What's Not a Blessing?

At today's meeting, the chair suggested the topic of blessings --- in our recovery, what sort of blessings had we received as a result of our sobriety.  I never got called on, so I got to practice listening.  Everyone who shared talked of a wide array of blessings that they received since getting sober, most commented at least in passing on the blessing of sobriety itself and that certainly resonated within me. 

OK, I have to admit my listening during the meeting was frequently interrupted by memories.  I couldn't help remembering was the many things in my life which I never saw as gift or blessing when they were being experienced by me at the time.  It was only in retrospect, after getting sober, that I began to see the blessing in these supposed unfortunate or unfair circumstances in my life.  Of course, the greatest misfortune in my life was all the issues related to alcoholism: my father's alcoholism, my fear of becoming an alcoholic "like him", my son's addiction and his unknowing struggle to be just like me: a son who was not an addict like his father.

It was only after getting sober that I started looking at all these "wrongs" in a different manner and that's in large part due to a man named Earle.  Earle had gotten sober two days after I'd been born and by the time I got sober, he'd been sober for over 48 years.  Although he taught me many important lessons during the short 14 months I knew him before his death in January 2003, the greatest lessons involved learning to see myself as perfect, just as I am.  This was a message that was difficult for me to accept or even to hear.  It was seemingly inconsistent that much of the message I was hearing in the rooms of AA in my early months of recovery: the message which I heard being preached by many was that there was something terribly wrong with us and that sobriety involved not just "not drinking" but also cleaning house, being rid of defects of character and doing the right thing.  At least, that was the message that I was hearing --- probably because of my own self-hatred, guilt over what I'd done over the years and shame over the alcoholic I had become despite my fears to the contrary.

Earle seemed to speak a different and discordant language.  "Mike, you're perfect just the way you are!  You don't have to change anything!"  He seemed to know how much I wanted to be anything and to feel anything other than who I actually was and what I was actually feeling.  He would elicit from me what I was feeling at any one time, but didn't want to feel and certainly didn't want to talk about with him or anyone else.  Feelings scared the shit out of me.  I was highly sensitive, in large part because I had been without my self-prescribed medication for too long and the feelings were sensing open season on assaulting me and paying me back for years of repression and denial.

He'd ask me how things were going.  I'd try to evade him, but he was persistent beyond belief.  I'd try to appease him with a tidbit of what was going on, "Oh, I'm doing fine, thanks."   But he'd smile and say, "You wouldn't lie to an old man like me, would you?"  I'd be disarmed by his smile and laugh back and say, "Well, yes, I guess I would."  He'd laugh, and begin his gentle assault, "No, really.  How are you doing?"  I'd look up at the clock, praying that the meeting would begin soon -- but no such luck.  "Well, I'm feeling a little down I guess."

He looked like he was really listening to me.  But that obviously wasn't true, because once I was finished telling him how I was feeling, he'd ask me, "Well, what's wrong with that?"  What's wrong with feeling down?  Come on!!!  Down is not a good feeling and I deserved to feel better!  I'd been sober for two months and my reward was feeling down?  Where's the happy, joyous and freedom experience I'd been reading about?  I knew enough not to say all this to him, because he was clearly dangerous.  But he was persistent and wouldn't let me off the hook: "What's wrong with feeling down?"

I'd try to give him a few more morsels, just to tide him over until the beginning of the meeting: "Well, when I'm feeling down, I start getting depressed."  I'd give him a little more detail than that, but he was relentless.  When I'd run out of breath explaining why depression wasn't a good thing to be experiencing, he'd look at me with uncomfortable kindness and ask me again, "Well, what's wrong with feeling depressed?"

This guy was a licensed psychiatrist and a surgeon, and he didn't know what was wrong with depression?  It's an illness, for god's sake!  People go to doctors when they are depressed and I had no business being depressed.  I needed to stay sober and I wasn't going to be able to do that if I kept feeling so damned depressed!  I know, I was sitting there with such a doctor and telling him about my depression certainly didn't seem to be helping.  He just didn't seem to understand.  Ultimately, I resorted to my own scare tactics as an attempt to get him off my frustrated back and said, "You know Earle, if I keep feeling all these feelings of saddness, anger, depression, remorse, etc. -- I'm going to start wanting to drink again!"  I mistakenly thought that would shut him up and put him back in his place and far away from me.

