Levels of Gratitude: One thru Four ( For Now!)

This morning, first day of a long overdue vacation with my wife to Oregon, I experienced a prolonged and first time experience of the highest level of Gratude, which I am going to call, for lack of a better term, the O-MyFuckingGod level of gratitude. As I announced here a couple of months ago, I have been practicing gratitude in a formal and daily way since January of this year. Now almost seven months and 165 gratitude lists into my gratitude "project" I want to report on an experience I had today of what I think must be one of the highest levels of Gratitude.

Yes, there are levels of Gratitude: Four Discovered So Far 

Level 1: Not Grateful. This is, surprisingly, the first level of gratitude. Just like for the actual alcoholic, the first level of self-identification is calling one's self a Non-Alcoholic. This subjective state is where we are totally ignorant of all or anything we have to be grateful for. It's also called depression, self-absorption, isolation/loneliness, self-pity and self-hatred. Most alcoholics, including me, come into recovery at this level of gratitude. I came into the rooms in late October, and trust me, I not only came to quickly HATE the November topics of Gratitude -- I let everyone know this was an Outside Issue at every meeting where that was the topic for at least the first year or two of recovery. Especially when it wasn't November!

Level Two: Fake It Til You Make It Gratitude Lite. This is where you begin pretending to feel things that you mostly don't really feel. That's because you're actually still feeling most of the Level One "negative" feelings, but for some reason (I desperately want Dr Earle to like me!) you start pretending to feel positive feelings even though you don't. In AA, this is a long-sanctioned deception encouraged by sponsors and other non-requested sponsors. Trust me, you'll feel better if you do this for 30 days in a gratitude journal at night before you go to bed!  "Sure, I'll do this [idiotic bullshit!] just because you "suggested" [i know it's more than a suggestion! I'm not a complete idiot!] it. Thanks! [Not!]"

Level Three: Actual feelings of grate-fullness. This actually started to happen within me after 3-4 years of recovery. Without ever doing even one written gratitude list. This happened because I finally "heard" within me what Earle had told me before he died: Mike, gratitude isn't a feeling, not something you are supposed to feel. It's a decision, a habit or an attitude. It's an attitude that members of AA have found tremendously helpful in their lives. You might want to try giving it a shot!  (He was the kindest meanest man I'd ever known up to that point in my life. 

Level Four:  Well, for this one, I just want to share a story because stories are the most direct path to the Truth. This is the story I shared this morning with the now 25 members of my private AA Gratitude Project blog: as you'll see, I now call this highest (so far!) level of gratitude the O-MyFuckingGod level of gratitude!

This morning's post:

As I mentioned in my Gratitude list earlier this morning, I was able to go to a Crack of Dawn 7am meeting here in Ashland, Oregon today.  I wrote today's  list at 6am on my first full day of vacation. What i now need to share, double-dipping in gratitude as it were, is thst on my way to this AA meeting, unusual things started to happen, important and very subtle things that we often miss, especially if we aren't practicing things like Gratitude or Acceptance. 

I should have known that there was something special about this particular meeting when the Google Map directions ended up taking me two blocks past Normal Avenue and then told me to turn left in order to get to the church where this AA meeting was being held!  O-MyFuckingGod! #1

I went into the meeting, a little resentful that coffee wasn't ready for ME, and sat down as far away from anyone as I can--can tou imagine what i would be like if i weren't sober and not practicing daily gratitude for seven months!--when a woman down the aisle leans forward and says to me, is this your first time to this meeting?  I say, Yes it is....Patty!   

You see, Patty is someone I met at the Lafayette Hut when I first got sober and I just loved her just plain honesty. In 2003, she retired from the Sheriff's office and moved to Oregon and I'd never seen her since. Until this morning!  O-MyFuckingGod! #2

After we hugged and quickly exchanged quick updates, I sat back down and looked across the room and then saw another woman I love from where I live, named H____, and our eyes connected and there was yet another hug and quick exchange of stories.  O-MyFuckingGod! #3

The meeting began after the secretary asked me to read The Promises at the end of the meeting.  I checked in, as did H____, as a visitor from California and everyone welcomed me all the visitors.  

