Animal Addicts Anonymous

Yesterday at lunch, a friend related one of the funniest stories I’ve heard in a long time. Her friend, who we’ll call Liz, was planning a party, and in preparation, she went to the liquor store and purchased several bottles of wine. She stored them in a cool part of her basement.

Several days later, Liz noticed a foul odor in her garage. After an intense search, she discovered the source of the odor. A raccoon had found a way to gain access to her basement through the garage and got his little raccoon paws on the wine. The clever little critter had broken the bottles and consumed the wine. She found him lying on his back in a drunken stupor. His eyes were rolled back, and he wore the grin of a happy drunk on a high. But still, what was causing the odor?

The raccoon simultaneously farted and belched, and Liz had her answer.

She called animal control. To the woman who answered, she said, “I’m sure this is going to be the strangest call you’ve ever received, but I have a drunken raccoon in my basement.”

The woman at animal control laughed uncontrollably and then admitted that, yes, it was probably the strangest call they had ever received. An agent was dispatched immediately to rescue the ripped raccoon.

Several agents actually arrived at her home, all eager to witness the spectacle. As they put the sloshed little stinker in the truck, someone remarked, “This is really bad. This guy isn’t going to be able to function in the wild for a while. He’s going to have to be rehabilitated so he can re-learn the skill of foraging for food."

Did you get that? The drunken little bastard had to go to raccoon rehab.

Can you imagine the scene at that joint?

ANIMAL REHAB

Counselor (a wise old owl): This meeting of Animal Addicts Anonymous will come to order. We’ll begin by going around the room, stating our first name and last initial and the nature of our addiction.

Wolf: Hi. I’m Phil U., and I’m a sex addict. The nature of my addiction has been such that I have illicit sex with – well, let’s just say I’ve been with some who aren’t my kind. In particular, three goats, a pig, and a foxy little vixen who . . .

Owl Counselor, loudly clearing throat: Um, I think that will suffice, Phil. Who’s next?

Python: (Shyly). Hi, I’m Rosie O.

All: Hi, Rosie.

Python: I have an eating disorder. My problem is ssssswallowing my victims. I get them down, but then when I ssssee the big bulge in my belly, I just get ssssso upsssset that I regurgitate them.

Wolf: Hehe. I guess you could say she ssssspits, not ssssswallows.

Owl: Phil, if we have another inappropriate comment from you, I’ll have to ask you to leave. Thanks for sharing that painful truth, Rosie. Next we have . . .

Dachshund: Hi, everyone. I’m Sigmund F., and I have the opposite problem from Rosie over there. I eat anything I see. I think I’ve finally hit rock bottom, because I was ordered to rehab after my owners caught me eating my own shit.

All except Owl: Ewwwwww!

Owl: Now, everyone, we need to remember that shame is what keeps us in our addictions. Siggy – can I call you Siggy? -- is admitting some pretty harsh realities to us, but we need to remember the old adage, “There but for the grace of God and the dogcatcher go I.”

Dachshund: Thanks for that, Owl. Anyway, this is my last chance. If I do it again, I’m going straight to the pound.

Raccoon: Hi. I’m Ricky, and I broke into a lady’s house, stole some wine, and got drunk as a skunk.

Skunk, tail in air: Hey, pal, that’s uncalled for! I oughta come over there and . . .

Owl: Sal, remember your anger management skills. Spraying someone because of a perceived insult only reinforces the powerful hold your temper has had over you.

Skunk, lowering tail: Sorry, Sigmund. I lost my tail for a minute. By the way, everyone, I’m Sal, and if you haven’t already guessed, I was ordered to anger management classes after an unfortunate incident. And actually, it involved a dachshund. Not Siggy over there. Another dachshund.

Dachshund: Let me guess. He thought you were a squirrel. We dogs are color blind, and you skunks do kind of resemble squirrels, who are the bane of our existence. Boy, what I would do to catch a squirrel. I’d tear it limb from limb and then eat . . .

Owl: Ahem! Let’s move on. Step Two of the Twelve Steps states, “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Would anyone like to share with the group what serves as their higher power?

Dachshund: The dog catcher?

Counselor: I can see that. Anyone else?

Raccoon: For me, I guess it's Animal Control. All I can think about is that sweet nectar in that woman's basement, but if they catch me drinking again, I'll never get back to the woods.

