Tag: sponsorship

In Memoriam: Bob Kaplan

Bob taught me that when someone reaches out for help, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing or how you’re feeling… You just go!

I’m going to miss you.

My sponsor Bob Kaplan passed away last week, on January 1st. He was my sponsor of 22 years, and I loved him terribly.

Today would have been Bob’s 37th sober birthday. He lived 77 years, the same as my father. Bob was like a father to me, I was certainly closer to him than to my old man.

***

It took me three years of daily 12-step meetings to get 30 sober days in a row. I got 29 days three different times, but I just couldn’t get over the hump, and my eskimo Steve D. had all but had it with me. He and my sponsor at the time literally kicked me out of their 12-step group… And this was no ordinary group, there were legends there like Jack F. and Bob H., true old-time heroes to many in the 12-step community.

I know what you’re thinking, how can you be kicked out of a 12-step group?

But it was the most loving thing they could’ve done. They told me I needed to go to the Pacific Group because that’s where the sickest go to get help, but first I should go to AA Central Office and speak to the manager, a man named Harvey P. Harvey reminded me of an army general with a deep raspy voice. He was going to be my new sponsor.

God bless Harvey’s soul, he took one look at me and marched me into a back office.

“You’re not for me,” he said. “You’re for Bob.”

A man who looked old enough to be my father was sitting behind a desk, leaning back in his chair with his feet up and talking on the phone. He held up his finger as if to say, I’ll just be another moment, take a seat.

Then, out of nowhere, he started screaming at the person on the phone, and then hung up on him.

Now you have to understand what the last three years had been like for me. I had a sponsor who told me I had to change everything about myself if I wanted to stay sober. And now here was this guy sitting across from me undressing someone the exact same way I would have if I was angry. I was in shock.

After he hung up the phone, his face all red and a garden hose pumping generously through his forehead, he looked up at me. I spoke quickly before he could say anything.

“Will you be my sponsor?”

As excited as I’ve ever seen anyone, he stood up and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Oh yeah!”

I don’t remember anything else from that day, but I left there with a sense of hope. I could still be me and be sober. I didn’t have to be some goody-good.

A week later I got really sick and I called Bob in the morning to tell him I was going to the doctor.

He was afraid I was going to “med seek,” so he told me to skip the doctor and go to the pet store instead and to call him when I got there.

This is like 22 years ago so I hope I’m remembering this right, but when I called him, he told me to get something called amoxicillin. I grabbed a salesperson to help me and called Bob back when I had the medication.

He told me to take two pills every four hours until they were gone.

“You know, Bob, this is fish penicillin. For fish?” I said.

“Yeah, I know what it is,” he said.

“Bob, it’s got a skull and crossbones on the packaging and says ‘not for human consumption.’ I’m no genius, but doesn’t skull and crossbones mean poison?”

“Son, I’ve got 12 and a half years sober,” Bob said. “Take it, don’t take it, I don’t give a shit. But if you want to stay sober, do what I told you to do.”

Truth be told, I don’t know if I wanted to be sober for good back then, but I loved this guy already. He was nuts, but in the best possible way. I took the fish penicillin, and I got better right away, just like he said I would.

One day shortly after that, I was so newly sober and so crazy, I drove around and around in a parking garage for 15 minutes, looking for the exit. I was lost and I just started crying. So I called Bob. He got me out of that garage in 60 seconds.

We would speak every morning and meet up at meetings and then grab something to eat. Sometimes it was just the two of us, but most of the time my 12-step brothers and sisters joined us. Bob sponsored a ton of people, and his sponsees, old friends, and his magnificent wife Signe became our extended family.

He taught me everything, everything that’s important.

He taught me that when someone reaches out for help, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing or how you’re feeling… You just go!

I got that from him!

He would say, “there’s nothing to get, only to give.”

I got that from him!

One day I called Bob while he was at work and asked him to come see a house I wanted to buy. He left work to meet me and check out the house.

Walking through the house, he says: “You got a lotta fireplaces in this place, kid, how many you got?”

“Seven.”

“This house is huge, how many square feet you got here?”

I answered all his questions, giving him the details of this great house I’d found, speaking with pride and joy, the pride and joy you feel when somebody really gets you. Then he dropped the hammer.

“Single guy, nine months sober. Do I have this right?” He asked. I nodded.

“Get in the car, asshole, I’ll show you where you’re living. I can see you can’t be left unattended.”

I got in his car and left my car behind. I did what I was told, his will was stronger than mine. It always was.

We drove back to his condo in West Hollywood and he got on the phone with his real estate agent. I can still hear him saying, “Vita, come to my house and show my kid everything in the building… He needs a new place to live and can’t be left unattended.”

I picked a unit on the same floor as his.

Every night before bed, he came over in his pajamas, slippers, and bathrobe and hung out for an hour or so screaming at the game on television if we had sports on, and eating those super spicy vegetables in a jar that he loved.

The four years I lived in Bob’s building I don’t think a day went by where we didn’t see each other. I loved him, and I miss him very much.

In 2003 I had this crazy idea that I wanted to move to Malibu. The traffic and noise from the city were just too much for me.

When I told Bob I was going to buy a house in Malibu, he told me to rent for three months before I bought anything to see if I liked it.

“Bob, how is anybody going to not like living on the beach?” I remember saying to him.

“You’re an animal, rent for three months and if you like it you can get it.”

Again, he was right! I hated living on the beach. The wind and the noise, and whether your windows are open or closed, you always wake up in the morning with sand in your bed. (I still can’t figure out how that happens?)

Instead, I bought a house about a half mile from the ocean with the most gorgeous white-water views. It was everything I loved about Malibu without the hassle of being on the beach.

Bob was also right about being in a big house as a single guy. I was used to being in a small space and this new place was giant in comparison. I wasn’t comfortable there. It was too much for me, so I turned it into what would become a world-renowned treatment center and bought a two-bedroom cottage down the street that felt much better to me.

I was not a clinician, I didn’t have any healthcare experience, and I didn’t have an MBA. I had never even been to rehab.

But what I did have was very good training. Bob lived a life of service and he taught me how to do that — in a joyful way!

There are very few people who have actually been on a true 12-step call with their sponsor, where they visit someone they’ve never met before in hopes of helping them get sober. I was so lucky to have gotten to do this with Bob.

Bob and I were sitting at Central Office together when a call came in. He picked up the phone.

Now, the people who answer the phone at Central Office are supposed to find out where the caller is, then look in the directory and give them directions to the closest meeting.

That’s not what Bob did.

He looked at me and said, “Let’s go, Rich!” We got in his car and drove to the caller’s house.

After we parked, Bob turned off the car and grabbed my arm.

“I want you to find a chair and go to the corner of the room,” he said, serious as he’s ever been. “You’re not to draw any attention to yourself and you’re not to say a word. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I need him focusing on me and what I’m telling him. Not a word, okay?”

“Okay.”

I don’t remember exactly what he said but I was 110% present at the time and I hung on every word.

What I noticed was his command over the room.

I noticed the empathy.

I noticed the honesty.

I learned these things from Bob. Everything that truly matters, I learned from Bob.

***

Today, Bob’s doing just fine. Right now he’s eating breakfast with his wife Signe in heaven. She’s been gone 11 months and he hadn’t been the same since.

