Our Part

Last night I got to get away to a meeting, my first once since beginning my vacation almost a week ago. It was a small group in a small Oregon coast town. They each seemed to know each other as the back of their own hands and welcomed me as a visitor without any hesitation. Very informal format which came from the fact that they all knew each other so well. When no one stepped up with a topic, they grabbed one of the daily meditation/reading books and made that the topic: I heard the reading to talk about relationships and the sickening role resentments can play in relationships if we let them. Others heard anything from the 4th, 5th and 6th steps, or an opportunity to share their story of recovery with a fresh face (me) in the meeting.

I shared with them my own most recent experience with deep hurt morphing into resentment and how AA had taught me the importance of focusing on "our part" if we are to find any sense of peace and serenity in our recovery. This experience came during my youngest daughter's wedding reception about a month ago now.

Rachel had asked me about a week before the wedding to give a talk at the reception. This meant a lot to me and for the entire week between then and the wedding, I spent numerous hours crafting the perfect talk for my daughter and her soon to be husband. I never wrote a thing down on paper. I just started drafting my talk out loud in the car as I drove to a from work that week. The centerpiece of the talk was a quote that I had memorized years ago (even before I was sober) from a book called "The Magical Child" by Jonathan Chilton Pierce. I began reading that book shortly after our first child was born and something at the beginning of the second chapter gave me a great sense of peace and comfort at the overwhelming panic I began to experience at the thought of what this newborn child was going to need from me and how little prepared I felt to provide what she so needed from me. The quote was:

Matrix is Latin for the word womb. From that word, we get the words matter, material, mater, mother and so on. These all refer to the basic stuff, the physical substance from which all life derives.

The womb offers three gifts to the newly forming life: a sense of possibility, a sense of energy with which to explore those possibilities and a safe place from which those explorations can take place.

Whenever these three needs are met, we have a matrix. And the growth of intelligence takes place by utilizing the energy given to explore the possibilities given while standing in the safe place given by the matrix.

By the time the day of the wedding arrived, my talk was ready for primetime. It was perfect. I had every word right, the tones and inflections just right. At the end of each practice recitation, I cried. And I knew that my words would strike my daughter the same way. I was ready.

Just before it came time for me to give my talk, my son (who was Rachel's Maid of Honor) and my oldest daughter Katie (who served as Rachel's Matron of Honor) gave their talk to their sister and her new husband. It was wonderful. My son came "this" close to being inappropriate about three or four times, but always stayed this side of the line he's spent years crossing. During their talk, my wife leaned over to me and asked me to walk down to them and take the microphone from them and ask them to "hurry it up". I looked at her aghast and she said, "No, if you do it, it will be funny! If I do it, it will look controlling." I responded that "It wouldn't be funny even if I did it--because it WAS controlling!" Shortly after that, their talk came to a funny and heartfelt end and the microphone was turned over to me to say a few short words to Rachel and Daniel.

I walked down and took the microphone and began my talk. I shared that when I was their age, I discovered what was most important to me to accomplish in life and that was to become a father, a parent. That shortly thereafter, I met Nancy and fell in love. We were married and began having children. And I got scared. Then someone gave me a book called The Magical Child by Jonathan Chilton Pierce.

At that point, I realized that someone, my wife, was now standing beside me. Nancy reached out and took the mic and said, "Mike, can you hurry it up? We only have this place until 10 o'clock!" Everyone laughed, I suppose all of them know I don't have a short story in me. I didn't laugh though because it threw me off balance as I was trying to recite the perfect talk to my daughter and I realized there was no way to finish this talk as I had planned it in my head ahead of time. As Nancy walked away, I knew that my perfect talk had been destroyed but that I couldn't do anything but try to move forward without making a complete disaster out of it. So, I went on to quote most of Pierce's magical words, left off the last sentence and also some other parts of the remaining part of my perfect talk. No one but me knew that their was anything left out. All of them, including Rachel, thought it was a beautiful talk -- very much from my heart, very much Mike. Everyone but me.

