Mr. SponsorPants

Ego: Thank you, Mr. Tolle, for your wonderful thoughts. Here, if I may, are a few additional comments of my own.

 

 

Ego is a part of the human experience.  Sometimes in AA, and in other schools of spiritual thought, we place it in a negative light (or, maybe that's just my interpretation of the light it is placed in?).

Speaking strictly for myself, I'm not sure the point is to try not to have one at all -- it is not a bad part of me, it is just a part of me; just like I have an arm, or a leg, and they are neither good nor bad but simply parts of me. 

I believe (for me) the point is to be aware of my ego and then try to transcend it.  To not let it be a driver but rather (to indulge a terrible metaphor) to have it be just a passenger.

To work -- using the tools of AA -- to be "right sized," that  is, neither 'greater than' nor 'less than' in relation to others, the world, or strangely sometimes even myself.

My greatest successes in this endeavor have come from two things:

1.  The repetition of a healthy message I hear in AA meetings (although that healthy message may be presented in an unhealthy way, meaning, some people are, as they say, shining examples while others are horrible warnings.  I learn equally from those who inspire me to emulate a positive example as I do from those who caution me through their behavior to try to be nothing like them).

2.  Prayer.  Whether I am actually able to connect with the Divine, or it is just a form of mental gymnastics in which I am rewriting the software of my mind, doesn't actually matter.  The result is what matters.  And in dealing with my ego, prayer works.

carrier pigeons

 

 

 

"...what matters is that we are doing our best.  We are sober.  And that's pretty damn good.  Actually, that IS our best."

A sponsee sent me that in a text today, and it showed up on my phone at a very opportune moment, which is the fancy way of saying: Damn, I needed to read that exactly at the moment I did.

Later on, I was thinking about that old AA term "pigeons" which was used (and still may be, in different parts of the country) as a moniker for a person someone sponsors -- as I use the word sponsee (and some people use the word "baby" -- though I've never felt overly comfortable with that one).

When I first heard the word "pigeon" in the context of a sponsee I thought it was demeaning or cynical.  And in fact one person I knew, many years ago now, used the term and attributed it to the idea that it is because a pigeon will shit on you and fly away.  (Nice, right?)

Fortunately I got the true story of how the term came to be used in this context, i.e., referring to a sponsee.

Apparently it started with Dr. Bob, one of AA's two co-founders.  He would refer to the people he did 12th Step work with as pigeons.  When asked why, he explained that in wartime (remember this was a very different era) carrier pigeons -- also sometimes referred to as homing pigeons -- were used to send vital information back and forth across great distances -- sometimes across enemy lines -- and that information could literally save lives.

So the 12th Step work he was doing with people was like the vital information transmitted by those carrier pigeons of old.  You sent them out, and they returned to you with a message which could potentially save your life.

I'm not one hundred percent sure of the accuracy of this origin story.  After all, AA's are no less vulnerable to sweetening up our own history than any other group of humans.  But whether it's fanciful or factual I can tell you this:  It's apt.

Because that's exactly what happened to me today -- vital, life-saving information returned home to me from someone I had been sharing it with for years now -- and I got it just when I needed it.

 

From the super fun, brilliant site "I Love Charts"

 

 

 

AA makes the red part really, really big, so that the orange part grows too.

(And remember, it's easier to feel like it's going to be okay if you stay.)

xo

Mr. SP

 

Questions via Email: Breathing and Meditating

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I've read almost everything you've written. I think maybe everything. I am trying to start to meditate like Step 11 says. I read a lot of your writing you talk about breathing and meditating.  Or breathing.  Do you do that and do you do it a certain way when you meditate?

JG

 

Dear JG,

I think there's a really good "hot air" joke at my expense lurking somewhere around the edges of this, but for the moment it lies tantalizingly out of reach.

It's a great question. 

First, I don't think there's a "wrong" way to meditate.  There are as many kinds of meditations as there are people who want to meditate.  Walking meditations, sitting meditations, chanting meditations... and then there are people (and I am one of them) who can see some activities as a form of meditation.  The mindful practice of washing the dishes, for example (though I confess that's not one I've done lately), or gardening, or sitting and listening to something (even in an AA meeting) with your whole self... I would urge you to consider that the point is not to do it right, the point is to do it.

