Mr. SponsorPants

The 3rd Step Prayer for Atheists - a question via email.

 

 

 

 Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

Thank you for your blog. I have read it compulsively since I stumbled over you and it has helped me a lot.

I am [around six months sober] and I am an atheist. And I have a very specific and personal favor to ask you. I am very serious about getting through the 12 Steps. I completely buy the whole Psychic Upheaval idea but not the Spiritual Experience in the way most people in my meetings mean it.

But since I am serious about my Steps I need help with the 3rd Step. I read the email you answered a while ago about making a group your higher power and that made a lot of sense to me. [Surrendering to AA's sober experience and letting that be kind of your higher power.] But even though I don't pray I want something to say when I "do" my 3rd Step. You've written all those prayers and letters to and from God and stuff. Can you please write a non God "prayer" for me to say?

 Thanks,

Newly Sober Atheist

 

Dear Newly Sober Atheist,

First, thank you for all the kind words you said in your email, and I apologize for editing down your heartfelt letter, but I wanted to focus on the crux of your request, with enough context so that it made sense to other readers.

Most importantly, CONGRATULATIONS on your sobriety. If you take working the 12 Steps seriously (as you clearly do), you'll have a strong foundation, experience relief from active alcoholism and have a powerful transformative experience.  I have seen it time and again, I know this is true.

In the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) when it discusses the 3rd Step Prayer (and for the new kids, the 3rd Step is: "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him") it says very clearly that the wording is quite optional, and that the key factor in taking this step is to really mean it in your heart. And over the years I have found that worrying about if you "really mean something" can drive you crazy - just assume that if you're worried about really meaning it then at some level you probably really mean it.  But I respect wanting to take an action to make "taking your 3rd Step" real. So... you asked, and though I feel somewhat inadequate to the task... here goes.

 

The 3rd Step Prayer for Atheists

(or The Non-Prayer 3rd Step)

 

I commit myself to a set of principles, for my ongoing sobriety and my growth.

I am now open to accepting whatever life brings me, as I know that through living by AA's principles of love, tolerance, service and sobriety, every day is a chance to do and be better for myself and towards others.

I will continually turn away from self obsession and self involvement, and rather, in a healthy and balanced way, focus on how I can be of service to whomever I meet, wherever I am and however I can.

I affirm that walking this sober path of service will transform what appear to be difficulties into opportunities;

opportunities to help others, to embrace humility and to try to bring a little harmony to my corner of the world.  In so doing I demonstrate to others and myself that this is a real and vital commitment, and a way of living which will ensure my sobriety and my ongoing growth out of addiction and into a rich new way of being.

May I live this commitment today and every day.

 

I hope that is helpful, Newly Sober Atheist. I won't try and sell you on any form of spirituality whatsoever in this email reply, as I know from what you've written that plenty of people are doing that to you and it's really not very helpful. I respect that. Let me offer you three final things:

1. AA says at every point in the literature that it is God/Higher Power as you understand them. Some will say that the 3rd Step is very clearly that you turn your will and life over to God. So, no God, no 3rd Step. I would suggest  that if how you understand god is that there isn't one, well, that's how you understand them. I might further suggest you lay that on a couple of the most ardent proselytizers you encounter as a way of getting a little breathing space. Remember, they really are only trying to help, even though from what you wrote it feels a lot more like condescension or a sales pitch.

2. What I wrote above was a lot harder to come up with than I thought. I tried to capture the essence of what we are saying when we make that prayer, but I fear still there may be more focus on self than is healthy for an alcoholic. Many AA's have prayed even though we didn't believe. I have continued to pray through long (long) stretches when I did not have any faith whatsoever, and the act of praying was still helpful to me. The body of your email was so passionate and sincere that I had to offer the above to you, but my strong suggestion -- without sliding into "selling you" on anything -- is that you try prayer anyway, and just table the question of belief for a little while.

3. If that's not palatable, okay. I know you are taking deeply to heart every other suggestion AA makes, so it is not really a question of willingness for you. All I will do in conclusion is echo the idea set out in the Big Book in "Bill's Story," in the "Chapter to the Agnostics," in many of the personal stories in the back of the book and in the Appendix titled "Spiritual Experience" (and in much of what I've written here over the years): We don't know everything there is to know about the world around us. Keep an open mind. There is clearly -- even from a solely scientific perspective, rather than a spiritual one -- far more to the Universe, and thus our existence, than we can perceive with our limited intellects and puny five senses. Maybe reflect on that when considering the Big Questions.

And please, keep coming back. By your own admission you feel better after you leave a meeting than when you walked into it. Keep coming back, don't pick up the first drink, and continue to believe in AA's sober experience as a path to keeping your balance and sobriety through life's ups and downs (and twists, turns, switchbacks and loop-de-loops).

Do that, and if you are capable of being honest with yourself and others, you'll be fine.

I sincerely wish you the best and hope that you have found in this answer something helpful.

Please keep in touch. Regardless of what we call ourselves, believers or agnostics, we are all brothers and sisters in recovery from a deadly disease.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

 

 

Questions via Email: Coping with a suicidal, blaming sibling

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

How do you cope when an alcoholic/addict sibling tries to kill themselves by taking a bottle of pain pills right in front of you, then runs away and hides in the neighborhood until the police (who you have called in complete desperation) find them and take them to the hospital. When they are stabilized they blame you for wanting to take their own life.

Sad Sibling

 

 

Dear Sad Sib,

I am sincerely sorry for the pain and drama and confusion that your sibling's addiction -- and possible other issues -- are causing you.  While I too have some dramatic siblings (boy, do I) I'm afraid that when we go back through our family history, more often than not I'm the one who was the problem.  I offer that to you as a reminder that there is both help and hope available to you and your sibling. I was a mess and now I am sober and a whole-lot-less-of-a-mess (can't quite bring myself to type "not at all a mess," since I still have my off, ism-riddled days... but I'm close!). Things seem sucky now, but profound healing and startling transformations have been achieved by thousands of people via the 12 Steps -- it is absolutely possible for your family, too.

Now, as to specifically how to cope... I'm going to throw a few ideas out there, and perhaps one or more of them will be helpful to you.

First, when it comes to your sibling "blaming you for wanting to take their own life..." No matter what the history of your relationship, no matter how confused, deluded or in pain someone is, there is nothing more self decided than to self destruct. Most addicts have a hard time taking responsibility for anything -- in fact, the bigger and more serious the issue the more vehement we are in our blame of others (unless we're playing the martyr card because we need to make it all about us in the grand, operatic way martyrdom can -- and boy, isn't that good fun at the holidays!  "Can you pass the gravy?" "Sure, but first let me share with you this emotional stigmata performance art piece I've been rehearsing.")

