Perserverance

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Four Years Sober

January 15, 2011 in Gratitude, Perseverance by Chris | 11 comments

Can you believe its been four years already?  Four years from the last time I had the compulsion to use.  Before that, in spite of my desire not to, the thought of living without crystal meth was impossible for me to imagine.

Like many others, I tried to get sober on a number of occasions before.  I was actually introduced to AA when I was only 18.  The longest I ever put together was just under 3 years.  I think the only reason I even stayed dry that long was out of sheer terror and will power.

I guess if I am an example of anything it is that chronic relapsers can eventually get sober.

The real hurdle for me was the part that the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” that says we need to “fully concede to our innermost selves” that we are alcoholics and addicts. Those are heavy words.  And like Chuck C. says, we are different cats.  We can’t see until we can see and we can’t hear till we can hear.  I couldn’t fully concede until there was no fight left in me at all.

This has been a hard year.  There is no fight left in me at all in more areas of my life all the time, and if the truth is known, sometimes I just want to take a break from all of it; from meetings, from the people in them, from the steps, from service.  But that never worked for me.  It has taken me 27 years to put together 4 years sober, so obviously all the things I tried before this failed.  This way seems to still be working.

Maybe if I keep doing it, someday I’ll actually feel like I have some kind of message to carry or be in better “spiritual condition,” but at the moment, I am simply grateful to still be sober.

Promptly Admiting When I’m Wrong

July 14, 2010 in Perseverance by Chris | 7 comments

I hear people in meetings all the time say how they do a written 10th step every night.  Honestly, I cannot imagine doing that.  It’s hard enough to find time to do everything else that needs to be done.  But, written or not, I do regularly look back on my day, or my recent past, and look at my motives, and when I am able to, I try to make it right.

The thing is, now that I’ve been sober awhile, it is no longer the really obvious selfish choices that harm others that trip me up; it is the small, ambiguous details.

If I’m dating someone, or thinking of dating someone, when do I tell them about this blog?  Or do I tell them at all?  I can hardly keep some of the details of my past from them, but is it better to hold back on it or to up front with it.  And what if I suspect that I might actually like someone, and become afraid that my history will scare him away.  If I direct him to my story here then, am I not actually depriving him of the opportunity to get to know me, and then decide on his own what he wants to know?  Isn’t that a decision based on fear?

I did that recently.  I tried to scare someone off before he had the chance to decide for himself whether he wanted to be scared off or not.  I did it because I was afraid.  If I was going to be hurt I wanted it to be now instead of later, when it would hurt more.

If a person is curious it isn’t too hard to do a Google search, or go to a library and look in the card catalog for that matter.  There is more than one person with my name in the world, but even so, 8 of the first 10 Google results are me.  If a person wants to know they can.  The only reason for me to direct someone here is either for attention (which I wouldn’t rule out – some of my old stuff is pretty good) or I want to manipulate them into seeing me a particular way.

It’s a very fine line though, isn’t it?  Discerning our motives can be so subtle, and so easy to justify or deny.

Flippin’ Idiot

March 2, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 9 comments

Leisure Suit “[K]nowledge of truth alone does not suffice; on the contrary this knowledge must continually be renewed by ceaseless effort, if it is not to be lost.”
-Albert Einstein

They say the road gets narrower, and do you know what? The flippin’ road gets narrower. Aside from the legal issue, there have been things going on in my world that have occupied my attention in the last weeks; things that we learn how to handle by using certain tools in recovery. Using those tools and applying the principles of the program really is relatively simple. Not easy. But simple. When the issues are big, like learning to not pick up and not drink or facing an overwhelming obstacle, it has been relatively easy for me to immediately pick up the tools and use them. But throw me into a meadow of ordinary living and remove the imperative to make ceaseless effort and it doesn’t take long for me to start feeling like a “decroded piece of crap.”

Forgive the tangent, but I’m pretty sure that most of you don’t realize that those of us who grew up in the Intermountain West actually say things like ‘decroded’. We do. It’s true. And Preston, Idaho? The place where Napoleon Dynamite is from? That’s where my family is from, too. In fact my grandfather and great grandfather both graduated from that same high school. My relatives occupy more real estate in the Preston cemetery than any other family. That movie could have been  a documentary as easily as a comedy. It was an LDS version of Gray Gardens. And you know what that means – Napoleon Dynamite should become a Broadway musical!

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do. Alcoholics Anonymous, page 85

There has just been a cumulative effect of many little things piling up on me recently, coupled with uneven or absent application of effort to ‘expand and enlarge’ my relationship with my Higher Power. I haven’t let up entirely, of course. Dropping everything instantly would require a force of will that I just don’t have. You have to work to fail utterly, but it doesn’t take any effort at all to let one thing slip. And then another. And then another. The slippery slope is gentle. You travel quite a distance before you fall off the cliff. I’m still attending meetings daily, for example. I stay in touch with my sponsor on a daily basis, too. I work with 5 sponsees, two of whom are actively doing the work, two are actively pretending to and one, the one who is probably the most like me, is actively wishing he was willing. (Thinking about him breaks my heart. )

In spite of these things I have increasingly felt restless, irritated and depressed. Finances, for example, have been hugely problematic since last August. There is a definite move in my future, either at the end of this month or next, which is adding to my anxiety. I have become increasingly irritated in meetings by an entire class of AA member whom I have judged (either rightly or wrongly) to have not done ‘the work’. In spite of the reinstatement of my probation, a blessing of some magnitude, I have only been able to focus on the additional terms of my probation. One of my court orders reinstating my probation actually says that as one of the terms of my reinstatement that I am to “complete AA/NA” – that little gem just about made my head pop off. I have never really recovered from my bout of bronchitis and right now my throat is so sore I can barely swallow. I haven’t slept more than two consecutive hours in months. I am acutely aware of being single.

