Mr. SponsorPants

black ink

The book "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (more commonly called The 12&12), in the chapter on Step 4, states:  "The sponsor probably points out that the newcomer has some assets which can be noted along with his liabilities."  Elsewhere it says, to paraphrase only slightly, that a business which takes inventory only in red ink is not going to get a very accurate idea of the stock on hand -- meaning that, literally, if you were taking inventory of stock in a store you would count what you did have, not what you didn't, if you wanted a clear picture.

With many of my sponsees, especially if it is not their very first 4th Step (I like to keep that simple and stick squarely to what the Big Book lays out for that one), I draw their attention to this idea of assets and suggest that they make a list of their "good" traits (or healthy qualities, or strengths, or gifts, or whatever suits).

In many cases you would think I had asked them to pound a dull nail through their hand.  Until I learned to suggest a specific number of things to try and list (I like 20, personally) even the most willing would return, sheepishly offer a piece of paper, left largely blank except for two or three broken phrases scribbled at the top, and mumble a sorry "I couldn't think of anything."

Generally we are people who think about ourselves a lot, rather than people who think a lot of ourselves.

I would submit that there is a tremendous, healthy, sober freedom in being able to say out loud, "Oh, yes, I'm very good at ________."

If you do so and then must rush to qualify, or equivocate, or apologize, you're not quite on the mark.

Saying "I'm good at ______" is not the same as saying "I'm better than _________ at _______." 

(Anyone who hears it that way is in fact engaged in a struggle with their own ego -- and I wish them the best of luck in that fight -- when I get in the ring with mine I'm continually chagrined to discover what a superb and sneaky fighter he is -- like a ninja with a hangover:  Dangerous and mean.)

As we work the 12 Steps and develop the habit of self examination, in my opinion its very important that we are writing in black ink as well as the red -- if you find you really, truly can't ... well, you might want to take a look at that.

Questions via Email: Wracked with Guilt

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I am wracked with guilt over my past behavior.  Although I [have made / am making amends] I still feel terrible about what I did.

Sincerely,

L., M. and Z.

Over the last several days I received three emails which, although the details differ, involve pretty much the same problem.  For the sake of clarity and efficiency it seemed like the best thing to do was moosh them together and distill the issue down to the above.

Dear L., M. and Z,

Well, thank you all for writing and for the various kind words you said about the blog.  I hope that distilling your emails down will, indeed, help get to the heart of the matter, and I assure you that is my only intent in doing so.  In reading what you each wrote your anguish was palpable and I do not mean to minimize what you are going through.

On the face of it what you have described is that you are wracked with guilt, even though you are actively (or have already) making (made) amends for what you did.  But hopefully by cutting to the heart of your stories the real problem leaps out at you -- if not, I shall say it here:  The problem is not a surplus of guilt.

The problem is a lack of self forgiveness.

And oh, my dears, I am sorry, but that is a very tough bit of road to trudge.

Once someone is truly in recovery, and they begin to see somewhat clearly, it is with dawning horror they confront just what they did, and see how deeply they hurt and effected the people around them.

I have long felt that true self forgiveness is a very difficult thing to reach, and in some cases, well... the blanket may never fully cover the bed, if you follow me.

From my own experience, all true compassion is the result of several things woven together, and that is especially so when trying to be compassionate towards ourselves.

Let's get the ugly bit out of the way first.

For an addict (suffering from any flavor of the ism, from alcohol to al-anon and all points in between) it is not at all unusual to feel bad about ourselves -- we're forever talking about and guarding against "beating ourselves up."  But all that business of feeling badly about ourselves must be broken in half:  The "badly" part and the "self" part.

So some of the ugly bit I must point out is that being consumed with guilt is really less concerned with thinking about the other person/people, and what you did, than it is about thinking about yourself.  So a part of all this "wracking" -- and what makes this so difficult to let go of -- is that your self-obsession is alive and well in this.

(Be brave, we have just a little more of the ugly bit to get through.)

Also, and this will be hard to consider...

you should feel guilty.

When I do something bad, as a thinking, feeling, moral person, I should feel guilty -- it is an appropriate emotion.

Sidebar:

Dear Everyone Else,

Please save the angry "Oh yeah? Well screw guilt!" rants for another time.  This is not a discussion of abstract values, nor of particularly rigid moral belief systems which double as a form of oppression, or unjust, emotionally unbalanced thinking.  Under the influence of alcohol, drugs, extreme fear or extreme obsession people can do bad things, and that is what this is about.  No doubt with the way I like to chew on ideas some day I'll be all about looking at inappropriate guilt.  However today, from what these people shared with me, we're working from the assumption that this guilt is appropriate.