Addicts are, by the criteria of our own behavior, insane (that's why the 2nd Step of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about "restoring us to sanity"). Thus that's how you should view this blame game your sib is attempting. If they looked at you from their hospital bed and said, "I blame the talking teapot from Disney's animated 'Beauty and the Beast' for wanting to take my own life -- I've always hated both Angela Lansbury and ceramic tea services!" you would understand deep down that your sibling was not well, and making crazy connections as to who (what) to blame. Take the instant understanding of the craziness from that hypothetical (though admittedly the teapot and the little cup are kind of annoying) and superimpose it over their attempt to blame you, because I assure you, they are equal in their insane inaccuracy. Again, regardless of your history (your email is brief but I am assuming if their were pertinent information along those lines you would allude to it), it is alcoholic rubbish to blame rather than take responsibility for a suicide attempt.

Harsh words, yes -- and I've certainly had my share of Dark Nights of the Soul along the way, so I do have empathy for your sib, too -- but the pill bottle swallow is on them. Period.

Secondly, however, since you are dealing with a crazy person, it is crazy of you to try and reason with them, or argue, or engage in a debate about what you (and they) did or didn't do. 

Make whatever suggestions and offer whatever assistance to them feels clean for you to offer -- all the while I urge you to keep in mind that any time we shield an alcoholic from the consequences of their using then we are ultimately enabling them to continue -- but you have to sleep at night, and for most family members who deal with relations with addictions we have to try something to help -- so do what you feel you must, and then try to detach with love.

Detach with love... detach with love... now where have I heard that phrase before...

There is a whole fellowship out there (Spoiler Alert: It's Alanon) who has fantastic literature and extremely supportive meetings that detail how to cope with an alcoholic in your life.

I hope for you you'll check them out and I have no doubt you'll find insights and tools which will be of immediate use to you.

Keep the faith, and know that you are not alone in your struggle -- I'll keep you and your sib in my prayers.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

 

_________________________________________________________________

 

There are more Questions and Answers like this one in "Mr. SponsorPants: Adventures in Sobriety and The 12 Steps for AA's and Others."  Available as an eBook on Kindle via Amazon.  Download a Kindle reader for free on any device or platform, from PC to Smartphone, and enjoy eBooks anywhere you have time to read.

 

 

 

Questions via Email: Lightning Round 3

 

 

 

 

 

I mean no disrespect to those who have emailed these questions by including them in a "Lightning Round."  It does not mean I think less of the issue(s) you raise or your request for input.  As always, emails are condensed for brevity, clarity and anonymity. (But if you write feel free to go on as much as you need.)

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I am addicted to an addict.  I identify with alcoholics and what I hear in AA meetings more than I identify with what I hear in Alanon.

Addict Squared

 

Dear A.S.

An addict is an addict is an addict. How our disease manifests, how we cope, what our triggers are, what tools work best for us... all those things can be both highly individual and yet sometimes strikingly in line with others' disease and recovery.  If you hear things which help you by going to AA but you don't think you're an alcoholic, go to OPEN AA meetings and listen.  But I think it's foolish not to include Alanon in your meeting mix. Given what you shared with me regarding your family situation and obligations, whether you "like" them or "identify" doesn't matter.  Alanon has a body of healthy experience and valuable, practical tools for people who have alcoholics (and other addicts) in their lives, romantically or otherwise.  Take your medicine.  At the same time, shop around for the Alanon meetingS that you like best, even if "best" means dislike least.  Stick close -- you have a lot on your plate.

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

There are some red flags on the field with my current sponsor.  I feel like they don't really care. We've had some missed appointments and they don't even apologize or acknowledge. They're not great at getting back to me. I like them and I feel invested and I don't want to "start over" with someone else. Your thoughts?

Willing to Stick With Them

 

Dear W.t. S.W.T.,

In the course of your email you did a great job of acknowledging that the impetus for connecting with a sponosor generally rests with the sponsee. While I generally agree, I think there is a reasonable expectation of response and interest on your part with your (any) sponsor.

Full Disclosure: For all my writing about sponsorship and the many people I do and have sponsored, I have, in my life, been an absent and sucky sponsor to some people. There were reasons, nothing dramatic, usually embarrassing. Whatever is happening with your sponsor or between the two of you, they're not showing up in the way you seem to need. Doesn't make you needy. Doesn't make them a bad guy. It's not a fit. Thank them for being willing to work with you and start over with someone else. A good sponsor fit will make the "starting over" part pretty painless. And it's good practice for opening up with people anyway, which is a tool we need to use over and over.

Also: It is not uncommon for addicts of every stripe, depending on their childhoods, to display an inappropriate level of loyalty to people who really haven't demonstrated that they deserve it. Not sayin' that's what is happening with you in this -- you sound like you have a very level headed take on the scenario -- but it's worth considering.  Good luck and know that you might be the exact right thing that your next sponsor needs to help them stay sober. Don't deprive them of that.

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

 Help! I fell in love with a sponsee! They have a new sponsor now, but we are trying the relationship thing. My issue now is that I've never felt the feelings I have now in sobriety.  I've done inventories and I am struggling with an inferiority complex. I've talked to other alcoholics and my sponsor to try and figure this out. I seem to be an extreme case of "self will run riot" and I'm beginning to question what kind of program I'm really working. Give me something to work with I'd appreciate your opinion/feedback/advice/experience, strength and hope.

Thanks,

A Sponsor In Love

 

Dear A.S.I.L.,

I've seen this happen over the years. As with anything, sometimes I've seen it work, and sometimes I've seen it not. Let's do this one by the numbers, okay?

1. Good job on not trying to be both sponsor and lover. I'm not being cute when I say that. Glad they have a different sponsor.  Now the important thing is to remember that they have a sponsor and YOU'RE NOT IT. Stay out -- completely out -- of their Program and how they do or don't work it.  Having been their sponsor grants you no special privileges on "helping" them.

2. Go to Alanon. You are in a relationship with an alcoholic.  No equivocation on that one. Get in their and get busy learning all about detaching with love.

3. Write in a journal every day. You have a lot of stuff inside and it needs a number of outlets to come out. Several pages. Every day. Don't edit or censor yourself just puke your thoughts and feelings out on the page every day.

