The Last Chance Texaco

Posts Tagged ‘Spirituality’

“Although financial recovery is on the way for many of us, we found we could not place money first. For us, material well-being always followed spiritual progress; it never preceded.”  -Alcoholics Anonymous

I’m still doing my usual routine, staying close to sober friends, attending meetings, writing inventory when it is indicated, seeing my sponsor regularly; the same stuff I’ve done for the last 38 months or so, yet I find myself in an odd situation.  As I have taken on a larger role and accepted more responsibility in the company I work for I have discovered that the reasons I have had my paychecks bounce in the past is only that my company is astonishingly mismanaged.  And that is unacceptable to me.  So I’ve written inventory about my boss and about my job.  I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed.  I’ve talked to my sponsor and with a small handful of close friends and family. Read the rest of this entry »

“Absolute unmixed attention is prayer.” -Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

I realized a long time ago that I can trace the decline of my spiritual health, and a decline in the quality and quantity of my writing, to the date I got a television.  For a good year and a half, writing was a form of prayer to me.   In writing I set aside time to examine myself and my experience closely and to open myself up to learn.

Television kind of shuts that down for me.  It is much like a drug in that way.  Television makes me a little bit numb.

I think it’s time to turn the TV off; time to read more and time to write more.

“Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous, page 58

Some of us have tried to hold on to them without even knowing that is what we’re doing, until it bites us.

I was thinking about my conversation with Chris Lawford a couple of years ago.  The last question he asked was, “What does God look like?”  He asked all of us the same set of questions and you can discern that from a close reading of the chapters in “Moments of Clarity”, and he has included the answers to that question from a few of the people he interviewed.  I remember Susan Cheever’s being particularly moving, though at the moment I can’t remember what it was.  Mine was not included, which killed me because I thought I had been so clever.

In the first place, I thought the question was kind of obtuse.  How, really, can one know what God looks like?  We can’t even agree on a definition of God, let alone agree on God’s existence, so how would I know what God looks like.  And that is what I said.  I said, “I don’t know, but when it is my time to go I hope He holds me in his arms and whispers something funny.”

It is a good thing it was not included, actually, because it is  not even an original line.  I stole it from William Finn; a line from the song “You’ve Got to Die Sometime” from Falsettoland. (None of my material is original.  Go ahead and check.  That’s not entirely true.  I did coin the term Googlyize, meaning to glue googly eyes on to something, but I digress.)

The thing is, at that time and though I wasn’t even conscious of it, I was still in the grips of an old idea about what God is, and though intellectually I professed something more abstract, my spiritual experience in the early parts of my recovery had never been inconsistent with the ideas of God which I had been given as a child.  I was taught to believe in God at approximately the same time I was taught about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, and he was given a personality and a face, the same way those other fairy tales had.  (When my parents told me the truth about the Easter Bunny I proudly walked into class the following Monday and announced to everyone that, “My daddy is the Easter Bunny!”)

I guess this incredibly painful four month experience in letting go of that old idea, and the amazing relief I have at the moment having come through that and feeling again a spiritual wholeness, has me curious about what other old ideas I may be hanging on to that are standing in the way of my growth.

I suspect they will make themselves known when the time is right.

“We don’t want anybody up here. We just tell people this place is nothing but a bunch of queers and weirdos,” my sponsor told me.  There is a kernel of truth in it, of course, but there is a sweetness about the place and the people there that is hard to describe.

I exaggerated about the indoor plumbing/electricity feature of the town.  Most of the people have running water.  Some of them even have HOT water.  And there is electrical service in the town which is serviced by it’s own small hydro-electric plant, but people don’t use it much.  Even so, it is remote.  I haven’t heard quiet like that or seen dark like that in a long, long time.

The first night we grilled steaks on a campfire. watched stars shooting through the night sky, and had dessert with some neighbors.  During the next day I listened to AA speaker CDs, CDs about the Eightfold Path.  I enjoyed the hot springs and the wilderness.  We had breakfast with friends and went for walks.  I took pictures of dead pickup trucks which are allowed to remain there to deter the Sun Valley people from discovering how wonderful the place it.  I read and napped and practiced meditating.

Why did I have such a hard time realizing that having a Higher Power does not mean having a deity?  I am more and more convinced that having a Higher Power without having a deity is necessary for me and that my path back to feeling connected to that Power  will largely be the byproduct of practice.  The small time I devoted to the practice certainly led me to believe that, as the book Alcoholics Anonymous says, “we can but clear the ground a bit” and that clearing the ground through a practice of meditation may be the hinge upon which my progress turns.

I was in a great place to begin a practice, not having the usual distractions of home and office around.  Even so, focusing on mere breath is not as easy as it sounds

“Somewhere in the process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy.  Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill utterly out of control and helpless.  No problem.  You are not crazier than you were yesterday.  It has always been this way, and you have just never noticed.”  Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

That’s a relief.  If there weren’t passages like this in the guide I was reading I would be sure, as I have always been, that I wasn’t doing it right.

