Action – Wade H. Recovery Net

The New Year’s Change

The New Year’s Change

I have since been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and, I hope, more useful than the life I lived before. My old manner of life was by no means a bad one, but I would not exchange its best moments for the worst I have now. I would not go back to it even if I could.” (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 42 – 43)

A new “way of living” is central to any idea of recovery. If you stay the same, act the same and think the same you will end up with the same results. If you do not change, you are the same and will end up getting the same results.

Here is the math:

THE SAME = THE SAME RESULTS

DIFFERENT = DIFFERENT RESULTS

Any hope of recovery must include an acceptance of the fact that you need to be okay with the idea of being an entirely different person to get different results.

This is a great time to look at this concept. We have just passed through New Years after surviving the Mayan Apocalypse and those of us in the United States having survived a quick tumble over something called a ‘fiscal cliff” and here we are.

With the New Year, many cultures have the custom of making new resolutions, commitments or changes for the next year and for those of us in recovery this can be used as an important part of our recovery process as change is recovery.

Some changes may be simple commitments: A person who has been in recovery circles and never seriously worked Steps may commit to actually working the Steps this year and find two or three people to ensure that happens. Some people might have that one or two things that they have excluded from discussing when working their steps previously, such individuals might commit to working on those things this year (and call a couple of people you could meet with today and start discussing those things with – or you won’t really do it). Some, who may have never done so before, might commit to sponsoring others this year and contact two or three others who are good sponsors to walk them through the process.

The ideas are endless. Now that I have you pondering this idea, let’s slow down and look at some of the changes founding member Bill W. did when he got started:

My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm to the idea of helping other alcoholics to a solution of their problems. It was fortunate, for my old business associates remained skeptical for a year and a half, during which I found little work. I was not too well at the time, and was plagued by waves of self-pity and resentment. This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. Many times I have gone to my old hospital in despair. On talking to a man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet. It is a design for living that works in rough going. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 15)

I use this passage because this brief summary gives both the good and the bad of this commitment to changing. There were some negative results of his using that didn’t magically disappear with abstinence from using.

Bill W. was sober and helping others be sober (as well as starting Alcoholics Anonymous) and working recovery yet the world around him was far slower in the process of accepting his sobriety which meant during this whole period of sobriety he couldn’t find any work.

This is important, because many of us in recovery start changing and then get frustrated by the fact that people around us treat us like the scum of the earth or like the village idiot no matter how much we change. Some of us get so frustrated that we just give up feeling that it doesn’t matter: “No matter what I do my life is not going to get better” etc.

Let me help all of us with a fact: YOU CAN ONLY CHANGE “YOU”. YOU CANNOT CHANGE OTHER PEOPLE! The changes that you are making start with “changing you” and the damage each one of us has done to the world around us is not in as big of a hurry to change as we need to be. No matter what is going on around us, we have to still do the changing.

It is not a matter of if there will be problems, frustration and discomfort, it is a matter of how well you push through when the problems, frustrations and discomforts come up that is key to your recovery. If your efforts to change cannot overcome these times, then your recovery can only work in times when there are no problems, no frustrations and no discomforts. In other words, your recovery will not work.

There will be problems and a big part of the change is continuing to change and maintaining the changes that you have made already through the worst of times.

A big part of the changing that Bill W. did was working with others.

Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 89)

Working with others is tied to his being able to hold on through these first tough times. This is not an option, this is a must for all people working something that you are claiming is a Twelve Step program.

For any Twelve Step program, working with others who are struggling with what you are struggling with is central to making the whole thing work. Not just working with other however; “intensively” working with others like yourself.

In the case of Bill W. on page 15 of the Alcoholics Anonymous book, he went searching for people to work with.

I am astonished, by the amount of people desperately seeking to have the sponsees come to them. Understanding that “intensively” working with other people is at the core of any hope you have of changing and staying sober, waiting for sponsees to come to you is like sitting around waiting for recovery to just happen to you. As if there is some recovery fairy that will magically show up, wave the magic recovery wand, sprinkle the magic recovery dust on you and all will be fixed.

