Mr. SponsorPants

Gratitude Should Go Forward

"Gratitude should go forward, rather than backward.  In other words, if you carry the message to still others, you will be making the best possible repayment for the help given to you."  -- Bill Wilson, AA's co-founder, in a letter, 1959

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Mr. SponsorPants

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Meeting

Tuesday, November 25, 2008 -- Evening

I often get together with someone before my regular Tuesday, 7:30pm meeting, to go through the Big Book, or just talk about whatever issues are on the table for them -- we try to see those issues through a 12 Step lens, not through what is our first inclination, a perspective vulnerable to (at the least) ego, and sometimes fear.

But the holidays can make it easy to get signals crossed, and in this case after looking at the clock I realized belatedly that's what had happened -- no one-on-one tonight -- and made the (extremely rare for me) decision to stay home rather than hustle across town, arriving half-way through the meeting. I decided to do a little (much needed) housework before the holidays began in earnest.  The recycling had piled up, the litter box could use a major change (not just a scooping) a swiffer/vacuum run around the place was long overdue ... when it comes to "Trust God and Clean House" I know that saying is mostly metaphor, but in a more practical sense I'm often one-for-two on that. (As an eccentric, crusty, middle-aged bachelor I really let that stuff slide sometimes.)

But it was odd for me to decide not to go to a meeting, and odder still to feel okay with the decision, but -- *shrug* -- there it was.

So there I am, arms full of cardboard and plastic wraps and such, dutifully smooshing everything down to make more room in the recycle bin for the next eco-warrior who comes along, and up wanders one of my neighbors.  Nice young man, his front door is very near mine.  Lives with his girlfriend. He seemed to be a lover of books and cats and small kids (the girlfriend does work sometimes for a street-youth outreach of some sort, and the young man occasionally seems to have little kids in his charge -- nieces perhaps.)  He's ex-military, a considerate neighbor, unfailingly polite.  Smokes, so I see him perhaps more than other neighbors as he's outside having a cigarette sometimes in the evening when I'm heading out or coming home.

"Hey."  He says.

"Hello." I say.  "Where's that rain we were supposed to get?"  I ask.

We talk weather and bitch about the traffic and congratulate each other on recycling for a few minutes.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"  He says.

"Sure." I respond.  "Ask me anything.  But be careful, I'll tell you the truth." 

He laughs.  I expect him to ask about the parade of different people that visit me, coming and going at strange times and with no obvious similarity to link them.  I'm prepared for, "Um, are you some kind of drug dealer or internet hooker or something?"

Instead he asks me about a recent ballot initiative in the past election, rightly surmising that I would have an opinion or two on the matter.  We discuss these current events, he's thoughtful and asks intelligent questions, especially about some of the conflict being discussed in the media about church donations to political causes -- clearly the subject troubles him.

He tells me that there's some "stuff" going on with him, some weird stuff with a family member, plus other stuff ... just ... he trails off.  Starts up with "So I've been reading the Bible a lot, and going to church."  We talk about the Bible, and he asks me if I've read it, and I tell him that I've read books about the Bible maybe a little more than I've read the Bible itself, and that I think on the one hand it is a profound text that helps the human spirit rise above its lowest impulses, but on the other its words have been abused throughout history to advance all sorts of agendas -- but ultimately it is one among many great books for anyone seeking some fuller connection with a spirituality of any kind.  He keyed in strongly on the words "rise" and "seek" and our conversation went on from there.  Finally I offered to lend him a book I like about the Bible, the eminently entertaining and readable "The Harlot By The Side of the Road" by Jonathan Kirsch, a study of some of the lesser known Bible stories (no one would make a Sunday morning claymation out of any of them, I assure you.)  He told me about a book he'd like me to read.  I invited him over so I could find the book to lend him.

He came in, and had a gleeful time pouring over my bookshelves, then sat down and we continued to chat.  He told me more about the church he goes to, sometimes two different ones on a given Sunday.  He asked me if I went to church.

Without really deciding one way or the other, I just said, "Well, I'm sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, so I'm pretty much standing in a circle, holding hands and praying quite a bit."