4. Develop a meditation routine, or if you have one turn up the volume on it.

5. Pray.  For reals. Not some drive-by B.S. in-the-car-on-the-way-to-work thing where you interrupt yourself to flip off a driver who cut you off, but a real, honest-to-god (almost a pun!) prayer routine. On your knees or on a little rug or in a prayer chair or something structured.  It's worth remembering here that I pray often not because I need God to hear it but because I need to say it.

6. Alanon Spoiler: If it's hysterical it's historical. The depth of your insecurity might be attached to issues which go way, way, way back. In addition to 12 Step tools consider that perhaps a good therapist is in order.

7. You are an extreme example of self will run riot? I have two things to say to that: Welcome to the club, every AA is at one time or another, and also, do you say that because you have such strong feelings and issues, or do you say that because you have been getting lots of good suggestions and directions from AA peeps and your sponsor but you're just not willing/able to act on them? If it's the latter, all I can say is that nothing will change (or heal) if nothing changes. If you want the relationship to work I'm afraid your going to have to do the relationship work.

Good luck, a loving partner is worth it.  Work to be the partner you want to have and things will have a much better chance of working out.

 

_________________________________________________________________

 

There are more Questions and Answers like this in "Mr. SponsorPants: Adventures in Sobriety and The 12 Steps for AA's and Others."  Available as an eBook on Kindle via Amazon.  Download a Kindle reader for free on any device or platform, from PC to Smartphone, and enjoy eBooks anywhere you have time to read.

 

 

Questions via Email: I spray Windex on my food

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I'm writing to you because I don't want to talk to anyone in my meetings about this. I told myself I would do what you said if you answer this. I really like what you say about AA.

I am [close to five years] sober in AA. I like meetings, my sponsor, everything. I did the steps with my first sponsor and now I am on my second but we are not going through the steps right now. I have 2 service commitments and I go to 4 meetings a week.

Mostly I drank but sometimes I did other drugs too. I have no problem admitting I am an alcoholic.  But I have a problem admitting I am anything else.  I've always been a big eater. I like my comfort food on the sofa watching TV.  I also have a really big sweet tooth, so comfort food can be pizza or it can be candy. Or ice cream. How much I eat has slowly gotten bigger since I stopped drinking, and so I am slowly getting bigger too. Or maybe not so slowly. 

On and off all my life I have dieted. Mostly whatever diet book is in. Now I am trying to cut back on how much I eat like half way through I will stop and throw the rest in the trash.  But then later I will go back and get it out. I know that is gross and that is partly why I do not want to talk to anyone I see about this.  So now after I throw it in the trash I spray Windex on it so I can't go back and get it. But the other night I saw my face in the kitchen window after I sprayed Windex on half a pizza and I just thought that this is not right. This is no way to live.

BUT I cannot even begin to think about going to another 12 Step Program. It feels overwhelming and too much.  But I also am starting to hate myself (I already hate the way I look and I don't have anything I can wear anymore and I am staying home more because of it).  I guess I am a food addict but what I want to do is just use my AA on my food and deal with it on my own.

What do you think?

Thank you anything you can say would help.

Sincerely,

Windex Is For Windows

 

 

Dear WIFW,

You'll do what I say? Really?

Okay, then this is what I want you to do:

Get up from the computer (or put down the phone, or however you're reading this) and go to the bathroom mirror and look yourself in the eye and just say "I love you. I forgive you. I love you. I forgive you." Slowly for three minutes (I went easy on you right there. I originally typed five). Really look yourself in the eye and really say it out loud. Maybe put one hand on your face and give yourself a loving pat, too.  Then come back here and we'll go on.

 

Done? Okay.

If you really did it I suspect that maybe first you felt silly and then you felt irritated and then you started to feel... something else. While we talk a lot about an alcoholic's problem regarding self loathing is far more the "self" part than the "loathing" part, I don't think that means we can't (or shouldn't) address that inward-facing toxicity, too.

Your email is very moving -- your struggle and frustration come through clearly -- and I want to offer some thoughts which I hope will be helpful, but we've concluded with the "what I think you should do" part of the blog today.  All I want to do, in an effort to help you find some insights and willingness on your own, is offer you some things to chew on.

(Too soon? Poor taste? Sorry, sorry -- I thought we needed some salt to balance the sugar.)

WIFW, let me ask you to consider something. 

Do you think you could have gotten sober by going to Gambler's Anonymous?

I mean, it's the same 12 Steps and all, right?  Addiction is addiction and you just swap out that one word in Step 1 and it's all the same thing, right? 

But you and I both know that probably wouldn't have worked when you were brand new. Part of how meetings save lives, and the miracle of recovery is transferred from one to another, is through the process of identification.  So, rather than looking at going to an OA meeting as one more thing -- and yes, you knew that's where this was going when you sat down to write me, right? -- try to look at it as a place where you may find, through identification, some people who understand intimately how you feel and have walked through what is happening to you. There is such comfort in that experience -- you know that from what happened to you in AA -- that I urge you to consider going to a meeting or two. Whether or not you fully identify, you may hear something(s) which will help. The 12 Steps are the same, but sometimes the specific tools can be different. (Just like if one person is missing a foot and the other a hand, they are both amputees but they each need to become fluent in using different tools and develop different habits and skills to navigate their day. A food addict and a drug addict are both addicts, and the 12 Steps can help them both, but they will face different triggers and challenges along the way.)

Addiction, whatever its stripe, wants to get us alone. It is a disease which makes you believe that it is safer, more comfortable, more fun, to say "no" to life rather than say yes.  But right now -- RIGHT NOW -- in your life, every single night you isolate with the food -- you are experiencing what a lie addictive thinking truly is, because, dear WIFW, I'm sorry but the email you sent me was not written by a happy person.

Now, it's very likely that your involvement in AA (and good for you and congrats on your sobriety, btw!) brings some comfort and healing, but that is addressing the symptom of the other issue you are going through, not the problem.  And once again, we know first hand from our sobriety that ultimately that won't work. Can you "use your AA on it?" Well, sure, you can try I guess. But you're already active in AA, and you still find yourself standing in your kitchen, in probably old sweats or a bathrobe, not feeling so good about yourself and reaching for the window cleaner.  Ask yourself, truly what, exactly, is "using your AA on this" going to look like?  I am sorry, WIFW but I smell an evasion.

You know you don't have to admit anything, or tell anyone anything, or eat anything different or shop for groceries different(ly) to go to a meeting.  Just go.  If you want to say "I'm visiting" when or if you are asked to identify, that's fine. You know the 12 Step world now, you know people will want to make you feel welcome (and may sometimes be enthusiastic in that regard) but you're safe there, and no one can make you do or say anything.  You're not making a commitment to add another five 12 Step meetings to your week, you're just going to a meeting.  Go, and listen and see how you feel. Grab a brochure or two.  Google OA and poke around the site. (Okay fine HERE, okay?)

