Willingness

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Choosing the Difficult

February 25, 2008 in Courage, Faith by Chris | 9 comments

This post was originally published Feb. 10, 2008 and was taken down pending adjudication of another case. Now that has been done and I am restoring the post.

The Man With the StarTo choose what is difficult all one’s days, as if it were easy, that is faith.
W. H. Auden

They tell me I seemed relaxed; that I did not seem bothered or distressed by the situation. On some level they are right. The outcome was in God’s hands. I was there to play the role He meant for me to play. I was meant to be accountable. Accountable is not a role I have played often. In fact, as I was having breakfast with my father yesterday morning I observed that this is probably the first thing in my life that I have taken accountability for without being forced by some external power. Going to court to account for my probation violation was all mine. Accountability – justice – is, after all, the essence of the 9th step and I did say that I am willing to go to any length for victory over addiction.

My violation was significant. They call it absconding from supervision. Of all possible violations this is the one they frown on most. They like those of us who are supervised to stay supervised. Most people who abscond from supervision compound the problem by also picking up new charges against them. Most people who abscond from supervision continue living the way they lived before. Most people who violate their probation and are sent to prison will tell you that the reason they are in prison is “they violated me”.

After the prosecution argued for imposition of the sentence underlying the original criminal conviction for which I am on probation, after my attorney argued on my behalf and after I addressed the court, the judge said very frankly that when he walked in to the courtroom he had intended to impose my sentence.

If anything, anything at all, had been any different, I would be in prison today. If I had not been sober for over a year. If I had been charged with any new crimes. If I hadn’t completed an in-patient treatment program. If I didn’t have the support of friends and family demonstrated by over a dozen letters and the presence in the courtroom of 8 people – 8 people! who took time off work to show that I matter to them (my sponsor, my sponsor’s sponsor, my roommate, a former employer, 2 friends, my aunt and most importantly my dad, who came up from Las Vegas to support me). If I hadn’t been able to demonstrate my commitment to 12 step recovery with attendance cards. If I didn’t have a job (even at McDonald’s). If when I posted bond to get out of jail I had done anything besides go directly to an AA meeting. If I hadn’t taken the 12 steps and if I hadn’t placed this at the top of my 9th step amends work. If I hadn’t been the one to initiate the process. . . if any one of these things had been different -and if I had anything less than a great attorney who believes in me- I would be in prison today.

I shouldn’t be surprised to receive a 9th step promise while making a 9th step amends, but I am dumbfounded by the degree to which God has been taking care of me all year. On my own I am not smart enough to conceive of such a perfect storm of good fortune. The only thing I did -the only thing- was that I became willing to place my trust and reliance upon God, a God of my own understanding, an infinite and loving God of all possibilities and to humbly do as I believe that God would have me do, and God has done for me what I could never do for myself.

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

If Your Car Feels Like This

February 15, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 5 comments

MaintenanceThey say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
-Andy Warhol

The book talks over and over about needing to take action; about heading for trouble if we rest on our previous accomplishments; about having a ‘daily reprieve’ based on our spiritual health. It directs us to seek to “improve our conscious contact with God”, conscious contact that we gain, at least in the sense of recovery from addiction, by first taking the steps. Of course they knew the 12 steps were but the beginning of a spiritual way of life. “We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us.” It tells us that there are “certain trials and low spots ahead.” It never says that we will be entirely, completely and forever free of alcoholic thinking.

So . . . I had a bad day. Obviously.

Actually, in terms of fucked up thinking and out of control emotions, it was the most fucked up day I’ve had in recent memory. Moreover, it’s exactly the kind of thinking that used to send me straight for a bottle or a bag. The feelings of worthlessness were also compounded by the fact that I’ve been ill. For a week now I’ve been trying to pretend that I don’t have bronchitis and today I finally went to the doctor to take care of that. Illness probably accounted for much of it, truthfully; “how great the spiritual change that it brings”.