He looked stunned.  Sat there for probably a full minute, I kid you not, just looking at me.  My sponsor-sense was tingling, and I did one of the most valuable things I've learned to do in AA:  I sat there quietly, calmly, looked him in the eye and didn't say anything, just waited -- let the minute pass, and the silence gather weight. 

And then out it all came.

The binge drinking, the fear, the anger, the trying to control the drinking, the inability to make it more than twenty-something days without getting drunk, the broken promises to the girlfriend ("Hello? Lois? Call for you.  Yeah, Line 1.") The going to where he knew there were AA meetings (near where we lived) and standing outside, unable to go in.  He told me a very funny story about his girlfriend (now fiance, I learned) bringing home a bottle of liquor that he can't stand -- cannot stand it -- hated it -- never liked it -- there he was, three a.m. that morning, mixing it with Mountain Dew to make it more palatable.  Next day the bottle was empty. ("I don't know, was she testing me or something?"  "Probably not, but, if she was, you failed.")

I told him that it's not my business to tell anyone if they're an alcoholic or not, but if I saw a character in a movie do that I would think, "Wow, that character is a real alcoholic." 

He asked me how long I'd been sober, and I told him 20 years, which floored him, since he said he thought I was in my early thirties (which says nothing about how I look and everything about how alcoholism warps people's perception -- I am laughing so hard as I type that).

I talked some about the impulse to drink, the powerlessness, the "curious mental blank spot" and I do not exaggerate when I say he seemed to take it in like a plant absorbing the sun -- you could literally see the "yes! yes! that's me! yes!" happening.

I told him about some meetings that I was going to be going to, and that I would be glad to take him along -- but that if tomorrow, or whenever, he changed his mind, no problem, no weirdness, no harm, no foul, my door was always open to talk about AA or I would go with him to any meeting he wanted to, any time, day or night.  He's going to come along to a couple of meetings with me this weekend -- said, "Please, be sure and knock on my door, I want to go."  We'll see, but I believed he meant it when he said it.

He got up, and out of the blue he asked if he could hug me -- I really wasn't expecting that -- and he went along home.

I closed my front door and I got very emotional, which is what a man says when we don't want to say "started to cry a little bit."  I was so grateful, so overwhelmed to have been able to be helpful in that way -- I was humbled and so happy to have the chance to do my job -- to be ready so that, as it says in the AA credo:

When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there.  And for that, I am responsible.

For me that night it was not a responsibility, it was a profound and moving privilege.

At No Time Do I Use The Word "Fired"

"Hi, this is Mr. SponsorPants at xxx-xxxx-xxxx. Thanks for calling, leave a message with your number  and I'll call you back."

BEEEEP

"Hey, Mr. SponsorPants, this is X. How are you. Um.  I'm doin' pretty good.  I um, ah ... I've just got a lot of things, I'm crunched in a little bit, tomorrow I've got a dental appointment in the morning, and then I'm leaving for XX on Wednesday morning, and I wont' be back till the following Wednesday... so I apologize for the late notice...  I've been meaning to call you all weekend, I just did not do it, 'cause I knew on Friday that my dental appointment had switched from Monday to Tuesday but, you know, I just didn't call so, anyway sorry to cancel last minute but I'm not going to be able to meet you at our regular time again... but I'd love to talk to you tonight, if you can ... just ... I don't know, I'll try you later, or, you know, call me and let me know when it's too late to call.  Ok. um. Ok, bye."

 

*Ring*

   *Ring*

      *Ring*

"Hello?"

"Hello, X?  This is Mr. SponsorPants."

"Oh, hey."

"Yeah, I got your message, and, of course, I accept your apology, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take the sponsorship piece off the table now -- I'm sorry, but ... that's not working I think."

"Wha ... ? Why?"

"Well, this is the second time in a row you canceled at the last minute, and I'm sorry, but I told you when we started that my time is really tight."

"Well, yeah, but... "

"Listen, if I can offer you one thing from this, it's that I think that you are looking for something outside yourself to make you willing -- if my suggestions are interesting enough, or if the meeting engages you enough, or ... I think you want to be willing, but you're not really willing.  And, you know, you've canceled twice in a row at the last minute -- I keep that time for you and I tell other people that want to meet to talk about AA that I'm not free then, because I set that time aside for you -- never mind not making plans for that time for myself..."

