Mr. SponsorPants

like driving a car with wheels that are out of alignment

 

 

Having an alcoholic mind is like driving a car with wheels that are out of alignment.

If you just hold the steering wheel normally, without making any effort to compensate for the misalignment, the car begins to drift sideways... potentially into oncoming traffic.  You have to apply a little ongoing, consistent effort against the drift to keep the car moving forward in a straight line, safely in the middle of the lane.

The same is true of the alcoholic mind -- it also needs a little ongoing, consistent effort applied against the pull of alcoholism in our thinking, or it too will drift... also potentially into oncoming traffic.

Questions via Email: dead soon if I don't stop

 

 

Hi

I have been in and out of AA so many times I can’t stand it.  Been in [a number of] treatment centers, gotten [a number of] dui’s, lost everything many times.  Still can’t stop drinking.  Don’t understand why I just can’t stop and surrender to the program.  I do for a few weeks then something comes over me and I am right back out.

 

What is wrong with me?

 

-dead soon if I don’t stop.

 

The book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) is rich with language to describe addiction and what you are going through: Words like baffling... heartbreaking... in fact, it calls this the "heartbreaking riddle" -- and in reading your brief, poignant and desperate email I cannot but feel that phrase is a perfect expression of this terrible cycle.

The internet has allowed you and I, through it's strange combination of intimacy and anonymity, to reach out to each other.  As such, given both the specific and general nature of your email, what I am moved to do is offer you questions to consider, rather than write some passionate plea about things you've maybe heard countless times in rehabs and meetings.  I want to offer you the best I can in trying to help -- I hope and pray something in these questions triggers an insight which can be the first domino in a chain of thoughts and actions which knocks your relapse cycle on its ass.

Before I do, remember this:  Sometimes a cancer is so virulent that it takes many applications of a medicine for it to be arrested.  Addiction is a disease.  There is nothing "wrong" with you.  You have a disease which corrupts your thinking and triggers this cycle.  I use the cancer analogy a lot lately, and I believe now it is more apt than ever.  Addiction is like a cancer of the mind.  If cancer in the body is cell growth out of control, then addiction is the cancer of our thinking; certain thoughts grow out of control, until they eclipse all others.  So it's not a question of you not "getting it" it's a question of you seeking the place where your disease trumps the medicine, and working to ward against that.

Some, all or none may apply.  It is my deep hope one of them helps you shine a light on this relapse mechanism -- because you are right.  It will kill you.

 

Consider what might help and ignore the rest:

Do you have a secret?

Some of the people I know who have not been able to stay sober had terrible secrets which seemed to prevent them from fully surrendering to their recovery.  Sometimes these things are deep down, and may not be in our thoughts every day, but still exert a pull on us, so that after we get clean, and feel raw from doing life un-buffered, we are vulnerable to using again.  Is it possible you have a secret which you're carrying around, and which is working against your staying sober?

 

Do you have an "outside issue?"

I am speaking in medical terms now.  Addicts are difficult to diagnose since we present with so many different kinds of symptoms.  Sometimes we are undiagnosed, and our drinking and using is an attempt to self-medicate not just our addiction, but something else.  Sometimes we are over-diagnosed, and have many medications which we are sloppy about taking or combine in ways we shouldn't or... or... or.  If you're playing a game with meds, that's not going to help you get and stay sober.  Regardless, if you are taking medicine as prescribed by a qualified medical professional DO NOT STOP TAKING IT.  Outside issues need outside help, only you can be honest with yourself and say whether you are using or abusing any medicine you're prescribed.  And if you have a family history of certain medical conditions, i.e., bi-polar disorder, manic depression, etc., you need competent, qualified medical assistance in dealing with those conditions in addition to dealing with your addiciton.

 

Have you come to believe that AA won't work for you?

One of the most terrible things about a relapse cycle is you look around and see others "getting it," and you try everything AA suggests and yet it feels like it doesn't work for you, and you begin to fear that while AA works for everybody else, you're too broken and damaged and it never will in your case.  But here's the thing -- and this is NOT an accusation -- is it possible you've been inconsistent in what you're tried?  If I go to the gym for a couple of weeks, but leave the spin class early, and skip out on a couple of appointments with my trainer, and then become discouraged and give up, I'm able to sit at home and say to myself that I tried going to the gym but it didn't work for me.  This is NOT a moral issue.  Trying all of AA's suggestions is counter to a lot of our thinking and nature, and there can be a lot of factors working on us to phone it in or plain opt out.  So you might have come to believe that AA won't work for you by only taking a half dose of the AA medicine.  Reading that might make you want to scream and tear your hair out.  "I've tried!  I've tried and tried!"  If you have, you have.  But with your life on the line it's worth sitting back down and looking over what "tried" looks like, objectively.  Again, I'm not impuning what you've done so far, just suggesting you look at the dosage on your AA medicine.