This time, this round of overwhelming hopelessness, I didn’t experience the compulsion to get loaded. This time the tools I’ve been taught to use kicked in. When the ride is bumpy you grease the wheel bearings, right? So when life gets bumpy I pick up the “simple kit of spiritual tools.” Even though at the time they didn’t seem to bring me much relief (if any), they did keep me busy for awhile. I did what I could to live in the solution, to keep my side of the street clean, to carry the message, to seek God and I got a decent nights sleep.

And this morning everything looks much better. It’s not what I would have in my idealized life, but it’s do-able. If nothing happens in God’s world by mistake, then God’s will is what happens. Just who do I think I am to argue and pout about God allowing me to pay for the consequences of my own actions?

My other actions had consequences, too. The action of taking the steps, the action of working with others, the action of being honest about what was in my head, the action of asking for help, the action of praying, the action of going to bed early – all these things had consequences. The consequences are that I helped another addict, I relied a little more on God, I gained a little faith, and most importantly – I didn’t have to get loaded.

And that’s a miracle.

Vintage Ad #305: MAAAARFAK!, originally uploaded by jbcurio.

 

Any Texaco Man Will Show You

February 14, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 1 comment

Texaco ManOne of my great, if not my greatest character traits is intelligence. I’m smart, damn it, and I know it. I was also raised in a family, a community and a culture that all place a high value on intelligence, so I feel valuable. Another trait is perseverance. “Quitters never win,” was an oft repeated admonition in the society of my youth. Taken together these are the kind of qualities that governments and industries are built of. There is little that cannot be achieved with intelligence and perseverance. They are qualities to be admired.

In an addict or an alcoholic they can be fatal. Alcoholics and addicts of my description often die rather than embrace the truth; that “we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable.” To finally and completely admit the truth about me, that I was entirely without ability, influence or control with regard to drugs and alcohol and that as a result of my drinking and using the ordinary tasks of living became impossible to deal with was a pill too bitter to swallow. Me, the one who prided himself on his ability to solve even the most difficult problems, the one who never gave up till the obstacle was overcome or the difficulty mastered, admitting that I had been defeated by such a trivial thing.

I saw other people having wine with dinner, going out for drinks with friends or having a beer on a hot summer day.  I even saw people who occasionally smoked a joint or did a line of coke or crystal meth without anything terrible happening and I couldn’t understand why I was unable to do the same.  I didn’t understand why when I did the same things I saw other people doing I got different results. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that when you take culturally reinforced personality traits like intelligence and perseverance, a hereditary brain defect and a powerfully addictive substance that the result is someone who has to go pretty far down the scale before they cry “Uncle!”

Ultimately I did surrender.  After I had tried absolutely everything I could think of to try, I did admit complete defeat, and asked for help.  People who understood me and my problem took me to the solution and showed me how to apply a simple set of spiritual principles to my problems.  But I didn’t or couldn’t  ask for help before I had done some pretty outrageous things in an attempt to satisfy the craving and manage the outcome.  I am still paying (dearly) for the consequences of my addiction.  Today my head (my disease) is telling me that the price I am paying is too high, that the world is unfair, that the behavior that placed me in the position I am in is the result of a disease, a brain disorder really, and culturally reinforced ‘virtues’; that I am being punished for being biologically defective, smart and persevering.

That insane idea is as much a part of the problem as anything else, and luckily there is a set of simple instructions that I now try to follow to override it.  Following those instructions can take me from thinking how upset I am that it will be years and years before I get my passport back and go to Italy, to thinking how grateful I am that I get to be useful to the people around me outside of prison walls today.  The problem is still that I don’t always pick up those tools and follow those instructions right away.  I seem to have to reach a certain level of misery before I understand that the only effective solution I have today to the problems that trouble me most is the same solution that they showed me how to apply to my drug and alcohol problem.

What I’m saying is that someone showed me how to apply the solution and yet today I am miserable and unwilling to apply that solution to the thing that is troubling me.  Today I am miserable.  It isn’t something I’m going to drink over.  I may just do some extended pouting.  Hopefully I won’t wallow in this too long.

