Mr. SponsorPants

it wasn't important to me

Man, I sure hope this one comes out right.

Recently I ran into someone I used to work with.

We were standing on the sidewalk chatting, playing a bit of catch up, a little bit of "have you heard from so-and-so" (Facebook fills that space for a lot of people, and in running into this gal what we discovered, as we talked, was that "Friending" each other on FB gave us a good framework to fill in, rather than replace our need to catch up in person -- so much, once again, for the evils of the internet age -- that's not a plug, by the way.  I come woefully late to the Facebook party -- it's just an observation.  I actually only reluctantly joined FB because a sibling badgered me into starting a Mr. SponsorPants Facebook page -- which I did for a day but then took down and haven't remade.  But I digress...).

A guy I know from AA came along, and stopped to say hello to me.  I introduced my friend from our former job to my AA friend.  "This is ______, " I said.  "We used to work together."

"Actually," my former work friend said, "Mr. SponsorPants here used to manage me."

The conversation went on, and my AA friend went his merry way.

Work Friend and I chatted a bit more.  Out of the blue she said, "You know, that's funny.  I remember at [place we used to work], when we would go out to lunch or something and we ran into someone you knew, you used to do the same thing."  (If you go to a lot of meetings and you go out locally sometimes you look like the mayor for all the AA peeps you run into.  Well, the mayor or a slut.)

"What same thing?" I asked, totally not following her.

"You always said 'we worked together.'"

"Yeah. I said that we worked together because we worked together."  I laughed.

"No," she went on, "you never said 'She works for me' or 'I was her manager.'  You always said it like that -- that we 'worked together.'"

"Well we did.  I mean ... " the point was so odd to me, I didn't really know what to do with it, so I just trailed off.

We talked a little more, made noises about meeting for coffee, I'm sure both of us thinking that would be nice and each of us assuming that life was busy and full and it was a lovely idea that likely wouldn't come together.  With a hug and a wave we went our separate ways -- she with my book recommendation and I with her movie suggestion.

It wasn't until later my thoughts drifted back to what she said.  I don't think it's a big deal, but I realized that for some people it might have been -- asserting their position might have been something they did really without much thought.  But ... it just wasn't important to me. 

I'm not saying that it is a good thing or a bad thing -- as I type this I'm not at all sure that I'm expressing myself very well about this.  I'm not making any kind of value judgment about how other people might have done it -- but as an observation it's been nibbling at me all night.

AA literature makes the excellent point -- somewhere in the 12&12 I think -- that "humility has a bad time of it in this world." (Evil Old Cat is asleep on my shoulder as I write this, and it would take a braver man than I to wake her so that I could get up and go grab my 12&12 to give you a page number -- sorry).

When I was new to AA, I thought humility meant keeping yourself down -- and that you weren't allowed to say anything "good" about yourself -- actually I thought the game was to get other people to say something good about you -- thereby turning almost every exchange into a minefield of passive-aggressive, self-deprecating manipulation.  Then if other people did say something good about you, you had to dismiss it.  "Oh no, no ... it's nothing."  Man, that is all so convoluted and (sorry) fucked up.  (Really, the depth of dysfunction there requires I express it thusly:  SO fucked up).

Elsewhere, in the 12&12 it says that "another word for humility is perspective."  For me it's all about right sizing -- not falsely diminishing myself, not needing to inflate myself.

Along the way to actually living this, what is important to me and how I need to identify myself has changed profoundly.

Sure, if you're an AA doubter you might credit some of that with just plain old getting older -- and you're right, that's undoubtedly a part of it.

But the way I am wired and how I relate with people has undergone a much more dramatic evolution than merely logging time on the planet.

AA has not just given me sobriety -- first and foremost, it is about not picking up a drink -- but it's given me ...

I'm having a helluva time writing this.

I keep trying not to write, "AA has given me some degree of humility" since actually writing that seems somewhat lacking in humility -- or is that just my fear of how it will be read.

Right-sized, Mr. SponsorPants.  Not inflating and not diminishing -- <sigh> how dreadful to, as I write this, in real time, have to walk my talk.

I guess what my friend from work said made me realize that AA has given me a sense of humility, and it feels right -- it's a good and comfortable thing today.

