Hope

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Grand Illusion

March 23, 2008 in Hope by Chris | 11 comments

swc-index2.jpgThere is a light at the end of the tunnel.
The light is not an illusion.
The tunnel is.
-unknown

I noticed this sign above the door of a meeting I occasionally go to and it just struck me. It seemed profound enough, but it wasn’t till I woke up this morning and read Sweet Pea’s post where she said, “secrets. they thrive in the darkest recesses of my mind and heart,” that I began to see the truth in the idea that the tunnel is an illusion.

I don’t know very many people, even the most spiritual or religious people, who come into the rooms of recovery, that have something resembling a useful and healthy relationship with a power greater than themselves that they understand to be infinite love. That was definitely true for me. I came in with a pretty traditional Judeo-Christian understanding of the Celestial Father, the one I hear some people call the ‘bearded, bean counting, lightning bolt throwing bastard in the sky’. Sure, He was loving and merciful to those who groveled for his forgiveness, but there were things he wouldn’t forgive and I was pretty sure it was me – radical faggot political activist drug addicted rebel that I am. In the difference I perceived between me and everything else I perceived darkness and isolation.

Though it was never said in so many words, I was under the impression that God didn’t like little boys who wanted to grow up to be Mahalia Jackson and to bury their face in Parker Stevenson’s arm pit, which is a shame, really. People like me especially need God. In a world where getting love and acceptance from the closest members of your family is problematic, God can mean the difference between life and death. As a youngster I didn’t understand that my church turning it’s back on me was not the same as God turning His back on me and I responded in kind. I turned my back on God and began to move farther into the illusion of separateness from All that Is.

I realize now that experiencing this separation is part of the human condition; that “our stories align at the core, if not in the sorry details.” The book talks about alcoholics and addicts being extreme examples of living according to this illusion. It talks about self-will run riot, of problems being of our own making and arising in our selves, of a spiritual malady that centers in our minds. It also suggests that people like me reaching out for help need to choose between God being everything or nothing; at a certain point we have to accept spiritual help if we are to recover.

Many forms of spiritual instruction and many forms of religion inform my journey, one of them recently being A Course in Miracles. I am attracted to the course largely because at it’s core it talks about what we talk about in AA and in similar, almost identical, terms. It talks about God being everything. It says that what blocks us from God is a barrier created out of our own mind. It says “a cloud does not put out the sun.”

The tunnel is an illusion.

The light is not.

The tunnel is made out of me. “Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kill us!”

I found God in AA. I found God when I was finally “beaten into a state of reasonableness”; when I finally got still enough to listen. And that is where I continue to find Him; in the quiet space in between the demands of living a “productive” life in the material world. Demands on my time have increased and finding, or setting aside, enough time to get still has been challenging recently. I experience it as anxiety, frustration, sadness. I experience it as separation; as the tunnel. I wonder what people want from me and I wonder how my needs will be met. I forget that the real question is “what does God expect from me?”

As you already know, I am not particularly Christian. The God I have come to know through AA is described to me most perfectly in Hindu tradition as “the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this Universe.” But the symbolism of Easter is not lost on me. It really is the sacrifice of self that leads to eternal life, freedom from bondage, salvation and enlightenment.

Happy Easter, friends.

pain is not a flower pain is a root

July 24, 2007 in Hope by Chris | 2 comments

Every day I take a bitter pill that gets me on my way,
for the little aches and pains the ones I have from day to day.
To help me think a little less about the things I miss.
To help me not to wonder how I ended up like this.

Useless Desires
Patty Griffin

Corinne says I’m “thawing out.” Nikki says months 6 through 12 are often difficult. Jon (my sponsor) says I have nothing to offer him anyway because I’m not through the steps. Charlatans (treatment providers) remind me that feelings are just that; feelings, not reality. I disagree. Feelings are real, they just aren’t truth.

There was one remaining item of clothing that I had failed to bring with me to Nikki’s yesterday, and therefor hadn’t gotten back to it’s owner. The hoodie. After he went away I wore that thing to bed every night till it didn’t smell like him anymore. When suddenly I had the opportunity to drop it off at the workshop he’s volunteering at this afternoon, I did. I returned the last remaining material possession that reminded me of him. Keeping it around simply made me too sad. He texted me to say he was going to the Y and he’d call me later. Which he didn’t. And I knew he wouldn’t.

