Answer Addiction

Tag: higher power

  • Forgive and Remember

    Better to face the discomfort than continue to trudge along under a false impression that it’s not dormant inside, oblivious to the ticking of the time bomb that will eventually go off.

    Weekday morning programming kept me company in the background. The crispy and cold bedspread gave me some solace. My parents had just left the apartment and I was curled up like a fetus at the foot of the bed. It had been a while since I entertained the unwelcome visitor. What the hell was he doing here? Everything was going great, or so I believed. Two days with them proved me wrong. What seemed to be progress in acceptance and personal growth was only a by-product of spending a year on the other side of the world. No wonder I wasn’t feeling good and stayed in that day. The illusion of the enlightened and perfect world I’d been living in was shattered. The mourning of this started as a slow downward spiral that quickly turned into a tailspin but felt more like a free fall. I had not wished I hadn’t been born for a couple years now. But it was as if it had never left my side felt stronger than ever. I was drowning and didn’t know which way was up. It seemed that no matter what I did, I’d always come back to this powerlessness. What was the point to keep on trying? “Forget this. Life is too hard. You wouldn’t have to deal with all this if you ended it”, he suggested.

    Awakened unresolved issues were kicking and screaming. This is a very scary place to be, especially in this dangerous company. Running in fear was actually the courageous thing to do. It was time to resort to what saved my life a couple years prior. It was time to go back to basics. I knew a lot of meeting rooms in Miami, but this one was my favorite. There were some faces I recognized and others I didn’t. Most were friendly; mine was not. There was a thick fog of negativity inside my head and it was probably clear in my blank stare. Like a good friend used to say, sometimes we go to give sometimes we go to receive. I was in dire need.

    Some say it’s magic, others call it God, to avoid charged debates most refer to a Higher Power. Whatever you choose to call it, there is Something that definitely moves through those present. I lost count of how many times I heard exactly what I needed in those circles. The first times it was unbelievable how the day’s conversation addressed exactly what was eating away at me. It’s not just me. Others share this surprise as well. Even though it’s happened too many times to keep count, I am still at awe when it happens. It makes me feel special and reminds me that I am not alone. It doesn’t surprise me like it did at the beginning. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t take it for granted. I guess it has to do with worthiness and accepting that I am loved and cared for. I appreciate it deeply and it definitely keeps me coming back.

    As soon as the chairperson started the meeting it was obvious, we’d be talking about forgiveness. There were many nuggets of wisdom as each person shared their experience, strength, and hope. I had not forgiven, or rather accepted parts of my childhood. Spending a year on the Beautiful Island made me believe I was at peace with my past, but crossing the Pacific was a wake up call I needed to escape denial once again. It’s always a rude one, but an awakening, nonetheless. Better to face the discomfort than continue to trudge along under a false impression that it’s not dormant inside oblivious to the ticking of the time bomb that will eventually go off.

    The last person that shared might as well have been the first and only. Her share is the only one I remember from that day and one I will never forget. She helped me see things in a new light. She was molested at a young age by her uncle. Hard to believe but she said it was fairly easy for her to forgive him. She had finally forgiven herself after years of struggle and anguish. Her reasons for this challenge had to do with guilt, shame, and self-image. It was a very moving story. It made me uncomfortable to hear, but honored and grateful at the same time. There are details that escape me, but she closed with a line that changed it all for me and I have shared with many when discussing these issues. She said, “forgive and forget? That’s bullshit! We forgive and remember without pain”.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • An Atheist's Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous

    An Atheist's Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous

    Simply put, when we do not understand how something works, we chalk it up to god.

    The following is an excerpt from a longer work.

    Spiritual Caulk and the Great Puppeteer in the Sky

    One of the most profound insights I’ve discovered in atheist literature is that god concepts serve the purpose of filling in gaps in our knowledge. “Miracles” like lightning and earthquakes and sudden changes in personalities were considered inexplicable. In order to satisfy the natural human hunger for explanation deities were invoked. To this day god serves the same purpose. Simply put, when we do not understand how something works, we chalk it up to god. God serves as a metaphysical caulk, a generic, all-purpose filler that effectively fills in the gaps in our understanding.

    One time at an AA meeting at San Francisco’s 1010 Valencia I heard a woman talk about a ride on a city bus. She was fairly new to sobriety, feeling pretty shaky at the time. As she rode the city bus she looked up and, there on the seat directly before her, she recognized a fellow member of AA. This chance encounter and their subsequent interaction helped her through a difficult time. She interpreted this as a miracle. She described it as “god working in her life”, a very common expression in the rooms of AA.

    This is what I have come to refer to, yes, somewhat derisively I confess, as the puppeteer god. It refers to the idea that god arranges worldly matters to reinforce our AA lifestyle, to miraculously guide our “spiritual” development. This god is very helpful, offers us numerous opportunities for growth, but never gives us more than we can handle. On good days god even finds us parking places when we are on the verge of being late for some important event, like an AA meeting or a job interview. The puppeteer also likes to miraculously inspire our sponsor to call us just when we most need to hear from him or her. I understand the comfort such beliefs bring. A safe, orderly world. Like a household in which a caring, attentive parent oversees all.

    But I wondered as she spoke, hadn’t this other fellow been on that bus before? Undoubtedly when she was still “in her cups”, that same rider was right there, sitting before her unnoticed. In fact that very same rider might have been sitting across the way, waving a Big Book directly in her face just the day before. But she would have been unable to acknowledge this fortuitous encounter and all the mutual good that it afforded. Perhaps she had been blinded to the world around her as she obsessed over how and where she was going to get her next fix, pill or drink.

    Wasn’t the difference, the real deal maker in this scenario, our speaker’s newfound willingness to perceive and imbue with value this most excellent opportunity for enhancing her recovery? Wasn’t her newfound openness and willingness really the crux of the matter, regardless of theistic interpretations?

    I find it very difficult to relate to the sharing of AA members whose Higher Power arranges the world to fix them. They utilize god to fill in the void in their understanding when interesting and impressive things happen in their lives. To me this just smacks of mental laziness. I feel very uncomfortable in meetings where this sort of thing takes place. I think they are dismissing the power of genuine willingness in their lives, denigrating the incredible capacity of humans to embrace change and transform for the better.

    If you choose to interpret recovery experiences in this way, you are left with some inexplicable and particularly onerous implications. For example, why did god not similarly come to the rescue of Freddy, or Jim, or Alice, or Tom? Each of them has relapsed and are now out stumbling drunk or shooting up in an alley somewhere. Why did the puppeteer not come to their aid? Is there a merit system involved? Is it karma? Unlikely to be the case, as we all know miscreants who have been spared, yet sweethearts who have succumbed.

    I believe that the real work in our bus rider’s life is being done largely by her newfound attitude. She is open to solutions and opportunities to grow her recovery that, prior to this time, she could not even have recognized. She is ready for new, life changing experiences that could move her forever away from the needle and the bottle, and instead towards sober well-being. This mindset, of open-mindedness and willingness, is essential to recovery. Theistic interpretations are not. And it is this newfound mindset that’s really doing the heavy lifting here. Not god.

    Courage to Change

    Prayer and meditation are among the most obvious examples of definitively religious practices considered essential to recovery. This morning, ironic though it may be, I prayed before returning to these blasphemous writings. Why? Because I need a daily restoration to sanity and this activity is a learned and habitual component in that process. 

    But the heavy lifting in prayer is not done by anything outside of us. The puppeteer deity does not meet our requests, or deny them, or even hear them. Through prayer and meditation we make fundamental changes to ourselves. It is an act of commitment and recommitment to a new set of values. But there is nothing that is literally miraculous involved, no outside deity at work. Praying for people, places and things does nothing to affect the people, places or things in question. What it can do is change us, and thereby our relationships with the people, places and things in question. What prayer does is simply change our thinking, our emotions, our action choices, and thereby everything about our relationships with the rest of the world.

