A Contemplative Evening

Tanner came in out of the rain, and gave a bit of a shiver.  Some drunkety-ass dipso had almost run him off the road on the way to his meeting.  But instantly he tried to correct that thought.  When he was a kid, you could call a drunk by all the bad names.  Dipso, alky, drunkard, stew bum.  Nowadays, after an unrelenting thirty year Hollywood/Media campaign, they were "Inebriates", they couldn't help themselves, they were "born that way".

To call them anything else was tantamount to the N-word.  Just not done.  Not if you didn't want to get marked as an ignorant bigot, and fast.  Still, one had recently killed his son.  At least Tanner thought that six months ago still counted as recent.  Maybe it was the same drunkard, he speculated.  Is it okay to call them that then?

He went over to the coffee pot and poured himself a styrofoam cup of the foul smelling brew.  That's one thing you could count on at any SA meeting on Earth he thought.  Crappy coffee.  He ignored the table that held the creamer and sugar.  When sometimes he was asked how he took his coffee, he'd quip, "Hot and bitter - like my relationships!"

An idiotic quip - perhaps amusing, but he'd been married, and happily, to the same woman for over a decade.  

He found a chair and sat down.  The meeting was due to start in a couple of minutes.  The chairman was prowling around the room, looking to hand out the standard sheets to any member who cared to volunteer to read them.  Dutifully Tanner raised his hand.  He didn't want to, but for himself, extra participation seemed to help him.

He was gave the "How it works" part.  He sat silently, brooding about his recently killed son, and soon enough the gavel banged a few times.  

The chairman coughed and said, "Let's get this going.  My name is Kurt E., and I'm an old faggot."  Tanner inwardly winced, while others were doing the "Hi, Kurt" routine.  The traditional intro was "...and I'm a Sodomite", but some just had to revel in the very sin they were theoretically recovering from.  In fairness, it was possible to mean well in doing so, it often was a way of trying to be brutally honest with themselves and others, and not sugar coat what they had been - or were now.  

For no one was ever cured of buggery.  At most it could be held in check.  You were "in recovery" - never "recovered".  Those who thought otherwise were fooling themselves.

Tanner didn't like it, though.  There was an aura of some pretense to it, like they were trying to be tough about it, and here was more a time and place to simply be penitent.  But to each his own.  Kurt was saying, "We'll open this meeting with a moment of silence for all those who've not yet given up buggery, and then say the Serenity Prayer."

Tanner already had his head bowed.  He gave silent thanks that he had over seven years straight, and yeah, he knew he owed it to SA.  Then he joined with the others praying, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

Then a man who'd apparently been given one of the papers to read piped up almost instantly saying, "Hey, my name's Rick and I'm a Sodomite."  Hey, Rick! everyone said.  "Sodomites Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from Sodomy.  The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop homosexual behavior.  There are no dues or fees for SA membership, we are self-supporting through our own contributions.  SA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses or opposes any causes.  Our primary purpose is to stay straight and help other Sodomites achieve heterosexuality."

Everyone dutifully said "thanks" to Rick who looked pleased with himself that he'd been chose as a reader.  Such sad people come here, Tanner thought, then corrected himself.  I'm here, too, he thought.  Who am I to look down on any here?

It being his turn, he said, "Hello, my name is Tanner, and I am a Sodomite."  Hey, Tanner, the room said, though he could tell that some knew him instantly as one of those over precise la-de-da types.  He wanted to say, "That comes from education, not faggotry", but didn't bother.  Instead he read from the sheet he'd accepted earlier.  

He mostly paid no attention to the reading of the sheet, though he knew his voice was clear and sure.  It started out "Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path." and later, "Remember that we deal with Sodomy - cunning, baffling, powerful!" and then went on to the 12 steps.

Tanner idly thought that it was good they read this at each meeting.  If nothing else then, no matter how bad anyone's "shares" were, at least someone could get the basic 12 steps that would aid them in wrestling with their demons.  