Okay, we're back.

The problem for a lot of damaged people in recovery is that guilt seamlessly transforms into shame, and they are two different things.

Guilt is I did something bad.

Shame is I am something bad.

Addicts and al-anons put a "thus" in the middle there and turn it into a line of reasoning (and a false, damaging conclusion), i.e., "I did something bad thus I am something bad."

And if you are something bad, then you must be undeserving of compassion and forgiveness.  Saying it here the falseness of the logic is clear -- but as a thread of sick reasoning winding through our thoughts it is all too believable.

Meanwhile, in the background, all this "I, I, me, I" is a like a drumbeat calling my self-obsession to join me in dancing around the fire of my memory -- an apt image since it is not for nothing the expression is "burn with shame."

Sometimes I think in recovery we make the unconscious (and mistaken) assumption that amends will completely free us from guilt.  That has not been my experience.  It frees me from shame.  It clears my side of the street so that I am not carrying a deep and painful burden which blocks me from the "sunlight of the spirit."  But the gravity of my wrongs should remain as a part of my perspective (and humility).  Calm, objective acknowledgment of bad behavior leads to right-sized guilt -- and is sometimes what helps me to refrain from repeating the bad behavior.

So the ugly bits are the parts of this that are about being self-obsessed and shame based.

If this gives us a clearer vision of what's going on, then it's time to find some compassion for ourselves.

Consider what the Big Book suggests we do when first dealing with our resentments.  We acknowledge that the world and its people are often quite wrong.  We then make the leap that the people who wronged us are spiritually sick, and thus deserving of our forgiveness.  (I know, I know.  That's the quick-and-dirty version.)

That is as true for ourselves as it is for others.

Somewhere inside you are still viewing this as a moral issue, cutting yourself with the razor blade of should-should-should.  You should have known better, should have done differently, should have been smarter...

No.  You shouldn't have... because you couldn't have.

The idea that addiction warps thinking and behavior and is a real and true illness (which can effect us well after we've put down the drink or drug or sick elements of a relationship) is not an excuse.  It is an explanation.

It does not absolve you of taking responsibility for what you did, but when you view things through that lens it does allow you to see why you did it (hopefully) a little differently.

Sidebar:

Compare how you might feel in these two situations:

How did my vase get broken?  Oh, Tom did it because he's an anti-social, vase-hating ass.

How did my vase get broken?  Oh, Tom did it.  He was having a seizure as a reaction to some medication he started taking and he fell against it.

In both cases Tom needs to replace your vase (and remember, kids the difference between a vase-rhymes-with-base, and a vase-rhymes-with-cause, is fifty bucks.  If you paid $49.99 or less, it is a vase-rhymes-with-base.  Fifty bucks and up, it's a vase-rhymes-with-cause.  I'm just sayin').  But in the former example Tom is an ass, and in the latter Tom had a medical condition, and that powerfully changes how you feel about what happened.

Okay we're back.

So (to pull this all together) the internal process -- which is the beginning of self forgiveness -- is to look for the self-obsessive elements to my thinking, and break in half the did-bad-am-bad false logic.  It is also to calmly accept that a portion of my guilt is appropriate (as they say in N.A., "what you resist, persists").  I am not trying to be free of any and all guilty feelings, I am just trying to get it right-sized through (and here's the last part of the internal process) remembering that there is an illness involved, and that at the time I couldn't do much better than I did, much as I might wish I could have (just as I see that for others, in trying to free myself of my resentments towards them).

How I practically apply these things on a day-to-day basis certainly involves restitution (in whatever form is appropriate, and which L., M. and Z, you are all already actively pursuing).

Beyond that, the "external" part, if you will, has always been two-fold:  Prayer and service.

Prayer speaks for itself, but I will say that it has been most effective for me in this arena to ask for help in seeing myself and what I did differently, as much as anything else.

And service (again, beyond the making of the direct amends) comes in many forms, but primarily through talking about my pain and my process in meetings, with a sponsor and with sponsees.  (Yes, sponsees especially -- I am always of greater service to the people I sponsor when I talk about the deeply painful and challenging times, and walk through them sober, than in putting a false, brave face on it).

Oh, I talk a good game (and a long one, I fear) but I have to end with again saying this has been one of the greater challenges in sobriety for me.  I have usually found it easier to feel compassion for others than to forgive myself.

I wish you luck with this challenge, and I hope some of what I wrote here will help you with it.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

wherever/whenever

"Some cause happiness wherever they go;

others, whenever they go."