And meditation seems, to me, to be about stilling the chaos in our minds by doing one of two things:  Thinking of NO thing or thinking of only ONE thing.  Whichever you try, one of the best things I've ever heard about meditation was in an AA meeting, and it was the idea that, since our meditation is in large part about seeking a conscious contact with Something Greater than ourselves, we should never be discouraged by those (many) moments in our meditation practice when our mind slips back into the chatter we seek to quiet.  We should instead try to remember that the realization of the return of the chatter, and the simple attempt to recapture a more quiet focus, IS the meditation, since it is the essence of the seeking that conscious contact.

Simply put, it's not just when you are able to quiet your mind which is the meditation; the attempt to do so is the essence of the seeking, and thus the most fruitful moments of a meditation practice.

Oh JG, I really wanted to give you a simple answer and refrain from too much pontificating (since if you've read a lot of my writing you've had to wade through a belly full of THAT I wager) and yet I still slid into some meta there.  Sorry.

Simple and practical advice (experience) about meditation and breathing:

• Sit comfortably, sit still, then count down 100 breaths, trying to think only about the numbers as you count them, and being aware of the depth and pace of your breathing as you go.  For most of us it will take a long time to even make it to 90 before the chatter starts to intrude.  (And, embarrassingly, I often sometimes lose count when I do that!  Sad but true.)

• Or do visualizations -- those work really well for me as it gives my imagination a focus and that somehow helps me find some quiet.  Visualize breathing in Light and breathing out Dark.  Or, if you don't like the idea of visualizing darkness inside you when you meditate, visualize a sort of glowing white energy breathing in and then a not-glowing white energy breathing out.

• Come up with a mantra and as you breathe say it in rhythm to your breaths.  Then you get both mediation AND affirmation in one practice!  It's like the double word score of spiritual Scrabble!

• Press your index fingers to your thumbs as you inhale, hold the breath for a three count, and then release the breath, opening your fingers as you do -- feel all the stored energy (and tension) you collected flow out with the exhalation.

There are tons of guides and suggestions out there -- why not take a poll among people in Meetings you find interesting -- or break the ice with someone you find intimidating by asking about their mediation practice.  Or, maybe best of all, ask that person who seems to be at the meeting a lot but is often removed from the group in one way or another what their thoughts are -- then you can maybe both learn something helpful but also (and more importantly perhaps) help someone feel "a part of."

I myself have had long stretches -- years worth -- of a very disciplined and kind of "formal" meditation practice, and also had long stretches -- years worth -- of a much more casual, on-the-fly series of exercises to try and find peace amidst mental turmoil (I use those a LOT at work right now).

And while I feel that, outside of trying to follow a particular religion's specific discipline I want to reiterate that I don't think you can really do meditation "wrong," I also want to point out that in this, as in all things, you'll get a result in proportion to your effort.

In other words, to use an analogy, we can say that, yes, taking a stroll around the block is a form of exercise.  It's good for you and it stirs the blood and will increase your respiration a little, but that level of exercise won't get you to the Olympics.  To have a powerful physical transformation one needs the regular practice of a rigorous physical exercise routine.  I suspect that (for me) the "washing-the-dishes-mindfully-meditation" is the spiritual equivalent of walking around the block.  Sure, it's a meditation of sorts, but the result will not be the same as a disciplined -- even challenging -- regular (daily) meditation practice.

Hope some of that was helpful and not just a lot of ... nope.  Still can't find a fresh take on the hot air line.

 

Cheers!

Mr. SP

 

sleeping monsters

 

 

 

Some monsters I've been able to evict.

A few I've tamed.

The rest I work hard to keep asleep.

 

Alcoholics Anonymous.

It's like a daily lullabye

for the monsters in my head.

Sometimes I think about how much time I spent drinking

 

 

Sometimes I think about how much time I spent drinking,

stuck in the bar, stuck in the bottle; trapped in the infinity doomloop of self-obssession and chemically altered thoughts.

But I don't think of it as time wasted

(see what I did there?)

though it does occasionally take my breath away when I think about the sheer volume of hours days weeks years spent in sickness.

 

The AA literature suggests that we "do not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it."

Sometimes when people reference that bit of the lit they sound as though they are following (or issuing) an order.

But it's not.

Not regretting the past, nor wishing to shut the door on it, is not an order to follow -- it is a result.  Specifically the result of working the 12 Steps (and, not to put too fine a point on it, a particular result promised before you are "half way through" Step 9.)

 

For me, this result is also rooted in the beginning of the 12 Steps, and understanding the disease concept of alcoholism.

