Faith

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Your Image of Me Is What I Hope to Be

January 22, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 3 comments

Blocking the Sunlight of the Spirit“[H]e had been using crystal meth constantly for several weeks, and was suffering from severe paranoia as a result, when he visited MyOutSpirit.com and saw the photo contest slogan, “Remember who you want to be.” He says that was the trigger that helped him quit using and start getting his life back together.”
- Ko Imani

Here I withhold many of the specifics of my own moment of clarity. Something so intimate and powerful is not well served by my shouting from the rooftops. I do well enough to shout in a general way that there is hope for the hopeless, help for the helpless and a solution to an unsolvable problem. I assume that Ko omitted details of the conversation above for much the same reason. I was struck, though, by the similarity of his friend’s experience to my own; something struck my soul at the perfect moment and kicked me into action. After many years in darkness I suddenly saw light.

Where our moments differ is only this: the image of what I wanted to be was profoundly warped. My experience was the realization (the miracle of healing really) that I had been created in the image of my Creator and I was not reflecting that image. Too much of my stubbornness and pride, my resentments, my faithlessness, hopelessness and fear stood in the way of being a reflection of God. My thoughts and actions had placed me too far away to reflect the “sunlight of the Spirit”. I did not suddenly remember what I wanted to be . I saw God’s image of me and I was compelled to act.

That is an experience I wish I could give away. I wish I could give it to the sponsee who called me today after spending last night slamming Dilaudid. I wish I could make him see the Light.

Texaco, originally uploaded by domit.

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

The Tao of Texaco

January 13, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 5 comments

Yield and overcome; bend and be straight; empty and be full; wear out and be new; have little and gain; have much and be confused. Therefore wise men embrace the one and set an example to all. Not putting on a display, they shine forth. Not justifying themselves, they are distinguished. Not boasting, they receive recognition. Not bragging, they never falter. They do not quarrel so no one quarrels with them. Therefore the ancients say, “Yield and overcome.” Is that an empty saying? Be really whole and all things will come to you. (verse 22. tr. Gia Fu Feng)

Clearly (clearly) there remains much for me to overcome and much for me to yield to; much to harmonize my personal will with the natural harmony and justice of Nature, what I refer to as God. ‘The World is ruled by letting things take their natural course. It cannot be ruled by going against nature or arrogance.’ (Tao Te Ching; Verse 48).

As an alcoholic and addict, even in recovery, I find myself forever in opposition the the natural order of things. I am “almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though [my] motives [are] good.” I have the delusion that [I] can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if [I] only manage well.” “[E]ven in [my] best moments (I am) a producer of confusion rather than harmony.”

Not all of the character defects of a lifetime of addiction are gone yet, but I “have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics (and addicts, especially crystal meth addicts) precisely how [I] have recovered is the main purpose of this [blog].” I share my experience, strength and hope with readers here to aid me in the path of my own recovery and hopefully to help other addicts find or improve theirs. It is plain to anyone who read me one year ago today that I am hardly recognizable as the same person. That change came about by taking simple steps, which embody simple, specific, spiritual principles. I took those steps in specific order. I learned to practice those principles in sequence. I do it in the loving guidance of someone who did exactly the same thing before me as he was taught by someone before him.

In the process many of my major character defects have lessened if not been removed entirely, just as the obsession to get loaded was removed. “There is a long period of reconstruction ahead.” I was struck sober, not perfect. I still suffer from a compulsion to be ‘right’. I still become hopeless. I still fear change. I still seek recognition and fear discovery. I am still judgmental, unkind, faithless; just not as much today. I lack perfect ability to at all times put into practice the principles I have been taught. But when these things do crop up I have tools to handle them.

The path I follow, the Tao of the Texaco if you will, are the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the principles (or virtues, as they are sometimes called) they teach. There are various interpretations of the steps and lists of their underlying principles. The one I use is the one that was taught to me by my sponsor, who’s sponsor taught him, and so on, all the way back to someone I personally know who has been sober 37 years and who received it from someone before him. Corresponding with each step, those principles are:

  1. Honesty
  2. Hope
  3. Faith
  4. Courage
  5. Integrity
  6. Willingness
  7. Humility
  8. Brotherly Love
  9. Justice
  10. Perseverance
  11. Spirituality
  12. Service

And I don’t know about any other serious addict but the thing that set me on this path, most honest thing I ever told my self and could no longer deny was, “I’m fucked.”