Anyway, I imagine that things are as they should be, and I imagine that I am still on track, even if it does not appear to me that I am.  I just know that

In the late 80s and early 90s they were not an uncommon site along the freeways leaving downtown Los Angeles; huge condo projects festooned with banners that read “If you lived here you’d be home now.” When the topic was brought up at a meeting, what are you doing today for your recovery, it’s what I immediately thought of. In the rooms we usually hear the same sentiment described as, “I live in the rooms and visit the world.”

I’m an egomaniac. I like my way better. Read the rest of this entry »

“School and work are fine – and that is what we do between meetings”
Karl M., Covina, CA

“Why do we have to listen to the same people tell the same stories at every meeting?”  Norman leaned over and asked me that at a meeting last night.  He’s right, of course.  We hear the same people share the same stories day after day after day.  Particularly in a small city like mine where the fixtures at the meeting don’t really change.  It is actually one of the things I like best about blogging.  It gives me the opportunity to take a look at today and apply the lens of the solution offered in 12 step programs.  It helps me see the present more clearly.  It gives me new stories; new experience, new strength and new hope.  It gives me a constant source of new stuff to share at meetings; stuff that is already developed and grounded in the solution.  Sometimes, but not very often, it works the other way around; I find information about what I’m living by listening in meetings.

The collective experience, strength and hope shared by sober members of 12 step recovery is much bigger than I can avail myself of in local meetings, though, and my own answer to the problem at the root of Norman’s question has led me not only to the blogs my colleagues write, but to podcasts of AA speaker tapes.  (You’ll find a link on the sidebar, or you can search for “AA speaker tapes” in the search field of iTunes.”  I load my iPod up with these.  At some point every day I’m listening to the experience, strength and hope of other people on this path; other people that I am unlikely to ever meet or hear otherwise.

The problem and the solution are the same, of course, so I’m probably simply hearing new information because the voice is different, and that is a great thing.  Everything that I can add to my recovery is a great thing, and I’m grateful today to have been shown an answer to a couple of my questions about my recovery by Karl M. of Covina, CA in a speech he gave at the Denali Workshop.  I’ve listened to that podcast three times in succession now.

I’ve decided I am absolutely returning to school and that I’m returning to learn a trade, rather than a profession.  I just don’t think I have it in me at the moment to remain in a job that takes up all the psychic and emotional energy I have that I would rather commit to recovery.  I need to double my income fast and I need it to leave my mind and spirit free to give to AA.  Karl talks about how grateful he was that he visited AA before he visited the counselor at the school he was going to attend.  “School and work are fine, but we live in Alcoholics Anonymous and we visit the world.  We don’t live in the world and visit AA.”  I felt that.  I suspected that.  But I didn’t have an adequate way of stating that so clearly and I didn’t have any validation of that in the recovery community around me, at least not so that I could understand.

The other thing I gleaned form this particular tape was the answer to a question that I didn’t even know I had.  How do you know that you’ve given your will and your life over to the care of God.  I’m not going to repeat the explanation Karl gave.  You can learn that well enough on your own, and I would encourage you to, but the answer is absolutely yes.  I have definitely turned my will and my life over to the care of God.  That answer struck me to my core and validated everything that I am doing today for my recovery.  Like finding a landmark on a seldom traveled path at the point you’re sure you’re lost, this bit of information, delivered clearly and specifically and in a way that I could understand, has given me a much needed dose of faith and hope.

It’s fantastic to be sober.  It’s fantastic to have been given a life and a purpose, and it’s fantastic to be able to share it.

“Forty-six now and dying by inches, I finally see how our lives align at the core, if not in the sorry details. I still shiver with a kind of astonished delight when a brother or sister tells of that narrow escape from the coffin world of the closet. ‘Yes yes yes,’ goes a voice in my head, ‘it was just like that for me.’ When we laugh together and dance in the giddy circle of freedom, we are children for real at last, because we have finally grown up.
-Paul Monette, Becoming a Man; half a life story

This book, this paragraph in particular, always takes my breath away because it describes so perfectly so much of the important experiences in my life. Monette’s story is about his coming to terms with his identity as a gay man, so of course I feel a strong identification with that, but because so much of my life is devoted to helping other addicts and alcoholics I frequently feel “astonished delight” when we share our stories of how we came to be in recovery. I can’t think of another place on earth where I can share stories like mine, in a general way or in detail, and know that I am completely understood. There is no place where I am so free to be my most authentic self as in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was finally home.