-- Oscar Wilde

I like to think my time in AA has moved me from the latter category to the former.

Most days.

share your scars

if all your inside scars were on your outsides, how do you think you would look?

freakish?  hideous?

I bet you would look amazing.

and glorious

and heroic.

Because every scar means you lived.

you survived.

you healed.

And a scar means it wasn't easy -- it was no light thing you lived through.

abuse -- sometimes profound abuse

heartbreak, injustice, betrayal and

(in some ways the most pitiable and horrific wounds of all)

your own twisted

attempts at

self destruction.

if all your inside scars were on the outsides, people would know what you had been through.  it would be plain you were a survivor they might come to for help or hope.

But since they can't see that,

(and looking at you now there might be no way they could guess)

I'm afraid you'll have to open your mouth and

tell them.

Do not listen to your ego and your fear, those sweet persuasive lovers who call you to come back to bed.

Share your scars.

You will save lives

and be transformed,

amazing and glorious.

it is true.

I have seen this thing many times.

anyone can

Though no one can go back and make

a brand new beginning,

anyone can start from today

and make a brand new ending.

My 4th Least Favorite Paragraph in The Big Book

Honest-to-God, I hadn't planned on this becoming a series.

Plus, I'm hedging some in the title of this post.  Really, it's about my 4th least favorite paragraphs -- it's more than just one little paragraph.

This is all in Chapter 9 of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book).  Chapter 9 is entitled 'The Family Afterward' and the bulk of the chapter is a discussion of how the newly sober "Dad" and his family -- scarred by Dad's drinking -- is going to handle things as Dad tries to work the 12 Steps and live the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous in his home.

First, some context:

As I've said before, for me personally I think it's important to consider the era in which this was written.  For the most part I find the Big Book to be overwhelmingly inclusive and open minded -- amazingly so for something written by a bunch of straight white middle-aged Midwestern men (for the most part) in 1939 Ohio.  But for me where the age they lived in really colors the language is in the discussions of family dynamics -- expressed in very specific gender roles -- and dear God, the hokey slang is no help either.  Here's a great example of some of this, from pg. 131:

"... his drinking placed him constantly in the wrong.  Mother made all the plans and gave the directions.  When sober, father usually obeyed.  Thus mother, through no fault of her own, became accustomed to wearing the family trousers.  Father, coming suddenly to life again, often begins to assert himself.  This means trouble, unless the family watches for these tendencies in each other and comes to a friendly agreement about them."

Yowza!

I like to look past the specific gender phrasing to the spirit of what that says, which (to me) is something along the lines of:

When one partner in a family is completely debilitated by their alcoholism, all the responsibilities and decisions fall unfairly on the other partner's shoulders.  A pattern is then set, which, when the sober alcoholic begins to come back to life, will need to be renegotiated -- and both partners will need to watch themselves and each other, committing to keeping their cool and talking things through, now that the drunk is in recovery and the old, sick dynamic no longer fits.

Again, that's just what it says to me -- I make no claim as to being an official translator of 1939 colloquialisms or Big Book philosophy.

But we're not even up to my 4th least favorite paragraph yet -- this is just clearing the ground some.  It's important for me to say that this chapter has real wisdom in it, but in its discussion of family dynamics and the alcoholic, the language is what one might expect of those people in that time, and thus, to find the wisdom and how it applies to us in 2010 one must look past the old timey allusions to whatever point they were trying to make.

Okay, here it is.  Pg. 135, the last page of the chapter in fact:

"Here is a case in point:  One of our friends is a heavy smoker and coffee drinker.  There was no doubt he over-indulged.  Seeing this, and meaning to be helpful, his wife commenced to admonish him about it.  He admitted he was overdoing these things, but frankly said that he was not ready to stop.  His wife ... nagged, and her intolerance finally threw him into a fit of anger.  He got drunk.

Of course our friend was wrong -- dead wrong.  He had to painfully admit that and mend his spiritual fences.  Though he is now a most effective member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he still smokes and drinks coffee, but neither his wife nor anyone else stands in judgment.  She sees she was wrong to make a burning issue out of such a matter when his more serious ailments were being rapidly cured."

The point here is about priorities, and also perhaps that AA is not about becoming perfect.

But that's not what troubles me about this.

Every time I read it with a sponsee or hear it in a book study I flash on my dead sponsor, the late, great John S., who would, after hearing whatever dramatic tale of triumph or heartache from me, often take a long hit on his cigarette, unconsciously smooth his toupee a little bit, kind of squint one eye and say, "Yeah, but what are you getting out of it?"

