Monthly Archives: August 2012

Buzz Kill

Posted on by under God, Steps = Buzz Kill

     Once we get involved in the Steps, we are forever changed. Even if we relapse, our buzz is never the same. Taking steps is the number one buzz killer if you ever relapse after embarking on the Steps earnestly. At that point, we are screwed. We can’t get high anymore but we also aren’t better. We end up suffering tremendously, like an idiot stuck in purgatory.

     So we have two choices…

     Keep drinking or using even though it’s no fun anymore, and hopefully we will finally die. Or two, start all over with the Step process, but the second time it’s much harder and we don’t have the euphoria we felt when we entered this mystical realm for the first time. The second time requires that we do the Steps while perhaps suffering all the way through them. Of course, this is all the better for anyone who relapses, because doing this work while suffering makes our foundation stronger and thicker.

     To note, this wasn’t the case with me. God touches us is different ways. For some, it is sudden. For some, it is gradual. For some, it comes after we fall a few more times. And for still some, it doesn’t come at all. Don’t ask me why… that’s just the way it is.

God, remind us that we need to put You first above all else if we are to remain free inside…

Half Measures

Posted on by under AA Programs, Half Measures, Psychic Change, Willingness

     Half measures availed us nothing…

     The Big Book says that if we have decided we want peace and freedom then we must be “willing to go to any lengths” to get it.

     It also says, “We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, p.58

     Why do half measures yield zero results? Because our solution must be more powerful than our addiction, which has grown very powerful over the years. If we have been a one-man wrecking ball for years and years, then group therapy, some role play, and a few anti-depressants aren’t gonna cut it. Also, God knows that we have been half-assing life yet fully expecting top notch results. Why would we get off so easily for a lifetime of recovery? Isn’t it better for addicts to do some hard work on themselves for a payoff that we really don’t deserve to begin with?

     We must be willing to go to any lengths because this requires us to fully commit to spiritual growth. If we are willing to do anything it takes to get better, then we have undergone a fundamental change within. We have let go of our old ways. In fact, we may have to shed our entire identity or life’s purpose. This is the requirement to undergo an “entire psychic change”, where alcohol and drugs are no longer a problem for us.

     The psychic change is also responsible for changing the way we think and the way we conduct ourselves. No longer will we live and breathe through a self-centered frame of reference. To undo a lifetime of selfishness, we must be at least willing to do anything it takes.

     By the way, that famous Big Book line ‘half measures availed us nothing’ was taken from the text of an old relative of mine: Richard Peabody’s The Common Sense of Drinking

God, remind me everyday that half measures yield half results, or no result whatsoever…

Easier, Softer Ways…

Posted on by under Easy Ways, Half Measures, Soft Ways, Taking Steps

     “We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not.” – Alcoholics Anonymous, p.58

   
     Easier, softer ways are abundant these days, especially now that AA has split into two different programs, the softer one being that of unrecovered speakers telling war stories and sob stories while everyone else munches on cookies and sucks down coffee after running up to get awarded with sobriety chips to celebrate 30 days or 90 days or a whole year of sobriety (even though recovery isn’t a function of time spent sober, plus nobody should be rewarded just because they stopped hurting people).

     The original or real AA had nothing to do with meetings and Oreos, but was a rigorous program of spiritual action meant to open us up to God so His power might free us from our mental obsession to drink and use drugs, as well as give us the power to live and do that which we could not do for ourselves. AA was nothing more than the Twelve Steps, once upon a time. And meetings originally sprang up so that recovered individuals could tell those still suffering HOW to get better. Meetings were meant to offer the solution, not to simply discuss the problem.

     Should we really bring our problems to AA meetings where newcomers on the verge of suicide are desperately seeking a real solution?  

     Other easier, softer ways include psychotherapy, group therapy, role play, trigger maintenance, meetings, anti-depressants, Naltrexone, Methadone, Suboxone, and you name it. Or how about moving away, moving back, getting into a relationship, getting out of a relationship, having a baby, or trying to avoid people, places and things that make us want to drink or use? Or how about Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, Shamans, herbal extracts, homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga, or a laundry list of self-help books?

     The problem is that if you want to half-ass your recovery, there are thousands of half-ass measures and half-ass treatment centers just waiting to take your money. To any parents or loved ones who can’t fathom spending any more money on cushy treatment centers where they serve tenderloin and massage therapy just so their an addicted child can come home to relapse, wallow, and still remain the selfish idiot they were before: Taking steps is free.

God, give me the strength, power and willingness to walk right into my fear and discomfort, that I may grow spiritually and grow closer to You…

Alcoholism & Sociopathology

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

     Just like narcissists and borderlines, alcoholics & addicts step very close to sociopathic territory. The difference is that narcissists and borderline types are generally untreatable, whereas alcoholics and addicts get close to the edge but retain the capacity for honesty and therefore the capacity to heal. But it can get scary for while, as we exhibit horrifying traits and behaviors, to which we show no remorse.