Yeah, this one was weird to write. 

it's complicated -- but it's not

Imagine for a moment that you have three very serious illnesses:  Chrsyanthemum Thrombosis, Dipsidoodleosis and Blueberry Fever.

These are chronic conditions, and any one of them, if left untreated, will cause you serious, even mortal, harm.

Now imagine that the medicine you need to take for your Blueberry Fever (nasty bit of business, that -- all your teeth turn blue and won't stop growing -- think about it) interferes with you body's ability to take in the medicine which you need to arrest the progression of your Chrysanthemum Thrombosis (don't ask!).  Not to mention when your Dipsidoodleosis flares up -- which can happen in response to a wide variety of things, but especially when Doctors make suggestions about taking your medicine (uh oh!) it's going wreak havoc with both your other diseases and both your other medicines!  Ack!

You would need to find a way to treat all three of these things, taking into account how they can each impede the treatment of the other.  And once you found a way to treat all three you certainly wouldn't expect the medicine for one to address the problem of another.  To express that idea with real diseases, no sane person would expect the insulin they took for their diabetes to have any impact at all on their arthritis or their epilepsy.

Okay, cute analogy Mr. SponsorPants, but what's the point here?  (Other than roughly outlining any given episode of "House").

Earlier today I was talking to a sponsee who heard a speaker at an AA meeting that deeply troubled him.  According to my sponsee, some of what the speaker said was really dead-on -- solid, insightful recovery -- and some of what the speaker said was frighteningly crazy -- not just colorful or eccentric, but somewhat disturbed.  "How can this be?" my sponsee asked (though he did it after an intelligent discussion and in a much more articulate way than that).

First off, it takes very little time in any 12 Step room to see that some people are suffering from more than one problem.

I outlined the above analogy to my sponsee.  Then I suggested that if you put alcoholism, mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder from a profoundly abusive childhood into this analogy you can see how someone might be arresting one condition but still suffering quite acutely from another.

Simplifying it to this degree, it seems patently obvious that the issues overlap and interfere with one another -- and we haven't even gotten into the fact that the patients themselves are somewhat confused and/or sometimes unable to be completely honest.

It's a tangle, and it's complicated -- but also, it's not complicated.  To arrest your addiction -- if you believe what Alcoholics Anonymous suggests -- requires a spiritual experience of some kind.  Following all 12 Steps, from start to finish, is one way to create that experience.

Addiction, mental illness and the fallout from an abusive childhood -- again, three serious conditions -- each with different profiles and symptoms, and each requiring somewhat different treatments to address them.  (Though some would say -- and I would strongly agree with them -- that the 12 Steps can mend things inside us which we didn't even know were broken -- and if earnestly done will have an impact on all aspects of a person.) 

If you are multiply diagnosed, treating your addiction will make it easier to treat your other conditions.  Treating your other conditions will make it easier to treat your addiction.

But treating any particular one alone, instead of another, or expecting the treatment for one to address the other as well, doesn't seem to be as sound a treatment strategy.

the other mother

Expectations, they say, are resentments under construction -- mother and midwife to every temper tantrum an alcoholic may have (even the quiet internal ones, disguised as something else) that things didn't go the way we wanted (expected).

Strangely, I have found another mother to alcoholic resentment:  Guilt.

(And let's just acknowledge right now that the Resentment Clan is a large brood, all incestuously related via various emotional and mental couplings).

Here's how I've seen it work -- and experienced it.  (Let's not stand at too much of a distance in this discussion, eh Mr. SponsorPants?).

An alcoholic wrongs someone -- it can be a small thing, this process does not hinge on a question of degree.

When the alcoholic encounters (or even thinks about) the person they wronged, even if (or especially if) the wronged party is unaware of the transgression (like, for example, a lie), the alcoholic feels guilty.

Guilty equals feeling uncomfortable -- and there's not an addict alive who doesn't want to reach for the ripcord when that's happening.  Hmmm, could look within ... but it's easier to blame.  ("I'll take Placing Blame for 300, Alex.")

And thus, in a brilliant and stunning example of alcoholic thinking, the alcoholic resents the person they wronged for "making them feel bad." 

