THE GROUP DEPENDED ON THIS 21-YEAR-OLD ANGRY PUNK

Commitments were a constant when I first got sober, and they remained part of my life for decades.

Things were suggested to us back then. It was also understood that if you decided not to follow those suggestions, you might not remain sober long enough to find out what happened to the people who did.

Before I had an official commitment, I was told to help put away the chairs. You didn’t simply walk out when the meeting ended. You stayed, talked to people, and helped clean up.

Then came my first business meeting.

I was told to get a commitment, so ashtray duty it was.

My home group met Mondays and Thursdays at 8 p.m., about five minutes from where I lived. We took over the entire church basement. There was a large room and three smaller rooms running simultaneously, except for the final Thursday of the month, which was reserved for anniversaries.

The large room held an open meeting. The back rooms had a beginner meeting, a step meeting, and a topic meeting.

It was nearly 39 years ago that I first walked down those basement stairs. It’s crazy how quickly time passes.

I cleaned the ashtrays for a month. At the next business meeting, I took outside speaking engagements and probably cleanup duty too. Somewhere in those early months, I also started making the coffee.

Suddenly, the entire group depended on this angry, 21-year-old punk to make its coffee.

Now I had to show up. Otherwise, everyone would discover what a shithead I really was.

I don’t remember exactly how often I didn’t want to be there. My best estimate would be about 99% of the time.

But I went.

I also went on speaking commitments with the other guys from the group—not that I was given much of a choice.

Someone would say, “Guy, we’re speaking Wednesday night in Lindenhurst. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Yeah, okay,” was usually my answer.

The truth was, I didn’t have anything else happening in my life. AA became my life.

During my first or second month sober, a guy named Tim shared that he needed rides to meetings. He had recently gotten out of jail for DWIs and didn’t have a license. I picked him up every night for more than a year until he got his license back.

Tim and I got sober together and became best friends.

We had many great years together. Unfortunately, after being sober a long time, Tim decided to drink again. He suffered for years before the end. Eventually, he was found alone in his kitchen eight days after he died.

That is one of the realities of alcoholism. Someone can have years of sobriety, but this disease is still waiting if we decide to return.

Tim’s sponsor was a man we called Pencil Jimmy because he always had a pencil tucked behind his ear. Every Tuesday night, Jimmy brought an AA meeting into the locked ward at Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center.

It was a strange feeling being locked inside with psychiatric patients. It was even more sobering to listen to them speak and realize that could easily be me if I chose to drink again.

I didn’t go every Tuesday because it wasn’t my commitment.

Tim did.

He went every Tuesday for years.

Another commitment I attended was the Saturday morning meeting at Freeport Hospital. My sponsor ran that meeting. We watched newly admitted patients shuffle around in paper slippers.

My sponsor would look at me and ask, “Do you know why I do this every Saturday?”

I would shrug. “Not a clue.”

“Because I never want to forget my lithium shuffle in paper slippers.”

As time passed, I began chairing meetings inside my home group. If you took one of the back rooms, you were responsible for opening the meeting, getting it moving, and finding a speaker.

Later, I took a commitment at South Oaks Psychiatric Center, running a meeting for young people. I kept that commitment for more than two years.

Commitments keep you sober.

They keep you connected. They make you part of the fellowship. Eventually, you become an integral part of AA.

They also help build confidence. Even when you feel terrible about yourself, you are still doing the next right thing every day despite how you feel.

That begins to change your thinking.

You slowly realize that you aren’t completely worthless, stupid, or ugly.

Well, maybe ugly—but that’s kind of subjective, isn’t it? 🤣

One winter night, Long Island was hit by a blizzard. By all reasonable standards, we should have stayed home.

My friend Chris and I called each other.

“You going tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m going. You?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’ll meet you there.”

I don’t remember exactly how much snow had fallen, but we were practically the only people on the road besides the plow drivers.

When we arrived, Bob was already there setting up.

He looked at us and said, “You two want to stay sober.”

After the meeting, he pulled me aside. I will never forget what he said.

“If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll stay sober. The people who come out in this kind of weather are the ones who make it.”

Bob was a highly respected old-timer. He was kind, had been sober for a long time, and became one of the men who looked after me.

He wasn’t officially my sponsor, but he sponsored me for years.

One day, he asked, “Do you know why I’m always telling you to keep it simple?”

“Nope.”

“Because I know you won’t.” 🤣

Bob knew me better than I knew myself.

He gave me many suggestions, and for the most part, I followed every one of them. He cared about me, but he also desperately wanted to protect his own sobriety.

It’s no surprise that Bob believed strongly in commitments.

I will never—and could never—forget that man. He played a tremendous role in saving my life.

I didn’t always want to attend the meetings. I didn’t always want to clean up, make coffee, speak, or help someone else. I fought plenty of it along the way.

But I kept showing up.

Somewhere between the ashtrays, coffee pots, hospital wards, speaking commitments, and snowy church basements, I became dependable.

More importantly, I stayed sober.