Prerequisites to Critical Moments

As I've mentioned several times recently, I've been chewing on something I read recently and I just can't let it go:  The one obstacle to grace is control.  Ever since I read that line in David Richo's book, When Love Meets Fear, I've seemed to have this truth front and center in my consciousness most of the days since I first read it.  As I've been doing this "fear work" that I also mentioned in my last blog entry, the connection between the felt need to control things in my life and fearfulness is so close as to make them indistinguishable.

This morning as I was thinking about three of my sponsees who are all seemingly stuck in a very early recovery, I had a series of thoughts that sort of came pouring out: 

• the prerequisite of grace is letting go of control
• the prerequisite of letting go of control is willingness
• the prerequisite of willingness is not wanting to do something
• the prerequisite to doing something that you don't want to do is hopelessness or despair.

It's very hard to watch people holding on to control as though their life depended on their holding on to what they are holding on to.  It's especially hard when you know that the solution is not in holding on, but in letting go.

I just left a men's meeting at Old St. Mary's Church in downtown San Francisco.  The man who led the meeting read something from page 164 in the Big Book, including the most humble of all lines in our Big Book: "Our book is meant to be suggestive only.  We realize we know only a little."  I am truly aware of my own ignorance when it comes to what will work for another person.  I barely know what works for me and oftentimes I only learn that after thousands of failures and deadends and lots of pain.

So what do I know when I suggest to another suffering alcoholic that they consider trying what worked for me?  Nothin.  If anyone had suggested that I "let go" a moment before I did on the morning of October 20, 2001, I would have told them to go to hell and I would have stomped off without a clue as to what else I might try.  I let go only when there was no energy left to hold on and no other options.

I suppose that will happen with these guys also.  Or at least, I hope so.  There's always the other alternatives of jails, institutions and death.  Once again, I have to let the disease do the hard work of sponsoring the guys dumb enough to ask me to sponsor them.

Take care!

Mike L.

The Pre-Requisites of Willingness

I've been going through something of writer's block recently.  Felt that I had sort of said everything I had to say.  That everytime I sat down to write, there was an eery feeling that I'd already told that story.  I took a break I suppose so that I could come up with some new stories.

The other night the speaker asked us to talk about willingness because she was at a point in her life where she was unwilling to be willing.  And that frightened her.

Whenever willingness is the topic, I always remember a woman who was new to the area and had just been asked to chair a meeting at the last moment.  I was probably two years sober at the time.  During her chair, she said that her favorite quote in recovery was a line that she had stolen from her sponsor in Santa Cruz.  The sponsor had often said that "she got sober at the corner of Grace and Willingness."  I was immediately struck at how beautiful that line was.  I went up to her after the meeting and asked her to chair a meeting for me in several weeks.  She was glad to.  She was trying to get to as many different meetings as possible now that she was in this new area with no friends or connections.

Between that night and the day she was to chair for me, I kept going back over the line she'd stolen from her sponsor and while I really understood the beauty of that description of where her sponsor had gotten sober, I knew that I hadn't gotten sober on that same corner.  Grace was right on: when I got sober, it was pure gift.  I'd done nothing at all to achieve the sobriety I achieved the morning of October 20th in the year 2001.  The night before, I'd taken my son to one of his 12 Step meetings (he was 15 and had 5 months and 10 days sober...) and then hid myself away in a local bar to have what became, to date, my last two drinks.  Two goblet sized gin martinis.  When I left the bar, I didn't feel drunk but was probably over the legal limit.  I went to pickup my son after his meeting.  He smelled the liquor and asked me if I'd been drinking.  I lied.  He let it go.

I'd wanted to tell him the truth.  But had I done that, I would have had to stop drinking.  Or at least go through the public motions of trying to stop drinking, while knowing in my heart of hearts that it simply wasn't possible.  So I lied.  We went home.  Chatted about what the meeting had been like.  I went in the house, told my wife that I was very tired and was going straight to bed.  I was very tired.  I'd been hiding my drinking for over 10 months and it was horrible.  I was lonely, isolated.  Controlling my drinking was very draining!  Around people all day---but connecting with no one.

The following morning, I woke up at 6am with the clearest of all true thoughts: "I can't stop drinking."  A thought I'd woken up to many, many times before over the previous 30 years.  More and more frequently as the years and the disease progressed.  And then the miracle happened with another thought, "Not being able to stop drinking is called Alcoholism--and alcoholism is a disease that I just happened to have."  Within a nanosecond, a third thought followed: "That's OK -- I can do what Pat (my son) had been doing."  And then I saw myself sitting in a circle of folks and when my turn came to check-in (it was one of the weekly multi-family group sessions at my son's recovery treatment center), I saw myself raise my hand and say, "My name is Mike and I'm an alcoholic."  The obsession I'd been living under for years left me with that disclosure to non-existent people.