He got to the part that he liked, and started consciously hearing the words he was reading.  "Many of us exclaimed, 'What an order!  I can't go through with it.'  Do not be discouraged.  No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints.  The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.  The principles we have set down are guides to progress.  We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection."

Tanner then concluded with the usual, "Our description of the Sodomite, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas.  A, That we were Sodomites and could not manage our own lives.  B, That probably no human power could have relieved our Sodomy.  And C, That God could and would if He were sought."

Everyone joined with him in reciting C.  That was standard.  SA was nothing if not filled with various traditions.  Kurt next asked if this was anyone's first meeting.  If it was, no one was admitting it.  Good, Tanner thought.  He hated beginner's meetings.  Too many war stories, and more often than not, each trying to out do the others in how bad they had been before recovery.  

Then Kurt read a selection from the Big Book, some tawdry tale of Bill's first homosexual experience with a Camp Counselor.  Bill had been confused, and brought to orgasm at the age of 14, at summer camp.  But instead of reporting it, and getting aid in not getting malimprinted with that kind of deviant behavior, he had let himself be repeatedly used.  

In theory, so Bill had told himself, against his will.  But really, he was improperly training his young mind and body to receive homosexual pleasure, and the more he did it, the more the unnatural felt natural.  Soon enough, after only that six weeks in camp, he was thoroughly acclimated to getting sexual relief from the Counselor.  

Later, in school, he deliberately sought out the English teacher that some had whispered about, and sure enough, that teacher was amenable to instructing Bill further.  By the end of the school year he could feel no excitement at looking at girls, but young men aroused him at once.

Everyone thanked Kurt for reading that selection, and he then opened the meeting to any who wished to start.  A guy Tanner didn't recognize jumped in at once.  "Hi, my name's Darren, and I'm a Sodomite."  Hey, Darren, everyone said.  "I guess that really resonates with me, because when my Uncle Tommy started molesting me at 12, I tried to tell myself that it wasn't my fault.  And sure, that he actually cornered me that first time, that wasn't my fault.  But that I didn't report it...well.  I told myself I was scared, or embarrassed, and partly that was true.  But another part was that it had felt good what he did, he had made me, well, cum.  I should have got help.  But I let it continue.  He introduced me to others he knew.  By the time I was 14, my orientation seemed set in stone.  Had I been asked, I'd have said that I was always attracted to men - but when had I ever had opportunity to explore what being with girls was like, you know?"

So we're to have war stories after all, Tanner thought.  Meanwhile, the guy giving the story bowed his head, and those on either side of him gave him comforting back pats.  When this just brought a mumbled "thanks", they decided he was done and everyone said, "Thanks, Darren!  Keep coming back!"

Tanner tuned out a bit, and dwelt yet again on his son.  8 was so terribly young.  Admittedly, his son should have been more aware of his surroundings, sidewalks were no "safe zones", one had to be indoors to have a "reasonable expectation of safety".  But still.  Still and all.  

He focused a bit on the group again.  He knew SA was valuable, but he had kind of heard it all before.  His ears perked up a few people later, when a young man who didn't look like he had too much recovery under his belt was lisping that he was Chad, and that he was Queer.  "Was?", thought Tanner.  And sure enough, the young man started going off.  "I've always been bi, since I was a kid, no malimprinting for me, I was born this way!"

You could almost hear the inward groans and "Oh, boys" going around the room, though in all cases it was only thought, not out and out verbalized.  The boy, though he was probably in his early twenties, glared about defiantly.  "I'm here because the judge said I had to, that's all!  You all can try to make something out of this, but I see nothing wrong with love!  Any kind of love!"

Whether he was quite done or not, he did pause, and the chairman took the opportunity to say, "I'll sign off on your paper any time, meanwhile, let's have the next person speak."  The kid looked inclined to argue, but then wisely just let it pass.  Nor did he take the chairman up on the offer to have his paper signed for his PO so that he could leave early.  Probably feared he'd be dimed out, Tanner, thought.  

