Tag Archives: Humility

Want To Stop But Can’t

Posted on by under Change, Desire, God, Humility, Letting go, Universe

     As I stood, emaciated and dope-sick, staring into the broken bathroom mirror of the shithole real estate office I worked for, I finally wanted to change but had reached the point of no return. When you want to stop but can’t, that’s when you know you’re screwed. No hope, no will, no energy, no power… and worst of all, no solution. I’d already tried every imaginable remedy to get better and fix myself but failed miserably every time. I tried therapy, pills, relationships, traveling, jobs, herbs, homeopathy, self-help books, AA & NA meetings, and on and on.

     I drank and used for fifteen years until I was sick, spiritless, incoherent, numb and careless. My depression was so great that it wouldn’t let me go. It was like I had fallen in wet cement and woke up one day to find myself immovable. Officially unsalvagable.
     It was only because I was financially broke that I finally dragged myself to detox. Once physically sober, I decided to go up North, but that was mainly because my wife, mother, and some bitter social worker lady wouldn’t stop bitching at me. So to shut everyone up, I went. Perhaps I knew deep inside that if I walked out of detox, I was a dead man. Or maybe it was a simple case of divine intervention.
     It wasn’t long before my entire attitude changed. After meeting a recovered addict for the first time, I not only wanted to change, but for the first time in my life, I became willing to do anything it took to accomplish that. No thought, feeling, relationship, circumstance or life event was going to stop me, regardless of how dark or horrifying.
     So my advice to addicts is: At some point it will really help your cause if you WANT to change. I believe with all my heart that if we truly want to change and are willing to go to any lengths, the universe will conspire to bring us opportunities to make that happen. God is there for us… we just need to get over ourselves and then humbly and wholeheartedly ask Him for help.
     I was reading Proof of Heaven the other night and it amazed me that the same thought came into my head as I faced death. In 1996, after being hit by a drunk driver plowing the wrong way down the highway, I regained consciousness some two days later in the ICU unit at Mass General. I couldn’t move or see. I knew something was terribly wrong. After realizing my predicament, the first thought that went through my head was, God help me. I suppose the Big Book is right when it says that God or God-consciousness is simply fundamental to our make-up as human beings.

God, please teach me to let go of Self…

Humility

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     As addicts, it is very important for us not to engage in any sort of “I am a victim” attitude, as if life is so tough for us, and oh the burden that we have to endure being addicts. Um, we made ourselves addicts, remember?  We chose to use over and over again like a pig until we broke ourselves. So nothing made us addicts except for our cowardice. It is equally important for us not to pat ourselves on the back or give ourselves medals for getting better, or rather, for choosing to stop hurting others. And finally, it is imperative that we do not take credit for what we have done. The truth is that we BARELY deserve what we still have, and if we have any chance of rebuilding our lives, we must live in humility. We must forever remain under God, repelling arrogance of any sort.

     The moment we begin bronzing trophies for ourselves, it is game over. The moment we begin taking credit for recovering and for the blessings in our lives, it is game over. This doesn’t mean that we go around hating ourselves, self-deprecating or being someone else’s doormat. On the contrary, true humility is real strength. Humility means that we have the right attitude.

     But the moment we get cocky is the moment we get sick again, as our ability to be honest starts crumbling. Then we lose awareness of what we are thinking, saying and doing. We begin failing to see how we are affecting others. We stop feeling how we are affecting others. Then we are insane, and if we haven’t already relapsed at that point, we relapse. Then we’re on a full blown run until we either wind up in detox again, or in jail, or in the graveyard. And now we can really pat ourselves on the back for we have managed to once again rip everything and everyone to shreds, break the hearts of those closest to us, sabotage everything good in our lives, and bring enduring shame to our family and any semblance of a good name we once had. Good job.

God, please give me the willingness, courage and strength to live by Your principle of humility…

Spiritual Realm

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     Is there a spiritual realm?

     Yes. There is without a doubt much more happening than we can see, hear, or touch.

     As I knelt down to pray one night up North, I was touched by something beyond comprehension. The scope of Its power is something I can’t even fathom. It cannot be described or measured. It is beyond man-made definitions, boundaries and conceptions. It is beautiful, mystical, and unexplainable. And in a single moment, it freed me from the lifelong chains of fear, anger, sadness, depression and emptiness.

     So why spoil something that we fragile, flawed, and fleeting humans can barely handle? We have to box everything, define everything, describe everything, own everything, and assert doctrines, codes and creeds as if they are absolute and come from this Power. Who are we to define and possess God? Who are we to fight over God?

     Forgive me, but it feels like some of our man-made conceptions of God seem rather silly, if not altogether ridiculous. Trying to ‘create’ God, if you will, with our limited brains and faculties appears to me to be a fruitless endeavor. How can we define something that we cannot truly understand or comprehend?

     Unfortunately, God is such a loaded word, which is why I had to look beyond words and symbols, buildings and rituals, traditions and doctrines. I had to look beyond human capacity. Not to exude jade towards organized, mass worship, but when you have a mind-bending spiritual experience, man-made anything goes out the window.

