Willingness: Not an Action

Willingness is not an action.  It's a state of mind that precedes certain types of actions that are called "intentional acts".  Willingness does not precede some action that is accidental.  Willingness can also precede non-action.  For example, I can be willing to make a particular amends but choose not to make that amends because I realize that it might very well harm that person (or someone else) more than help them.

The amount of willingness that is required to perform a particular action will increase in proportion to the level of unwillingness that I have toward doing the contemplated action.  This imbalance is probably the reason behind my not finishing my 4th/5th step process until I was almost two years sober.  I have no regrets about that, it's just they way it happened....and it worked.  This imbalance, with the amount of unwillingness being far greater than the amount of willingness, also was behind my inability to get sober back when I was able to stop drinking for significant periods of time, even though I had strong reasons to suspect that I, like my father before me, was an alcoholic.  The willingness "to stop forever" was never there for me because I could hold on to the belief, supported by the facts it seemed, that I could stop...if I really wanted to.  My "problem" was that I never really wanted to stop!  That is, until the day came when I simply couldn't stop. 

And when the day came that I really, really wanted to stop: I couldn't.  My willingness was far exceeding my unwillingness I believe ---- but was keeping me stuck was the firmly held belief, also supported by the facts as I understood them, that I could not "not drink".  I couldn't imagine me "not drinking" for any significant period of time.  It seemed impossible to me.  So, in a growing state of desperation and despair, I continued to drink for the next ten months.  At the beginning, most of me wanted not to get caught drinking: I didn't want to get caught because then other people would begin expecting me to do what I knew to be impossible: stop drinking!  But at then end, probably for the last month or so, I gradually began to sense a growing hope that someone would catch me in my deceit and confront me on my actions. 

And then the night came when my son almost caught me: he came out of a meeting and walked over to the car where I was waiting to pick him up and take him home.  He asked me if he could go get something to eat with his friends and I told him that it was OK with me....   He started to walk away and then I think he was confronted with something he didn't really want to do either: confront his father after smelling alcohol on his breath just then.  I can't imagine that the prospect of confronting your dad, with only 5 months and 10 days clean time and a history of screwups, relapses and run-ins with the police: and accusing him of drinking...how that would be something done lightly.  My son became willing though and his willingness saved my life.

He walked back to my car and asked if he could ask me a question.  I said yes.  So he asked, "Have you been drinking?".  My life came to a standstill.  I wanted to tell him the truth so badly!  I knew that he wouldn't get mad at me, yell at me or condemn me.  I'd seen him handle other situations like this with his friend's dads who'd been doing what I'd been doing (except for the not-getting caught part): he was always kind and gentle.  He accepted them as fellow addicts and asked them if they wanted help.  No strings attached.  No expectations.

But I couldn't tell him the truth.  What kept me from doing that was the idea, "if I tell him that I've been drinking, he'll then begin expecting me to stop!"  ---- and I can't fucking stop!!!  That's impossible.  Looking back, it seemed like I had a lot of willingness/desire at that time: but it was blocked by the certainty of the desired action being impossible. 

What happened then was I did lie to my son.  I answered, "No, I haven't been drinking."  I said it as defenselessly as I could.   My lying skills have always one of my strong points: he accepted what I said without question.  He just said that he had to ask because he smelled alcohol around my car and he couldn't not ask me this question.  He then let it go and went to have something to eat with his friends.

Me?  I sat there all alone.  Alone.  Isolated.  In my own personal hell.  I'd missed my golden opportunity to escape that hell and I was doomed.  After about an hour later, my son returned and we headed home.  We had our usual back and forth conversation that would follow me asking him "How did the meeting go?".  Just like always, he'd tell me stories without betraying confidences.  I'd listen --- feeling a growing sense of shame for my inability to face this problem with the kind of courage and persistence that my 15 year old son and these other young people were demonstrating on a daily basis.  We got home and I just walked by my wife and said that I was going to bed: I was very very tired.  It was a Friday and I'd had a very long week.  If only she knew how true that was.

I went right to sleep and then next thing I knew it was 6am the next morning and I was completely awake.  The first thought that came to my head was "I just can't stop drinking!"  It was the same thought that I had been waking up to for the last ten months, if not the last 30 years.  Then, a millisecond later, I had a second thought and that was, "Not being able to stop drinking is called "alcoholisim" and alcoholism is just a disease and I just happen to have it!"  Wow!  I just have a disease!  My body is different than those who are non-alcoholics!  In an instant, it seemed like my whole past life flashed before me and I understood everything that I had done over the years in terms of drinking and not being able to stop.  But this morning, another though followed and replaced the "hopelessness" that I had always felt in regards to the idea of "stopping" and that idea was I could do what my son had been doing: instead of "trying to stop" I could do what he had been doing, "trying to stay sober/clean one day at a time!".  In an instant my whole worldview changed.

What then happened, not that I knew it at the time, is that I became willing to try and stay sober one day at a time.  I stopped trying to stop.  As someone later told me, "I stopped stopping!".  Willingness only became effective for me after I came to a complete state of hopelessness: another state of mind.  Hopelessness is the state of mind that precedes giving up on something you want to do, but something you believe to be impossible.  I reached a state of hopelessness in terms of my belief that I could continue to drink and not be an alcoholic.  Once I was convinced to my core of the hopelessness of that, then all it took was a very small amount of willingness to try and stay sober one day, to try and do what my son had been doing successfully for over 5 months.  With willingness, I then took my first step.

Take care!

Mike L.