Wolf: Pamela Anderson does it for me.

Counselor: Okay, Phil. That’s it. I need to ask you to leave.

Wolf: Whaaaaat? I’m not trying to be funny here. My therapist told me that a higher power is whatever gives you a radical reason to change. I hung a poster of Pamela in my den, and everytime I’m tempted to go after some fox or a coy little kitty, I look at Pamela and tell myself, “Hold out for the big prize, Phil.” It works for me.

Counselor, hanging head in defeat: Our time is up. Let’s stand and join paws. Rosie, just wrap yourself around Phil, why don't you? Let's repeat the Serenity Prayer for Animals.

All: “God, give me the serenity to scavenge the things I cannot stalk, to courage to stalk the stuff I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Finding a Higher Power

Last January, I took a trip to Hawaii with my mother. Petras, our exchange student, plays for the University of Hawaii on a basketball scholarship, so Mom and I spent a week on Waikiki drinking pina coladas during the day and watching Petras play in the evenings.

The first morning after we’d arrived, we set out from our hotel on Kalakaua Avenue walking east toward Diamond Head. It was close to 7:30 in the morning, and as we power-walked through Kapiolani Park, my mother pointed out a group of twenty or thirty people congregated under the spread of a few large royal Poinciana trees. Some were sitting on their bicycles, some sat in stadium chairs they’d brought, and some stood. “I wonder what they’re doing?” my mother said.

“That’s got to be an AA meeting,” I answered immediately. And I was right. When we got within hearing distance, I could just make out the words of the man who was speaking. “Did you hear what he said?” I asked her. “’Higher power.’ It’s definitely some sort of ‘Friends of Bill’ meeting.”

I wish I didn’t know what it was, I thought.

In all my wildest imaginings, I’d never once thought I would have such intimate knowledge of what the Friends of Bill talked about when they got together or that I would even be able to recite the Twelve Steps. Somehow, it just wasn’t fair that a preacher’s daughter who had always followed the rules and tried to do what was right would be the family expert on Twelve-Step meeting. To my way of thinking, I should have been wondering what all those people were doing in the park at 7:30 in the morning, because that would mean I’d never been married to an addict. But here I was, both weary and wary of recovery programs, feeling a great deal of animosity over the fact that after spending $35,000 at one of the better treatment facilities in the country, my husband had come home blaming me for his problems. And on top of all that, I was so damn tired of the term “Higher Power.” What’s so hard about using the word “God?”

I got my answer from my little nephew, Joe. In July, I was at the beach with my sister and her children. We spent some lovely afternoons sitting on the beach, and one evening we drove to our favorite beach dive, the World-Famous Oasis, for their annual Christmas in July celebration.

The Oasis is managed by a good-natured little man named Hoover who, incidentally, drives a Hummer. When I say “little man,” I mean it in the sense of the television program “Little People Big World.” Hoover is about three feet tall, and the evidence of his good-naturedness is the fact he dresses up as a leprechaun for St. Patrick’s Day and as Santa’s Elf for Christmas in July.

To begin the yearly festivities, Santa and his Elf are transported by helicopter to a parking lot across the street from the Oasis, where hundreds of Santa’s constituents wait with their lists in hand. Santa and Hoover jump out of the helicopter clad in their respective red velvet Santa pants and green elf pants, Hawaiian shirts, and sunglasses. And they each have a gorgeous blonde on their arm.

My sister’s kids watched the proceedings with utter joy, and then we corralled them to a table, where my sister informed them that Santa would visit our table if and when they ate all their dinner and behaved while they ate.

Bless his heart, little Joe has an awfully hard time sitting still at the dinner table, and he has an even harder time eating all his food. He began horsing around and knocked over his Sprite. “Joe,” his mother warned, “You’d better be careful. You don’t know who’s watching.”

The kid looked up to the sky and promptly said, “God, please don’t tell Santa!”

And that’s when I completely understood Step Two: “We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” I’d always thought the term “Higher Power” was used by the program as a way for those who struggled with the idea of God to reconcile themselves to, well, God. But the word “God” is used throughout the other eleven Steps. What the program is alluding to, I think, is the fact that since we can't see God, sometimes a "higher power" exists in the form of a visible motivation to change our ways.

For Joe, it’s Santa.