3rd Step

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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.

Enjoy the Ride

February 29, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 5 comments

Monks on a Roller Coaster“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”
-Joseph Campbell

I love this picture. I love it on several different levels. It just this second occurred to me, for example, that I’ve never seen any Benedictines on a roller coaster. There isn’t much “ora et labora” in an amusement park. ‘Letting go’ is a concept that Buddhists ‘get’ immediately, viewing attachment as the source of suffering. I love this picture, too, because it reminds me of what my friend Dana says about faith. Dana has had a really, really hard year. She has had loss compounded upon loss for months. She has come into the rooms and cried on dozens of occasions. She has leaned on the group and on the principles and on the people who love her and she has stayed sober. Things are finally looking up in Dana’s world and the other day Dana said that being sober is like being on a roller coaster. “I’m finally getting back to the fun part where you throw your hands in the air and yell ‘weeeeeee’!”

Life really is like that. It is for me anyway. It’s like I’ve been on this really scary roller coaster for years and I’ve been hanging on to the side of the car. Every time the car starts rolling down again I grip tighter and scream all the way down. When I get to the bottom of that hill I loosen my grip a little and congratulate myself on having hung on so well, having navigated the descent so expertly. Then the whole thing started all over again. If the roller coaster would just stop and I could get off then everything would be fine. It isn’t like that, though. As long as I’m breathing I stay on the ride.

Coming to believe that there is a power greater than myself and making a decision to turn my will and life over to it was like realizing that there is a track beneath the car and a safety bar holding me in. I can see the track. I can feel the safety bar. But haven’t I done very well to hang on to the edge of the car? Couldn’t this flimsy thing collapse under me at any moment? I suppose it could. But isn’t acting in faith acting with the belief in something about which doubt is possible? I’ve slowly been able to stop gripping the side of the car. I’ve realized that if there were a real catastrophe that holding on to the car wouldn’t save me anyway.

Now I pause. I breathe. I pray. I tell people how afraid I am. I try to let go. I try to gain faith by acting in faith. I still scream when the car is barreling down the hill. I do. But more and more I’m screaming with my arms in the air. More and more I try to let myself enjoy the ride. Sometimes I even think about getting on a bigger roller coaster.

Using Protection

February 25, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | No comments

This post was originally published Feb. 13, 2008 and was taken down pending adjudication of another case. Now that has been done and I am restoring the post.

Helmet“No more essential duty of government exists than the protection of the lives of its people. Fail in this, and we fail in everything.”
Francis T. Murphy

I am, as we say in this ‘neck of the woods,’ vehicular. That is to say that after many long months of walking/biking/busing my way around this oversized town that thinks it is a city, God (and my father) has seen fit to provide me with a motorized means of transportation. I’ve been thinking about blogging about it and perhaps registering the domain name mygayscootor.org. State government requires a special endorsement to drive one of these things and I got that endorsement yesterday before I picked up the bike. They also recommend a helmet, which I purchased, and struggle to wear based solely on grounds of style.

A few minutes from now I go to be sentenced in the second round (of three) of my probation violation sentencings. Of course, as you have all already observed, I have done the footwork. My spiritual protection is in place. The armies of love and support are at attention. I have enough integrity to play the role and play it humbly. But I’m not out of the woods, of course. It is, after all, government’s duty to protect the lives of it’s people; other people besides me. Which means of course that government may decide, as it has the power to, that the people need protection from me. They may yet decide to send me away. It is not very likely, I think, yet it is a possibility and therefor I have the tiniest bit of fear quivering inside me.

I try to keep in the front of my mind that God is with me whatever happens; that I have the spiritual protection of one who does step work, and that as long as I have placed my trust and reliance on God I have always been taken care of.

Nevertheless, an extra prayer couldn’t hurt.

73134528RJ029_NASCAR_Testin, originally uploaded by rodolfini45

What if I Was Truly Full?

January 18, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 10 comments

Ambler's Texaco - Rt. 66 “I wonder what it would be like if I really lived like I knew everything was going to be all right. Or if I really lived like I knew at all times I was loved and am love. Or if I really lived like I knew that I had access to a power that is unlimited and can do anything. I was considering it as I was making it through another cacophonous few minutes in my life where my thoughts were doing a victim conga line in my mind. I just know that life is not meant to be this way. But I also keep forgetting.” – My Agapic Life

We alcoholics and addicts seem to be especially endowed with that; with forgetfulness. In the absence of a complete restructuring of our psyches most of us have a difficult time telling the difference between what is objectively real and what is only real in our minds. At least that has been my experience. I forget that the underlying fabric of the universe is a part of me. I forget that my finite self as marshaled by my will is insufficient to solve my problems. And every time I forget those things I place myself a little farther away from Grace and a little closer to Destruction. Every time I forget to pick up the tools and balk at the work that leads me toward my Creator, I suffer. Every time I suffer, I forget that it is temporary.

On good days, on days I remember to pray, on days that I do an honest 10th step, the consciousness of the Love and Presence of my Creator is clearer to me. I seem, however, to go along in life thinking that I’m doing it; I’m carrying the message, my life is becoming manageable (ish) and I remain focused on the work I have already done. Inevitably something throws an unexpected log in my path and I have to exhaust myself trying to move it on my own.

The couple of things recently that have been particularly troublesome both involve entitlement. They involve my ego telling me that I should be treated differently, that I’m special, that I deserve better and they both involve the real (or I suppose imagined) wrongdoing of others. Good evidence suggests that doing the work provides me with a path to at least, at least, take a kindly and tolerant view. Yet, here I am, balking at the work.

