Frothy, Emotional Appeal...

The "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous states that when it comes to reaching out to the alcoholic and imploring them to seek out help, "Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices." If it is going to have any effect on us whatsoever, it needs to have some "depth and weight" to it. Before I faced mounting legal issues, dangerous health scares, mounting debt and a declining reputation at both work and school, THIS should've been a huge red flag to me that something was horribly wrong. Those of you who know me, know that I like to consider myself a compassionate and empathetic person. I'm a big softy and I'm DEFINITELY a big momma's boy. But as soon as alcohol came into play, I became cold and careless. I didn't care about myself, why would I care about you?

Dictionary.com defines frothy as "unsubstantial, trifling, shallow, empty." TOTALLY not what I thought it meant. I thought of something that's bubbling and boiling. So I thought of an emotional appeal that was a little more hot, intense. It caused me to have flashbacks of tearful pseudo-interventions, angry conversations and the downright fights that caused me (or someone else) to storm out of the house. All of those methods worked... at least, for a little while. I remember, on numerous occasions, feeling those deep and awful feelings of remorse and self-hatred. What I WASN'T feeling was that "digging in and standing my ground" feeling of "yes, I WILL quit drinking right now!" It was a more mediocre feeling of "yeah, I know I NEED to quit, but..."

Being raised solely by my Mom and being the youngest of three, I became super duper close to her at a young age. I was your somewhat stereotypical momma's boy. When I learned that the term "momma's boy" was actually considered a BAD thing, I kinda shrugged my shoulders and said "meh." For the most part, I took what she said SUPER seriously. She never lied to me (for the most part... I'll choose to look past the whole "telling me everything tastes like macaroni and cheese issue") and so I took everything she said as gospel. Her opinion totally mattered. I wasn't one of those kids who had to be spanked or punished severely into submission. All she had to do was look at me with those big eyes and say softly "John, I'm so disappointed in you right now..." and I would crumble like a house of cards.

Alcohol replaced all of that compassion and empathy. As much as it pains me to say this, it even replaced the respect and care I had for my Mom. Over the last seven years, I've had plenty of conversations with "angry Mom" after I've relapsed. Angry Mom never lasts for long, I know that she just needs to get it out of her system and, before long, she's just fine. I know that she's going to love me no matter what. What REALLY bothered me was those conversations with Mom as tears would well up in her eyes. She'd softly ask me "why?" I've had more of those conversations than I care to count. Here recently, I would talk with her about how we're feeling and what-not. She'd be having a rough day and say something along the lines of how one of the only things keeping her together was knowing I was sober. I'd hear this, knowing that I had a bottle stashed away somewhere or knowing that I had nowhere near the amount of sobriety that she thought I had. It crushed me to know that I was just one simple truth away from her bring her world down crumbling. I felt horrible. Those feelings of self-hatred would swell up inside me. The only way I could keep them from taking over was to dive back into that bottle and wipe away every single feeling I had.

I long to return to a place where I am compassionate and feel empathy for people. I will care deeply about emotional appeals. I can only get back there if I continue to work on this program of recovery. It will start by getting to a place where I'm no longer consumed by the feelings of self-loathing. In order to do that, I'll have to dive into the steps head-first. Hopefully, before long, I'll be working steps 4 and 5 with my sponsor, followed by identifying character defects in step 6. I'll pray to have those defects removed. Then I can go on to the important act of going and making amends with people. I know far too many people who I ignored their tearful emotional appeals, whether they were frothy or otherwise...