We often
hear in meetings that our insides need to match our outsides. That can be
a bit confusing, especially having lived a life in addiction that was based on
deception, secrecy and hiding. In addiction, our outsides may have been a
reflection of what we thought others expected of us. Our outsides were a
ruse and a suit of armor. Inside was shame, isolation, pain, sadness,
chaos, fantasy. We were convinced that if anyone even suspected what we
felt and experienced inside, we would be rejected absolutely. As our
disease progressed, we found chinks in our armor -- we may have been found out
in a way that brought everything to a complete standstill.
As we
found our way to meetings and recovery, we found the courage to address our
addiction and accept our insides. If we can find that courage and
acceptance on a daily basis, we develop an equilibrium, what we think and feel
dictates how we act, how we act reflects what we think and feel.
Transparency. Serenity.
You're not bad, you're just in pain --Scent of a
Woman.
How many
times have we concluded that we are bad? We tell ourselves that we are,
at the core, unworthy, bad, even evil. It can be harrowing, the lengths
to which we go to berate ourselves. And of course we lead ourselves down
a path to a self-fulfilling prophesy of indulging in our addictions and endless
shame. But we aren't evil, or bad, or unworthy of sobriety. We are
in pain, often in such pain that we lean on our addiction to get some kind of
relief.
But in
recovery, we learn to lean on our Twelve Step program, our peers who walk the
same path we do, and our higher power. We lift our heads out of the fog
of addiction long enough to realize, we are not bad, though we may have engaged
in bad actions. And we begin to live lives that include pain, but also
joy, and perhaps importantly, truth.
I am
not a bad person, even if I imagine that I am.
Just had to keep getting up in the morning, who knows what
the tide will bring --Castaway
There's
more to recovery than trying to stay optimistic. We've often mistaken our
addictions as bad habits or depression or just a bad attitude. Can't we
just get with it, be more positive? Is it that tough to clean up our
acts? To stay sober? Next thing
you know our efforts to help ourselves turn into anger directed at ourselves or
even resentments of others and how they must have it easier.
But
remember the steps? There's the answer. Do I believe that my higher
power has something in store for me? Do I believe that my higher power is
in charge? Can I let go of my expectations and realize that God has a
plant for me. It's not easy, but we've seen God come through for
ourselves and others many times. If I can say "it could have been
worse," then I know God was with me during my struggles. And if I
can stay alive, can stay sober long enough, God will bring to me exactly what I
need -- probably something I could never have dreamed up for myself.
What we do in life echoes in eternity --Gladiator
In our
addiction, we were convinced that nothing mattered. Abstaining from our
addictions was irrelevant either because we thought we could hide our actions
or we cared so little about ourselves that indulging in our addiction couldn't
make us much worse. If anything, indulging seemed to help, if just for a
little while, even a few seconds. Then something changed, the dynamic was
turned on its head. Maybe our secrets were exposed, our hiding and lies
were called out and we learned, often painfully that our actions do matter, our
addictions harmed others. Or maybe we found our addiction no longer
worked, we couldn't even get our few seconds of oblivion before the shame and
pain and secrets compounded again.
In
recovery, what we do in life matters, how we treat ourselves matters, how we
treat others matters, whether we show up at meetings matters, standing up one
single folding chair in a dingy basement meeting matters, even if it's the
chair we will sit on. And with more and more sobriety we learn that our
lives will matter to others, even after we are gone.
My
life matters to me, to my loved ones, to new comers, to old timers; my life
matters to people I haven't even met yet.
Your excuses are your own. Glengarry Glen Ross
The truth
is universal, our lies are our own burdens. Part of being an addict is
taking the extraordinary effort required to make room for our addictions.
This requires altering reality, it requires lying to ourselves. I never
get a fair shake. I am entitled to reward myself. No one has
suffered the way I have. Our excuses keep us isolated from the truth, and
from the people around us. And in that isolation, there's no one around
to call us out on our excuses.
In
recovery, we let go of the false cover of our excuses and live in truth and
reality. We join in the fellowship of sober truth tellers, we let go of
the patchwork of excuses that enabled our addictive behavior. We
dismantle the structure of lies that was our life. And we create a new
life that we can accept and share with all, because it is real.
