Monthly Archives: June 2012

AA Slogans

Posted on by under http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post

     I hate to say it, but most AA slogans are pretty much nonsense. Imagine an AA bumper sticker that directly contradicts the fundamental principle of AA. I’m not sure you want to advertise advice that might kill the people you want to reign in, especially when you’re attaching AA’s namesake to a bunch of utter bullshit. Now, I’ll admit there are one or two diamonds in the rough, so I promise to give them their due another time. But for now, let’s just take it from the top:

“Just Don’t Drink” & “Put The Plug In The Jug”
   
     These two slogans contradict the fundamental principle of the very 1st Step of AA – that we are powerless of alcohol. Having no power over alcohol means that alcoholics have LOST the ability to ‘just not drink‘. We have lost the power to choose whether we drink or not. It is an obsession, an insanity that we cannot fight alone. Sure this might work if you’re not really an alcoholic, but for any certified alcoholic or drug addict, there is no ‘putting the plug in the jug‘. If it were that simple, we’d all be fine!

“Sit Down, Shut Up & Wait For The Miracle To Happen”
   
     Ah, okay. This is advice I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. According to modern day AA, we should just come in, sit down, shut up and wait… and eventually a miracle will occur as we’re staring off into space drinking lukewarm coffee. First of all, if you have recently achieved sobriety, then you are freaking out inside. We can’t ‘sit down‘. We’re going nuts. Our heads are about to blow up. We need to DO something, and soon.

     Second, shutting up is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. Those of us who are new to sobriety and to AA are the ones who need to open our mouths and ask, “How the hell do I get better??? I’m going crazy here and I’m not gonna make it unless someone offers me a solution that actually works!”

     And finally, ‘waiting for a miracle’ might actually kill you. First of all, I can’t wait very long, folks, because I’m gonna go get jammed if I don’t start feeling better soon. Thirdly, miracles don’t zap us in the brain while we’re sitting on our asses doing absolutely nothing. We  create the miracles with the help of God by getting up and taking action – in the case of alcoholics or addicts, this action would involve taking Steps.

“Easy Does It” & “Just Keep Comin'”
   
     These may be the two most dangerous slogans from the new age of watered down AA. Alcoholics and drug addicts need to do the opposite of ‘taking it easy’ (unless you take it to mean not trying to overachieve in the beginning). We must engage in rigorous action if we are going to beat an opponent as lethal and relentless as addiction.

     ‘Just keep comin’ refers to ‘just keep going to meetings’. If that worked, I would have recovered ten years ago. So I feel the need to repeat here that newly sober alcoholics and drug addicts are completely insane and will not make it for very long just dragging themselves to meetings everyday. For me, meetings made no internal difference whatsoever, as I still felt untreated and depressed. I knew I was going to keep drinking and using.

     If alcoholics and addicts have any chance of staying sober, they need to immediately replace their addiction with a powerful solution, a solution capable of restoring them to sanity, and certainly a solution more powerful than an AA bumper sticker slogan or a string of local meetings. I feel like hitting myself in the head when I hear these guys get up and say, “Just Keep Comin’!” That’s advice of someone who’s either not an alcoholic, or someone who thinks AA is group therapy and snack time, and the solution is to white-knuckle it until you somehow magically get better.

     Don’t mean to be too harsh. I enjoy meetings, shit coffee, and someone pretending to know how to bake, too… sometimes. But this is my experience as a chronic alcoholic and drug addict. Addiction carries with it a grave spiritual imbalance that can only be addressed by fairly drastic measures.

God, show me that getting better entails more than reciting a few bumper stickers…

Comfort Addicts

Posted on by under Comfort Addiction In Sobriety, Comfort Preoccupation, Strong Feelings, Suffering Sober

     Suffering after getting sober is good. In fact, it’s a necessary test…

     Addicts and alcoholics (same thing) are addicted to comfort. Finding and maintaining comfort is a compulsion and a preoccupation. The problem many addicts face is that once we get sober, we still need to feel good ALL OF THE TIME. So we start using the tools we have acquired (tools meant solely to keep us sane) to get a little buzz, albeit spiritual. Sure, getting a lift from meditating or writing inventory or speaking at a meeting is far better than jamming a needle into our vein, but it shouldn’t be entirely ignored.