 

Are you listening to the wrong person?

Is there someone close to you in your life who undermines your sobriety?

 

Are you unwilling to do things differently?

On a very basic level AA works for me because I decided to do what AA suggested, and not what I wanted to do, no matter how mad, bad, sad, ugly, pretty, horny, scared, entitled, tired or -- most dangerous of all -- bored, I felt.  I always have a really good reason for doing what I want to do.  It was a great lightbulb for me to understand that willingness is not the same as "want to" -- I kept waiting to "want to" do what AA suggested, when really it was much more the truth that I didn't want to feel bad, so I did what AA suggested until I felt better, and then I went back to doing what I wanted.  I want the result, sobriety, without doing the process, which in this case equals not doing things my way.  Willingness, for me, means that I'll do what I don't want to do, one day at a time, whether I feel like it, or think I need it, or not.  You say in your email "... why I just can't stop and surrender to the program..."  Perhaps that's a telling clue for you to look at regarding how you approach this, because in my experience it works better the other way around:  If you surrender to the Program, then you'll find Grace and can stop.

 

What's going on with your sharing?

Don't think that relapsing, or only having a few weeks sober, means you have nothing to offer.  NOTHING could be farther from the truth.  Your experience of relapse, and what happens to you before you go out, and your ability to keep coming back, is INVALUABLE and can save lives, if you share it.  But you have to share it.  And sharing it, while maybe uncomfortable, will help you begin to change any self-judgment you have into self-acceptance -- though for most of us that's a gradual process which takes a while.

 

Are you being of service?

God, I'm so worried by this point in my questions it sounds like some litany of lack, like I'm playing at being subtly accusatory regarding what you're not doing.  That's not what I want to do at all -- but you say "something comes over you" and I have heard similar things from others over the years.  While it can be very useful to deconstruct what that "something" is, the deconstruction is a mental exercise, and to stay sober it's about action.  Service will save your life.  "We work out our solution on the altruistic plane" is what the Big Book says.  More than just setting up chairs -- though that's a great thing if you choose to take the commitment seriously, and show up for it drunk or sober, happy or sad, feeling like it or not -- service to other addicts in recovery can make all the difference, be it giving rides to meetings, calling to see how someone having a hard time is doing, being a "phone buddy" to someone else who's new, volunteering to be on a panel which goes into hospitals and jails and telling your story, offering to help at one of those rehabs you went to... something.  Anything.  The more you are of service the better your chance to thwart the "something" you describe as coming over you, as it tries to take you back out.

 

Believe me when I tell you this:  Just today I met with someone who's more than ten years sober who took years to get it.  I talked on the phone with someone who used to live in Central Park, covered in wine sores, who had a terrible, horrible time for years in AA when they tried to get sober, who is now literally "happy, joyous and free," at the top of his profession, in a great relationship and sober many years now.  I have sponsored -- and sponsor -- people who have not been able to stay sober in terms of years, but continue to get better and continue to come back, with long amounts of sober time filling their lives.  AA works, if you stay and keep trying.  The voice in your head that tells you it's not working, it won't work, you can't do it... that's not the voice to listen to.  Listen instead to the voices outside your head, the one's in meetings, who understand and want to help.

 

Thank you for writing, and I hope one or more of those questions might spark some light to pierce the fog which shrouds your thinking before you pick up a drink again.

You are not alone, though it may feel like it.

You are not without help, even if you feel helpless, or hopeless.

You are not doomed to die drunk, no matter what your fear and your alcoholism tells you.  You're not.

If you don't believe that today, believe that I do, and borrow some of mine, since I believe it with all my heart.

Pray and breathe.

Read the Big Book.  Go to 90 meetings in 90 days.  Call three other alcoholics every day.  Get a sponsor and be open to their direction.  So what if you tried it before and you think it didn't work -- you're alive today, so it can work today.  Many applications of the medicine may be required for it to take, remember?  Just take it one day at a time.  Your past is not your future; every sober person is living proof of that.

Good luck, and please keep coming back.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

 

 

Questions via Email: Part 1 - How do you make the group your "Higher Power?"

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

After [more than 25] years of drinking, I have been attending AA since [last fall] but other than [a couple of weeks over the holidays] I have not been sober consecutively. I am currently [in my first week]. I really struggle with this higher power concept. I know that I can use the group, but really, how do you turn your life and will over to a group of people. I like the meetings and doubt that I could get sober alone, but these steps seem so strange to a logical thinker like myself. Can you share anything that might help me?