As the old addage goes, take what you like and leave the rest. Treat it like a buffet, if you will. (oh my God I can't stop!)

WIFW, you know I am only silly sometimes because one thing that happens when we isolate is that we take ourselves very seriously.  Our disease is serious, yes, but our recovery need not be all widows weeds and ashes.  You've been sober for [close to five years]!  You are a living, breathing miracle! Checking out another 12 Step Program won't be overwhelming, it will be a piece of cake!

(Okay, that was the last one. I swear.)

But lean in, because I'm going to whisper something very important right now.  And I am going to whisper it not because it's a secret, but because it's important you remember it:

The trick, when you have been sober in AA for a while, and you go to another 12 Step Program, is to not just work on your willingness, but on your humility as well. You aren't some Inspector General, sent from AAHQ to see how they do recovery in the hinterlands. Dont' hide behind your time in AA. Don't hide behind the lingo you know. If you go, and if you identify, and if you decide to do the deal and heal this addiction (since, dear WIFW, while I don't know you and I do not like to "diagnose" over the internet, what you describe does sound a teensy little bit like addictive behavior) don't just give yourself permission to be a newcomer - actually BE a newcomer.  Or, to put it more succinctly: 12 Step credits do not transfer.

Finally, if I was right, and after feeling silly and irritated you felt... something else... when you were looking in the mirror and giving yourself love and forgiveness, then maybe you should lean into that and incorporate some real, regular, demonstrative (in that you say them out loud) affirmations into your life.  While affirmations are a potent psychological and spiritual tool, I find that many of us secretly look down on them as more suited to the Stuart Smalley's of the world; vapid, slightly insipid and a little sad.  My experience is that if you do them as a routine you can engender a sincere and profound healing over time.  (And while, strictly speaking, affirmations are not exactly an AA thing, per se, I will be happy to, in some other essay, postulate a brief but elegant theorem demonstrating that affirmations are a type of formal meditation, and we can slide them in under that heading to comfort the dogmatic, difficult or purists among us.)

But if you do go to OA, and you work a program and celebrate a year anniversary, don't get too excited about having some birthday cake when you pick up your chip.

All they give you is a pineapple.

Seriously.

But from those who have struggled and made it, the reports are that it was one of the most satisfying meals they ever had. In fact one dear friend in particular, who had a very hard path with much relapse, but who eventually achieved (one day at a time) a year of abstinence, reported that tears and pineapple juice mix just fine running down your chin.

Good luck, my prayers are with you, and please let me know how it goes.

You are worth saving, and you deserve a joyful life.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

 _________________________________________________________________

 

There are more Questions and Answers like this one in "Mr. SponsorPants: Adventures in Sobriety and The 12 Steps for AA's and Others."  Available as an eBook on Kindle via Amazon.  Download a Kindle reader for free on any device or platform, from PC to Smartphone, and enjoy eBooks anywhere you have time to read.

 

Questions via Email: What's the point of praying if you're not going to get anything?

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

You wrote before about giving up on a God that rewards you. I don't understand. Isn't the point of praying to get an answer or something from a HP? 

D.C.

 

Dear D.C.

I hope you will forgive me the liberty of boiling your email down to its main question.  Gonna be four bullet points in this.  Ready?  Here we go:

 

• When AA suggests you seek a connection to a God "as you understand God" the main idea behind the "as you understand" part is that you don't need to subscribe to the beliefs or ideas anyone in your past (or present) has about who/what God is or how the Universe works. The good deal is that you're praying.  Keep praying! No matter what the Cosmic Deal is, prayer is not a bad thought cycle for the human brain. And whatever belief you have is absolutely, 100% awesome and powerful and effective and will help you stay sober.  If you have a God which gives you answers then that is absolutely viable.  Common sense and AA literature suggest that you loop some level headed, trustworthy sober folks in on what kinds of answers you might be getting, but in no way am I suggesting your connection to your HP is not true and right for you.  My experience is that my ideas about God -- and thus, my sense of connection to God and the Universe and my beliefs about how it all interacts -- have evolved over time.  That doesn't make what I believed before any less valid than what I believe now.  All of my relationships in life have evolved (deepened, gotten smarter, stronger, different...) as I've gotten older and stayed sober.  Why wouldn't the one I have with my HP do so too? So let my -- and other people's -- beliefs give you food for thought, but don't trouble yourself over much if they don't line up right now with your ideas about prayer and God. The point for us all is that we keep seeking, not that we begin understanding.

 

• For me, the point of prayer is to strengthen my connection with whatever the Divine might be, and to help change myself so that I can better align with the principles of love and service, no matter the circumstance or the people involved.  A tall order for this alcoholic.  Lotta prayer required to get me there.  Still working on it.  As I've said a lot here, it's not the "because" I seek anymore (in the way of "answers") it's the "how" I'm asking about.  Again, for me, that approach has been far more effective and brought me much more peace. But I'll be honest with you; sometimes that path can feel a tiny bit short on comfort.
  

 

• When I talk about a God that rewards (or punishes) me I am talking about very old ideas I had about how the Universe worked. In fact, I realize now that I was (understandably) frightened by the idea of a world in which anything could happen -- and equally fearful of a God who might give me hard or mean lessons "for my own good." To deal with this fear I created -- from both traditional theology and just good old superstition -- a belief that if I was "good," i.e. "sober" then God would, if not give me stuff, then at least prevent bad things from happening to me.  In this way I see now that I was trying to control God and the Universe. It was my loophole in the 3rd Step.  Sort of my secret clause in the fine print at the bottom of the prayer:  "God, I offer myself to Thee... as long as what Thou art going to do with me is nice and not scary and always comfortable and good.  If Thou agrees, then please initial on the line by the addendum, and you can see that I have initialed here by the clause that in exchange I will be a Good Boy now. Thank You."