     If we do this spiritual work only to feel better, what happens when it doesn’t work anymore? What happens when it no longer gives us that charge and merely keeps us from going insane again? What happens is that we start looking for more ways to feel good. We gradually become more selfish and more preoccupied with our comfort again. Sooner or later our minds begin to deteriorate. We get sicker. Then we relapse… and destroy everything all over again.

     After I took the first 6 Steps and finished reading the 7th Step prayer, I had a profound spiritual experience. As I returned home from treatment, I had several more mind-blowing experiences while making amends, working with others, and meditating. Then I returned to planet Earth and became human again. Normal, mundane life set back in and I came flying off the pink cloud I was perched upon. I felt bored, anxious, conflicted, even quite angry and depressed at times. I knew that the great test of anyone truly committed to growing spiritually is to walk through all of these painful feelings and continue to do the right thing.

     I had to suffer to see if I was truly committed to getting better. Because getting better is not just going to rehab, reading some inventory, getting a little pink cloud buzz and then off we go. The novelty of being sober wears off hard and fast. Living along spiritual lines means: Are we going to keep doing the work in 5 years, 10 years, 25? Are we going to continue praying and meditating, writing inventory and helping others, especially when we feel like shit and don’t want to anything?

     Newsflash: Life isn’t about me feeling good 24/7… although I used to be pretty sure it was. I finally had to ask myself why I got better. Did I get better in order to grow up and be a normal, responsible adult? Did I get better to live a healthy, fulfilling, and relatively happy life? Or did I get better only to find ways to continue feeling good all of the time? If that’s the case, then you should just keep drinking and getting jammed out of your fucking mind, because you’ll still be virtually useless to anybody in your still selfish life.

     So getting better involved me understanding that life was about feeling both good and bad, about success and failure, joy and pain, love and heartache, gain and loss, light and dark. I had to accept that the sole purpose of my life was not about perpetually feeling comfortable. It was about experiencing both the ups and downs and walking through all of it with courage and grace.

God, help me to put my spiritual health above all else, regardless of how I feel…

Accosting Religiosity

Posted on by under http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post

     I used to accost Jesus freaks who hung out in the subway stations wearing wooden planks and passed out end-of-the-world pamphlets. I yearned for them to suffer the shame of hearing what I thought was the truth. I couldn’t wait to show them how brainwashed and stupid they were, how IQ tests don’t measure low enough to cover these neolithics. How do you like that? Sounds pretty harsh, doesn’t it?

     Well, that’s because it is… and this is who I used to be, which is amusing considering I am a Christian. But this is how pathetic and arrogant I was. I used to unleash rage against religious fundamentalists. I couldn’t fathom the assertion that someone else could “save” them, positive that only we can save ourselves. I couldn’t fathom their denial of certain anthropological facts and blind belief in things that may never have occurred. I couldn’t fathom their certainty in thinking they knew the truth about God and how everybody else was wrong and going to some Hell (including peace-loving, Buddhist monks). Do none of them consider that the concepts of Heaven and Hell could refer to our current life experience?

     The truth is that most people in the world are religious in some way and believe in a greater power. What, so everybody is a fucking moron and I know the real truth? Haha, who’s the arrogant one now? Another truth is that most religious people don’t need to ingest at least two OC 80s just to get to work in the morning. They don’t need to get plastered to have a five-minute conversation. They don’t need to sniff a bag of dope, take a few bong hits and light up a cigarette just to listen to their wife tell them about her day. Nope. But I still thought I had it all figured out.

     The sheer comedy of all this is actually watching a guy like me judging all of these people who are getting up, going to work, taking care of their families, being honest, doing service and trying to live by spiritual principles without being an absolute junkbox. These are people who can have a bad day and simply walk through it without running to the liquor store. These are people who can suffer a little without broadcasting it on the nightly news or whining about it to everyone they know. These are people who at least believe in SOMETHING. I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge, considering how much I now rely on GOD.

     Bottom line: Who are we addicts and alcoholics to judge anyone? I mean look at us for God’s sake! (pun intended)

God, help me to remember that the only person I have the right to judge is myself…

Rushing Out

Posted on by under http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post

     Addicts shouldn’t be waking up and rushing out of the door first thing in the morning. If I don’t wake up and take some time to pray, breathe, be still, read some passage… the rest of my day is a total, utter disaster. The days I rush out are the days that drivers cut me off sending me into a rage, the days creditors call and accuse me of being a deadbeat, the days that I cut myself and have to turn around and drive home to bandage myself up, leaving me late and stressed out to some appointment. Those are the days that I cop resentments about everything because everything pisses me off, the days my mind starts racing again and I feel myself going nuts, the days that remind me how NOT better I really am.