Any Texaco Man Will Show You, originally uploaded by nyctreeman.

 

Life in the Past Lane

January 28, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 9 comments

312“Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.”
-Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

Great pain and great love are called the disciplinarians of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous. In my life it seems that point of origin from which willingness to grow spiritually springs is tremendous pain. “Pain is a root, not a flower.” When the pain gets bad enough I take action. Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes tremendous love is operating in the origin of my willingness to persevere.

This is a story about love.

I have written about my unwillingness to carry on with the last part of my 4th step; my sex inventory. I have discussed it in more detail with other spiritual men. I have shared about it in a very general way at meeting level. I seem to have been in the grips of the faulty idea that I am so defective and so broken that I don’t deserve God’s help in forming the right ideal and seeking it. “No one will ever really love me,” became manifest in my life as a result of nurturing that faulty thought. “No one ever really did love me. No one ever could.” I see now how gigantically arrogant that thought is even though it has not completely been purged from my consciousness. Just like the drugs and alcohol, just like any area of my life that requires divine help, application of the principles of the steps is the solution and the solution is not really available to me until I have the first 3 steps down. I am powerless over people and the way I have related to them. A power greater than I can heal that secret wound, and that power, that I variously call God or my Creator or the Underlying Fabric of the Universe, wishes for me better than I wish for myself. It is the eternal power of Love that wishes for me to manifest the glory of that power which lies within me.

Though we had spoken of it before, this was not on my mind Saturday when I sat down with Brian, whom I consider to be my most spiritual friend. Where Jim, my sponsor, has great spiritual force (which is inspiring and exciting), Brian has great spiritual reserve (which I find breathtaking and clarifying). Out of the blue, Brian said, “You’re going to make an incredible companion for someone one day.” He went on to tell me about a writer who had profoundly influenced his own spiritual path and the relationship that had with becoming the kind of man who could have a wonderful intimate relationship. I kind of filed the information away in the mental folder marked ‘New Agey’.

Sunday morning I had my 8th step list out; the list of all people I had harmed. I started googling the names of some of the key people in my life in the 80′s. Some, I thought, might still be around, but I knew I was really looking at the result of the great plague that decimated the gay community. One who had been important in my life was Rick Saslaw. I met Rick in 1983, the first time I was exposed to Alcoholics Anonymous. He met my requirements for Rescuer status at the time. He drove a green Jaguar. He owned a 4-plex behind Canter’s Deli on Fairfax Ave. He was intelligent. He was politically active. He was a huge man; warm and safe. And he was amazingly kind to me. My life spun off in a completely different direction but while I was seeing Rick he impressed upon me that there was a spiritual life and a way to seek God that had nothing to do with being a mormon. The last time I saw Rick was in a parking lot on the south east corner of La Brea Ave. and Sunset Blvd. It was slightly awkward. I was married — to a woman — he had begun the heroic ordeal that was treatment for HIV in those days.

The next time I heard about Rick I was at a gay AA round-up in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1998. The guest speaker, Ira S., told his story of what it was like, what happened and what it’s like now. I was especially caught by a couple of things that Ira said about his turning point and the man who was there in his office when that happened. That man became Ira’s first sponsor. I approached Ira after his speech and he confirmed what I had imagined. His first sponsor was Rick Saslaw. He got sober while Rick and I were dating.

So Sunday, while I was dodging doing my sex inventory and instead was googling old flames, I came across only 2 listings for Rick; his obituary in the New York Times, and this blog post from another man who was also sponsored by Rick. It seems that Rick’s memorial service was officiated by the woman who my friend Brian had said was so influential in his own spiritual growth.

“Marianne (Williamson) paused her [Return to Love book] tour and officiated at Rick’s memorial at this postage stamp of a park tucked below Sunset Strip. All of Rick’s eccentric friends and AAs — crowded onto this petit lawn. . . Marianne salvaged the hour’s empty disposition, basically giving us an ACIM lecture, a discourse on Rick Saslaw. It was the most fitting tribute Rick could ever have had.”