     In active addiction, we could not care less about our friends, families and spouses. In fact, we don’t give a shit about anybody. We have no idea what we are saying and what we are doing to others. We are cruel, manipulative and verbally abusive, yet are shocked at any such allegations. We can easily hurt others and walk away without so much as a thought. We refuse at all costs to take any responsibility for our behavior, always asserting how right we are about everything. We believe we are fair and just, even kind and patient. We wonder why others don’t see the world as we do, which is, of course, the right way. We wonder why the hell people wouldn’t want to be around us. And we are shocked to the core when people begin to shun us or sever their relationships with us. We turn on a dime and demonize the very folks who were up on a pedestal five minutes ago. Needless to say, this is the frame of mind of a severely damaged group of people.

     The good news is that unlike clinical narcissists and the like, alcoholics and addicts can change and recover. With the capacity to be honest with themselves, some willingness, and the help of God, we can identify our elaborate defects of character through a written inventory and extract them through Steps 5,6 & 7. I realize this is a rather harsh predicament for those poor sociopaths out there. Some of them who are not too far gone may still yet have a tiny seed of honesty and goodness left. And to anyone who may be floored by this analysis… have you ever met a pure narcissist or jumped into the shark-infested waters of borderline personality disorder?

God, please help me to be more honest…

Them, Not Us

Posted on by under 99% = 0%, Amends, Willingness

     Someone once asked me about one of her amends. I told her she needed to make it. She said,

    “But this f’ing bitch was way more of an f’ing bitch than I was.”

      First of all, wanh, wanh, wanh… do you want a pity-pot to cry in? I didn’t say that, although it would have been a good idea. I told her to first pray for this person until she no longer cares about what she did. She said, 

     “I will never pray for her other than to pray she rots in hell.”

     Oh, okay. So then why the hell are you asking me for advice when you aren’t really serious about getting better? Why bother doing any amends at all if you’re going to leave out the ones where someone else wronged you too? I told her that she is not willing to go to any lengths to get better and that ultimately she will relapse. And she did. Two weeks later.

     99.9% = 0%.

     If we plan on recovering from alcoholism and addiction, we must give 100% and we must never leave anything out. Sure others are flawed, but it’s not about them. If someone has wronged us but we owe them an amends as well, we better make it and not expect a single thing in return.

     So why do we have to make ALL of our amends, other than because we have wronged others and it’s the right thing to do? We make them because if we don’t, we will drink again. If we cannot swallow our pride and make an amends to someone who has also wronged us, we have no business in the Steps. Once we take that 3rd Step and make a pact with God, we are entering mystical territory. At that point, if we walk away, bad things will happen. Trust me. I see it all the time.

God, please give me the power, strength and willingness to make all my amends, and to continue making amends if and when I hurt other going foward…

Second to None

Posted on by under Ambition vs Recovery, God First

     The answer to why people fail in recovery is a simple one. If we fail, it is because we have failed to put our spiritual growth above all else. If we fail, taking Steps has fallen by the wayside. If we fail, our relationship to God has become secondary.

     Besides physical sobriety, the one requirement to maintain our sanity, and therefore our recovery, is to put this work above all else. We must put the Steps and we must put God first before anything and anybody.

     Sorry, but that’s the way it goes.

     Sure, you don’t have to run home and tell your wife that she’s now second to God and will be forever. Although it is important for our spouses and families to understand this. The logic is simple. If we don’t put our spiritual health first, then we won’t ever be okay. We will become sick again, only to relapse and destroy everything. If we don’t get better and stay better, we lose everything anyway. But if we maintain our sanity, our spiritual health and our connection to God, then all of our relationships will flourish just by virtue of our condition.

     When our recovery suddenly falls into second place, we begin to suffer almost immediately and we begin to fail at just about everything. I’ve heard people say that the Steps didn’t work or the Steps failed me or some other nonsense. That’s not true. What they meant to say was that at some point, they stopped putting the Steps first before all else. At some point in their recovery, the work became secondary to something else, whether it be a new relationship, a job, money, or some other personal ambition.

     We have to remember that if we want to actually recover and live a good life, we have to stop putting ourselves first. Our selfish ambitions must always stay behind our number one priority, which is our spiritual well-being, which is God. If not, we lose it all. So when people ask me about how they are going to accomplish this or that if all they do is take Steps, I say it doesn’t matter what you have or don’t have if you’re not okay. If you fail to recover and then relapse, you will lose it all anyway.

God, help me become willing to put my spiritual growth above all else…

Selfishness Kills

Posted on by under Selfishness, Spiritual Malady, Untreated Alcoholism

     Selfishness will kill us even in sobriety.