     On the other hand, when I remember to wake up and stop first before speeding out of the door, the day is entirely different. It’s almost like magic. I just have to remember to get grounded and connected before subjecting myself to the endless noise of the world. Trust me, addicts need peace and quiet as much as anybody. I don’t care if you live in the city or in the middle of nowhere, alcoholics and drug addicts usually have a much lower tolerance for too much WORLD, if you will. We need to buckle up and tune in before we go out for the day.

     But why? Why is it that when I forget to pray in the morning does the rest of my day blow up right before my eyes? Conversely, how is it that I can better handle life and the stresses that smack me in the face when I stop and pray first? Well, I guess because prayer works if I’m not praying selfishly. But there’s more to it. Stopping and praying helps me to let go. It literally changes the chemistry in my brain so that I’m not solely relying on my will and my screwed up head to guide me through the day. It allows God’s will to take my hand, which helps me to instinctually know what to do next and how to do it. I realize that sounds pretty fluffy but, like anything, it’s hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it.

     For sure, there are two ways to get through life. One is the addict’s way and it is filled with struggle, chaos and failure. We are always butting heads with something, attracting conflict and running into bad luck. Nothing really works out living life this way. And sure by exerting my will and trying to run and control my life, I may achieve great success. But am I really successful? Am I really succeeding if I am void of one, fundamental thing – peace? So it’s either the addict’s way (the way of the Self) or it’s God’s way (or whatever you want to call it. Doesn’t matter.) One way is frantic. The other is much more sane and mellow.

God, help me remember to stop, be still, and listen to You before rushing out in the morning…

Treatment

Posted on by under Helping Addicts/Alcoholics

     I had another topic for tonight but felt as though I should follow up on how to help the alcoholic or addict in your life.

     So if for some reason you have been able to get through the delusional head of an alcoholic or drug addict and they finally come crawling for help, then first things first.

     Get them to detox.

     Nobody can even begin to heal, grow and change without a clear head. Many hospitals have detox programs that can be accessed through their Emergency Rooms. Walk in and tell the intake nurse that you’re an addict and need help. It’s as simple as that. If the addict tests for cocaine only, the hospital may reject him or her based on the fact that there is no immediate danger from cocaine withdrawal. In that case, I hate to say it, but go get them drunk and then walk back in. This way they’ll test positively for alcohol. Alcohol and benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium, Ativan, Klonopin, etc.) are the only two classes of drugs that can be lethal to withdrawal from. This is why they won’t turn you away if you test positively for alcohol.

     It’s very important for parents or spouses to understand that detox is NOT treatment. Don’t let the addict or alcoholic fool you, as they will often have a change of heart once they get the drugs out of their system and start to feel better. Suddenly, they want to leave the hospital as they declare that all is well in their world. They convincingly assert how they have never been better and have a new lease on life. They will tell you how motivated they are to stay sober and make positive changes.

     Trust me, it’s all bullshit.

     If they think detox is all they need, you might as well watch them walk out of the hospital door and follow them to the bar or the dealer’s apartment… because that’s where they’ll end up sooner or later.

     After detox, it gets a little tricky. Why? Because I’m not aware of too many treatment centers that take addicts and alcoholics through a rigorous Twelve Step program, that is to say a place that takes the Twelve Step program of spiritual action directly out of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The instructions are in there, but have to be interpreted by someone who has taken Steps personally. Doctors, therapists, social workers and pills of any kind are pretty much useless. Aside from such rare programs, the other option is for the addict to be put in touch with a recovered alcoholic or addict who can take them through the Step process individually.

     A warning. There are a slew of treatment methods out there, including individual and group therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, role play, triggers (which don’t exist) and relapse prevention, pills such as anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, methadone or suboxone. I have tried just about every conventional method that exists in the world today and FAILED every time. The only thing that worked for me was to thoroughly and fearlessly take STEPS right out of the Big Book – the AA text book, if you will.

