Knowing how to end a story...

Someone (Ernest Kurtz I believe...) once wrote that there are two parts to recovery: the story telling part and the story listening part....and the only reason alcoholics are willing to sit and listen to someone else's story is that they know that one day they are going to get to tell their story.

Today I've been doing a little unpublicized AA marathon... My wife's away for about a week and I've used this time to go to some extra meetings and just today I've heard four different stories. Three of them filled my heart with hope and the fourth made my stomach ache and blood pressure almost pop a vein (once I calm down over that share, I might post more about that one!)

Today, I also had the blessing of an AA friend giving me a copy of a short story that he'd spent months crafting and I was touched that trusted me with reading it. He was quite proud of the work he'd done and had received some very positive reviews of it by some close friends. I waited until all my chores were done this afternoon and then I took the short story out to my hammock in the back yard and devoted myself to my friend's story telling.

The story was powerfully and artfully written but it's ending was one of those that make some people --including me--quite angry because it didn't end with all the loose ends tied up and all the details neatly concluded. For the remainder of the day, I tried to figure out if I really liked the story even with the ending as he chose to tell it. Most of the time I thought there was something missing from the ending and that I just needed to figure out how he could fix it.

But then the way home from the meeting tonight, I began to think back to several stories told to me by two of my sponsors over the last six years and I began to realize that they too ended their stories in a way very very (annoyingly!) similar to my friend's short story. And trust me, my sponsor's are all great storytellers! Tonight, I realized that what made all three of them great storytellers is that they knew when and how to end the story.

I heard Earle tell the story of his last drink so often that I felt as though I was there. Toward the end of a long Saturday of drinking a huge amount of alcohol, he was preparing to barbecue steaks out in the back of his house and as he was walking up the steps to his barbecue, he looked down at the half empty glass in his hand and realized that he should go back and refill the glass before continuing up the steps. As he was turning around, he heard a voice saying "That's your last drink."

That was the end of the story of his last drink and the beginning of his sobriety story, which by the way, happened on June 15, 1953--two days before I was born. I didn't realize until after Earle was dead that the story ended without some important details. That is, his "last drink" story didn't explain whether he finished that "last" drink! I mean, did he just put it down and/or throw it away and stay sober for the next 49 years of his life? Did he finish it off? Either way, it still would have been the last drink! Enquiring minds want to know things like this!

I'm so glad that he was dead before these stupid questions floated to the surface of my consciousness! I really don't need to know the answer to questions like that. Which is why I think that particular story was so effective and powerful. He knew when to stop his storytelling and let the story have the power it had without needless embellishment or distraction.

Another one of my sponsors, a sponsee of Earle's who was like a son to Earle for many years, once told me a story about one day when he was a couple of years sober: Dave was a lawyer and had some sort of brief or pleading that needed to be drafted and filed with the court by the end of the week. For some reason, this particular task was something that he just couldn't bring himself to complete. He put the file on his guest chair at the beginning of the week so as to keep reminding himself that it had to be done by the end of the week. But he just didn't want to do it. And it just sat there. Waiting.

As the end of the week was quickly approaching and the task still undone, he called Earle and explained his dilemma: he had to do this brief but he didn't want to do it! Earle's reply was, "So you have to do the brief before Friday?" Dave responded, "Yes!" Earle then advised, "Well, then do it!" And then Dave explained that the problem was that he didn't want to write this brief! And then Earle responded, "Well, then don't do it!" To which an exasperated Dave responded, "But it has to be done by the end of the day Friday! Tomorrow!"

Earle paused while Dave almost exploded with frustration over this old man's total incapacity to actually listen to the facts as presented (here I'm sympathetic because both Earle and Dave have brought about the same level of extreme frustration in me with their question/answer techniques from Hell...) and then said to Dave, "Well, then do it!" I honestly can't remember where this back and forth ended because I stopped listening well before the expected "ending" because I already knew the point of the story. [No, I'm not going to tell you!]

It was only tonight that I realized that I never learned if Dave did or didn't write the god damned brief! And I realized tonight that the story was great because Dave knew when to stop the storytelling and let the story take a life of its own.

My friend Doug has joined the ranks of some truly great storytellers. He's learned how to end a story in time.

Mike L.

Can You Work a 3rd Step Without Praying the 3rd Step Prayer?

Given that it's March, I've been hearing lots of sharing on the 3rd Step and it's brought back a lot of memories of when I was relatively new in AA and starting hearing talk about the 3rd step. What bothered me about the talk was that while I had finally found a safe place in which to accept my alcoholism and begin learning a new way of life, all the talk about God as others saw God troubled me a lot.