Which is to say he had -- and instilled in me -- a deep suspicion of the alcoholic's ability to manipulate.  (The book "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" puts this beautifully, calling it "hiding a bad motive under a good one" -- though in that discussion its about self-deception more than anything else.)  It's not my intent to make any non-alcoholics cynical or paranoid when dealing with alcoholics (really? well, too late, Mr. SP!).  But I have a deep respect -- and real fear -- regarding the insidious nature of alcoholism and its ability to blind alcoholics to our own deeper motives, or, worse yet, rather than hide them from ourselves, justify them.

In this story I can't help but notice that at the end of it, the alcoholic got what he wanted.  Funny how that happens sometimes. 

Now, in Chapter 8 of the Big Book, "To Wives" and also in many places in this chapter, the point is made that some alcoholics are not going to "come to Jesus."  For example, in "To Wives" it says (pg. 108):

"There is an important exception to the foregoing. We realize some men are thoroughly bad-intentioned, that no amount of patience will make any difference.  An alcoholic of this temperament may be quick to use this chapter as a club over your head.  Don't let him."

In other words, for all its talk of healing, hope and Higher Powers the Big Book is not naive about alcoholics or human nature. 

And if there's one thing I've learned from blogging its that sometimes to make a point well you must make only the one point, and set aside, in that particular bit of writing, all the additional "on the other hands" and "sometimes though"... so in the story of the nagging wife and the smoking coffee drinker just the one point is made, about perspective and priorities.

But -- even though the book is quick to label the alcoholic "dead wrong" for using the anger from being nagged as justification for drinking -- it rankles me a little that, at the end of the day, he got what he wanted, which was to smoke and drink coffee with impunity -- and not only that, one could extrapolate that he did set up a bit of an invisible club over his wife's head when it came to further nagging feedback.

I'm grateful to my dead sponsor, he who's wise counsel I miss every single day, for giving me such a jaundiced eye regarding alcoholics and our ability to somehow, after all the dust settles, get our way.  I think it's helped me guide some sponsees to the heart of a few issues, and most definitely its led me to be ruthless in regularly asking myself "what am I getting out of it?"

Because in so doing, what I'm getting out of it is sobriety.

Hey!

Mr. SponsorPants:  Service is life saving and amazing -- sometimes words truly can't describe it -- but sometimes it really feels like work, too.

Mr. SP's Sponsor:  Yes. I know.

Mr. SponsorPants:  Some sponsees, even though they're willing and all, can be a particular challenge.

There is a long silence.

Mr. SP's Sponsor:  Yes.  I know.

There is another long silence, till suddenly...

Mr. SponsorPants:  Hey!

make any kind of sustained spiritual equilibrium impossible

Circular obsessive thinking -- thinking about something you've actually decided not to think about.

A constant mental reliving of past events or the perpetual fantasy of a grim future, like some personal apocalyptic cinema of the mind.

An inability to focus the thoughts upon what one chooses.  (Which is very different from creatively letting the mind wander or healthy brainstorming.)

Mental states such as these make any kind of sustained spiritual equilibrium nearly impossible.

Meditation changes that.

Alcoholics Anonymous does not tell alcoholics they must meditate -- AA has virtually no "must's" at all.  But it does strongly suggest that if you wish to find a lasting inner balance then a routine of prayer, self examination and meditation -- all three -- is indispensable.

one night this past week

One night just this past week, the desire to drink caught me like a riptide.  It spun me around and swept me along as surely as the real thing can sweep you out to sea.

It was an innocent moment that triggered it, really.  I happened to catch a whiff of scotch on someone's breath -- the details aren't important, except for the fact that they were a particular kind of person -- well heeled, moneyed, high style -- I don't mean I was downwind from a guy who was sleeping in a doorway.  They were the kind of person where a whiff of scotch makes you think of expensive hotels and haute cuisine.  Which is of course part of how alcoholism's magic mirror works.  When the desire floods me I don't see myself sitting at the bar at 6:00am with the shakes and a hacking cough and a swollen liver (where I have actually been).  I envision hotel suites and some guy from room service in one of those military-type uniforms showing me the champagne chilling in the ice bucket before opening the curtains to show me the view.

When the strong desire to drink hits I don't see a real memory of what it's actually like when I drink, I see a fantasy that has never, ever been.

Needless to say, I was caught off guard by the intensity of this.

And this desire, this reaction, was not really a mental one, that is, I did not in that moment think, "Oh, a drink, yes, I'd like that very much."