     Originally, AA had nothing to do with meetings. It was simply a program of rigorous action capable of expelling the various poisons within in order to achieve sanity and establish a relationship with God. Today, this process will get watered down at every opportunity. People are always looking for easier, softer ways. If you can find any that honestly work, let me know…

God, help those who still suffer find their way to the Steps and to You…

How Not to Help Addicts

Posted on by under Families, Helping Addicts, Helping Alcoholics, Parents, Spouses

     Tell an addict what he wants to hear and you might as well sign his death warrant. In other words, the people who told me what I wanted to hear helped me the least. Conversely, the people who told me what I didn’t want to hear helped me the most. If you care about someone and want them to get better, do not let them steal from you anymore, whether it’s your time, energy, love, home, or money. The trick is to treat them for what they are. Treat them like an alcoholic, a drug addict, a criminal, a child, or a selfish jerk who causes you nothing but pain. Addicts, of course, cannot be stopped. But spouses, families and friends can help their cause by putting their feet down as much as possible.

     Do not shower addicts with love, affection, money, or any other “helpful” thing. Only by removing privileges will you have a chance to stop us. You must remove everything you possibly can from us, even your presence. Addicts will ride the train as long as they can. The only thing that might get them to stop, take a look at themselves, and perhaps even get some help is by taking things away from them. Take away all avenues to comfort. Take away all forms of monetary assistance. Call the cops on them if they are taking your jewelry to pawn for crack or heroin or pills or booze or weed (yup, weed too.) Take away their home and their food. Kick them out of your house and tell them you don’t want to see them until they are ready to get better.

     Addicts need to be humbled.

     It’s tough, especially for parents, to act counter-instinctually, but the sad truth is that by giving addicts love and support, you are killing them. Because, remember, all they want to do is use. All they want is to continue using the way they want and they will trick you to get what they want. They will act like your loving son or daughter and have dinner with you if it means you might throw them a 20. They will go hang out with you while you shop or even rake your lawn if it means you might throw them a 20 for some lie they have peddled… like that they just need it to go buy groceries or rent Disney’s Bambi for a night in. Don’t fall for it. Addicts are actors and frauds and phonies. Their comfort is all they care about in this world. Nothing else.

     So unfortunately, the people who love us the most usually help us the least. If you’re a parent or a spouse or a sibling or a friend, fight your instincts to enable us with everything you have and try to treat the addict in your life as you would treat some dirty addict on the street who you’ve never met.

See also: AA Sponsorship & The Privileged Addict: How Not To Help Addicts

God, please give strength to those who love us, and give them the power to treat us for what we are…

Resentment

Posted on by under False Perceptions, Resentment, Self Responsibility, Spiritual Poison
“Anger and resentment are like acid to a seeing eye. They burn and blind the eye so that it cannot see clearly anymore. As long as they inhabit the body, forgiveness is impossible. But when I become accountable for everything in my life, all of it magically crumbles and suddenly I can forgive anyone. I just don’t care anymore because there is nothing left to blame. Above all, I can forgive myself. That is a miracle.” – TPA p.165

   
     Why do I write inventory? To extract resentment from my body. What is resentment? It’s a form of poison caused by an inability to perceive things clearly. Resentments are not caused by anybody else. They are caused by me and me alone. Sure, some person may have wronged me terribly. But the birth of the resentment and it’s growing presence within is caused by my reaction to that event. I caused it, and therefore I own it. Nobody can extract it but me. This is why addicts and alcoholics are so blessed with God-given tools such as inventory.

(Note: Also see Resentment Inventory, Resentment Inventory Example, Fear Inventory, Sex Inventory, More Inventory, Home Depot Inventory, Professor Masshole & Resenting Ourselves?)

     Sometimes it is difficult to see my responsibility in causing a resentment. But as sure as the sun, it is there, covered by layer upon layer of self-deception, denial, and just plain ignorance. Because I am defensive, proud, ashamed, scared and dishonest, I must do some work to figure out my part in causing the resentment.

     So why bother with all that? Why should I spend my precious time extracting resentment from my being? Well, first of all, it’s my responsibility. Second, resentments left unchecked can destroy an alcoholic or drug addict sooner than the drug itself. More importantly, they will destroy an addict who has already gotten sober. They will rob him or her of a fulfilling life with fulfilling relationships. They will keep his mind warped and twisted. They will keep him spiritually ill. They will keep a wall up between him and getting better, between him and God. Ultimately, as with any other poison, they may end him altogether.

     In order to get better, I had to stop choosing to see events as acting upon me as opposed to attracting the events to myself. Why? Because by committing the former, I begin reacting to events that I falsely believe something else is responsible for. My feelings become dependent on the world around me, dependent on the words, actions, and moods of those around me. Letting go of my dependence on the external world = internal freedom.

