Mr. SponsorPants

words to live by

 

 

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: Ex (abuser) will likely attend my home group.

 

Dear Mr. Sponsorpants,

 

I have been regularly attending local AA meetings for approximately [a short while] now. An ex of mine just checked themselves into detox and I have a gut feeling that once they're released they will be attending the same meetings. The problem is that the ex in question verbally and physically abused me during our relationship and I don’t wish to be anywhere near them, especially at such an early point in my own recovery.  The AA group I speak of is my home group and the next nearest meeting location is 30 miles away. I do not have a sponsor yet to help me through this dilemma. What should I do? Or, better yet, WWMSD?

 

Sincerely,

 

M.

Dear M,

I would go to the meeting 30 miles away.

Hopefully, if I resented the drive, or the time, or the temporary loss of my Home Group, I would be able to imagine what it would be like to tell someone suffering from cancer, who was going through terrible chemo treatments, that all they would have to do to get their medicine is drive thirty miles and donate a dollar or two if they were able; and I could get perspective on the effort I was making to go to the meeting.

I would feel good about the fact that I was putting my recovery first, by not having to deal with my ex being in a meeting with me so early in my sobriety.  I would hopefully get even more out of the meeting I was going to because of the effort I made to get there, and the knowledge that I could listen without the distraction of having my ex in the room at this time.

I would go to the meeting 30 miles away and I would wonder if maybe there was a Divine Reason for me to be there rather than where I had been.  I'd try to have an open mind on that subject -- and to that end I'd try to find a sponsor as soon as possible in the new meetings I was going to.

Then, eventually, when the time seemed right, I would, with the help and support of some good AA pals, go back to my former Home Group once or twice a week, and start to work through being in the same meeting with my ex -- but I wouldn't rush into that at all.  It's just that eventually, after I had my feet under me, I would want to reclaim the room for myself.

I'd also try to remember that my ex -- my abuser -- was spiritually sick as well, and while we should probably never partner in a romantic relationship ever again, I might some day come to compassion for their illness and what drove them to such sick behaviors.

But I would definitely go the meeting 30 miles away, since not going to a meeting at all, and being in the meeting with my ex, seemed like choices I could not live with for a while.

That's what I hope I would do.

And that's what I hope you can find a way to do, too.

Good luck, M.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

Questions via Email: Part 2 - The Steps seem strange to a logical thinker

 

From J's question yesterday:

"These Steps seem so strange to a logical thinker like myself.  Can you share anything that might help me?"

 

Well J, there's much discussion in Chapter 4 of the Big Book titled "We Agnostics" about logic and faith, but let's address instead the very specific problem you describe:  A rational reluctance to the 12 Steps.

Frankly my friend I suspect, for whatever reason, you're probably over thinking it.

I have found that considering the first 3 Steps with slightly different wording can help people experience them with fewer filters.  I am NOT trying to reinvent the 12 Steps (for me they are perfect as is).  This is simply how I first found a way to embrace Steps 1, 2 and 3:

 There's something wrong with my drinking and it's fucking up my life, and although I keep telling myself I'm going to get it together I just keep... not getting it together. 

And things keep getting worse.

It's actually crazy that on the one hand I want so very badly to get it together and then on the other hand I just... don't care.  Or I just change my mind.  Or I forget. 

But I believe there's something in AA that can help me.

So I'm going to do what AA suggests -- all of it.

 

That's it, basically.  I admit I have a problem I can't solve on my own. It's getting worse.  I think AA can help, so I'll do the AA deal.  Steps 1, 2 and 3.

Actually, if you want to deconstruct the Steps from a logic standpoint -- and the Big Book too, for that matter -- that's pretty much the rhythm of the whole thing:  Problem.  Solution.  Plan of Action.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

(And as far as the above is concerned, I could define "wrong" pretty clinically, but I think if you're really a problem drinker you get how right the word "wrong" is. )

As for the rest of the 12 Steps, I'm going to suggest to you, J, something that I heard in maybe my first week of sobriety, and it served me well:

Balk at the Step you're on.

Don't get your kippers in a clip about all the rest.  If you have had a problem getting and staying sober, then in my humble opinion you are best served by focusing on the first three steps, and the timing for the others will fall into place pretty gracefully after that.

As I said before, I can tell from your email you have a great attitude and you're willing -- keep those fires stoked, keep an open mind, and keep coming back.

 

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...

 

 

I don't know why, exactly, but it is true, in my experience

 

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

actually quite dangerous

 

 

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.

 

the completely opposite direction from where you will ultimately be

 

The caterpillar-into-butterfly thing has been used to death as metaphor, analogy, inspirational image... I myself often bring it up when talking to sponsees about the idea of "Divine discontent."

It's also a wonderful (and common) way to talk about Faith; about the idea that God (if there is one, and today I'm voting yes) has something better in store, something bigger, if we but trust the process.

Usually when I think about it I somehow imagine the caterpillar not really knowing what's involved, but just taking each step as it comes.

 

But what if it did know?  Who could blame Mr. C for doubting?

 

Caterpillar: "Let me get this straight.  You want me to go into a small, dark space and remain totally motionless, and that is going to open up a whole new world for me."

God:  "That's right."

Caterpillar:  "So... I'm going to gain wings by... lying still."

God:  "Yes."

Caterpillar:  "I get the sky...  by lying in the dark."

God:  "Right."

Caterpillar:  "Riiiiight.  Sure I will."

 

It struck me, as I thought about it this way, that a Divine process -- wherever one is or whatever one might be going through -- may look, from our perspective, like one is moving in the completely opposite direction from where you will ultimately be.

Huh.

That makes faith a little easier for me today.

Cool.