Our conversation goes on, a bit circular, and although I try my damnedest to be clear and helpful, I still feel like by the end of it he feels a little wronged, as if I'm being unfair, and abrupt -- and I fear he completely misses the points I'm trying to share with him.  I could be wrong about that though -- in fact, I hope I am. 

I don't even think he put together how freakin' rude it is, just person-to-person, to waste someone's time that way.

Ladies and gentlemen, I can now tell you where crusty, zero-tolerance sponsors come from.  They are forged in the cauldron of alcoholics' nonsense.

 

"Tell me, waiter, is the steak a good cut?"

"... there were but two alternatives:  One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help.  This we did because we honestly wanted to and were willing to make the effort."-- "Alcoholics Anonymous (AA's Big Book), Chapter 2 "There Is A Solution," pgs. 25-26

But for the overwhelming majority of alcoholics and addicts, this translates into an especially difficult decision.  It's as if when dining out the waiter recommends the two specials, a fine steak or a plate of crap, and we think for a moment and then ask the if the steak is a good cut. *

When faced with a spiritual solution or an alcoholic death, (unbelievably) it seems that many of us need to pause and think about it.

But here's the next evolutionary step in that process (and a hat tip to sponsee J for this insight):  Once we make the decision in essence are saying we "want" a spiritual solution to our alcoholism -- and that's (of course) wonderful -- then to be successful at getting and staying sober we must be "willing to make the effort" -- yet "want it" and "willing to make the effort" are two separate, very different things.

In my Sunday morning meeting a few folks shared who have had a brutal, frightening time with relapse, and it struck me that they sounded somewhat different (better) than I feel like they had in the past -- and I reflected on the sentiment above.  Certainly in the past they wanted to be sober -- or rather, as with most of us, they didn't want not to be sober (true for me when I was brand new -- I had no idea if I "wanted" sobriety -- life without drinking was literally beyond my ability to imagine by that point -- but I was certain that I didn't want the life I had.)  But now they seemed (sounded, anyway) like they were fundamentally willing to make the effort.

In broader terms, and often when working on identifying and removing character defects  (A part of step 5, and the focus of Steps 6 and 7, for the new kids), I think of this in terms of "process" and "result" (my goodness there are a lot of "quotations" in this post.  I better guard against getting ironic or the damn thing will be nothing but quotes.)

It's easy to want a different result.  It's easy to want more money in the bank, a smaller waistline, or a cleaner home (hypotheticals all, I assure you).  But in applying spiritual tools to my character defects, in asking a Higher Power to help me change, what I really need to ask God's help with is a different process.  Otherwise I'm just asking God to exempt me from the natural order of things.  It is virtually the same as wanting vs. willing to make the effort.

And really, isn't it the essence of an alcoholic's nature to want things to be different but not be willing to actually do anything differently?

    

    

* Yes, I totally stole that from the brilliant David Sedaris.  In October, writing in The New Yorker about undecided voters in the Presidential Election, he said:  "To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane.  The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually parks it beside my seat.  'Can I interest you in the chicken?' she asks 'Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?' 

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

Regardless of how you may have voted, with such a polarized set of choices, this is a genius illustration -- and when I heard it the first time I thought almost immediately of the passage in "There Is A Solution."  Again, I think I really need to get out more.

 

Like expecting a bull not to charge you ...

Expecting the world to treat you "right" because you're sober now is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you've become a vegetarian.

The world is the world, and it will do as God will's it.  My sobriety, my living by spiritual principles, does not exempt me from my turn on the wheel.

It does, I believe, offer me special insights, even some special abilities, to deal with the world.

And living by spiritual principles, in my experience, does alter my vision of how things in life are connected.  It helps me see that what seems a terrible calamity at first might be quite the opposite.  After all, if you think about it, the reason Bill Wilson (one of AA's co-founders) found himself making that very first phone call to find another alcoholic to help was because he was far from home, demoralized and afraid - he'd had a terrible turn of events -- he wasn't even sure if he'd be able to pay his hotel bill.  The business deal he desperately needed to pan out had instead totally crapped out.  Bill knew that if he didn't find some other alcoholic to help, as the Oxford Group and his friend Ebby had suggested he do,  he would go into that hotel lobby bar and start drinking.  Thus, from that personal economic "disaster" came all of what we know of today as AA.  Bill used the spiritual principles of the Oxford Group -- which eventually became the 12 Steps as we know them today -- not to find a way to pay for his hotel room, but to stay sober.  The spiritual action transformed his spirit.