Can you stay clean for one week? Can you? --Less Than
Zero
We may
feel like non-addicts just don't get it. And maybe they don't. The
program tells us it's a day at a time, we listen, or face peril. And
still friends and relatives may not get it. A non-addict friend once said,
"You don't want to get high, you just think you want to."
That's right. He's right. But that fact doesn't lessen the problem
for an addict. The problem we face as addicts is that what we think
affects what we want and do and say. And what we think is often
destructive and isolating and damaging.
And then
there's the program, a room full of addicts or alcoholics or compulsive eaters
who understand exactly the conflict between what we want and want we
think. Our stories are the same even when they are different. And
as we walk the path of recovery, everyone has a gift for us. Our program
is always there when we need it, along with our friends trudging the happy road
of destiny with us, we can turn to them, to help us stay sober, one day at a
time.
Get busy living, get busy or dying --Shawshank Redemption
When you
strip away the obsession, the compulsion, the high, the remorse, the cycle of
shame, you can see the truth. Addiction is a suicide. A decision we
make to put ourselves in peril. A decision to not come to our own
aid. A decision to abandon ourselves, to be passive, to accept our death
at whatever pace. We may protest, it's not quite that dire, our addiction
is not as bad as others'. But as addicts, we know that we are given only
two options, embrace recovery, or embrace addiction. We do not have the
luxury of coasting through life. We have no talent for ambiguity.
That's because our diseases are deadly. Once more binge could kill us,
one more bottle, one more dose, one more purge, one more hit, one more high,
one more indulgence could be our last. The blessing of addiction is that
the solution leaves us in a better place.
You've been down that road before Neo, you know where it
leads -- The Matrix
Somehow
we always tend to return to our addiction. It always meets our
expectations. It always gets us high, although over time we need more and
more. But the cycle is also reliable. The obsession, the regret,
the consequences, the danger, the shame, the isolation, the fear, the return to
what has hurt us over and over and over again. Addiction is a different
path. Less predictable. But ironically more safe.
Recovery
does not come with the predictability of obsession and compulsion.
Recovery may not always feel safe. Recovery is usually a harder road for
us to travel. But it is a path laid down by our higher power, and God's
ways are not predictable ways. We may feel fear in the unknown, but we
can find serenity when we leave behind the old road of pain and
self-destruction.
I just have to ignore my mind -- Beautiful Mind
Addiction
is a thinking disease. Addiction is a brain disease. Our best
thinking brought us to our knees. The more we indulged, the more
indulging seemed like a good idea. The more shame we felt, the more we
thought we needed to escape. Not matter what the problem, the answer we
always thought up was, go back to our addiction. Our logic was always
flawed, sometimes profoundly, amazingly, hilariously flawed. But it was
our thinking that was leading the way.
Recovery
is a process of dismantling that intricate facade of failed logic. We
come out of denial. We face truth and reject deception. We set
aside the repeating chorus of flawed thinking that runs continuously in our
minds and learn to be a bit more skeptical of our instincts, our brilliant
first thoughts.
The force is an energy field that surrounds us, penetrates
us, binds us --Star Wars
Turning
to God can sound like a crutch or a ploy. A free pass from a magical
force. But all the literature is pretty clear, all the way back to the
big book of Alcoholics Anonymous -- a higher power is at the very least an
acknowledgement that there is something else in this world besides us.
We've heard all the versions, the ocean, a tree, a chair, our sponsor, the
collective wisdom in the rooms. Or maybe a traditional understanding of
God from our religious lives. The point is that there's something else
out there besides our will, our addiction, our thoughts, our expectations, our
fear, our character defects, our isolation. The more recovery we
experience, the more serenity in our lives, we may find our higher power
showing up in more and more ways. Coincidences seem spiritual. Luck
feels more like God's way.
Lois, I never lie. --Superman
A life of
addiction is a life of deception. The lies quickly pile up and sometimes
we even need a moment before we talk to someone to remember, what do they know,
what version of myself have I concocted for this person. We develop a
full-fledged double life, one life of addiction and indulgence, another life of
lies to hide the version of ourselves that we cannot bear to show. Then,
one day the lies collapse on themselves, we are discovered, we are found out,
we let our deception surface. The reality is that that is a lucky day for
us. It gives us the chance to come clean and start a new way of
life. A life rooted in reality and truth. We can, if we choose,
live the rest of our days without ever telling another lie, we can choose to correct
and admit any lies we tell. We can live a life without the constant
burden of deception.