J

 

Dear J,

Remember, what defines the quality of someone's recovery is not that they drank, or drank more than once, it is that they got sober again.  We each have today, and being sober today is your miracle and your triumph.  I can tell from your email you're willing and you have a great attitude -- the only two things you have to manage on your own -- so I have absolutely no doubt if you stick close you'll make it.

But your questions are good ones, and not the first (and certainly not the last) I'll hear them either on the blog or in person, so I'm very glad you brought them up.

They're so good in fact, I'm gonna make you a two-parter.

First one first:  How do you turn your life and will over to a group of people?  Or, to refine that a bit, how do you make an AA group your Higher Power?

To best answer that, I need to show you some things.  Take my hand, we're going to travel through Time and Space for a few minutes.  Ready?

**BAMF!**

J:  Where are we?

Mr. SP: Ummm, my aim isn't as precise as I like but if I ...

looks up at the night sky, checks the constellations

Mr. SP:  Yes, this is roughly the early 1800's, and we're somewhere in Texas.  See that old guy over there?

J:  By the campfire? 

Mr. SP:  Yes.  He's got something to tell us.

J and Mr. SP wander over.

Old Guy by the Campfire:  If you need space by the fire, I can share.

Mr. SP:  Thank you kindly.

Old Guy by the Campfire:  You two look a might new at this.  Remember, if you get up in the middle of the night to take a pee, shake out your bedroll before you get back into it.

J:  How come?

Old Guy:  Scorpions.  They crawl in when you get up, attracted by how warm and toasty you left the blankets.

Mr. SP:  Thanks, we've got to get going though.

Old Guy:  Suit yourselves.

**BAMF**

J: Holy...

Mr. SP:  Speak up, I can't hear you over the engines!

J:  Where...?

Mr. SP:  We're in a plane over France in... if I got it right, 1942...

J:  What the hell...?

Mr. SP:  Hang on, we need to listen to this guy...

Points to airman in camo and blackface

Airman:  I've done a hundred jumps, and you guys are new, right?  Remember, after you jump...

J:  We're going to jump?

Airman:  Pay attention!  After you get your 'chute on, we'll do some recon over the landing site and you can jump when we see the signal.  No matter how fast you think you're falling, make sure you do a slow count to 20 before you pull the ripcord... otherwise, your 'chute might tangle in the props, got it?

Mr. SP and J nod.

Mr. SP:  Got it. Uh, I mean, Got it, Sir!

**BAMF!**

J:  This is getting... where are we now?

Mr. SP:  Florida Keys.  Sometime in the '70's I think.

J:  How do you know it's the '70's if you're not very good at this? 

Mr. SP: All the paisley.

J:  What is this place? 

Mr. SP:  It's a dive school.  Shhh, here's the instructor.

Instructor walks up with a class in various scuba gear

Instructor: ... bends, which is basically when nitrogen bubbles, created by pressure at the depths we'll eventually dive to, enter the liquid in your body, and should you rise towards the surface too quickly will be forced out... very painful and possibly fatal.  What you need to do is rise at a measured pace, via a schedule which...

Mr. SP:  Okay, let's get back.

**BAMF!**

J:  What was the point of all that?

Mr. SP:  Okay, if you'd stayed by the campfire that night, back in the 1800's, and you'd gotten up to pee in the night, would you have followed that Old Guy's advice? 

J:  Well... sure.

Mr. SP:  Why?

J:  Well, he knows what he's talking about... I mean, I've never camped in a bedroll by a fire and he has so...

Mr. SP:  What about the Airman and his slow count instructions?  Would you have done that?

J:  Sure, although I'm not sure how slowly I can count when I'm jumping out of a plane. 

Mr. SP:  Me neither, actually.  But why do you believe him? 

J:  Well... he's like, a trained air force guy.  He said he'd done like a hundred jumps and so, you know, he's... he knows how to do it.  Don't think I can't see where you're going here...

Mr. SP:  Indulge me.  What about the Dive Instructor, if you were in that class, would you follow the formula he was going to lay out to avoid the bends?

J:  Yes.

Mr. SP:  Why?

J:  The bends is painful, I know that without all this rigmarole.

Mr. SP:  So you would make those guys your Higher Power?  Like you'd worship them and stuff?

J:  No, not... not worship them, that sounds weird and creepy.