To express how I understand this with a metaphor:

Someone who spent the first 20 years of their life in a wheelchair may think wistfully about what it might have been like to grow up free from that confinement -- but they probably don't get angry with themselves for not having spent their childhood in ballet or track -- because it's not that they didn't do those things (and thus "wasted" that time/opportunity), it's that they couldn't do those things.

The same is true for me when I understand the disease concept of alcoholism, and when I take the first step in understanding how powerless I am over it.  It's not that I didn't do healthier, better things -- it's that at that time in my life I couldn't do them.

 

And finally,

I had to have been who I was to be who I am.

And if I like who I am now, then nothing that happened before is really worth regretting.

 

lintiful

 

One of my regular AA Meetings couldn't meet this past week since there was a function at the building where we rent our room.  With some of the work challenges of late I haven't had as much flexibility with my time to add a "substitute" meeting to my routine if one I've planned my work around doesn't happen. 

Rushing a load of work clothes through the wash to go back in unexpectedly (long story) I was grousing in my head about ... oh, all of it.  The usual.  The result of course was that I was starting to be not-right-sized for my life...

Shoving socks and undershirts into the dryer I pulled out the lint trap and it was so lintiful (that's plentiful with lint, thankyouverymuch) it was like removing a washcloth from the trap rather than the usual slender layer.

It occurred to me then; I think my alcoholic mind is like the lint trap in a clothes dryer.

The more Meetings I go to, the more it's cleaned out.

The fewer I get... stuff builds up.

And when that happens, well... let's just say performance is impaired for both units.

Attack of the Killer Salad Dressing

 

 

It was apparent to even a casual observer that the poor woman had a lot more going on than just a typical case of nerves, low blood sugar or "having a bad day-itis".

When she ordered her salad, she said to the cashier "And please make sure that there is no salad dressing -- absolutely none! -- anywhere even near my salad.  If there is, I could die!"

(Sometimes for the sake of a good story exclamation points and italics will be used to give someone's statements a little flavor -- to slant a characterization into a kind of hyperbolic delivery.  I assure you, no matter which words I emphasize and no matter how many exclamation points I deploy, I cannot possibly express in writing the quivering, hysterical, vehement, anxious and aggressive way in which this woman spoke.  And I am not mocking, I am describing.)

My cashier was a trouper, and did a great job of being respectful and sincere (I have a terrific team) "Yes m'am.  I have a button on the terminal just for that.  'No dressing.'  May I get you anything else?"

"Just make sure..." she repeated the mortal danger she was in should even a drop of salad dressing land on her plate.  "If it's even in a those little cups on the side of the plate, I could die!" (That's honest-to-god a direct quote). 

"Yes m'am."

She was in her seat for all of three minutes when she got up and spoke to the busboy, repeating her concerns and, frankly, working herself up a little more.  I was stuck on the phone with a Big Problem and couldn't get over to her immediately.  I gave my Lead a Look and he went over and rescued the busboy, who by now was a little frightened, since he's only on disc three ESL program we got him.

Back to her seat she went.

For all of another two minutes.

I was going nuts stuck on the phone, but the call was wrapping up.  I watched her go up to the other cashier and ask where her food was, and repeat again about the salad dressing and how she could die if there was any on her salad.  I could see my team slide this Guest into the Crazy column and start to stop listening.

Suffice to say she managed to speak to every single person working the shift (six, total) and become more agitated by the minute that her food was not at her table.

I finally had the chance to speak with her myself.

I gave my Kitchen Manager a look that said "This guest's salad, NOW" as she was almost screaming that she was a diabetic and did I want to see her medical card?  I assured her I did not.  I offered to get her juice, or fruit, or go to the market (next door) for whatever she might need and that her salad would be up in a moment, but to that she replied "I'm not here on vacation you know!"  (yeah, I have no clue either.)

And here's where it really went south:

Somehow (I put this together after the fact) in talking to one of the staff and describing how the dressing in the little cups on the side of the plate placed her in mortal danger as much as dressing on the salad itself (and language barriers figure into this again) they thought she wanted the dressing in little cups on the side, and in an effort to help went back to the kitchen and wrote "dressing on the side" on her ticket -- so when her salad came through the Expediter Window it had no dressing on it, but two little cups of dressing were perched (like vipers!) on the side of the plate.  And naturally, she was standing right there when it came through the window, having gotten up again to check where her food was.

I do not have the talent as a writer to describe accurately the fit of hysterical screaming which ensued.

Eventually we got her a salad without dressing -- eventually being about thirty more seconds. She sat and ate it, the rest of the diners somewhat subdued and unsure where to look.  I (obviously) voided her payment and approached her table to give her the receipt showing the charge as voided and apologize (again).