In fact, the more I heard people, including my first sponsor talk about the 3rd step as though that step necessarily involved the act of me getting down on my knees with my sponsor and saying with him the "3rd step prayer" the more I started to think that this wasn't such a safe place as I had thought and hoped. In fact, I began to wonder whether or not I was going to be able to stay in this organization due to the fact that I couldn't "pretend" to believe in a God as others were portraying God. That is, a God who expected or wanted me to kneel, a God who had a "will" for me to do this or that and not to do that or this, a God who expected or wanted "offerings" or anything else from me, a God who wanted me to do something like this prayer even though it violated every fiber of my being, a God whose role in life involved in "taking away" somethings (i.e., difficulties) and not other things, a God who was defined by having "Power" over all things and who got involved in all the details of life.

When I read the Big Book, I simply didn't see a commandment that I had to kneel (it's not mentioned) or even that I had to pray a prayer at all (sure, it's suggested....but, as far as I can tell, that's not a commandment). Although, to be honest, even if the book had written this as a commandment, I wouldn't have done it. I couldn't have done it without being dishonest and to me the clear message of recovery that I found in the book and in AA was that honesty with one's self had a huge amount to do with one's ability to stay sober and to find a fulfilling and meaningful way of life without chemical enhancement or support.

For me, my 3rd step didn't involve prayer or even God as I do understand God (more more accurately, God as I misunderstand God!). It had to do with the higher power that I'd discovered in my 2nd step and that higher power wasn't really God. It was the "Truth" of who I was, an alcoholic. I came to believe that a power greater than myself, that is Truth (the truth of who I am: alcoholic). And that the path leading to greater and greater awareness of who I am was leading me to nothing less than a more "sane" and more human life.

The 3rd step just carried that understanding a little farther, coincidentally, one step further...to the understanding that I didn't need to "be God" any more and that I could let go of that horrible burden. I could let go. I could just be me. Ahhhh.

As a great AAer in Sacramento says, "We're already alright!" I think that sentiment is the principle I learned in my 3rd step. Once that sunk in, I was finally ready to begin looking deeper into who I was without fear and begin seeing myself more compassionately and with more understanding and less condemnation, build, shame and hatred.

Take care!

Mike L.

Who Said You Can't Think Your Way Into Right Action?

Over the last six years, at different times I've heard repeated the statement made that "you can't think your way into right acting, you have to act your way into right thinking." Now, you know me well enough by now that I only share that so that I can disagree with it. You're correcto mundo.



While I understand that we, especially when we're new, sometimes get stuck in navel gazing and self-analysis to the point that we get stuck in "analysis paralysis". And that to overcome that, we sometimes have to act our way out of a rut or two, even if we don't completely understand all the logical or meaningful reasons for doing so. But I've some times gotten the impression that some people are taking this AA home spun wisdom a little too far.... Like taking it to mean that our thinking is not to be trusted (can't fix a broken thinker with the same broken thinker) and that we just need to do what we're told (even if it's stated in the form of a suggestion). That sort of blind faith or blind obedience has never been something I've been willing or able to subscribe to. I know, you're not surprised.



Recently, I've been reflecting over my last six years of recovery and what have been the key things that have not only kept me sober but also gave me a quality of life that far exceeds whatever I might have hoped for when I first got sober.... Sure, all of the familiar "keys" are in my list: Steps, Sponsor, Meetings (and not drinking in between), Service, Meditation (I'm not big into Prayer....it's hard for an agnostic to pray...), etc. But there is another "key" part of my program that sort of relates to this "thinking vs. action" topic and that's the memory work that I've been doing almost since the very beginning of my recovery.


By memory work (I've written previously on this topic, "AA Recovery: A form of brain washing...") I mean the process memorizing various things, sometimes passages from the Big Book or 12X12, but also other AA and non-AA literature. The process of memorizing means taking some passage or prayer, and repeating the first sentence or phrase again and again until I can say it from memory without looking at the book or paper. Once I memorize the first phrase/line, I then begin repeating the second phrase or sentence until I can say it from memory. Then I repeat the first and the second line until I have them down... Then I go to the next phrase or sentence... As in the shampoo instructions I read years ago, "Repeat until done."

What happens for me, is this process puts the content of the passage into my consciousness, so deep it seems that eventually becomes a part of my "intuition." In effect, the process has re-trained my brain so that it now interprets the reality before me in much different, and generally, much more healthy ways.

Here's an example: Before Christmas, I bought a book that I just stumbled on while I was out shopping for books for my wife. The book is called "Everyday Commitments" by David Richo. I bought it not for my wife, but for me. She might have liked it, but that didn't matter. I liked it and I bought it for me. It was just a collection of 52 "affirmations" or commitments that this buddhist teacher/lecturer (he's also a psychologist) came up with that helped him keep more focused on what Buddhist's refer to as "Right Action" and "Right Thinking". The book was setup so that each commitment has a title, the commitment and then a brief reflection on that commitment. I suppose that the book could be used as a daily meditation book, and one could easily focus on one commitment per week for an entire year. But not me, I am far too obsessed for that. I began memorizing these commitments before Christmas and I just finished the task of memorizing all 52 commitments this last week.