It was an open Topic meeting where someone, anyone, volunteered a topic for that meeting.  One of the other visitors, a man who was there with his sober wife, and who was celebrating with her their 17th sober anniversary of marriage, said that at his Napa home group on Saturday mornings, the topic was always Gratitude!  O-MyFuckingGod! #4

When he finished, I shared about my December experience with a sponsee and newly (again) sober guy, who was so seriously depressed, that I suggested that he do something I had never actually done myself:  a daily gratitude list.  When he was unsuccessful/unwilling to do that after two weeks (including the shortest 5150 commitment I've ever heard of!)  I told him that I was giving up on trying to get him to do a gratitude list for 30 days, and that instead of getting him to do it, I was going to do it. In addition, everytime I finished writing mine, I would send him a copy. Miraculously, he then started doing the daily gratitude list and sending me a copy of his list most every day.  I think because he knew I would like it if he did. Over six months now, I'm still doing a daily gratitude list and sharing it in this AA Gratitude Project site with over 25 and some of them are doing the same with me.  This story changed the whole dynamic of the meeting.  Good stories do that.  O-MyFuckingGod! #5

There were 5 other MyFuckingGod! Experiences during and following the meeting. Including when I got lost on the way back to the hotel and had to resort to GoogleMapsto find my way....  Siri's third direction on the way home was to "turn right in 600 feet on Normal Ave."!  

O-MyFuckingGod!

Then I got back to the room, climbed back into bed and snuggled up to Nancy -- who was still "not snoring". 

Take care!

Mike L

Checking In and Announcement of New Gratitude Project Blog

I know it that I hate it when I find a recovery blog that I like and then the blogger just seems to disappear. Assuming there are those out there that have found my recovery blog helpful, I apologize for how I've been neglecting this blog. My recovery is still center most in my daily life and practice, I've simply not had time to regularly maintain this site.

Brief catch up: my son Pat celebrated 12 years clean yesterday and I still trail him by 5 months and 10 days. He will celebrate his 28th birthday in June with his one year old daughter (Harriet Charles.... the Charles is after me: I'm formerly Charles Michael L) and will be getting married to Harriet's mother in September. My oldest had her second child a few months ago: West Oliver Michael....yes, I'm one of the inspirations for Michael). My youngest is still going thru her grieving process following the loss of her first baby, Oliver, just over a year ago -- but she is also 25+ weeks into the process of carrying her second child, a boy like his brother), into this amazing and unpredictable world. And my "future ex-wife" and I celebrated 32 years of marriage last March. All's well with family.

My recovery is also doing well. Still going to average of 10 meetings or more a week. Actively sponsoring about 10 guys and meet with them any where from once every two weeks to once a month  -- and I approach sponsorship pretty much as outlined in the wonderful AA pamphlet,  Questions and Answers About Sponsorship). I still practice meditation via memorization and recitation while I commute 65 miles to/from work each day.

The only thing new that I've added to my daily practice of recovery is the commitment to a daily gratitude list. For over four months now, I have been consistent in writing a daily gratitude list: 10 things that I am grateful for in my life and, if needed, 3-5 short things that I am simply not grateful for --- yet. While I had developed a general habit of gratitude over the last 11years of recovery, I had never done an actual written and daily gratitude list. I had periodically suggested it for sponsees (with the appropriate disclaimer that this was not how I had developed the habit of gratitude -- I'd done it differently -- of course!) but had never done it myself.

Back in December of last year, I had a sponsee who was in a deep suicidal depression and in addition to suggesting therapy and much else...) I suggested he write a daily gratitude list as outlined above: every day for the thirty days it would hopefully take to morph this practice into a habit of gratitude. But he just couldn't do it. After several weeks of getting no where, I broke down and committed to doing my own daily gratitude list every day for 30 days. For some reason, that got him over the hump of unwantingness. But, more importantly, my life was changed dramatically as a result of writing this list, by sharing it with him and by him sharing it with me every day.