Me? I was deeply hurt. I was angry that Nancy had attempted to control the situation -- for whatever reason that might have been for her. I blamed her for ruining my perfect talk, my perfect moment, my perfect gift to my daughter. Ruining something that simply could not be recreated or repaired. That moment was over and done with. There was no way to rewind or
"do over". But I knew that I could not share my hurt with my wife -- it would destroy her. She had put so much into creating the perfect wedding for our daughter: collecting 200 dinner plates from garage sales and antique shops over the last year that would make this a unique event for our guests, finding the perfect venue for this wedding, the perfect flowers, the table gifts for our guests (small Heinz catsup bottles with Rachel and Daniel's names and wedding date--Rachel is a catsup addict), etc. If she knew that her funny interruption of my talk, meant only to keep things "light" when I had a tendency to be serious and philosophical and longwinded, had actually hurt my feelings at such a deep level, it would kill her and destroy her memory of this wonderful wedding day.

So I kept my hurt inside and tried to rationalize it away. I thought of ways that I could get around this unfortunate situation without talking it out with my wife: i.e., I could formalize my talk "in full" onto a plaque and give it to them on their 30 day anniversary, I could "let it go" and move on, etc. But the hurt remained and within two days it had morphed into a full blown resentment. Resentment is a decision to hold on to a feeling beyond its normal lifetime. And that's what I did: I held on and more, I nursed it and fed it. And it grew. By Monday, all it took was some little annoying comment made by my wife before I snapped at her with far more feeling than her comment deserved. And she snapped back with deeply held hurts/resentments of her own. Because we were in the company of other family members, we covered over our anger "until later".

When "later" arrived that evening after all family and friends had left to return home, Nancy look over at me and asked, "Well, are you going to apologize for what happened today?" I looked at her and kept all my vicious responses inside my head where they belonged and said nothing. Silence is my favorite weapon in battles like this--although at the time, I really don't realize I'm using this as a weapon -- I am just trying not to hurt someone I love and the only way I know how to do this when I'm feeling such strong and powerful emotions is to be silent. Of course, that silence is the one thing that hurts Nancy the most.

So, she then asked, "Is this apology going to be something that comes in a day or so, or after a week?" I keep my silence as long as I could and ended it by saying the kindest thing I could, "I'm leaning more toward a week...." Amazingly, she didn't reply with anything other than her own silence.

The next day, I got up early and went to an early meeting before heading to work. It was a step meeting and they were reading Step 4 from the 12x12. For some reason, this morning, the whole chapter spoke directly to me and what I had been going through in the last four days and unfortunately, it was all about looking for my part in this whole ordeal. I didn't want to hear anything but "her part" but I realized that focusing on her part was what I had been doing for all of the last four days and all that had gotten me was more and more suffering and more and more pain. As I surrendered to the idea that I could get relief from this suffering and pain only by taking a serious and careful look at "my part" did things start to change for me. I briefly shared my discovery of my part with the group: my part was all the expectations I had placed in coming up with the perfect talk, giving that perfect talk at this one point in time and history "no matter what", my thinking I had some control over the outcome of all my preparations and planning and efforts, and, most of all, my decision after my wife's interruption not to go ahead by reciting exactly what I had planned without any edits or rushing things! True, she interrupted my perfect talk, but I'm the one who changed the talk from that point forward. Not her. Me. God, I hate it when I'm wrong!

I drove to work as usual, but I spent the time again reviewing my part in all of this and seeing that I needed to make an amends to her rather than holding on to the falsehood that she owed me a huge amends... That night, as I was leaving work (trying to avoid the inevitable I suppose...) I texted her and told her that "I was going to be home around 7, with humble pie and an apology." She replied quickly that "Blackberry would be sufficient...". I knew it was going to be alright then. That night, I started off my apology by telling her that I needed her to understand that what I was going to tell her that night had NOTHING to do with her or anything that she had done. I had discovered earlier that day what had been bothering me for the last five days was something that I had done, even though I had been mistakenly thinking it was something she had done to hurt me the day of Rachel's wedding. I told her that earlier that day, it dawned on me that it wasn't anything she had done that had really hurt me, but rather, what I had done myself that was the true cause of my hurt. That said, I told her the story of what I saw happening the night of my "perfect talk" and how hurt I was by what happened that night after her interruption.