But the example has to do with Commitment #25: "Gossip Free: I am avoiding gossip and the spreading of rumors. Now, when I have something to say about someone, I say it to them directly." When I first memorized this commitment, I thought it quite silly and that it should be a no-brainer to incorporate this value into my daily life. Wrong!!!! It turned out that this commitment was one that was and is terribly difficult for me to abide by in my daily life, at home and at work. But what ended up happening is that after repeated failures, I had one surprising and "unthinking" success!

I received an email from a consulting company who was participating in a bid process which I was overseeing. I'd let this company into the bidding process late because I'd neglected to include them in the list of qualified bidders.... By doing so, I got some flak from other members of my team because I was giving this consulting company a break.... I did it anyway because it was my error that kept them out of the process and I informed them that while they were allowed into the process, they would have to get their proposal in on time, just like all the other bidders. Anyway, last week, the sales guy for this consulting company informed me that they had elected not to participate in our bid process and then went on to lecture me on how great of a company they were and that they were "the best" and that they didn't waste time getting involved competitive bidding processes like this. Instead, they like being "partners" with their clients.

The email was sent to my entire time and within minutes of being received, people on my team began bad-mouthing this sales guy and making fun of him. But while they were doing that, I decided to just respond to his email and express my disappointment with his decision and my puzzlement over this approach to getting new business opporunities. I then recounted how 28 years ago, I asked a woman out for our first date and that the next week, 28 years after our first date, she and I were going out for another date to celebrate our 27 years of marriage. I suggested that he and his company go through the standard process of getting into a long term "partnership" by going out on a date first and not expecting the true partnership to magically happen just because "I'm the best there is!". My wife would not have accepted such a claim of mine then (or now) and I'm certainly not willing to accept his claim on the behalf of his company.

It was hours later that it dawned on me that the "memorized" commitment to avoid gossip and the spreading of rumors actually "leaked" into my actions without my really thinking about it. I guess my point is that I think that you can "memorize" yourself into right action....

Take care!

Mike L.

The AA Kit of Spiritual Tools: Hey, It's Empty!!

In one of my favorite meetings the other night, one of my friends mentioned that even with double digit sobriety, he's finding himself struggling through a end-of-relationship issue that simply not going away even though he's using all of the tools he's acquired over the years in sobriety and a very active strong AA program.

He's exercising and eating well (remembering the H.A.L.T. trick...). He's meeting with his sponsor and still actively sponsoring other recovering alcoholics. He's got a service commitment. He's worked the steps, multiple times. He goes to quite a few meetings every week and participates in those meetings, both in terms of sharing what's going on in his life (at least in general, meeting-level terms) and trying to be helpful to others in the meetings, especially the newcomer. He's journaling and meditating on a regular basis.

As he was sharing, I remembered another member once passing on a story that he heard from someone else, which essentially said that when we begin our recovery process, we're all given a toolkit for spiritual tools and as we progress, we'll pickup more and more tools which can be used and/or saved for future use. The tale went that every one of us will eventually reach a point in our sobriety where something "bad" happens and we look into our AA toolkit looking for a tool and are terrified to discover that there are no tools in the kit! When that happens, according to this AA folktale, don't panic because in every AA certified toolkit is a special note taped to the bottom of the kit and it reads, "You need more tools!". Before I could share this with the group, my friend already discovered what he needed to do: start looking for more tools. He's good at reading my mind.

The tools can certainly include the principles we acquire through working the steps, but they can also be sayings or slogans (i.e., One Day at a Time, Take it Easy, etc.). H.A.L.T. can be a very useful assessment tool when feeling off the beam: Am I Hungry, Angry, Lonely and/or Tired? If so, take care of those deficiencies and you'll be less "thirsty" for that first drink. Sometimes, I hear great lines in meetings and they get filed away as tools which I can either use or share with others. For instance, one old guy around here sometimes says, "Live life one whelm at a time! If you try to juggle too many whelms, you'll get overwhelmed!".

Other woman told me her favorite line was one that she stole from her sponsor and it was "I got sober at the corner of Grace and Willingness!" I love that line. I remember when I heard her share it at a meeting, that while I loved it, it wasn't where I got sober. I knew my sobriety was a gift, so I certainly did get sober somewhere on Grace Street, but it was certainly not on the corner of Grace and Willingness. "Where was it?" began percolate in my brain.