And like any good father, he made certain that we would all be okay too. Mark, William, Big Rich, Fat Rich, and all my other 12-step brothers and sisters will be fine because our sponsor showed us how to live the right way.

This man taught me everything, and although we’re all going to be okay, the world lost a genuine hero, a great man.

Thank you, Bob. Make certain you come get me to take me to the other side when it’s time.

I love you!

In lieu of flowers, please make donations in Bob’s memory to Three Square. Read Bob’s obituary here.

View the original article at thefix.com

8 January 2021
Is Recovery Possible Without Abstinence?

If I told an AA meeting I was having wine once in a while, the group would tell me that I am headed for certain demise.

Benders, Blackouts, and Finding Recovery

In 2013, I bottomed out in no uncertain terms. After years of heavy drinking that spawned blackouts and dangerous behavior, I had a three-day bender that left a 24-hour hole in my memory and landed me on the doorstep of a local AA meeting.

I attended those meetings for a couple of weeks, and they saved my life. In those rooms I found people who validated what I had suspected for a long time: I was an alcoholic.

When I stopped going to meetings, it wasn’t because I rejected the program. It was because my lifestyle had changed: shortly after I stopped drinking, I uprooted my life and began traveling. Whenever I arrived in a new city, I always looked up a meeting, just in case I needed one. But I never felt the need to go, because I was never tempted to drink.

I was sober for nine months when I finally settled in one spot and I felt ready to tackle the program. I returned to the rooms and found a sponsor.

I’d had high hopes that AA was the missing piece of my sobriety. Those nine sober months had been lonely as I struggled with the unpleasant feelings that had previously been ignored with the help of wine. My friendships had become riddled with conflict as I became sensitive to even minor misunderstandings. When I was drinking, those bumps had been smoothed over with alcohol. Without it, I couldn’t move past an argument. I thought maybe it was a sober thing, and other sober people would have advice for this new territory.

But my return to AA lacked the same connection I’d initially felt all those months earlier. My new sponsor asked me, with undisguised disbelief, “Nine months, really? All on your own?” She went on to tell me how she had once been sober for three years without AA. She eventually began drinking again because she hadn’t been accountable; she hadn’t told people in her life that she was an alcoholic.

Without AA, You Will Fail

I corrected her assumption that we were the same. “I tell people I’m an alcoholic, and that I am sober.” When she responded with visible relief, I realized that she’d been skeptical about my claim because she assumed I was still in denial. In that moment I felt the inflexibility of the program, and the words of speakers I’d heard echoed in my head: “Without AA, you will fail.” There was no room to do it any other way.

After that coffee with my sponsor, the hope I’d had for AA dissolved. I realized I wasn’t looking to AA to help me stay sober, I was looking to AA to help me be happy.

Instead of returning to AA, I found a therapist. At the end of our first session during which I had tearfully explained my sobriety and my sadness, she diagnosed me with severe depression. After hearing my history, she suggested that I had always been depressed and likely self-medicating with alcohol.

I asked her about AA, and if she felt it was necessary for me to continue attending.

“Are you tempted to drink?” she asked.

“No,” I answered truthfully. Even with the challenges of my new sober life, I’d never considered it. I wanted a solution, and I already knew drinking wasn’t it.

“It sounds like your lack of connection to the meetings is only furthering the isolation you feel,” she told me. “If you feel like you want to drink, go. But otherwise, it sounds like you’re okay.”

My sadness wasn’t a byproduct of new sobriety, my sadness was depression. When she told me I didn’t have to go to meetings because I wasn’t struggling not to drink, I was validated.

Sober, but Not Abstinent

I began having sips almost two years later. I don’t remember the first one, but I do remember having no desire to get drunk. They continue to be infrequent and small, leaving me with no desire to drink to the point of drunkenness. I have even had a sip too many on occasion: my cheeks flush and my tongue grows loose. I used to drink for that feeling. Now, it stops me in my tracks, repelling my desire for more.

The commonly understood language of recovery does not allow for this kind of behavior. People on the outside only understand recovery in the terms presented in movies and on television: Alcoholic bottoms out. Alcoholic attends AA meeting. Alcoholic gets shitfaced after having one sip of a drink at a party and AA friends drag her out of a bar. Alcoholic is sober one year, speaks at AA meeting, and then eats cake.

And it isn’t just people on the outside. If I told an AA meeting I was having wine once in a while, the group would tell me that I am headed for certain demise.

To be clear: I am not advising anyone who wants to stop drinking or who is currently sober to try sipping alcohol. Having any amount of alcohol while “in recovery” is a controversial topic and beyond the scope of this article. We all need to do what works for us to stay sober and healthy.

But in my experience, there’s a difference between sipping and slipping. Before I received my depression diagnosis, there was one purpose to drinking: get drunk. Now that I manage my mental health properly and no longer self-medicate with alcohol by drinking to excess, I don’t have the desire to abuse it.

Sipping vs. Slipping

One week into my sobriety, I did come close to slipping. I’d had dinner with a friend after work and on the walk home I started to white-knuckle it. The walk was a landmine of my drinking haunts: the old man bar at the halfway point, the liquor store a couple blocks from my apartment, the fancier bar after that, and then, one building away from mine, another bar.

Keep walking keep walking keep walking, I coached myself. You’ll go home and answer those emails and have mac and cheese for dinner. Then you’ll go to sleep and get up early tomorrow for your jog to the AA meeting.

I made it inside my apartment with no detours. But then I checked my email and I read a piece of good news that I had been waiting months to hear. That’s when my resolve wavered. I wanted to celebrate, and my first thought was: Prosecco!

I paused. I thought about it. What would happen if I did buy that Prosecco? I knew that I would drink it in its entirety by myself. Bottle done, I would head to the bar around the corner and have some more, and finish the night with my usual three-whiskey nightcap.

I knew that meant I would not wake up early the next day to jog to my morning AA meeting. I knew if I didn’t go to my meeting I was probably going to take the day off being sober, and then the next one and the next.

What stopped me from drinking that day wasn’t the thought of a horrible hangover, or even the prospect of soul-blackening shame, but the knowledge that my good news would not be any better if I drank to celebrate it. By the same token, the need to celebrate my little victory as a means to offset my usual sadness wasn’t really necessary, because I knew that sadness wasn’t going anywhere—with or without booze. If drinking wasn’t going to make things better—and I knew it wouldn’t—why bother?

It was years before I recognized I was chasing a feeling of false relief that would never last long enough. Abusing alcohol was, in fact, only making me more sad and depressed. Once I understood the why of my drinking, I was no longer compelled to drink to excess. I had neutered its power over me.

Will I Be Kicked Out of the Recovery Club?

Up until I wrote this, I was hiding my sips from all but my closest friends, because there is no vernacular in recovery to explain it. It’s simply easier to say I’m sober, and play along with others’ commonly-held picture of what recovery looks like. That’s easier than opening myself up to the judgment of those who are in recovery—and even those who are not—who will tell me I will fail, as I was told so many years ago by people who had sipped and ultimately slipped. They’d say that by doing this, I cannot consider myself sober.

I’d be kicked out of the club.

