Mr. SponsorPants

(maybe just for this morning)

 

 

Just for today,

(well, maybe just for this morning, let's not get carried away)

I can decide only to address what is actually happening,

rather than

what I think is going to happen.

And in so doing, I can start the day

not with an impending sense of dread,

but with the promise of (at the very least)

a positive outlook

and a lack of

manufactured

mental

drama.

Things I learned (or was reminded of) this week. An ongoing series. "I do not"

 

 

I do not use my will (that is, my mind, my willpower, my thought, my determination) to "not drink."  I use my will to choose to do the work (that is, the 12 Steps, and in general AA's suggestions for how to live) so that a spiritual experience is created (a "psychic upheaval" as Jung called it) so that I am free from the desire/obsession/compulsion to drink.  More simply put:  I use my will to say "yes" to AA, which is not really the same as using it to say "no" to drinking -- that's just the result of my AA yes. 

 

I do not use faith as a way to understand the world.  I use faith as a way to accept the world as it is -- which is not the same as agreeing with something I don't like, or deciding not to do something about it.  Acceptance does not necessarily equal passivity for me -- it is the way I can stop railing in my mind about how things should be and get clear and calm (or at least, more calm) so that if need be I can actually take action.

 

I do not tell stories about my drinking when I speak at a meeting so that there is glorification -- I tell stories about what it was like when I drank so that there is identification.

 

I do not sponsor people so that they stay sober.  I sponsor people so that I stay sober.

 

 

we look for ourselves

 

 

 

 

True to varying degrees for me -- truer than I like.

Is it any wonder then, that there is such a dynamic relationship

between my resentment of others and the recrimination of my self?

I need a spiritual guide,

a design for living

and a connection to a Power greater than myself because

when my alcoholism is at the wheel

that "dynamic relationship" can be volatile to the point of explosion.

to the psychic penny

 

 

One of our semi-regular guests at the restaurant -- who had badly melted down on me when I was fairly new -- was in again this evening.

(Their meltdown was ugly, and I was pretty rattled at the time -- one of those faces absolutely crimson with rage, spittle-flying-from-their-mouths, kinds of meltdowns.  I assure you, while I am not above a little colorful hyperbole here at Mr. SP to help illustrate a point or make a story a bit more fun, there is zero exaggeration in that imagery.  And for the record, I've done my inventory writing on it.  But while seeing that someone is spiritually sick will always help address the sting, it does not always completely remove the bruise.)

Without obvious or major effort I've been able to gracefully avoid dealing with them since that awful day.  It's felt like a little Divine Assistance operating on my behalf that there's always been some handy circumstance (a phone suddenly rings, a spill, some legitimate kitchen issue pulls me in the back) which has spared me another interaction.

Tonight however, HP upped the ante a little.

Without giving you a tedious play-by-play leading up to the moment, suffice to say that this time Divine Circumstance gave me a choice:  I could again gracefully, and without appearing to do so, avoid any interaction whatsoever.  Or I could turn around and assist them.  

Time seemed to slow for me -- poetic (and cliche, I know) as that sounds.  But I mean if felt like I had all the time in the world to think through what I wanted to do.

And make no mistake, I have long believed, long and sincerely believed, that in many ways my recovery is built upon what I do at these forks in the road.  It's not the Momentous Life Events, it's the quiet -- almost invisible to anyone else -- personal opportunities for truly walking my talk which take my measure.

So I stood there, and thought about who I am and who I want to be -- and I mean the For Real who I want to be.  What was interesting is that I did not feel any fear about interacting with them -- I hadn't felt that ever, really.  To my utter astonishment, when I looked inside what I actually felt was that they didn't deserve my forgiveness.  And that I didn't deserve having to go through the cost of rising above their behavior and giving it to them.

What was the cost of rising above?

What would it cost me; what was the psychic price of turning around and, looking right in their eyes, being sincerely courteous to someone who had literally shrieked in my face in front of a room full of people?

I thought to myself then that I if I did it I would feel it down to my bones.  I would know how much it cost me to the psychic penny.

And then, as sometimes has happened to me in my life, I had a thought which was not my own.  That's what it feels like when it happens.  A thought so clear, so calm, so lacking in fear or ego or petty, trifling concerns that it literally feels like a whole other voice in my head.

It will cost you nothing if you decide it will cost you nothing.  There is no price when you choose to rise above.  And you can.  If you choose to.

On the heels of that was a voice very much my own, adding, "Just set it aside, Mr. SponsorPants.  Set aside the ego and the anger and be in this moment the For Real who you want to be."

I turned around and looked at them and smiled, and... it was so much more than okay.  It was bigger than fine.  It was effortless -- like when you pick something up which you expect to be heavy and it turns out to be empty, and you nearly toss it in the air it is so easy to lift.

It was like that.

And so it turns out that I know, to the psychic penny how much it costs me to rise above.

Nothing.

If that's the price I choose to set.

 

It has been a while since an insight dazzled me the way this one did tonight.  If I sound twee or dramatic... well, I sound how I sound.