As expected, my sharing this information with her hurt her deeply and profoundly. She stood up crying, saying that I had ruined the memory of this wedding for her... All feelings that she had a perfect right to have and to feel and to share with me, but none of which really had anything to do with me (thank God I'd learned something in these years of recovery!). After a few minutes of some painful sharing, all things between us came back together and we were reconnected again in no more than 10 minutes. My irrational fear of her feelings and reactions has always been a self-constructed roadblock to me being myself and expressing my feelings to this woman who I love and adore more than anyone on the planet. You'd think after more than 30 years of marriage I would get over this.... But then, if you were thinking that, I suspect that you don't have 30 years of marriage!

By the time the next night came around, she was able to share with me that earlier at work, one of the nuns at her school walked up to her and said that her favorite part of the whole wedding was when Nancy interrupted Mike's talk (this nun was my former Department Chair when I taught religion at this same school where my wife is now principal...) --- sure, Mike's talk was great and touching and "pure Mike!" it was Nancy's lighthearted interruption that brought a lightness to the whole event that made this one of the perfect Mike/Nancy gatherings. And we laughed. And then I began rubbing her feet --- a self-imposed penance that I've lived now for nine and a half years of recovery and expect to be doing for the remainder of that recovery and for the remainder of this life/marriage.

The freedom gained by focusing on my part has been great to be sure.

Take care!

Mike L.

A Different Perspective on Turning Things Over

Until recently, when I heard other members talk about the concept of turning things over I'd always interpreted them to be saying that they were giving something (i.e., some problem) over to their Higher Power, you know, God.  This morning as I was driving to work and beginning to go through my various prayers and other recitations, I discovered another way at seeing this turning over process.

I was reciting a poem by Rumi called "The Guest House" -- a really beautiful poem that I found in one of Jack Kornfield's books several years ago.  I have recited this poem to myself many many times over the last two years, but only this morning did I see it differently.  I saw it as a most insightful, beautiful and powerful description of what I've been doing recently in terms of "shadow work."

“The Guest House” by Rumi

This being human is a guest house,
every morning, a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness:
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all,
even if they are a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweep your house empty of all its furniture.

Still treat each guest honorably;
they may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice:
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

This poem seems to capture the essence of shadow work: The Guest House is my highest Self and these guests are not so much outsiders coming in, but insiders coming out into the open as unexpected visitors.  My past (and present...) strategy of avoiding and destroying these unwanted visitors was/is the very building process of my Shadow self.  This new strategy of "welcome" toward Shadow self will, so my little voice tells me and which I believe, transform this shack of a self into a home, filled with light and shadows, laughter and tears, and room for all.

The only change I am going to make to this poem now (which will now make this "my poem") is the last word.  My new ending will be "Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from within."

How does this relate to the concept of turning over?  Well, once I'd meditated on this poem in the light of my shadow work, I remembered this concept of turning over and as I was mulling it over I remember my father teaching me about a gardening technique called "turning over":  at a certain time of year (I think it was this time of year if I'm not mistaken..) after the plants had finished producing all their flowers and/or fruit, it was important to "turn over" the ground of the garden.  This turning over process involved taking a shovel or pitch fork and digging up the earth and turning it over so that the bottom most soil was now on top and the soil that was on top was now on the bottom.  Once this was done, the remaining work would be done by Nature: the dry leaves and depleted soil would now be underneath the surface and there in the dark (shadow) the dead leaves would be transformed into new and rich soil.  And there would come a time, in it's proper season, for the turning over process to be repeated.  Again.  And Again.  And Again.

And this is how I'm feeling now with this new Shadow work adventure.  It's a turning over process within me.  There's nothing really to be afraid of.  I just need to turn the soil.  Nature will do all of the real work, the real healing.