Well, that moment was certainly one of Grace.  Grace was surely one of the streets which intersected my moment of recovery.  But was that a moment of Willingness?  Not really.  It was something else and I just couldn't think of what else other than grace brought about my sobriety.  What was the other street.  I thought about that for several weeks and it didn't get resolved until the morning I woke up to go secretary the Sunday Step meeting at the Lafayette Hut, the meeting where the line thieving sponsee was going chair for me.  That morning I realized where I got sober and I was feeling like I was going to explode inside until I could share my truth with the woman chairing for me that morning.

When she walked into the meeting, she walked over to sit in what I sometimes call the most uncomfortable chair in an AA meeting.  When she sat down, I welcomed her to the Hut -- and then leaned over to tell her that for several weeks I had been trying to figure out "where" had I had gotten sober.  She looked puzzled (as people often do when I'm talking to them!) and I reminded her about her favorite line and told her that while I loved the line as much as she did, I knew that that was not where I got sober.  I didn't get sober at Grace and Willingness.  She smiled and asked me, "Well, where did you get sober?"

I got sober at the corner of Grace and Hopelessness, about a half block down from Grace and Willingness.  What happened that morning for me was a moment of grace which occurred only because I had reached a point of utter hopelessness in terms of my ability to stop drinking.  What happened that morning is I gave up on "my" attempt to stop drinking.  And I began a new approach at life.  I began trying to stay sober that day.  That is what I had seen my son do for over ten months --- and he'd done it "poorly" at first, not being able to stay clean for more than 5 to 10 days for several months.  But then, something clicked for him in May 2001 --- not sure what streets intersected at his moment of clarity -- and he's been clean for almost nine years now.  That morning I knew that the solution was in doing what he had been doing: going to meetings, raising my hand, steps, talking/listening with other addicts/alcoholics, getting up when we fell down, telling the truth.

So what then are the pre-requisites of Willingness?  There are at least three:

First, willingness only comes into play when we are confronted by something that we really don't want to do.  Willingness isn't necessary for me to eat a piece of chocolate cake!  Willingness is only required when there is unwillingness.

Second, willingness presents itself only when one is experiencing a certain level of pain or suffering.  Unwillingness is a pleasant place to be: pain is the only thing that pushes us out of that state of unwillingness.

Third, willingness --- at least for me --- came only when I came to believe that the Impossible was in fact Possible.  That morning, I discovered that sobriety, one day at a time, was possible.  No guarantees for life, but at least sobriety was possible for me that day.  Tomorrow?  I'd deal with that when it came.  That morning, I realized that Pat had done what I had considered impossible.  He'd gotten sober and his life was changing.  Since then, I have seen many others who were like me: people who simply couldn't get sober.  People who couldn't stop drinking.  That morning, I accepted that I couldn't stop---but I could stay sober.

A moment of Hopelessness transformed by Grace into Willingness.

Take care!

Mike L.

And Became Willing to Make Amends

Several days ago, I really screwed up.  I received two text messages from my son's recently ex-girlfriend.  Over the last three years she'd become a real part of our family and her decision to break up with my son hit all of us hard.  As my wife and daughters banded around my son, I suppose we all pretty much disconnected from his ex-girlfriend.  When I received these text messages, something got triggered in me and I was angry.  Instead of pausing when agitated, I responded with a long text message that contained one sentence that was technically not completely true.  And even had it been completely true, it was not kind.  And it certainly wasn't necessary.

The comment hurt her.  And rather than strike back at me, she struck out at my son.  That hurt my son.  He and I talked the day following, and I admitted to my stupidity and told him I was sorry.  I asked him what I could do to make things right and at the time we decided that anything I might do in terms of reaching out to her would only cause more harm.  I tried to let it go.

Over the last couple of days I've felt a growing sense of depression and unease.  The other night my wife sensed something was amiss with me and she asked me the dreaded "What's wrong?" question.  It's dreaded for two reasons: (1) I usually don't know what's wrong and (2) I know by the very fact that she's asking that there is something wrong and she really really wants to know what "it" is.   But the truth is, I don't know what's wrong.  So I get stuck and then we go through a "dance" for some period where she tries to get me to talk about something I don't know....  For some reason, that night the dance was short and sweet.  No harsh words or threats.  I think we were both feeling tired.  We are getting to old for that dance anymore.

