Discouragement is Not the Problem

Discouragement is Not the Problem

Bitterly discouraged, he found himself in a strange place, discredited and almost broke. Still physically weak, and sober but a few months, he saw that his predicament was dangerous. He wanted so much to talk with someone, but whom?  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 154)

Of course he couldn’t drink, but why not sit hopefully at a table, a bottle of ginger ale before him? After all, had he not been sober six months now? Perhaps he could handle, say, three drinks – no more! Fear gripped him. He was on thin ice. Again it was the old, insidious insanity – that first drink. With a shiver, he turned away and walked down the lobby to the church directory.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 154)

But what about his responsibilities – his family and the men who would die because they would not know how to get well, ah – yes, those other alcoholics? There must be many such in this town. He would phone a clergyman. His sanity returned and he thanked God. Selecting a church at random from the directory, he stepped into a booth and lifted the receiver.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pgs. 154-155)

In recovery and in life discouragement and discouraging situations are just a part of the normal ups and downs of what it means to be alive.   Everyone on earth has their bad days and bad seasons of life.  That is not a question.  The problem is not that there are discouraging periods of life, the problem is what we do to manage our discouragement during those times.

Do we sit and feel sorry for ourselves and gradually drift into enough misery to make life intolerable.  Do we get a bad attitude and try to take control of the situation or just to make other people feel the pain we feel.  These are major problems for those of us in recovery.  Both of these and many other possibilities are in reality evidence of us sinking into ourselves, selfishness and self-protective behavior.

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

In other words our natural response to being down and discouraged is to sink deeper into the worst and most destructive part of our problems and in effect make our problems worse.  Being down and being discouraged are not the enemy, our responses to them is the enemy.  Sinking into self-protection and self focus are the biggest enemies.

As a first thought, the passage at the opening describes Bill W. as needing someone to talk to.  That is an excellent place to start:  Someone to talk to who will understand and be supportive.  The lifestyle of a person who desires to remain sober and not absolutely miserable requires some kind of support system that you can turn to in these kinds of times. 

This is one of the deep purposes of what we call “support groups”:  Support!  If what you are calling a support group does not offer you this kind of support either you are not connected enough in the group or it is not the right “support group” for you.

These kinds of groups are something you find and maintain.  These are people you see regularly and have some level of personal connection with.  These are people that care about and care for one another. 

These are also something you want to find and maintain before you are bitterly discouraged so that when those periods of life arise you know exactly where to go. 

Secondly, Bill became interested in helping another person.

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!  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 89)

As part of seeing the root of our troubles as self focus we find that one of the tasks that is most helpful in overcoming a self focused period is to focus on helping another person.  Think of the passage as reading this way:  “Nothing will help you more with being self focused as helping someone else.”

A key to what you read in the story Bill W. is telling is that he understood this so much that when he was just about to use because of it, he stopped and actively engaged in searching for a person to help.  He desperately sought out a person to help as combat against his sickness rooted in selfishness.  To use the recovery language of today, he went on a desperate search for someone to sponsor.    

This kind of mindset/attitude was the mark of the first groups and is still described in the materials as a major part of what makes us able to remain sober.  Dr. William D. Silkworth describes this kind of attitude as one of the most noticeable aspects of the early groups that made them different from other recovery groups and programs.

We feel, after many years of experience, that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. xxviii – 4^th Edition)

Altruism = the attitude of caring about others and doing acts that help them although you do not get anything by doing those acts: (Cambridge Dictionaries Online)

Altruistic = showing a wish to help or bring advantages to other people, even if it results in disadvantage for yourself (Cambridge Dictionaries Online)

The idea that selfishness and self-centeredness were at the root of our problems was combated by creating an environment of unselfishness and teaching the individuals to care about and help others.

So the idea is that an unselfish support group and unselfish actions are the best way to overcome discouragement, depression and our addictions and alcoholism. 

Near the end of the program portion of the book you find the following paragraph:

Still you may say: “But I will not have the benefit of contact with you who write this book.” We cannot be sure. God will determine that, so you must remember that your real reliance is always upon Him. He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 164)

If you cannot find the kind of support system described here, then you may have to search out the individuals and “create the fellowship you crave.”  If you are in one of those periods of discouragement, you may have to go out and find someone to be helpful to.  In either case you need to be out looking for all of this before you run into the times of discouragement so you are prepared for those moment when (not if) they come up.

Stay sober my friends…

Wade H.

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The Key to All Steps and to Recovery!

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us!  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 63)

I revisit this idea every once in a while and I think it is something that every person in recovery from anything should rethink regularly.  Let me start by being clear.   If your worldview is based on the idea that:  “Whatever makes me comfortable is right and whatever makes me uncomfortable is wrong,” what we read above is speaking directly to you.

