to chair the meeting, was talking to a woman who mentioned her sister’s birthday was yesterday.
“Did you spank her?” the chairman asked.
“No,” the woman replied and giggled.
“Did her husband? Did you take pictures?”
Finally the guy noticed it was time to start the meeting.
“We’ll be taking turns reading Step Four of the Twelve Steps: ‘Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.’ In this meeting you can interrupt at any time by saying, ‘stop,’ and say what’s on your mind.”
The woman sitting across the table from me started reading. When she finished the first paragraph she passed and the man sitting next to her began to read the second paragraph. When he finished reading a part that said, “Our desires for sex, for material and emotional security, and for an important place in society often tyrannize us,” the chairman yelled, “Stop.”
“Yeah,” the chairman said. “Your life can be screwed up if you obsess about anything, like sex. If all you think about is sex, and that’s all you want to do all the time, other parts of your life will suffer.”
The man finished reading the second paragraph and the guy sitting next to him started reading the third. “We want to find exactly how, when, and where our natural desires have warped us,” he read. “We wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and ourselves.”
“Stop,” shouted the chairman. “I know a sex addict. Yeah. All he wants is sex. Can’t get enough of it. As soon as he finishes having sex he’s thinking about how he can get it again. He’s zipping up his pants and planning for the next time. His wife is like, ‘Isn’t three times a day enough? We just did it.’ Yeah. There are people out there like that who’re totally obsessed with sex.”
I felt like slamming my book down and leaving, but didn’t. I’d heard people in meetings say they treat other people in meetings who try their patience as an exercise in developing tolerance and patience. Since I desperately need to develop tolerance and patience, I decided to stick it out. The reading continued and we got to a part that read, “Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people—people who
really
need a moral inventory,” and the chairman yelled, “Stop!” again.
“Have you ever thought,
Yeah, I’m going to that meeting because so-and-so will be there?”
he asked. “And you make comments to impress her. And you offer to drive her to meetings because she lost her driver’s license and she takes you up on it. And you drive her here and there, and you go out with her and the group for coffee afterward, and she talks to everyone but you, and you’re thinking,
The bitch is just using me for rides!?”
I wanted a martini, bad.
[Wednesday, January 8]
I went to a meditation meeting that was weird. About sixteen of us met in a conference room and broke up into smaller groups that met in little sitting rooms. My group consisted of me and three guys. We sat on a couch and some chairs. One of the guys dimmed the lights. The woman running the meeting started playing an audiotape that got piped into each of the rooms. The tapes reminded me of the old
Saturday Night Live
skit “Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley.” “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it,
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