My living by the spiritual principles suggested in Alcoholics Anonymous (and found in many other places as well) changes me -- it's when I (unconsciously, most often) expect it to change anything else that I get myself into trouble.

With that said, no one really, truly understands how prayer and spiritual principle work -- we all have ideas, and some people have great conviction ... but ... miracles happen.  For all that I believe the world rolls along deaf to my hopes, oblivious to my prayers and ignorant of my spiritual life, I have been party to real Divine grace in profound ways beyond my ongoing daily sobriety, and that, too, is worth remembering. 

What do people in AA mean when they say "So-and-so was my Eskimo"?

"Eskimo" as in, "Loretta was my Eskimo."

Generally speaking, your Eskimo is the person who brought you to your first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous -- some people may also use it to include the person that carried the AA message to them.

The term likely comes from the old story, which has many variations, about the man who is stranded (sometimes it's on the roof of a burning house, other times it's an ice flow in the ocean, etc.) in dire circumstances and is about to die.  He prays and prays for God to rescue him and several means of escape present themselves, (rescue vehicle, helicopter, or an Eskimo in a kayak -- or on a dogsled, or whatever western cultural bias mode of transportation the story teller uses to describe how an Eskimo might reach someone in trouble).  The man refuses each offer of help, claiming "God will save me" and keeps praying.  He dies, and when he gets to Heaven asks God why he didn't save him.  God replies with the punch line, which is roughly, "I sent you a rescue team, a helicopter, even an Eskimo in a kayak -- what more did you want?" 

Good Suggestions

We come to Alcoholics Anonymous with our problems and we seek help.  We look for some solutions, some direction as to how to deal with our problems.  Usually we share about what's wrong -- either in a meeting or over coffee or something -- and then people, be it friends, random sober folk or our sponsors, offer suggestions as to what to do.

In my experience, there is no shortage of good suggestions in AA.  After all, AA is built firmly on a foundation of suggestions based on experience, not opinion (with the occasional bullshit artist blowing smoke and playing at being a therapist or guru or something, but that seems to be a self-correcting issue).

Indeed the problem rarely lies in finding good suggestions -- the problem most often occurs in taking action on said suggestions.

And what fascinates me most is how very often -- especially after being sober for a little while -- people seem to think that a lack of willingness on their part to act on a particular suggestion means there is something wrong with the suggestion.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

It is not up to someone else to find a magic suggestion that suddenly calls you to action, lifting your dead ass up off the couch as if you lived in a Disney movie and tiny animated forest creatures were going to show up and help you get dressed or something.  It's up to you to become willing to take the action.  There is help available in every other arena in AA, save this one thing:  Willingness.

"... it appears that there are certain things which only the individual can do.  All by himself, and in the light of his own circumstances, he needs to develop the quality of willingness.  When he acquires willingness, he is the only one who can make the decision to exert himself." -- "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (AA's 12&12), Step 3, pg. 40

Most often I see people tangled up in confusion about the suggestion calling them to action, rather then they themselves developing the quality of willingness to act on a suggestion, in the area of sponsorship.  After a short while sober an almost unconscious assumption seems to take hold, as if the sponsor is somehow responsible for inspiring the sponsee -- like some sort of 12 Step based motivational speaker:  Anthony Robbins channeling Bill Wilson.  (gah. what a freakshow that would be. No offense to Mr. Robbins intended.)

Certainly different sponsors I've had have been able to put things in such a way that I had greater understanding about something -- but really no one was ever able to give me greater willingness.

My personal experience mirrors the quoted passage from the 3rd Step above -- willingness had to come from within, no sponsor could provide it.

Many times I have asked God to help me be willing, but even that was much more about helping me find the willingness inside myself rather than God pouring it into me, like water from a pitcher fills an empty glass.

A sponsor can give deadlines -- hell, some even give ultimatums ("If you don't finish this inventory by Thursday that's it, I'm not willing to sponsor you anymore!") -- but those are just devices.  The willingness to meet the deadline still must come from you, yourself.