As they are, though, my sips are an indulgence, equivalent to the dessert I have a forkful of but don’t need to finish, or an expensive pair of heels I’ll try on, but talk myself out of buying. The sips aren’t samples of what I miss, and they aren’t tests of will. Along with the taste of the wine itself, there are overtones of pleasure and victory and a hint of bitterness mixed in with my relationship to alcohol. The bitterness isn’t because I want more: it is the memory of that never-ending chase and where it led me. The bitterness is the reason I only want a sip—a sip I will continue to take, at my discretion, because I want to, and still remain sober.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 July 2019
Are the 12 Steps Safe for Trauma Survivors?

When the 4th and 5th steps are done without support for the symptoms of PTSD, they have the potential to retraumatize.

Trauma is a current buzzword in the mental health world, and for good reason. Untreated trauma has measurable lasting physiological and psychological effects, which makes it a public health emergency of pandemic proportions. Trauma is an event or continuous circumstance that subjectively threatens a person’s life, bodily integrity, or sanity, and overwhelms a person’s ability to cope.

PTSD and Substance Use Disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition caused by experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. Symptoms include nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, intrusive thoughts about the trauma, hypervigilance, and avoidance of triggers which remind you of the event. Substance use disorders (SUD) are frequently co-morbid (co-occurring) with PTSD. Many people with PTSD self-medicate with mind-altering substances to alleviate symptoms but getting high or drunk only works for so long. Substance use disorders often evolve from using substances as a maladaptive coping tool.

There are many physiological correlations between psychological trauma and SUD. For example, there are similarities in gray matter reduction for both the person with PTSD and the person with an alcohol use disorder. Although the neural mechanisms of addiction in PTSD patients are not fully understood, research has found that in the prefrontal cortex, dopamine receptors may be involved in both conditions. Memories related to fear and reward are both processed with the help of these specific receptors. It could be that the processing of traumatic memories affects the dopamine receptors, making them more sensitive to reward-triggering substances.

Sometimes, people with a dual diagnosis of addiction and PTSD find their way to 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. These programs are widespread, free, and require no commitment, which makes them more accessible than other types of treatment. AA’s worldwide membership and lasting existence has caused the program to be of interest to researchers for decades. Previous research has found positive correlations between AA participation and abstinence. There is less research on how 12-step programs interact with trauma recovery.

Studies on relapse factors have found that common predecessors to relapse in adults include anger, depression, and stress, among others. Recalling traumatic experiences, for someone with PTSD, can cause intense physiological and psychological reactions characterized by these same feelings: anxiety (stress), depression, anger, and frustration. It’s a combination that puts people with both trauma and addiction at a higher risk of relapsing.

Guilt, Shame, and AA

There are two sets of steps in 12-step programs that involve memory recall and direct involvement with others: Steps 4 and 5 and Steps 8 and 9.

Step 4 says: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” That step is followed up by sharing that inventory in Step 5: “Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

Later, Step 8 says: “Made a list of persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.” To deal with that list, Step 9 directs people: “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

The gist with these steps is that they look at both the resentment/anger the person feels towards others (which always involves taking responsibility for part or all of the event that caused the resentment and anger), and also the “harms” the person caused others. But there is no direct guidance on how to ensure a realistic and safe assessment of past events is made. The AA book presents this step as if someone with a substance use disorder has the tendency to blame others. People with PTSD are wracked with self-blame, and it is self-blame and shame which fuels many people’s addictions, but shame is not explicitly addressed in the steps.

Guilt is very commonly experienced by people with PTSD. Survivor guilt can be a bit of a misnomer; PTSD develops from situations that are subjectively experienced as traumatic, but these circumstances don’t have to involve death (although they certainly can and do for many people). Simply surviving can feel like something the person is not worthy of. They may feel guilt when they don’t stay in the pain and anxiety.

Shame is also common in trauma survivors, especially in people who have been sexually assaulted. Trauma survivors must restore a positive sense of self to find healing. Judith Herman, the author of Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, explains that “the survivor needs the assistance of others in her struggle to overcome her shame and to arrive at a fair assessment of her conduct.” It becomes important, as the trauma reveals itself, to see it clearly for what it was so the person can integrate those experiences into their individual life stories.

AA literature is very focused on decreasing ego and on disrupting the selfishness of the person with the addiction. This is not necessarily a helpful baseline for traumatized folks; it can be harshly critical. The feeling of being judged can deepen the rift between the survivor and others. Herman writes, “Realistic judgements diminish the feelings of humiliation and guilt. By contrast, either harsh criticism or ignorant, blind acceptance greatly compounds the survivor’s self-blame and isolation.”

The primary text of Alcoholics Anonymous (the “Big Book”) suggests alcoholics review their past sexual life when creating a life inventory in Step 4. For the overall inventory, the book suggests that the reader completely disregard “the wrongs others had done” and to look only at “our own mistakes.” Even in situations where a person caused harm to the reader, the reader should “disregard the other person involved entirely” and find “where were we to blame?” These suggestions can be dangerous for survivors of intimate partner violence or child abuse who have been told that they were to blame for the abuse they suffered.

The book further details what to ask yourself when making an inventory of your sexual conduct:

“Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Where were we at fault, what should we have done instead?” It is worrisome that a sex inventory is taken to find out how “we acted selfishly” when one-third of women and one-sixth of men have been sexually assaulted or raped. An estimated half of women who experience a sexual assault will develop PTSD. One study found that 80 percent of women with SUD who seek inpatient treatment have been physically or sexually assaulted and nearly 70 percent of men have experienced either physical or sexual abuse.

How the 12 Steps Can Harm People with PTSD

Because remembering past traumas makes the brain’s reward center more receptive to the effects of drugs, Steps 4 and 5 need to approached with extreme caution for people who have experienced trauma. Ideally, these steps jumpstart healing; but when they are done without support for the symptoms of PTSD, they have the potential to retraumatize. As the person shares their trauma with someone else, hopefully the listener is compassionate and willing to point out where things were not the addict’s fault—at all. A child survivor of molestation had no agency in the assault, and it is unconscionable to tell that child, now grown, that they need to determine where they were at fault. It is not possible to “disregard the other person involved entirely” when an event only occurred because of the other person. Sometimes we need to recognize this fact and say to ourselves (or hear from someone else): “You had no part in this, you were a victim at that time.”

In Steps 8 and 9 we are to list and resolve harms done to others. If step 4 and 5 didn’t properly address where our fault doesn’t lie, we may be inclined to list abuses and harm done to us as wrongs we did. It says not to make amends if it will cause harm to others, but we need an additional specification not to make amends if it will cause harm to ourselves. If you owe an abusive ex-partner money, are you supposed to pay them back if you’ve cut off all contact? These are issues that require careful consideration. Sharing both lists with a compassionate person has the potential to help survivors recover. Sharing both lists with someone who is too harsh in their suggestions and assessments has the potential to push those in recovery back into active addiction.

The care of a loving, compassionate, and knowledgeable supporter, like a sponsor, can help sort out these dangerous triggers. Since such a large percentage of people in 12-step programs have experienced trauma, sponsors should be able to provide trauma-informed care; otherwise, going through the steps may end up retraumatizing their sponsees and leaving them vulnerable to relapse. Yet, there are no qualifications for sponsorship, and no way for someone new to the program to be aware of these potential pitfalls. There are so many variabilities to the 12 steps and how they are implemented. The way in which someone interprets the language of the steps can change how people understand themselves and their history. Trauma-focused recovery can be lost in the mix and deserves more explicit attention.