Recovery is something you struggle desperately to get and so are those you work with:

Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in a while isn’t enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day, if need be. It may mean the loss of many nights’ sleep, great interference with your pleasures, interruptions to your business. It may mean sharing your money and your home, counseling frantic wives and relatives, innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums. Your telephone may jangle at any time of the day or night. Your wife may sometimes say she is neglected. A drunk may smash the furniture in your home, or burn a mattress. You may have to fight with him if he is violent. Sometimes you will have to call a doctor and administer sedatives under his direction. Another time you may have to send for the police or an ambulance. Occasionally you will have to meet such conditions. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 97)

I am not promising you some easy time of magically changing as you plod along each day playing recovery in some meeting or other. I am bluntly saying that change is hard work particularly in the hard times including in the key area of working with others. FACTS ARE FACTS AND THAT’S THAT.

What I am hopefully doing is properly preparing you for the cost of changing and showing you a truthful view of what the honest hope of sobriety costs.

The good news about complete change is that what makes you happy will change also which means you will be made happy by things that right now you cannot imagine would make you happy.

Many times I have gone to my old hospital in despair. On talking to a man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet. It is a design for living that works in rough going. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 15)

If you do this long enough as intensively as you can eventually it will be the thing which lifts you up and keeps you on your feet. It will be your joy and stability in the storms of life as well as in the quiet times of life.

Getting back to the point; as each of us begins on the path of walking through a new year, let’s all set a new course for change. I put these ideas out there to contemplate as each one of us process what that might mean.

Make a plan for what you are going to do on the path to change this year, involve others (people with good sense and strong enough to confront you if you are not following through) in keeping you on course and accountable to your commitments, and start on the whole thing before you close your eyes to go to sleep tonight.

In conclusion, I wish you a Happy New Year. Not in the sense that I expect that magic fairy dust will fall on you and joy will miraculously fall upon you (that is called being high and never really ends well). What I mean in “Happy New Year” is: May the efforts you are putting into finding change and the joy of sobriety be rewarded with a joy you have never known before and may that joy be passed through you into the lives of many, many others you encounter.

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 83 – 84)

Stay Sober My Friends;

Wade H.

The New Year’s Change

Treated as an Alcoholic/Addict or Weirdo During the Holidays (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
Holiday Gatherings: Explain or Avoid (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
Recovery #1 (sallytudor.wordpress.com)

The Shortcuts and By-paths of Friends and Loved Ones

The alcoholic, his wife, his children, his “in-laws,” each one is likely to have fixed ideas about the family’s attitude towards himself or herself. Each is interested in having his or her wishes respected. We

find the more one member of the family demands that the others concede to him, the more resentful they become. This makes for discord and unhappiness.

And why? Is it not because each wants to play the lead? Is not each trying to arrange the family show to his liking? Is he not unconsciously trying to see what he can take from the family life rather than give?

Cessation of drinking is but the first step away from a highly strained, abnormal condition. A doctor said to us,” Years of living with an alcoholic is almost sure to make any wife or child neurotic. The entire family is, to some extent, ill.” Let families realize, as they start their journey, that all will not be fair weather. Each in his turn may be footsore and may straggle. There will be alluring shortcuts and by-paths down which they may wander and lose their way. (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 122– 123)

For the friends and loved ones around the alcoholic/addict each life is incredibly altered by the fact of having an alcoholic/addict in their world. Some people act as if not affected, but most often this is simply a massive misconception that will only be unraveled somewhere down the road with significant amounts counseling or a significant shock to that their system.

The behaviors, thoughts, interactions etc. of the alcoholic/addict in relation to those around him/her cannot help but impact all who come in contact.

An illness of this sort – and we have come to believe it an illness – involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can. If a person has cancer all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes annihilation of all the things worth while in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer’s. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents – anyone can increase the list. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 18)

The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil. We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough. He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, “Don’t see anything the matter here, Ma. Ain’t it grand the wind stopped blowin’?” (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 82)

These are the worst case scenarios, but all are affected to some degree or other from those who have a permanent raised eyebrow for that individual to those who suddenly feel the urge to vigorously bludgeon the person past death and past a state of rigor mortis simply because that person’s name was mentioned.

Here is a newsflash that most of us, particularly those of us with no alcohol or addiction problems: If you do not deal with (or have not dealt with) whatever negative effects that person’s using has had on you, YOU WILL BECOME ONE OF THE OBSTACLES TO THIS PERSONS RECOVERY AND GENERAL GROWTH IN LIFE.

You may have had no blame whatsoever in this person’s previous using, you may have been the codependent enabler of this person, or you might have been the direct cause of this person’s use, but at this moment you are either becoming a part of the solution or a part of the problem.