 

• Recently I heard in a meeting that one definition of sobriety is that you start cooperating with the Universe.  That really resonates for me.  I believe that if I follow AA's spiritual principles -- which are in essence much the same as the spiritual principles at the heart of most great schools of thought and theologies -- that I will align myself with what might be commonly called Spiritual Laws. (While it's a whole other discussion as to what those Laws might actually be, that they exist is a safe common ground most of us can meet on, I believe.)  Lately I've come to think of it this way:  If you scrape the barnacles from the bottom of a boat, clean the deck, tighten the ropes, mend and then raise the sails, you will have put yourself in the best possible alignment with the natural forces of wind and water and your boat will likely sail forward as it was built to do, at its best speed and stability.  But it would be strange to say that the wind rewarded your boat. You did the footwork and the natural laws which are in place (whether you can see them or not, whether you believe in them or not, whether you can explain them or not) kicked in and your footwork gave you a result. I trust that God has built a Universe with Spiritual Laws which govern my soul's footwork in much the same way Natual Laws govern my body and the material world around me. It makes God no less a partner with me, no less caring, but it puts the responsiblity for enlarging my spiritual experience squarely on me.

 

Words, words, words... I fear these God discussions can bring out the weird and the windbag in me (to keep with the theme above). The bottom line is that if you keep praying, and you keep seeking, your sobriety will bloom and you pretty much can't go wrong.  We don't pick up the first drink and we keep seeking.  The rest sort of falls into place if you keep coming back.

And I pray you do.

 

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

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There are more essays like this one in "Mr. SponsorPants: Adventures in Sobriety and The 12 Steps for AA's and Others."  Available as an eBook on Kindle via Amazon.  Download a Kindle reader for free on any device or platform, from PC to Smartphone, and enjoy eBooks anywhere you have time to read.

 

 

Questions via Email: Wondering about roll of sponsor; breaking anonymity, speaking to co-workers

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I am wondering what the roll of a sponsor is. I have had a friend come to me who recently relapsed and said she cannot trust her sponsor that she went to her job and told about aa and told them that she relapsed and they should fire her. Is that breaking anonymity is it the sponsors business to be doing this?

K.

 

 

Dear K.,

Wow. There is potentially so much crazy in these scenarios I don't know where to start.  Ok, let me try and break it down:

Yes. Identifying someone as a member of AA is breaking their anonymity, whether you do it with their coworkers or anyone else.

No. It is not the sponsor's "business" to be doing that. Or anything remotely like that. My experience as a sponsee and as a sponsor is that what is discussed in that relationship is viewed as "strictly confidential" between the two parties, and that boundary remains past the sponsor relationship being active or not.

I once had a sponsee ask me, "Well, what about if I was on Trial and you had to swear on the BIBLE UNDER OATH and they asked you about this? What would you say then?"  (They were, as you can surmise, prone to dramatic hypotheticals.)  My response to this question was -- and to this hypothetical situation, actually -- is that my memory is notoriously faulty. I can easily imagine that I would not be able to recall anything. 

(And then I mentally began planning what I might wear to court that day for my Big Scene in the Witness Box, which shows you just how ridiculous I can be since -- stay with me now -- I was deciding what suit to wear for a situation that didn't even exist. <sigh> There's a reason I drank, folks.)

While there are always two (or more) sides to a story, this is all kinds of crazy if that's what this sponosor did.  It's so over-the-top, in fact, that it makes me wonder (just a teeny bit, K.) about your friend.  Perhaps there is some confusion or exaggeration involved here, as part of a whole "blame AA" thing so that then she can stop going and use as she wants?  I am only wondering, is all.  If that's the case, the best kind of friend you can be is to stick close and be the trusted confidant they might need until they can find a way to trust someone else.

I have no doubt there are a lot of stories about bad behavior on the part of sponsors out there.  I honestly don't know too many personally but I would be a fool to assume everyone is as principled as I wish them to be.  People have lots of issues that come to the fore when they put down the drink, and that can be a problem in the rooms of AA as much as on their job or at home.  Sometimes more so, in fact.

I would encourage you to tell your friend that you are there for them regardless, and to go to a lot of meetings together (key word: Together).

You're a good friend.  Keep me posted.

Mr. SP

 

 

Questions Via Email: Lost Higher Power

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I am well over ten years sober, and I have two questions:

What happens if you lose your Higher Power?

What happens if you realize you may never have really had one?

Some backstory:

Some years before recovery I was working in a third world country.  I had gone down there both as a service to others and as a scenery change. During those years in the country I had seen some pretty amazing and terrible things. For most of the job I "self medicated" (as did many of the others working with me) to help keep my mind from the "terrible" part.

Now, years later and sober, I felt I was missing something, something that was nagging at me, so I decided to try counseling for once.  that was when it all started coming back to me, all of the events that transpired, both the great and the awful times in that country came to the surface.

It hit me hard a couple of weeks ago. I lost my sense of a Higher Power. My idea of God, of a divine sense of a powerful nature being controller of all things, just vanished. I felt like I was left alone right after a tornado came and swept everything away from me.

My recovery has depended on a Higher Power. I always knew in a small way that things were not right, but I managed. I am a sponsor and have a sponsor. I have been invited to speak all throughout my recovery. I have spoken about the importance of the spiritual base of this program, but now all of it sounds empty.

I am a little scared and have an intense feeling of grief. Any suggestions?

Thank you,

S.

 

Dear S.,

First: I understand.  Deeply.

Over the years my own faith has been a fitful thing; from bulwark to bullshit by turns. And it certainly resulted in the kind of psychic whiplash you describe, causing me to not only feel lost and Very Alone, but to question all that I had ever felt -- and shared with others in AA -- before.

I think it was Thomas Merton who said "All great men of faith doubt." And certainly, if you scratch the surface of almost any religion you will find much writing on the topic, from the New Testament's other Thomas (he of the topical nickname) to Muhammad on the night he received the revelation of the Koran.

(I mean no disrespect to any faith when I say that I have often imagined, from Moses to Joseph Smith, from Joan of Arc to "Joan of Arcadia," a universal moment of human emotion which transcended language and era in which each of those who received a revelation stopped, looked into the Light from which their Message came and basically said, "Seriously?")

So buck up.  You're in great good company.

I have had more than one crisis of faith as I have stayed sober, and each one has been experienced through a lens both personal and global, offering some surprising gifts along their dark and seemingly empty paths. I tell you this because I understand not just your doubt but your fear -- most especially your fear regarding a crisis of faith and being able to stay sober through it (the serious subtext of your email's conclusion).

So I am going to give you some very direct answers to your questions, and then try and share some more general experiences I've had which I hope will provide, if not a rowboat to climb into, then at least a buoy to cling to.

What happens if you lose your Higher Power?  Nothing.

Oh, certainly it is dark and lonely and your eyes may show a little too much white around the edges for a while as harsh reality and hard questions wash through your mind like cold waves from a rising sea.  You may be uncomfortable.  Tears are probable.  Anger inevitable (for what is Anger but Fear with its dukes up?)  But you got and stayed sober through doing sober actions.  Uncomfortable, frightened or bereft of faith, if you keep doing those sober actions you can keep staying sober.