Mr. SP:  So in those situations you're turning your will and your life over to them -- meaning you'll seek their counsel and follow their suggestions -- because they have experience in how to survive where you find yourself.

J:  Yeah.  Okay, yeah.

Mr. SP:  So it's not really the individual people you're turning your will and your life over to -- it's not specific people, it's their knowledge and experience of how to survive something. That's what you're surrendering to.  It's their experience which is your "Higher Power."

J: ... well... yeah.

Mr. SP:  So that's how you do it then.

J:  Do what?

Mr. SP:  Turn your will and your life over to an AA group.  You find yourself in a position equally fraught with danger and potential for pain and fatality today as you might have been in any of those other scenarios.  Only instead of scorpions and tangled 'chutes and the bends you're facing addiction and fear and ego.  And the people in the meeting have survived those same things... so what they have to tell you has value because it's based on experience -- even if the way some of them say it is colored by their own ego and such.  Just because someone's been sober a while doesn't mean they stop being a work in progress.  If the Diving Instructor turned out to be an unmitigated ass, it wouldn't invalidate the truth of what he was telling you about what the bends are, how they can harm you and what you need to do to avoid them, right?

J:  Yeah, I guess.  Yeah.

Mr. SP:  Same in an AA group.  It's not the people that you're turning your will and your life over to (they're messy and flawed as individuals, and in one way or another they always will be -- the best we get is progress)... it's their practical experience of how to stay sober, and how to apply this recovery and 12 Step information to your life, day in, day out, one day at a time.  That's what you are turning your will and life over to.  So you simply live your daily routine the way AA suggests you do, and when you hit a snag or have a question or a problem, share about it in the group and take in the suggestions which are offered.  Some people might be easier to listen to than others, but on the whole, you'll get good orderly direction.  And God knows, when I was newly sober, that's what I needed.  What my mind came up with as how to handle things was usually NOT a good plan to follow.  The only experience I had to offer myself was how to live a drinking life in active addiction.  I needed to follow the plan laid out by people who had experience NOT doing pretty much the only way I knew how to do anything.  Following their plan, and asking them for input when I was stuck, was how I first "turned my will and my life" over to AA.

J:  Oh.

 

Part 2 tomorrow...

 

 

Questions via Email: "... it's the dishonesty that's really killing me."

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I haven't had a drink in [well over six months] nor have I [done my other drug of choice] during that same time. However [not too long ago] I had to have [a minor medical proceedure] and was given percocet. It's not my first experience with that drug in fact I did have an opiate addiction at one time. I'm not taking percocet now but I am, on a daily basis, taking pills that contain codeine. I take between 20 and 30 in a day. Truth is I'm addicted and want to stop. When I quit opiates in the past I'd just drink like crazy through the four days of withdrawal. That's not an option this time. It is possible to taper off these things and really minimize the effects of withdrawal. But there are other problems. I'm feeling like a fraud at my meetings. I haven't told anybody about this because I figured it wasn't going to last. I'm not really praying or taking care of my spiritual life the way I know I should. I'd like to get back on the AA wagon - it's the dishonesty that's really killing me.

X

 

Dear X,

When 12 Step literature describes addiction as "cunning, baffling and powerful" it's not just a clever turn of phrase.  You are, as you've admitted to yourself and in your email, in active addiction and that is a painful, terrible place to be.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, your life is in real jeopardy.  This is not just a case of "getting your shit together" -- your life is on the line.  Now, that fact rarely helps people get sober.  If it did, the first time I was driving drunk and came out of a blackout heading for a tree (narrowly missing it) I would have thought, "Wow, I could die if I keep on like this!  I better stop!" instead of what I actually thought, which was something like "Wow, that road is too hard to drive when I've been out.  I better find a different way to go!"  This was when I was 16 -- there were many other near-death, near-tragedy experiences along the way, and not one of them penetrated my consciousness enough to get me to stop. Because this is the "baffling nature" of addiction.  This is the "curious mental blank spot" which the Big Book talks about.  We are unable to recall "with sufficient force" the consequences of our drinking (using) -- in other words, the things which happen to us don't impact us nearly enough to get us to stop.

So although you did not mention anything in your email about driving under the influence or any other "major" risks, there are plenty of death certificates out there which read "fell asleep while smoking" or "head injury as a result of fall out of window" or a hundred other things where ultimately the coroner's report should say "addiction."  I know what an old granny that paragraph makes me sound like -- but frankly, I've been to enough funerals to not really care.

 

Let me say the tough thing first, just to get it out of the way.  Please know that although I am being direct there is not one single solitary molecule of judgment in this, because if you have poked around here you know that I was in a somewhat similar situation once.