The person who has been building resentment for years that this person would never pay any attention to your protestations probably should not take the first moment of clarity to vomit up every injustice this person has ever done to you up to the point of dry-heaving insanity upon this person in his/her first hard fought moment of clarity.

I am not saying there is not a need for a time and a place to confront and resolve each injustice, but weaponizing your confrontation of legitimate issues for this first opportunity to act out an effective ambush is probably not the way, unless your goal is to utterly destroy this person. If your goal is to utterly destroy this person, you need to leave this person alone and go get help NOW!

If you are the more passive, not wanting to set this person off, kind of person, that has a whole other set of issues that arise. The fact for those of us in recovery is expressed in this passage written to help us focus our efforts to fix the past. This is how we should be looking at dealing with you on these issues:

Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue. Simply we tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past. We are there to sweep off our side of the street, realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own. (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 77– 78)

If we do not get better “until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past” hiding the past from us or minimizing it is the equivalent of hiding our recovery from us. We need your true feelings and emotions to have any hope of recovery. We need your reality to understand how to correct the filters we use for our perception of reality.

A person working Step Nine should not be allowed to blame you or manipulate you into minimizing what you feel or what happened. Each person in recovery needs to work on preparing to look at the worst of his/her past, preparing to do whatever is humanly possible to repair each thing in the past and desperately and vigorously use that experience as the fuel to grow to a point of never repeating the same destructive behaviors ever again. This person is supposed to be learning to be far less self focused and more humble in a healthy and balanced way.

Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 62)

Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! . (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 62)

That is the task that must be undertaken at some point. There are appropriate times and places and processes of preparation that one must work through (Step Eight for example where you work towards each amends that you actually carry out in Step Nine) before each confrontation happens, but they have to happen or the recovery process has broken down completely. The uncomfortable process that will serve as the motivating energy behind the radical changes the Twelve Step process requires to work simply does not exist if this is not carried out properly. The change cannot happen and if you are not changed, you are the same and can expect the same results. That means relapse and worse!

All of this needs to be confronted at the right time, in the right way.

Now, back to the family and the passage we started with (why we are really here):

We find the more one member of the family demands that the others concede to him, the more resentful they become. This makes for discord and unhappiness.

According to this passage, the alcoholic/addict in recovery may not be the only selfish and self-centered person in the mix. This may not apply to you specifically, but each person needs to honestly ask himself/herself the question HONESTLY. There is no excusing your self focus because that person has been more selfish or deserves it or is stupid or whatever. Either you are being selfish and self-centered or you are not.

If you are the person who has to confront this right now however you feel it needs to be confronted two things are evident:

This confrontation has nothing to do with any aspect of helping that person get better it is all about finding some sense of victory while that person is in a weakened state.
This confrontation has nothing to do with finding any real solution to the problem or you would be looking for the right time when the person would be properly prepared to really get together with you and do whatever it takes to resolve each issue.

If you are one of the people who will act as if everything is fine and none of that mattered or the “well I just don’t want to make his recovery tougher” people: STOP IT NOW!!!

You are robbing this person of their recovery simply so you won’t feel uncomfortable or feel responsible if they freak out. If this person does freak out, there are really two possibilities:

That person is simply not ready to deal with these issues properly yet and cannot consider his/her amends to you completed
This person is so used to manipulating you that he/she can avoid any discomfort he/she perceives is related to you by manipulating you into feeling guilty until you shut-up. (That is another area that that person would need to make amends for).

Either one is a situation that needs to change for that person to get recovery.

The truth is that the archenemy of the alcoholic/addict is selfishness and self-centeredness in any form. Granted, that person has to learn to live with the fact that the planet finds itself covered with more selfishness than it has land for all of the selfish people to stand on and is highly unlikely a person could figure out a path in life that avoids all selfishness. The question is not one about fixing all of the selfishness on the planet however, the question is firmly: “Are you as an individual a part of the problem or of a part of the solution for this person?”

As I said before, you may have never do much as lifted a finger to cause this person to use ever before this. That’s awesome, but please don’t start being a part of the problem now!!! We all struggle with an alcoholic/addict and their thoughts and behaviors to some degree or other. We need to be willing to struggle through some discomfort for their health and you will probably find that actual resolutions to the problems will do wonders for your mental and emotional health also. Focusing on ensuring that you are not selfish or self-protective can’t hurt either.