The next day on the way to work I was going through my routine of reciting various things that I've memorized over the years.  Many of the things that I recite have become something of an inventory process for me.  One of those inventory type passages is a poem by Rumi called "The Guest House."  I've included that poem in a fairly recent post, so I won't put it here again.  What happened yesterday morning though was that while I was reciting this poem, I became aware of the saddness and depression that I had been feeling the last couple of days.  And I decided to take Rumi's advice and "welcome them at the door laughing" -- "Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond."  I then repeated that same closing line again, except I changed it to "Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from within."

I then listened to my guide from within and realized that all this saddness and depression is related to the harm I had caused this young woman by judging her and questioning her decisions.  In addition, these same feelings were expressions of grief over having lost someone who had come close to being another daughter to me and a member of my family.  I hurt.

I knew that I was not yet done with making my amends with her.  And I realized that I had become "willing" to make an amends.  An 8th step process was complete.  My 9th step task now is to determine, with my son's help I believe, how best I can make such an amends without causing even more harm.

The saddness and depression lifted yesterday with this coming to greater awareness of myself.  What a gift this recovery process has become for me.
 
Take care!
 
Mike L.

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.

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

How Do I Best Help Another Recover?

Recently, at several of the meetings I regularly attend, I've noticed a lot of people criticizing how others are conducting themselves in meetings. Some times, these criticisms are being made in the context of a group inventory. Other times, it's at the meeting before or after the meeting. A few times in not so quiet whispers during the meeting.

I've listened as well as I can to all these criticisms and it seems that underneath most of these comments is the deep desire to help others get and/or stay sober. Or a fear that someone will leave the room and get drunk.

It's serious business I agree. But I'm wondering much if sometimes we don't overdo the effort to help another person "get it". It seems to me, that it's helpful to see the disease of alcoholism itself as our greatest friend in the noble effort of helping alcoholics recover from this disease and we should, with all due respect, let the disease itself do the bulk of the heavy lifting in terms of getting someone who suffers from this disease into the recovery process. I suppose this is something I picked up in Alanon.

I remember back to when my son was getting sober and sitting back quite amazed at his courage and persistence in trying to get clean at such a young age (14-15 years old). Of course, it was mostly amazing to me because he was owning up to a problem that I as a 48 year old "man" was absolutely incapable of doing in terms of my own fairly secret battle with alcohol.

I remember that I initially took some comfort in that he actually needed to stop drinking and using: he was, after all, a minor and what he was doing was illegal. Not only that, he was doing it so badly! Not only was he unable to hide his diseased behavior from others, "like I could!" he was unable to lie about stuff that came so easily to me. I mean he could lie, he just couldn't do it as well as me. I was a little embarrassed that he was doing the lying thing so poorly. Was he really not my son?

Anyway, looking back now, I see that his recovery was motivated from within him and had little to do with all the things my wife and I did to try and support him in his efforts. Oh, we did try to help him! And I don't regret any of our efforts to help him---but ultimately, it seemed that what really worked with him was the pain and utter dispair that he felt in his life. The consequences. What worked also was the hope that he started to receive from others afflicted with the same disease of addiction. Pain and hope. That saved him.

And it saved me because about five months after things "clicked" for him, I reached my own moment of utter darkness and dispair.... And it dawned on my that things weren't quite as hopeless as I imagined: there was a solution. I could do what my son did.... Admit what was going on to others who suffered from the same affliction. Reach out for help. Stop trying to stop drinking and start trying to stay sober. Once that light went on for me, the rest of the process has actually been quite easy and simple. Sorta.

Someone once told me that she got sober at the corner of Grace and Willingness. I loved that line. She'd stolen it from her sponsor. But while I loved it, it wasn't where I got sober. I got sober about a half block down from there, at the corner of Grace and Hopelessness. From there, I saw hope and realized that while I couldn't stop drinking, I could stay sober. For one day. Today. I'm sober today I think because I've not forgotten that truth.

I personally don't think there are magical words that can be said in or outside of AA meetings that will get someone sober. That isn't to say that we take what we do and say within or without meetings "lightly" or "cavalierly" --- this is a deadly disease and a serious business.

But it's been helpful to me to take some comfort that there seems to be a basic desire within most folks to be happy and to have a meaningful life. Pain is one of our most effective teachers. Ultimately, what was most effective for me in terms of getting sober was seeing that sobriety (what I then simply thought of only as "not drinking") was possible. The impossible was possible.
That's not what I consider "magic." Nope. It's a miracle. Magic is when something that is actually impossible appears to happen. Miracle is when something that appears impossible actually happens. Huge difference. And by the way, I made those definitions up myself so use 'em if you like, but don't blame Webster if you don't.

Take care!

Mike L.