View the original article at thefix.com

22 April 2019
4 Important Reasons to "Keep Coming Back" to AA, Even When We Don't Need To

Don’t underestimate just how powerful your presence at a 12-step meeting can be for another person’s recovery.

More than I care to admit, my usual 12-step meeting times will pop up on my calendar and I’ll think to myself, “Can I get away with skipping this one?”

A lot of folks in the rooms will tell you that you shouldn’t skip meetings because relapse happens when we get lax in recovery. You get out of recovery what you invest into it, and the practice of consistently showing up makes your program stronger.

I don’t disagree with that. But even so, when I’m having a good day, going to a meeting sounds like a drag — and one meeting, I figure, is not going to make or break my sobriety.

Besides, I’ve earned a break, haven’t I?

There are four simple words that snap me back into reality, though: It’s not about you.

Put another way, we show up to these meetings because we’re building a community of support. But when we feel the temptation to not show up, it’s easy to forget the bigger picture.

So why go to that meeting, even when your recovery doesn’t depend on it? It’s pretty simple: recovery is about so much more than not picking up a drink. The next time you’re thinking about missing out on a meeting, consider these four reasons why showing up still matters.

1. Someone might need your presence or your story.

You might be the one familiar face in the room that reminds someone that they’re in the right place. Something that you share might be exactly what someone else needs to hear. You never know what your presence is bringing to the table — and how valuable it might be to someone else.

When I finally went back to AA after two years of relapses and denial, I can’t express just how comforting it was to see people I could remember. They were still there (and amazingly, still sober) and genuinely happy to see me again.

Their presence was a reminder that AA wasn’t just a gathering place for sad drunks — it was a community. It was a place where warmth, compassion, and laughter could always be found. At times, it was really the only place where I could laugh.

Many of us arrive at our first meetings unsure of what we’ll find and afraid to speak up. And often times it was hearing “our story” — seeing ourselves and our struggles in someone else’s share — that gave us the strength to keep coming back and truly commit to our recovery.

Despite numerous therapists, social workers, and loved ones urging me to get help, the only thing that pulled me from my deep state of denial was listening to other alcoholics. As one old-timer explained to me, “This fellowship is the only mirror in which I can see myself clearly.”

To this day, I can remember those people’s stories, even if they never noticed me hiding in the back of the room. They may have spoken casually without any thought of reaching anyone, but their words had an unforgettable impact on me.

Tonight, someone might show up to the rooms, not sure if they belong or if they want to stay. Your smile, your energy, or your words could be the anchor that grounds them. Don’t underestimate just how powerful your presence can be for another person’s recovery.

2. 12-step meetings can only thrive if everyone commits to showing up.

Think about it: if we only showed up when we were feeling terrible, what would meetings look like, exactly? They’d be pretty dismal places. There’d be experiences to share — but where would the strength and hope come from?

On chip nights, when I saw members getting their chips for five, ten, even twenty years, I used to wonder why they bothered to show up. “Do they really think they’re going to slip up at this point?” It’s true, they might, but when I listened to the responsibility statement, I realized that it wasn’t just for them. They showed up for the fellowship, and for the alcoholic who still suffers. Their presence was an act of gratitude.

Members who show up consistently, even and especially when they don’t “need” to, are the heart and soul of 12-step meetings. The program only truly works when people are willing to build a lasting community together.

AA isn’t just the couch you crash on when you’re down on your luck; these rooms represent a safe haven that should always be there, and will be — as long as we keep coming back.

3. Sobriety is an ongoing practice — not a destination.

I’ve often joked that alcoholism is a form of amnesia, but there’s some truth to that, too. Without a consistent practice — in which we repeatedly confront, accept, and reflect on our condition, while building up the coping skills needed to manage our lives — it’s all too easy to return to our old ways.

I don’t know about you, but my old ways weren’t exactly charming.

I could be resentful, self-centered, and impulsive. Like many alcoholics, I’ve fooled myself into thinking I had more power over situations than I actually did. I’ve been the bull in the china shop, barreling my way through life. I much prefer the acceptance, grace, and warmth that I work hard to embody today.

Left to my own devices, though? I fall out of the routine that helps me sustain my recovery and keeps me accountable. The resentments start to pile up. My stubbornness comes to the surface. My sense of gratitude diminishes.

Sobriety is not a point at which you arrive. Personal growth is a direction we move in — not a finish line we cross. Think of a fellowship, then, as your compass, helping to direct that growth.

Sobriety is a practice, and when we regularly attend meetings, we flex the muscles needed to strengthen and maintain our coping skills. The more we flex those muscles, the more intuitive those skills become. And as the Ninth Step Promises state, we “intuitively know how to deal with situations that used to baffle us.”

Developing that intuition means reinforcing it, and meetings are a consistent and reliable way of doing this, with a community that supports you unconditionally through that process.

4. Joy is an incredible contribution.

I’m an optimist and an extrovert by nature. When I first started attending meetings, I very seriously wondered if my personality would be “too much” for a space like AA. Was I too happy? Would my upbeat nature be grating in such an emotionally-vulnerable space?

But each time I shared my experiences, there was a chorus of gratitude that followed — the energy that I brought to the rooms was appreciated and seen. That’s when I finally understood something: authentic joy is an amazing gift to bring to my community.

So when I’m especially happy on any given day? I make an extra effort to show up to meetings. I let my smile signal to others that there is joy in sobriety. I let my laugh remind newcomers that there are better days ahead.

And I let my excitement and enthusiasm lift up those around me, especially those who might be wondering if there is a place for them in AA. When I show up authentically, it allows others to do the same. It makes those rooms a more welcoming place.

I may not feel motivated on a given day to show up to a meeting. But when I can’t show up for myself, I do it for my community.

And inevitably, when I do, my joy only seems to multiply. It seems that — at least in 12-step programs — what you give to others always comes back to you in spades.

View the original article at thefix.com

9 November 2018
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

1 November 2018
When the Obsession Isn’t Lifted

Before, when someone with 20 years would say “it’s still a day at a time,” I couldn’t really hear them. I do now.

I was a typical low-bottom case. I was drunk most days, and a car wreck, an arrest, and a liver enzyme problem couldn’t pry me from my favorite thing to do. What would be the point of a life without alcohol? Now over five years sober, though, one thing astounds me even more than my abstinence. I don’t miss drinking. I hardly think about it. How can this be? Drinking was at the center of my existence. Surely sobriety would be a lifetime of longing for what I couldn’t have anymore, of feeling terribly excluded from the magical things I associated with its effects: wildness, fun, escape, adventure. Now it’s like, drinking? Oh right, that…

In AA-speak, I had an “obsession” with alcohol, and that obsession has been “lifted.” The totality of this transformation was enough to make me, an atheist before this, feel a bit mystical indeed.

Over the years I have come to realize that unfortunately this freedom from obsession does not characterize everyone’s recovery experience. I first noticed this when I was out to dinner with a friend from the program. Both of us had over a year sober. Our server began listing drink specials, as servers do, and my friend cut him off and demanded that he remove the cocktail menu from our table immediately. I felt embarrassed and confused. These were not the vibes of someone “placed in a position of neutrality.” Instead she was coming across as anxious and aggressive and she seemed to be feeling unsafe. We talked, and she said, “Yeah, for me, the obsession has not been lifted.” I was stunned. I thought, really?