The next guy said he just wanted to share his time.  Everyone thanked him anyway and encouraged him to keep coming back.  Next up, a man said, "Hi, my name is Joshua, and I'm a Deviant."  The "Hey, Joshua" was kind of automatic, but Tanner could hear that some were not so happy with Joshua coming here.  

There was a DA, Deviants Anonymous, for those with BDSM issues, foot fetishes, particularisms, or other such sexual deviancies.  Everything from porn addicts to the "voluntarily" incestuous to transvestites or those who thought they were a different gender went to such.  But the 13th step was kind of more rampant there, a lot of those DA meetings were real meat markets, so the more serious Deviants would come to SA.

And in truth, everyone knew that the 12 step program that worked for Sodomites was good for Deviants, too.  Sodomy was in actuality just one kind of sexual deviancy, more common than some of the others, but just another deviancy from the norm all the same.  So they may as well come here.  Still, some old school fags wanted SA to be all exclusive.  Oh, well.

This guy was relating his tale of how early teen malimprinting got him hooked on oral sex.  Apparently his first girlfriend ever had feared getting pregnant, so even though it was forbade by Church and State, it's all she'd do.  Tanner tuned out again.  It was a tale little different from any who had got hooked on same sex silliness.  And each of these war stories of "how it started" were of huge importance to the teller, but of little importance to Tanner.  Truth is, he wasn't always sure why he still came to meetings.  

Maybe just to get a reminder of the type of person he no longer wanted to be.  One steeped in sinning.  One who could not control his sexual appetites.  One who could not even reproduce without convoluted social or scientific hoops jumped through.  Nothing natural about being a Sodomite, when you couldn't even reproduce without artificial aid.  Idly he dropped a buck in the passing plate.

The meeting finally ended, and  in the usual manner.  "Who keeps us straight?" asked the chairman as everyone got to their feet.  "Our Father", recited the group, "who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever, amen - Keep Coming Back It Works If You Work It Straight!"

The ending phrase being said with everyone in the circle, already holding hands for the prayer, shaking their hands up and down for emphasis.  Then everyone unclasped hands, and started to either head for the door, or break up into little cliques.  Tanner was one that headed for the door.

The trip home was uneventful.  Well, if you counted dodging two drunks who he knew were not at all trying to avoid hitting him.  But the Supreme Court had struck down the last of the DUI laws, ruling that Freedom of Assembly, and the travel it implied, were basic human rights, even for Inebriates.  Or perhaps especially for Inebriates.  The police would be quick enough on you for a normal accident.  But they sure didn't want to be smeared as "drunk bashers".

After his son had been buried - closed casket, as there was nothing mortuary science could do to put him whole - Tanner had turned to the net to google the history of it all, trying to make sense of how what was regarded as a filthy weakness only 50 years ago was now almost a condition flaunted with pride.  

He personally remembered the epidemic that had first come to infect only those susceptible to what was then called "alcoholism".  How it hadn't even been treated at first, for as one comedian put it back in the eighties, "Yeah, there's apparently some disease that is lethal if you get it, but it's only spread by sharing bottles with alcohol in it.  And I'm all like, yeah, so?"  And the crowd back then had laughed.  

But it hadn't been that funny, and nor had many people thought it was that funny.  Even people like Tanner who while young, still believed in the 18th amendment prohibiting all forms of alcohol.  It was that disease, and the tens of thousands of secret drinkers that it had been killing, that gained traction for the long simmering movement to repeal that amendment.  

Other things, like the riot in Boston where the police had tried to break up a speakeasy in the nineteen seventies, and the drunks there decided to fight instead of run, also gave credibility to repeal.  And the stories, that everyone had heard, of drunk bashing, that had been a way of life in America for far too long.  One incident, of tying a drunk to the back of a pick up truck and dragging him to death had particularly shocked the nation.

We could have left off being so violent to the drunkards, Tanner often thought, and not destroyed their lives over their transgressions so automatically, and still left it illegal.  But apparently a lot of folks enjoyed the sin of drinking.  And still more knew those who had such a sin - or, and this was the kicker - had at least one such in their family.  Hard to be harsh on drunkards when your own daughter or husband or cousin is one.

