Father's Day Pulls A Fast One

Yesterday was Father’s Day; a holiday conceived by marketing vultures, a faux holiday I’ve viewed with cynicism for years. But as I sat in a recovery meeting yesterday, my attitude made a shift, as my attitudes often change when I stop admiring myself.  

At this meeting, there was a lot of sharing about fathers and fatherhood, and I began to think about my journey. This was my revelation:

In February 1985, denial about my alcoholism, which had been my stealthy companion for over a decade, quite suddenly slipped away forever. I admitted my powerlessness over alcohol and began to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. People there told stories about recovery and how belief in a power greater than themselves was the second step to sobriety and a better life. I put my skepticism on the shelf and tried on the concept of “god” and “higher power”;  this was mildly uncomfortable, but the founders of  AA, knowing how prideful we alcoholics are, gave us a lot of wiggle room regarding this relationship, letting us define the particulars to our needs, and for that I was grateful.

They described a third step  that was about “putting on the shelf” things like skepticism and the need to run our own lives, suggesting that our higher power was far more capable. This step talked about shifting our attention away from self, so that we could hear and see and take direction from our higher power.

So, about 30 days into my new life without alcohol, riding the euphoric high of change, my wife sits me down and tells me, "I'm pregnant."

We were going to have our first child. 

The timing and impact of this news was profound.  In the light of impending fatherhood and all that it represented, the path leading back to drinking vanished forever. Alcohol, getting high, checking out were no longer options.  I was going to be a father, responsible for another life. The next couple of decades were going to require 100% attendance on my part.

In that moment, over dinner with my wife, my relationship with higher power was cemented, just as spontaneously as my denial had vanished 30 days prior. As cynical as I can be about it, and I still go there, I believe in my gut that my higher power, in making me a father, was acknowledging my efforts at recovery and then saying, “OK, I’m going to up the ante. Just how committed are you, Paul?”

Well, its 26 sober years later. And that baby called me from her home in San Francisco yesterday, her voice sounding clear, serene, and loving, “happy father’s day, dad.”

And the son, who came to me five years into sobriety, broadcast over Twitter a message calling me the “greatest dad and human being I could ever ask for in my life.”  (FYI, this was not followed by a request for money.)

So, this cheese-ass holiday transforms into profound gratitude and a sense of commitment to continuing the walk of recovery, a recovery that began in lockstep with fatherhood.

Go figure.