When I
live a life without lies, all I have to remember is the truth.
You complete me. --Jerry Maguire
There's a
story that we believe as addicts. It goes something like: I'm
defective. I'm unlovable. I need something else to be okay.
Once I get this drink, or this food, or this money, or this hit, or this lover,
I will be okay. We feel like there is a hole inside of ourselves and our
lives in addiction is a futile mission to fill the hole with as much of our
drug as we can.
Recovery
teaches us that we are okay, as is, with all our faults. Turns out that
what's primarily wrong with us is our obsession with the thought that there's
something wrong with us. We learn to accept ourselves, as addicts, and as
imperfect human beings. We can fill that hole in ourselves with our
program, our love for our supportive family and friends, our hopes for
ourselves, our higher power. Rather than feeling we need something from the
outside to complete us, we learn to complete ourselves. And as we do, we
find more and more room to connect with others.
I want things to be prettier than they are. --Days of
Wine and Roses
There was
a time when the high we got was enough. Wasn't there? The first
time maybe. We were content with a few drinks, or one night of excess in
a week, or one bag of chips. Then, quickly, before we were aware, or
admitted to ourselves, we needed more. We couldn't even imagine an amount
that would be "enough". One hour of obsession turned into a
full weekend of obsession. A few cigarettes turned into a pack, and then
another. We came to expect it, to demand it. And that expectation
began to affect how we saw our lives. Not enough control, not enough
money, not enough power, not enough perfection. Until we learned that we
weren't really in life, we weren't in the reality that most of the rest of the
world was sharing in. Our program taught us that what we receive is all
we need. That imperfection is the true mark of humanity. That
beauty is in the margin between what is within us and what is in a power
greater than ourselves.
We carve an idol out of fear, and call it God. --The
Seventh Seal
We are
scared. We are afraid. It is an ancient feeling for us as addicts,
perhaps the first emotion we ever felt. And when we were young, it was
probably the right emotion. And the surge of energy we feel in that fear
was our first addiction. We bonded with fear and it became our sole
operating principle. No matter the events in our lives, we were afraid,
we clung to our fear. Our false god, our idol. The difficult truth
is that we will continue to pray to that idol until we make a choice to do
otherwise.
But our
higher power is there for us, was there for us even as we prayed to our fear
and addiction instead. Our higher power is large, it encompasses our fear
and teaches us anger, and sadness, and joy, and compassion, and love.
Then you start to miss the pain, for the same reason that
you miss her, because you lived with it for so long --Swingers
If we are
honest about it, our addiction has not been an easy road. A hangover
every morning is exhausting. Purging over a toilet bowl is not
appealing. Paying for sex is ultimately sorrowful. The
desperation of our need drains our souls. And yet we clung to that path
believing our survival depended on our drug. And when we finally find the
willingness to choose a different path, the road gets harder, not easier.
Withdrawal is real and it is painful, maybe even excruciating. And still
our fouled up logic tells us that we want to go back to addiction, we want to
ease our pain.
And the
truth is that even in recovery, still turn to our drug. Not because we
think it's healthy or good for us or the next right move. But because we
thought, once, that it was the only friend we could rely on. Although it
may have seemed loyal to us for many, many years, we now know that true friends
do not hurt us.
I must break you. --Rocky V
Part of
our addiction was our repeated attempts to break our addiction. Really,
it was a trap of our addiction -- filling us with the belief that we had to
prevail, we had to overcome, we could fight a solitary battle and win, not just
reward of recovery, but the accolades of a victor. In recovery, the first
step, the very first thing we must do, every day, is to surrender that
fight. In a one-on-one battle against our addiction, we will lose every
time. Given the odds objectively, even we would bet against
ourselves. And yet we still want to fight that battle. And that is
what it means to be an addict.
Our
program shows us how to forgo the fight, how to save our energy up for the
effort to find willingness instead of wasting all our resources on a battle
that is doomed. We cannot lose a battle if we do not fight
it.
If I
have the courage to surrender, I will win back my life.
It was the getting away with it part that I couldn't stand
--Quiz Show
Many of
us in addiction got away with our secrets, sometimes for years or even
decades. We developed a lattice work of lies, half truths, misdirection
and it worked. We presented ourselves as innocent, unremarkable.