After the thirty days, we both ended the daily practice. It was wildly successful -- and we stopped doing it!  With the next two weeks, I got into two huge and painful arguments with my closer to being "future ex-wife" when I noticed the nexus between the arguments and my premature termination of the daily gratitude list. I immediately resumed the practice and also began extending the number of people who decided to join me in this daily practice: something along the lines of gratitude shared us gratitude doubled. And tripled and so on.

Eventually, I ended up just setting up a new blogsite called AA Gratitude Project.  Access is open only to those I invite to join. Once a member, each time someone posts or comments on a gratitude list, an email automatically goes out to all members with the list or comment included. In additition, there's an email address where members can email their gratitude list and have it automatically posted to the site without having to login. The only technical requirement to register with this blogspot.com site, the member has to have a gmail.com email account. That account is required only to login to the blog, the email notifications can go to you primary personal email account of any type.

The only membership requirement is that the person has a desire to develop a deeper sense or habit of gratitude. Members are currently all recovering alcoholics, men and women -- but I won't deny someone access simply because they are lucky enough to be a recovering alcoholic.

So. If any of my recovery blog friends would like to join us on this AA Gratitude Project, please send me an email (mikelrecovery@gmail.com) with your email address. You'll need to setup a gmail account on Google's site but I don't  need to know anything about that. Once I set you up as an Author, you'll get an email with instructions on how to access and register on the site. I'll send you an email with further directions and you'll be welcome to participate as you wish. I'll reserve the right to remove someone's membership if I deem your continued participation to be harmful to the group's well being (now I'm not grateful that I have a law degree and work for lawyers!).

Take care!

Mike L.

Another Milestone Passes By...

I miss the routine of blogging regularly and just wanted to check-in with my blog site just to let those who visit this site that I am well and progressing in my recovery.

October is my birthday month so there's been much reflection on what these last eleven years have brought me.  Gratitude is one of the most important spiritual tools in my recovery kit.  And gratitude is not a feeling -- it's a decision, a habit.  And it involves lots of work.

Anyway, I recently completed my eleventh year of recovery.  I've gone to an average of 10-14 meetings a week for all these years--which totals up to almost 8,000 meetings and $8,000.  AA's expensive when you think about it longer term I suppose.  I sponsor a ton of  active sponsees (people I meet with anywhere from every two weeks to every months or so to talk about what's going on in their recovery and see what I can do to help) -- I've joked about how many men with bad sponsor picking skills have latched on to me since i finished going thru the steps 7 years ago for some time now, but yesterday it dawned on me that it is literally true given that they each weigh around 200 pounds.

I do my best every day to help someone, a suffering alcoholic most specially, in some way.  It always distracts me from what I mistakenly think as problems or challenges that require my direct involvement and expertise.  And inevitably, while I'm being distracted by someone else's problems and/or life challenges, my own so-called problems transform into blessings and the challenges pass and become grist for wonderful and healing stories.  In fact, I'm sitting here in a Seattle hospital now helping an old friend and his get thru the challenges associated with his fall last week which left him, an 81 year old man, with a broken hip.  I flew up for the weekend to be helpful to them.  Absolutely to expectation for any return or payback.  You see, I've already been more than fully compensated for anything I might do to help someone else.

I owe an unpayable debt to Life:

My 27 year old son still has five months and ten days more clean time than his dad and now he's dad to his own daughter, Harriet Charles.  (FYI: my name is actually Charles Michael....and, No, ChuckMikeLRecovery doesn't flow off the tongue does it?)  He's a far better dad than ever was back when my children were little.  He's able to be present to her and his almost wife in a way which was beyond my capacity back then. My youngest daughter continues her journey thru the grief after the death of her stillborn son in April the day before he was due to be born.  She's a wonderful mother and the epitome of courage.  And now my oldest daughter is pregnant with her second child, a boy, due in February.  My fourth grandchild.  We're walking thru this pregnancy a wholly different family than we were just six or seven months ago.  The following month my wife and I will celebrate 32 years of marriage.  The woman I sometimes jokingly refer to a my future ex-wife!  The absolute love of my life!