    AA members often jest that we should be careful what we ask for. A common interpretation is that, when you begin to pray for something, to ask god for something, god will present you with opportunities to develop or earn that thing. Say, for example, you discover in your inventory process you suffer from impatience. Recognizing this as a defect in your character, you subsequently pray for increased patience.

    The popular mythology in AA is that, at this point, The Great Puppeteer in the Sky will place before you a frustrating series of circumstances intended to shine a spotlight on your impatience. “Our higher power presents us with opportunities for growth.” Having become ready to have this defect removed, god now tests, or forges, us through exposure to temptation. That god gives us what we need in order to allow us the opportunity to develop our character is a historically common theistic interpretation.

    But it is fairly easy to see how a non-believer, or conversely, if you will, one who believes in human potential, can interpret such experiences as simply highlighting our newfound sensitivity and awareness, along with our newfound willingness to change. Occam’s Razor, or the Law of Parsimony, suggests that, all other things being equal, we should employ the explanation which posits the least extra parts, as it were. Certainly employing supernatural deities to explain straightforward psychological and social phenomenon directly conflicts with this most common sense philosophical principle.

    Consider, for example, the sixth and seventh steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. These prescribe for us that we become willing to have god remove all of our defects of character and humbly ask him to do so. If we work the steps with genuine honesty, open-mindedness and a willingness to change, we will come to identify our negative tendencies and reach a state of willingness to change. From here on out, if we are genuinely interested in changing, we will be hyper-aware of these traits and their consequences in our daily life. This newfound sensitivity to both the trait and its impact on self and society are sufficient, when coupled with an awareness of viable alternatives, to fully explain the process.

    This is what happens when we identify problematic tendencies (steps 4 and 5), and subsequently become willing to change (steps 6 and 7). Through this process of honest and critical self-reflection we are now more acutely aware both of the behavioral propensities and of their negative effects upon self and society. We have heightened our awareness and see these things at work in our lives with greater honesty than ever before. Most of us are aware that some practice is then required, as we strive daily to employ different behaviors when the occasion arises to do so. In this manner we slowly but surely change our habits of word and deed regarding the problematic behavior.

    An introduction to viable alternative attitudes and actions
    +
    A genuine willingness to change
    +
    The passage of time
    =
    All the defect removal we need.

    The result of this process is that we can be significantly transformed. Some defects are removed quickly and easily, perhaps because they are directly correlated with using behaviors. These fall to the wayside as physical sobriety begins. But many defects of character we must grapple with slowly over time. Willingness to change includes being honest enough to identify the defects, to face their effects on ourselves and those around us, to see the daily flare-ups, to learn alternative attitudes and actions from our fellowship or literature, and then to practice the implementation of those alternative methods in our daily lives.

    On this “one day at a time” basis we experience slow, yet certain, incremental change. We gain nothing by understanding these profound transformations as dependent upon theistic intervention. In fact, we may be inclined to take less responsibility, to wait for the miracle rather than work for the change.

    Sometimes a genuine spirit of willingness will create moments of inspiration, moments of sudden change. This, too, should come as no surprise. These rapid changes are miraculous, indeed, in the sense that they are often life-changing and profound. But whether the change is slow and incremental or sudden and immediate neither requires theistic interpretation. In fact, by so doing, we denigrate the amazing and wondrous capacity of humans to change for the better. Perhaps taking the blame for the bad, while giving god credit for the good, is an antiquated and counter-productive tradition.

    The changes brought about by a life in AA can indeed seem profound, even miraculous. We are surprised. One day we could think of nothing but alcohol or drugs, and would obsessively, energetically and compulsively shape our lives around the need to use them constantly, regardless of the horrendous damage done to ourselves and to those around us. The next day (seemingly) we are caring, sober, responsible, unselfish and kind people, almost entirely transformed. We do not recognize that there is within us this capacity for transformation which is perfectly and entirely explicable on humanistic grounds. Because the change is beyond our understanding, we apply the spiritual caulk, the fill-all in our understanding that is “god”. But the caulk is not needed. Miracles happen every day. I know. I am one of them. If you are reading this, you are probably one too. But god is not required to make sense of them. In fact, in so doing, we denigrate and belittle our own innate capacity for transformation and positive change.

    The above is an excerpt from the book Common Sense Recovery: An Atheist’s Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous. The book was originally written as a journal by long-term member Adam N., as he sought to bridge the gap between the religious language and perspectives of AA, and his own increasingly secular, atheistic understanding of the fundamental principles of recovery. Now in its third edition, this work continues to be a valuable guide for many who struggle with the religious nature and language of AA and contains important insights for the future of the fellowship.

    An audio version of Common Sense Recovery will soon be available through audible.com.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • My Higher Power Problem in Overeaters Anonymous

    My Higher Power Problem in Overeaters Anonymous

    Although I have a strong sense of higher power in my life, I did not understand how admitting one’s powerlessness and putting faith in a higher power would aid in eliminating my compulsive eating.

    I first encountered Overeaters Anonymous (OA) while hospitalized for having the disability of schizoaffective disorder, albeit in a roundabout way. During my stay, a woman came to the ward to share her story of success from her own schizoaffective disorder, during which she talked about how she lost over 100 pounds from participating in OA. Given that I too struggled with weight loss, I immediately was inspired by her story.

    After her presentation, we exchanged contact information, and she began to offer her advice on how to win the battle of weight loss. She recommended I write down everything I eat, and within a few weeks I was counting calories. After being discharged from the hospital, I continued to lose weight, writing all my calories every day without fail for over two years. I lost 70 pounds in total.

    I began to fall off with calorie counting when I started working full time, juggling the stress of my disability simultaneously. I began gaining weight again, then becoming further stressed when I started graduate school in social work while still working full time. While my mental wellness has become stronger and stronger, I still today struggle with compulsive eating and weight gain.

    Given my friend’s success with OA, I wanted the program to work for me as well. I attended a meeting in my neighborhood, but immediately felt alienated with the higher power concept. Although I have a strong sense of higher power in my life, I did not understand how admitting one’s powerlessness and putting faith in a higher power would aid in eliminating my compulsive eating. No matter how much I prayed, the change never happened. I shed many a begging tear.

    Subsequent visits to OA meetings did not clarify the concept of higher power. I wanted to philosophically discuss the nature of what it is, with others sharing how they worshipped, how they experienced their higher power as a force in their lives. Yet when people told their stories of recovery and abstinence, they merely referred to their spirituality in bare sentences. “I leaned on my higher power, and I was reformed.” “Hold on, and the miracle will come. It’s just around the corner.” This told me nothing about the strength of their spiritual senses.

    I also experienced confusion about how the spirituality of the 12 steps applied to overeating overall. I felt that compulsive overeating was different from alcoholism and substance abuse, in that it does not result in as much harm towards others. And while virtually anyone would prefer not to be around people who are heavily drunk or on mood altering drugs, overeaters are not as shunned or disparaged. Further, there is nothing comparable to the issues of body image that are always closely entwined with overeating and which are sometimes the focus of discussion in OA meetings. Body positivity is a current movement in which people embrace all shapes and sizes as equally valid. There are also people who are sexually attracted only to those who are overweight or obese. This external perspective can have an effect on how we perceive our own behaviors around food and may even cause some people to reconsider whether they need to lose weight or participate in a program like OA. I can’t think of anything similar when it comes to alcoholism or drug addiction.

    My personal faith includes the world manifesting according to the plan of a higher power that may not have my abstinence from compulsive eating in mind. Just because I ask for better eating habits, that does not mean that my desire will be granted. What of people who die due to tragic circumstances? Why do people suffer in general? I have cried and begged to my higher power for sobriety, and it has not been granted.