Ready?  Here it is:

When I feel like a fraud it is because I am not being honest about something important or with people important to me.  And I'm sorry but that's what's happening to you in your meetings.  You feel like a fraud because you are being a fraud.  I know the fear of judgment, the ego, the desire to feel clean with it but the unwillingness to disclose, the concern that the people you're close to will be angry, or feel betrayed, or will reject you, or the hundred other ways addiction weaves a barrier made of fear and ego to prevent you from opening your mouth... but the only way to feel honest is to be honest.  And until you are, I'm very much afraid that you blunt the force of your AA meeting experience.  (Not to mention that under the best of circumstances I avoid things that make me unhappy, uncomfortable or cause me pain, so you're quite possibly creating a great scenario in which you eventually avoid meetings altogether.)

And if, on some vain level you don't want to "give up your time" -- a reason both silly and serious to a lot of people -- well, I'm afraid you're not giving up any time, because you don't currently have it.  You're not clean, X.  Yes, you haven't had a drink or done that other thing in more than six months but that's like saying I haven't murdered anyone in their twenties for the past six months, I've only been murdering people in their thirties.

So the first thing to do, before you get into figuring out how to detox or anything else, is to pick ONE person in your life and tell them the truth.  It will be hard, so let me help you get started.

Say this: 

I have a secret and it's hard for me to say, so please don't interrupt me or freak out after I say it, just let me get it out I need to say it out loud.  I've relapsed.  I've been taking 20 to 30 X's a day, and they have codeine in them.  So I'm not sober and I've been afraid to tell anyone that I'm using, so I'm starting with you.  I need to get clean again.

My experience is that once I start telling the truth face-to-face, it is much easier to do it again.  Easier is not "easy" but easier is better than not at all.

Next, I believe you need a medically supervised detox.  You are right.  Drinking your way through the detox is not an option, obviously.  But as an addict in active addiction the phenomenon of craving is alive and working on you, and the idea of "tapering off" on your own... well, it is possible I guess, and I certainly want to be supportive of any plan that gets you clean again, but I just don't see it as the best plan. 

If the idea of getting involved in some sort of medically supervised detox sounds like "too big a deal" to you, please scroll up and refer to the part about dying again.  This is about setting yourself up for success in getting clean.  Doing it on your own, in secret, or downplaying how hard it is to kick, is not exactly setting yourself up for success, in my humble opinion.

The part of you that says you should start next week, or Monday, or after you use up what you already bought, or anything like that, isn't really you talking.  IT'S YOUR ADDICTION TALKING, doing a perfect impersonation of your own voice in your head.  To people who are not addicts that idea may sound fanciful, dramatic or crazy, but you're an addict, you know exactly how true that is.

Which is why you need to start this by being honest, out loud, face-to-face with someone as soon as possible.  Shining the light on that thinking in such a way shows it for the lie that it is.

If there is absolutely no kind of qualified health care professional available to you, for financial or other reasons, then a detox partner is what you need.  Someone holding for you and giving you the pills on a schedule, tapering you off over a set number of days.  But this is serious business, and it is much, much better to involve some kind of health care professional.

Last in what I'm writing but first in what you need to do is to ask for spiritual help.  To people outside the 12 Step world this idea is tantamount to suggesting someone pray away chickenpox rather than go to a doctor.  What we know is that we are not using a spiritual solution instead of doing other things, we are using a spiritual connection to help us do those other things.  In this case, your first "other things" are being honest face-to-face with someone, and secondly being willing to take action right away.

If you pray for help, help WILL come.  It may not look like you thought it would, or be the way you want it, but it will come.

Please do not delay.  Remember some of your thinking about important things is upside down and backwards right now, because you are in your addiction.  For most of us when we are where you are, it is 49% want to keep using and 51% want to get clean.  Listen to that one percent of you that wants to live, and don't let it be drowned out by the conniving addict inside you.

You are not doomed to a life of using, or relapse.  There are many days of freedom and happiness ahead of you -- days in which this painful, fearful, difficult time will actually be used to help other people get through their own problems with honesty and recovery.

Pray to God -- as you understand God -- for help.  And know this:

Right now, after I finish typing this sentence, I am praying for God to help you too.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

I can choose

 

 

I can convince myself something is going to be difficult armed with nothing more than a crappy, closed-minded attitude and half an inaccurate fact.

I can remember that I don't always know how things will go, and that if things get hard I can ask for help.

 *

I can convince myself not to try something by deciding before it even begins that I will be hugely disappointed, simply by treating the sad movie in my head as if it is reality.