The Tao of Texaco, originally uploaded by Todd Robert Petersen.

Hooray!

January 10, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 5 comments

I don’t care what the book says. If it’s not on the first 164 it’s hearsay. Acceptance is absolutely not the key to all my problems today. Honesty, open-mindedness and willingness play a much bigger role. So do humility, courage and perseverance. All of those played a critical role in helping me solve an overwhelmingly difficult problem – specifically my underemployment.

I got a new job today and it will actually pay me enough to live on. It’s something that I have had success at previously. I have a friend in recovery who works there. It’s really close to home (a 15 minute walk or a 5 minute bike ride). And equally important is the fact that while my new job offers no health insurance benefits, I can maintain my health benefits at the Clown Palace with as little as 9 hours per pay period. Totally do-able.

That’s one of the greatest things about a 12 step program. Taking the steps, applying the principles contained in them, has given me a life that, while it’s not perfect (heaven knows) it is totally do-able. The life that a year ago I prayed would end did end, not the way I expected, but it did end. Instead of being replaced by death it was replaced by a life worth living. Today life is totally do-able.

Thank you God!

Texaco – Fall Check-up, originally uploaded by Shannon C..

 

Fuzzy

January 5, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 4 comments

I am a creature of habit. I am not as flexible as I imagine myself to be. I am not unique. Sometimes I am able don a guise of pliancy convincing enough to fool everyone, including me, but it is made of denial and pride. Underneath that guise I find myself to be a post-traumatic adolescent in the corner of the room clinging to a threadbare security blanket, crying over the Mayberry childhood that never was.

Part of my disguise is the mien of clarity; the impression that I am willing and able to see things as they really are. I affect a willingness and ability to live life on life’s terms and acuity of God’s will in my life. In fact I still suffer from spiritual blurriness which only improves by applying myself to a spiritual program of change and doing so with those who have gone before me.

I mention this because my sponsor has moved away. I am not yet willing to seek out a new sponsor. There are good reasons to continue working with Jim. He will be here in Boise every six weeks or so (his daughter lives here). We both have unlimited long distance plans and email so it is not access to communication that is the problem. He has taken me successfully through the steps and continues to guide me through the long list of amends I have yet to make. Yet his physical absence has removed some of the spiritual focus that I depend on to live most comfortably in the world.

The power of my Creator trickles through every part of my life. I am able, by taking the steps and by helping others, to nurture that trickle. I am awash in the stream of life. But where I am able to connect with that stream of Life, working with Jim, seeing him on an almost daily basis, was like standing in front of a fire hose. I have faith that that clarity and power will return, that I will soon be back in front of the real power of the God of my own understanding. I have faith that if I continue to seek that I will soon be the one wielding the hose for those around me. I had an expert teacher for that. But I miss him. And I feel a little fuzzy.

Photo credit: BHF February Challenge – 08 Something Old, originally uploaded by TheNixer.

 

Holiday Follies

December 11, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 7 comments

All men may err; but he that keepeth not his folly, but repenteth, doeth well; but stubbornness cometh to great trouble. -Sophocles, Antigone

14DwightAmbers1930.jpgIt is hard to understand how someone so clever, so witty, so completely charming and attractive as I am, someone so devoid of malice, someone through whom goodness and beneficence shines like the morning sun (yeah, WHATEVER dude!) could find himself in such a mess. For any real addict or alcoholic, someone, say, like me, the answer is simple. I did it to myself. Every true difficulty that I face today I face because I placed it in my own path. Every time I have made a decision or taken an action which originated in fear, self-delusion, self-seeking or self-pity I have harmed myself.

If you’re new to recovery or haven’t been able to reach out for it yet then everything I just said probably makes no sense. I want you to know that you’re not alone. I was just like you. Life had not given me a fair shake. I had been dealt a shitty hand. I had done the best I knew how to do with very little and shit had not worked out the way it should have. I’m not even the only one who thought so. Outsiders and family members alike assured me that the things I felt about my situation were entirely justifiable. Any reasonable person in a similar situation could easily end up where I was and those who loved me were cautiously supportive.