     So will untreated alcoholism, though I suppose there isn’t much of a difference.
     My father, whom I loved dearly, was a perfect example. His untreated alcoholism took his life, as his spiritual malady became so great that it manifested itself organically in his brain. He was diagnosed with early-onset dementia and over the course of 10-15 years, his brain gradually degenerated and decayed until he died. Sorry, but you don’t get dementia in your 40s. He was a severely depressed, withdrawn, and untreated alcoholic.
     Translation: He was gravely ill spiritually.
     If we don’t ever get better from our alcoholic mind and our alcoholic spirit, despite being sober, we will probably die anyway. And chances are that we have already died spiritually, long before our physical death.
     It is therefore more dangerous to get sober and try to live life with a cauldron of demons inside. In fact, you’ll probably do more harm as a sober but untreated alcoholic than as an active drinker. And if you do less harm, then the one thing I can assure you is that you will suffer beyond description.
     So there is no point to get sober and simply drag yourself to AA meetings, collect a chip, drink some coffee and listen to stories. As far as I’m concerned, we alcoholics have only one choice: Take steps.
     Translation: Embark on a rigorous program of spiritual action that will effect real and lasting change within us. Do enough work to get close enough to God to fundamentally change our minds, our attitudes, and our lives. If we get sober and don’t change, we are dead. If we get sober but don’t change completely, we are dead. But if we get sober and go to any lengths to change, then we become free forever and come to witness untold miracles in our lives…
God, I humbly ask you to rid me of the spiritual poison of self and selfishness…

Don’t Care How You Feel

Posted on by under Action, Beliefs, CBT, Feelings

     Charlie, we really don’t care how you feel. Getting better has nothing to do with feelings. It’s all action…


     This is by far the most helpful thing anybody has ever said to me. Most of the time, when I start working with an addict, they go on endless rants about how they feel – Yeah but this, yeah but that… It’s always that somehow their addiction makes sense because of how they feel. And the best is that I don’t understand. I don’t understand that they feel so screwed over by someone, so unheard, so misunderstood, so alone, so weak, so useless, so disable, so depressed, so not living up to their potential, so blah, blah, blah. Um, yeah, I get it. I whined too about how nobody understands. I justified using drugs like a pig because of the way I felt.

     “Well, you would be drinking and sniffing heroin too if you knew what I was going through!”

     Bullshit.

     This is why therapy is such a joke. Addicts who I sponsor say, “Yeah the Steps are great but I also want to dig into my stuff, my feelings. You need to know how I feel, man.”

     No, I don’t.

     And fine, call me a sociopath but I really don’t care. I also don’t care what you believe. All I care about is what you do. What actions are you going to take? Bottom line: Getting better truly has nothing to do with our feelings. In fact, our feelings quite often prevent us from getting better. The most important thing any addict wanting to get better can do is to drop his preoccupation with self. Stop focusing on how you feel because the truth is it doesn’t matter and nobody cares anyway. We need to walk through our feelings without broadcasting them on the nightly news. 

    Getting better has nothing to do with feelings. It has everything to do with action. CBT has it completely backwards. Addicts and alcoholics are so fucked in the head, we can’t think our way into right action. We need to just shut up and start acting our way into right thinking…

See Also: Don’t Care What You Believe

God, give me the power, strength and willingness not to let my feelings stop me…

Tao Wisdom

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

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets about it.
That is why it lasts forever.
-Tao Te Ching, passage 2

     Acting without doing anything means that we act with nothing attached to it. We act and do what’s right just for the sake of doing it. We don’t have ambition or selfish intention. We don’t try too hard or push and force. We just act without carrying all sorts of baggage. We act unemotionally and unconditionally. And we don’t act if we are affected.

     Teaching without saying anything means that we teach by example. All of that stuff we believe in and desperately want to preach to everybody, we don’t. Instead, we live it. And quietly.

     Letting things come and letting things go is the practice of non-resistance and non-attachment. We don’t fight against whatever arises in our lives, and we don’t hold on to whatever leaves us. And we do this because we don’t need to control everything. We have faith that things are the way they are supposed to be. We let whatever happens, happen. We have faith.

     Having but not possessing means that we don’t care about what we have. Sure we have things but it doesn’t matter to us. We can take them or leave them because we are okay inside. We are at peace. Possessing the things we have occurs when we are clenched, afraid, empty, and without purpose. We need to possess because we feel powerless. Without real power, we look for false power. Possessing is a false sense of power. It isn’t real.

     Acting without expecting is what altruism is. We do things such as helping others without expecting anything in return. We don’t act in order to feel a certain way, in order to appease ourselves or to clear our conscience. We act for the sake of acting.

     Forgetting about our work means that we don’t need, want or ask for a pat on the back afterwards. We don’t need to be seen. We don’t need recognition and praise for the things we do. We are perfectly willing to do our work quietly even if no one ever sees what we did. Needing an award for our work negates our work. Helping someone and then showing off afterwards erases the deed. Forgetting about our work ensures that its essence lasts forever because it hasn’t been tainted by our selfishness. Showing off is like pouring a slow-burning acid over our work. Over time, the work disintegrates and then disappears altogether. Nobody cares what we do when we show off about it.

     Achieve this and we are well on our way to enlightenment. I’ve been sober and taking Steps for more than 7 years now and I’m still miles and miles and miles away from this…

God, teach me to let go, not to attach, resist or expect, to let what comes come and what goes go…