I can remember that things are often okay -- more than okay -- by admitting there are many possible outcomes, and sometimes I like something in spite of myself -- that it's in the doing where joy is found.

 *

I can convince myself that nothing really matters by constantly deconstructing everything into sterile, abstract bits and pieces -- the dark mirror reverse version of the truism "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

I can remember that the ocean is more than just salt and water, a human is more than just blood and bones, and I am always much more than what my fear and addiction constantly whisper in my ear.

 *

I can convince myself that I am separate from everyone around me -- less than or better than they are -- by obsessively focusing on the differences between us, especially magnifying and distorting trivial things until they become symbolic of all humanity and my alienation from it.

I can remember that it is by listening for the similarities, the feelings in common, the universality of human experience with all its messy, selfish fears, its inconvenient, embarrassing needs and its beautiful heart with such a staggering potential for love and kindness -- which all of us share -- that makes me a part of the human family, and that's true whether I feel it in any particular moment or not -- and the great irony is that often what people (especially alcoholics) have most in common is the belief that they have nothing in common.

*

I can convince myself that all is random chaos -- daily life riven by petty, grinding evils and grave, shocking injustices -- with no evidence of the Divine at all, by constantly looking for where God isn't.

I can remember that at times I have felt a vast Something at work, whether through a feather-light touch on my heart, a gentle inspiration in my thoughts or a powerful, soul-stilling, soul-filling moment of Peace -- and when I stop and breathe and become really honest with myself about those things then no amount of after-the-fact cynicism can erase that truth.  And from there I can retire from collecting jaded, pathetic "Ah Ha!" moments of disbelief, to remember that while often it is hard, with my tiny human perception, to see God in the world around me, if I choose to I can always feel God in the world within me.

 

having an alcoholic mind

 

 

Having an alcoholic mind

is like always having something

stuck between your teeth.

it really helps me to think of them this way

 

If you were attacked by a shark, or mauled by a bear, you wouldn't say, "Oh, man, why didn't that shark (or bear) take into account how hard I'm trying to be nice!" or "Jeez, you'd think that shark (or bear) would cut me a break, considering the day I've had!" or "That shark (or bear!) is a total asshole for attacking (or mauling) me!"

You wouldn't say that because you understand that it is the animal's instinct at work.  It has nothing to do with you that they attacked you; you just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  (Sure, sure, maybe you did something foolish to rile them up a little, but no one is actually seeking to create a shark -- or you know -- attack/maul.  You just exacerbated a situation, or were careless about something.)

 

It helps me to think of spiritually sick people like sharks (or bears.  But I'm rather fond of bears, actually, so I don't think of them that way very often).  Their toxic behavior, their "attacks" are no more about you than a shark's.  You just happened to be in the way of their sick frenzy -- when it comes to behavior they are really no more evolved than an instinct-driven animal.  So its futile to expect them to take into account how hard you're trying, or what kind of day you've had, or whatever.

And it's almost (when you look at it this way) silly to resent them.  You don't resent the shark (I'm going to stop saying bear - they don't deserve to be a part of this analogy.  Forget all the bear stuff.  Every time I said "bear" above, just think "rabid dog" now) for attacking you.  In certain situations it's what their instincts drive them to do.

Same with spiritually sick people.  Their ego and their fear -- their instincts out of balance (as the 12&12 puts it) -- drive them to "attack" in the same way a shark (or rabid dog) attacks.

It's not about you.

It's about them.

You just happened to be the one they bit.

When I can think in these terms I find I'm a lot less prone to expecations, and thus, resentments.  Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when I get bit, but I spend a whole lot less time in my head chewing on all of the "Don't they know..." and "How could they be so..." etc.

It really helps me to think of them this way.

 

the sweetest, dearest prayer you can make

 

 

"Thank you" is the sweetest, dearest prayer you can make.

I heard a speaker voice that sentiment recently, and their sincerity when they said it was so real that the statement went right through me and straight into my heart.

 

Then I returned to what felt like the grind of daily living, and my heart spat it right back out.

 

I've learned, though, that I can not only act my way to better thinking, behave my way to healthier feeling... I can sometimes pray my way back to a sincere, heart-felt gratitude, too.

I can rebuild it one silent, little, honest 'thank you' at a time.

 

It's sweet because it changes my whole perspective, and it's dear like a life preserver is dear to a drowning man.

 

Questions via Email: Too literal

 

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

"But what about where the book says..."

"You said X, but 'The Doctor's Opinion' says Y but then in Chapter 5 it says Z..."

"I find the following pages to be contradictory in that..."