If you find you've done a lot of sponsor hopping because you just don't seem to find someone who can motivate you ... well, ummm... you might want to look at that. 

Keeping Secrets

June 1992

It was the big Friday Night meeting -- very social, held in the auditorium of a local hospital.  They gave lectures in the auditorium during the day, to medical students and nurses and such I presume, (I don't think they wheeled the patients down there.  To my knowledge "lecture therapy" isn't covered under Blue Cross, nor is it very effective. "And if you look at the diagram on the board here, you can see you're supposed to be getting better.")  But because it served as a lecture hall as much as anything else, there was a little raised section against the wall, in the center of the room.  (To call it a stage would be like calling a bush a tree.)  It was perhaps a six inch rise and maybe two feet by three feet -- but it was stage enough to turn some of the shares in that meeting into performance art. ("I'm working on ... my fourth step ... and ... it's ... brought up ... all ... these ... feelings."  Some nights it was like attending a William Shatner Impersonator's convention.)

Certainly I'd taken my turn standing there behind the lectern, in my first few years of sobriety, learning how to share ("How do you do that, Mr. SponsorPants?" I hear you ask.  "You share." I answer.)  Performing my feelings as much as talking about them, madly trying to gauge if what I was saying was ok or not.  I remember some nights the walk down the aisle to that little raised section of the floor at the front of the room used to feel like the Trail of Tears.  But over time, as I stayed sober, sharing in that meeting and others, I learned how to be authentic, to stop trying to figure out what I was supposed to say and to just ... say.  And to share not just my craziness, which sometimes I had to do, but also my "experience, strength and hope."  Eventually sharing became an important tool for me -- a way to gain insight into my own alcoholism and also be of service to others.  After a few years I'd shared some pretty personal stuff, in the Friday night meeting and in other AA meetings at the hospital during the week.

So there I am, roughly three or four years sober, and one day, sitting in my usual chair in the big Friday night meeting, a voice in my head says, "You've shared too much here."

"I have?" I answered the voice.

"Oh yes.  You've had way too much to say.  Really exposed yourself."

"Really?  I've exposed myself?"

"Yes.  Too much.  Now that they've heard you for a while, they're judging you.  They're sick of you and they're judging you for what a mess you are.  And for how you look.  And just, you know, they're thinking you're not really very sharp.  And perhaps not as far along as you should be."

"They ... they are?"

"Oh yes.  Look around. Look at them.  They're sick of you.  And they're judging you.  It's obvious, can't you tell?"

And the truth was, I had been feeling pretty raw in the meeting.  I'd been feeling exposed and uncomfortable for a while now.  The voice in my head made perfect sense.

The voice in my head made so much sense, I decided to stop sharing at that meeting.  In fact, if I hadn't had a service commitment there (they'd elected me treasurer of the meeting a few months ago, and it was a big deal), I would have stopped going to the meeting altogether.  Yeah.  As soon as my commitment was done I was out of there.  And you know what else? That's it with the sharing.  Screw sharing. I wasn't willing to expose myself to judgment anymore.  I was tired of talking about how I felt and how I was trying to work AA.  I was finished with showing people what I thought and talking about my troubles and issues and problems.  I was sensitive, damnit!  I felt raw.  I was exposed.

I was stealing from the treasury.

I wasn't feeling raw, I was feeling guilty.

I hadn't meant to steal -- one time after the meeting I just thought, oh, rather than swing by the ATM on the way to meet everyone for coffee I'll just grab five dollars from the treasury and make it up later.

Then it was ten dollars.

After a couple of weeks, twenty-five dollars.  There were a lot of people at this meeting, so there were a lot of dollars.  I was paying the meeting rent and reimbursing the literature guy and the cake guy and all and ... just ... sort of ... accidentally skimming a little off the reserve.

And then, since I felt guilty, I avoided thinking about what I was doing, so I lost track of the exact amount, which made it worse, since then in my head the amount assumed titanic, epic proportions.  Which in turn made me avoid thinking about it even more.

But the bottom line was this:  I had a secret.  I had a secret in AA, about AA, and what was happening was my alcoholism was using it to begin to separate me from Alcoholics Anonymous.