I suppose there are those people who have all of this in line and struggle with none of these issues. I commend you and I am thankful that you are on our planet as an example to the rest of us. I do however, present to you the idea that individuals cannot judge such things about themselves safely without at the least the consultation of a few folks that understand what we are looking at and can honestly tell you the truth.

In other words, if you are a friend or loved one of a person in recovery, PLEASE seek some outside assistance or advice from someone who understands these things (assume you would like to be a part of the solution or at least not be a part of the problem). And never EVER EVER EVER EVER use the sentence “He/she is the person with the problem, why do I need to…” That statement in and of itself is an indicator of just being concerned with yourself and not doing anything for this person.

You can be a huge part of the healing process for your friend or loved one and all it takes is to unselfishly confront the issues at the time that is best for the person and for you. Yes there is discomfort, but at least the discomfort is along the path to freedom and closure. You may have been a hero in this person’s life standing by them all of this time and they may not have truly even noticed, but this is an opportunity to be a beacon of hope and freedom for a person in desperate need at the moment it will count the most to him/her. You just have to stay off of the shortcuts and by-paths.

If you are the person in recovery, consider your responsibilities in all of this and the challenges those around you will have confronting these issues with you at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way. Don’t try to protect yourself from discomfort by avoiding any of these amends. If you are not ready, then diligently work (with the help of others) on getting ready to make the amends.

There is a solution, and all of us involved can be a part of it.

What You Need To Learn For True Freedom

What You Need To Learn For True Freedom

We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 70)

This a segment from the part of the Alcoholics Anonymous book that describes the things that should have happened if you did your Fourth Step correctly. In other words if these things have not happened, you are absolutely not done with your Step Four and should not be trying to move on to Step Five. The change you were looking for has not happened. Or, should I say, the change the authors felt you needed t get sober have not happened.

Look at this passage describing one of the focuses of Step Five:

They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 73)

The implication of this passage is that one of the reasons that there is a Step Five is to help each person get rid of MORE egoism, get rid of MORE fear, and get more humble. This means that a big part of Step Four is to get humility, fearlessness and more honesty according to passage. Step Five merely takes you deeper.

Consider this passage from a page before we start actually reading about doing the Fourth Step:

Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?

Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 62)

Selfishness and Self-centeredness! The archenemy of every alcoholic and addict is self focus. This is supposed to be addressed in Step Four directly. If you do not deal with the selfishness and self-centeredness then you stay the same. If you stay the same then you are the same and can expect the same results at some point. In other words: If your recovery does not change you deeply, then you have gone through recovery and come out the same. If you are the same you can expect to do the same at some point no matter how long you manage to put it off.

Indeed, the attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps. For without some degree of humility, no alcoholic can stay sober at all. Nearly all A.A.’s have found too, that unless they develop much more of this precious quality than may be required just for sobriety, they still haven’t much chance of becoming truly happy. (12 Steps and Twelve Traditions pg. 70)

The focus of Step Four and Step Five (and in reality of all of the Steps) is the attainment of humility. I know I have crossed this bridge a few times, but because it is such a key focus of all we do this topic has to be more of a bridge we cross over daily in our commute to our one day at a time recovery instead a bridge we pass over and never look back at again.

The obvious question that comes up when having this humility conversation is: “What about the people who are not humble who have sobriety time?” I say to that question: “Bring three of those people to your mind.” (I personally know a bunch) How do you like to be around those people for a long time? Honestly speaking, those people make me want to gag myself with a jackhammer.

Some are so miserable and angry about everything they encounter that I kinda have to resist the natural urge to avoid conversation with them. The kind of person who gets up to share and describes how jacked up life is and the world and on and on yet throwing in the but I’ve been sober “X” amount of years (and people clap and cheer etc.). Not to say that their recovery time is a bad thing. I’m also not talking about the fact that all of us have those days and periods of time. I’m describing the person who meeting after meeting, day after day, conversation after conversation and year after year has the same attitude and those same conversations.

I remember thinking to myself, when hearing guys like that over and over again; “If that is all there is to recovery, then I would rather keep using. If sober is that miserable and being miserable is my motivation for wanting to be sober I’m stuck choosing between sober and miserable and drunk/high and miserable.

This passage says that sober and miserable is not the goal at all and that gaining humility is the answer.