     Truth be told, it really doesn’t matter who we are, addict or not. The bottom line is that resentment left to brood will crush anybody. Extracting resentments and the mechanisms by which they are born is necessary to achieve peace. I suppose this is just what it means to grow up.

God, please give me the courage, willingness and clarity to extract resentment and anger from within…

Mental Obsession

Posted on by under Uncategorized

     Mental Obsession: Recurring thoughts or ideas that do not respond to ration or reason.

     Besides the physical allergy and the underlying spiritual illness, the other component of addiction is the presence of a mental obsession – a very unique form of insanity, and one that can manifest quite randomly and for no apparent reason. It is also otherwise non-existent except when it rears its demonic head.

     According to the Big Book, the mental obsession can manifest itself in two ways: randomly or deliberately. When we deliberately succumb to the obsession to drink or get high, we are justifying it. We suddenly believe that we have the right to get plastered because nobody feels the way we do, because our job is stressful or our boss is an asshole, because we feel anxiety or because our best friend backstabbed us, because we lost a parent prematurely or because the town we live in sucks. Whatever the case, we are convinced that we have the right to stick a needle in our arm because our lives are so much tougher than everybody else’s. We believe this even if we have a long history of using abnormally, and worse yet, even if it comes at the expense of hurting others.

     When the mental obsession hits us randomly, that is the very crux of our problem. Spontaneously going insane for no reason at all is why addicts and alcoholics cannot stay sober. This is also why you meet so many addicts and alcoholics who say they are “recovering” as opposed to “recovered.” Trust me, there is most certainly a difference. To be recovering implies that we are still struggling and are therefore subject to relapse. To be recovered implies that we no longer suffer from the mental obsession, and therefore we are sane again, and therefore we are not subject to relapse. If an addict is sane, he or she is not “in recovery.” Hell, we could go work in a bar or a meth lab, because alcohol and meth have no power over us. There are no triggers for a recovered person. They are free. Yes, it is possible to be free and to go anywhere in the world safely.

     So the random obsession occurs, yup, you got it, randomly. We are going along, it’s a perfectly beautiful day, there is nothing wrong, feelin’ fine, perhaps we’re even happy (imagine that). Then…. suddenly the thought pops into our heads that it would be a great day to crush up an OxyContin and sniff it in the bathroom. I mean why not? What’s wrong with that? These random thoughts can occur weeks, months, or even years after achieving physical sobriety. And when they do, a switch goes off. From that point on, there is no way we will NOT use. A decision has been made. Once the thought enters our head, we obsess about it and continue to obsess until we finally drink or use. And there is no getting rid of the thought. This is the insanity of it.

     The insanity is also characterized by another strange occurrence. When these random thoughts hit us, we seem to suddenly forget everything we know about our history with addiction – the fact that we cannot use normally, all the people we will hurt or lose, all the trouble we will get into, and so on. All of it just disappears. Irrational thoughts suddenly seem rational. Even though we’ve been a chronic drug addict for 15 years, arrested, committed, totalled cars, burned bridges, lost money, respect, friends and family… it suddenly seems normal and of little concern to go get high. We suddenly believe we can handle it this time. Hunh?

     So yes, the addict is nuts.

God, please remove my obsession to drink alcohol and use drugs…

Drug Induced Mania

Posted on by under Narcissism, Phonies, Self vs Others

     I remember going to some dinner thing at my in-laws years ago. My poor wife just wanted me to act like a normal, sweet guy so her family wasn’t absolutely terrified. That didn’t happen.

     First, the one thing I never could help doing was to get jammed out of my freaking mind before any sort of social event. Then I dress up as if I was actually successful – some mix of a Wall Street hot shot / glamour model / Harvard intellecutal. Upon entering, all of the self-indulgent stories and jokes I rehearsed come barreling out of my mouth. I’m sure everybody is looking at me with awe and envy. Um, yeah they were looking, but only in disgust. The only person in the room who is actually comfortable is me. Everybody else is annoyed beyond belief and suffering my presence.

     Quick little reminder to any addicts out there who happen to be in one of your manic, show-off phases: Nobody is looking at you. Nobody cares what you’re doing. Nobody cares about your intellect, your achievements, your body or your wit. Heads only turn to see the freak show who is clearly high on crack or heroin or booze, and is acting like a complete asshole.