Ken F. -- Rest in Peace with Oliver and Help Him Laugh

Today I went to a Pleasant Hill noon meeting before heading back to Sacramento.

I got to the meeting a little early and while I was enjoying a little quiet time, I noticed there was a notice on the wall with a friend's picture on it -- never good news for the person with their picture on such a piece of paper in an AA meeting place. They are always about members who no longer need to worry about their anonymity. Typically an obituary. Such notices fall into two types: they are about members who died sober or about members who died drunk/high.

The good news today was that Ken Finnegan, an AA member for over 37 years, died sober. Not sure, but I don't think all 37 years were sober years -- but I'm pretty sure he had over 20 when he died. Doesn't really matter either way. It is what is and neither outcome is based on some moral accomplishment or the lack thereof.

I write about this tonite though because of one sentence in the announcement: "Ken died in the loving presence of his family on April 10th at 8:15am."

That hit me like a ton of bricks. A low gutteral sound escaped from my throat before I could keep it quiet. I immediately walked out of the meeting place and sat on a bench outside where I could regroup. You see this last Tues at 8:15am is about when my daughter was sitting down at the hospital, getting hooked to the fetal monitor and having its silence tell her what she already suspected: her baby boy was dead.

Ken died at the same moment in time.

For several reasons, this fact, coincidence or moment of grace, this truth brought me a wave of peace. You had to know Ken to understand this. Ken was a funny funny man. In every way! He was probably 70+ years old and didn't give a shit what he looked like: he had a very almost Albino skinny ostrich looking frame. Usually wore a old tee shirt of some color totally at odds with 1970s style basketball short shorts. I'm sure there are State laws somewhere that make his attire illegal or at least requiring some sort of permit.

He was also always sharing some hokey joke at the end of a meeting that made all of us laugh no matter what tragedies had been shared during that same meeting -- and somehow all of them would strangely include some weirdly wise truth about life.

This all brought me comfort. To know Ken might be there for Oliver in whatever follows death. Neither Ken or Oliver will be alone. And they will be laughing their little asses off!

My moment of peace was then interrupted by a guy who's been struggling to get/stay sober since I came into AA: He came out and stood in front of me and then leaned down to give me a bear hug, telling me that he hoped I was ok. He'd heard me talk about Oliver's death several days ago. He was worried about me. Told me that he had always appreciated my kind and supportive shares ever since he first met me ten years ago.

I returned the compliment by saying I'd always been pulling for him to get and stay sober since I met him and that I hoped it would click for him soon. We hugged again and then joined the meeting.

The healing continues...

Take care!

Mike L.

Apparently, 40 Out of 86 Affirmations Were More Than Enough...

Two years ago, as I was getting closer and closer to the birth of my first grandchild, I was finishing another David Richo book called, "When Love Meets Fear". Of course, as luck would have it, the more I progressed through the book, the more I became aware of fear and fearful things in my life. It was clear in each case that the fears were already there before I'd even touched the book, I was just becoming more aware of them and less afraid of most of them. Including some fears directly related to the impending birth of this first granddaughter.

At the end of this book, Richo included a list of "fear affirmations" and I ended up memorizing all 156 of these just in time for Harper's in November 2010. While Harper was coming into this world, I waited in the waiting room and wrote a blog on fear and quoted all 156 of those affirmations. http://mikelrecovery.blogspot.com/2010/11/taking-advantage-of-richos-fear.html?m=1

Not long after my youngest daughter's marriage to Daniel in June of last year, Rachel became pregnant and she was ecstatic! She seemed to live for having a baby. She, like her older sister Katie, always wanted above all else to be a mother. Me on the other hand? I started experiencing a resurgence of fear. I refreshed my memory of Richo's 156 fear affirmations, but that only seemed to increase the fears. I tried re-reading When Love Meets Fear and other than discovering that all 156 fear affirmations we plagiarized by his own book, that didn't help much either! But as I got toward the end of the book I discovered that Richo had also included another list of affirmations: 86 of them. I read through the first ten or so and nothing really struck me as insightful or beautiful (these being the usual requirements leading to me deciding to memorizing something...). But I was getting desperate as the baby was due in about a month. So I began memorizing them in groups of five.