I’ve been balking for some time on doing the work of my sex inventory. I had written so much on the other aspects of my fellationship with the IFX and in so doing had been relieved of so much of the pain that has plagued me these many months. It was a new harm, or rather just rudeness, that has prompted me to wallow in self-pity and animosity and to allow myself to forget that God can solve that problem, too. Stepping off the “I flippin’ deserve to be treated better than that” treadmill for only a moment allows me to see that there is a solution to the problem, yet I have been unwilling to take the necessary action. I’ve been enjoying the treadmill.

I have an astonishing need to be right, to be attended to and to receive the approval and acceptance of others. I have marched around being ‘right’ and soliciting endorsement of my ‘rightness’ since December. I have wallowed in my ‘rightness’ to such an extent that I went home from a meeting a couple of nights ago, climbed in bed at 7 o’clock and cried myself to sleep. I have considered ditching all my friends and changing all my meetings. I have half talked myself into believing that the only solution is to move away. By failing to pick up the tools I am hardly acceptable. It is hardly what God would have me do. I don’t approve of it and cannot expect others to approve, either. I forget that a little willingness goes a long, long way in this program. I forget where I put the willingness to act in faith until I’m out of ideas and have nowhere to turn but to God.

The other area I still think I can manage on my own stems from my indignation about the copyright to my work being infringed upon by an organization with a paid staff and whom I have offered a license to use my work for free but who have not complied with that simple request. Instead their paid staff are insisting that I spend my unpaid time to

“submit a notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) by providing our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing (see 17 U.S.C. Section 512(c)(3) for further detail)”

This is an arduous and time consuming task. Not only that, but they also assert that

“The compilation of all content on this site is the exclusive property of (unnamed site) and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws.”

All they had to do was ask me. That one bit of “I deserve to be treated better” has disturbed my serenity enough for me to march around being ‘right’ about that, too.

To some extent, perhaps even to a great extent in each of these situations, I am right. I do deserve better. I am worth more. It is not my ‘fault’. My fault lies in being miserable about it. My fault lies in the idea that I can manage these things without the steps and without God. I just know that my life isn’t meant to be this way, that I have a spiritual answer to these problems, that I do not have to suffer over things like this or to allow them to cut me off from the ‘sunlight of the Spirit’. I have unlimited access that connects me to the fullness and grace of my limitless and loving Creator.

But, I also keep forgetting.

Ambler’s Texaco Gas Station, originally uploaded by jimfrazier. www.dwightillinois.com/history.htm

Turning Points

January 8, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 7 comments

“Every beginning is an ending and every ending a beginning; a turning point. They are passages through which, if we are willing, we may pass into a new and better life.”
- Chris M.

Red Letter DaySome turning points are big, obviously, like the one I came to a year ago when I could not go on. Page 52 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous has a list of ‘bedevilments’ which only begin to scratch the surface of what was wrong with my life. I think the truth is that most of us who seek recovery from addiction or alcoholism only get to the turning point of choosing recovery or choosing to die, either quickly or slowly, when that list has gotten long enough to break us. At least that was the case for me. Some nights I’d pray to be hit by a bus in the morning because I didn’t have the courage to kill myself.

For a long, long time, alcohol and drugs, methamphetamine in particular, was my solution to those ‘bedevilments’. If I could hammer enough dopamine out of my neurotransmitters I’d feel OK enough to face another day. It wasn’t really a solution to the problems but I wasn’t looking for a solution so much as looking for a way to feel better. I didn’t really see the problems as mine and I didn’t really believe there was a solution. I used basically because I liked the effect produced and the effect was that I felt OK inside my skin and OK about the world around me.

You don’t really play a piano with a sledge hammer very long and expect it to still produce music. Drugs and alcohol are like that. Eventually my solution to everything stopped working. I’m a stubborn guy though. I kept trying to make it work long after it had stopped and in doing so managed to pile on new problems, one after the other, till I was pretty sure I’d never be able to solve them. And that was the turning point. That was the point where I could let go of everything I thought I knew about life and God and AA and try something different or find some other way to end the pain, like suicide. That was the passage that I could take into a new and better life. I had to be willing. I had to take action. Or I had to die.

Sometimes turning points are small, like handling frustration at work. I can keep feeling frustrated and superior and be miserable. I can keep finding newer and more humiliating jobs as I allow my ego to drive me out of the one I have. Or I can be honest enough with myself to look at why, with all my intelligence, I am working at McDonald’s. I can hang on to my pride and talk myself right out of that job, or I can be humble enough to do that job well and look for another one. That seems obvious enough when I write it down, but when I’m caught up in the thought that my crew leader is pointless and obtuse it’s difficult to see that I wouldn’t be working there as her subordinate if I was half as smart as I think I am.

Now that I’ve been sober awhile I find that I am less willing to be stubborn about such things. I want to spend less time being frustrated and miserable. I’ve seen that a simple reliance on a God of my own understanding and the willingness to make the effort to live by a few spiritual principles has delivered me from the obsession and compulsion to get loaded. Shouldn’t that same kit of tools be able to solve my insanity about my job? Am I willing to turn at this point?

Someone shared with me recently that his first ‘moment of clarity‘ was the beginning of a series of moments of clarity. That has been my experience, too. The more I practice this way of living the more I see how useful it. Each moment of clarity is a moment when I realize that something has to end and something new must begin. Every beginning is an ending and every ending is a beginning; a turning point. I can keep doing what I’m doing or do something else and walk through the passage to a new and better life if I am willing to turn toward God‘s will for me.

Photo credit: Red Letter Day originally uploaded by Dyxie

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