Keeping her anonymous, I brought this interaction up to other friends who had been sober for decades. They knew. They reminded me that Dr. Bob’s obsession lasted well into his third year. Bob wrote in the Big Book, “Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one-half years of abstinence. It was almost always with me.” He notes in this passage that it used to make him “terribly upset” to see his friends drink when he “could not.”

I have become attuned to this. While there are as many experiences of recovery as there are people in recovery–it’s a deeply personal path after all–perhaps two broad types emerge, one in which the obsession all but disappears, and another in which it remains even while abstinence is achieved and maintained. How can these not be vastly different?

This seems like a big deal, yet the issue gets scant air time in shares. I suspect we don’t hear about this more in meetings owing to our strong unity, per the triangle of recovery, unity, and service. We are at our best when we are united, identifying with each other rather than comparing. On this matter of the obsession, perhaps we are divided. (Of course there may be many people in the middle, whose obsession has weakened but has not “been lifted” or “removed,” or whose obsession comes and goes. I don’t know.) Out of the thousands of meetings I’ve attended, this issue has emerged just a few times as a share theme. In those shares, people whose obsessions have remained have expressed gratitude for others’ honesty who shared this ahead of them, and relief at the permission they felt it granted them to share similarly. They shared not wanting to drag anyone down, not wanting to be an unattractive example to newcomers, and not wanting to be seen as a “bad AA.” They wondered if they were doing the program wrong.

I imagine that, on the contrary, it must take an especially strong program to maintain sobriety in the circumstance of an obsession that endures. When I share about its being lifted, including writing this now, I feel a sense of survivor’s guilt. I worked the same 12 steps as everyone else, and my active disease was plenty strong. Just for me, abstinence was a prerequisite for the freedom from obsession that followed, but after that, the freedom from obsession made ongoing abstinence feel easy. Life can be hard. Last spring, my sibling got a life-threatening illness, and that was very hard. But I don’t find not drinking to be hard anymore. When I use the slogan “getting sober is a lot harder than staying sober,” that is what I mean.

Olivia Pennelle’s recent article in The Fix, “Is there Life after AA?” caught my attention. She wrote about wanting to leave AA and being tired of the “fear-based conditioning” that if she left, she wouldn’t stay sober. I identified with her experience, not because I wanted to leave AA (I didn’t), but because I too faced dire predictions when I wanted to reduce my time commitment to the fellowship. In my first four years sober I had been attending meetings almost every other day; making daily calls to sponsors (something like 1,500 total to my two consecutive sponsors); hundreds more calls to friends, acquaintances, and newcomers; taking around half a dozen sponsees through some stepwork (not all at the same time!); and fulfilling service commitments ranging from greeter to meeting chair to speaking in prisons and psych wards and what seemed like half the groups in my large metro area. My recovery felt solid, and I’d learned the difference between the program, which I could apply in my daily life, and the fellowship.

I’d returned to grad school to become a psychotherapist. (Incidentally, while there I discovered that mental health professionals have studies and theories about why the obsession leaves some people more easily than others, having to do with particular co-occurring mental health issues. In the future, I hope to write about this too.) With more focus and energy, I felt ready to pursue the new career and other life goals including getting non-alcoholic friends and dating outside the fellowship. I found myself needing more time. Trust me, I did ask myself and a higher power within: Am I “drifting?” Am I “resting on my laurels?” Then as now, I relied heavily on meditation. In my depths, I knew this was not the case.

Pennelle quoted someone who wrote to her, “I know lots of people who have left 12-step recovery. They are all drunk or dead.” When I reduced my involvement, some people made it clear how extremely dangerous they thought this was, and how worried they were. When I told a friend I was down to 1 to 2 meetings per week, she looked at me like I was out of my mind. My sponsor was distraught to be working with me in my new approach, and she couldn’t seem to talk about anything other than how my disease must be “tricking” me. I had affectionate feelings and a lot of gratitude towards her, but we couldn’t seem to see eye to eye on this. Eventually I referenced my obsession’s being lifted as part of my rationale for feeling safe cutting down on the time commitment. She then used almost the same words my friend used years before and said that for her “the obsession has not been lifted.” She added, “for some people, it never does.”

Many considerations likely play into people’s decisions regarding how much or how little time they spend in the fellowship, but it stands to reason that the persistence or disappearance of the obsession factors into it. I have no wish to take chances. Sobriety is the most precious, important thing in my life. It is my life. This disease has killed at least five members of my extended family, and it’s got one immediate family member in prison. I have never once questioned that if I take so much as a sip, I take my life into my own hands, and I don’t want to die. I try never to take my recovery for granted. AA is still a part of my life, but it is “a bridge back to life,” and life was pulling me in another direction. I couldn’t be true to myself and continue at the same level of time commitment I had in my first few years. I didn’t want to let anything get between me and my recovery, including my program.

“A day at a time” has become a spiritual way of life for me, a reminder to live in the present. In early sobriety it was “a day-at-a-time” quite literally. I struggled hard not to drink through the first 90 days and then some, thinking about drinking almost nonstop. As I remember it, the obsession only began to falter for brief spans in months four and five, when I would have these amazing moments of realizing, hey wait! It’s been a whole afternoon and I haven’t been missing it. What freedom! Though I was desperate, exhausted from sleeplessness, grieving the loss of the only coping mechanism I’d ever known and coming to see the wreckage and trauma for the devastation that it was, these gaps in the obsession spurred me on. Even beyond my first anniversary I was still a little shaky (figuratively that is, my actual shakes were long gone). Now there are just moments when a liquor ad will catch my eye, or I’ll have a twinge of nostalgia for my old life. I’m still an alcoholic, but these come very rarely and never amount to a craving. Not even close.

Before, when someone with 20 years would say “it’s still a day at a time,” I couldn’t really hear them. I do now. Taking sobriety “a day at a time” can remain literal, for life. For some cutting back on involvement in the AA fellowship may indeed be a death wish. We share a common problem and a common solution, but we are different people with different lives and recoveries. However well-intentioned, using fear or guilt to coerce people into a level of time commitment that for them is no longer authentic or wanted may only alienate them and take them away from a level of commitment that is working well, or inhibit them from re-engaging should a need arise in the future. Accepting this doesn’t require being dismissive or doubtful of other people’s need for continuous, intensive involvement. Compassion, as always, is best. We must do what is right for our own selves, and, unto our own selves, be true.

View the original article at thefix.com

25 September 2018
Is There Life After AA?

I was fed up with the fear-based conditioning of being told that if I left, I wouldn’t stay sober, and I was tired of the constant message that my future was up to some mystic higher power.

When I walked into my first AA meeting, I felt like I was broken into a million pieces. My bloated body housed a mosaic of a woman whose sense of self was shattered. I had zero self-confidence, and my self-esteem was so fragile that if you poked me, I’d erupt into a blubbering mess. My life seemed like a blur. I had no comprehension of where most of my twenties had gone—they seemed to have been washed away by a tsunami of wine and drugs. I’m not sure what I expected when I stepped foot through that door, but I distinctly remember feeling utterly defeated, completely lost, with no idea what to do next. I knew I had to stop and this is where I was told to go.