I'd memorized 40 of them when Rachel learned that her son Oliver had died in her womb one day before he was due to be born. One day shot of 40 Weeks. Oliver was born the following day and that was five days ago. Yesterday, after the funeral service, I had to drive my son back to Berkeley so he could work today. On the way back to Sacramento today, I started reciting these initial 40 affirmations. As I did this I began to realize how each and every one of these affirmations had been a huge part of how I successfully walked through all that I have in the last five days, especially

#27: I accept the losses in my life and grieve them fully.

And

#28: I allow every human feeling.

This is precisely what I did as I began saving Yes to Grief Tuesday morning...

I will soon resume memorizing the rest of this batch of 86 affirmations, but for now at least these first 40 are more than enough!

Thank you David Richo!

Take care! Glad to be back blogging, even if by iPhone thumbing.

Mike L.

A Lesson on Grief...

My world got a major jolt earlier this week, one that can't be fitted into a 164 character Tweet and one that can't be adequately conveyed through a post on this too long ignored recovery blog.  My youngest daughter was due to have her baby boy (my 3rd grandchild) this last Wednesday, but for some unexplained reason, her baby Oliver stopped moving in her womb early Tuesday morning and after a quick trip over to the hospital, she learned (her husband was still outside entangled with an unknowingly cruel bureaucratic registration process) that Oliver had died sometime earlier that morning.

Our family has walked through a grief in the last six days that has transformed each of us.  We've all gone through doors which seemed impossibly difficult to pass through, but each of us did.  And on the other side, we each took a breath and then realized there was yet another door, different for each of us but similar in the sense that each of them all appeared to be things we could simply not go through or endure.  But, each of us did.  And the grieving/healing process has repeated itself in each of us many many times in these last few days.

Yesterday, we had a funeral service for Oliver.  It was simply amazing.  I can't go through all of it here right now, because I need to finish cleaning up our house, washing my clothes (not normally a task I'm permitted to do because I tend to have a habit of making clothes come out of the wash in different colors than they went into the washer with...which never causes me a problem because I'm gleefully colorblind!) and then heading back up to Sacramento to be with my wife, daughter, son-in-law for another day or so.  Sometime this coming week, we will be burying Oliver: in a Catholic cemetery not more than 2 miles from my daughter's home and in a special area of the cemetery called the Holy Family section (it's overseen by a large statute of the Holy Family, Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus) and in a even more special area of that which is called the "baby area".  It's an area reserved for babies and infants to be buried: you can see it from a distance, lots of balloons, plastic Easter eggs, toys, other keepsakes unique to each child buried there.  While that's a major hurdle for Rachel (my daughter) and her husband to go through, it's only one more door of grief for each of us to pass through.  I have no doubt there will be many more.  But the healing has begun.

At yesterday's service, I gave a talk as Oliver's grandfather and Rachel's father.  Before the talk, I welcomed everyone and introduced myself as one of Oliver's grandfathers -- but I informed them all that my three children were teaching their children, my grandchildren, to call me "Ho Ho" because of my slightly oversized belly, white beard, white hair and my laugh.  I then shared with them what Oliver's "purpose in life" had been for me.  My wife and daugher had just passed out little cards to everyone in the chapel for them to complete the following sentence: Oliver's purpose in life was....