    For me, OA meetings are not enriching enough to make time for in my busy schedule. Virtually everyone at the meetings I attended were older retired and disabled women, none of whom worked. I did not find mutuality with them, not due to their different life stages, but because they did not have the same packed schedule as me. It was easy for them to attend multiple meetings per week and calmly remain connected with their higher power, while I could barely manage to make time in my schedule to relax and be mindful. I did not see them as people I could imitate, and my attempts at finding a sponsor yielded similar feelings.

    Attendees also were not people I wanted to be around in general. In previous years when I weighed less, incidentally when unemployed and still on disability benefits, I achieved weight loss because I frequently went to the women’s gym in my neighborhood. I made friends and got support from people in a mutual and empowering way, and I improved my physical health by exercising in classes and in the weight room. This felt like a more proactive use of my time than sitting in a circle idly, talking about an ambiguous higher power with physically inactive older adults.

    My past experiences have taught me the winning combination to fighting compulsive overeating: counting calories by writing my food intake down, eating healthy foods, and attending the gym at least three times a week. Although this proves more difficult today because I am busy with full-time work and graduate school, I now manage to go twice weekly. I hope to bump it up to three times in the near future.

    Although OA is not compatible with my sense of higher power, my investigation into the 12 steps proved to be an enriching experience. Many people have found recovery with 12-step programs, and it is important for me to understand how specifically it transforms lives, especially as a social work student. When people talk to me about how it benefits them, I can empathize and identify on a fundamental level. The 12 steps also symbolize a spiritual progression, from chaos and despair to spiritual wisdom and groundedness. My sense of spirituality is somewhat congruent with these concepts.

    I personally embrace harm reduction as the resolution to my compulsive overeating. This is the concept that complete abstinence needs not be the immediate goal of recovery, but rather that one can taper off by reducing the harm of current practices. This lends to taking a practical step-by-step approach to recovery, inviting the idea that recovery is a journey and not a destination.

    Harm reduction also seems more forgiving and affirming. These days, addiction is not always characterized as a disease that one remains afflicted with for their entire life; it’s often considered a behavior that is rooted in the need to address a certain underlying condition, such as stress or trauma. Relapse and slip-ups merely fall in stride with the bigger picture of life, and it’s not helpful to think of it as all-or-nothing.

    I hope to achieve recovery in the near future with my own eating, but I also need to celebrate what I have already. I have a loving family and a wonderful network of friends who are passionate about mental health and social work. I have achieved wellness despite my grave disability of schizoaffective disorder, and I am successfully completing more obligations than many can muster. Although weight loss is not happening now, I know that my higher power has the best plans for me in mind, and that I should have faith in everything unfolding in its due time.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • You Are Not My Father

    You Are Not My Father

    I had spent my whole life seeking certainty and security and this break exposed the foolhardiness of that quest. Here was the raw slate of rock bottom once again.

    Last year, a few days before Father’s Day, we were driving home after a week in South Carolina with my parents, the kids asleep in the back. My husband and I had basically just spent a whole week as strangers, sleeping in different bedrooms, not connecting. He had to work late every night — his reason for sleeping in a separate room. I felt our bodies repelling each other from the moment we arrived at their house. I had sensed that force around him often but something about the new setting made it more palpable.

    For months I had been unable to wear my wedding bands because a rash flared up each time I kept them on for more than a few hours. Denial protected me from these not-so-subtle warning signs.

    On one of the first nights of the trip my son woke up screaming with ear pain. It could have been from the pool water or from the mounting pressure of his parents’ silent stalemate. His dad very kindly ran out to get him medicine; he was always very loving about things like that. Our little boy’s seeming agony mysteriously vanished as quickly as it came on and we retreated to our separate rooms.

    I made some really terrible meals that trip. I had brought my Insta-pot, which I was not yet savvy with. I made big pots of mushy things amidst a lot of steam. I worried he was quiet because the food sucked; he wasn’t super on board with my change to a plant-based diet. It was both sweet and heartbreaking how hard I was trying. As if I could make it all okay by making a good enough meal; so the family could be good enough, so I can be good enough. Food wasn’t going to fix it.

    The hardest moment was on the third day of the trip. We were in the living room and it was late morning. He and I had been coming and going in opposite directions. He’d take our son to a golf lesson early, then I’d take the kids to the beach while he stayed at the house to work. That third morning I decided to speak up.

    “Do you have to work so much? Usually when people go on vacation they send an auto-response email that they will be unavailable until such and such time. Do you think you could do that?”

    To be fair, I don’t even know if I asked him. It’s very possible that I was indirect, and just insinuated that he was being a big old disappointment for working.

    He erupted. He was clearly under stress and I had poked the bear. His explosive anger was nothing new. On that day I didn’t know the full extent of what was really going on with him, but I would find out soon enough.

    I decided to make the most of the trip with the kids and my parents’ company. I made sure I got to some recovery meetings. I called my sponsor. I’m sure she and I laughed at some things. Which brings me back to the beginning of this story about the end of my 12-year marriage.

    I was sitting on the passenger’s side, well into the 13-hour drive back to New Jersey, when he turned to me.

    “What are you going to get me for Father’s Day?”

    Cool as a cucumber, out glided: “Why would I get you a Father’s Day gift, you’re not my father.” Suffice to say I got the intended reaction, both from him and for myself. He raged and banged the steering wheel saying I was so heartless and cruel, while I was able to seal myself off inside, emotionally protected and walled off. The next day I tried to make it right with a card and apology. My comment that day in the car is not the reason for what happened next, but it has taken me a long time to truly accept that.

    By the end of that week he told me he was leaving, that our relationship had been “too turbulent” and that he “needed to stop living his life trying to please other people.”

    I didn’t see my husband as a man, but as a burden, an overgrown child. At times I hated him for that and other times I took advantage of it. That is not a partnership and this was no longer a union. I suspect it may never have been. A part of me understood his announced departure. The loudest parts of me did not.

    For the first month I chewed on his abandonment (I mean break-up) speech in my mind and was reminded of what my first sponsor said to me when I disingenuously bemoaned my people pleasing defect. She looked me in the eye and said “Jane, there is no such thing as people pleasing, the only person you are interested in pleasing is yourself.” That resonated. I had considered myself a virtuous victim and was seeking attention for how taken for granted I felt. But I wasn’t able to use that card anymore. And yet here I was, years later, applying my sponsor’s observation to my husband’s behavior so I could justify my resentment, superiority, and self-pity. Ugh, I had become a smug sober person.

    He had to rehearse his break up speech to me several times, as I tried coaxing him to go see a therapist together or be open to any more conversation about it. He was resolute, and he moved out the next day. He had been in therapy for six months and knew this is what he wanted. The last night with him in the house, I lay alone in the giant king-size bed, a terrified child. I had spent my whole life seeking certainty and security and this break exposed the foolhardiness of that quest. Here was the raw slate of rock bottom once again.

    From the beginning my wrongs and disappointment haunted me: I see-sawed between guilt/shame and blame/anger. I had been sober long enough at this point to remember men and women who had walked through the death of children, unexpected illness, and other horrific circumstances, and they continued to show up and not drink. So I knew I could do that too, one day at a time.

    The following weeks and months after were brutal. I rapidly dropped 20 pounds, found a lump in my breast, got into twisted relations with an older man in a 12-step meeting and did my best to care for two confused and upset children as an angry-hungry-tired-lonely-just-not-drinking mommy. I got an excellent therapist right away. I upped my meditation game by taking the TM training and sticking with it. I wrote a fourth step, did the fifth, immediately tried to make amends and get him back (yes I’m embarrassed to write that).

    After about six months I started coming out of it. I learned that my willingness to talk and express and work things out with people can go to an extreme, placing me in a position to be harmed. I made my circle smaller. Slowly I’ve experienced a loosening of all the places inside me that had wrapped and toiled and contorted to survive in what I had perceived as a very unfriendly place to live, because it had been, because of how I had been living.