This is all advanced recovery stuff. Getting sober is one thing. Recovery is another. I see now that recovery involves learning to have loving relationships. Not romantic relationships, though those may be loving, too, but loving relationships of all kinds. A person in active addiction, I, in active addiction, may be capable of love, but not at all capable of maintaining a loving relationship. So, clearly I’m grieving and rather than blotting out the pain I’m moving through it’s predictable stages. I’m going through all the emotions I used drugs to avoid.

So perhaps the feelings are overwhelming right now; much more so than I would have expected. The pain has lasted so long now that I see the point of Monette’s “Gardenias.”

still the pain is not a flower and digs like
a spade in stony soil no earthly reason
not a thing will come of it but a slag heap

Gardenias
Paul Monette

The pain is pointless. The pain is not even some poisonous flower. It is simply a root. It achieves nothing. It becomes nothing. So instead of loving him from where it hurts, I’ll love him from as far away as I can get. I’ll love me more.
I’ll grow. It will pass. This won’t last forever.

(Just keep telling yourself that, buddy.)

Day 68 – I know your image of me is what I hope to be.

March 24, 2007 in Hope, Humility by Chris | No comments

It has been a long time since I could stand to have my picture taken. I’m feeling better, and more importantly (at least according to Billy Crystal) looking better. Well, they say it pays to advertise and since I’m already advertising exactly what kind of baggage this package contains I thought I might show all y’all the package, too. This is me, yesterday, having lunch with my friend Christina. I’ve put on 40 pounds in the last 71 days. My skin is clear. My eyes are clear. My hair is shiny. I don’t look anything like the man who was, in the words of Millay, “making friends with death.” I’m grateful today that I can stand to be seen in public.

I’ve been thinking this morning about the 12th tradition of NA which states that anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. This is the tradition that always made me question if the Betty Ford Center hadn’t been named imprudently, particularly in light of the fact that every one of the dozen or so people I know that have been patients there have experienced relapse into active addiction. I also was reminded of the tradition this morning when Nikki was talking about Lindsay Lohan’s mother talking about her daughter attending AA meetings.

What I’ve come to beleive is that while principles before personalities certainly does speak to the need for 12 Step programs to protect themselves from All-Stars, it also speaks to me personally; to my need to get out of my own way and place a program of recovery ahead of my own personality. I, after all, am my own worst enemy. My natural state of being is fucked up. Left to my own devices I make friends with death. The tradition is there to protect me from myself as well as protect others from me and only by placing the principles of the program ahead of everything can I experience the kind of spiritual freedom that the program promises.

Today I will put my program ahead of my self.

The Begining of Recovery – Final Post on the Random Journal Blog

January 14, 2007 in Hope by Chris | Permalink

I’ll be gone for awhile. I’m checking in to a rehab and I expect I’ll be gone for at least a month. I just need to do something about this problem before someone does something about it for me.

I’m not happy. I’m not content. I don’t want to go on living like this. And while there is still the possibility of salvaging a happy life out of the wreckage that I’ve become I figure I owe it to myself to do what I can to fix this.

At this point I’ve tried everything but in-patient treatment so that’s the route I’ll try next. I’ll be going to Road to Recovery in Pocatello, Idaho. I hear they’re pretty good so I expect that I will make some progress there. I’ve been sober more days now than I have been at any point in more than a year and that’s a good feeling. But I’m going to ask for your prayers again. I’m not too proud to ask for divine intervention.

The first time I tried crystal meth I knew that it was going to be a problem. It was the first time in my life I had ever felt OK inside my skin. That was 18 years ago. The most clean time I’ve put together since then is three years. But I can’t go on living to use and using to live. I haven’t been happy in forever. So I figure while I’ve still got one more recovery in me I may as well make the most of it and pull out the big guns just to see if it helps.

I’ll try to be in touch, to let you know what’s going on but I don’t know if I’ll be able to or even if they have Internet access available there. If you don’t hear from me before, look for new posts beginning Feb. 16; new posts all about my new life in sobriety and hopefully new posts that are more worth reading.

Until then, may God bless and keep you.

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