Monthly Archives: August 2012

God Isn’t Santa Claus

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     What is prayer? And why doesn’t selfish prayer work? I was taught that prayer is supposed to be an unselfish action of humility that grants us access to God, to something greater. It can open up a telephone line between me and Power. When I’m engaged in selfish thought, word or action, I am shut off from any connection to God. That is why selfish prayer doesn’t work. We cannot reach or connect to God when engaged in selfishness.

     Early in recovery, sure I prayed for myself. But it wasn’t for cars, money, or a promotion. It was for the willingness to walk through a fear I was having, or the patience to make an amends to someone difficult, or the power to walk through my exhaustion and get myself to work. I had to pray for these things to 1) get better, and 2) to become more useful to God and to others.

     But as we continue to grow up and get better, we learn to pray unselfishly. Generally, unselfish prayer isn’t directed toward self anymore. We start praying for others. We pray for others to have joy, peace, happiness, love, courage, strength, prosperity, and God in their lives. Sure I sometimes do this for selfish reasons. I pray for someone whom I resent to have everything I want for myself. I do this to relieve me of the resentment, and that of course, is selfish. But ridding ourselves of resentment is also unselfish in the sense that it cleans us and allows to us then be more useful.

     I still need to pray for myself at times. I pray for help being more honest, more tolerant, more willing to grow spiritually. I pray to become a better man. But you should be able to feel it in your gut if your prayer is purely selfish and therefore wrong. If we find ourselves praying for something to feed our ego or pride, we should feel that it is wrong. And we should feel shut off from Spirit. When we pray unselfishly, there is an immediate internal shift. Sure it may be subtle, but we should feel a quietness, a calmness, a humility, a connection. We have officially tapped in.

God, teach me how to pray unselfishly…

Why Many Don’t Respond To AA

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     Many alcoholics don’t respond to AA for the same reason we don’t respond to therapy. The guy talking to us doesn’t really know what he’s talking about and has no solution to offer. Sure, the speakers in AA may have a slight affinity to us in that they drank alcohol. But sadly, it often ends there.

     In order for me to listen to you, you have to have felt and used the way I did. And yes, this is sometimes true in AA. But you also must be in the sort of condition I want to be in if I’m going to get sober and take your advice. I don’t want to be a sober mess, running from meeting to meeting, shaking, chain smoking, chugging coffee, restless, irritable, anxious, depressed, empty, lonely, miserable, selfish, and with no purpose whatsoever other than desperately trying to not drink.
     In fact, that was never the solution that AA offered us long ago. Alcoholics Anonymous says that we can recover by taking steps and then live in freedom and peace. But that’s not what you hear in AA. You hear stories, and the staple advice is “just keep comin'”, because this Group Of Drunks can keep you clean. Wow, that’s pretty shitty advice. I know plenty of people and believe me, none of them can keep me sober. For sure, there are two separate programs, both called AA. 
     Sorry, but I’m all set. I’m only going to listen to you if you’ve not only felt and used the way I did, but you are also standing there before me with internal strength, calm, centered, content, secure, stable, happy, productive and fearless. This is what you see when you meet and talk to a recovered person. You can’t tell they were ever some dirty heroin addict or some wreaking drunk on the street. They have been reborn. They are transformed. They have grown new minds and have been filled with the spirit and power of GOD.
     So that’s why people are turned off by AA. Because what you see in meetings today is not what AA ever intended. AA was a 12 Step program of action designed to expel certain spiritual poisons from us to allow for a new Power to come into us, thereby replacing our addiction with something that really works. So if collecting sobriety chips and cranking butts all day isn’t cutting it for you, do yourself a favor and find a recovered person to talk to. Trust me, it will be eye-opening.
God, teach us how to live Your solution and Your principles, that we may serve as examples of real recovery…

Moral Compass

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     The problem with alcoholics and addicts isn’t alcohol and drugs. Our problem is that we are void of spiritual principles. We have no moral compass. So getting better has little to do with just getting sober. To get better we must replace the poisons of fear, dishonesty, pride, resentment, self-pity, self-seeking and narcissism with honesty, courage, tolerance, patience, humility and other-centeredness.

    When we become a cauldron of moral and spiritual decay, we begin to have a problem with everything and everyone, even though our circumstances are nobody’s fault but our own.

