On Monday night I went to an AA workshop in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA at the insistence of my Thursday New Beginnings co-member, Rory. Rancho Palos Verdes is the Southbay equivalent of Topanga Canyon. The lights from the flatlands of Torrance (where I live) and Lomita shine just as bright from RPV and I suppose, Topanga, but folks who live in Palos Verdes and Malibu claim they are a bit brighter from their vantage point. In short, the residents of Topanga and RPV keep horses and smaller houses as opposed to Porshes and enormous compounds bolted to the hillsides of PV and Malibu. Six of one and a half-dozen of the other.

There were quiet a few folks there (a Catholic retreat center) and admittedly, a lot of the AA’ers looked like grizzled Catholics of one sort or the other. I suppose I did too. It seemed I had arrrived at the sixth meeting to date, but a kindly granddad informed me that was “not a problem, anyone could jump in anytime.” With that he pointed me in the direction of the coffee and I tried to smile genuine thanks.

The leader was a head-setted man named Herb. Mid-Fifties perhaps, red-faced, but neatly cut and presented. There were hand-outs explaining the paticular triangular/circular nature of addiction, arrows visualizing the mind, body and spirit. Underneath the diagram page was a form to be filled out specifically about your addictive behavior and how you dealt with it in the past. I try a stream-of conscieness approach when filling these forms out as a general rule. Scientology, New Ways, HR questionaires, etc.

Very work-shoppy so far.

He began the proceedings asking for announcements, housekeeping matters, and so on, and these things took up a large chunk of time. It appeared as if Herb had some competition for Life Coach and at times waved his hand like Moses with a low “yes, yes” breathed into the microphone to hurry things along. He paced like a seasoned pro, occasionally bringing his hand to his jaw and languidly rubbing it, signifying polite but real thought.

It seemed many folks were very concerned about the politics of AA, the isims and schisms and so forth but Herb, not without the right bit of humor here and there, seemed to take this as a matter of course and patiently explained what he knew about the why and wherefores.

This sort of thing never holds my attention for long and I began to check out some of my fellow attendees. There was a rotund man to my left who resembled Benjamin Franklin in the way he wore his hair, the pale skin, and small red lips that curled up at the ends. Handicapped, he seemed to rely on his wife or sister- hair in a tight bun festooned with a chopstick- for everything. "Hand me my coffee, lean my cane this way not that way, hand me my three-ring binder", and so on. I’m surprised he did not ask her to highlight passages in his Big Book that “meant a lot to him personally” As her back was to me, I could not see her expression as she went about these duties but I imagined her to be either a woman of great patience or recovering from the ravages of alcohol herself. “Courage to change the things I can” shot through my mind, and I uncrossed and crossed my legs for about the fifth time. I scanned the room for attractive women. Thinking it was not healthy to go down this road of thought, familiar mind ruts, I turned my attention back to Herb who was ready to crack the Big Book proper.

Alas, its 9PM and Herb has began the wrapping-up ceremonies. Where did the time go?