While this might not seem at all related to my "recovery" from alcoholism, trust me, it has everything to do with my recovery.  Without question, were it not for my getting sober over ten years ago and were it not for all the things I've done over the last three years to stay sober (I now realize I've been doing far more than to just "stay sober" -- I've really been learning how to live!!) -- well, I would not have been able to get through the challenges encountered over the last six days.  And I have gotten through them, and far more than that.  More about that later.  Here's my talk which I wrote on my iPhone from 3 to 5:30am the morning of Oliver's funeral service....

Oliver's purpose in my life...was to teach me about Grief

 I think I've always seen grief to be a bottomless dark hole into which I would fall were I ever to give it permission to come up out of me and into the light. This explains why, until now, I've always said No to Grief.

 No! Not now! Some other time! Don't you dare cry! Control!

 After years of practice, these negative words all faded into silence. Nothingness. Grief became emptiness. A lack of feeling. A lack of emotion. An absence of love. A hole of no color or depth or width or time.

 When I learned of Oliver's death on Tuesday morning, I felt nothing. No feeling. I simply followed directions and began doing what I thought I was supposed to do. And I did that for five minutes.

 And then I felt a sound welling up from deep within me and I knew it was asking, pleading to be heard. And then, for some inexplicable miraculous reason I said Yes to this sound not knowing who or what it was.

It was Grief and I said Yes! 

The sounds of grief started as a slow wailing guttural groan of deepest sadness and pain. The sounds were followed immediately by tears, lots of tears! I said Yes to them too! And then came the words! Lots of words! Angry vulgar loud words not normally spoken in Churches or Classrooms or at dinner tables or living rooms...and certainly not funeral homes! Or in front of children!  The two biggest words were No! and Why?

 Thank God these vulgar words were spoken and washed clean by the tears! And the even more meaningfull non-word sounds of Grief. This lasted for thirty minutes.  By that time, I had arrived at the hospital where my baby girl Rachel was dealing with a grief I'd never prepared her for -- because I was never taught about grief as an adult subject, as a part of life, as a natural and essential part and parcel of love. I didn't feel guilty about this, I only felt the longing to hold and comfort my baby girl Rachel, my protector, my advocate, my fan. Rachel. The name Rachel means Gentle in Suffering.

 For the first time in my life, I have really been there for Rachel. I've held her, cried with her, kissed her forehead and cheeks, grieved with her. And encouraged her grief.

And then, what has been most difficult for me as parent, as dad, As pops, I had to let her go.

 What she is walking through is something I can not go through at this time in my life: the death of one's child in their womb, the birth of a son, the holding and caressing of his body for the first, and then the last time. I cannot do any of these things. Yet.

All I can do is be there for her as she continues to walk through a series of massive looking doors, all of which appear to have loud frightening sounds coming from behind them.  And I know that she will walk through each one of them with courage, determination, laughter and wit. And oh, with beautiful and powerful and grace filled written words! I know this because I have seen her do this repeatedly for the last five days. A Woman Warrior!

So it appears I was blindsided this week not by Death but by Life. I've learned the painful lesson that Death is an essential critical part of life. Over the last 58 years, I'd fallen asleep to this wonder-filled fact: all life has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Oliver Martin Gs life's beginning, middle and end lasted a day short of forty weeks. In that all too short time, he was wonderfully loved and nurtured by a mother and father and a large group of extended holy family and friends. In that short life he touched and transformed me in ways I could have never imagined or even hoped.

Oliver, Rachel and Daniel are my heroes.

Life has a beginning, a middle, an end and an after.

We are Oliver's after.

"For all that has been, I say Thanks!
For all that will be, I say Yes!"

(I forget who said this, it certainly wasn't me!)

New MikeLRecovery Twitter account...

My life continues to be overfull, but I am enjoying most every moment.  And the moments I don't particularly like, seem to be full of wisdom somewhere down the path.

Because of my time constraints, I've been playing with a Twitter version of my blog and I've branded it in the same MikeLRecovery fashion:

https://twitter.com/#!/MikeLRecovery

What I'm finding most challenging is the restriction within Twitterdom that allows only 164 characters to a post.  I'm not a short story kinda guy, but it's been fun trying.

Mike L.