Being a Mormon and a Boy Scout and gay, I clean up pretty good. I spent much of my life as an incredible fraud. I knew how to play to whatever crowd I was in front of. 6’3″, auburn hair and a toothsome smile went a long way toward making people comfortable around me and the pressed khakis and crisp oxford shirt that was my uniform for years helped to deflect any suspicion that anything could be wrong. I showed people what they wanted to see so that I could get what I wanted. Inside I felt small and ugly. I was a fraud and I knew it. I never managed to take the mask down until I couldn’t keep it on anymore, and when if finally came down the only place I felt safe was in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Despite the various paths that bring us to recovery and the different ways we have of embracing it, there is a deep understanding among us that something important in the very core of our being marks us as one another’s companions. We’re great, we alcoholic/addict types, at sharing what it was like.

We’re not always so good at sharing the solution. We talk about ‘Higher Power’ and ‘God’ of ‘our own understanding’. At the beginning of every meeting we describe that power as ‘a loving God’. But very few new to the rooms get specific direction about how to come into conscious contact with that power. From the very start we need to share our experience.

My experience is that my original understanding of God was completely insufficient to keep me sober. I had to let go of all my ideas about a Higher Power and seek a completely new experience. I had to look for a God that was too big for me to understand; a God big enough to encompass all the ideas of God in the room. I was fortunate that Joe K. shared the following prayer with me.

God, please set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, the Big Book, the 12 Steps, the Program, the Fellowship, the people in the fellowship, and all spiritual terms, and especially about you God, so I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help me see the Truth. Amen.

Every sentiment in this prayer is expressed in the book.

• “But the program of action, though entirely sensible, was pretty drastic. It meant I would have to throw several lifelong conceptions out of the window.”
• “We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results…”
• “When, therefore, we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. This applies, too, to other spiritual expressions which you find in this book. Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you.”
• “Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things make us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will as prejudiced for as long as some of us were.”
• “We, who have traveled this dubious path, beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion.”
• “Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.”

I needed a different God than I had before and all that I needed in order to start getting results was the willingness to believe in something. Something. And though the experience each of us has of that Higher Power is personal and unique, whenever I hear someone tell their story of finally making conscious contact with that power, something inside me says, “Yes, yes, yes. It was just like that for me.”

I genuinely like and admire who I am because of my work.
-GrrlScientist

I alluded recently to the Benedictine motto, “Ora et labora.” That is actually only a derivative. The actual motto is, “Orare est laborare, laborare est orare.” To pray is to work, to work is to pray.

It is not exactly accurate for me to say that I have ever prayed without ceasing unless the diligent willingness to try to cast aside my ego in favor of coming to know God can be called prayer. If showing up in meetings, examining my character, sharing my experience with others is prayer, then I pray a good deal of the time. It is tricky. An amazing amount of selfishness can be found in the most (superficially) unselfish acts. Worse yet, when you realize THAT little nugget of crap the stakes change entirely.

That’s what has been happening with me lately. My understanding has shifted and the stakes have changed. My conception of “infinite” as it pertains to my H.P. has, this sounds weird, grown. Infinite is bigger. The edges are falling off.

The IFX (to those of you new here, he’s the boy who broke my heart – the catalyst of my ‘moment of clarity’ that got me to recovery) came to the clubhouse of the meeting I was at tonight. I had heard from a co-worker/former customer/mutual friend that he is out using again; using and hanging out with gay men. I had hoped it wasn’t true, of course, but he’s obviously taken this path before, with me for example. Sober he always maintained that he is absolutely straight and went out of his way to be rude to me.

He showed up at the clubhouse but he didn’t come into the meeting, choosing instead to go upstairs where he could buy a coffee and be near the fellowship without being scrutinized by a crowd under florescent lights. I worried that he may not be coming into the meeting because he doesn’t want to face me. Heaven knows I’ve been in those shoes. More than once it has been all I could do not to run out of a meeting because he was there. My sponsor (his old sponsor) went upstairs to talk to him and I stayed in the meeting, tears streaming down my face for him, and for me, and for what was and what will never be; all the kinds of things one might anticipate of the grieving.

And I suddenly realized that there was nothing truly compassionate in it. I was sad for me. The fact that he hasn’t yet committed himself to sobriety yet makes me think that we are different from each other, and by extension, that I am superior. I seem to sit in judgement of him by making him a “will not” rather than a “cannot”. Grieving for him is really a way internalizing my judgment of him; of making it about me. Obviously I need to keep trying to take a look at the points where I block myself from experiencing love, serenity and peace; to keep rooting out the causes and conditions that make me want to judge him and judge others in the room who haven’t yet been relieved of the compulsion and obsession.

It’s easy for me to remember today what life was like before, to recall the hopelessness and the pain. It is harder for me to differentiate that I was a would-not and not a could-not. But I was a would-not. The same as my friend. And the program really has nothing to offer a would-not except to maybe show them that there is another way of life available. I genuinely like and admire who I am today because of the work I’ve done. I like the life I have because of the results of that work. I have never met anyone who became miserable or who’s life fell apart because they committed themselves to a spiritual path of some kind, but I’ve seen a number of people suffer because they believed the lie in their minds that they couldn’t.

Image credit: Jorieke Putman