The One Obstacle to Grace

This morning, the chairperson at the meeting was telling her beautiful recovery story when she got to the moment where for some strange reason she too was able to stop drinking.  It happened one morning in January 1999.  It was seemingly no different from any of the mornings over the last few years since she really started trying to get and stay sober.  During those two years, she'd started going to AA and she kept going back even after she would drink again.  Then came this one morning where she woke up and something different happened.  Something changed.

As she talked more about this particular morning, she wondered aloud,"I don't know what was different on that morning."  Nothing, as far as she could tell, had changed.  It was a morning like many many others that followed another attempt to drink like a normal person.  That history notwithstanding, that morning she was struck by a new resolve born of desperation:  she was going to do "whatever it took" to stay sober that day.  Now, 11 years later, she still really doesn't have any idea what really changed that morning to allow her sobriety to take hold and to last--at the very least--until this day.

As soon as she talked about that special morning -- I became entranced with my own memories of my special morning almost 9 years ago.  You see, I had that same identical experience of having many months of waking up confronted by the same idea: "I can't stop drinking!!"   And like her, on my special morning something changed and I knew it as soon as it happened.  For some reason, that morning I had a second thought follow the first: "Not being able to stop drinking is called alcoholism.  And alcoholism is a disease."  Wow.  Or rather, Duh!  A 1st Step moment.

What's a little strange is that I had already known the fact about alcoholism being a disease for many years--at least at a head level, but it had never sunk to heart level until that special morning.  I suppose that in the past, I'd always thought I could either overcome that inability with even greater willpower or I could just give up trying and just do my best to not get caught.  It was a disease that would or could go away.  Not one that would always be a part of me.

Today, when the chairperson wondered aloud that she didn't have a clue as to what happened that morning, I realized that something I had read last night that seemed to hold the answer to this question, at least for me.  Last night before going to bed, I was reading another book by David Richo, this one called When Love Meets Fear. In it, he said something along the lines of this:

The one obstacle to grace is control.

That's what happened to me that special morning of October 20, 2001!  On that day I gave up trying to control my drinking.  I realize now that trying to stop drinking is yet another attempt to to control not alcohol, but to control alcoholism.  Prior to that morning, I was trying to stop drinking only as a means to avoid being an alcoholic.  And in my insane mind, stopping drinking was the only way to avoid being or becoming an alcoholic.  And I just did not want to be an alcoholic like my dad (or even my son!). 

The thought or desire to be someone other than who you are is insane.  And that's why I'd never been able to stop drinking: because as soon as I'd convince myself that I had stopped, then I'd say to myself, "Well, you've stopped!  Therefore, you're not really an alcoholic!"  And inevitably, like most alcoholics who finally convince themselves that they are really not an alcoholic: I'd celebrate by drinking!

What happened to me that special morning was that I unknowingly (but willingly) gave up my control over my alcoholism and my never-ending problem with stopping drinking.  And as result, I think, grace was able to step into the process.  Grace: an unmerited gift.  As a result of grace, I was able to stop stopping.  As a result of grace, I was able to start trying to stay sober, as an alcoholic, one day at a time.

What I'm focusing on today is the fact that control has many forms and manifestations in my life today.  Control will lead me to believe that a particular feeling, say anxiety, depression, sadness, or loneliness, should be allowed to be or to surface.  And as a result of that decision of control, I then choose to seek some alternative or escape to the undesirable or unwanted feeling.  I run.  I go to a meeting.  I get up and do anything other than just sit.  I try to use some AA tool, like writing a gratitude list, as a surefire means of avoiding the feelings that want to see the light of day.  True, these are all better choices to drinking!  But they are similar ways of controlling life as life is.  Not something I want to do.  [I know, grace is not retroactive -- it's always right here, right now--so I don't need to waste time beating myself up for all my past attempts to avoid reality or to run from feelings.]

Over the next week, I'm going to try and become more aware of these moments which tend to lead me to unskilled attempts to control what's coming up naturally from within.  I'm going to try and let those feelings be just as they are for at least one minute more than I would habitually do previously.  I'm going to try and be open to moments of grace.

And I'm apparently going to do that while I'm in Las Vegas, Nevada where I'm heading now for a five day business conference!  There's something hilarious in this plan to be sure.

Take care!

Mike L.