    We got married before I got sober. We spent 15 years together, during which I discovered 12-step recovery. My husband never objected to my meetings and I was able to make recovery the center of my life from the beginning. While together, I gave birth to two healthy, loving, fearless children. I’m grateful for all that my marriage gave.

    I’ve grieved the loss of what I thought we could have had. There are days when I am hurt and take his choices and continued actions personally but I do not miss his presence in my life. I’ve experienced a year full of character defect withdrawal. I notice how the spaces where the unhealthy behaviors used to be sometimes fill up with stories about how terrible I am, how unworthy I must be of love and belonging, how I’m too much, and don’t really matter. These stories are loud and call for my attention. I tell them I hear them and continue taking positive action in my life anyway.

    Now, a year out from that car ride and the ensuing events, I am changed. I speak up where I once would have avoided a conversation, I am no longer interested in being all things to all people, I don’t feel the need to be busy all the time, and I’m really good at enjoying my own company. My relationship with my family of origin also dramatically changed this past year and sometimes I feel that as an unexpected additional loss. And yet, having grown up within a family with the disease of alcoholism, it’s a loss I have been suffering my entire life and not grieving.

    My husband’s leaving revealed a lot of my dependencies. I had used his presence as a source of security after getting sober. His absence is no longer a source of insecurity.

    On Father’s Day this year I know my God as an unconditionally loving parent. Like it says in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous “He is the father, we are his children.” I didn’t have to drink to hit bottom and find a new relationship to a Power that allows me to thrive. If I had continued living like I was, I would be missing out on the experience of my own sobriety.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Does Everything Actually Happen for a Reason?

    Does Everything Actually Happen for a Reason?

    “Everything happens for a reason” conflicts with AA principles: it misleads recovering alcoholics into thinking they are special—that they are somehow more worthy of salvation than the addict or alcoholic who perished.

    “Because genocide.”

    That was me, in my typically understated fashion, explaining to a newly recovering alcoholic why he shouldn’t heed the single silliest phrase permeating the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Everything happens for a reason.”

    In my seven-plus years attending AA meetings, I’ve come to know and loathe my share of cliché recoveryisms. For example, to me, “Let go and let God” overshoots otherwise sound advice against trying to control everything into a place of irresponsible complacence. “If you spot it, you got it” blames an observer simply for noticing wrong behavior or thinking, while “All of us only have today” weighs equally the experience, strength and hope of a wise old-timer and a wild-eyed newcomer. We don’t all just have today—we have all the days before it.

    And it is baffling why the Our Father—a prayer praising a conventional paternalistic, heaven-dwelling religious deity—still closes many meetings, as it directly contradicts the organization’s stated non-alignment with any sect or denomination, per its Preamble.

    So yes, AA phraseology has its share of eye-rolling headscratchers. But none are as cringe-worthy and counterproductive as the concept that every single thing that transpires in life does so as part of a grand, predestined scheme.

    In an everyday setting, “Everything happens for a reason” can be brushed aside easily enough. Outside the realm of recovery, it becomes little more than a difference of opinion; your churchgoing aunt believes God is in heaven treating us like marionettes, while you prefer a puppeteer-free existence. To each his own.

    However, AA’s penchant for preordainment is particularly problematic, due to the specific forum in which it is propagated. In a recovery setting, the notion that all occurrences— good, bad or indifferent—are part of some predetermined master plan is a double-edged sword that does a disservice to all involved, believer and nonbeliever alike.

    Unreasonable Expectations

    Let’s start with those in my column: recovering alcoholics who, though they may embrace a spiritual higher power—a rhythm of the Universe, let’s say, don’t ascribe to a god that directly intervenes in our lives. If you wonder why athletes thank the Lord after a big win, you’re in my boat. Call it the “God doesn’t score goals” perspective. 

    When people who don’t believe in an interventionist deity are told to see the hands of God in everything, there is no common ground. Many of us, myself included, were stone-cold atheists upon entering AA; some of us, myself not included, still are. A healthy agnosticism is the best many of us can muster while—and this point is crucial—retaining a recovery-capable level of self-honesty. Few stay sober by lying to themselves about something as mission-critical as spirituality.

    Upon entering AA, we were assured by both literature and longstanding members that our spiritual skepticism was fine, as long as we were willing to put faith in some sort of higher power. Many of us took Step 2 with the group itself in that role and, in Step 3, turned our will over to… well… something as best we could without the whole endeavor feeling so forced that it forced us out the door.

    And then… “Everything happens for a reason”? That’s a bridge too far­—and one apt to collapse carrying newcomers who are left feeling betrayed by the agreed upon rules of repeated spiritual engagement. It also leads to inferiority complexes, when these newcomers compare themselves to AA members who seem to take God’s Great Chess Game of Life at face value.

    Replacing that collapsed bridge is a wall. There’s no kind way to say this: Many people who don’t believe everything happens for a reason find those who do simultaneously pretentious and unsophisticated—an oxymoronic mélange of know-it-all-ism and naiveté. When I hear someone in AA insist upon God’s almighty plan, it makes me respect what they say next significantly less.

    And no, comment thread, that isn’t my arrogance—it’s the phrase’s. “Everything happens for a reason” is a condescendingly cocksure nonstarter that cleaves members off from each other. Worse, it does so completely unnecessarily, since its veracity is entirely irrelevant to the greater principles and practices of AA’s primary purpose: recovery from alcoholism and addiction.

    How many newcomers, I often wonder, have gone back out and died because they didn’t realize “Everything happens for a reason” is by no means AA dogma, but rather AA dog… something else. Even one is too many.

    And if the true believers can’t stop saying it for nonbelievers, maybe they can stop saying it for themselves. Here’s why.

    No Good Reason

    In Alcoholics Anonymous, “Everything happens for a reason” conflicts directly with the program’s principles. It does so by misleading recovering alcoholics into thinking they are special—that they are somehow more worthy of salvation than the addict or alcoholic who perished. The result is a sort of unintentional hubris that flies in the face of sobriety-bolstering ego deflation.

    By implication, declaring yourself selectively saved by an all-intervening God acknowledges that this same deity let others perish. He took Prince, Amy Winehouse and Philip Seymour Hoffman, but left… you? Forgive me if I find that conceited.

    On a macro level, I also find it insulting. This Calvinistic approach to human existence means God assents to tsunamis, earthquakes, war crimes. If you sincerely believe that God greenlighted the Holocaust, I simply don’t have much to say to you. Again, this notion of intra-organizational separation is all caused by a concept completely unnecessary to that organization.

    Unfortunately, a major obstacle in all this is utter obliviousness. From where I’m sitting, the vast majority of those who espouse, ad nauseam, that “Everything happens for a reason” do so from custom rather than castigation. By and large, religion—or, rather, a sophomoric interpretation of religion—has weaned them to believe they are somehow saved, chosen or otherwise privileged. There is an entrenchment to this flawed view of eminence that makes it as intractable as it is unpalatable.

    In this manner, “Everything happens for a reason” is an unreasonable phrase often repeated for no good reason other than a “sure, why not” reluctance to challenge outdated thinking. It’s one of those grandfathered-in phrases that should be retired, along with the uber-sexist “To Wives” chapter in the AA Big Book.

    In late 2011, as a 32-year-old just drying out off a DUI and with a wife halfway out the door, AA’s preordainment problem nearly made me explore other sobriety options. This would have been a mistake, considering how well-suited the literature, the 12 steps and the fellowship turned out to be for my recovery.

    It is in line with this concern—attracting and retaining newcomers—that a concerted effort should be made to retire “Everything happens for a reason” from the rooms of AA. And I for one believe that doing so depends entirely on our efforts, not God’s plan.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • You Can't Keep It Unless You Give It Away

    You Can't Keep It Unless You Give It Away

    The responsibility to give honestly is my job; the responsibility to take honestly is theirs and not for me to determine. I could go crazy trying to decide which homeless person is worthy and which is not.

