skippy the bush kangaroo: What Do You Do?

Thursday, June 30, 2011

What Do You Do?

On my way home from work tonight, there was a guy already sitting on the bench at the bus stop I'd picked for myself. Out of the blue, he asked me if I knew where there were any AA meetings he could go to. We were on Richmond's Broad Street at the time, so I pointed inbound and said there was this place called Madison House...

He said he was from Tennessee, not Richmond.

Well, I rummaged through my backpack, pulled out the last AA meeting booklet my doctor had given me, and gave it to him. "I have the same problem," I said. "Madison House has a bunch of meetings throughout the week, at various times..."

As I was telling him all this, a "friend" of his came back from the 7-11 across the street with a 40-ounce bottle of beer. The guy (the first one, not his friend) then said to me that some judge had given him one last chance: he was to attend ten AA meetings by July 15, or he would go back to jail. He also said that he was 71 years old. Looking at him, I thought he was significantly older than 71, that's how rundown he appeared.

Plus, he had no money to get to any AA meetings. Not only that, he claimed he couldn't do much walking. I believed him -- it was a somewhat hot day, he was wearing shorts, I looked at his legs, and one of them had both a long gash in it and several small black ants crawling up and down it. I wanted to give him some money, but knowing what that would likely be spent on...

Jesus. What do you do?

I said, "Look, there's a number on that booklet you can call," as my bus was approaching. "They can help you, or at least guide you in that direction..." He thanked me as I boarded my bus.

I hope like hell he took my advice. That was the best I could come up with. At it sucked...

Labels: life

posted by Jim Yeager at 11:42 PM |

5 Comments:

Hey Jim- there but for the grace of God (of your understanding) go you or I. Be grateful for what you have, keep your head down. It's one of the vignettes of city life. Have a good day in the Cooch state.

commented by

nanotheater, 3:33 AM PDT

We do an AA/NA alternative at our center, without the cultiness, caffeine drinking and tobacco smoking.

commented by

mahakal, 7:08 PM PDT

it's one day at a time my friends, that's the only way to get thru it...

commented by

skippy, 10:17 PM PDT

Jim, if a guy needs money, give it to him. If you are traveling around and pass out some dough that you can't afford, put a note in the blog and tell me. I'll register and pass my email through Skippy. I'll cut a check to a street address or PO box.

Don't give enough to buy a fifth, it would kill some of them.

It is just that damned simple.

That could have been me.

commented by

Anonymous, 10:53 PM PDT

Nanotheater: Life has a way of reminding me now and then just how much I have to lose. You'd think I'd stop forgetting after a while, but nooo...

Mahakal: One of the tricks to AA is finding one or more groups that suit you. The biggest trick, naturally, is wanting to quit drinking badly enough -- something I'm still working on, truth be told. But everyone is different. That's why there are trainloads of different meeting places, many of which host two or more different groups at different times. AA is not for everyone, and there are several other ways to go about giving up alcohol, but I've been to some AA meetings, and I have seen firsthand that it's working for enough people to convince me that it's worth a shot. Most of the meeting places are not militaristic, and most of the ones I know of don't smell like a big dirty ashtray. (Note to any Richmond-area alcoholics who are trying to stay sober but are smoking: give the REBOS center on the Midlothian Turnpike a whirl. Just don't expect to see me there -- I visited REBOS one afternoon, and my clothes ended up reeking of secondhand smoke until I threw them in the washing machine that night.)

Skippy: If only keeping it simple were simple. No one ever said quitting for good would be easy. But I never really began to understand just how big of a bitch alcohol is until I started up again last year. I;m just glad I never took up any other drug -- one addiction is more than enough for me.

Anonymous: I could have given that guy every bill and coin I had on me save for my bus fare, and it wouldn't have set me back at all -- and I'm always three or four paychecks away from being homeless myself. That's what sticks in my craw. I could have bought him a square meal -- especially when I average five square meals a day during a sober stretch without missing a bill payment on my modest budget. Someone recently told me that I was a good man with a bad problem, the bad problem being alcoholism. I agree with the second half of that statement...

commented by

Jim Yeager, 12:49 AM PDT

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