Take care!

Mike L.

The Object of Our Focus

In several recent meetings, people have been talking about their struggles with getting rid of defects of character. It's coming not so much from those new in the process, but from those with quite a few years. I've never been a big fan of this whole issue of defects of characters and I've written about that before, so won't repeat it here. What I haven't talked about though, is how I approach those things in me that I don't particularly like or which seem to cause me and/or others harm or hurt.

My approach, like most things AA, is not really original. I first learned about this technique by reading Dr. Paul O's story in the Big Book (Acceptance is the Answer) and seeing how he dealt with these defects in himself and in others by not focusing on them, but rather, focusing on what's good in others and in himself. He described this as his "magnifying mind" --- whatever he focused on got bigger. If he focused on his wife's weaknesses, it was the weaknesses that would grow and multiply. If, on the other hand though, he focused on the good qualities in his wife, those qualities seemed to magically grow. In fact, they grew so much that they seemed to annihilate the negative traits that used to occupy all his waking moments. He found the same thing to be true in terms of how he looked at himself: if he focused on the negative, the negative grew. If he focused on the positive, the positive grew.

I also learned about this different approach to living from Dr. Earle (also an author of one of the stories in the Big Book, Physician Heal Thyself). He too was not a big fan of the defect of character bandwagon in AA and didn't spend much time at all talking about such rubbish. He encouraged newcomers to not rush into the 4th/5th step process --- to hold off on that until at least a year of being sober. He felt that most of us were sufficiently convinced of how horrible we were as human beings that we didn't need to devote excessive energy in early recovery on giving more strength to such self-loathing and self-hatred. Of course, if someone had something really bothering them and weighing them down, he'd always make himself available to talk that stuff out so that it didn't drag us down into a dark hole---but for the most part, he suggested that people focus on healing their bodies, getting connected with others in recovery and getting settled in the "not drinking" part of the program.

In my own early recovery, I bought into the popular AA logic in terms of expending much energy trying to change myself and my surroundings and relationships. Tried to repair years of damage in a single bound only to cause even more harm and hurt. Eventually, I was convinced that that was not working and worse than not working, it was causing more harm. I became willing to try another way and that's when I started trying to develop the new habits of being kind toward myself and others, trying not to tear myself and others down by judgments and condemnation, trying to find compassion for myself and others.

Eventually, I started seeing that each of my so-called "defects" were like coins: they all had at least two sides. The side that I had always seen as the bad, negative and painful side. But they also had another side to them which seemed to balance things out for me: the other side was the good and the whole. Alcoholism is the best example of one of the coins: the negative side was easy (too easy) for me to see and document. But the positive side put things in balance: were I not an alcoholic, I would not have all that I have in my life right now: my recovery, my relationship with my son, my wife and other children. None of those relationships would be as deep and real as they are were it not for the fact that I am an alcoholic in recovery. And I wouldn't be an alcoholic in recovery if I had not been an alcoholic in my disease. Both sides of that coin are absolutely necessary, and therefore, good.

So in the end, I've come to see so-called defects of character not as cancerous growths requiring surgical removal. I see them more as leaves on the tree of my life: each and every one has a reason and a purpose. And each and everyone one of them will eventually serve it's purpose and will eventually fall to the ground. I don't need to rip them off: they will fall when it's their time.

My life goes though cycles of growth, hibernation, death and rebirth. Everything is perfect. Everything has been perfect. Everything will be perfect. Just the way it is.

Take care!

Mike L.

Character Trait Building

I've been feeling particularly grateful in recent days for the fact that none of my sponsors saw fit to over-emphasize the importance of dedicating lots of effort toward 'removing one's character defects.'

Earle told me very early in my recovery process that he strongly believed that many people rush too quickly into the 4th step process. He said that most of us come into these rooms pretty well beaten up, demoralized, ashamed and guilty beyond comprehension. In his less than humble opinion (that's normal I suppose for someone with 48 years sober...), people would be better off waiting about a year before beginning the 4th step process. Of course, if there was something heavy troubling you, don't hesitate to talk that out with someone....but other than that just focus on staying sober, connecting with others in this fellowship and working the first 3 steps. I took that advice, and ran with it! (Didn't really begin focusing on the 4th step until just before Earle's death, 14 months after I got sober.)