After a couple of weeks, I saw her again and I ran up to her and reminded her about her favorite line and how much I like it----but that I'd been struggling over the last couple of weeks to discover "where" I got sober and I finally figured it out. It was at the corner of Grace and Hopelessness! About a half block down from Grace and Willingness. For me, the gift of sobriety came to me the morning I woke up and accepted the hopelessness and futility of trying to be someone other than who I was. And I was, for better or worse, an alcoholic. And instead of fighting that, I needed to go with the flow and start doing what my son was doing.... And there, yessireee, was Willingness. Yet another spiritual tool.

Take care!

Mike

Step Four: If Four Columns, Why Not Five?

In the last week, I attended a Book study meeting which covered Chapter 5 (which contains the ending of the second step, as well as the third and fourth steps) and, later in the week, a Step Study meeting which went through Step 4. What stood out for me first off was how different the AA Big Book outlines the 4th step in chart-like format compared to the 12x12, which feels more like long questionaire or survey.

More importantly, when I read the AA Big Book's treatment of the 4th step, I was finally able to see both the infamous "fourth column" that I've heard people talk about and, even more important, I also discovered a fifth column that I now see positioned between the third and the fourth columns (maybe I'll refer to this as Column 3.5?) Let me explain before and of you go off screaming and pulling your hair out.

When I first got sober, when I heard others talk about the fourth step as it's outlined in the Big Book (Chapter 5), many people referred to what to me was a mysterious "fourth column" where the person working the step was supposed to go beyond the 3 columns outlined in the book (I'm resentful at; The Cause; Affects my... ) and add a fourth column to write down "Our Part" in whatever the happened to bring about a particular resentment. I considered this a mysterious fourth column, because they only had three columns in my book and I didn't see a specific reference to any such fourth column in the book.

I'd heard somewhere that they most important part of the Big Books was the "black part." The part that was actually written "in" the lines and not in between them. So, under that theory, where was this fourth column? Did the printing press in 1939 not have the capability to have four columns or did this fourth column just get incorporated into the AA program after the fact, just like other things including "sponsors," which are not specifically mentioned in the first 164 pages of the Big Book. I've long suspected this to be true...

Anyway, last week, when we were reading Chapter 5 I noticed that it does actually reference a need to look at one's own part in whatever past event but it's in the context of talking about our need to forgive, not only others, but ourselves. I missed that when I went through this process before: I was seeing the fourth column to be where I saw the error of my own ways, not just the person against whom I held a resentment.

Looking at it again now though, I missed the critical importance of forgiveness in this step. Forgiving both those who've harmed us in the past and ourselves. The book specifically recommends that we try to see these people are sick people, just like us and that we need to try and forgive them. For some reason, that really jumped out at me this time. I'm amazed at my ignorance sometimes!

All that said, forgiving others has been a huge part of my recovery process despite my poor reading skills when it comes to the Big Book. I'm resolving now to make a point of adding this extra column for any of my sponsee's to consider adding to their fourth step: all they need to do is make a narrow column (#3.5) for a check mark to be placed when they've begun or completed the process of forgiving those who harmed them in the past and then in their fourth column, make note of their own role in what happened and an acknowledgment that they've taken a look at that role with compassion and understanding....and forgiveness. We are, after all, sick people...and we wouldn't treat sick people any less kindly.

One technique that helped me in the forgiveness process was a Buddhist practice called the Lovingkindness Meditation. While there are many forms of this meditation, the one I've used frequently is as follows:

• May I be filled with lovingkindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.... Repeat several times until you really believe it and feel your heart soften.
• May [insert name of someone close to you and for whom you feel affection and love: I insert my wife's name, Nancy] be filled with lovingkindness. May Nancy be well. May Nancy be peaceful and at ease. May Nancy be happy. Repeat several times...
• May [now insert someone's name that may be a family member, acquaintance or someone you work with and feel "neutral" toward: I usually insert (one by one) the names of my children and their significant others] Katie and Brian be filled with lovingkindness. May Katie and Brian be well. May Katie and Brian be peaceful and at ease. May Katie and Brian be happy. Repeat several times.
• May [now insert someone's name for whom you don't feel positively toward or someone with whom you're having some sort of problem or disagreement: Given the public nature of this blog, I'm just going to makeup a name, Adam.] Adam be filled with lovingkindness. May Adam be well. May Adam be peaceful and at ease. May Adam be happy. Repeat several times. The goal here is not primarily to "change" the condition of the other person, but to change the quality and state of our own heart. To make our heart softer, more loving, kind, compassionate.

The Lovingkindness Meditation is similar, I suppose to the Resentment Prayer that someone wrote about in one of the stories in the AA Big Book. But I like it better.

For me, the benefit of the Fourth Step was in the fact that it allowed me to let go of a lot of dead weight that I'd been carrying around for a long time. I don't think that dead weight is the cause of my alcoholism, but it was something that fed my dis-ease and my drinking. Letting it go, which included some difficult remembering and forgiving both myself and others, allowed me to make significant progress in my new way of living.