however, he would disappear when I was broke and had to work for a day or two (as a rule I took a position as Asst. Director of a Dishwashing Dept., Wet Arms Division), but Beastly always showed up again when I got a crock of sherry.
When Beastly stopped that park bench he was about three feet long, but it was amazing how he grew. About a foot a month. At first, he was fun to play with. Throw sticks, that sort of thing. He’d bring ’em back unless he got confused and burned ’em up. But in six months it got to the point where he could stop a Sherman tank with his breath, the ground shook under him when he ran, and if he ran too close to me, the wind would knock me down.
Once a cop found me in that position and asked, “What’s the matter with you, fella?” I said, “It was Beastly,” and he agreed, but wouldn’t accept it as an answer. Then he smelled the sherry and hauled me off to the cooler, which was dragon proof.
I never saw Beastly again. You see, an AA visited me in jail last month and I got on the program, and since they don’t allow spotted dragons to join…
Well, I smelled the sherry on you, Friend, and just thought you might have seen my old pet Beastly. Greatest little dragon I ever met.
Anonymous
The Fear of Feeling Rejected
October 1973
In my first AA inventory, taken almost six years ago, I listed as my primary shortcoming an inability to cope with feelings of rejection and defeat. In pre-AA years, whenever I had been willing to make a sincere effort to achieve anything, I often experienced gratifying success. But ordinary setbacks, which my normal friends seemed to shrug off, would throw me into a seething anger and resentment. I would withdraw from the contest and, wallowing in depression, would lock my door against the entire world, comforting myself with the bliss of alcoholic oblivion.
Then came AA. For the first time in years, I became willing to be possessed by an honest desire to achieve something—in this case, sobriety. The willingness came easily, because my life depended on it. As my obsession was being lifted, I got down to the causes and conditions mentioned in Chapter Five of Alcoholics Anonymous. This first inventory revealed that my old fear was still thriving, that I was still a moral coward, albeit a sober one.
For example, fear of being turned down because of my unstable employment record kept me from trying to land the kind of job for which I was qualified. When I finally did work up the nerve to apply (to just one employer) and was refused the position, my resentment and depression hung on for weeks. Caught in this dilemma, I reverted to form, refused to try again, and as a result, worked below my capacity for many months.
This fear of feeling rejected shortchanged me in the people department, too. I was afraid to choose. Surrounded by these well-meaning but self-assertive friends, I found little opportunity to cultivate any social courage. The men and women I wanted and needed most seemed to move in a sphere of their own, just beyond my grasp.
This insidious feeling even crept into my periods of prayer and meditation. What if God said no? I hesitated to ask, even though I knew such a request should have a qualification: that it be granted only if it was his will and if others would be helped. Thus, God rarely refused me—because I rarely asked him. Hung up in the limbo between fear and anger, what was I to do?
I would like to say that I turned promptly to AA for the answer, that I immediately applied spiritual principles to solve my problem. But I am an alcoholic, with the alcoholic’s hard head, and it was necessary for me to waste much effort exercising my right to be wrong, before I finally yelled for help at my home group’s meeting.
The first thing I discovered was that I was not alone. Almost without exception, my AA friends admitted that they had struggled with these same feelings. Some claimed that their fear of rejection stemmed from a lack of self-worth; some of the men laid the difficulty to feelings of inadequate masculinity stimulated by years of drinking. It was also asserted that we couldn’t stand the responsibility of being loved and so sought rejection in subtle ways. About the only thing that everybody agreed on completely was that this problem, like our drinking problem, had a spiritual solution.
That night, restless with a new energy, I paced the silent city streets, thanking God over and over again for having given me the strength to reveal my shortcoming and to receive a wealth of shared experience. My friends had bridged the chasm of human limitations and had put something in my soul that hadn’t been there before. Who could reject me if God accepted me? Who could defeat me unless I defeated myself?
I began to reach out. Through the amazing capacity of AA members to love, I received acceptance and the strength to go forward in spite of my qualms. I continued to pray for removal of my defects. Although the big step of willingness had been taken, my personality didn’t reverse itself overnight. I can still feel a little bad at the moment I’m refused a position for which I’m qualified; I may suffer a slow burn for a few minutes after my date has pulled away just as I am courageously about to kiss her goodnight; even God turns me down more often now. But (and here is the miracle) I continue to try; I persist in the face of defeat. I can risk being rejected now, because I no longer have to feel resentful and depressed when it happens.
Soon, I expect to celebrate my sixth AA birthday. Some of the people I will be with on that day will be those I found the courage to reach toward. I will be doing work that is interesting and fulfilling and came only after many setbacks. Most important, if my Higher Power points out that my desires do not happen to coincide with his will, I can accept gratefully and continue the great search a day at a time.
V.C., Venice, Calif.
Ever Been on a Dry Drunk?
April 1962
After ten years of exposure to the AA program, I still experience that periodic phenomenon referred to as the “dry drunk.” To my own amazement and everlasting gratitude, the last seven of those years have been a period of uninterrupted sobriety. This fortunate condition has certainly been brought about by a Power infinitely greater than my puny capabilities. I believe that the times of the greatest danger of self-destruction during these years were those when I, consciously or otherwise, attempted egotistically to take over the reins of my life and tried to exercise total control over my own affairs.
This usually resulted in a dry drunk. What is a dry drunk? The following description is based on a personal viewpoint, but is also supported by those ideas which I have heard expressed at many meetings.
An alcoholic appears capable of emotional extremes ranging from feelings of unbounded elation to depths of dark despair. As an imperfect but perhaps helpful analogy, we might compare the personality of an alcoholic with a weather map: A dry drunk is an emotional storm. The emotions of an alcoholic can fluctuate much in the manner of weather fronts.
When all seems to be comparatively well for the recovered alcoholic, his general feeling of well-being is like a “high-pressure” weather area. This is a large mass of cool, dry air, usually accompanied by clear, blue skies and lots of pleasant sunshine. As long as we try to carry the message to others, attend meetings regularly, and seek God’s guidance every day, we are frequently gifted with a sunny, love-filled spirit—our own inner high-pressure area.
You know, of course, that the weather changes: day by day, little by little, the cool, stimulating air may be replaced by uncomfortable, oppressive, moisture-laden air. There develops a turbulence and confusion in the atmosphere, similar to the turbulence and confusion in the mental atmosphere of an alcoholic on a dry emotional jag.
This is why we are