"You are humiliating me!  Get away from me!"

Obviously there was nothing more to do in a case like this, and I retreated.

My team was frightened and embarrassed (one of those is the correct response actually.  Regardless of how over-the-top she was, we screwed up her order.  Sure, there's context, but at the end of the day the score is the score.  Did we get it right or did we get it wrong?  It was a simple request and we got it wrong.)

Eventually a general buzz of conversation filled the air again, and finally she left.  Right or wrong, I was relieved to see her go.

I spoke to each of the people on the shift and in the kitchen to both find out how we screwed it up and help them shake it off -- we had a whole lunch to get through after that, and they needed to do it with smiles and aplomb.

Later, I closed the door of my office and just took some deep breaths.  I thought for a minute about the camera, and how maybe I was being watched and should be on the floor of the restaurant rather than sitting there with my head in my hands.

I muttered a barely audible and deeply sincere "fuckit" and kept taking some deep breaths.

The poor woman was obviously a tortured soul, and regardless of how horrible and enraging and embarrassing it is to be spoken to in the way she went off on me, the strongest thing I felt was compassion -- I couldn't imagine what her daily life must be like.

But it also struck me that -- if I wanted to (and I did, at that moment) -- I could draw a little parable from the Universe about footwork and control and results from the whole incident. 

Because the fact was, when she ordered her salad, we got it right.  The ticket was correct.  And sure, sometimes in life you need to follow up and give due diligence, but if she had just made her order and trusted the process her salad would likely have come out quickly and correctly.  It was her constant, repeated attempts to involve herself in the process, check on the process, guide the process, which was what actually produced the exact opposite result from the very one she so desperately desired.

That's a good take away from this.

I can make myself crazy -- and I think it is ultimately folly -- to spend too much time trying to divine lessons from events in my life.  Whatever I get from it on the first pass is probably what I was meant to get.  Worrying at it like the proverbial dog with a bone is eventually just an exercise in self obsession.  If there's more for me to perceive it will reveal itself, I don't have to keep rearranging the mental pieces to see if there's something I missed.

So it was a good reminder about footwork vs. control, and trusting the process and such -- but to be honest with you (and You, Universe) I just don't know why I had to wipe some poor, tortured, abusive, crazy woman's spittle off my glasses to be reminded of it.

 

And so it goes...

 

 

Questions via Email: AA makes me want to drink (I think)

 

 

Hi Mr. Sponsorpants,

I just came back from a very lovely, cosy AA meeting in my home city in the UK.   Nice people, comfy chairs.  I am definitely an alcoholic.  No doubt.  Stayed sober for 3 months without much hassle.  Relapsed 2 weeks ago for a few eventful days, most of which I can’t remember.  When sober, 90% of the time I don’t even think about drinking.  After an AA meeting, listening to people talking about drinking, drinking, drinking, Alcohol, as soon as I get home, I have a huge urge to drink.  I am scared not to go to meetings because according to the old timers, I will drink.  I am scared to go to the meetings because from experience, after  meetings I want to drink.  (not always but more often than not I think about it)

 Maybe I am making my sobriety much tougher than necessary thinking that it depends on AA.  We are all made of different components.  Could it be counter effective for some of us?  The truth please!

 Regards,

 T

 

Dear T,

First off... comfy chairs?  What the hell?  I've been sitting on dreadful folding metal chairs (about as comfortable as something purchased at a waterboarding equipment after-market sale) for all these years!  You have comfy chairs in your UK meetings?  Damn you, Sir or Madame!  Damn you and your comfy chairs all to hell!

Now then, about AA being "counter effective" for some of us.  Us as in "real alcoholics" us?  And you want the truth?

The truth is that I am not an expert.  I have no idea.  I'm not dodging your question nor am I trying to conceal some Hidden Truth we long timers in AA learn after getting our 20 year chip (God, it would be so cool if AA had some kind of cabalistic Hidden Truth you get to after a while.  I imagine it would be concealed in a Codex entitled "The Secret Writings of Lois Wilson" and to access it you must face Akron, Ohio at 12:12am and place your 20 year chip against the indentation at the top of the ... no.  Wait.  Isn't that a scene from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"?)

The truth is... maybe.  I suppose it's possible.