If anyone reading this believes that people in recovery might anthropomorphize our alcoholic thinking by giving it a life of its own, describing alcoholism as if it's a voice talking to you in your head, I freely admit that it is, indeed, a fanciful way to express the process of alcoholic thinking.  And as fanciful as it may be to express it that way, sometimes it really is as though something inside you suddenly woke up and stepped up to the microphone and started, in the most amiable, charming, and logical fashion imaginable, suggesting you either need to escape or destruct.  That's always the lying heart of the choice alcoholism offers you:  Run or die.

I sat on that secret for months.  It nearly took me out.

I had heard it said often in meetings at the time:  "You're as sick as your secrets."  My sponsor back then used to growl that they were getting it wrong (he had a terrific growl which he would use to great effect sometimes).  Back when he got sober, roughly in the year 4 million B.C., they used to say "you're only as sick as you are secret."  Semantics aside, the message was clear.

I heard a speaker once talk about how, after an explosive and terrifying family event, he started driving into dangerous, seedy neighborhoods and picking up hookers off the street following his AA meeting every night.  While at the time he understood the mechanism of how he was using the adrenalin and danger -- and then, layered on top of that, the eventual guilt and shame  -- to deal with (or avoid dealing with) what happened in his family, the secret of what he was doing became so unbearable it brought him to a whole new bottom in sobriety, and nearly took him out.

Even though he understood the danger of keeping that secret, his understanding did not free him from the pain and festering sickness of keeping the secret.  To be free of the pain and the sickness he needed not to change his behavior, but to tell the secret.  In fact, waiting to tell the secret until after you change a behavior on your own is the antithesis of the recipe for recovery in AA.

I knew a guy once who was "Mr. AA."  Popular, involved, big time circuit speaker... "Mr. AA."  Except in one area of his life he hit a pothole, and he couldn't bring himself to share about it in a meeting -- his very "status" in AA became a barrier to his being honest about his problems.  (With all due respect, for myself I call that Buying My Own Bullshit, whenever I catch myself thinking, "You're X years sober, you can't show that mess in a meeting!")  And while there were a lot of circumstances of course, in my humble opinion that inability to share his secret was a big factor in his eventual decision to take his own life.

From my vantage point today I look back on the foolish, frightened, impulsive young man I was in early sobriety and see just how on-the-razor's-edge of going out and drinking over my secret treasury skimming I was.  I've come to believe today that, far more dangerous than whatever messy behavior you're doing, in or out of the rooms, is keeping that behavior a secret.

Eventually I stood up at that meeting during the treasury announcement and owned what I did and made amends, both literally and spiritually.  49.5% of me wanted to just keep it a secret and 50.5% of me knew that if I did, I would drink.  (Sometimes I think the art of staying sober a day at a time comes down to listening to that tiny, fraction of a percent of you that wants to live more than the rest of you wants to die.)

Keeping a confidence, choosing whom you share sensitive information with, is not keeping secrets.  Keeping secrets is when you're hiding something, and you take action to keep it hidden, and no one really knows the full, unedited, true story.

For the record, that was one of the most difficult amends I've ever made.  And also for the record, not everyone was gracious about it.  A few people were angry, and they had a right to be.  Just because you step up and make things right doesn't mean you get a pass from dealing with the consequences of your bad behavior.

Do you have a secret?  Something fear and pride together conspire, egged on by your alcoholism, to prevent you from talking about with someone -- anyone?

If you do, I can tell you from personal experience that the pain of keeping the secret eventually (rapidly) becomes much, much greater than the pain of telling the secret and dealing with the consequences.

If you do have a secret, ummm ... you might want to look at that.

Seeking something ... better?

Seek.  I'm supposed to seek... a spiritual experience, a conscious contact, an understanding of God's will for me... 

It's freakin' exhausting, all this seeking.

I used to suffer from what I think of as "New Year's Eve-itis."  Expectations for a New Year's Eve party were always high -- it had to be an amazing party (it was New Year's Eve, after all) and it had to be amazing by midnight.

This was before I decided New Year's Eve was amateur night, and I wasn't much interested in leaving the house.  (I wasn't much able to leave the house, either, but that's beside the point.)