This can be a subtle thing, and as with most twisted ism-think the connections between wrong doing and resentment might be somewhat-to-completely hidden from awareness.

With this kind of mentality -- the ability to warp reality, shed responsibility and victimize our victims, is it any wonder we need genuine Divine Grace, however it may show up, to get and stay sober?

on a scale of 1 to 10

Oddly, for a man who can be prone to self obsession, and when spiritually unfit is a veritable excuse machine, I can have a hard time forgiving myself.

(Maybe because excuses are about fear, and forgiveness is about love.)

On days when it's really bad (blessedly fewer and farther in between as the sober time has rolled along), this is what I try to remember:

On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the absolute healthiest possible state a person could achieve, on some issues when I showed up in Alcoholics Anonymous I was at -4729.

Today, on some of those same issues, I'm at -5.

That represents incredible, enormous progress -- the result of much work and willingness and no small amount of Divine Grace.

But -5 is still on the outskirts of Crazy Town (I'm no longer Mayor, but I'm still in the zip code -- moving towards the town line though I may be).

-5 is amazing, considering where I started, but there is still much work to be done -- sometimes letting go of those last sick bits is the most challenging part of growing.

Looking at things this way helps me broaden my perspective on where I am now, give myself a break and yes, maybe even forgive myself for those few tough ones.  On occasion.

Sober Texting

Sponsee Texts:  Mr. SP. Hope u are doing well. Question: what is the expression in the BB. Something like I'm a victim/slave of our emotions.

Mr. SP Texts:  u mean the 'bedevilments' thing?  '...we were prey to misery & depression...' that part?  Descrip of untreated ism? On pg. 52 iirc.

Sponsee Texts:  Yes.  That's it.  That's where I am today.

Mr. SP Texts:  Oh.  Are u enjoying it?  Sometimes it's great fun to view all your blessings as burdens.

Sponsee Texts:  F. U.

A minute goes by.

Sponsee Texts:  T.Y.

Mr. SP Texts:  Y.W.

Things I learned (or was reminded of) this week. An ongoing series. *Plus* a bit of housekeeping and, a brief update on the Evil Old Cat (who has occasionally had a guest starring role here).

There is a difference between "getting your hopes up," a perfectly normal thing, and having "expectations" -- which are midwife to many a resentment for most alcoholics.  And I believe the difference lies in direct proportion to the degree of trust you have in a Higher Power.  Not "believe in" a Higher Power -- that's faith -- but trust.

If you sit in the same place every week in an AA meeting it helps people get to know you.

If you raise your hand to share and the leader (or speaker, or whatever the deal is at that meeting) doesn't pick you -- keep raising your hand -- even if they continue to pick other people.  No one's rejecting you, it's just the way things shake down -- but if you keep raising your hand it is a powerful exercise in willingness.

It is a delicate balance between offering other alcoholics assistance and trying to get them to fit a picture of what you think their recovery should look like.  I try hard to find the middle ground between minding my own business and speaking up when the Universe gives me my cue (I'm not talking about a sponsor relationship -- after all, the whole dynamic there is predicated upon sharing experience.)  In my own recovery I have been (mostly) grateful to those people along the way who took a deep breath and said, (with love) "You know, Mr. SponsorPants, my experience with that is very different, you might consider..." or even the very rare but memorably blunt "No. That's sick thinking." when I was new.  It is a truism that nothing is more quickly resented than unsolicited assistance -- and not every share is an invitation for commentary, even if done one-on-one after the meeting (and it's never an invitation for commentary during) -- but we're in this together.  If I see someone heading towards a metaphorical patch of ice, am I not ethically bound to say something?  But also, to shield people from the consequences of their mistakes prevents them from learning, yes?  There is no hard-and-fast on this, it will always be a dynamic struggle to find the middle ground.  It's just that some weeks I feel more troubled on this issue than others.  Today I pretty much go with "When in doubt, keep your mouth shut."  Pretty much.

It is practicing the 12th Step for a sponsee to call their sponsor.  Part of the "AA medicine" is to get out of yourself -- calling a sponsor isn't "bothering them" it's helping them, even if you're calling to ask for help yourself.  We are healed by helping one another, after all -- giving someone the chance to help you is a great gift to offer.