"The Big Book says 'we know only a little...' how can I trust..."

-- from a half dozen or so emails in the last couple of months.

 

People!  People!  I applaud your eagle eyes, your combing the literature for guidance, your... wait, are you combing the literature for guidance?  Or are you indulging some contrary impulse to find a way to prove to yourself that this information doesn't work, or doesn't apply to you?

Individually, each point raised has some truth to it, and merits discussion.  Absolutely we should look at AA literature with a critical, questioning eye.  What better way to fully understand what it suggests we do to get sober, so we can then apply those ideas throughout all the ups and downs of our daily lives?

Balancing that, however, and what has worked best for me over the years, is to make sure I eventually take my eye away from the microscope and view the entire picture.  To grasp the spirit of a point, rather than argue one specific element.

The Big Book is a map, or like a cook book, in that it gives clear instructions -- in this case, though, instructions on how to get from your sucky, blackout-ridden (or blackout-impending), downward spiral of an alcoholic life to something much brighter, higher functioning and more fulfilling -- not just released from alcoholism's terrible choke hold on the mind but actually joyous and free (most days).

You wouldn't get very far in a recipe if you set out to make a cake and when you get to the part that says "add two cups of sugar" you stop everything and go, "But what about diabetics?  Or what about people on a diet?" and then use that as a jumping off point: "If this recipe includes sugar, yet doesn't address diabetics and dieters... why, it makes me doubt the value of this whole cookbook!"

I mean, come on.

Yes, think critically and ask questions -- but watch out for indulging in hypotheticals which might obfuscate (good word!) the spirit of whatever larger point is being made.

Read with a questioning eye, but don't get too literal.

Questions via Email: Agnostic, Atheist and Antagonist mash up! Woo!

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

Based on my [Mr. SP edit: childhood], I have a hard time with any talk about God.  I'm new and I'm afraid this will blow me back out the door.

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I refuse to believe in God, and while I know I have a problem with drinking, I can't stomach all the "god stuff" I hear in meetings and read in the book(s).

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

Don't you think a problem as serious and pervasive as addiciton should be addressed with something a little more reliable than "a spiritual experience"?

 

Dear Agnostic, Atheist and Antagonist,

Woo!  A Doubt Trifecta in my Inbox!  Thanks for writing, (even you, Mr. CrankyPants) since these are all things I've struggled with -- just this morning!

D'oh!

I think it was Thomas Merton who said, "All men of faith doubt."  (Leaving you ladies on your own I guess.  Chalk it up to a religious patriarchy and the era he lived in, as we so often must.)  I find comfort in that statment though.  Doubt is part of the package.

But what you're describing is a lot more than just doubt -- you're struggling with anything from disbelief to outright disgust (you'll forgive me if I cut your colorful emails down to the hearts of the matters, I hope).  When it gets between you and your medicine, it's not just a prickly metaphysical issue, it's life-or-death.  And that's not hyperbole.

I watched a video recently, a "talking head" type; informational, not entertaitional.  (I know there's no such form of the word "entertainment" -- there's no such word like that at all -- but my need for parallel sentence structure would not be denied!  Work with me, people.)

I liked what he said -- but I hated how he said it.

While the spiritual discussion was of great interest, there was a particular vocabulary the speaker used, terms which, for me, are heavily loaded and associated with organizations and people that have long troubled me.

But again, I want to stress, what the head said was great -- I saw value in the message.

It struck me that for a lot of people, that's how they respond when they encounter Alcoholics Anonymous.

All our "God talk" -- even though we offer a broad, inclusive, non-judgmental and completely self-defining idea about it -- is still, for some, simply unacceptable.  (I wonder even if our very openness -- sort of a too-good-to-be-true thing -- isn't suspect in such cases.)

If you're a regular Mr. SponsorPants reader you know I'm certainly not suggesting we change anything about the way AA addresses this subject -- for me the language is moving and healing.  The writing is both inspired and inspirational.

And you can certainly make a (strong) case for the idea that, if you want what we've got, do what we did... surrender and an "admission of powerlessness" are key components along AA's path -- if you're not willing to let go of stiff-necked, reactionary antipathy toward spiritual concepts you'll have a hard time with most of AA's Program of recovery.  (All we ask in this arena, after all, is you simply attempt to have an open mind -- and here are some thoughts I've put down about how to do that -- I hope particularly helpful to you, Mr. Atheist.) 

But if you flipped it, I would choke on even that reasonable request if my life depended on believing in the same way that the talking head in the vid I watched believed.  So I get it, what you wrote me about.  I get it.