He only smiled again and countered my evasive maneuver with, "Well, what would be wrong with that?"  Earle died before the truth of his lesson really sunk down to the core of my being.  It took a long time before the habit of distrusting and manipulating feelings began to dissolve and to be replaced by a general attitude of acceptance for whatever feeling I happened to be feeling at any particular time.

So as I listened to people's stories of supposed "good" things that had happened to them since getting sober, I couldn't help but think of Earle and I silently began compiling a list of the hidden blessings in my life that were once seen as bad or wrong: 

• my alcoholism
• my feelings
• my body
• my past and present
• death
• pain
• suffering
• my wrongs
• my mistakes
• my ignorance
• my confusion
• my uncertainty

All blessings without exception.  And when something strikes me sideways, I may not see it as blessing right away.  But I am more likely as not to eventually hear Earle's voice asking, "Well, Mike, what's wrong with that?"  Sure, I can fence around with him trying once again to evade the master.  But I inevitably end up smiling and laughing with Earle as I let him know that there's simply nothing wrong with anything in my life.  It truly is perfect just as it is.  I don't need to change a single thing.  Including the desire to change...

Take care!

Mike L.

The Amends Process: Consequences, Not Promises

I'm pretty sure I've written this before, but I'll repeat just for clarity: I don't like calling The Promises "The Promises".  Makes it sounds like God is a arcade dealer who will hand me a prize if I knock over all the bowling pins.  So I prefer calling them "The Consequences."  These sorts of things seem to happen when you go through this process, not just the 9th step itself, but all of the steps preceeding and following the 9th step.  They are quite natural consequences to the process: assuming we are painstaking (pains taking, not pains avoiding) in the process.  I realized that ever more powerfully today as I've been able to be available to my son recently as he's going through a very rough spot in his life.  And that's a consequence.  Not a promise.

To place the recent events in context: when I got sober almost 8 years ago, I had gotten to the point where I was truly disconnected from every human being who meant something to me in my life, especially my wife of 20 years and my three children, ages 14, 16 and 19.  True, we were still technically a "family" -- I was married and I was a father -- but it seemed to be more of a technical qualification than one borne out by having actual and meaningful relationships with any one of those people.  Looking back with sober eyes, I see that I really wasn't there for them because I'd found another solution that replaced the need for other people: alcohol.  When I woke up sober on 10/21/01, the obsession left me and I accepted that I had a disease and that I needed to do what my son had done in order to deal with this disease and get my life back.  And I had no idea what that would entail or how long it would take.  I just had an inkling that it would work based on what had happened with my son: he was 5 months and 10 days clean when I woke up sober.

Contrary to contemporary AA wisdom, I very quickly began working on making my amends with my family, especially my wife.   Contemporary AA wisdom seems to stress doing the steps "in order" --- but that's not really doing it by the book you see.  Check out the 12x12, the chapter on the 9th step, and you'll discover that it acknowledges and even tacitly encourages the newcomer to begin the amends process early on in their recovery---true, there are some well chosen caveats to that effort to keep these amends efforts from causing additional injury/harm to that which we've already caused in the past.  But it seems to say that this need to try and repair or heal some of the damage that we've done in our relationships with others is a normal human need and that we needn't avoid doing what we can toward reconciliation even though we may not have even contemplated doing some of the earlier steps.

Two of these early efforts at mending involved my using the words, "I'm sorry...." and looking back, I think those were the only amends I ever made which included the phrase, "I'm sorry...".   In my first couple of months, there were several discussions with my wife where I would attempt to repair the damage of my actions and words with "I'm sorry..." and I truly meant that when I said it --- but it never seemed to have any positive impact on my wife.  It did have negative impacts in that much of what I was saying "sorry" for were things that hurt her deeply and challenged her capacity to trust, to forgive, to tolerate, to understand or to have compassion toward... me.