It is worth adding, here at the end, that if this person hadn't behaved so very badly to me I would never have had the chance to find this out and feel this way -- feel this free.  The people who are the most troubling are indeed my Great Spiritual Teachers -- giving me lessons I would never choose, but insights I'm deeply grateful for having.

And so it goes.

do nothing for 2 minutes

 

 

 

 

Do Nothing for 2 Minutes

 

 

 

If you have time to breathe

 

 

If you have time to breathe,

you have time to meditate.

-- Ajahn Chah

 

Things I learned (or was reminded of) this week. An ongoing series. A little bit about being powerless vs. being helpless

 

 

Powerless is not the same thing as "Helpless."  And after you've been sober for a while, fully embracing the idea that you are indeed powerless over your addiction, saying "I'm powerless over [other thing/issue/defect]" is really now a call to action -- since you know what to do.  You have the road map.  You know how to utilize the help available to deal with whatever else you may think you're powerless over.  If you just wander around and say "I'm powerless over X" all the time, you're just basically using it as an excuse.

And with that said, it can take me a while to go from "admitting I'm powerless" to "willing to do something about it."

Or, to put it another way, I'm inordinately fond of making excuses.

And of using the language of recovery to pad them out into nice, defensible positions.

Or, to put it yet another way, "No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles."

But to put it yet another another way, I don't think I've ever effected any real and substantive change in my behavior by yelling at myself about getting into action or being powerless.

Yet a good, direct, no-bones-about-it, spine-stiffening self-talking-to?  That's not the same as "yelling at myself" -- and sometimes is absolutely the critical ingredient in self-honesty -- which leads me to willingness, and eventually to utilizing the help -- that "simple kit of spiritual tools" -- to address the other things I may find I'm powerless over, once I'm sober.

And-or-and-or-but-yet... I'm out of coordinating conjunctions.

Thank God.

 

Cheers!

 

Post #1000

 

 

 

 

And so we come to the 1000th post here at Mr. SponsorPants.

Some quite short -- no more than a brief thought with maybe an image -- others perhaps overlong for the blog format -- but with only a handful of missed days Mr. SponsorPants has been a surprising constant -- and comfort -- for me over the last few years.

 

Frankly, I've struggled terribly in my life with procrastination.  I do not think of myself as a particularly disciplined person.  (When I first encountered the line in the AA literature "We alcoholics are undisciplined... so we let God discipline us in the way we have just outlined..." I am quite sure I winced).

Has writing Mr. SP taught me discipline?  I think it would be closer to the truth to say it has shown me that I am much more disciplined than I give myself credit for.  There's plenty of evidence to suggest that an alcoholic's powers of self-assessment are not great, so it's no surprise that I was surprised at my sticking to it.  It was important to me to do that.

I take the service aspect of it seriously -- as I do the anonymity of it, too.  And, as with everything in my life directly informed by AA's commitment to service, it's been both easier and harder than I thought, and I have gotten things from it I could never have imagined -- not the least of which is a feeling of being a part of something much bigger than myself.  That knowledge was always there regarding AA, but the experience of hearing from people in recovery from all over the world has been a profound and humbling thing -- a part of the blogging experience that I really didn't think about when I started.

And as with anything to do with sponsorship in general, I have gotten so much more than I've given -- which of course is the great spiritual paradox of service:  Once you start sharing -- your heart, your time, your attention, your experience -- what comes back to you is always immeasurably greater than whatever you think you gave, however much that might be.

So with that I wanted to say thank you.  For the emails, the comments, the little blips on the TypePad Overview thingy that tells me someone, somewhere, clicked in for a bit.

Someday I'll make the time to pull some of this blog into a more organized and coherent format and maybe make a little book out of it.  You can self publish so easily now.  And if that impulse is fueled equally by a desire to continue to be of service and maybe some ego -- well, that certainly wouldn't be the first time such a heady mix was the gas in my car. 

Tomorrow will be, without fanfare, #1001.  I'll keep plugging away.  I'm too old an AA dog to say "...for another 1000 posts..."  One Day at a Time refers to blogging, too I think. 

Sometimes I sit down to write and I feel empty -- just nothing there -- so I wait.  And eventually something comes -- even if sometimes it is just one short sentiment.  I turn it over and put it down and figure that maybe someone somewhere needed to read just that thing just at that moment; so whatever it is it's the right thing to write, regardless of how inspired -- or "un" -- I may feel.  Ultimately it is my privilege to share in any way -- anywhere and in any fashion -- what was so freely given to me. 

There is a passage at the very end of 'Bill's Story' in The Big Book which never fails to choke me up:

"Most of us feel we need look no further for Utopia.  We have it with us right here and now.  Each day my friend's simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself in a widening circle of peace on earth and good will to men."

My heart is full of gratitude at being part of that ever widening circle with all of you...

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

if this were an answer on "Jeopardy"...

 

If this were an answer on "Jeopardy"

 

 

 

the question would be, "What does service do?"

how grateful I am

 

 

sometimes

I can write and write and write

about how grateful I am

for the life I have

and its quality -- in large part defined by my sobriety

and how AA has shaped my view of the world.

but nothing I write seems to ever truly capture

the depth of that gratitude.

 

if you are new to sobriety

hold on

one day at a time.

there are not the words

for the transformation you can experience.