But because of these high expectations I was always dissatisfied with wherever I was -- I believed that it was the next party that was the hot one, but then I got there and I decided, no, it must be the next party that has the good drugs, and then I got there and I thought no, it's the next party that has the ... the next thing is the better thing.  The next thing is just ... more.  The next thing has more more.

For some years I fell into that mindset about my spirituality.  My conscious contact needs to be amazing and it needs to be amazing right now. (Because if it is then, not only will I stay sober, but ... nothing bad will ever happen to me?  I'll always be happy?  I'll be rewarded?  Strange assumptions and expectations may percolate below the surface my friends.)

I'm supposed to seek (through prayer and meditation) not only to have a conscious contact and an understanding, but to improve my conscious contact and understanding.  So... if I need to improve it there must be something wrong with how it is right now?  Thus it's the next understanding that's the hot one, the next understanding that has the good mojo, the next...

No.

I am exactly how I'm supposed to be, right now.  I am not supposed to be one molecule more enlightened, more evolved, more anything.  "Improving" my conscious contact with God as I understand God doesn't mean that how I understand God now is better than it was yesterday or inferior to how it will be tomorrow.  Yes, it is a process of improvement, but it is an organic one, not a mathematical one -- there's no "more" or "better" or "farther along" at the heart of this kind of growth.  Those value judgments do not apply in this and only serve to undermine whatever conscious contact I have and where my understanding of God is today in comparison to this mythical, nonexistent new enlightenment I'm going to have tomorrow.

I have come to believe, (not to get all zen on you), that my understanding of God, God's will, and the rest of it, just... is.  It is what it is today, and it's not lesser or greater than any other belief or understanding I have at any other point in my life.  I may have a greater or lesser degree of peace, (for any number of reasons), but the quality of my understanding, of my conscious contact with God (or lack thereof), perhaps shouldn't be measured in how comfortable I am.  Yes, yes, of course I want to be comfortable, but today I know that growth does not always feel effortless, transformation is not a peaceful time -- too much comfortable might actually not be so great a thing.

How I understand God today is exactly how I'm supposed to understand God today -- it is neither better nor worse, more potent or less powerful, than at any other point in my sobriety -- or even before it.

Praying Wrong

Is there such a thing as "praying wrong"?  Sounds like such a loaded question, asked only as a device to make a point, as transparent as something like, "Hey, who here is in favor of violent crime?"

But I used to struggle with, if not a worry that I was praying "wrong" then certainly a concern that I wasn't praying "right."

AA's 11th Step concludes with the phrase, "... praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."  Over and over I would hear that in AA, as in many meetings I attend it is customary to read a portion of Chapter 5, "How it Works" from the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book).

And in Chapter 6, "Into Action" this idea is further elaborated in a discussion of daily reflection and prayer:

"We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no requests for ourselves only.  We may ask for ourselves, however, if others may be helped.  We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.  Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work.  You can easily see why." -- Big Book, Ch. 6, pg. 87

So over the years, the problem for me became that I felt like I wasn't "allowed" to bring my personal problems, my wishes, my hopes, my fears, my dreams, my goals, my confusion, my despair, my doubt, my bitterness, my depression, my joy to God.  I was "allowed" to say the Serenity Prayer, the 3rd Step Prayer, the 7th Step Prayer, the 11th Step Prayer and to sort of bring some general gratitude to the God table, and that was it.  (Though if you're saying all of those regularly you are armed with prayers full of gorgeous language -- rich in imagery, emotion and healthy, intelligent intent -- and if you pray them with meaning you will doubtless begin to develop a real inner peace and a profound connection with God, however you understand God).

This entire business of "right" prayer was wholly my own invention at the time -- I want to stress no one told me this.  It's just a conclusion I began to draw on my own.  And looking at it now of course I can see how it meant that I unconsciously feared God was mean spirited and cold hearted -- that I thought God kept scores and grudges.  On the surface I believed prayer was about peace and serenity and freedom from addiction, but underneath I still framed my relationship with God and prayer in terms of being "good/rewarded" and "bad/punished," and my seeking a "conscious contact with a Higher Power" was completely shot through with fear.  If you are finding prayer and the seeking of a connection with some kind of Higher Power troublesome, perhaps you, as I did, have ideas -- negative ideas, old ideas, practically superstitious ideas -- about God that you almost don't even know you have.

