My Three Wise Men

Back in the day, there was a tale of a child who was visited by Three Wise Men. The Wise Men brought the child gifts of gold, francisense and myrhh. Not the best baby gifts in the world, but what evs. I later found out the gifts are actually royal burial gifts and was rather horrified. Nothing quite like the reminder of death as a baby gift.

We Interrupt your reading for an important announcement!

Announcer voice: Before we move on there is something you need to consider. If you think the average alcoholic is self-centered, narcissistic and egotistical, you are about to LOVE this post. Imagine for a moment that you are comparable to a world renown figure. Got the person in mind? Good. I’m about to make it worse.

Now, back to our post.

Me and the kid mentioned above have something in common.  I also was visited by Three Wise Men while I was a new born in recovery. They didn’t ride camels to come see me lying in a feeding trough in a barn. In fact, they didn’t even visit me all at once. But all of them brought gifts that were a heck of a lot better than metal, a type of salt, and some stinky stuff.

My First Wiseman

I met my first Wise Man on the day I walked into a treatment center. Wide-eyed and full of lies, I stepped through the doors. I was nervous…well scared out-of-my-wits would be more accurate. I fully expected to see a room full of crazed people wandering around in hospital gowns searching for a fix of some type.

What I found was an empty facility, except for staff who rather politely strip-searched me and rummaged through my suitcase to remove all banned items, including a disposable razor and the medication I had convinced a psychiatrist I desperately needed. This was not what I thought going to treatment would be like at all. There were no bars on the windows and no barbed-wire fences.

I would like to say this first Wise Man recognized I was special when he walked in the room and first saw me loaded with detox meds. I was seated rather uncomfortably on a couch thanks to the two “silver-bullet” injections that made my butt feel lumpy. I think he probably introduced himself with little fan-fare. I found out later that all of the occupants of the facility were returning from a field trip to a local raptor center. Field trips in treatment?!?!? I was more than shocked.

As a few days ticked by I realized I was destined to stay in treatment until I admitted I was an alcoholic and promised to lead a glum, boring life for the rest of my days. As a part of this admission, I decided to study the 12-step things that seemed like a version of the 10 Commandments because they were posted all over this center.

By that time, I had learned that this Wise Man had done the dumbest thing I had ever heard of. He checked himself into treatment because he was concerned that he might, I say, might, relapse following the second of two serious surgeries. It was kind of a return to the basics idea. A safe place to reflect, make sure the pain meds didn’t take him where he didn’t want to go, and a chance to hang out with ME.

I was sitting in one of the classrooms because I am a nerd and arrived early. I was staring at the 12 goals list and thinking about a life-sentence of not drinking. The Wise Man came in and asked how I was doing.

I turned to him and said, “I get it. I’m an alcoholic and if I drink things will continue to be shitty and get worse. But, there is no way I can go the rest of my life without drinking.”

The Wise Man who would become one of my best friends and is to this day. Looked seriously at me, and said, “You don’t have to stop forever. Just don’t drink today.”

My mind was literally blown. I’m sure smoke poured out of my ears as I absorbed this new information. “I can do that. I can do anything for a day!”

“That’s all there is to it,” he said.  “Don’t drink for the rest of the day, even if you want to. Just put off that drink until tomorrow.”

I was infused with hope. I could feel the desperation of my own inability to stay sober melt away beneath this fierce beam of hope that radiated from the center of my being. Finally, I had a solution that I had not found reading the Big Book while I was high on detox meds or listening to why I was one of the happy few who won the disease of alcohol lottery. This Wise Man, with a simple statement gave me the one thing I needed to save my life.

I am slightly embarrassed to admit it took me six months to figure out there was a trick to the statement.

There had been a few days that I had full-blown cravings, backed by incredibly rough, stormy seas of life that made taking a drink tomorrow seem like the perfect idea. Going to sleep one of those nights I thought, tomorrow I will give up and drink. But, when I woke up, it was TODAY. And, I can make it through TODAY without a drink.

Finally, and ironically, sitting in a meeting of an AA group named One Day At A Time, which is a group I had been attending for months, I realized that it will never be tomorrow. Duh.

Still, without that First Wise Man and his gift of hope, I am not sure if I would be sober today, and I may not even be alive.

My Second Wiseman

The second wise man I met was also the first person to refuse to be my sponsor; instead, he offered to be my temporary sponsor until I could find a permanent one. He would be one of three sponsors I had and desperately needed in my early sobriety. For more on my sponsor journey check out the blog, “Sponsorship: It’s Kind of a Big Deal.”

The second wise man remained my temporary sponsor, confidant, and steady shoulder for almost five years, and would still be so if he had not passed away. I still miss him every day.

This wise man had a steel-grip handshake, a gleam in his eye and smile that could light up a room when he thought of something funny to say, and a smoker’s cough that almost always cut off his laugh. He was always an hour early to meetings and stayed until the last person was headed home.