Another form of this being not “truly happy” because of not getting enough humility is seen in these people who cannot fell comfortable or good unless they are taking control of everything. They always know more or have to get a word in or have to declare constantly how great they are etc. Is not all of that truly the diametric opposition to humility. The most opposite you could possibly get to it.

If a person were this “truly happy” why would said person be so unhappy (or the disguise they use for this “uncomfortable”) when not in control? Translation: What kind of “truly happy” person needs to derive any kind of positive feeling from the manipulation of others.

I spoke on this previously so I will not go over this passage in detail but if you want to truly get a look at this kind of person look at pgs. 60, 61 and 62 in the Alcoholics Anonymous book. The passages that use the example of the actor who wants to run the show and thinks if everyone would just act the way he/she wants them to all would be fine.

This person is not “truly happy.” This person is sick (still sick) and manipulative.

I am not saying: “Ooooh, you evil person!” I’m saying there is a key obstacle that still has not been overcome that desperately needs to be (for your own good and the good of those around you).

Now back to what all of this has to do with the Fourth Step. What does killing your selfishness, self-centeredness and gaining more humility look like in Step Four?

Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man’s. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 67)

The book asks you (as a resentment list) to write down everyone you have ever been angry at in your life.

In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry. We asked ourselves why we were angry (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 64)

Without going too far down this rabbit trail, you list angers because people generally do not know all of their resentments off of the top of their heads. Most people have five or so they can think of and that’s it. But, if you list every time you have been angry (even if the other person never knew) then you are likely to realize that many of those (if not most) are some level of resentment, some of which you try to hide from yourself.

So if done like this, you end up with a massive, itemized list of every person who has ever ticked you off throughout your whole life. Have you begun to “learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even your enemies” or have you just unearthed a whole lot of uneasy feelings, many of which you had neatly packed away to not think about. When do you start looking at them as “sick people” you have hurt by your conduct and become willing to straighten out the past?

This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, “This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.” (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 66– 67)

First we look at them as people who are spiritually sick. Sick in ways that are much deeper than just being the messed up person who chose to tick me off. Two pages before, the authors use this same “spiritually sick” concept to describe the problem that has made us alcoholic/addicts and that made us hurt other people.

The question here is, “Could it be that these people are suffering from a similar inner sickness that you suffer from.” Is it possible that their real problem is that they need help that they may not even know they need like you and the rest of us recovery folks?

Then you are asking for tolerance, pity, and patience. The kind you show a sick person who accidently does something that you do not like because it is some symptom of their sickness. Like a friend who has a week to live who vomits on your clothes. What kind of person gets mad at that person and beats the terminally ill person up or cusses them out?

Next you are looking to be helpful to that person. Instead of being a part of the problem, you are looking to be a part of the solution. In other words; you are a sick person and this is a sick person. You are trying to get better and have some ideas now about what it takes to get better. You have encountered a person who is trapped in a similar sickness and you know how to point that person in the direction of getting better. You can choose to overcome the urge to retaliate and look for ways to truly be helpful (even if it’s just dropping a tidbit of information that person may not even consider for many years) or you can just jump on the crazy train with that person and fan the flames of craziness in that person’s world while restarting whatever fires have been put out in you.

The fire starters and the people who fan the flames of others are continuing down the path of selfishness and self-centeredness and away from the key focus of Twelve Step recovery: “The attainment of greater humility”.

Key to all of this is to seek freedom from the anger that normally rises. They did not say resentment, the authors stressed “anger”. Anger is really the feeling that there is this right to be angry which is really the spiteful desire to punish another person between your own ears in your head. You may spew some of your own crazy on that person or others (or you may not) but in reality in trying to beat them up inside your head, you are in truth only beating a hole in the rock that is on top of your neck.

That person did something to you: “How dare they hurt someone as important as you?” Forget the “sick” person part and the “how can I be helpful” to this person part. This person had the nerve to hurt ME!

Another fine definition of “selfishness and self-centeredness” which is the root of our troubles.

After listing every person who has ever angered you in your life, you need to go over this with each and every person on the list. You need to take this view of every person on the list and find an answer to the question: “How can I be helpful to him” or her?

Then comes the deep part: There is a test to see which ones you have been successful at making these changes on and the ones you haven’t so you can go back and work on those ones some more.