The old AA joke says that AA works because we're not all sick on the same day.  I have found that may be true, but when many of us are sick on the same day it makes for a very busy week.

And now, some housekeeping:

The email link here on the site seems a bit buggy sometimes, or maybe it's something with my ISP or the email account itself.  If you've emailed and gotten nothing back, while sometimes I get a little behind it might also be a technical issue -- either way, please have patience and feel free to resend, if you so desire.

Also, regarding email questions for technical difficulties in subscribing to the RSS Feed for the blog, the only insight I can offer is that if you are having a problem it might be your browser.  TypePad seems to "like" Mozilla, but is supposed to work well enough with all.  (In the technical arena I have a love/hate affair with TypePad -- some things I'm quite happy with, others ... not so much.  You don't even want to get me started on their spell checker, for example.)  If the purpose of an RSS feed is to alert you to new postings, the simple answer is to bookmark the page.  I have a pretty good track record for something new up five days a week, Monday thru Friday.  (One might argue that creates a commitment to quantity over quality -- not every posting is equally inspired, perhaps.  But from my end the journey is not to judge it, but rather to assume that someone out there may have needed to read whatever got written.  Gah, if that sounded a bit sadsack or defensive, that's not where I am with that at all.  Just a bit of fear peeking out, but countered by faith.  As it usually is.)

And finally...

I got a phone call from my long time AA friend, Old Irish.  He had taken, lo these many years ago now, two of Evil Old Cat's litter mates, back in the Pliocene Era, when dinosaurs walked the earth, E.O.C. was but an E.O.K., and I was young and thin. *sigh*

Old Irish and I have long argued about the exact year, putting the cats ages at either 19 or 20 -- April 20th being their birthday.

Sadly, on this April 20th just past, Old Irish had to put to sleep the last of the two that he got (the other having gone a few years ago), officially making E.O.C. the Last Cat Standing -- ironic, as she was very much the runt of the litter (an early kittenhood betrayal which likely marks the beginning of her quest for vengeance and eventual world domination.  She is like a tiny, fur-covered Bond villain).

Old Irish and I talked about the long sober road, full of adventures, and how pet ownership over such a long time is a strange and deep thing -- how they are both partners and witnesses to all sorts of foolishness; close companions, certainly, and occasionally comic relief.  His last cat fought the good fight, but her time was up, and it had reached a point where it was the greater kindness to let her go.

After I got off the phone, I looked over at Evil Old Cat and broke the news.  She paused for a moment in her grooming, and then came over to give me a bit of a head butt (cute, but do not be fooled!) and wandered into the next room.

And I swear, once she was out of sight, I heard a tiny voice:

"Ha!  I win."

Evil.

it makes me optimistic for their eventual recovery

I have heard many speakers over the years, people with ten or twenty or even thirty years sober, who, when telling their stories, say something like "Oh, when I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous I slipped in and out for X year(s)."

"Time is not a tool" is an often quoted AA saying, one I agree with strongly -- but it is also true that the last thirty days of my life are substantively different than the first thirty days of my sobriety.  My thought being that while long term sobriety is not a benchmark of mental or spiritual health, the point is to get and stay sober, not get sober over and over and over again -- time is not a tool, but it should not be dismissed either.  It's a bit of a paradox, I guess.

Lately, as I witness people relapse, I think of those folks with long term sobriety who I've heard share -- and how against the backdrop of their larger story they speak of the time they spent slipping around very briefly -- not to hide anything, nor to minimize the struggle, but in the context of their larger story it just doesn't take up that much space.

I think of all that as I do what I can to help people I know who are in relapse today.  How now, in their own story, the full weight of the relapse experience is (appropriately) center stage -- the challenge, the drama, the sadness, the discouragement.

Those speakers with lots of time now, who slipped around for a good while (sometimes several years) when they first got sober remind me that relapse does not define anyone's sobriety.  It gives me hope -- it makes me optimistic for today's relapser's eventual long term sobriety. 

All any of us have is today -- the ever renewing promise of the clean slate and the fresh start.

Put those today's together for a while and one day the relapse cycle is just something that can be shared with empathy to help someone else struggling -- it is no longer a self-imposed weight or identity.