    It’s one of the odd truths about life in New York City that some days a homeless person might just be the only person who talks to you, especially if you work solo and live alone. During my months-long stay in New York this year, I walked alone, ate alone, sat alone at two plays, shopped alone, got lost alone, took the subway alone, all with no conversations and no interactions. Of course, I was partially to blame. In my zeal to be considered what I thought a real New Yorker was, I had an impassive face perfected and was proud of my aplomb. I wasn’t a tourist, after all. I was there taking a class, trying vainly to get the city out of my bloodstream so that I wouldn’t suddenly run away from my husband in Arizona and move there permanently.

    One of the things I had to do to be like a native was ignore the homeless. I took my cue from those around me, rushing to wherever I needed to be, looking impassively straight ahead when the solicitations started on my subway car. It was hard. Hands beseeching, cups outstretched, people sleeping in piles of blankets on the sidewalks, the distinction between blankets and human being inside not always apparent.

    This plan seemed to work. At least, until my depression recurred and I began to feel I was dying. One night, before burrowing into my hotel room, I went to get some fruit from a market on Park Avenue, passing a man on the way there whom I thought was loudly ranting into his phone about “some woman.” Certainly none of my business so I knew I needed to paste on my impassive face and walk on by. But on the way back, carrying a bag of bananas and oranges, I listened more closely and I realized the woman he was ranting about was me.

    “Look at her with all that fruit. She can’t give me some. Don’t even care, walking on by with bananas and oranges, swinging that bag. She’s evil, don’t care about nothing and no one.”

    At my home in Arizona I carry money in my car’s center console in case I happen to be pulled up alongside a person with a sign standing in the center median at an intersection. I’m a little cautious so I move my purse away from the window, roll it down, look in the person’s eyes and wish them the best.

    But I was in New York and taking cues from real New Yorkers. Yes, the homeless problem was overwhelming here, so overwhelming that perhaps the only way to deal with it is not to encourage it. I understand I was dropped here out of the blue with no history and no understanding of the differences between the New York homeless problem and that of my home state.

    Back in my hotel room, the fruit put away, I was shaken. What did I think I was doing? My 12-step program teaches me that I am no better than any other human being on earth, and certainly no better than any possible person who may have a substance use disorder. It teaches me that judgement is poison for any addict. And that the responsibility to give honestly is my job; the responsibility to take honestly is theirs and not for me to determine. I could go crazy trying to decide which homeless person is worthy and which is not. I know from the program that if I hold something too closely I’ll lose it and only by living fearlessly and letting go can I be free. And I read somewhere that the universe, God, Higher Power – whatever – doesn’t handle money, that what we have in excess is for us to give.

    It turns out that it’s impossible to get New York out of my bloodstream. If anything, I fall more in love with it, with the grid lines of the streets and avenues, with the museums, with the crowds and food, and with the beauty of spring when it suddenly appears, and I find myself basking in the unbelievable sunshine at Bryant Park.

    I know all the controversy out there about the homeless and giving. I know that some say New Yorkers should only give to the Coalition for the Poor. Others say that giving only increases the homeless population, encouraging them to stay in certain neighborhoods. Some people give food, others nothing. It’s a seemingly unsolvable issue, even with nearly two billion dollars in the state’s budget to fix it.

    But the political became personal when I suddenly understood that I hadn’t become someone else when I came to New York; I had to stop pretending.

    I checked my wallet. Among some larger bills, I had nine single dollars. I folded them all and put them in the back pockets of my jeans, so they’d be easy to reach. The next day when I heard someone ask for help I looked into my fellow human being’s eyes and remembered that I’m one of them. It changed how I felt about the streets, the dread of the nonstop pleas. Suddenly I sought the encounter. I was waiting with their money in my back pocket.

    I never ran out of single dollars and each night I had more of them in my wallet to hand out the next day.

    In recovery programs, they say that what we’re doing by sponsoring people and doing service and putting ourselves out there is not so much to help others as it is to help ourselves, so we can stay sober. What I learned was that I wasn’t giving money to save all the homeless people in New York. I’m not that important and one dollar isn’t going to do that much. I was giving the money to save my own life. I was doing it so I could stay human.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 7 Reasons Why I Thought AA Wasn't for "Someone Like Me"

    7 Reasons Why I Thought AA Wasn't for "Someone Like Me"

    By the end, as we stood in a circle holding hands, I thought: “This is a cult, right? This has to be a cult.”

    I remember the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that I ever attended, about three years ago. I’ll be honest — I wasn’t the friendliest face at that meeting. I had a ready criticism for just about everything that anyone said.

    By the end, as we stood in a circle holding hands, I thought: “This is a cult, right? This has to be a cult.”

    I asked the newcomer liaison — who I was convinced was just a recruiter for this undercover religious operation — how I could know whether or not I was an alcoholic, and if I really needed AA.

    One thing she said in particular stood out: “Sometimes you aren’t ready, you know? Some folks go and do more ‘research’ and then a couple years later we see them in the rooms again.”

    In hindsight, I have to chuckle. Of all of the advice she gave me, the only part I seem to have listened to was the part that justified drinking more. (I’d later learn that this is the exact kind of “selective hearing” that alcoholics are known for.)

    I didn’t know it at the time, but her comment would foreshadow my journey to the letter. A few years later, after another catastrophic relapse, I remembered her words: If it was meant to be, I would be back.

    “Sam, you could’ve died,” my therapist told me when I described my latest binge. That’s when I knew my “research” was over. It was time to go back.

    I sat in the back row (another typical newbie move, I’d later learn), and just as the Serenity Prayer was being read, I saw the same woman from before — the one who predicted, whether intentionally or not, that I would be in those rooms again.

    “I know you, right?” she said to me after the meeting.

    “Yeah,” I replied, smiling. “And you’re a big reason why I came back. Because I knew I could.”

    I didn’t know what to expect, but that didn’t matter; I was just grateful to have a place to go where I didn’t feel so crazy.

    As time went on, I quickly realized that the reasons I believed that AA wasn’t for me weren’t just misguided, they were completely wrong. While I wish I’d had these realizations sooner, I’m grateful now for the fellowship I found when I was finally able to open my heart and mind.

    So what, exactly, held me back the first time around? These are seven of the big reasons why I thought AA wasn’t for me — and what ultimately changed my mind.

    1. I’m not Christian (or even religious).

    Despite being told that your higher power in AA could be virtually anything, the “God” language was so off-putting that I couldn’t get past it at first. What I didn’t know was that AA is home to people with all sorts of beliefs, including atheists and agnostics (for whom a whole chapter in the Big Book is actually written).

    But why would someone who wasn’t religious opt for a program that talks about a higher power?

    The short answer? To get outside of ourselves. Part of what makes addiction so tricky is that we often get stuck in our own heads, leading us to miss the forest for the trees. A focus on some compassionate, loving force outside of ourselves allows us to take a step back from the addictive obsessing and see the big picture at work.

    That “God” can be your own inner wisdom or spirit (you know, the tiny voice or gut feeling that says: “I shouldn’t be doing this”). It can refer to your fellowship (e.g. Group Of Drunks) and community, or it can even be the stars or your ancestors.

    Whatever your higher power is, it exists to anchor you in the present moment, when your own thoughts are derailing you (part of what fuels cravings, I’ve found, is the mental obsession that goes along with them). Projecting your focus outside yourself can be a powerful tool in recovery.

    2. Alcohol wasn’t my biggest problem.

    I always thought of my alcohol abuse as a symptom of a problem rather than an issue in its own right. As someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and a trauma history (C-PTSD), I figured that if I got my mental illness under control, my drinking would somehow become normal again; that it would, in essence, “work itself out.”

    As irrational as it sounds, I really believed that if I just “stayed mentally healthy” for the rest of my life, alcohol wouldn’t be a problem.

