Humility

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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..

 

Signs of Damage

January 6, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 6 comments

Texaco SignsI am a head injury patient. I am. There is hardly another explanation. I sat in a meeting and shared about it and of course I was told to work the steps. Of course there is some truth in that, truth I sometimes ignore out of an objective bias against people who ‘work’ steps rather than ‘take’ them. One ‘takes’ steps on a journey. Just the same I did listen and there is truth in the idea that some of the symptoms of traumatic head injury are also the symptoms of pathological selfishness displayed by addicts and alcoholics.

I’m back at work at the Clown Palace and grateful to have a job after my dramatic exit a few weeks ago. I’m especially grateful because I really need the (pitiful) income to keep a roof over my head, food in the fridge and the liberty to remain as involved as I am in working (there’s that damn word) for my recovery. I had my schedule. I recalled that I was supposed to go to work on Wednesday at 6 or 8 o’clock. Knowing that with that schedule the only meeting I would be able to attend would be the noon, which I went to. At noon. When I was actually supposed to be at work. I didn’t even realize this until 4 o’clock when I checked to see if it was 6 or 8. Of course I went to the 5:30 and ran into my boss who blessedly told me not to worry about it. I made sure I was there on time the rest of the week. I have checked and I have verified that I work tomorrow at 2 o’clock. I think. Yes. 2 o’clock. Very well then.

In addition to not remembering times and schedules I have had particular trouble with numbers, adding and subtracting, and especially if that includes fractions. I’ve ruined, well damaged, really, three meals in the last two weeks by not being able to add fractions correctly. I know how to add fractions, for crying out loud. So lately I’ve been struggling with anything related to dealing with numbers.

Historically I’ve had more trouble with names, both proper and common. I never remember actors names, even the ones I like. I have names in my cell phone for people I don’t remember. I don’t recall ever having met a Susan in my life and yet her name is in my phone. I have often forgotten what “that stuff” with “those things” are really called. “What?” and “where?” are the kind of stupid questions I would ask more often if I had not learned to wait a beat and allow the understanding to percolate to the surface.

I was pleased to learn that this phenomena is scientifically documented by much smarter people than me. It is encouraging to learn that in two more years the healing that can take place likely will have taken place. And I believe it is taking place, in spite of the symptomology I’m experiencing. I believe it’s taking place because last night, for the first time in probably 5 years, I suddenly remembered the name of the man I lost my virginity to. (There’s another stupid word. ‘Lost’. I didn’t lose it. I threw it away. I turned my back on it and pretended I didn’t know what it was.)

I’m taking that as a sign from God. Now that I have a point of origin I can start my sex inventory.

Photo Credit: Texaco signs, originally uploaded by naterade81.

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.

Humility v. Humiliation; denial in action

November 26, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 7 comments

80-NM-Deming-Old_Texaco_W_of_Town_3.jpgThere is a solution.

Mr. Tall-Smart vanished as quickly and mysteriously as he appeared.  Case closed.

I’m going to work at McDonald’s.  Income partially replaced and dangerous hours filled.  Case closed.

My sponsor calls it humiliating.  I call it humbling.  Never underestimate the power of denial.

Our primary purpose

November 15, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 3 comments

texaco_main_neill_1930shelena.jpgis to stay sober and to help other alcoholics (and addicts) achieve sobriety. When you’re first coming in, when you’re on the morning side of the mountain, tradition 5 seems like the dumbest or most obvious thing in the world. Duh.
There is a song by Patty Griffin, I’ve talked about this before, called Up to the Mountain or the MLK song, that was inspired by Dr. King’s last speech, the one known as “I’ve been to the mountaintop.” This song has been especially important to me in recovery. Many mornings that song is my prayer. It embodies the power of my turning point, that moment in time when God showed me the truth about myself and my disease and suggested to me that there was another way He desired me to go and gave me the willingness to go there. The power of that song and its relationship to my first step was married in the coincidence of my first sober breath being drawn on Martin Luther King Day.