He kept the coffee made, and was quick to pull a chair on to the porch for each person who arrived so they could sit, talk, and smoke with him. He rarely gave suggestions but always gave people an ear to share what was on their minds. He had his moments as we all do, when passion for something, in his case the defending his AA home group or the principles of AA as a whole, would raise his blood pressure. But it never lasted long and his welcoming smile would return.

I quickly learned his pattern and would show up early to enjoy a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and vomit all of my fears and character defects on the porch all around us. This wise man mainly listened, occasionally asking questions or offering a consoling comment. But, he put all of his problems and concerns aside and had the patience to put up with my frustrated babbling throughout my first year of sobriety.

When I shared with him that relapse was a part of recovery so I should get my relapse out of the way he flatly told me, “Hell no!” so I stayed sober.

One day, I came racing to the porch with some “serious” issue, and he cut me off. “I think you need to chair a meeting tonight. You have been coming long enough.”

I began explaining how I was too new in sobriety and needed to watch a few more times before I tried it. He nodded for a second and then said, “Today is a good day to do something different.”

I replied, “Hell no! I’m not going to do it.”

He didn’t say anything else and the conversation soon changed to my latest complaint or gripe. Then, other members came in and the second wise man asked if I needed some more coffee before the meeting started.  I said sure, though only half paying attention because I was lost in listening to someone else’s conversation. And, when I went into the meeting room, there sat my cup of coffee right where the chair of the meeting would sit, and the second wise man was scooting another chair close to the coffee mug.

“Come on. Your cup’s waiting and I’ll be right beside you.”

I briefly thought of fleeing the building, but I took my seat, and with his guidance chaired my first meeting. From that point forward on, every Friday night for five years, I chaired meetings.

Our porch conversations continued. He was always there, always happy to see me and always listening patiently. His patience with everyone that came to the meetings, and his offers to help other members with side projects or rides to meetings left a void that can’t be filled. But without his simple way of giving back to others by being there to make sure the doors were open and the coffee was made, I may have decided that relapse would be part of my recovery story.

My Third Wiseman

My third wise man was younger than me, and in many ways was and still is a friend and peer more than an aged seer sharing snippets of lore and logic.

When I first met the third wise man, we spent an hour talking about coaching basketball. He was coaching a YMCA middle school team, and I had recently abandoned 13 years of coaching high school basketball. That loss helped speed my descent to rock bottom and find treatment.

This wise man was all about the spiritual aspect of the program. His shares dripped with the importance of having God and prayer as a part of anyone’s recovery. He often shared how he “hit his knees every morning” and how attending church regularly had added to his spiritual life.

We were polar opposites when it came to spirituality. I trusted most of the suggestions in his shares about staying sober and his constant harping about working the steps kept that fresh in my mind at all times. I just wasn’t going to pretend to pray and follow a belief that I couldn’t for the life of me have faith in. I didn’t get sober to trick people into believing I had found God.

The third wise man remained a good friend and we often talked late into the night about a host of topics but dodged religion. Years into our friendship, I noticed a change in his shares. He still mentioned the need for a higher power, but his “hitting-your-knees-in-prayer” refrain had left the building like Elvis after an encore. I still had a feeling it was in there, but there was no evidence it would make an appearance.

Finally, one day we were talking after a meeting, and in a statement phrased as a question he said that he remembered me as not being religious and added a “right?” at the end. I replied no.  He then shocked me by saying that his views on spirituality were changing. I honestly didn’t know that could happen.

I figured there were religious people in recovery and non-religious people in recovery just like normal society but a bunch of sober drunks. And, I had long ago learned the two sides never changed lanes and instead became more entrenched in being right with age.

However, in a slow gradual at times, almost imperceptible, and at others blatantly obvious. My third wise men showed me that another fundamental of recovery, faith, could adapt, grow and change. Before the third wise man, I had decided to never become a sponsor. I felt my own lack of religious beliefs might harm a new comer’s chances. (See, even in helping others, it’s all about me.)

However, this wise man stayed steadfast in working with others and showed me it is possible to share what keeps me sober, honestly, and still help others whose faith leads them in a totally different direction.

To this day, I turn to two of my three wise men when I run across something that I can’t work out with others in the program and their wisdom still helps me. I hope that in some way I return the favor, even if it is as simple as them being grateful they are not me.

I don’t know if the child ever got a chance to ask his three wise men questions or possibly meet again for a gift exchange. I mean, really, those are horrible gifts by any measure. I often wonder if the child ever wondered as I do what forces brought the wise men into his life. For him it was a little more obvious, they were following some freak-of-nature star. I don’t know that either of us thanked our wise men for the gifts they bestowed. I could see why he might have let that tradition slip, honestly, the names of two of the gifts sound like embalming spices. Nothing like reminding you of death at the beginning of life to take the fun out of childhood.

For me, I wouldn’t trade the gifts my wise men brought me:

These gifts have helped me so much in sobriety. Without the visit from my Three Wise Men, I would not be the person I am today. I hope I continue to honor them by sharing with others the gifts they brought me.

Thanks for reading! Please like, share, and comment below.