As I'm sure you know, one of the things about the mental component of alcoholism is that it seems to cloud our thinking to the point where drinking, regardless of what has happened to us when we drank before, appears to be a good idea again.  So in my experience, when people say "if you don't go to AA you're going to drink" that is because that has proven true for them -- or they believe it to be true for them.  (I believe that is true for me.)  In other words, AA helps them (me) remember what happens when I drink (that's only one facet of course, and a bit of a simplification, but it will do for now).

But the spirit of this idea is that, if you have the disease of alcoholism you will not be able to stay sober on your unaided willpower alone.  Without something to help you stay sober the consequences of what happens when you pick up a drink will not be present in your mind with enough force to deter you from going ahead and picking up a drink again.  Just like if you had any other chronic medical condition you would need help and medicine to treat it -- you couldn't just conquer it with your will.  "It seems that I have asthma.  But you know what?  The next time I feel an asthma attack coming on I'm just going to decide to breathe normally!  That's all.  I mean, I'm breathing normally now, right?  In fact, I breathe normally 90% of the time."  Yeah, good luck with that plan. 

So... is there "something else" which can help you stay sober, other than AA?  There are certainly lots of people who are anti-AA out there, and they make for a strong presence in some corners of the Internet.  I confess I've not read every single word of what they've written (and saying "they" is painting with a ridiculously broad brush, I grant you) but while there is tremendous intensity and a lot of detailed critique in their negative feelings about AA, in my cursory examination I've not seen a lot of actual, specific suggestions about how to stay sober beyond "just don't drink."  And again, I want to stress that information may be there and I just haven't really seen it.

For me there are degrees of thinking about drinking.  The thought of a drink can occur, but I don't have to invite it to sit down (in a comfy chair!) and put its feet up, serve it a cuppa and chat it up for a while.  Thinking is not necessarily the desire.  And the desire is not the same as the obsession.  Are you indulging these thoughts, T?  When you get home from the meeting and you start thinking about drinking do you call anyone?  Write?  Pray?  Jog?  Eat?  Anything? 

AA works for me.  When I hear people talk about drinking in meetings it is not a glorification so much as a description which I can identify with -- and not just with the drinking but with the inevitable slide downwards which accompanies it (in whatever form that takes).

But AA is a lot more than sitting in a comfy chair (damn you!) and listening to people's stories. 

Big Book?  Steps?  Sponsor?  Hello?

The general consensus from an awful lot of corners (medical, psychiatric, religious, 12 Step, etc.) is that some kind of ongoing assistance is pretty important for an addict if they want to stay clean.

All I have is your email to work from, but you seem to minimize the fact that you were pretty much in a blackout for 72 hours.  I wouldn't presume to agree with you that you're an alcoho -- oh, the hell with that, I certainly will presume it.  A 72 hour blackout, T?  A few "eventful days" as you so coyly describe it?  Just puttering around the garden shed were we, and lost track of time?

Please.

It is good -- no, it's great -- that you say "I am definitely an alcoholic.  No doubt."  That certainty is a solid beginning.  But there's a reason there are 12 Steps.  It's not a one step program.  Or, to drag that damned Big Book into it again, "self knowledge avails us nothing."  Knowing you're an alcoholic is not nearly enough to help you stay sober.  Just like knowing you have fair skin and sunburn easily will not actually prevent you from getting a sunburn.

There are 12 Steps because it is a process.  Just like to make a cake a recipe might have 7 steps, to make a spiritual experience of the AA variety requires an alcoholic to take all 12 Steps.  And without a spiritual experience -- a "psychic upheaval" as Dr. Jung called it -- (be it gradual or the more rare thunderbolt kind) according to AA, and the personal experience of many people who have come to AA -- and my own personal experience -- staying sober is a bit of a longshot for a real alcoholic.

I would urge you to try all of the AA program before you decide it's not for you.

I would urge you to bring an uncomfortable folding metal chair to your meetings and sit in it.  I doubt it will do anything to help you stay sober, but why should I be the only one suffering.

Are you "making your sobriety tougher than necessary thinking it depends on AA?"

I have no idea.

I don't know if AA is counter effective for you.

All I can tell you is that it has definitely worked for me.

Try going without it, and if you're fairly happy and don't have any more 72 hour blackouts then I guess you were right, and we'll both have learned something.

You'll forgive me, I hope, if I let you learn that lesson on your own, rather than join you.

 

Good luck,

Mr. SponsorPants

 

 

self knowledge (alone) avails us nothing...

 

Believing that knowing you're an alcoholic will help you control your drinking is like believing that knowing you have fair skin will keep you from getting a sunburn at the beach.