Now, you take this list of every person who has ever ticked you off ever and ignore that very fact completely. All you have right now is a list of what is wrong with everyone else in the world and you may or may not have included yourself a few times on this list. What did you do before or during whatever thing is listed to the listed person(s) that was in some way just not right? If nothing what did you do to this person that was not right after this thing occurred (instead of looking for “How can I be helpful to” this other sick person)?

Is it not true that if you were not helpful to this person you were probably hurtful?

The situation or the person may have required a calm discussion. It may have needed a firm but caring confrontation. It may have required the police be called and an abusive person arrested for their own potential growth and you to leave so that that person has opportunity to see that being abusive is not okay (even though he or she may never see it you focused on trying to be helpful instead of retaliation etc.) . It may mean telling parents, principles and proper authorities about being abused as a child to get that person proper help and to save other children from such abuse. (An abused child will not have done anything to the person as a child but often as adults abuse themselves with resentments. Those who were abused as children often also never even begin to think about how to be helpful to that person. This is a deep part of the resentment and the self-protection manifesting. That may mean demanding that person get help or you will expose them etc. An abused child is never to be blamed but as an adult we have to take on responsibility to be free and to be helpful).

This is a deep and often painful look at what is wrong with you and not everyone else. The “How can I be helpful to him” or her part is not just some cool psychobabble that the Twelve Step people invented. It is the end zone for this part of Step Four. It is the “attainment of greater humility” overcoming “Selfishness and self-centeredness” part. If you don’t get this change, you are the same except now you have an itemized list of everything and everyone that ever worked your nerves.

Or you might even be worse; you may be one of these people who has like three or four people listed and ramble on and on about not having resentments only to either relapse or to white-knuckle struggle your way through some abstinence while selfishness and self-centeredness keeps you never able to enjoy the world for what it is.

If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 70)

This is a lot of work and a tremendous amount of stress. Well one would expect there to be a tremendous amount of work and a tremendous amount of stress in the process of getting a tremendous amount of freedom.

A person chained up in a cage can get free from the chains and become free to roam within the cage and some can even get to roam around the whole prison which are levels of freedom but are not truly free. We want true freedom and it is possible.

Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us had never attempted. Though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.

Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs 63– 64)

We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished we considered it carefully. The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 65– 66)

Stay sober my friends;

Wade H.

“In The Face Of Expert Opinion To The Contrary, We Have Recovered” (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
Getting The Right Glasses on the Right Way (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
The “No Matter What The Consequences” “Go To Any Length” Promises (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)

How to Survive The Holidays Pt 4 – Ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?

Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?

Selfishness – self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 62)

Many people have all kinds of things to say about things that are important to recovery, yet this extremely important point is often missed. All of us using at these heavy levels are concerned with “ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity.”

This is one of the most key messages that we all need in recovery, yet is the one people ignore the most. Here is the problem; there are few times throughout the year as tempting to a person overly concerned with “ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity” as the Christmas holiday.

If a person is selfish and self-centered in the most traditional sense of the words that person will be completely focused on what others give to him or her. If that is your focus there can only be a tremendous let down.

If a person is more of a self-pity type, that person may be a codependent who is obsessed with getting others stuff for Christmas and find himself or herself depressed at the inability to get purchase the happiness or appreciation of others. This is a person who will believe himself or herself to be as unselfish as you can be with the obsession for doing things for others when in fact there is something that person is looking for in return for the gifts and services rendered etc.

If a person is seething with resentments or in bondage to the hurts of others from the past, then the family gatherings and Merry Christmas stuff from the very same folks you are uncomfortable with (openly or secretly resentful towards) are the recipe for inner turmoil and torment. This person may not have any problems with the gifts received or given as there may be neither to worry about.

Before going any further into this, it is important to remember just because you feel something that does not mean it is true or sensible. Some of the things you feel may just be a part of your being an addict or alcoholic.

If the root source of all things Twelve Step states that “the root of our troubles” is “selfishness – Self-centeredness” then it is probable that as an addict or alcoholic everything you feel may be filtered through an exaggerated focus on yourself. That also means that one of the main focuses of everything in the Twelve Steps is to overcome this “root of our troubles.”

Wherever you are in working your steps, you may not overcome this struggle prior to Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. A good place to start is by first recognizing that the problem may be simply a problem of your perspective and not one dealing with the reality of the situation or situations.