    It should be a lot easier to sober up than to be perfectly happy and healthy 100% of the time, but the alcoholic mind doesn’t care about what’s actually possible — it just cares about drinking again.

    I’ve learned with time that my alcoholism is very much a compulsive behavior. And once compulsions are activated, they’re only made worse when you engage with them. As a person with OCD, and therefore lots of compulsions, I know this better than anyone.

    A lot of alcoholics look at every other issue in their lives as The Real Problem, while their drinking isn’t much more than an inconvenient and temporary side effect. But more often than not, the only “phase” we’re really talking about here is denial.

    3. I figured I could manage on my own.

    Here’s the thing: Whether or not you can manage sobriety on your own, why should you? If there’s an entire community of people, ready and able to support you, why deprive yourself of that resource?

    These days, I ignore the voice in my head that says, “You don’t need this.” It’s irrelevant either way; I don’t need to muscle through this and there’s no good reason to.

    This fellowship is a gift I can give to myself — the gift of unconditional acceptance, and an opportunity for continued personal growth in a supportive community.

    4. I thought I was too young and “inexperienced.”

    My drinking didn’t really take off until I was 21 years old. Yet by the time I was 24, I was at my first AA meeting. Was it possible to become an alcoholic in three years? I didn’t think so. I hadn’t racked up any DUIs and I wasn’t drinking vodka every morning, so what did I need AA for?

    But my definition of alcoholism has evolved a lot since then.  Alcoholism, to me, is a spectrum of experiences defined by two things: (1) psychological dependence on alcohol and (2) strong urges to drink (which we call “cravings”).

    Drinking had become a coping strategy (one that often failed me) to deal with issues in my life. And rather than choosing to drink and choosing to stop — which is usually, on some level, premeditated and deliberate — I had the urge to drink, and that urge often had me behaving in ways that ran counter to what I planned or wanted, assuming I had a plan at all.

    Sometimes I drank only to resolve the urge itself — an urge which could involve unbearable levels of anxiety, agitation, obsessing, and impulsiveness.

    It took just a few years for my drinking to reach this level of unmanageability. And when it led me to be hospitalized twice in my early twenties, I realized that if I continued I would die before I ever considered myself “experienced” or “old enough.”

    You are never too young or inexperienced to get sober. If there are signs that your drinking has become dangerous, you don’t need to wait to get support — and you shouldn’t.

    5. I’m queer and transgender.

    One of the biggest reasons why I rejected AA was because I felt, as someone who was both transgender and gay, that I would feel like an outsider. And while I can’t speak for every meeting in existence, I’ve been fortunate to find meetings where I could show up as my authentic self.

    Living in the Bay Area, I’m privileged to now have access to meetings that are specifically for the LGBTQ+ community, though I regularly attend all kinds of meetings and have found them to be fulfilling in their own way. My sponsor is queer, too, which is incredibly empowering.

    Many people I’ve known in other parts of the country have been able to connect with their local LGBTQ+ community center (either city or statewide) to get recommendations on which recovery spaces would be best for them.

    Some LGBTQ+ centers even have AA meetings specifically on-site for the community.

    The best way to find out is to call around. You don’t know what’s out there, and recovery is always worth the effort.

    6. I take psychiatric medications.

    As someone who takes medication for my mental health conditions, I was scared that people in AA would look down on me or believe I wasn’t really sober.

    In particular, I rely on Adderall to manage my ADHD. I take it exactly as prescribed without any trouble. If I don’t take it, it’s difficult for me to keep up at my job because my concentration issues make my life incredibly unmanageable.

    But Adderall is a stimulant and has a reputation as a drug of abuse. I worried that I would be pressured to stop taking it.

    Instead, I’ve been given the exact opposite advice in AA. I’ve been told repeatedly that if my psychiatric medications contribute to my mental wellness, they are an essential and indispensable part of my recovery.

    With mental health conditions frequently co-occurring with substance abuse, you’re likely to find a lot of people in AA who rely on these medications to maintain balance in their lives. So don’t be discouraged: you aren’t alone.

    7. My history didn’t seem “bad enough.”

    Sometimes I’d listen to a speaker talk about getting drunk at age 12, growing up in the foster system, or getting their second DUI, and I’d think to myself, “Why am I even here? My story is nothing like theirs.”

    But as I attended more and more meetings, I began to see the similarities, rather than focusing so much on the differences. I realized that even the most extraordinary stories had some kind of wisdom to offer me, as long as I gave myself permission to be fully present.

    As I heard a speaker say last month, “Bottom is when you stop digging.” Recovery begins when you’re open to it, not when you’ve passed some magical threshold of having “suffered enough.”

    Your story is enough, exactly as it is in this moment. You don’t need to have the most tragic backstory, the biggest relapse, or the most catastrophic “bottom” moment.

    You don’t have to earn a seat at the table. As I learned this last year, that seat will be there for you when you’re ready, no matter how many times you fall down or slip up.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • God Hates Pikachu and He Also Killed My Daddy

    God Hates Pikachu and He Also Killed My Daddy

    My higher power doesn’t want me sticking a needle in my arm. For me today, it’s as simple as that.

    I didn’t want to unpack this story so soon. My aim was to share my experience with getting and staying sober in a dry and witty way, do that for a while with you, maybe unpack the heavy stuff after we got to know each other a little more, and then go for the gusto. I didn’t want to bring up a subject that might rub you the wrong way but I recently finished a writing exercise that really got me thinking about my dad. He’s dead.

    My father died when I was two years old. He was a heroin user who shared needles. Nobody was talking about harm reduction in the late 80’s nor were they concerned about the consequences of IV drug use. After he got sober, he found out that he had contracted HIV. It wasn’t long after that diagnosis that he lost his battle to AIDS.

    I believe growing up without a father had an effect on the man I am today; but this isn’t a story about my dad. This isn’t a story about harm reduction or AIDS awareness. This is a story about God.

    Wait! Stay with me, please. Don’t go.

    I promise you this isn’t that kind of story. I’ve done right by you with the last two articles. I plan on doing the same with this one. I know the God word bothers some people. It bothers me sometimes. It’s okay, just keep scrolling. We’ll do this one together. Besides, you have to at least get to the part about Pikachu. I’m sure you’re wondering what the heck he’s got to do with all this. Stick around, I’ll tell you.

    I grew up in an extremely charismatic religious household; the crazy dogmatic type. Let me tell you how crazy: Did you know that if you listen to any music that isn’t religious, demons will literally fly out of your headphones like a vapor of smoke and possess you? It’s true. My aunt told me that when I was only eight years old. Also, if you watch any movie that isn’t rated G or about the crucifixion of Christ, you run the chance of committing your soul into the fiery pits of hell. Here’s a good one: My younger brother and I were not allowed to watch Pokemon because our grandmother told us that those cute little Japanese cartoons were actually demons and it was Satan’s master plan to trick unassuming kids into falling in love with his minions.

    Here’s a few more examples:

    1. Don’t drink beer. You’re ingesting the semen of the devil.
    2. True love waits. So if you have sex before marriage, you’re going to burn in hell.
    3. Never smoke cigarettes, you’ll accidentally inhale a demon.
    4. Don’t use profanity unless you want God to give your tongue cancer.
    5. Hey boys, do you like your hands? Well, don’t play with your penis, that’s how you lose them.

    Here’s my absolute favorite. When I was kid, my mom brought my younger brother and me to this old-time-holy-ghost Pentecostal church in the hood. The younger children had to go to Sunday school with some 16-year-old babysitter while the adults went to “big church” in the main auditorium. While we were waiting for our mom to pick us up, our babysitter kindly told me that God killed my dad because he was a junkie.

    Yup, that’s right. This ignorant girl basically told me that God “gave” my dad AIDS because he was in love with heroin. And it was God’s perfect judgment to execute my powerless addict of a father. Cool, right? I’m going to grow up to be a perfectly normal man, unscathed by any of this tomfoolery.