Sometimes people closest to us did not suspect anything at all. We had
successfully manufactured a parallel life. We may even have felt
untouchable. But then we were found out. We got sloppy or arrogant
or we wanted to get caught. The carefully structured lattice work of lies
was crushed by its own weight. The secret was out.
After the
shame of discovery lessened (or for some of us, even before), a sense of relief
set in. Like an early glimpse at the serenity the program offers, we were
finally able to stand upright, to stop the old lies and not create any new
ones. And we learned that in active addiction, the lies, the double life
was as unbearable as the pain and insanity of our obsession and compulsion.
We discovered that there is no peace in deception.
I
choose truth and honesty today, because I have integrity.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bravery comes after doing the thing you’re scared of.
--Three Kings
One of
the reasons we couldn't let go of our addiction is that we were scared.
The fact is that addiction is how we coped with fear and uncertainty.
Instead of facing the pain and shame and anger in our lives scared us nearly to
death. The concept of letting go of our one coping mechanism for fear was
unthinkable for us. In addiction we knew two truths: Fear is real
and obsession and compulsion bring a measure of relief. But the relief is
short lived and comes with more consequences than we could ultimately
handle.
In
recovery we learn to let go. And almost instantly, fear returns.
And yet we now have tools to address our fears -- we pick up the phone, get
support from someone in the program, we call our sponsor, we pray, we remember
what we are grateful for. With each day, the fear subsides a
little. It comes back and we bring out our tools again. We dance on
the shore of recovery with our fear, learning to let go of this partner.
We may find that only when the fear begins to fade do we recognize that we are
brave.
Worship all you can see, and more will appear --Equus
Addiction
is a progressive disease. We may not have even noticed, but the key to
our obsession and compulsion was more. We learn the same if we
relapse. When we return to addiction after abstinence, we don't
return to the beginning stages, we go straight to our most progressive stage,
maybe we even go beyond it.
Turns out
recovery is progressive too. At first it feels tenuous, or frankly worse
than addiction felt. We stick to the program a day at a time. We
learn to pray. We find our higher power was always with us, that's what
kept us alive. And the more we pray, the more we stay sober, the more the
program has to offer us. We learn about bounty and humility, we see god
in a share at a meeting, a phone call from a sponsee, a friend's smile, a plant
we get to water. We learn that there's more life in a single day than we
can imagine. We learn how to accept abundance.
Without other people, you're just a zombie.
--Zombieland
In our
addiction, isolation served as the soil. If we could just get some time
alone, even a few minutes, we could get back to our obsession and
compulsion. Of course, a few minutes would never do for long.
Instead we stayed up all night, binging on empty calories, looking at
pornography, taking hit after hit after hit. Our indulgence could last
for days. Days of constant addiction. Days in isolation. We
turned into the living dead.
Reaching
out can help. And boy do we addicts dislike reaching out. But
pushing through the isolation, even just to leave someone a message, can arrest
our addiction. We remember that everyone in our program has struggled
with isolation. No one in recovery has done it perfectly. And breaking
out of isolation brings us back to the living.
Andy: There's something inside, something they
can't touch.
Red: Whatchu talkin about?
Andy: Hope
--Shawshank
Redemption
Addiction is
a prison. A uniquely crafted set of bars
that we continue to slam into every time we reach for a beer or a bud or a body
or a burger thinking it will help us get out of prison. We will continue to bang our heads into those
walls until we take the scariest, craziest risk we could ever conjure: lie down in that prison and let it go. Let it go and ask for help. At first it seems insane to believe, to have
hope, to ask for help. Hope seems like
the worst idea to consider. For suckers
only.
Yet it is
working isn’t it? When we have hope, the
prison walls don’t disappear, but it turns out there were ever three walls, or
the door was always open if we just gave it a tap. We see smokers that quit. We see prostitutes that become students
again. And no, it doesn’t work just for
others. And the hope we need – it is
always available to us, it is a choice we can make every day and every second
and no one can take that choice away from us.
He is starting to
believe. --The Matrix
Recovery is
a process. When we start, it all seems
like trick we’re not getting, with everyone speaking a foreign language. It is a revolution in our thinking and living
that is a bit much to accept. We are
asked to do the opposite of our every instinct.
In disease, the answer is to isolate, and conceal all to be acceptable
to others and to save the feelings of our loved ones. We create an alternate reality where alcohol,
or drugs, or sex or food or pleasing others is the only thing we rely on.