A problem so big that it is described as “the root” of your problems is not the kind of thing that you can read a cure in a two or three page blog posting: But, the steps were originally written as a cure for this root struggle. I understand that each of us may be in different places in our recoveries, but before you even consider dealing with the whole Christmas thing, this is an excellent time to greatly increase your efforts in your recovery. Do more of and more quality recovery activities. From Steps to meetings with your sponsor and other mentors to general recovery meeting attendance increase the amount and quality during the holiday season. Get some strong people in place that you can meet with regularly to reality test your thoughts (because we cannot trust our own interpretations).

We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn’t treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 67)

In an extremely simplified most basic sense retaliation and argument are not options for us. We are not ready to judge what to respond to with our distorted understanding of events. We must focus on how to be helpful to those people we feel these kind of feelings for and not expect any appreciation or acknowledgement from these people. I understand that this is easier said than done, but in considering that Christmas is this week it is the best way to go.

Make this Christmas be about making the holidays better with you around than it would have been without you around and have no expectation of appreciation or acknowledgement. Do it only as part of your recovery and as part of staying healthy.

Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 89)

One more thing…

Find someone else who is struggling like you and help that person. The exact things that are going on with you and I during the holiday season will be going on with millions of addicts and alcoholics around the world for similar reasons. Take the focus off of ourselves and devote some of your time to the service of someone else struggling with the same insanity that threatens us during this season. Who better to talk to about these things than one of us who knows the same struggles? You may not feel like you understand all of this all that well, but you may understand it a whole lot more than the next person and be extremely helpful to another person.

And…

May you have the happiest and most sober Christmas you have had to date,

Wade H.

How To Survive The Holidays – Part 1 (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
How To Survive The Holidays – Part 2 (Black Friday & Christmas shopping Edition) (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
To Be Selfish Or Not to Be; That Is The Question!!! (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
To Be Selfish Or Not to Be; That Is The Question!!! Part – 2 (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
To Be Selfish Or Not to Be; That Is The Question!!! Part – 3 (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)
Is Your Recovery Pointless? What is the Point? (wadehrecoverynetwork.wordpress.com)

How To Survive The Holidays pt 3 – Action in the Way of Life

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 85)

One of the best ways to ensure your recovery survives the holidays with family, partying, Black Friday and Cyber Mondays, crowds, expectations and so on is to be proactive. There are many reasons that can come up that might cause a person problems with his or her recovery, but the most dangerous are the subtle changes that we do not notice in time to respond to. If you are waiting until you have a problem with your recovery to take action, you are resting on your laurels as described in this passage. That means you are headed for trouble.

Let’s take a few minutes and look at one aspect of the subtlety of addiction and alcoholism before we go on with discussing what kind of action we are talking about.

They had said that though I did raise a defense, it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink. Well, just that did happen and more, for what I had learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all. I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots. I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then. It was a crushing blow. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 42)

No matter how far you are along in recovery you are there is a fact that remains true of those that are the most severe addicts and alcoholics. WE ARE POWERLESS! If you have trouble with this concept and you are working a Twelve Step program, you are stuck. You are stuck on Step One:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 59)

Understanding this idea and responding correctly are incredibly important during this time of year. A time of celebration for many, a time of incredible stress for many, a time of drinking and using for many, a time for great depression for some, and so on. Few people go through the holiday season without some profound change of emotion, good or bad.

If you are totally relying on yourself to remain sober through all that a person encounters, experiences, and feels during the holiday season, you are at terrible risk.

So what is this “powerless” that the Twelve Step information describes?

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg 24)

The reason that I put both of these paragraphs here is because most people hearing the word “powerless” have an understanding that lines up with the first paragraph but that misses the ideas detailed in the second paragraph (as well as a few details in the first paragraph).

Most people only think of “powerless” as “I cannot stop myself.” With that limited understanding the next logical thought is that if “I cannot stop myself, then it is not my fault and it is useless to try to stop.”

Let’s look at that concept in detail:

In the first paragraph there are the words “at certain times”. So whatever is going on here happens periodically and is not a constant. The idea that; every time I get around someone that is using I just jump in and use, is not a part of the concept of powerlessness as described here. As a matter of fact, what makes what the authors are describing here so sinister is the fact that it is something that only happens sometimes and you never know when it will happen.

