Tuesday, December 13, 2005

AA Christmas Carol

Uptight before Christmas, all through these rooms
alcoholics were stricken with holiday gloom.
They prayed, "Santa, please make us happy, joyous &
free, bring us candy and presents and serenity."

Greed filled their minds and envy their hearts and
someone said, "It's time for the meeting to start!"
"Does anyone have a topic for discussion tonight?"
Every face in the place turned wintery white!
They lost all self-seeking, self-pity and self-will
when down through the chimney came the ghost of St. Bill!
He chuckled and said as he sat himself down
"Call the White House and tell'em there's a new Dubya in town."
Then he looked through a big book and said with a tear,
"Wow! No one rewrote this after all these years!
Clean house, help your neighbor, be loving and kind,
and don't take the first drink one day at a time.

How could a message as simple as this
be realized, analyzed and intellectually dismissed?
here lies the reason this ghost has arrived:
to re-give a gift that has saved all your lives!"
Then he set up a big screen and a DVD
so every lost soul in the meeting could see.
He played a movie of drunks at their best and their worst,
what is and what was, when blessed and cursed.

There were scenes of a housewife passed out at a bar,
a respectable businessman wrecking his car,
a fight in a kitchen, a fight in bed, a fight
at a reception between newlyweds.
An empty bottle, a desperate man alone in
a motel with a gun in his hands.
He puts down the gun and picks up the phone
and whimpers and blubbers, "Honey, let me come home."
She hangs up as she tells him, "Don't call here anymore."
He reaches for the phone book and falls to the floor.
Somehow that phone book seems to capture his gaze:
it's open to a number under the "A"'s.
Then all of the people in the movie converged
on the poor side of town in the basement of a church.
Driven together in a willing herd
to hear of hope and deliver the word.

The ghost of Bill W. turned off the TV and said,
"The first word of the first step is 'we'.
I suggest you start there and see where you go.
Be thorough and fearless, and please-take it slow!
Let faith set the tone, let love make the mood
and as for a topic...how about 'gratitude?

Just don't drink, go to meetings and pray
and be glad you're alive and sober today.
Be a good woman, be a good man
and be of service whenever you can.
Be a good mother, be a good dad
and try to be good to your kids
even when they're bad.
Be a good husband, be a good wife...
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good life!"

4 comments:

Phil said...

I love it! :)

Rose DeShaw said...

tMOST DIFFICULT TIME OF THE YEAR – Another carol for blue Christmas
December 4th, 2011 by RoseTune: Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
It’s the most difficult time of the year
With the memories coming
And crowds all succumbing
Where everyone tells you to
Be of good cheer
It’s the most difficult time of the year
It’s the hard-hardest season of all
Boozy get togethers and fighting the weather
Temptations will call
It’s the hard-hardest season of all
But there’s meetings to go to
And others to talk to
No need to stay out in the snow
There’ll be advice for livin’
And life stories given of
Christmases long, long ago

It’s the most difficult time of the year
When your memory’s paining
Your struggles are draining
We’ve been there, my dear
It’s the most difficult time of the year

But there’s meetings to go to
And others to talk to
No need to stay out in the snow
There’ll be advice for living’
And life stories given of
Christmases long, long ago

It’s the most difficult time of the year
When your memory’s paining
Your struggles are draining
We’ve been there, my dear
It’s the most difficult time
It’s the most difficult time
It’s the most difficult time
It’s the most difficult time of the year!

I have been revising Carols for some time as it is a very hard time for me to get through. Another is:
All those drunken Christmases
All those years of pain
We can put behind us now
Not visit them again
You and I are grown now
We can find a way
To keep those drunken Christmases
From killing us today.

I like your poem. Glad to find your blog. Mine is at rosedeshaw.com

Rose DeShaw said...

I WISH YOU A SOBER CHRISTMAS – carol
December 7th, 2011 by RoseTune: I wish you a merry Christmas

I wish for a sober Christmas
God grant me a sober Christmas
And courage at Christmas
To change what I can
Serenity at Christmas
Accepting what can’t change
And wisdom for seeing
Just which one is which
V2 I’m working the program
The program is working
Today I am sober
All I have is today
v3 The past years of Christmas
Have mostly been bad ones
But that is behind me
I’m sober today
No more being lonely
There’s others who’ve been here
I’ll hear their life stories
And tell them my own!

Rose DeShaw said...

I WISH YOU A SOBER CHRISTMAS – carol
December 7th, 2011 by RoseTune: I wish you a merry Christmas

I wish for a sober Christmas
God grant me a sober Christmas
And courage at Christmas
To change what I can
Serenity at Christmas
Accepting what can’t change
And wisdom for seeing
Just which one is which
V2 I’m working the program
The program is working
Today I am sober
All I have is today
v3 The past years of Christmas
Have mostly been bad ones
But that is behind me
I’m sober today
No more being lonely
There’s others who’ve been here
I’ll hear their life stories
And tell them my own!