    When you grow up in an overbearing legalistic household and finally start doing some of the things that they told you not to and nothing bad happens, you end up slamming your foot on the gas, speeding straight into the freedom to do everything you’re not supposed to. The things you didn’t do growing up because you believed they would kill you turn into myths created to control you.

    This isn’t going to end well for an addict like me. Once I started thinking for myself and realized that my dick wouldn’t fall off if I watch porn, I started watching all the porn. When I realized that I wasn’t possessed after smoking a cigarette, I started smoking all the cigarettes. Add sex to the mix, sprinkle a little drugs on top, and my newfound freedom as a junkie sinner is complete.

    Let’s fast-forward a few years because I don’t want to get into other stories that deserve their own headline. Let’s land where I’m walking down the steps of the courthouse with a piece of paper that mandates that I start attending 12-step meetings. Meetings that I must go to or I’m going back to jail and possibly prison.

    Imagine my delight, sitting in my first meeting while they’re doing the readings. I hear the 3rd step read aloud for the first time and everything within my gut cringes. I die on the inside. I’m powerless over drugs and alcohol. I can’t stop. I need to stop. And now I’m being told that the only way to do this is with God. I’m in big trouble. 

    I have a confession to make. Remember when I told you that this story was about God? It isn’t. I mean it is and it can be for you, too, but it really isn’t. It’s about a higher power; something greater than you. It’s crucial that you hear what I’m about to say.

    If you’re a 12-stepper who’s all gung-ho about the 3rd step, that’s cool. If you’re not a 12-stepper who’s grasped the God concept, that’s cool too.

    What I want to be explicitly clear about is just one thing. It’s my experience, being an addict in recovery— whether it’s the 12-step route or not—that at some point I have to accept the fact that I need saving. And it’s not going to be me that’s going to do the saving. It’s got to be something greater than me. What I’m good at is getting high. Getting sober is easy. Staying sober isn’t. That’s where the saving comes in for me.

    In the beginning. G-O-D meant a lot of things.

    • Group of Druggies
    • Group of Drunks
    • Grow or Die
    • Guaranteed Overnight Delivery (kidding)
    • Good Orderly Direction

    A wise man once told me, “I don’t know what God’s will is for my life… but I know what it isn’t.” I know that my higher power doesn’t want me stealing in sobriety. I know I shouldn’t be smoking crack. I know that now that I’m attempting to live a new way, maybe I should concern myself with my physical health since I neglected it for so long. My higher power doesn’t want me sticking a needle in my arm. For me today, it’s as simple as that.

    For people who don’t subscribe to an acronym but actually believe in a God, it can be slippery if it’s not kept simple. It’s common for people to get sober and say, “Okay, what do I do know? What is my life’s purpose and what is God’s will for me?” If they do that, they end up stressing themselves out and thinking themselves out of the game, thinking that they have to understand the meaning of life at 12 months sober; or that they should have a roadmap for their life drawn out, down to every little specific detail.

    It’s not that serious. Instead of concerning yourself with some huge existential question mark, keep it simple. Get off the bench, get back on the field and play. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself sober years later with a beautiful life filled with purpose and meaning. I can promise you that only because I’ve seen it happen for many of my junkie friends around me.

    My higher power doesn’t hate Pikachu. That’s just silly. If you believe in God, that’s cool. If you don’t, that’s cool too. Just find something greater than you when the days get dark in your life. Hey! Maybe it’s this story. Who knows.

    If nobody told you that they love you today: I do. I love you.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • No Vacation from Recovery: A Packing List

    No Vacation from Recovery: A Packing List

    Recovery cannot be left to chance but requires planning, even—and maybe especially—on vacation with its temptations: tropical drinks, laissez-faire schedule, swim-up bars, and late nights.

    For a long time, when my bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and eating disorder were out of control, I believed that the geographic cure, specifically travel, was the antidote to all my ills, as if I could take a vacation from addiction and mental illness. I would pack my bags and land in some exotic port of call, a Greek island, for instance, certain that I would find happiness in the reliable sunshine, the deep blue water, the daily swims, the Mediterranean food, and in a self somehow suddenly better—better in illness and better in soul.

    “Surely, surely the less frenetic island pace will slow me down,” I would tell myself. “I’m always happy there, lying on the beach, eating ripe peaches, hiking through the olive groves, and snorkeling in search of sea urchin shells.” Within days of arrival, I’d be miserable, again, flat out suicidal, wanting to swim out into the blue sea, going and going, or wanting to hurl myself off a steep cliff. No vacation from addiction and mental illness.

    What I have learned in my eight years of stability and sobriety is that there is no vacation from recovery, either.

    My first sober vacation with my now-ex-husband was to Jamaica. Hubris testing those waters, which was a paradise for my ex with its endless supply of Red Stripe and ganja but treacherous for me, only a few months sober. My then-husband had been travelling to Negril for twenty years chasing that perfect beach buzz while I was trying to stay steady, surrounded by all these happy (seeming) vacationers, and trying to remember why I did not want to drink, why I could not ever drink again. Naively, I packed without a contingency plan, bringing just a bikini, sunscreen, and a dress. Nothing to support my recovery. Thankfully, my Higher Power had a contingency plan. 

    The first day while we were lazing in the sun, another couple, Amy and Rich*, sat in the lounge chairs beside us. We made small talk and my then-husband said, “I’m heading up to the bar for a Red Stripe. Anybody want anything?”

    “Coke for me,” I said.

    “I’ll take a coke,” Rich said. “Thanks.”

    “Me, too,” Amy said.

    My antennae attuned, I said, “Are you guys in the club, too?”

    They knew what I meant and from then on, we were inseparable. Amy and Rich, sober for decades, prepared in advance for the trip. With a little online research, they’d found a 12-step meeting off the beach in a tiny church and we went together, in flipflop solidarity. Lesson learned? Recovery cannot be left to chance but requires planning, even—and maybe especially—on vacation with its temptations: tropical drinks, laissez-faire schedule, swim-up bars, and late nights. What happens in Vegas or London or New York City or Rome or Kathmandu doesn’t stay there, but stays with you, a permanent souvenir. In recovery, we don’t get a free pass.

    I now have a packing list that I stick to for all my travels, the practical essentials and spiritual necessities that support my recovery and stability. When we leave home for the unknown, we can get lost, even with the precision of GPS, even with years of sobriety or stability, even if we are confident in our now reliable happiness.

    My Recovery Packing List:

    1. Proper Running Shoes: Know whether you are running away from your life or running towards a bigger life. I have used travel as an escape from myself, from the circumstances of my life that felt out of control (my drinking, my starving, my depression). Every time I tried to run away to some other place, I wound up desperate, without family or friends, without a support system, and hit a new bottom each time. But when I am running on stable ground towards a joyful life? A few years ago, I stayed at a yoga ashram in the Bahamas. One morning, I took a sunrise walk down the beach and felt utterly content breathing in the sun and sea, at ease with myself in my solitude. 
    1. A Map: Know where you came from, where you are now, and where you are going. On a three-week solo trip to Morocco, I meticulously planned the route between the Atlas Mountains and Marrakech and Ouarzazate and Essaouria—unfamiliar terrain without a co-pilot. But more, I needed to remember how far I had come in sobriety so that I could travel alone, out into the world, without family and friends worrying that I might hit bottom, and to know that my journey forward was now one filled with adventure rather than danger. So, I wrote myself a note that I kept inside my wallet: I was once at the bottom of the well; I am now on dry land; I am heading for the horizon!
    1. Carry On (Not Checked Luggage): That is pack light. Don’t carry the weight of the past, only your sober and stable self. What use are sandals and sneakers and snorkels and sunscreen and travel guides and a Kindle downloaded with beach reads if you don’t have room for The Big Book or a journal to record 12-step work? And what use are these essentials for continued recovery if they get lost in checked baggage? If books are too heavy, download 12-step apps and The Big Book to your phone. And why bring them along if you don’t read them? Begin the day reading whatever you might find that anchors you to recovery. Me? It is usually the poem “Late Fragment” by Raymond Carver:

    And did you get what
    you wanted from this life, even so?
    I did.
    And what did you want?
    To call myself beloved, to feel myself
    beloved on the earth. 