The disease was Alcohol Induced Degeneracy Syndrome, AIDS for short.  And it was the catalyst then for the social change that many who were upset with the stern morality of the Christian Right had been waiting for.  With "saving lives" as an excuse, they got the 18th amendment repealed in 1992, though discrimination against those who could still be called "alkies" was still culturally acceptable.

Then the support groups sprang up. The Libations, Booze, Gin and Tonic clubs.  Or just LBGT.  Campus groups, then for friends and family.  They rallied the support for the repeal, and continued to exist afterward to get law after law struck down in state after state that curtailed drinking.  He remembered the silly parades.  Dozens first, then hundreds of drunkards marching down the street, obviously drunk, yelling "We're here!  Drinkin' beer!  Get used to it!"  Drunk Pride Parades, they called them.  Idiot Festivals, his dad had called them.

The drinking and driving issue had been the last line of defense the old school had.  Those who were temperance minded had put up with the TV shows that insisted on having a friendly and likeable alcoholic in every show.  They had let go how each movie and story had to portray drunkards as sympathetic folks just looking to have fun.  They ignored the slanted news stories that endlessly re-visited such few atrocities committed against drunkards they could find.

And as a result, a whole generation had grown up thinking that drunkards were "cool" and "brave" and "with it".  Kids mocked or disciplined in school for drinking were told, "It gets better".  Nothing would get a kid more attention - good attention - then to "bravely" come out as a dipsomanicac - a compulsive drinker.  Schools started insisting that such kids should not be punished, but allowed to "explore" to see if "it was right for them".  Silly and mostly bogus stories of kids committing suicide for their parents not letting them have "just a few beers" were trumpeted in the news.

But still the DUI laws were in place.  You still could not drink and drive, or drive drunk.  Then they jammed through the modification that you could drink and drive, just not drive drunk.  Soon states legislatures, to deflect the populace from their own routine corruptions, would distract voters with referendums allowing greater and greater freedom to drunkards.

Public intoxication?  Perfectly acceptable.  Selling to minors?  Their bodies, their choice.  Finally, the last issue was drunk driving, and they drug in "Freedom of Assembly" to be used as the opening wedge.  

When states started re-defining how the public ownership of the roads meant "no discrimination" against the Inebriates, the end was near.  Over thirty states had virtually legalized drunk driving, with a "driver beware" codicil that let the State and insurance companies not be liable for any such damage the sober "freely" chose to have happen to them, when they "chose" to drive on roads open to all.

State and local roads became a soft version of the old Deathrace 2000 movie.  The Department of Motor Vehicles in each state warned new driver's that the roads being for everyone, they consented to the danger if they chose to be on those roads.  Finally, when it was almost too late to matter, the Supreme Court declared all DUI laws unconstitutional, and the Federal Highways, and the rest of the states, had to permit it.

Tanner could almost live with all that.  Even in spite of the death of his son at the hands of some filthy drunk-ass...er, at the hands of an "Inebriate".  He could almost live with that, given that he believed in democracy, and clearly this was the will of the people.  Pendulums swung, social pendulums, too.  One day it would no doubt be illegal again, and some other vice would be legal.  Maybe even his Sodomy, he thought, and chuckled ruefully.  Fat chance, he thought.

No, probably not that, sodomy was too hated.  And while everyone knew that alcoholism was a disease, that being an Inebriate was not a matter of choice, you were born that way, it was also known that Sodomy was a choice.  No free pass for what you could freely choose to do or not do.  Hence Tanner's near religious attendance of meetings.  

He could have tolerated it, but for the churches.  Not all the churches, but the more theologically liberal ones had jumped on the Inebriate bandwagon like a drowning man jumping on a raft.  Facing declines in membership, no doubt due to their previously liberal stances on sin, they figured to double down and go all in.  

