Recently I talked to several men and women with long term sobriety. One just celebrated his 50th AA Birthday (This equals 18,250 days without a drink.)

Congratulations!

All the birthday folks had one thing in common. They didn't drink or have the continuing desire to drink "one day at a time." All of them, in their sobriety, used AA as a means of support and acquired tools for living in AA. In other words their lives eventually were not involved strictly with going to a lot of meetings. In fact, Father Martin, considered an effective educator on addiction and the 12-Step approach, told me years ago that those who devote a 100 percent of their time to AA are neglecting other areas of their lives, especially their families.

I believe it was in the early 80's or around that time that I had the privilege of meeting Father Joseph Martin when he appeared as the keynote speaker at an annual NCADD-FV Awards Banquet at the Odyssey Restaurant in the San Fernando Valley. In fact, he quickly became my recovery idol. While in treatment we were shown a series of Father Martin's films, called Chalk Talk. He over viewed the disease of alcoholism, using humor to get across his points instead of the gloom and doom approach.

In recovery since 1958, he is a co-founder of Father Martin's Ashley, a non-profit treatment center in Maryland. The 84-year-old continues to remain active and over the years has produced 20 recovery films and has made numerous public appearances and the is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Norman Vincent Peale Award in 1992.

I was awestruck meeting Father Martin that night and the best part of all was sitting down at the same table next to him. He kept cracking one or two line jokes and quickly had everyone at the table roaring with laughter. He seemed interested in those around him and wanted to know all about me. "You know Dean, I think you are going to make it if you do one thing; laugh at yourself," he said. How did he know that I had been such a serious person and seldom laughed at anything, especially myself?

"Humor is the cornerstone of sobriety," he continued. "We can't take ourselves so seriously. If we do it leads us to feeling - poor me, poor me! Laughter is the anecdote for feeling bad." How true! I told him of my experience of taking myself so seriously that if a button fell of my shirt, it would put me into panic mode. Why the whole world would know that Dean is walking around with a button missing from his shirt. This gave Father Martin a chance to laugh at me. While talking to all these old-timers recently, I discovered that though they were not addicted to meetings they always were available to help a newcomer.

"Things have changed over the years," one told me. "In the early days, there were few treatment programs and we had to nurse the drunk through detox. Often to keep the drunk from going into DT's, members carried around a half a pint of booze in order to settle the nerves. Of course, we only gave him a shot or two and then had him drink a solution of sugar and water. This seemed to work. Even if we had to nurse him through the day and night, we never complained."

Another old-timer recalled the changes in AA, especially the influx of young people coming into the program. This at first was hard for many old-timers to accept because the young folks usually were addicted to all kinds of drugs. "No more pure alcoholics; or very few!" the old timer complains. I personally have noticed over recent years that the negative feelings about those in the program with more than one addiction are slowly going away; as long as the person's primary addiction is to alcohol.

Yes, today you will find more young people in meetings than the founders of AA ever envisioned. For many years in the beginning it was rare that a person under 30 was in the program. "If you were young and still owned a watch, an old timer told me," we would tell the person he wasn't ready for sobriety. In conclusion, without the old-timers there would be no newcomers to carry on. So Bless Them All!

Dean G. is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict and currently works in the treatment field. You can e-mail him at PGbusi@aol.com