Think of having something electrical that has a short-circuit. Whatever it is usually runs okay most of the time, but every once in a while the short-circuit takes over and cuts off the power and whatever it is stops working or has terrible problems. This can happen with little or no warning and sometimes at the worst possible moments.

The best example of a short-circuit that stands out in my mind is from a car I have that has a short-circuit in the headlights. Every once in a long while I’ll be driving at night and the headlamps will just cut off. When this happens, I just simply reach under the dashboard and jiggle the wires until the lights are on again.

One night I was comfortably driving up the freeway minding my own business and then at the very same moment that I noticed a California Highway Patrol officer on the side of the freeway watching for speeders, my lights cut off. I hurriedly reached under the dash to juggle the wires which then made the lights flash on and off until they finally went back to normal. Could there have been worse timing?

Without warning and in this case at the worst possible moment, the short-circuit took over. This is how the “Strange Mental Blank-Spots” mentioned on page 42 are. They happen without warning and can happen at the worst possible moment. The biggest difference however is that most of the times that my car lights short out, very little happens and I can just jiggle the wires and move on. When the strange mental blank spots happen there is usually a full blown relapse to follow.

Every once in a while there is a moment in our thoughts, emotions and resulting actions that will make it impossible to “bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago.” Bluntly put, there are moments that come up randomly, where our minds will not think about the reasons we shouldn’t use with enough force to keep us from using.

Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check. The insane idea won out. Next day we would ask ourselves, in all earnestness and sincerity, how it could have happened. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 37)

You may be one of the most disciplined people on earth in other things and may think yourself out of using most of the time, but in the short-circuit moments (the “Strange Mental Blank Spots”) those thoughts will either be a distant whisper or will not come up at all.

Why that is such a problem is that many people in recovery develop only one true defense system and don’t even know it. That defense system is: “If I think I am about to use, I will force myself to think about all the reasons I shouldn’t and that will keep me from using.”

What makes the Strange mental Blank Spots so insidious is the fact that they allow such a defense system to work much of the time so the person gets the idea that the defense system he or she has built works great. Then without warning it fails miserably and there is this relapse and in some cases there is no sensible reason for the relapse.

…there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 37)

The truth behind the “powerless” idea described in the Twelve Step Information is that it describes a person whose ability to reason sometimes shorts out and at those moments does not have the power to stop the person from absolutely destroying himself or herself.

Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 43)

You may be new to recovery or you may have been in sobriety since well into the last century, but either way this is something that must be at the very foundation of all of your recovery and ultimately your whole life. With the changes that transpire in the world around us and within each of us in our own lives during the holiday season it is time for a recovery foundation checkup.

You may hate the words “Higher Power”, you may be working out the idea of a Higher Power, or you may believe you have the whole Higher Power thing all worked out, but it is time to make sure that your defense is founded on a Higher Power idea that will really works even when your brain doesn’t. A good place to start is to rework the first three steps as you are heading into the holidays and rebuild your foundation as strong as it can be built.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 59)

Something else to do at this time is to go back to the basics. Go to Twelve Step meetings. Get together with a sponsor, with mentors, with others in recovery etc. regularly throughout the holiday season. Be open and humble about your problems with those around you so that there is not confusion and discomfort if you chose to leave situations where everyone is drinking, using, or that are otherwise troubling to your recovery. In other words the holidays are not a time for taking a break from recovery related activities. ‘Tis the season to increase your recovery activities.

There is one activity I failed to mention that you hear me mention quite regularly…

Who are you sponsoring and working through recovery. If you need more recovery efforts during this holiday season, so do others in recovery. If you are sponsoring someone, that person needs more focus on recovery and particularly the first three steps just like you do. If you are not helping someone through recovery, now is the time to look. Be proactive and look for solutions to the challenges to your sobriety before there is a problem (and teach your sponsees to do the same). Don’t wait till you are desperate and barely holding on to decide to start trying these things.

I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 8)

The things I have suggested here and many more things mentioned throughout the Twelve Step Materials are not magical activities that if done in a certain order will align the Rubiks Cube of recovery. They are the elements of new way of living your life that creates the environment that allows you to remain sober. The holidays are a time for us to focus or refocus on living the way of life that provides the wonderful gift of recovery as a byproduct of that new way of living.

My friend promised when these things were done I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 13)

Either you take action as part of your new way of living or you are resting on your laurels and heading for trouble.

Seek the New Way of Living,

Wade H.

The New Year’s Change

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