I couldn’t see in the moment God gave me my first step that the view changes as you climb. All I could see then was that I’d been called to the mountain. In step 3 I made an agreement with God and climbed that mountain in faith. In step 7 God delivered and gave me consciousness of His presence. As trite as it sounds, the newcomer really is the most important person in the room and helping them up is our primary purpose. After finishing my 5th step with Jim the other day he said, “Now you have a message. Go carry it.” Bring your brother up the mountain.

Before today I had never read the full text of Dr. King’s speech. Perhaps I finally read it because I began working with a young man yesterday, showing him what I have done, how I have stayed sober and how I’ve taken the steps. He got home from the Walker Center the day before where he heard me speak and that night, when he saw me walk into a meeting he came across the room and sat down by me. He looked, and by his own admission was, terrified of going back to the life he had before. Since fear and pain are great motivators I suggested he get to work on the steps, offered to show him what I’ve done, shared with him how I found a sponsor and how that has helped me, and then suggested that while he was looking for the right man to work with we could capitalize on the momentum he had and get busy doing the work, before the willingness wore off.

He actually called yesterday. I was frankly surprised. I suggested we meet at the clubhouse I am a member of and he showed up. On time. We read “The Doctor’s Opinion” together and I showed him what I did for my first sponsor for first step work, showed him that it wasn’t in the book, told him that I didn’t believe it was absolutely necessary but what value I gained from it. I pulled out my notebook and showed him what I did for the sponsor I have now, first where I fucked it up because I complicate shit, and where I returned to the actual directions. I showed him where that is in the book. I shared what I got out of doing it. I wrote the instructions down, as my sponsor had for me. Then we went to a meeting. He still seemed frightened, which encouraged me. I saw him again last night at the second meeting I was at. I suspect I’ll hear from him later today. The view from up the mountain is profoundly different.

I don’t intend to detract from Dr. King’s message regarding the civil rights movement in any way, or from the powerful message of his final speech. There is a universal truth in that speech, though, about knowing God and about working to be delivered from bondage in any form. That universal truth, the message of courage and faith and hope, is the message I hope to carry when I share my experience with the next suffering alcoholic or addict. In the middle of his speech Dr. King talks about taking specific steps to becoming free from the bondage of poverty and inequality for black Americans, the same way we AAs talk about taking specific steps for victory over addiction. The first part and last part of the speech talk about the truth of why we do it. I have significantly edited leaving only the most relevant parts that pertain to my struggle to overcome, but I think it merits sharing here.

“I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same: “We want to be free.”

And another reason that I’m happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn’t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. We know how it’s coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school — be there. Be concerned about your brother. [E]ither we go up together, or we go down together. Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? That’s the question before you tonight. The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help . . .what will happen to them?” That’s the question.

We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

- Dr. Martin Luther King, delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

All of Me. Good and Bad.

November 10, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 5 comments

gamma_frankhawks.jpgI have a friend, Joe K. who has been sober something like 38 years. Joe has worked with hundreds of alcoholics and addicts, not just here in Boise, but all over the country and continues to do so. A couple of weeks ago I was in a meeting and met this dynamite guy with years and years of what looks like, on the outside, really solid recovery. This guy works with probably ten men in Los Angeles, where he lives. He flew into Boise to meet his sponsor, Joe K. You get the point. On the topic of recovery, Joe knows what he’s talking about.

I have known Joe for a very long time, through previous vain attempts (if you can call them that) at recovery, and, because Joe is cut from the same eccentric pink cloth as I am, I have always trusted him and maintained a friendship even when I have not been able to get or maintain anything like sobriety. We had a conversation many years ago during a particularly difficult spell, a time when the consequences were accumulating and my desire to avoid them increased, but also a time when I was still in denial about the absence of willingness to do the work. Joe pointed at my head and then my heart. He said, “Chris, you’ve got God here and here.” He pointed at my gut and said, “You need to get God HERE.” I had no idea whatever what he meant and he was unable to describe it in a way that I understood. “You just have to do the work,” he said.

Well at that point I was unable or unwilling to do the work. I mean, really I was just a little drunk and high on crystal meth. It wasn’t MY fault that that really hot guy stole my car (which I recovered in Salt Lake City six weeks later). I was not looking for an answer to the real problem at that point. I was looking to dodge the consequences. Still, what he said stuck with me. Any time I approached willingness to accept spiritual help that conversation would come to mind. In this go at recovery that conversation has never been far from the front of my mind and has troubled me.

