For two years now I have struggled against the idea of God, against the word God, against the proofs of God and His love that I hear people talk about all the time, and I have struggled against them to the point that in order to give myself some peace of mind I simply dismissed the question entirely and have considered myself to be an atheist. Atheism as an ideology and being an atheist inside a 12 step program is a dicey proposition. One must be very careful what one says at meeting level so as not to belittle the pious and in so doing dismiss the foundation of the very program that, though my convictions run against it, gave me back my life. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tony H. from Pacific Palisades was a guest on a TV show awhile back and he related the following story:
“I once asked a Jesuit priest what was the best short prayer he knew. He said, ‘fuck it,’ as in ‘fuck it; it’s in God’s hands.’”
I wish to God it was that easy to let go; to just say ‘fuck it’ and walk away, and resolutely trudge forward, not looking back at the city burning behind us like Mrs. Lot did. It is so tempting to “defocus” from my own recovery and try to devise some machination to save the ones I love and thwart those against whom I bear a resentment.
A member of my family is doing everything she can to get sober and her husband is doing everything he can to avoid participating or supporting and I want… I want… The enemy of my friend is my enemy. At least that is how I justify hanging on to this, but the real leap forward would be the first step. To pray anything like “fuck it” is to admit powerlessness. “Fuck it” is a first step. And I could use a first step about this issue about now.
I still think there must be something I can do. I should be able to coordinate a detente or at least call a ceasefire, or play the shuttle diplomat and somehow protect her from harm. I feel like not being able to do that somehow makes me a bad son.
So tonight I’ll get on my knees, something I rarely do, and I’ll say something like, ‘fuck it. Its in Your hands,’ and then I’ll try to come to believe that’s true.
Perhaps the best thing I’ve done for my recovery in a long time is to start to sponsor a practicing Buddhist. It has added a sense of urgency for me to revisit all that 2nd & 3rd step stuff that I’ve struggled with ever since my surgery.
My sobriety anniversary is very important to me and it’s coming up here soon, but it doesn’t quite move me the same way December 13th does. December 13th, today, happens also to be my birthday, but my God, I’m 44 years old. My “birthday” is not really a big deal anymore. No, the anniversary I celebrate tonight, the reason this day is important to me, is that on this night, three years ago, I suddenly saw myself clearly and suddenly had a little hope that recovery would be possible.
The first two years were easy. This last one has been a bitch. There have been times recently when I have wished that I had died back in May. It would have been so much easier. I’ve even, at times, tried to tell myself that if that illness had killed me that I would be a hero. I would have died sober. I would have died doing the things that I was supposed to be doing. My family and friends would mourn me, sure, but there would be something happy underneath the sorrow; the knowledge that they had known me and that in my last years I had been sober.
Lately things have been much, much harder. I’ve had to return to being medicated to stop the insanity that has been going through my mind. The medicines are working, so that is good, but I still have a ton of stuff to face.
Somehow, in spite of everything, I have remained sober. In fact I’ve been sober longer now than I have ever been since I was 14 years old and I attribute it to that moment at the corner of 6th and Pueblo, under the street lamp, in the snow, when I finally understood that the pain I was in then was the very best that I could hope for, unless I got sober, and when I suddenly believed that it would be possible.
” God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always. Amen”
I am really feeling grateful for my life today. And I’m feeling especially grateful for the time that I spent with my sponsor up in Atlanta and everything that has followed.
Friday night I got to take one of my favorite people, Jill, the friend who let me detox at her house, out for dinner at my favorite restaurant, just to thank her for helping to save my life and get caught up. Dinner was amazing. Dessert was breathtaking. The company was as dear to me as life and I left feeling revived; body, mind and spirit.
Saturday a friend with only 14 days sober suggested we go to McCall for the day. Now, McCall is hardly a day trip so I called my parents and asked if we could use the cabin they have there. We headed up, drove an extra 30 miles or so to go to Bergdorf Hot Springs and enjoyed the waters. We headed back to the cabin, grilled a couple or rib eyes, went to an AA meeting, and talked recovery. We were having trouble finding the meeting location so I pulled into a grocery store and walked in and asked the bag boy where the Nazarene church on pine street was. He looked at me and asked, “Are you going to the 8 o’clock?” Then he told us that he had a year and 2 days sober that day; a little indication from HP that we were on the right track and we were meant to be where we were.
On the way home this morning we continued our conversation about how to do recovery, the barriers to recovering, the problems we encounter and the lies we tell ourselves that take us back out. We talked about the solution to those problems and about finding whatever formula works.
A few minutes ago another friend called to say that she is sponsor shopping and asked if I thought my own sponsor might take her on. A little twinge of pride set it. “What? I’m not good enough,” I thought to myself. But I shared some information and I passed along the phone number. We’ll see what happens.
I feel like I’m back in “the stream of life” again, finally.
I’m dedicating Patty Griffin’s very first love song to myself. I hope you enjoy it.