Then
there’s a crack in that false reality.
We enter program and try something new.
We consider that we can get something other than shame from those around
us. We start to believe that the answers
we have been seeking are all around us, available to us in the true
reality. A reality where our belief in
God is a strength, not a weakness. When
we start to believe, the world all around us conspires to support our recovery,
and in return we allow the world to change us.
I've always known the
right path, but I never took because it was too damn hard. --Scent of a Woman
We have
been told so many times that it’s a simple program, but not an easy one. The solution of recovery is not necessary a
revelation. Often the right next step is
just what we knew it would be. But that
doesn’t make it any easier. In fact,
knowing the next right thing can be yet another source of resentment and
resistance; an internal voice of ‘I told you so’, or ‘can’t you get it right’.
Oh if there
were only an easier path. That’s another
admission we can make – we can admit that we expect more, more magic, more
coasting, more feeling better. And our
expectation is not exactly a surprise – as addicts we have always believed in
that easy answer, maybe because we have in fact been overwhelmed for so much of
our lives. So say it out loud, check in
about it – it’s too hard for me today.
Someone else is probably feeling the same thing. And sharing that truth may be the help you
need to make it easier.
That's your problem
... You don't look at the things that
you have. You only look at the stuff you
don't have. –Swingers
A
fundamental struggle in addiction is an inability to perceive reality. I’m often convinced that I’m just no good, or
that my higher power just won’t help me, or worse, doesn’t exist. In that ‘reality’, there will never be enough. I’ll never be sober enough, or happy enough,
or safe enough, or willing enough. And
then if I turn to my addiction, I’ll never be high enough, or have enough to
eat, or get enough sex, or be loved enough.
Speaking at
a meeting, or making a call, allows me to share my emptiness. I can share how I feel. I can experience that feeling of
insufficiency. And then I can see there
is another explanation, another story.
The other story is closer to the truth; that I have bounty in my own
way, that God has been there for me, that the glass may not be overflowing, but
it is at least half full.
See you more clearly,
love you more dearly, follow you more nearly day by day --Godspell
The more we
experience God’s presence, the more there is to experience. We get out of God’s way and find our higher
power has more to offer us than we could have imagined. We are able to see God’s intricate simplicity
all around us, in the vastness of grains of sand or flakes of snow. We experience God momentum, a machine of
perpetual motion.
Recovery
begets more recovery. We focus on the
simple, God shows us the multitudes. We
find more to love in the world, God gives us more bounty. We follow God’s path, God shows us how to
lead with humility.
Praying is something
we do in our time. The answers come in
God's time. --Rudy
Seems as if
everyone talks about prayer like it’s panacea; it solves all problems
magically. When I tried prayer early in
recovery, didn’t see what all the fuss was about. I did not seem to have my prayers
answered. My character defects did not
magically fall away. My problems did not
ease just from asking God to ease them.
Safe to say
that God changes us, the program changes us, even though we may feel little of
it along the way. Those changes have
collected and in that collection we find the answers that we asked God about in
the first days of recovery – How can I stay sober? Why did addiction happen to me? When will all this get easier? Can I trust the program?
We have gotten answers to those
questions from our recovery programs, our trusted advisors, our higher
powers. And the answers are dynamic,
changing as we change, but consistent in their message – acceptance, faith,
service.
If I don’t think God
is answering my prayers, I can pray for patience.
Hope is a dangerous thing. Drive a man insane. It's got no place here. Better get used to the idea. --Shawshank Redemption
Step 2 is a son of a gun. As addicts we have run from pain, from our past; in many cases, we are running from trauma and brutality, whatever form that has taken. Where was a higher power during those times? Or let’s say we have come so far that we believe there is a higher power out there – we have seen her working. Do we think she is really working for us? Wouldn’t things be different if God was really returning us to sanity? Why for example are we still struggling with addiction and with life?
There’s good news and there’s the truth. The good news is . . . our higher power has saved us from untold horrors, large and small. There are the ones we know about– the last second calls that saved us from going back out there. And the truth? When we run from pain, we run from reality, we escape our lives, we turn our backs on God, we reject what our higher power is giving us, we discard the sanity that our higher power is offering us. At the depths of our disease and isolation and stinking thinking, that is when we turn to God’s strongest offering – Hope that things can and will change.