When I got here this time however, I was pretty badly broken. I didn’t walk in trying to avoid external consequences. I walked in because I wanted to die and the only people I knew who had been where I was and gotten out were people in recovery. I walked in ready to grasp on to a few tools and follow a few instructions as if my life depended on it. I got here with a first step.

I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity; I got God in my mind. I made a decision to turn my will and life over to that Power; I got God in my heart. Then I began the inventory process. Trudging through all of that was, obviously, painful and scary for me. It showed me over and over just exactly the extent of my condition and where I failed; how my complete inability to produce a desired effect in my life had harmed people I care about and driven me farther from the effect I sought to produce. Yet I got that all out on paper.

Thursday afternoon I sat down with Jim, the man I work with (which btw makes Joe K. my great-grand sponsor) and had a long, long . . . long talk. He sent me home to spend a quiet hour reviewing my work, looking for anything I might have left out. I did, in fact, have to call him and go over some things, things I left out and things I outright lied about. When all of that was done I got on my knees (I know usually that is a metaphor, but I did actually get on my knees) and had another conversation, this one with the God I know but don’t comprehend, and something happened. All of that pain, all of that doubt, all of that fear and the sense of unworthiness vanished. It vanished all at once and all at once the knowledge of God’s presence in my life moved from my heart to my gut.

I can’t say what it feels like or describe how I got there except to say, as Joe said, you just have to do the work.

No Guarantees

September 23, 2007 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 2 comments

I was asked by a colleague to answer a few questions about coming to that place of willingness, that turning point, to describe the moment I could see myself and my disease clearly. I’ve been concerned about keeping my ego out of the way so that I can offer authentic answers, answers that reflect the weight and gravity of the experience, in hopes that the story will be useful to someone. I’ve been re-reading my old writing. I rode my bike yesterday to the corner where I finally broke down. I have completely reconnected with the pain and the hopelessness that brought me to my knees; the point where I surrendered to the idea that I was never going to be able to get high without destroying my life and the lives of those around me.

When I had that moment of clarity and was able to see the truth about myself and my disease and finally became willing to ask for and accept spiritual help I was led to the one man perhaps most uniquely qualified to take me to the solution. I knew this man. I trusted him. I could see that he was living a principled life and I knew that there was no earthly way that he could become the man he was in light of the man he had been. A transformation like that requires a greater power. Somewhere I was given the willingness to do a few simple things to follow this man down the path. So far the road has been pretty clear and dry; not too tough a go, even considering the pain I was obviously in during the first 2 months. I’ve been very lucky.

I wrote the other day, though, that there is no guarantee that even under the most favorable conditions I’ll make it to the other side of the desert. My friend pulled me aside last Thursday night to tell me that he’d been drunk the night before; that he hadn’t made it. I responded with detachment, compassion, concern. Obviously I would need to find a new spiritual advisor. Thats fine, I thought. The whole next day I imagined that I hadn’t been too disturbed by the news at all. Friday evening, however, in a small meeting with some close friends, it suddenly occurred to me that someone I love who suffers with the disease of addiction, someone who is hopeless and helpless like me, someone who had put everything he had into grabbing on to and holding on to this thing we call ‘recovery’ — had not made it across the desert. Though my friend seemed, at the moment, to have gotten back on the wagon, to be back in the group and back in the work, one can never know for sure. My own experience has been that one little incident, even followed by rigorous effort to get back, often, perhaps usually, takes one right back to the place I was before I became willing to ask for help. One little slip sends me straight off the highway. I hate crying in public. I did it but I hated doing it. I’m worried for him and I’m worried for myself and I’m heartbroken.

There is not guarantee that we make it to permanent sobriety. Even with a spiritual program many of us miss the mark. After all, we’re only human. And being human, many, if not most of us, will fail at gaining victory over addiction. It is a baffling enemy. We can just do our best, seek guidance from those who have gone before us and trust the Man With the Star.

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