For someone putting consistent effort into the program these things are easily navigable. For someone who has “let up” they are the beginning of a slow decline back into the insanity of addiction; a decline so gentle that it is hardly perceptible. I couldn’t see it, but something was gnawing at me. I knew something was not right. And somehow, before yesterday I had not noticed how long it has been since I was willing to pick up a pen and write any inventory. My writing here had trailed of significantly and anything that showed up here was by sheer force of will rather than the organic process that I typically experience. My regimen of prayer and meditation has weakened. Naturally a simple knowledge of God’s presence in my life has not netted the same results that earnestly seeking God did.

One of the most uncomfortable truths for me is that nearly every time I take someone else’s inventory, like I did to that poor girl the other day, I am really taking my own inventory. Those that irritate me are more often than not just like me. It often takes me days to see it, though, and I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to see it before I pick up a pen and write inventory. The up-side of this discomfort it that it reminds me that I am growing. In fact, I’m probably growing a lot.

CANNOT OR WILL NOT COMPLETELY GIVE THEMSELVES

February 24, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 13 comments

2007_02_06t141103_338x450_us_italy_embrace.jpgembrace

c.1300, from O.Fr. embracer “clasp in the arms, enclose,” from en- “in” + brace “the arms,” from L. bracchium (neut. pl. brachia). Replaced O.E. clyppan, also fæðm.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

Last night, late, I stepped out on my front porch to smoke a cigarette. I still smoke cigarettes. For some reason cigarettes have been harder to give up than booze and crystal meth, but I digress. I was standing on my front porch in a cold fog, looking across the street, watching two neighbor couples embrace.

The first couple live in the yellow clapboard house with the white picket fence on the corner across the street. I’m guessing they entertained last night because at this unusual hour the wife, a petite blond in her early 30s, was in the kitchen washing dishes. I saw her husband walk up behind her and place his arms around her and nuzzle her neck while they swayed. It was a picture of the kind of domestic happiness that I have often longed for but never really had, at least not for any meaningful time. I’ve never really touched life that deep. It feels like no one has ever really loved me like that -all the way through. Perhaps it is that I have never loved them back. One would think I could get the direction right since in some ways it is my most obvious and most painful disappointment.

At the same time, two doors down, the shirtless figure of the muscle boy who my friend Lindsey is engaged to, was on the front porch of their house being held, the way you hold someone who has suffered a sudden and terrific loss, by a woman I didn’t recognize. Behind him was a tall, older man with his hand on the boy’s shoulder, telling him he was fine. It’s OK. You’ll be alright. The older man opened the front door and asked if muscle boy had a shirt. It was, after all, only about 40 degrees outside. A hand reached out a shirt from inside the house. “Dad? What are you doing here?” the boy slurred as his father dressed him. Father and mother held their drunken son up as they walked down the steps and to the car and drove away from the young couple’s house. I see this boy in meetings. My friend Lindsey just celebrated 2 years clean and sober. Obviously she’s no Lois Wilson. She told me this morning that she’s broken off the engagement.

One couple clasped in the arms of love, the other in the grip of this disease.

I guess it has had me thinking about which is worse and how; to long for the embrace of an undiscovered beloved or to be in the embrace of hopelessness and futility. They are both awful. They are both lonely. At times I’ve felt like both were killing me. Lately I’ve watched people I love struggle with each of these and I’m finding it harder and harder to watch the struggle in a detached way -probably because the struggle still exists within me. The examples are all around me but two of them in particular seem to have ‘embraced’ me. One of these young women is pretty and smart and sweet and she is sensible in many ways. However, she is obsessed with what she cannot have. I think my suffering over the IFX demonstrates that I know something about obsessing over what I can’t have. Unlike my own experience though, the object of her obsession suddenly became available to her. She responded by running away, forcing this amazing man who loves her to retreat. She has responded by chasing him again.

The other young woman has been in and out of the rooms for over two years but can’t seem to stay sober for more than 30 days at a time. Yet she insists on calling on herself at every meeting and actually giving people advice. She yammers on endlessly about having a wonderful relationship with her higher power (lower case mine and intentional) and how she is working steps and has a wonderful sponsor and how much she has endured and remained sober and “what this program has given” her. Her first or second sentence always begins with the words, “I can honestly say.”

I must care about the first woman more because I haven’t pulled her aside to say, “You stupid, selfish bitch. Can’t you see what you’re keeping yourself from?” I wasn’t so well behaved with the second woman who I did pull aside last night. I believe my words were, “You don’t know shit about shit. You can’t “honestly say” anything. And shut the fuck up. You need this as bad as anyone here and you’re not going to hear it if you’re talking.” The rule I observe about not sharing in a meeting unless I’m called on or unless I’m dying has saved me more than once from either being her, with something to say on every subject and on every occasion- or unloading on her at meeting level. G-d seems always to make sure that I am not called on or (on a couple of occasions) called out of the room for some reason right before my head pops.

Why, I wonder, can’t they simply embrace the truth? Then again . . .

why can’t I?

Photo Credit:  unknown

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

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..

 

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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