     Without spiritual guidance, we are lost. We think it is normal and okay to judge, criticize, gossip, be petty and emotional. We become emotionally immature and eventually somewhat retarded. We slowly lose ourselves and eventually we lose our souls altogether. We take everything for granted as we become lost in self-absorption. Soon we are no longer capable of swallowing our pride at all. We can’t swallow our ego, our self-seeking, our fear or our dishonesty. We fail to ever admit our wrongs or take responsibility for anything. Humility is no longer in our vocabulary. Hey, what do you know… we’ve become sociopaths.

     By the way, if we are incapable or unwilling to ever admit our fault in anything, then we can’t have any genuine relationships. All of our relationships are phony at that point. And sadly, we are phony.

     Lack of spiritual guidance and action leaves us with no purpose, which gradually turns us into sociopaths. With no moral compass, we have no compass at all. We are lost in the dark. This is why we need to get better. We need to fix ourselves not because of our drug and alcohol addiction, but because of the people we’ve become.

God, help me do the right thing today…

Cause & Effect

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     For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction… – Isaac Newton

    Addicts and alcoholics must be careful about the universal laws of cause & effect, for these laws are also alive and well in the mental, emotional and spiritual realms. There is an effect to everything we do, whether physical or mental.

     If we think angry thoughts, chances are we will attract angry people to us who come and piss us off even more. If we embrace and indulge our resentment towards others, chances are we will reap ongoing negativity and outside judgement. If we choose to lash out verbally, there is no doubt someone will return the favor. If we distract ourselves constantly and fill our minds with say, the garbage on E! Television, we will probably suffer from boredom, frustration, apathy, and indifference. Even if we neglect ourselves spiritually or emotionally by slacking off on certain right actions that we have committed to take consistently, rest assured we will suffer in a multitude of ways. We will become depressed (a form of self-absorption) which will effect our ability to be present with others, to give to others, to love others.

     And it’s just the same with positive actions, thoughts and words. There is a positive effect, whether it’s good people, or worldly blessings, something unseen, or most importantly, peace inside. The effect of goodness is goodness, and vice versa. Cause & effect can destroy us or it can save us. This is a lesson I have learned intellectually yet I continue to violate on almost a daily basis. Addicts and alcoholics will always make mistakes. We will always act, think and speak negatively. It’s what we do about it that matters. Making it right will gradually effect our character and change us slowly over the long run. Are you in it for the long run? And do you want to just get sober or do you really want to change? Sometimes I have to ask myself these questions. And it’s in the answer that I eventually find the results.

God, please give me the willingness, strength and goodness to honor the laws of cause and effect…

Never Too Early

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     Watch out for mainstream AA. The first time I was “12 Stepped” by someone at a local meeting was eye opening. I had just done my 5th, 6th and 7th Steps, and returned home from treatment. My sponsor told me to immediately start making amends or else… Or else what? Or else I would soon return to insanity and relapse.

     But the AA guy gave me a mouthful. He told me that it was “way too early” to be making amends to anyone. He said I had no idea what I was doing and that I “wouldn’t be ready to make amends for like a year” or more. He also told me I probably went through the Steps “way too quickly”, and that I “need a sponsor”. The last thing he said was that all I should be doing right now is to “just keep going to meetings”.

     If you’re an alcoholic or an addict new to recovery and someone accosts you at a meeting and says that, here is some sound advice: RUN the other way. If I had listened to this guy, my wife and my mother would have most likely buried me several years ago. If I had stopped making amends, stopped growing, stopped healing, stopped changing, stopped shedding my self will and selfishness, I would have soon lost my mind, sunk into a depression, cut the cord with God and become encroached by RID (Restlessness, Irritability, Discontent). Then I relapse. Then I lose everything. Then I die. Great advice.

     So I looked at the guy and said, “It’s never too early to get better.”

     Halfway through the meeting, he came over to me and apologized, and then left the meeting early. Boy, I hope that guy didn’t have a ton of sponsees. It’s a shame that this is the sort of watered down AA that so many newcomers get, only to continue suffering and struggling day after day. The end result is either relapse or untreated alcoholism, both of which ensure ongoing harm to all who surround the alcoholic. I’m not saying there is only one way, but if we’re talking about AA, the last time I checked there was only one program and it’s laid out in the first 164 pages of the Big Book.

God, please help us narcissistic addicts truly recover first before cluelessly chasing people around…