Drunkard members, then drunkard deacons, and not the repentant ones.  Oh, no, openly drunkard members were now welcomed.  In the name of "toleration".  "Love the sinner, hate the sin."  But they forgot the part where they were to encourage the drunkard to reject his sin.  They let them drink in church!  Then participate in the service even while under the influence!

First a few churches, then more, let drunkards be ordained as ministers.  Various conferences of various churches would threaten schism if they were not allowed to have Inebriate Bishops.  Sermons, about Christ's unending forgiveness were used to fool the unwary congregations into thinking that drunkards could indeed go to heaven, the Apostle Paul's admonishments notwithstanding.

Churches that still insisted on "no drinking" and "Drunkards will not see heaven" were regarded as "fundie" and "bigoted" and "hate filled".  Members of those churches saw their own membership start to decline, as their children, raised in Libation, Booze, Gin and Tonic (LBGT) friendly schools, and brainwashed each day by media portrayals of fun loving drunkards, came to regard their parents as "bigots", no better than those who would discriminate against any other minority.

For Inebriates now had that much coveted status - they were a "minority", and a quite well protected minority.  No company dared discriminate against them any more.  

Tanner learned all this.  By information freely available.  And the old studies were all there, about how you might have alcoholic tendencies, but with treatment could remain sober.  It almost seemed, Tanner thought, that the 12 step program he went to could apply to such drunkards.  But no one had ever thought of using the 12 steps to "cure" what most figured was "just the way they were" and "a perfectly acceptable alternate lifestyle".

Tanner snapped out of his reverie, and noted he was still in his car, still in his driveway, the engine still running.  He got out of the car, remembering that his wife had said he needed to stop dwelling on this issue.  He suspected that she had fallen for the propaganda.  Once she had told him, "You can't hold all the poor Inebriates responsible for the action of that one."  He didn't, though.  But he did hold it against this new culture that permitted such things to happen, and by the institutionalized laxity and acceptance of this sin, encouraged it the more.

Walking to the door he thought that when he was a kid, drunkards had been calculated to be but three percent of the population.  To believe TV, they were ten to twenty percent of it!  In reality, casual experimentation and such had shot upward.  Probably at least 70% had tried it, even used it somewhat regularly.  But in his heart, he figured that still only three percent were hard core truly addicted to it.

He entered his living room.  "How was the meeting, dear?" his gem of a wife asked.  What a prize he had in her, he thought, and not for the first time.  She had met him while he was still wrestling with homosexuality.  He hadn't played with it in his youth as most inclined that way usually did, but had started in his thirties.  He let it get way out of control, and had even had some petty misdemeanor arrests pertaining to Sodomy.

It had cost him a previous marriage.  And his job, of course.  And soon other places were loathe to hire him, unrepentant sexual degenerate that he had been.  He had concealed it just enough that she married him, and only then did the poor dear learn the truth about him.  He was still ashamed about that.  But she had stood by him.  Encouraged him to get help.

He pretended that he wanted that, pretended that he would.  But he was still a deviant back then.  And deviants lie to protect their deviancy, everyone knew that.  One night he hadn't come home, he'd been arrested with a random "partner", caught in the park where such congregated after hours.  He was tossed in the fag tank.  He knew that he'd hit rock bottom.

Three days he was in there, she did not bail him out.  Finally, a friend of his had, but only on his word that he'd get help.  Three days of runny cold eggs, baloney sandwiches, mind numbing boredom - and time to soul search - made him gladly accept that advice.  When he got home, she was gone, at a shelter for women who's husbands had "gone gay".  She said she'd come back, but only if he kept his word to his friend and got help.

Tanner had agreed.  He committed to do the "ninety in ninety".  A meeting a day each day, at Sodomites Anonymous, for three months.  He went to the SA meeting hall.  At first, he had been false to his friend and to his wife.  He was only going so they would think he was truly serious about going straight.  And he figured it would do him good with the judge when he would eventually have to report to court over the latest charge.