In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits. (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 61)

In this passage the authors are describing what this looks like using the example of an actor who wants to control the show he is acting in (controlling the other actors, controlling the script, controlling the director, controlling the set design etc.). 

This passage is saying that some people trying to control the show are polite and influencing.  That person might even blame him or herself for not doing enough to let the others know how much he or she knew that could have made the show better.  Some people like this are extremely giving, but in their minds there is always the expectation that since I am giving you this or that you should trust my opinion more or you owe me appreciation etc.  This person and possibly the people around this person may not even think of this person as selfish.

The passage is also saying that this person might have a whole different approach.  This person might be pushy or overbearing.  Showing the others every mistake they make.  This person might manipulate and even lie to get his or her way.  This person must have his or her way at all costs.

These are the extremes and most of us have some mixture of both.  The key is that no matter which extreme, combination or amount of this we are describing, the fact is that it is selfishness. 

Selfishness or the absence of selfish motives cannot be measured accurately just by looking at your own actions.  Selfishness is about the motives behind the actions.

Here is an example:

Two people hear about a child in some third world country that just lost her parents and is in an orphanage that cannot afford to feed her.  The first person immediately thinks, “That is awful.  No child should have to endure such tragedy.”  Then that person sends $1000.00 to feed, clothe, and take care of that child.  The second person is a guy at a bar trying to build a relationship with a girl he just met.  This guy, in an effort to keep the conversation going, brings up the little girl’s story.  He really hadn’t paid that much attention to the story, but now that he sees the girl’s interest he states that he was thinking about donating a thousand dollars to help.  The girl states she would like to give also, so they go together and the man donates $1000.00 and the girl is impressed.

Both people were seemed giving and caring.  Both gave to a worthy cause and ultimately “did a good thing.”  But, one of these people is a truly caring person.  The other is using the orphaned girl’s plight as an opportunity to “pick-up” a pretty young lady in a bar.  This person used this little girl (who will be grateful anyway), used whatever organization was coordinating the donations, and used the orphanage as a “pick up line.”  His main motive for giving and for even considering giving is to get what he wants.  The fact that this was not really what he was going to do and to impress this girl he states and acts like this is what he was going to do is in fact a lie.  He lied to this girl to impress her.  Even deeper, he pretended to be someone he really isn’t to  get her attention. 

So let’s say the man who was “picking-up” the girl in the bar is successful in impressing the girl and they end up dating.  Eventually she will discover that he is way more focused on getting from people than giving.  More importantly, far more self-centered than the person she met or the person she thought she was dating.  She was sold one thing and received a totally different thing. 

Wouldn’t that cause problems?   If he is not in reality the type of person that the girl from the bar would like to spend time with, wouldn’t it be better to find out before the two people are emotionally invested in the relationship.   Wouldn’t it be better for him to be in a relationship with a person who likes him for who he is rather than a fictitious person that is totally different than who he really is?  This relationship is a recipe for disaster.  Isn’t he the one that set it up for failure?

Think about that relative to the following statement from the Alcoholics Anonymous book:

Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 62)

The two sentences directly before this passage are how we know that the authors of the Alcoholics Anonymous book (the authors of the Twelve Steps)thought that this self focus was a huge issue that must be dealt with:

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

They thought this self-centered interaction with the world is the deeper issue behind our other issues.  What this also means is that, if you do not work on becoming less self-centered and selfish all the work a person does in recovery will not be sufficient.  To look at it from a another angle, think of if this way:  If a person in recovery is not growing more and more humble, that person is not truly working on the deeper issues in his or her recovery or in his or her life.

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.  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions pg. 70)

If a person is working any Step of the Twelve and is not growing more humble, that person is not working the step properly.  I believe that any person that works the Steps will get some level of humility just by what the activities involved entail.  According to this passage, that person might even be able to remain abstinent in terms of his or her addiction, but still be a total mess.  This idea explains a lot of people I meet in recovery circles that talk about how long they have been sober.

If you run into a person who seems to be a mess, but has some sobriety time, that person may have possibly missed this key point.  If you run into one of these people who are always describing what an expert he or she is or is otherwise trying to prove him or herself important to others in recovery, that person may possibly have (probably has) missed this extremely key point.  A person working the steps and not changing is possibly a person who is not getting this key point.  If any of those people just listed is you, you may have missed this very key point.

The point of all this is to make sure that gaining humility and losing selfish motives have to be a huge key to everything we do in recovery.

Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do?

    The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good.  (Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 60)

According to this passage, if you get past Step 2 and are moving into Step 3, you cannot even say that you have begun Step 3 if you are not convinced that these selfish motives must die and humility must start to grow in your life.