I quickly adjusted to life in AA; they welcomed me, guided me through building social supports, and gave me a framework to live by. Initially, it stuck, and I stayed sober. The 12 steps seemed to be a very simple way to live my life as a sober person. At that time my life was simple: it consisted of endless meetings and a shitty job. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. It was like I was wearing someone else’s hand-me-downs: every time I looked down I was acutely aware of my long limbs being two or three inches too long—they were functional, but they weren’t the right fit and I felt constricted.

Those feelings would resurface every time someone in the rooms gave me a suggestion, or made a remark, that seemed overly-controlling or dogmatic. Some of the highlights include one sponsor screaming down the phone at me for 30 minutes until I was in tears because I wasn’t doing what she wanted me to do. Another memory is of her sponsor insisting I call on a daily basis to “check out my thinking” and report my plan for the day. Then there were the messages that those who leave the program were destined for one of two fates: returning to alcohol/drug use, or death. Certified Recovery Specialist and MSW Adam Sledd, recounts: “The biggest lie of all was the one that said I couldn’t manage my own recovery. This myth singlehandedly disenfranchises millions of people.” Another damaging myth that keeps people from exploring other potential methods of recovery is that if you are able to get sober somehow without 12-step programs, you must not have been a “real” alcoholic to begin with.

While I do not discount that AA contributed to my development as a woman in recovery—I stayed sober and I built social supports—I reached a point that it hindered the development of my sense of self. I had no life outside of AA and I felt like my core values of integrity, justice, and equality were reframed as character defects.

In retrospect, I can see that having other people in recovery guiding you through the twelve steps leaves a wide margin of error. They are not trained therapists and they are not trauma-informed, leaving the risk of misinterpretation and potential harm. Through intensive therapy, I now see that my core values weren’t character flaws—they are a fundamental aspect of who I am. I also discovered that I suffer with complex PTSD, so being conditioned to believe I was powerless and had these presumably fatal character flaws wasn’t helpful—it was harmful. I needed to empower myself, not diminish vital parts of my identity.

Even though I rigorously applied the steps, I found myself increasingly numbing out feelings of doubt with food and cigarettes. It became clear that even though I wanted to stay sober, my life in 12-step fellowships wasn’t a life I wanted. I was depressed and didn’t want my life to revolve around sitting in church basements telling sad stories and disempowering myself by identifying as the same broken woman who walked through that door two years earlier. I was no longer that woman, and I was sick of suppressing the new person I had become. I was fed up with the fear-based conditioning of being told that if I left, I wouldn’t stay sober, and I was tired of the constant message that my future would be determined by some mystic higher power.

In writing my blog and interviewing people around the world about what recovery looked like for them, it became startlingly clear that there were endless ways to recover—dispelling all of the myths and dogmatic conditioning we hear in the rooms. I began to see through the lived experience of others that the parts of me that I’d considered to be broken were actually the making of me. No longer was I defined by my past and instead I could embrace my core values and personality traits. That experience led to the realization that I had not been thinking big enough. I was shrinking myself to fit into a program that didn’t work for me, and I was too frightened to leave.

Moving to America gave me the impetus to cut ties to 12-step fellowships in favor of trying something new and expanding my life. It was difficult at first. When you build a recovery founded upon the belief that you have to rely upon others to survive, it is inevitable that you will wobble once you remove those supports. But once you realize that you are in charge of your recovery, everything changes.

I started to break free of those dogmatic beliefs that were simply untrue for me. I saw the evidence that many people just like me were thriving without a 12-step recovery. Gone was the conditioning of looking at myself as broken. Instead, I realized that I am no longer that woman who walked through the doors of AA six years ago. I no longer have to shrink myself or berate my character for being out of line with the core beliefs of a program that doesn’t work for me. I see much more value in looking at what is right about me, what I have endured and overcome, and rising to the challenge of helping others to see their strengths and striving to have a fulfilling, self-directed life.

That experience stills saddens me today. The fear-based conditioning is still occurring in 12-step fellowships and in online forums in spite of a body of evidence demonstrating that there is more than one way to recover. In my work as a writer, I challenge perspectives on recovery by pointing out this evidence on a near daily basis. I passionately believe in showing others that they can find and succeed in recovery another way if the 12 steps do not work for them.

To that end, I set up a Facebook Group, Life After 12-Step Recovery. The purpose of the group is to provide hope, tools, and resources for people who leave AA, NA—or any other A—because it wasn’t the right fit for them. I wanted to provide the real-life experiences of people thriving once they have left these fellowships and taken control of managing their own recovery.

In setting up the group, I asked people on Facebook who had left 12-step groups about their experiences. I was inundated with examples of people leading fulfilling, empowered, and self-directed lives. And there was one person who said: “I know lots of people who have left 12-step recovery. They are all drunk or dead.” I think this illustrates not only the need for this group, but the need for articles like these to dispel such untruths.

While I equally respect and consider the views of people who find the 12 steps do work for them, the reality is that we all have choices in our recovery, and we have the power to decide what works for us.

View the original article at thefix.com

1 August 2018
Dating While (Newly) Sober

When my sponsor told me about the suggestion to not date for a year, that I should just concentrate on getting sober, I said: “I’m a really good multi-tasker.”

I thought that when I got sober, I’d get into the best shape of my life, start going to the gym all the time, train for a triathlon, become super successful and meet the man of my dreams. Basically, my version of what advertising says is the perfect life. I wasn’t thinking along the lines of what some people say: the gift of sobriety IS sobriety. Boring. I mean, I was and I wasn’t; I mostly just wanted to stop being miserable. I did a 90 and 90, got a sponsor, joined a gym, took a class in my career of choice, slept a lot, and met a guy.

When my sponsor told me about the suggestion to not date for a year, that I should just concentrate on getting sober, I said: “I’m a really good multi-tasker,” and “I can get sober and date at the same time.” Luckily for me, she didn’t say it was a rule, because there are no rules in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Nowhere in the Big Book does it say: “no dating allowed in the first year.” It just talked about some people prefer a little more pepper in their sex life or whatever (page 69) and who are we to tell people what spices to proverbially cook with?

So thank god for that because in my first 90 days, I met a guy. He was a friend of a friend and when we met, he told me that he was going through a big transition in his life.

“What kind of a transition?” I asked, while thinking Oh my God! We have so much in common! We’re both going through transitions! As if a relationship could be built on that alone. Or even a marriage, because I thought that now that I had opened the book of sobriety, everything would change in the blink of an eye. It would be like I just woke up to a new life. That’s how it happens, right? I mean, don’t you kinda hear that all the time? The person’s life was shit and then they got sober and now they’re in this awesome marriage/job/house/car/babies and it all like happened in a year or maybe two? I’m smart and attractive. That shit should happen for me too! I can make that happen. I. CAN. MAKE. THAT. HAPPEN. Higher power who?

So, when I asked the guy what kind of transition, he said poetically, “It’s like my house was taken away so now I have no house, but at least I can see the moon.” And I was like “Wow, coooooool. I totally love the moon.”