Relapse is not inevitable.

But if it happens, it is also not a cycle which is unbreakable.

...though I shuck and jive and dress it up in other wording...

Maybe harder than being unwilling to ask a Higher Power -- God -- as you understand it/them/him/her/whatever -- for help is being afraid of what that help will look like if you sincerely ask for it.

When that is the case, there are two things I must do:

The first is to go back, yet again, to the 2nd and 3rd Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous -- for it is there I begin to shape that "Higher Power as I understand them" business.  I must root out one more time the old beliefs, buried so deep, that I thought I was finished with -- the ghost of an old faith which espoused a God long of beard and short of temper.  I need one more time to shine a light on the superstitious part of me which sees my life in terms of cosmic reward and spiritual punishment -- which at heart is a primitive, warped, westernized version of the concept of karma.  As I've talked about here before, I do not believe that these are ideas so much as attitudes -- beliefs I unconsciously reanimate when I am uncertain, and which then begin to shape my thinking about God -- and how God will respond to my prayers.

The other thing I must do is consider exactly what and how I am asking God for help -- to uncover just how conditional I secretly am -- not secret from God (obviously), but secret from myself.

When I am afraid of God's help it is because what I want is a different result from the same process.  I don't want to have to change  -- I want to keep doing things the way I'm doing them (or not doing them) and magically be free of -- or have different -- consequences.

Thus I'm afraid of God's help because it will "make" me do things differently -- and I don't want to do that -- so though I shuck and jive and dress it up in other wording, it comes back to willingness after all.

Damn.

then get busy

"So what did your sponsor suggest?"  I asked.

"They said I should try to get centered with my Higher Power and ask for help."

This addict was struggling with relapse, and hanging onto being clean today by their fingernails.  I was very worried -- my intuition wasn't tingling, it was shrieking.  I had a deep fear that, while they were clean at the moment, they weren't finished with this run by a long shot.

"And...?"  I pressed.

"And I think I owe my sponsor an amends."

"What for?"

"I kind of went off on them, and yelled into the phone something like, 'If there is a God, he hasn't done anything for me!' or ... or, well, words to that effect."

I laughed.  I couldn't help it.  It was maybe not the response they expected -- nor was it planned.  After a moment they actually joined me.

"Okay," I said, when I stopped laughing, "that is both patently untrue and stunningly unoriginal.  If you're going to rage at God, at least try to come up with something fresh, okay?"

And I thought, in the back of my mind, about the distant relation who, I learned earlier in the day, had been given just the absolute worst medical news one can hear, and for a moment I was disgusted with myself and every addict I know, committing the ultimate in sacrilege: Self-indulgent self destruction.  I shut that line of thinking down, though, since true or not (and it's not really an accurate read) my job was not to punish this addict over the phone for what I thought all addicts (again, myself included) were guilty of.  My job was to help -- and they really, really needed help.

"Well," I went on, "you better give that a try.  You better give that a try like you've never given it one before... because I'm afraid you're not done with this run..."

I outlined my fears for them, and we talked about how they were sliding deeper into keeping secrets and being dishonest with everyone in their life.

"Pray tonight.  And tomorrow morning, let's talk again.  And maybe let's talk about you checking in somewhere -- I don't know where yet, but ... ask whatever you understand of your Higher Power for help tonight."

They were quiet for a little bit.  "Okay." 

Sometimes, on days when I doubt (blessedly few of them overall), I feel like a fool suggesting people pray for help like that -- on those days it can sound like a weak or impotent thing to do.

But here's the thing I always come back to, doubtful or not:

Pray for help, and then get busy.

Don't sit on your ass waiting for God to wash the dishes or knock on the door.  My genuine experience with this stuff is that The Universe, or Whatever is Out There, will meet you more than half way -- but it still requires you to get up and move that other less-than-half side of it towards the help you were praying for.

Tonight we prayed.  Tomorrow we'll get busy.

Addiction is an illness that, as with many difficult to treat and often fatal conditions, requires several different protocols when trying to arrest its progress.

Dear God, please help this addict -- please help me help this addict.

if you can stay sober for 24 hours

if you can stay sober for 24 hours,

then you can do, or get through,

anything

for 24 hours.