    1. Emergency Contacts: Not just family and friends, but sponsors, therapists, and doctors. Too expensive to call overseas? Download an app (such as WhatsApp) so it is free to call people who will remind you who you are becoming, to hear a familiar voice when you’re out there wandering the world and veer off map. In the middle of the Sahara, just off a camel ride through a sandstorm, I Skyped with my sponsor. “Hellooooo,” I said. “I’m calling from the middle of nowhere though I am somewhere beautiful and not at all lost!”
    1. Local Hangouts: Once upon a time, you might have researched bars and nightspots. Now, as I learned from Amy and Rich, I research local 12-step meetings and make it a traveling priority to attend the meetings. Fellowship exists across this world and all we have to do is walk through the door to find our tribe. And if no meeting exists? Keep our antennae attuned to those around us who aren’t ordering booze. On a recent trip to Ireland, I met a local over dinner who I noticed wasn’t drinking. I mentioned to him that I didn’t drink either. “Are you a friend of Bill W.?” he asked, then invited me to go with him to a 12-step meeting later that night. Home on the road.

    Of course, make sure your passport—proof of citizenship and of far-flung travel—is up-to-date. A passport is a dream journal: where have I been and where do I want to go? And in recovery, a passport is a record of courage (those stamps) and of hope (those blank pages) that says: I want to risk myself in the world and am ready for the journey. Necessities packed. Never alone on the road.

     *Not their real names

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The Joys of Being Wrong

    The Joys of Being Wrong

    I am limited when I am in my own power, convinced of its sufficiency.

    I had initially thought to write this story – the story of a person once self-presumed irreparably broken who recently completed chemotherapy turned Ivy League law student in a sensible, stable long-distance relationship – once I had received official acceptance letters from myriad top-ranked schools and the boundless adoration of a future wife, an expression forged in platinum, maybe with a tasteful emerald or cushion cut. Submitting it now, though, amid this very particular brand of uncertainty so laden with the weight of proving my worth, after many rejections and healthily parting ways with my girlfriend, seems a far more fitting representation of the point of recovery.

    What is that point?

    The wording will vary for everyone, of course, but to me:

    The point is not what you get: the point is what you do with it.

    Were I to await the above, the increased likelihood of this lesson being misconstrued as “quit drugs, win big!” would overshadow the actual essence of sobriety. Sure, the cash and prizes sometimes include overwhelming esteem, material gain and skyrocketing popularity; more often than not, though, the promises of recovery entail something less expected – something that we wouldn’t at onset necessarily identify as exceeding our wildest dreams, but that somehow does. That’s one of the most amazing things about all of this, really – that what we think is humdrum is actually fulfilling, and that what we think will be fulfilling actually sells us short.

    There’s a reconciliation of paradoxes implicit to the recovery process. When I heard of the addict mentality described as “negative ego” I didn’t fully grasp its implications until I heard the same rephrased by a young woman who said that, in her active addiction, she felt like a “piece of shit in the center of [her] own universe.” Later I heard such peculiar self-evaluation termed as “arrogant doormat” and “I didn’t think much of myself, but I was all that I thought about.”

    When I first got clean, the catalyst beyond threat of discontinued financial support was certainty that I would finally be recognized for the meteoric talent that I was – that all of the reasons for which I thought I used substances would be reinterpreted and rightly understood as unappreciated genius and, once so affirmed, I would no longer indulge that self-destructive tendency born of being “misunderstood” – no wait sorry – not just misunderstood like you are – distinctively misunderstood. Quitting drugs for me, however, has actually shown its primary benefit to be that I now get to participate in life just as other people do – like a person looking to what actually is instead of constant consumption with what is not, with how they’ve been wronged, with how they are somehow simultaneously better and worse than ____, all at the same time.

    Even now, despite years of practiced right-sizing and spiritual dependence, there is a part of me that continues to sustain the myth that I am somehow so special as to be immune to the conditions that dog other people, despite a consistent undercurrent of fraudulence: that I can put in a little less effort, that I am somehow shrouded in a halo sufficient to enchant those so blessed to gaze upon my angel face.

    We do not look at the world as if it were a mirror, reflecting only ourselves and whatever lies behind us: we look at the world as through a window; we see what is ahead but can’t help also catching our own reflection. Who we are, and what we think, informs what we see. That myth I maintain is delusional, so a part of who I am is delusional, and that part collects evidence to support that delusion’s accompanying grandeur. For as much as I develop my faculties of reason and reality, I think I might always retain a degree of magical thinking where I believe that maybe more is possible than may actually be possible. Sometimes I think that gives me the courage to take actions in faith and belief that might otherwise be precluded by too much logic, or not enough magic; while I can’t parse the precise extent to which that contributes to faith-based actions, it does seem to keep my chin parallel to ground and sky.

    The other day someone asked me “How do you get from pain to faith?”

    When I am in pain I am drawn closer to God. I do not balk at those who feel that pain instead causes division, or interpret pain as an absence of God: it is an absence, if you choose it to be. God is not the cause of pain; God is the solace that might be sought within it. It is almost as easy to blame God as it is to seek God; it is almost as easy to see differently as it is to see the same. When I am disappointed, it is not because God did not respond to my commands – God is not obligated to obey me; to the contrary it is I who is afforded the choice to obey God. All people have that agency – the ability to decide whether or not to honor and uphold that which is divinely informed, however “divinely informed” may be interpreted.

    Whatever face you give to God, whatever name – that entity is with you. God is intended to comfort you in the impossible length of the dark night; God is intended to draw you closer.

    What is closer? What does it feel like? Closer is the humoring of my will, the acknowledgment of its concerns and demands without automating action upon them. Closer is the awareness that maybe someone or some thing, either vaguely understandable or wholly intangible, may know better than I know. Closer is the nearly imperceptible sense of warmth you feel when you’re in great pain but know that this will not break you, that what you feel is not fully representative of your capability, because you are not just you – you are you plus that something greater; you are you and not alone.

    ___________________________________________

    When I am charged with the full control and conduct of myself, as though my will and intention were affected within a vacuum, my ego enters stages left, right and center. When I surrender some bit of my will I am more closely actualized as who I am meant to be, rather than who I think I am meant to be, or who I project that I am. When I willingly enter into and actively sustain that relationship – severing ties to the notion that it has to be just me, that it means more if I do things on my own – then the way that I see the world, as it is and with my reflection, is limitless. I am limited when I am in my own power, convinced of its sufficiency. When I am in my own power, my options consist solely of those that I am capable of conceiving; when I am in God’s power, my options are as limitless as that to which I am intentioned.

    I do not always agree with that to which I am intentioned. I recently received another “no” from an elite law school – another from one to which I was sure I’d be admitted – and have, in the past 10 minutes alone, assigned permanent and predictive weight to that decision. I have convinced myself that both my present and future fate are tethered to those rejections. I have projected that those rejections foreshadow a coordinated stonewalling effect that will prove ever prohibitive of every ambition that I have ever had, and as such I should just learn to teach spin, because that is probably how I will end up – alone, undereducated, and teaching spin – *not even at SoulCycle* (see what I did there?) – for the rest of my life.

    When I fully inhabit my individualized agency I am downright apocalyptic. I allow no slit through which a ray of truth might shine; I do not suffer fools as I misunderstand soothsayers to be. At those times, I am in the most limited space I can occupy. And then, the break; then, the unexpected; then, that which I’d so quickly discounted, manifests.

    View the original article at thefix.com