I can pray without feeling.  I can meditate and let it be an exercise in stillness.  I can be of service to get out of myself.  I can write without writing a letter to God (though when you wind up writing letters to a God you don't believe in it will be a moment of high personal comedy, I assure you).  I can go to meetings.  I can share honestly about what I'm going through, both one-on-one and at group level.  I can pick up the phone and talk to other alcoholics about what is going on and find out how they are doing.  I can take a newcomer to coffee and listen, and draw from AA's wealth of common sense, practical suggestions should they ask for help.  I can do all those sober actions without feeling any connection whatesoever to a Higher Power.

I know this is true because I have done it.  Every single one of them.

I do not want to, when my faith tank is on "E," but as I have learned the hard way, "want to" and "willing" are two different things.

What happens if you realize you may never have really had one?  Stop.  Literally, stop.  Don't do that to yourself.  Today's doubt will always try to look back and erase whatever faith came before.  Neither you, nor I, were stupid or foolish or simple or duped or blind or in denial or anything else along the course of our spiritual development.  What I felt and believed then was valid for then.  My doubt now is valid for now. A building's foundation is not the roof. Each part of an edifice is its own part to make a structure as a whole.

A few last things:

Stick with therapy.  See this through.  AA and common sense both suggest that we make good use of all the healing tools available to us in the world. 

The first drink gets me drunk.  If you don't pick up the first drink you won't get drunk. Talk frankly with others about what is happening with you.  Keeping this a secret is not only dangerous to yourself, it denies others the opportunity to watch someone walk through a crisis of faith and stay sober.

Hang in there.  My spiritual deserts now are painful but not frightening.  I have been there before and I will in some fashion be there again.  St. Therese (the little flowers saint) had some wise insights into this:  After feeling a literal ecstasy of faith for years she experienced the other end of the spectrum and fell into a deep (what we might call clinical) depression.  What she decided was that, just as she had offered her joyous faith to God, she would offer her overwhelming grief and emptiness to God.  A sort of, "Okay, first you wanted me to serve you through joy, now you want me to serve you through sorrow.  Not really feelin' it, but okay.  I give this to you as I gave the other."  (As you can imagine I am broadly paraphrasing here.)

I believe that, as I have used my other difficult experiences to be of service to others (whether there's a God involved in that or not) I can use my lack of faith to show that I can be sober through practicing AA's principles one day at a time regardless.  And thus, there is a point to what I am going through -- which then in turn makes it easier to go through.

You saw first hand in the third world some hard truths about the Universe, and when you shake it down you are coming to "Why?"  As in, "why, if there is a benevolent God..." I will let you fill in your personal memories at the end of that question.

You may or may not find a "because" to satisfy you.  This is the part of the Big Book (my least favorite part, in fact, as the metaphor hijacks the point) which talks about the bridge of logic and the shore of faith and how logic alone cannot get us to a working faith.  For me, that means, I must find a belief which leaves room for some of my unanswered "Why's?"

While I may not always find a "because" through prayer, I always find a "how."  Even if you do not believe, and the words are sand in your mouth and you feel the Universe is a much scarier place than it was when you had the faith you used to have, if you pray "how can I use this dark, doubtful time in which I do not even believe in You to be of service to others?" then you will get an answer.

And it will be a good one and it will help you.

And you don't have to believe that as you read it.  As with anything in sobriety, you only have to try.  And also, while I understand what it is like not to believe, you can count on the fact that today I do. 

 

Good luck and please keep in touch.

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

 

 

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There are more essays like this one in "Mr. SponsorPants: Adventures in Sobriety and The 12 Steps for AA's and Others."  Available as an eBook on Kindle via Amazon.  Download a Kindle reader for free on any device or platform, from PC to Smartphone, and enjoy eBooks anywhere you have time to read.

 

 

Questions via Email: Sober in South Africa

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I love your blog with its beautiful simplicity, your words of wisdom and your sponsor/sponsee advice.  I am close to a year and a half sober, in the fellowship and live in South Africa.  I have a sponsor who has a good bit more than two decades of sobriety and I have recently began sponsoring a sponsee.  I am also doing active service and redoing my steps.  These are some pertinent things happening to me during the week and I feel lost and confused and generally in a rather "grey" space.

1. I began a detailed fourth step (did a glossed over version a year ago) separating my life in seven year segments so that I could go through each with a fine tooth comb.  In the process, toxic feelings, pain and despair started to come through.  My sponsor had to leave the country for a short while and I feel like I have been deserted (all in my head) during this step.  I have increased my meetings, meditation, service and literature work but still feel pretty glum.  I invited my higher power into the process.  What has helped you when you are deep in grey space?

 

2. What is the difference between sponsorship and "carrying the message?"

 

Many thanks, 

H.

 

Dear H.

Congratulations on your almost year-and-a-half of sobriety!  Each 24 hours sober is a miracle; a reprieve from a shuttered mind stuffed with twisted thinking -- a life driven by obsession and riven by addiction.  It is a miracle even on the grey days, and (not to get too far ahead of myself) that's one thing I focus on when I am not at peace.

My first inventory work was what you call "glossed over" as well.  That is, I was as searching and thorough as I could be at the time, but I was clumsy with the tools of self examination and still in a bit of a fog.  Not to mix my images too broadly but it took me a long time to thaw, and that was not just emotionally, that was mentally as well.  So I applaud you for the willingness to go back and use the fine toothed comb approach.  Such a foundation will serve you well as life throws what it will at you over the course of the one-day-at-a-times ahead.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity to how the 12 Step world suggests we handle things would have nodded and said to themselves, "good. right. good. good." as you cataloged what you are already doing to address the glum, grey space you feel caught in right now.  So I offer you this, to begin with:  Keep doing what you are doing!  As with any medicine, some treatments require regular application to see a result, and I have found that to be as true for my spiritual malady and my spiritual medicine as it is for any physical illness I may suffer.  We often talk about "earning our seat" in AA in reference to the drinking and using and wreckage we created before we got sober, but I often think there is another kind of earning our seat:  The purposeful, heroic, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other trudge we sometimes do when we are mired in despair and using AA's suggested tools to walk through it.  You cannot fail if you keep close to meetings, continue to be honest, ask for help from your H.P., meditate and lean into service.  You cannot fail.  It is proven time and again -- simple but not easy, that is true -- but absolutely effective.  I offer you this as a supportive hug and a hearty slap on the back across the thousands of miles between us.  Keep on keeping on, H.  Another part of my answer to you is that basically, I do what you are doing, and while I am doing it  I try to remember that my feelings are not facts, they do not define me, I do not have to act on them and eventually, though it may not feel like it at the time, they WILL pass.  