     So what’s the problem with sauntering into rooms like I own the world? What’s the problem with The Charlie Show? What’s the big deal with being loud, obnoxious, cocky, and manic? Doesn’t everybody love me and my demented sense of humor? Doesn’t everybody think I’m The Man? Um, yeah sure they do – in my MIND.

     What I am really is an embarrassment. I am a phony. The gap between who I’m pretending to be and who I actually am is practically endless. Addicts love to exaggerate everything. They turn everything, good or bad, from a molehill into a mountain. If I made $1,000 on some deal, it turns into $10,000. If I made $35,000 last year, let’s just call it $100,000. If my GPA in school was a 3.2, why don’t we turn that into a 3.95 with honors? But if I failed today at work, it’s because of some prick client and obviously had nothing to do with me. Addicts are frauds.

     This is narcissism. Every addict suffers from it. We have no clue how deeply we may be affecting others. We forget that other people also have feelings, thoughts, worries, sadness, successes and accomplishments. But that doesn’t matter to narcissists. Nope. The only thing that matters in this world is ME. Don’t you know that? A good wake up call for me was when I realized that not everybody is wondering about me every second of their lives. In fact, most people aren’t wondering about me at all, let alone preoccupied with me, as every narcissist assumes and perhaps even wishes.

     Getting better was feeling the shame of who I was. But only for a little while, because eventually I had to learn how to accept and love myself again – in a healthy way. We addicts are not doormats. We must stand up and protect ourselves. But it sure is useful (and humbling) never to forget the absolute shitheads that we once were.

     Now I get it. Now I see how unattractive it is. Now I can strive to get out of myself day after day, which can be an entire Life Purpose in and of itself. Now I can spend some time thinking about others, and perhaps even lend a hand. The best thing an addict can do is to spend some time not thinking about themselves. Go ahead, Charlie, think about someone else for a change.

God, teach me to be more other-centered…

‘Living’ Amends

Posted on by under http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post

     I was taught to distinguish between a ‘contractual’ amends and a ‘living’ amends. Contractual amends are the easy ones. You confront, admit your wrong, ask what you can do to make it right, and then wipe your hands and check it off your 8th Step amends list. Confronting one of your old bosses is easy. Walking into a department store you stole from is easy. Being accountable to an old friend or colleague is easy. Why? Because you get to walk away afterwards, cross it off, and probably never see these people again. Or if you do see them, the slate is clear. But not so with our families. The slate is NEVER clear.

     A living amends goes on until the day that I die. Those closest to me have no interest in hearing a quick “sorry” and then off I go. First of all, we don’t say “sorry” when we make amends. Our spouses and relatives have heard “sorry” more than they can stand, only to see us repeat the same destructive and heartbreaking behaviors, words and actions again and again and again. So no, “sorry” isn’t gonna cut it.

     But neither will a one-time amends. The people who have stuck with us through our addiction probably don’t have much interest in hearing some rehearsed soliloquy. Our parents, spouses, siblings and close friends have had their hearts ripped open, their trust spat on, their patience, time, energy and love stolen. They are exhausted. These folks don’t need to hear some self-serving monologue, where the addict or alcoholic gets to clear their conscience and then off they go to enjoy their new found inner peace. Nope. The people closest to us want us to change into a different person each and every day. They want us to act right and give back every single day. They want us to be the son or daughter, husband or wife, brother or sister that they should have had. They want us to be a better person. They want us to just quietly do the right thing and not talk about it.

     A friend up North told a story one time, where she called her parents after she had been sober for a year. She called out of excitement for her accomplishment, fully expecting them to shower her with congratulations. “Mom, dad… I’ve been sober for a whole year! I got my 1-year sobriety chip at the AA meeting today!” Her parents said nothing. “So?” they finally replied. “So what? How about you stay sober for the rest of your life without announcing it?” Exactly. What great and wise parents. How about we stay sober without expecting a trophy or a pat on the back for it? How about we skip the pride just because we stopped hurting people? So when I make a ‘living’ amends to my family or my wife, I don’t say much. Instead, I take action. I simply BE the husband, son, and brother they have always deserved but didn’t get for 28 years.

     Amends to our families are the hardest ones. Why? Because they are never done. Plus, we’re talking about people with their own flaws, people who know how to push our buttons, people who may never do any work on themselves, people who may be pretty f’ing annoying. But these amends are by far the most important ones. We’re lucky to still have these people in our lives. God knows we certainly don’t deserve them. So don’t forget them. Ever.

God, please give me the willingness, love and tolerance to always honor my living amends…