After that advice was given, whenever the topic of character defects would come up though, I got the clear impression that Earle was not much into what seemed to be the AA character removal bandwagon. That isn't to say that he didn't see great healing power in the process of self-knowledge and understanding, or the process of honest self-disclosure to another human being---he certainly did. He was a psychiatrist for Christ's sake!

I think what troubled him (and me) about all the emphasis and emotional effort being placed into character defects was the almost gleeful way people talked about how bad they were and had been in the past. "You think you were bad? Listen to this badder story about me!" And also on how formalistic or legalistic the 4th step process had become---people were so busy thinking in terms of 'form' (where's your fourth column? did you write it all down? did you include all the sexual stuff?) that they paid little attention to the substance of self-reflection and remorse....

No, Earle didn't spend much time on defects of character. In some sense, he didn't even believe in their existence. "Mike," he would often say, "you are perfect just the way you are. You don't need to change anything at all. Don't even waste your time trying."

Looking back now, I see that I haven't spent much time at all in the last seven years worrying about getting rid of those pesky defects of character. So you might wonder, whatever happened to those defects? Or as Dr. Phil would say, "So, how's that working for you Mike?". Well, it's working fine -- thank you for asking.

The defects which were grabbing most of my (and my wife's!) attention are still there, alive and well.... But they appear to be less harmful to me and others, less glaring, less annoying, less fearful, less shameful, less burdensome.

They seem to be melting. Dying from a lack of attention. Instead, I am learning to be more kind, compassionate, passionate, gentle, forgiving, humble, funny, light-hearted....loving and loved.
Character trait building has been very good for me. I think i'll keep going down this path.

Take care!

Mike L.

Key Things to Include in a Fourth Step

I once heard a guy (he later became one of my sponsors) say that what he felt was most important to include in a fourth step were those events in our past that made us “wince”. When he said the word “wince” he puckered up his face as though he had just bit into a lemon. I knew exactly the sorts of things he meant: those events in my past that brought high levels of shame and guilt to my consciousness.

I was probably a year and a half sober before I felt ready to do my fourth step. I’d been in no real rush, in large part because the compulsion/obsession to drink had completely left me the moment I awoke the morning following my last drink, two days before my first AA meeting. I never felt compelled or motivated to work the steps due to a desire to stop drinking because that desire had already left me. My only motivations to work the steps were that there was a part of me that suspected that if I didn’t, the desire/compulsion to drink might return; that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be considered a “full member” of AA; that if I didn’t, the drinking dream might become a drinking reality and hell.

Those motivations got me to begin working the steps, but really, I became open to each step because in each case, I became convinced that the process would lead me to a better way of living, greater serenity and some sense of contentment. So I dove into the steps, one at a time. I’m sure that I did them differently than most, but doing things differently is something that comes naturally for me.

My first step sort of happened without my really knowing it and without my awareness of what was happening. It began in January 2001 when my 15 year old son began his own recovery---neither of us knew it at the time, but when he entered a drug treatment program, that was the moment in time when I was finally unable to stop drinking. Until then, I had always been able “to stop” --- that is, stop long enough to convince myself (or my wife) or others that I was really not an alcoholic. Inevitably, every stopping led to a moment where I became convinced that I apparently could stop drinking and if that were true, I was obviously not an alcoholic! With that awareness in hand, I could safely resume drinking: being as careful as I could not to have another “alcoholic incident”. The day would always come for such another alcoholic incident, to be followed by another display of control via stopping, becoming convinced that I’d really stopped, resuming, etc. What made that moment in January 2001 different from the others is that at that moment I knew, for the first time ever, that I couldn’t stop. No way. No fucking way. True, I loved my son more than life itself and clearly, he needed to stop! But I couldn’t. I needed it like oxygen.