The other "I'm sorry" occurred around Christmas time, two months sober.  My oldest daughter had returned home from a year abroad studying.  Being away in Ireland, she'd missed being here when her younger brother had gotten clean and sober.  And she'd missed the last ten months of my drinking in secret and the last two months of my sobriety.  She returned home with a huge bag of resentment slung invisibly over her shoulder:  my son had, in her view, destroyed her childhood; her father had, in her view, never really been there for her.

One afternoon, my wife, daughter and I were sitting in the living room.  I was minding my own business, as I recall, probably reading a book.  They were chatting back and forth, watching TV.  Eventually their "chat" turned into a full fledged argument and at some point, my daughter said something extremely rude and somewhat vulgar to her month.  I stupidly stepped in to the fray and told my daughter, "Katie, you can't talk to your mother like that!".  She looked directly at me and snapped, "We weren't talking to you." and she paused as her resentments surfaced from the dark deep hole within and then she added, "And you never have been there for me.  Ever."  I don't remember the context of the whole discussion/argument or why that last comment was relevant to what was going on, but regardless, they struck me to my core.  And I started crying.   All I had every really wanted to be was a good father.  And it was clear as mud that I'd failed miserably in doing that.

My wife then came to my defense and jumped down Katie's throat, disputing the truth of Katie's hate-filled words to her father.  "That's not true!  Your dad has always been there for you.  He coached your basketball team, he's been to all of your plays, he's worked hard to provide home and shelter to you!"  I interrupted her though and held up my hand, "Nancy, stop.  Katie's right.  I haven't really been there for her in many many ways during her life.  I wasn't there for her emotionally because I was so wrapped up in my own problems that I didn't let anyone close to me and I couldn't get close to anyone, including all of you."  I was crying through all of that.  Barely able to talk.  At the end, I just looked at Katie and told her that I was sorry for not being there for her when she was growing up.  And that I was trying to deal with my problems, not just the drinking, but the living problems.  I was trying.   Katie didn't really say anything, but the moment was over.  I'd begun the amends process with my oldest daughter. 

That process took a long time.  Years.  It didn't involve any more "I'm sorry" statements from me.  It did involve my being there for my daughter.  Most recently, I was there for her when she got married.  I stayed out of most of the planning details (I'm not stupid!) but I did everything I was asked to do, without complaint.  Willingly.  Excitedly.  Gratefully.  I was available to her and her fiance when they struggled with the inevitable ups and downs of relationship and growing up.  I shared my experience and my hope.  Our house gradually became a home again.  Arguments and blowups gradually faded away; laughter, joking and compassion returned.  She asked me to dance with her at her wedding and asked me to protect her from anyone else from dancing with her (other than her husband) -- she hates dancing as much as her father! -- and I was there with her on the dance floor.  Being dad.  When we were done, my son and wife came dancing up next to us.  Nancy asked Katie if she wanted to switch partners and she said OK.  I then moved over to dance with my son, my wife awkwardly and laughing from her deepest self, began dancing with her daughter.  Being mom.   Being family.  Again. 

As the wedding reception was coming to a close, I saw my youngest daughter dancing, glowing with what can only be described as pure joy and happiness.  Rachel had lived through my son and my "dark years" and had survived and flourished.   She has a compassion and kindness and sensitivity that exceeds that of any saint that I've ever read about---and none of that would have been there were it not for both the "dark years" and the recovery accomplished by my son and me.  And so, I got up and went on to the dreaded dance floor one more time: and danced.  I even did my best at doing my daughter's "signature move" -- which is indescribable in written word and barely capturable on camera.  Someone did try their best though and that blurry image of me and Rae, still resides on my daughter's cell phone and shared with anyone and everyone as one of the most glorious moments in my life.

These consequences are truly beyond my wildest imagination or hope.  There is no justice in them.  That's why when someone asks me "how's life treating you?" my response is always: "Unfairly!  If it were treating me fairly, I'd be dead."   I think I'm ready for November to come now.  I'm ready for Gratitude.

Take care!

Mike L.