For our first date, we went on a bike ride along the river, had lunch where I did not order a glass of wine (the first time that has ever happened) and ordered a coffee instead. I didn’t tell him that I was newly sober. I just told him I didn’t drink, and he said that was cool and he’s thought that maybe he should quite drinking too (uh oh); that he meditates and when he meditates, he feels super clear and drinking gets in the way of that (uh yeah). Then he walked me home and I remember feeling very sensitive and insecure. It was like I was eight years old again with a crush on a boy at school and I forgot how to walk my bike. Or talk. I felt awkward. Which is why, at 16, drinking and boys went hand in hand. Less feeling. More yay.

When I got home, I realized there was no way I could date right now. I knew that if I was rejected or even felt rejected, it would probably cause me to drink. I didn’t have the emotional tools. I talked to my sponsor about it and then called him up and said, “I really like you, but I’m going through something right now where I need to take a year off of dating. I hope you understand.” And he said, “Wow. I should probably do that, too.” Turns out he was going through a divorce and was in no place to be in a relationship or be the man of my dreams/dysfunction right now.

For the rest of the year, I concentrated on going to meetings, fellowship, making new AA friends, eating cookies and milk, binge watching Netflix at night, and it was the most awesome/horrible year of my life. I highly recommend it. I gained 10 or 20 pounds which was weird. Dudes can go through a rough time and get fat and grow a beard and still be considered likeable — but as a woman, it’s harder to hide behind a beard and 50 pounds and be cool. But a girl can dream.

So, a year later, guess who I ran into? No-house-moon dude. And yay! I was like a year sober so totally awesome and fixed, right? It. Was. On. We went on a few dates, and I honestly can’t remember if we had sex. It was only seven years ago and I know we did sexy things but I cannot for the life of me remember. I don’t think we did, because we would have needed to have the talk and well, let’s just say that the time I chose to have the talk was not a good time to have it. Take it from me when I say DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HAVE THE TALK WHEN HIS HEAD IS BETWEEN YOUR LEGS. That should be in the Big Book. It’s a real buzz kill for one and all. And our relationship (if you can call it that) ended shortly thereafter which was okay because he was seriously still mourning the loss of his ten-year marriage.

So that’s my take on dating in the first year. I do know a couple people who hooked up in their first year of sobriety and 30 years later are still married. That might happen to you. I knew that wasn’t going to happen for me. It wasn’t until year two that I met the man of my dreams AKA qualifier who really brought me to my knees (not in a good way) and into Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous which is like the nicest thing a guy can do. Kidding. But not in a way because Girrrrrrrl, I needed some of that SLAA in my life. Since then, I’ve moved to a place that I am happy to call home, am “healthy” dating and more will be revealed. But the best thing is that I like myself – dare I say love myself? I love my friends, my career, and my life and I don’t expect a man or any person or thing to save me. Because I don’t need saving any more. Thank god. Thank HP. Thank program. And thank you.

View the original article at thefix.com

17 July 2018
How Sponsoring Fellow Alcoholics Is Teaching Me How To Parent My Son

How do I, an alcoholic with a dysfunctional childhood who didn’t even begin maturing until his early 30s, go about the daunting duty of raising a son to manhood?

Recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous has helped me build an incredible life. A restored marriage, a promising career, and a comfortable suburban home highlight the tangibles; the wisdom of the program and mentorship of its members have provided the intangibles – accountability, purpose, sanity.

Two years ago marked the most notable blessing to date: The birth of my first and only child, Nicholas.

This gift, however, also presents my most vexing sober challenge yet: How do I, an alcoholic with a dysfunctional childhood who didn’t even begin maturing until his early 30s, go about the daunting duty of raising a son to manhood? How do I break, as much as any parent can, the cycle of insanity Nicholas has inherited?

As Nicholas approaches toddlerdom – where he’ll start truly developing lifelong memories – solidifying certain notions of parenthood has become increasingly urgent. “What type of dad do I want to be?” is quickly becoming “What type of dad am I?” It’s becoming clear that these child-rearing concepts aren’t going to magically manifest; I need to search for them.

And where I keep finding answers is the only relationship in which I’m actually qualified to give guidance: my role as an AA sponsor. Here are just a few of the many parenting perspectives my experiences as a sponsor have helped formulate.

Coddling Is Counterproductive

The most meaningful child-rearing principle that sponsorship has instilled in me carries even more significance considering our helicopter-parenting, participation trophy-wielding times: Coddling trades short-term ease for long-term hardship.

Many addicts, myself included, are recovering from people pleasing as well as alcohol and drugs. Our diseases demanded instant gratification and, by necessity, we were talented at telling people what they wanted to hear in order to skate by or score more.

When we become sponsors, we must play a longer game. We learn that giving a sponsee an undeserved pat on the back when what he needs is a kick in the ass is not only counterproductive, but downright irresponsible. Enabling a sponsee’s laziness or self-denial can mean being party to his relapse.

Sponsorship has taught me that I can’t shield someone from tough choices, uphill climbs and heavy lifting. As much as I root for a sponsee, I can’t want his recovery more than he does; as my son grows, I’ll fight similar urges to carry an oversized share of burdens he himself must bear.

The overall message is clear: work hard for worthwhile goals. In a sponsee’s case, that goal is long-term sobriety and perpetual personal progress; in my son’s, the goal is responsible, upstanding citizenship and self-sufficient adulthood.

Here, AA is endearingly traditional in its nose-to-the-grindstone approach to progress.

There is a grit factor in the rooms that, these days, is sorely lacking outside of them. To both sponsees and children, “get to work” is the kind of simple but meaningful instruction that is easily understood and, when followed, results in both tangible and character-building rewards.

I’m finding that the less I coddle my sponsees the more favorable the result. I am increasingly confident that the same will hold true for my son. Soft sponsorship yields soft recovery. Ditto for soft parenting.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Roll your eyes all you want, but when this starting appearing on mugs and memes everywhere, I hoped (beyond hope, it turned out) that more people would adopt a mantra that AA so effectively espouses.

Few markers are more telling of one’s maturity than the breadth and depth of people, places and things that anger, cower or otherwise derail him. As someone who, according to men with many more years sober than me, had “smoke coming from his ears” as a newcomer, I’ve learned this lesson particularly harshly. It’s taken years of trial and error – of getting a little less angry to similar situations, then reflecting on how useless and toxic that rage was – to form a demeanor even remotely resembling even-keeled.

Watching my sponsees struggle with this journey – with getting totally jammed up over matters of dubious-at-best significance – is Exhibit A of sponsor-sponsee symbiosis. As I talk my sponsees down off the inevitable next ledge, I remind myself to practice what I preach.

I am committed to developing this big-picture, c’est la vie attitude in my son. And while anyone with a two-year-old understands how successful I’ve been thus far (not much, if at all), I can look to my own imperfect, ongoing transformation as proof that progress takes trial, error and – most of all – time.

For now, this concept lives in little things. “I can see that you’re very sad about having to stop watching TV, but you’ll see Peppa Pig tomorrow,” I’ll tell a crying Nicholas, as the credits of his favorite show roll while I usher him off to bed. Or “It’s PJ time,” I tell a sobbing, splashing boy engrossed in his bathtime toys. “We’ll get all dry and get some milk, how’s that?”

These gentle nudges, I hope, will push Nicholas toward a more bird’s-eye worldview where he realizes that the little things in life aren’t worth getting upset over. As he grows I’ll instill in him, gradually and imperfectly, that a precious few things warrant more than a brief moment’s annoyance. Here, my role as a sponsee gives me the best chance to break yet another inglorious familial cycle: rage-aholism.