A.
Atheist.
Two and a half years sober and I find myself so fucked off about the conception of god that I got sober with that I can’t live joyfully. In all likelihood I just haven’t given myself enough time to heal or something but at the moment it seems like the “power” that got me sober was an episode of magical thinking from which I have been medically released.
I’m two months out of surgery and I’m still in so much pain that I think I need to go back to the doctor. I’ve tried taking a friend’s Neurontin and it had no effect on the pain.
If there is no god then I must have had the power to get sober all along. I must not have known how to access or use that power but it must have always been there.
My sponsor suggested that I go to as many meetings in a row as I am able to until I believe again and I’ve been doing that – 2 or 3 meetings a day. All I really hear is some really soft thinking and bad logic.
Oddly, none of that means that I think that AA doesn’t work. It obviously worked for me, and I don’t think that not believing in god anymore should be too much of a hindrance. There are all kinds of higher powers I believe in. One of those is that groups can accomplish more than individuals.
I’m just tired of feeling like I’m supposed to believe in god to stay sober and tired of trying to make the magical thinking return.
(I just watched a TV commercial where the governor of Idaho said that meth “leaves a tattoo on your brain.” Seriously. )
Nobody told me that, and honestly, I’m not sure I would have been able to hear them if they did, but man-o-man it is an important thing to realize. That’s my experience anyway.
You see, this isn’t my first rodeo. I had over 2 years sobriety on another occasion and I suffered a major illness. I had meningitis. I spent several days in the hospital on serious painkillers. I went home with more of them, and when they weren’t really cutting it for me anymore I reached out for the chemical that was always my first love – crystal meth. I persued that relapse for another 4 years.
This time the pain has been much worse. The surgery I had was pretty invasive. It’s been 21 days already and I still can’t drive or lift anything. One more week they tell me. And this time coming down from the painkillers was much worse. I was not prepared in any way for what was going to follow; the feelings of wothlessness, hopelessness, loneliness, and helplessness.
Somehow in this experience I remembered that everything I was feeling was what I was feeling at the very begining of my sobriety.
Never mind the physical pain, that’s how emotionally painful this has been; exactly like the very beginning of my recovery.
This time, except for the fact that I’ve been grounded and couldn’t go out looking for help, I did the same things I did when I first got sober. I called people and asked for help. I have made a ton of friends in 12 step recovery, and a very special handful of those people have kept my phone turned on, kept food in my fridge, helped me with laundry, come over to be with me as I relearn to master skills like walking around the block. I’ve been lucky enough to have a dozen people show up at my house to bring me a meeting because they knew I couldn’t get out to or sit through one.
Little by little and day by day I’ve been getting better and stronger. Little by little the pain is going away. But in great and wonderful ways I have regained hope that when I remain willing to do what must be done to recover, that I will continue to recover. When I am willing to be honest with the people that love me about what is going on with me and humble enough to receive their help, things get better, and they get better fast.
I wish I had known, as I was checking in to the hospital, what the emotional price was going to be. I wish I had known that it would be just like starting over. I don’t know. Maybe someone has said it in a meeting before and I just didn’t hear it or get it. So that’s what I wanted to share: life can be really hard and there are things that come down the pike that are going to make you feel like you felt right before or right after you got sober. What has really helped me was remembering the things that I did back then and DOING THAT. Asking for help and recieving help and talking about my fears and my hopelessness and listening to other people share how grateful they have been for my help in the past and how happy they are to be able to help me has returned me to a state of faith and hope.
It’s the first day of recovery, again, for my first sponsee, Joe, who had the courage this morning, to admit that he relapsed. Perhaps it wasn’t courage really so much as the absense of an adequate denial. And perhaps it’s not the first day of a new recovery. Okay. Let me just be honest. He’s acknowledged his relapse but I don’t believe he has taken any steps toward or is even interested in recovering.
It is a “day one” for me though. I smoked my last cigarette 26 hours ago. I am using a nicotine replacement product so the cravings are somewhat under control. It’s not the same as smoking, but the edge is less sharp. A good written first step on smoking seems like a good idea. The first obvious, and really irritating symptom of unmanagability I’m dealing with at the moment is the smell. I smoke in my house. I attend AA meetings where smoking is permitted. At one day off cigarettes I am acutely aware of the smell that permeates everything I own. It disgusts me yet strangely it makes me want to smoke.
I know that smoking will kill me, and yet I smoke. I think that fits the kind of definition of insanity that the program talks about. And I have come to believe that a power greater than myself can solve all of my problems. My experience has been that when I made a decision to stop using crystal meth, I found the strength and support I needed to do it, and I believe that If I make the same decision with cigarettes, I’ll have the same experience.
But it is day one. I am edgy. It will pass. I’ll feel healthier. The smell will wash out. The craving will be removed. I’ll be restored to sanity. And God, in His infinite grace, will bless me with a little more happiness, joy, and freedom.
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