Without going in to any kind of unnecessary detail (and giving away my best material before I have a chance to polish it and submit it for publication at Random House) you’ll have to be satisfied to know that I was accidentally conceived while my parents were in high school, grew up in a town of 25,000 people that makes Salt Lake City look like Sodom and Gomorrah, the first people I ever knew who got divorced were my parents, my mother ditched us in Europe for a year while she “moved”, got back to the states a year behind in school and in a new city and the first person I met off the plane was my step-father (she hadn’t been dating anyone when I talked to her the week before), flunked out of high school, ran away from home, had a series of horrible boyfriends and a wife and somehow discovered that drugs made me feel better. If none of this happened I wouldn’t be an addict.

Or would I? When you’re new, the whole 4th step thing seems impossible. Fearless and searching? It’s simply too scary. Who knows what might really be at the bottom of that cave, right? And then to look resolutely for my part? Some of that stuff hardly seems like I could even have a part in it. And then in the 5th step we have to share all of that with another person, put the whole thing on the table in front of another person. Subject ourselves to the kind of embarrassment and criticism that will surely follow? WHY would anyone ever attempt such a thing? In the real life examples I sketched out I found that I did have a part in some way or other. I found that by going back over my life carefully I could discern patterns in my behavior; ways that I routinely responded to life that were not working and that kept me miserable. Sharing all that crap with another trusted person, someone who’s story was similar to mine, I found that while I am certainly flawed I am by no means unique. When I thoroughly searched for the flaws in my makeup which had been my downfall and subjected myself to a drastic self-appraisal I found nothing in me that cannot be corrected with God’s help. Nothing.

Once you’re sober it becomes a matter of how we deal with now and what we can do to correct the errors we’ve made in the past so that it doesn’t trip us up in the future. Like most of us who are new to recovery, I have some past. Some big past. Some scary past. Some hungry scary past just itchin’ to bite my ass. It seems that about 17 months ago, when I didn’t think I was being treated well enough by an organization I hated anyway I decided to just start pretending that they didn’t exist. I would go about my life the way I saw fit (wanted to) and if they had a problem with it they could come to me. I was sick to death of trying to reach them. I believe the words I used in my head to cement that justification were, “Fuck them.” It was an action which originated in fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity. It was a mistake and it was a mistake that I have to go about righting.

Friday is the anniversary of my ‘moment of clarity’, that point in time when I realized that everything I had tried and everything I had done to take a little happiness from life had netted me nothing and that unless I was willing to do something completely different it would never change. Friday I also get to go to court to be accountable for that particular decision to blow off the Department of Corrections in favor of doing what I wanted to do. Since it is only an arraignment on the violation and since my bond is currently set at $100K, there is little chance that I’ll be walking out of that court room on Friday. I could be gone for only a few days. I could be gone, it’s unlikely, but I could be gone for 7 years.

The outcome of the situation is clearly in God’s hands, not mine. I just have to show up, be accountable for my part, and be willing to do whatever it is I need to do to set it right. And I am willing to do that. It is not something that I believe I need to do alone, however. My sponsor, my roommate, a former employer and friend (who’s home I was staying in last January while I detoxed), and several friends have all agreed to show up in court with me that morning. Some who are unable to make it have sent letters.

I haven’t asked before for tangible help from those of you who read this blog regularly. I know there are quite a few of you out there who read but never participate in the comments. If any of you who read this with any regularity, who have been following for some time, particularly those of you who have seen the transition from MethedUp to Texaco wish to express your support or share what you’ve gained here please feel free to post a comment today.

I will get in at least one more post before Friday. I’ll try to stay on the light side. I really don’t want to believe that I’ll be gone for any length of time, but since it is possible, I want to say thank you. This has been great. And till we meet again may God bless you and keep you.

Easy never did it.

December 5, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 8 comments

 

“Easy doesn’t do it. Easy never did it. Nothing worth doing has ever been easy.”
- Unknown

larrymonroe.jpg

That’s one of the mottoes I (pretend to) live by.