But I would also like to offer you something more specific, something more "hand on," across those same miles, in addition to the bit of sincere cheerleading above.

Toxic feelings, pain and despair coming through as a result of looking closely at our past are not uncommon.  Even without specifics I deeply understand how that can be.  And also, even without specifics I have some thoughts about it -- as I share them please understand I am not saying that all of this applies to you, I am merely offering them as possibilities for you to consider and that may, perhaps, prove helpful during this grey passage.

I think it is always important to remember this point made in the Big Book when the inventory process is discussed:  "The world and its people are often quite wrong."  The inventory process is in no way an exercise in trying to put a smile on a corpse.  Terrible things happen, sometimes to the innocent, and when we detail our resentments, and then try to find our part in them, we may be stymied as to how we might possibly find much of a part for us to have played.  So sometimes when doing an inventory we get more enraged and resentful rather than less as we look at how we were wronged and literally cannot find our part because there is not one for us to have had. (Special Note:  In the VAST MAJORITY of the time, in my own inventories, I did have a part.  This is not about finding a loophole for ourselves.)  In such cases, what I find is that there is not a part to have HAD, but there may be a part to have NOW.  In other words, my part in the resentment is morbidly hanging onto this wrong from long ago.  Be honest with yourself, grieve innocence lost, rage at what is to our mortal perception a deeply unjust Universe, and then... then set it aside.  Yes, whatever happened did happen, but there are choices to be made TODAY about what I focus on and how I let my past influence me.  I am not talking about ignoring something, I am talking about turning my face to the light, instead of looking always at my wounds, pulling at them and keeping them from healing.  Also, as you will discover as you move deeper into being of service, using whatever happened in our past to help another alcoholic transforms our pain into something greater than a wound -- it becomes a way to pass on recovery and in helping others find peace we ourselves find it too. 

The main point of the resentment part of the inventory is to determine what our part is in the resentment, which then becomes a catalog of our character defects, which in Steps 6 and 7 I ask God to heal (remove) so that I may be of better service to the people around me.  Sometimes my part in the resentment about what happened in the past is that my self obsession prevents me from leaving the past in the past.  Denial is not healing, true, but morbid self reflection is not self examination, either.  Where the line for each of us is on these things is unique to each situation and to each of us as well.  Again, I am throwing out there some things for you to consider, that is all -- they may only partially apply -- or perhaps not at all.

Sometimes the toxicity, rage and despair comes from not being able to forgive those who may have wronged us.  Again I look at what the Big Book suggests about these things:  That those who wronged us are themselves spiritually sick.  We were wounded by the shrapnel of someone else's spiritual land mine exploding under foot.  It was not about us -- it was never about us -- and when I work to see others as spiritually sick too I begin to build the foundation for viewing them with a compassionate heart -- and when I can come from that place no suffering from despair can occur.  The world and its people are often quite wrong -- and sometimes any feeling of God's Plan is far out of reach.  I offer you this, too, if it can be of any help.

Of course sometimes it is crushing guilt which tortures us, and the person we cannot forgive is ourselves.  We look at the patterns of our own wrongs, or see the lost opportunities, squandered in the wasteland of our drinking and drug use, and fear we will never have those chances again.  And you know what?  We may not.  If you were a great athelete up to the age of 15 and an illness put you in a wheelchair for ten years and you finally got back on your feet at age 25, you would have lost ten prime years of training and play and you will not get them back.  Sometimes my part is wishing for a different path, or a different past.  It was what it was and it is what it is.  Active alcoholism is about escaping reality.  My recovery is about seeing it and accepting it.  I raise my head and I act as if I feel better than I do and I turn my focus to helping others and I feel better.  Eventually, I heal. 

 

As for the difference between sponsorship and carrying the message, I'm not really sure there is one.  A sponsor is carrying the message to a sponsee in some very specific ways, and yet we also carry the message of sobriety to others suffering by the example of our lives, living AA's principles and discovering joy and fellowship we could never have imagined when drinking.  It is not my business to know who I may help by carrying the message by being an example -- it is my business to be the example.

I assure you, H., from what I've read of you in your email, you are doing just that.

 

Cheers!

Mr. SponsorPants

Questions via Email: Starting out

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I've come to recognize I can't stop this alone, and there is a meeting every week at night at a church very near where I live.  What do I do?  Just walk in, sit down and listen?  Is once a week enough to realize results?  I'm nervous and scared of what to expect, but my current level of drinking is unsustainable.  If I get up the courage to go, what should I expect?

 

Starting Out

 

 

Dear Starting Out,

I want you to imagine that you've never been in a bar, and you asked me to describe for you what it will be like when you walk in your first bar.  I'd be able to say that generally, all bars have certain things in common.  There's the actual, physical bar, which you can usually sit at and also is the place to order drinks.  There may be tables with chairs, and/or a dance floor.  There will certainly be a bartender, maybe more than one.  Possibly servers, maybe some security.  There could be live music, or a dj, or an old school jukebox.  The patrons might be a diverse group or very similar, friendly or flirty or mostly keeping to themselves.  Having maybe been to a bar or two in your life (wink!) you can easily see how the answer to such a question is, strangely, both general and specific.

The broadest answer to your question is a lot like the answer to my hypothetical example above.  That is, almost all meetings have a few things in common.  You can usually expect that there will be a focus to the meeting -- meaning, it might be a speaker/discussion, or a book study of some kind, or a meeting which examines the 12 Steps in some way.  There's usually a written format, often a speaker, generally a secretary who helps organize things and, while responsible for helping the meeting to function is not actually in charge in the traditional sense.  You may find seats arranged in a circle, or classroom style.  Generally in my experience, regardless of the kind of meeting or the city I've been in, people are usually pretty friendly, and someone will probably introduce themselves to you, and ask your name.  If you tell them this is your first meeting -- and I encourage you to be as honest as possible right from the start -- someone may offer you a meeting directory, or the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (what is usually referred to as our "Big Book), and may introduce you to people.  If the meeting has readings you might be asked to read one -- or you might not.  None of this is done to make you uncomfortable, but is more a practice of trying to make you feel welcome and "a part of" the group.