In seeking "God as you understand God" you don't need to define how you understand God to begin the 12 Steps -- but if you don't eventually put some thought into that then, based on my own experience, I believe you leave a void for your old ideas to trickle in, like dirty water into a ditch.

My first inkling that what I thought I believed was no where close to an accurate reflection of what I actually believed was while I was on a business trip, when I was about 6 or 7 years sober, and praying the 3rd Step prayer.

I was supposed to get up in front of about a thousand or so people and give them bad news -- and then stand there and answer their questions.  It was a difficult thing, made the more so by my boss giving me almost no warning about it.  About fifteen minutes before I got up in front of everyone, out of the blue someone said something really unkind to me -- slid the knife into my softest spot.  Why?  Well, today I know it was their spiritual sickness, and had nothing to do with me, but at the time I was so rattled I couldn't even summon that insight -- so now I was not only frightened, I was hurt and angry.  Great.  Up to my room at the hotel I went, and knelt by the bed and began to say the 3rd Step prayer -- a prayer that still today brings me enormous relief and comfort when I can be meaningful about it.  But as I prayed, working to really be sincere when I said, "God, I offer myself to thee, to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt..." I happened to catch sight of myself in the mirror.  If you saw me kneeling there, out of context of the knowledge that I was praying, you would have thought I was bracing for a blow.  Seriously, I looked like I was about to be hit with a big stick or something.  And in that moment it dawned on me that, deep down, I still believed God's will would hurt.  I still thought God's will was a difficult and punishing lesson -- ultimately something to fear.  And up until that very moment I didn't realize how deeply I held that belief nor how hidden from myself it was.

So I began to question what my deep-down ideas about God were, and thus began to change what and how I prayed.

And I realized that while I was busy praying those (truly) wonderful AA prayers I had this whole world of things locked up in my heart that I yearned to bring to God but didn't think I was "supposed" to.

Now I am more candid with God before I say my "traditional" prayers, and it helps me feel freer with and closer to my Higher Power.  I kneel and say, "God, you know my secret heart.  You know that I hope for X or deeply fear Y --  but Thy will be done."  I used to hate the phrase "Thy Will be done" -- I felt like it negated everything I had just brought to God -- but now I feel it is an acknowledgment that I trust God -- a reminder to myself that God is running the show, and it's not a horror show.

This is one of the posts here on Mr. SponsorPants I fear has become too long -- in my earnest desire to share my experience with you and to hopefully be of some help to someone, some of my writings are (much) longer than others -- but on this topic I cannot leave it at that, as there is some brilliant discussion on this very issue in the 11th Step in the book "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (AA's 12&12) which I must include here to feel I've addressed this fully.

"Of course, it is reasonable and understandable that the question is often asked: 'Why can't we take a specific and troubling dilemma straight to God, and in prayer secure from Him sure and definite answers to our requests?'

This can be done, but it has its hazards.  We have seen AA's ask with much earnestness and faith for God's explicit guidance on matters ranging all the way from a shattering domestic or financial crisis to correcting a minor personal fault, like tardiness.  Quite often, however, the thoughts that seem to come from God are not answers at all.  They prove to be well-intentioned unconscious rationalizations ...

We also fall into another similar temptation.  We form ideas as to what we think God's will is for other people.  We say to ourselves, 'This one ought to be cured of his fatal malady' or 'That one out to be relieved of his emotional pain,' and we pray for these specific things.  Such prayers, of course, are fundamentally good acts, but often they are based upon a supposition that we know God's will for the person for whom we pray.  This means that side by side with an earnest prayer there can be a certain amount of presumption and conceit in us.  It is AA's experience that particularly in these cases we ought to pray God's will, whatever it is, be done for others as well as for ourselves."-- 12&12, Step 11, pgs. 103 - 104.

My experience is that there is no way to pray "wrong" -- nor is AA trying to tell me what I'm "allowed" to pray or what I'm "supposed" to say to God.  What I have found, and what AA has been trying to tell me all along, is that the more I can remove myself from the equation and trust God, and the more I can, through prayer, submit to that trust, then the more helpful and transformative my prayers will be.

Since ultimately, I'm not praying to change the world around me, I'm praying to change myself -- and the best change I can manifest is a continual deepening of my trust in and reliance upon God.