My first step ended the morning of October 20, 2001 when I awoke and realized that I couldn’t stop drinking; that this inability to stop drinking is what they were calling “alcoholism”, that alcoholism was a disease and that I had it. On that morning, I realized or accepted that this simply was what it was and that, like my son, I had the ability to do something about it: I could begin a process of recovery along the lines of what he had been doing. Some months later and after many AA meetings (many of them Step Meetings) it dawned on me that my first step had already happened and all I needed to do was accept that fact. I did and the first step was done, fully cooked, as it were.

The second and third steps sort of blended together for me over the next year. Once I was able to understand that neither of these steps had anything at all to do with “God” as I understood God, but more to do with coming to a comfort level with the fact that in terms of my recovery, my “higher power” was really “Truth” (the truth I was an alcoholic and that I was not going to have to deal with that fact and with my recovery all by myself…) and that the so-called God issue was really not much of a concern for me in terms of my own recovery. That completed my second step.

The third step was a little more challenging in that everyone I heard talk about their 3rd step in meetings kept referring to the step involving kneeling down and praying the 3rd Step Prayer with their sponsor. Communal prayers in AA have always bothered me and for quite a few years now I’ve chosen not to participate in the act of communal prayer in an AA meeting. I remain silent during recitations of both the Serenity Prayer and Lord’s Prayer. And, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I did my third step without ever kneeling down, with or without a sponsor or anyone else nearby. My third step was completed, I think, when I realized that much of my past life, drinking and sober, had been done with the unconscious conviction that I was God: if life wasn’t the way I wanted it, I took on the role of God by trying my best to make it the way it was supposed to be. If my feelings were not what I wanted (and they NEVER were!) then I took on the role of God (often with the assistance of alcohol) and tried my best to change those feelings.
My third step was a commitment to begin letting go of that conviction to be God and just remain content being me, just as I was at any particular moment in time. The third step, like the first two, are part of a daily practice for me.

Some time following the time I heard the guy talk about a fourth step involving listing things that made us “wince”, I sat down on a hill overlooking the ocean and took out my handheld computer (Blackberry) and started a note called “4th”. I then gave my self permission to begin to remember events in my past that qualified as “wincers” and each time one floated to the surface, I simply typed a short phrase that described that event. I didn't go into detail as they were already clear in my mind. I just wrote enough to remind me later which events in my past qualified as wincers.

I meditated on each incident and remembered as much as I could as to the circumstances around that event, what was going on, who was involved, why I did what I did. Always in the background of my consciousness was the idea I heard expressed by Maya Angelow, "We did then what we knew how to do, when we knew better, we did better." There was very little self-hatred in this process. In fact, looking back, there was no fear or shame at all. I was just remembering and noting. No judgment. After about an hour or so, I was done. Sure, over the next several weeks, I would sometime remember something else that qualified as a wincer, and I would just open up my 4th note, and add that event to the list.

To be totally honest, today I can't remember one single thing from that list. Oh, I'm sure several of them had something to do with sex (with or without others involved), but I really can't remember any of these shamefilled events that I carried with me for so long. Several had to do with situations involving my drinking and how that hurt me or others I loved. I'm sure that if I tried, I could recreate the list, but I really don't see much point in doing that. It would be like opening up a scab and causing the bleeding to resume --- the scab is a natural part of the healing process and if we just let the body do its work, the healing takes place. The trick with the 4th step for me, was to let the healing take place as a part of the natural process of recovery. It was really no big deal.

The other thing that helped me get through the 4th step as well as I did was that I took my grand-sponsor's advice and avoid the two main hurdles to any of the steps: (1) forgetting about the previous steps that had been completed...in this case, that meant not forgetting all that I'd learned through working the first three steps! and (2) thinking about the next step...in this case, worrying about the 5th step and sharing what was on my 4th step list. I didn't forget the first three steps and I really didn't pay much attention or worry about what was going to come after the 4th step. That would come when it was time. More about that some other day.

Take care!

Mike L.

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.