The result of a thorough sex/relationship inventory is the clarity needed for one to ‘return to love’. That part of love that is eternal clearly wants better for me than I can understand. Needless to say, I have picked up my pen and started diligently working on my inventory and I dare say that a copy of ‘Return to Love’ will be in my near future. (Thank you, Rick. Thank you, God.)

312, originally uploaded by impala.1970.

You Can’t Get Arrested for Being Awesome

January 26, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 7 comments

Arrested at the TexacoThis morning’s post is probably more anecdotal and personal than most of what I write here.  I know I tend toward a rigorous focus on ‘the solution’.  It is , really, an essential part of my recovery as well as being an entertainment.  It is a few minutes spent with close attention to my spiritual geography.  You would probably be surprised how many of the people I know only consider me to be almost silly, certainly self-amused and a bit of a, well, maybe a great bit  of a goof-ball.

In days of yore, when Shep was a pup and the pigs ate my brother, back at the very birth (perhaps a badly chosen word) of my involuntary bachelorhood, more that a decade ago, I used to quip that not only could I not get a date, but “I couldn’t get arrested in this town.”  Obviously that was an exaggeration.  I have hardly been without arrest in recent years.  (Frankly I’m grateful.  Getting my hair washed before a cut and getting searched by the police is about the most intimate contact I’ve had in quite some time.  Well, there was the dentist.  I can’t believe I said that.  I’m going to just leave that there, though.  YES!  Having a good looking, well educated man cram his hands around in my mouth turned me on.  Don’t you dare judge me!)  Lucky for me you can’t get arrested for being awesome!

Well yesterday afternoon it came to my attention that I needed to stop by the jail before the week was out and before I had to take the next steps in this judicial process.  There had been another, not unexpected, warrant for my arrest issued.  The information garnered from the Ada County Sheriff’s web site, indicated that the warrant, which was issued on the 16th of this month,  and as the prosecuting attorney had agreed to, only called for the arrest to be processed.  I was to go in, be ‘booked’, and be released on my own recognisance.   This is tremendous courtesy on the part of the prosecution and a formality of the process that I am happy to be able to oblige.

I left work, the new and horrible job, early and boarded the bus to the public safety building where I presented myself at the jail.  For some reason or other there was an extraordinary line at the information desk, a line so long that the public defender, an attorney assigned exclusively to murder cases, vociferously complained about the inmate population being doubled and the information desk remaining the same.  There were several people in front of us, mostly attorneys, process servers and bail bondsmen.  But some of the people were ordinary citizens there to buy phone cards for their loved ones, inquiring about sending books in to the jail, getting information about visiting, etc.  The first ones in line though, a family of 4, seemed to be especially problematic.  There was a language barrier.  There were complicated questions.  They were strenuously engaged in the task at hand, whatever that was.  It took a long time.

When finally I presented myself to the information officer, I handed her my identification and explained to her that I noticed a warrant for my arrest and that I was there to surrender.  Taking my ID she said, “Have a seat.  Someone will be with you in a while.”  I sat down in the austere lobby and soon engaged in a conversation with three other men there doing the same thing.  I settled in for a long wait.  A long, long wait.

When at long last the did summon me back to the window it was only to say, “We haven’t got any paperwork on you.  Come back Monday.  Call first.”  I thanked them, wrapped up my scarf and put on my hat and walked home.  Funny how when I want to I can’t get arrested.

There are other things on my mind, too, of course; some of it even serious.  But for today I’ll just laugh and try again Monday.

Photo Credit:
Copyright 2007 by WRAL.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Reporter: Melissa Buscher
Web Editor: John Conway
“Officer Kenneth Alston says he was driving his cruiser early Monday morning when he spotted King and another person at the Texaco on the corner of Owen Drive and Cumberland Road. Alston says the men appeared to be using drugs, so he stopped to investigate.”

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.

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