Читать книгу Into Action - Группа авторов - Страница 13

August 1981

I had always thought, as my years in AA went on, “The other fellow’s anonymity is more important than mine. I don’t really care anymore. I’m really glad people outside know I’m in AA.”

Ah yes, but was I being equally honest with the people inside AA? I didn’t ask myself that.

I had no idea how I really felt until came a day I had subconsciously feared for years—the day a man was felled by a heart attack at a banquet, during a convention held by the AA area where I live. Another member had just received a medallion honoring him as Canada’s first AA—when it happened. And the banquet chairman yelled over the microphone to 1,000 assembled guests, “Is there a doctor in the house?”

I paused, irresolute. Somebody else would come forward, I thought. Yeah, that’s it—they’ll have a nonalcoholic doctor in attendance for a crowd this size. Nobody moved.

Then I knew I had to reveal myself inside AA, to all these congregated fellow members, as the doctor and the heart specialist I am.

I hated it. I seemed glued to my chair. But I heard a thundering command inside my head: Look, Buster, a man is dying! Move! And move I did, going first to the man, then with him into a braying ambulance, pumping his chest and blowing into his lungs over and over, until he was rolled, pink and pulsating, onto a waiting hospital stretcher.

The ambulance men gave me a ride back to the AA banquet. “Well, doc, you sure deserve a good dr____.” Their eyes wandered away from my face. “Uh, a good time. Yes, doc. Have a real good time.”

I crawled back into the assemblage of AAs, shaken by this self-revelation of a yearning for “anonymity” within AA, even at the risk of another’s life! Surely, I thought, this must be the ultimate in egocentricity, this cold, callous “I’m okay, James—pull up the ladder” attitude.

But then I remembered the years it took me to accept the real, hurting me behind the iron MD mask—not a professional, just a terrified amateur at life, groping painfully in the blackness toward recovery from alcoholism.

I remembered all the AA meetings I’d attended as plain L_____(never Dr. L_____), silent through indignation sessions aimed at “pill pushers” and “weird shrinks.” One word about my medical training, I feared, would inhibit the thrust of the meeting, blunt the help I needed so desperately from my fellow members.

I remembered how angry and evasive I was whenever anyone homed in on my background or education. I wanted no part of that at an AA meeting.

I remembered the eighteen months a dedicated psychiatrist worked with me through Steps Four and Five until, with his incredible patience, he managed to teach me first, to recognize who I was, and second, to accept that human being. Then, I could go on with the AA program.

How little we know, thank God, of our individual destinies, the paths down which we are led so that we may be of service, in whatever capacity.

And I thought I was cunning and devious! My Higher Power outdid me when he sent me to that AA banquet, to help save a life—and to find deeper understanding of myself and the anonymity principle.

L. R.

Victoria, British Columbia