Given that there is a mental component to alcoholism which is constantly trying to talk us out of getting help for our disease, sometimes AA members with good intentions can come on a little strong to new people, mostly due to their own experiences with the struggle to get sober.  These extra-enthusiastic folks might seem a bit intense, but I assure you that it is only because they know too well how serious addiction is.  Based on your email, Starting Out, I can tell you have a glimmer of understanding about that.  Conversely, it is also true that when we're new some of us are a little hypersensitive, and it's not that people are coming on too strong, it's that we're tender and adrift without a drink in our hands.  Either way I pray you give the people in the meeting a chance.  It might seem strange, there could be lingo which feels alien or hokey to your ears.  Some people might talk about God (and you do NOT need to believe in God to make a start in Alcoholics Anonymous.  You can remain on the fence about God -- or choose not to believe -- for as long as it is right for you -- which might mean many years, or you may not be troubled by this element.  AA only suggests you find a Power Greater than yourself -- eventually to many of us that is God, but it's okay if that's not where you are with it.)

People usually identify when they speak; they usually say "I'm so-and-so, and I'm an alcoholic" and it is a general custom for people to respond, "Hi so-and-so."  The roots of this are from the need for people to be honest with themselves about their condition and also to be friendly and help people feel welcome.  You are not required to do anything you don't want to do, but the more you participate the more you might get out of the experience -- so don't be thrown by this, and if you're asked to introduce yourself you can say out loud that you're an alcoholic (if that's what you believe) or just say your name, or say your name and say that you're just here to listen. 

Can you get results from going to AA once a week?

Well, let me ask you, can you get results from going to the gym once a week? 

I would suggest that once a week is a little light when it comes to treating alcoholism.  I can absolutely tell you my experience is that I needed a good number of meetings for a good long while to help me stay sober.  My dead sponsor -- he who's wise counsel I miss every single day -- used to sqint through his cigarette smoke, sip his espresso and say to me, "Did you drink every day?" and I would be forced to answer, "Pretty much.  Yeah."  Then he would nod and say, "Then what's your [expletive] problem about going to a meeting every day?"  It would have taken a better man than I to balk at his dire glare and dry tone.

Now, Starting Out, I hope the above helps you feel like you know what to expect, and thus makes it a little easier to walk through the door, but the simplest answer to your email is this:

Yes, just walk in, sit down, and listen.  No one can make you do anything, you can leave at any time.  No one is judging you.  Sure, they're people, with the attendant foibles of any group of people, but they are people gathered to share their experience in being drinkers like you, and to talk about how the solution AA offers is helping them stay sober -- and part of that solution is sharing it with other people, and they'll be more than happy toshare it with you if you let them.

There is a basket that is passed, but if you're short of cash no one will think anything of you not putting anything in.  Most people have been there -- especially when they're new.  You might get some phone numbers, so when you're afraid you're going to drink you can call someone and talk it through.  Yes, this sounds appalling, to call a virtual stranger and ask for help about such a thing, but if you do you'll actually be helping them tremendously, since you'll help them get out of their head and be of service to you for a little bit -- and that is actually a life saving thing for most of us, self obsessed as we are.

AA is the best thing that ever happened to me, Starting Out, and I credit it with helping me become the man I am today -- and, for the most part, I'm pretty happy with the result.  With the kind of drinking I used to do, and the things I used to do when loaded, or trying to get loaded, or trying to recover from getting loaded -- well, AA uses the word miracle a lot, and for the most part it feels pretty apt when I look at my life today.

Don't wait for the time you're not nervous or afraid -- that time might never come.  Go anyway, despite the fear.  I'm not sure of exactly what you'll find, but the one thing I can guarantee is that you will find people who truly understand.

Walk in, sit down and listen.

And despite having a terrible illness which will try every trick in the book from preventing you from doing so, you might just save your life.

Say a little prayer. "Help! Help! Help!" is good enough to probably get you through the door.

I'll say one for you too.

Good luck.

 

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

 

Questions via Email: I secretly think small AA meetings are a waste of time

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

I live in [a major city] and am blessed with many AA meetings to attend. Some of them are quite large.  I like the energy in these large meetings and feeling like I am a part of something big.

I have [a lot of time] but I have a guilty secret about meetings.  It's not a big deal but it does get under my skin.  Before I tell you, let me say I know it is fear and ego but I can't seem to make any headway on this.

Sometimes when I go to an AA meeting if it is small I feel like it is a waste of time and because of that I sometimes leave early.  If I am asked to Chair a meeting and it is small I secretly feel like I am wasting my time.  Praying and writing have not helped much yet.

I like your thinking on a lot of AA (but some of your ideas I do not agree with at all).  Can you share anything which might help?

Meeting Judger

 

Dear Judger,

Maybe you've heard this one before.  Maybe it will help you think about this differently:

A man was vacationing by the seashore.  He had been working hard and long and was greatly looking forward to a holiday of sun and sand, so on his very first day of vacation he was up early, almost the crack of dawn, and decided to go for a walk on the beach.

He strolled along the water's edge, savoring the morning.  It was so early he was nearly the only person up and out, save for a few lone joggers in the distance.  He watched the waves fling themselves onto the shore and then recede, and as he walked he noticed the water mark and, comparing it to where the waves were striking, decided that the tide was going out.

He paused and closed his eyes, tasting the salt in the air and feeling the sun upon his face.  Early as it was he could feel its strength, and knew it would eventually be a scorching hot day.

Resuming his stroll he noticed, just a short ways down the beach, a number of objects in the sand, near the edge of the receding waves.  It didn't look like trash exactly... he walked a bit faster, propelled by curiosity, and drew close enough to see what it was.

Starfish.

Many starfish, dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds even, lying in the damp sand, feeling the last touch of the sea as the waves' reach diminished under the cyclical pull of their eternal mistress -- invisible for now -- the Moon.

He looked at all the starfish, both beautiful and ugly in the way of some things, with their cartoon symmetry and their strange, almost prehistoric skin, bumpy and golden in the increasingly hot sun.  Some few were low enough on the tide line to be pulled back into the sea, but most of the others were too high, and would soon die in the baking heat of the oncoming day.

Maybe it was Nature's way, but he couldn't just walk by and leave them to their fate.  He began picking them up and flinging them back into the sea, as far as he could

Unnoticed till now, one of the lone joggers in the distance had reached him and, watching for a moment, asked the man what he was doing.

"Well," the man said, pausing, "if I just leave them, they'll die."

The jogger looked down the beach at the number of starfish.  "There's no way you can save them all.  I mean, ultimately, what difference does it make?"

The man cocked his head and looked at the jogger, then looked down at the starfish in his hand before giving it a mighty throw back into the sea.

"Made a difference to that one."  He said, continuing on.