There was a time in my life when I thought anyone who depended on God was weak of will, narrow of mind or slight of intellect.  And if you'd told me that a course of treatment for a chronic illness I suffered from would have to include a "spiritual awakening" I would have been cynically amused (or pretty frightened).

All of which is to say, upon reflection (pomposity alert! "upon reflection" is one of the top five most pompous things you can say in the 21st Century!) I have a new compassion for those who come to AA, know they're in trouble, know they need help, but for whatever reason choke on any discussion at all of spirituality.  Balanced against my heartfelt commitment to AA's suggested plan, today I don't feel very hardcore.  Today I feel that if you're a desperate alcoholic searching for a solution, the "there's the Steps or there's the door" Marine Drill Sergeant 'tude is less than helpful. 

You're catching me in Old Softy mode.  So allow me to offer a different way of looking at some of AA's spiritual concepts -- without some of the language which might make you feel like you're hacking up a psychic hairball. (gak!)

Please (please!) let these be the air bags which deploy when you crash into AA's "God talk" -- at least until you feel like you can make it through a meeting or the literature without a complete derailment.

• "Surrender" at the very beginning of sobriety, is simply connecting some dots -- in most cases it is an alcoholic's initial realization about the cause and effect of drinking upon the state of their life (be it external, i.e. lost homes and broken relationships, or internal, as in a profound loneliness, misery, depression, etc.).  Further, it's an admission to oneself that there is something fundamentally not right about the way one drinks -- either there never was (as in my case) or what control used to exist has eroded or is gone.

• An "admission of powerlessness" is less about submitting to an organization's particular philosophy than it is about looking down the road and seeing an inevitable, logical outcome to how things are progressing.  It is a gut level acknowledgement that there is an inescapable trajectory for the worse, again related to the way you drink and/or use.  And as has been said many times in many places, not just this blog (repeatedly) but meetings and AA lit too, the "Higher Power which can restore you to sanity" can be the collected sober experience and practical, real world suggestions of people in Alcoholics Anonymous who drank like you drink and have found ways to stop and stay stopped.

• Relying on prayer and meditation need not include any spiritual concepts at all.  Prayer can be the conscious self-direction to stop a particular avalanche of thought or tidal wave of negative emotion (fear, for example).  Functionally speaking, there is not a lot of difference between an alcoholic who is freaking out going into the bathroom at work, sitting down in a stall and saying "God, please remove these thoughts and help me turn my attention to what you would have me do and be" versus sitting there and saying to yourself "I recognize this thinking -- it leads me to freak out and self destruct.  I reject this.  I will not be victimized by my anxiety.  I will focus on the positive."  (Sure, the latter is a sort of affirmation, but if you are so jaded as to look down your nose and sneer at that concept too, then... fine.  Think your shitty negative thoughts and freak out all you like  No skin off my nose.)  I'm not trying to reinvent AA nor am I trying to remove what is an essential component (certainly for my Program) -- I'm offering, for an alcoholic starting out and still trying to put days together, tools or ideas which line up with AA's strategy, if not AA's philosophy.  The practice of meditation can be completely divorced from the spiritual if one does only a little reading on the topic.  More simply put, if you choke on "god stuff" consider prayer as a concerted effort, rooted in particular phrases, to think different thoughts when in crisis, and meditation as a brain chemistry reboot.

• Finally, the "spiritual awakening" as a result of the Steps (which Jung himself called a "psychic upheaval") can simply be a Profound and Ongoing Shift in Perception.

(And if you have a problem with Jung, too... well then, I guess you're never satisfied -- and... and... I guess we can't have nice things! **sob**)

Me personally, I'm good with God (today).  I understand though, how a strict religious upbringing, or so many fractious factions claiming to speak for Him/Her/It, or a desire for a solution to addiction which does not lean so heavily on what is ultimately a metaphysical foundation, might condition one to recoil from anything remotely related to the God concept as "medicine."  Try to look past that to the practical assistance, the body of sober experience, which AA can offer you.  AA doesn't require you to believe anything -- it makes suggestions which you might consider, it offers its own ideas and explanations for things -- rooted more in people's experience than anything else -- but you can do the whole darn deal and be as non-spiritual as you like.  You'll definitely have to suffer through the well-intentioned condescension of a few AA's (maybe more than a few, depending on your zip code) but the point is to get and stay sober, right?

Let this humble offering help you get started, should you be at a loss as to how to do so, amidst what might at first feel like a sea of spiritual terminology and concept.

Eventually you may consider things differently, but you don't have to.  Just don't pick up the first drink -- that's the only thing to focus on in the beginning.