The charge was eventually dropped.  An undeserved blessing for a man who had not yet truly repented.  Some would have took that as license to start up again.  But surprisingly, to everyone, including Tanner, he had an epiphany, and chose not to stop going to the meetings.  Mostly, he knew, it was due to how kind his wife had been.  Most would have left his sorry faggoty ass.  But not her.  She gave him a look that said, "I trust you.  But please don't hurt me.  I can't take being hurt any more."

That saved him from himself.

His heart went out to her.  It was little enough to go to such SA meetings.  He continued.  The day came when it even started to click.  That he was not special, he had no special license to indulge in such a disgusting sin as sodomy, no matter what pleasure it gave.  It was enough for him to start on getting a sponsor and working the steps.

It wasn't magic.  It was work, and a lot of it.  And it got him just clear headed enough to re-visit church, which he hadn't gone to in years.  That made a difference.  It still wasn't magic.  The first year or two, there could be a "mini-relapse" now and then as he'd think of them.  But he grimly got back on the wagon, and pretended that he had as many days straight as before.  Perhaps not entirely kosher, but it let him keep his pride in accomplishment and use that pride to try to make it all real.  

Fake it till you feel it was his mantra.  

The day came when he finally did "get" how disgusting the sin of Sodomy was.  When he knew, honestly and for real, that he was a Sodomite, in need of Christ's sacrifice, in need of Grace.  And that true pleasure was being straight, and being with the woman he truly did love.  

"The meeting was fine.  The usual war stories!", he told her while deliberately draping his jacket over the living room chair.  She frowned and went to move it, he knew she hated him doing that.  She looked at him, caught the gleam in his eye, and stopped frowning.  He kissed her and hugged her.  He told her how much he loved her.  She said it back, but then said, "Now move that jacket!"

Laughing, he did.  There had not been as much laughter in the house as before.  She had coped with her grief as well as a mother could, and in truth better than he had.  No, not for loving their departed son less, but simply for being stronger than he.  Stronger in faith, and stronger in general.  Strong enough to forgive that drunken, dipsomaniacal driver. 

She knew him well, though.  She saw the light fade from his eyes.  "Oh, honey, please stop dwelling on it.  There's nothing to be done.  He's sleeping now, we'll see him soon enough come Judgement Day!"  She, like him, was a Seventh-day Adventist, and thus believed that the dead slept till Judgment Day.  Unlike him, she had no terrible sin to be continually on guard against.  

Well, he theologically nitpicked with himself, she surely had her own private sins, but nothing like the sins listed in the verse that the Apostle Paul had spoke of.  1 Corinthians 6:9,10: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived.  Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."

His sin would keep him from heaven - if he did not repent, and stay repentant.  It galled him that the drunkards could nowadays sin with impunity, and have fellow drunkards in the pulpit call their sin goodness!  But his wife had told him, the time that he had complained about that, "They won't have impunity when they stand before His Throne.  So don't worry about what they think they're getting away with.  Worry about you, and how you won't get away with being unrepentant."

True words.  Wise woman.  And so while he did not go to SA meetings each day any more, or even every single week, it was rare for two weeks to pass without him going to some SA meeting.  By himself, or with those in a Straight Living House that he ran with his wife.  For a lot had happened since his active days of sinning.  And he now tried to give back by aiding those who had themselves only recently repented of Sodomy.

Part of his repentance, part of his atonement was to run halfway houses for those who had gone to Rehab to get over the sin of sodomy, and then needed a cheap place to stay till they could get a job, car and apartment again.  So as to start their normal - and heterosexual - lives.

She went back to the bedroom, and he glanced at his computer.  Sometimes, early in his recovery, he had masturbated to gay porn.  A transient urge to do so flickered across his mind.  Those urges came more when he was depressed.  If nothing else, he thought, that should be a reason to take his wife's advice to stop dwelling on the injustice of that drunkard not being punished for the "accident" of running over his son.

Still, the dark side of him thought.  Just a peek?  But no, it was no longer the driving urge that it had been in the past.  He drew upon the wisdom of the meetings.  Just for today, no.  Just for today, he was straight.

And without any further doubts to trouble him, he went into the bedroom where his wife was.