Think for Yourself

Though AA most assuredly isn’t a cult (cue the usual troll bile in my comment thread), at times it is certainly prone to an unsophisticated, unhelpful herd mentality. There are sayings and beliefs in the rooms that I find silly, arrogant, or wildly inaccurate.

I am upfront about this with my sponsees; they are free to disagree with me on any of my program-related peccadilloes. The overarching lesson is each of us needs to find a recovery that is workable within the construct of our authentic self. “Faking it to make it” will only take us so far; eventually, recovery through the 12 steps is a journey in self-discovery, one which, per popular program prose, demands rigorous honesty.

First and foremost is the childish belief, held by far too many in AA, that God has saved them specifically. Simply put, this implies that God chose to let others die. I often wonder whether the person proclaiming such nonsense realizes that his belief system is based on declaring himself more special than fellow sufferers. Neither my sponsees nor my son will be weaned on such pompousness.

Oddly, another whopper that permeates AA is the polar opposite of this holier-than-thouism. It is uttered every time a newcomer is told that his experiences, strength and hope matter as much as someone with longstanding sobriety – that each of us “only has today.”

This well-intending white lie creates an unproductive false equivalence between those who’ve thoroughly followed recovery’s path and those just beginning to trudge the trail. Because AA – like parenthood, I’m educated-guessing – is about mentorship more than anything else. My responsibility to pay it forward isn’t as relevant if everyone has the same amount of currency.

This all boils down to three words that I find myself repeating to sponsees and, because of this, will find myself repeating to Nicholas: “You’re still learning.”

Sit back. Relax. Learn. Don’t overextend yourself. No, sponsee, you shouldn’t go to a bachelor party in Las Vegas at four months sober. I have enough sobriety to handle that, you don’t. Yet. And no, 17-year-old Nicholas, you aren’t driving across the country with your friends because you aren’t ready to do that. Yet.

These are just a few examples of how the privilege of guiding recovering alcoholics through the 12 steps will help me guide my son through childhood. As my sober experiences grow in tandem with my son, there will undoubtedly be many more points where sponsorship intersects with parenting – much to Nicholas’ benefit.

And of course, there’s this: if Nicholas comes home with his eyes pinned, I’ll know what’s up. My rocky past and recovering present will allow me to recognize the warning signs of the scourge of my son’s generation: opioids. Should that day come, my recovery may help save my son’s life, as it did my own.

View the original article at thefix.com

29 June 2018
The Blessings of Going Back

“Pulling a geographic? Come to Jackson Hole! Great public transportation, decent jobs, and a beautiful environment to be miserable in.”

It can be a scary thing to go back to the place you hit your “bottom.” It can also be extremely rewarding with unexpected miracles and blessings. I hit my bottom in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and I highly recommend it as a destination location as far as bottoms go. I don’t think that’s a “thing” but perhaps some travel site can advertise that: “Pulling a geographic? Come to Jackson Hole! Great public transportation, decent jobs, and a beautiful environment to be miserable in.”

I’m not trying to make light of it. It’s awful hitting a bottom but if I had to choose between Jackson and somewhere else, I’d probably choose Jackson. Not that I was miserable – at first. Geographics are great at first. The despair takes a nap. New places, new faces – no problems. I picked up some hobbies, some new friends and a couple guys. One of the guys was a ski instructor at the resort. He was maybe 10 or 20 years older than me which was fine because I was also “dating” someone 10 to 20 years younger than me. Age is just a construct, anyhow, and more is better and pass the bottle.

We hit the slopes in the morning and then took a break for lunch at the Four Seasons where I ordered a glass of wine, of course. He paused, considered for a moment and then ordered one for himself. After lunch, we went back to skiing which is kind of amazing for an alcoholic but after a few hours, we celebrated a terrific day by returning to the Four Seasons for “Apres Ski” and had a few more glasses. That was the last I saw of him.

Nine months later, I moved back to New York and ended up in “the rooms.” Then, when I was about a year sober, I had to go back to Jackson for some work. I was scared because I had drunk so much and that was how I did Jackson. That’s how Jackson worked. Could I do it differently? Most of my friendships were based around drinking and so were most of my activities. Why go river rafting, if you’re not going to party? It was all about the beer, the booze, the alcohol.

My sponsor and fellows in the program told me that it would be okay to go back and that what I would do is go to meetings, make phone calls, and take it one day at a time. So that’s what I did. There was a daily meeting in town square and, though nervous, I showed up and said I’m visiting. There were a lot of other people visiting, as well as locals, and it was a very welcoming environment. After the meeting, someone tapped my shoulder. It was the ski instructor. I was happy to see him, not because I was attracted to him or wanted to be with him, but because it was nice to see someone who had been out there with me now in the rooms taking the same journey. He told me he had been sober for a while and it was on our date at the Four Seasons that he’d slipped. He stayed out for a few months and came back about the same time that I started coming to meetings. It felt like such a blessing to run into him there. I was so glad he was healthy and sober. So glad that I was, as well, and that we didn’t get lost down that tragic highway.

Another hidden blessing was that one of my coworkers was also trying to get sober. He didn’t have the gift of desperation, as they say, he had the gift of a DWI and a court mandating him to go. He was super talented and super likeable and had the common alcoholic tendency to turn into a total asshole and then go MIA when he drank which would be really bad for the project we were working on together. Selfishly, I needed him to stay sober. He was on the fence as to whether he was an alcoholic or not, but we went to a meeting together and when we had to go to Salt Lake City for work, I brought him to a meeting there too. He stayed sober through the job and guess what? So. Did. I. If I hadn’t been so focused on his sobriety, would I have stayed sober? Would I have searched out a meeting just for myself? Can’t say for sure. But what I can say is that he was another unexpected angel on that trip and from what I understand, he’s still sober.

Seeing Jackson through newly sober eyes was like putting on a “new pair of glasses” as Chuck C. says in his book by the same name. When I was there before, it was all about me, me, me. What can I get? I need that! And what’s in it for me? For instance, whenever I went to the brew pub, I was not present with the people I was with; my focus was on drinking and looking for guys and male attention. It was all about trying to fill that “God-shaped hole.” But sober, I was a worker among workers drinking my Arnold Palmer, enjoying my colleagues’ company, enjoying the moment and enjoying just BEING SOBER. That was the biggest gift of all.

It’s eight years later and I’m still sober and, as I write this, I realize that I miss that time in my life. I miss the humility and gratitude of early sobriety. I’m back to thinking a lot about myself and my plans. And what I can get. And I’m feeling kinda not awesome. I’ve also heard that around eight years is when people go out again, or slip. They get busy and stop going to meetings. I can definitely be too busy. Busy with I want, I want, I want. I think I get high on trying to make things happen. It’s my ego. But I know that when I have the gift of surrender and humility, IT FEELS SO GOOD. But I can’t seem to will the surrender. I can just be willing, and show up to meetings, do service, and deepen my understanding of my higher power regardless of how I feel. And as I reach out to the newcomer, I am re-acquainted with the early blessings, the blessings they give me and the ones I get to share in return. And for that I am grateful.

View the original article at thefix.com

22 June 2018