There are others, of course, important ones. The more important they are the harder they are to live up to. For example, “Remember who you are and what you stand for.” Like lots of addicts and alcoholics, I have sometimes interpreted that as, “Don’t you know who I am?” I don’t have a perfect track record at that. I’ve been much better at “perfect adherence” to the Great Commandment in my family of origin, “Don’t drink your bathwater.” It’s nice to be able to do something perfectly.

It has been my experience that the great disciplinarians of recovery are tremendous love and tremendous pain. I’ve rarely had any significant growth as a result of love, though. Love kept me in recovery, kept me in the fellowship of other people on the path. It still keeps me in. Tremendous love does help me endure the pain, but there are aspects of my life right now that are so difficult, so frightening and so painful, that I find myself wishing for an easy escape, an easy button, a ‘Take a Ride on the Reading’ card.

I was at a meeting Sunday with a dear friend when she received a phone call from the police that her daughter was in the hospital and had tried to apply that kind of exit strategy. At 15 she decided that washing down a bottle of Vicodin with vodka was the easy way out. Like I said, nothing worth doing has ever been easy.

Great love might keep me in recovery, but great pain drove me to recovery and drove me to doing the work. Pain made me ask for help. Pain made me willing. With hardly an exception, the result of trying something and failing is painful and since I hardly know how to do anything I’m always trying new things. It seems clear to me, though, that God wants me to try. God will allow me to fail. In recovery I get to try all kinds of things and fail. It is how I learn. I rarely learn much from what I do right the first time. Still, I seldom know what or how to do something until I try.

In the ‘Serenity Prayer’ we ask for acceptance, courage and wisdom. Acceptance may be the key to all my problems today, but it is impossible for me to know what I have to accept until I try. And fail. Courage is what is required as I walk day by day through the wreckage of my past and the obstacles of my present. I need to try to change everything that isn’t supporting my happiness and usefulness but I need to try humbly.

I have come to believe that ‘the wisdom to know the difference’ is simply a product of failure and humility as destruction is the product of failure and pride.

Nothing worth doing has ever been easy.

 

Humility v. Humiliation II; Dude, I’m working a program here.

November 27, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 6 comments

nixon_tx_texaco.jpgI had an interesting and clarifing conversation with my sponsor regarding humility and humiliation. According to him, and I like this definition, I can work with this definition, humility is thinking of others more than I think of myself. Humiliation is doing something that is beneath me, for whatever reason. He said that McD is perfect right now. If I’m sober and working a program, if I’ve given myself to God, then God’s will is quite simply ‘what happens.’ Whether I understand it or like it or not. He also suggested that as I take this humiliating experience to God that I say something like (his words) “Dude, I’m working a program here. I’m ernestly seeking you. I’m trying to do as I think you would have me do. Now could you kick me down some shit?” You know, basically the last part of the third step prayer.

It just this second occurred to me that perhaps my strategy of taking a job I don’t give a shit about just to keep my nose above water (or rather slow my decent to the bottom of the ocean – let’s face it, this job is not going to pay my bills) and to not have to lose a job I care about because of my unresolved legal bullshit is a demonstration of lack of faith that God will make this all work out somehow rather than a demonstration of faith by doing what seems to me to be the next indicated thing. Maybe I should have been looking for a less humiliating job. Maybe I should have just ignored my fear about losing a job I care about and gone for a job I love.
Oh fuck.

What if that’s not the only area of my life I do that in? I mean, how could it be. You take a principle or a core belief and see how it plays out in one area of life and then reframe the some other area of life in light of the same principle and see if the same thing is happening, right? What if I push away people I care about, what if I place an absolute bar against letting love in, in favor of something worse, something humiliating, like being alone for another 14 years, because I’m afraid of losing them?

See, thats the thing about writing a thing like this. It does something to my brain. I’m all over the map normally and putting a keyboard at my fingertips seems to pull me into a stream. River. Gully in a flash flood. Whatever.

Well then, where do I go from here? I’m already working for a clown. The clown offers medical and dental so apart from the stupid shoes and ugly hair he’s not all bad. I guess I need to be looking for a less humiliating job; something more in line with what I have to offer into the stream of life and not just wresting what I think I need to take from it. I guess I need to stop playing Superman, all locked in my Fortress of Solitude. I guess this is where true humility comes in and where humiliation and the harm I do because of it, stops.

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