Blah Guy

When I was in college, I would often go hang out with some friends at a bar in Eugene. We’d listen to jazz; make fun of the waiter, and hit on the cute girls. All that stuff. It was nice. The smell of laughter and the joy of friendship always filled the bar every time we would go. Everyone always seemed to be enjoying themselves to the max. Sometimes, someone would go a little overboard. Not me. And that made for fun when everyone else wasn’t. I used to go into the bathroom when that drunk guy would go in there and sit in the other stall. I‘d begin to whisper lines from The Field of Dreams. “If you build it, he will come.” “Ease his pain.” It was more fun for me than for most of them, trust me. I couldn’t help but laugh. I was also a jerk back then. Not any more, of course.

My dad was almost killed in a bar. Growing up in Montana where there is nothing to do, my dad resorted much of his time to the pleasures of being a winebibber. I always feel uncomfortable asking him about his High School years because there are probably things that I shouldn’t know, or rather, things that I should know to solve some rather exciting FBI case my dad was loosely involved in. He became a drunk very fast. When he met my mom in Medical school, he had already developed a full dependence not only on alcohol, but on just about anything he could get his hands on. Drinks turned to drugs, drugs turned to depression, and depression soon turned to divorce. My parents broke up when I was 9 or so. Today, I have a terrific relationship with my living father because he is no longer an alcoholic. I wish I could say that it was he totally “got saved” or something likes that, but salvation for my father came not through a church service, but a family. Not a family of relatives, but a family of people struggling with the same thing. That family is called AA, alcoholics anonymous. Looking back, I consider all of those weird meetings a total godsend. I would share my name like, “Hello, my name is AJ and…”, and I would never know what to say after that. The alcoholics in the group would say, “…and I’m an alcoholic”. But I was not. So, out loud I would say, “…and I am happy to be here”, which brought an “ahhh” from the group. The old ladies loved it when I said that. But what I was thinking was not the same. I was thinking, “…and my dad is a raging alcoholic, please help him or my mom and dad are never going to be together again.” And, you know what; those people heard my silent prayer. He stopped drinking. He has not drunk anything for 15 years. I am so darn proud of my dad. Seriously.

People, Christians mostly, get so down on AA because they don’t force Jesus down people’s throats. Some churches don’t even let them use their facilities because of it. But AA is not a church. It has never tried to be. AA does not exist to get people to become Christians but to stop drinking and learn to grow. I think AA needs to do what it is trying to do, namely help people stop drinking. It seems as though the church should focus any attention they have on AA’s non-blatantly-Christian approach and find any way they can help in the process; not stand on the outside and complain. AA saved my dad from dying, not the church. It makes me wonder too. Does God get happy over an alcoholic breaking an addiction, or does God just get happy about people who convert to Christianity? God loves both. He loves seeing all of his kids become healthy. He loves seeing anybody become more human. Does he love it when people become Christians? Yes, he does. But He also hates it when Christians forget that God came not just to save Christians, but all the other ones too! He also hates it when the church forgets to celebrate non-believers coming one more step towards faith in experiencing some good ole’ fashion addiction breaking miracle.

Jesus loves AA.