This reaction was visceral.  My mouth filled with saliva and I experienced an honest-to-god physical craving.

And I was not even a scotch drinker.

(Unless all you had in the house was scotch.  Then I was a scotch drinker.)

For all the talk of inventories and awakenings, self examination and self enlightenment, this addiction thing is as real and as rooted in the body as any other sequence in my DNA.

I work hard to keep spiritually fit, thus this profound reminder of the power of alcoholism was more in the way of a reality check -- like when you are watching a nature show and the cuddly animal suddenly turns and eviscerates their prey with a ruthless, brutal and primal efficiency.

Maybe those words should go alongside "cunning, baffling and powerful," which AA uses to describe alcoholism ...

Ruthless, brutal and primal.  In the moment that's what it felt like.

If you're a real addict, and still building a foundation in recovery, still working through the 12 Steps, still finding your way, please remember, the stakes are the highest they can be:  Your life.

It can wash over you in a moment, and without a solid foundation it can bloody well wash you right away.

Stay close.

And if you read this and laugh, or find it dramatic or hyperbolic, I completely understand how you might.

And I envy you.

It must be a nice thing to go through life without having a part of you which is trying to kill you. 

not the what but the why

A sponsee had been reading me an inventory they'd written detailing their resentments over the past several months, but something wasn't working.  They'd done inventories before, though not recently. They were passably familiar with the format for writing them suggested on pgs. 65 thru 67 in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's 'Big Book.')  But as they read to me and I responded to what they shared the conversation started to feel circular, and I could tell they were beginning to get frustrated -- they kept repeating themselves when I would ask about something, and that is a sure sign someone doesn't feel like the person they're talking to is listening, or that the person is not "getting it."  So we were having a difficult disconnect -- but since I was sitting there trying to listen and "get" for all I was worth I couldn't figure out how we were disconnecting.

Mr. SponsorPants:  Let's back up a little, okay?

Sponsee:  Ok.

Mr. SP:  I know that you know that the first thing the Big Book says about resentments is that "the world and its people are often quite wrong."  This isn't about pretending a 'wrong' is right.

Sponsee:  Uh huh.

Mr. SP:  And then the Big Book suggests we view the people who wronged us as spiritually sick.  Not that they're absolved from what they did, but that we consider a different '"why" than we might have before -- that maybe when they did to us whatever we resent them for they might have been frightened, or working through their own damage or issues -- and we use the phrase 'spiritually sick' as shorthand until it's appropriate to consider specifics in each case.

I was backing us up and feeling my way forward again, because I couldn't figure out where the frustration was coming from -- so for the moment I skipped over the idea that, in looking at our resentments and considering that the people who wronged us might have been (for example) coming from their own fears, that we alcoholics might have (in fact probably had) contributed to those fears in some way -- and that was the key to begin to see our part in something.  But till I could figure out why my sponsee was acting like they weren't being heard I was trying to keep all the asides and in-addition-to's in my head.

Sponsee:  Uh huh.

Mr. SP:  Let's go back and look at some of the first resentments you read to me, the stuff about some of the people in AA...

They read again some resentments they had about not being included, about being treated badly, about being ignored or disrespected.

Mr. SP:  Okay, so in that first one, when so-and-so looked right at you and didn't say anything and then turned away...

I talked about how the third column in the inventory was where we detailed how something affected self esteem or personal relations, as this clearly did, and then I tried to go on to the "what's your part in this" -- the fourth column -- and my sponsee interrupted me.

Sponsee:  But they looked right at me!  And then they turned away!  I couldn't believe it...

They detailed yet again how rude this was, especially in light of their past acquaintanceship and the fact that they were in an AA meeting... And I got it.  Finally, I put it together.

Mr. SP:  Wait!  I hear you.  I understand.  But you and I are actually talking about two different things here.  You are talking about what you saw and I am talking about the conclusion you are drawing from what you saw.  I hear you.  I'm not saying that what you are describing is wrong or inaccurate.  They looked right at you and then turned away.  Got it.  What I'm talking about is not what you think you saw, I'm talking about what you think it means.

From there on out it was pretty much smooth sailing, but from this exchange I got a huge lesson.  So often when people become frustrated in any kind of conversation it's because they don't feel like they're being heard -- which is why I literally say, 'I hear you.'  But in looking at resentments -- which in a way is looking at both someone's perceptions and perspective -- we're asking people to change what conclusion they draw about why something happened.

But often, in the heat of detailing a resentment, people cannot discern that the point of reinterpretation is not the 'what' but the 'why' -- hence a disconnect.  At least that was the case in this exchange.