     So what is this great Power that people try endlessly to define? The truth is that I have absolutely no idea. Question: Would there be so much petty religious violence if we all admitted that we have no clue? Isn’t it more a show of humility to say ‘yes’ to getting underneath something but ‘no’ to defining and possessing It? Are we really so very special?

     The truth: I don’t know what God is. I don’t know His depths or limits, other than to assume that He is limitless and well beyond the boundaries of space and time. Therefore, why should I have the arrogance to think that I understand God? I don’t have a clue, and I’m pretty sure nobody else does either. Perhaps some of us have meditated long enough to have a slightly deeper glimpse into the spirit world, but those are men and women who have done more work on themselves than 99% of us could even conceive of.

    One thing I do believe now is that God can do anything God wants, whenever it wants to. My advice is to get on the right side of that trade, if you will.

Addicts Are Cowards

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     The way to grow is to do the very thing we are scared to do.

     Why is it that alcoholics and drug addicts can’t ever seem to kick the habit for good? Why do they stay sick for so long? Sure it’s because they are stubborn, obstinate, self-absorbed children. But it can be summed up in one word: fear. We are cowards, and therefore we are scared shitless to recover, as that would actually require some (gulp) work.

     Addicts refuse at all costs to step out of their comfort zones. Anything difficult or uncomfortable they avoid like the plague. The truth is that we refuse to become adults. We cannot accept that life might not be solely about us feeling good all of the time. We cannot deal with the fact that life might be tough sometimes, that we might have bad days, feel sad or self-conscious or depressed. We simply cannot fathom the idea of living life on life’s terms. If life does not suit us, we drink or use. We do whatever we have to do to maintain our comfort… like a child who wants a candy bar even if mommy can’t afford it. We will whine and shout and even begin to hurt ourselves until we get it.

     Getting better is really quite simple. It is just doing that which we fear. We do all of those things that addicts hate doing – admitting when we are wrong, being accountable and responsible for ourselves and our addiction, thinking about others once in a while, taking care of our families, and going to work even when we are tired and don’t want to, just like every other human being. Guess what? Other people actually get up and go to work even when they’re having bad days. They don’t need to get jammed out of their skull just to get in the shower in the morning or get plastered as soon as they punch out.

     We get better by walking through our fears. We face the embarrassing character defects that we have amassed. We admit them and discover the healthier way. We become accountable for our harmful behavior towards others. We come to understand that we are not the most amazing things in the world, that we alone cannot fix ourselves. We consider humility, and get underneath something for the first time ever. We accept help from others… and most importantly, from God.

     Growing simply requires we do that which all other humans have to do, and we don’t complain about it. By acting like adults, we will magically find that we don’t need to shoot heroin, sniff a pile of coke, smoke meth, or drink like a pig just to get in or out of bed. By walking through fear we melt away cowardice… and we become free men and women.

God, please rid me of the poison of cowardice…

Dry Drunks

Posted on by under Dry Drunks, Humility, Untreated Alcoholism

     Just because we are sober does not mean that we aren’t still a rather large group of selfish assholes. In fact, if we have not yet chosen to live by spiritual principles, that’s what we are. And choosing to live by spiritual principles means, of course, actually practicing them in our lives… or at least making a sincere attempt. The reason I was able to get sober so many times yet fail so miserably is simply because I remained the same self-absorbed idiot after putting down the substance.

     I once heard a veteran AA “old timer” at a Manchester, MA meeting say that AA and recovery was not about being a good person, it was just about staying sober. His exact words were, “I’m still an asshole, just a sober asshole!” He said it didn’t matter if you still lied, cheated, or abused others verbally and physically. Here was the featured speaker of the night and he was telling everybody that AA wasn’t about morals. For this guy, it was totally fine to be a shithead.
     If you are an alcoholic or an addict and you hear that sort of insanity at a meeting, you are not in the presence of recovery. You are in the presence of poison. Why? First of all, we, as alcoholics and addicts, have been going around like a bunch of children, always wanting this, always needing that, lying and manipulating those who love us, burning bridges and throwing away any opportunity that we’ve somehow been given. We have not only given up the right to drink and use, but we’ve also given up the right to be a damaged, depressed, abusive, angry, self-centered and socially/emotionally retarded individual. 
     Bottom line: If you are an addict and you think that you have a chance in hell of staying sober without becoming a better person and living by moral/spiritual principles, think again. Unless you aren’t really an addict, you will fail. Miserably. The only chance we have is to rid ourselves of our lies, our grandiosity, our fear and our pathological immaturity. Otherwise, we might as well keep drinking and using, because an active addict is NO DIFFERENT than a sober addict who hasn’t adopted spiritual principles. 
     To note, I’ve never seen anyone accomplish this without humbling themselves by getting underneath something Greater. We can’t change who we are by thinking we are superheroes who can do anything. We need spiritual help. We can’t do it alone. We can’t do it without the help of God.

God, always remind me that physical sobriety means nothing if I don’t change and grow and live by spiritual principles…

Do You Feel It?

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     We must listen to our conscience if we are to return to sanity…
   
     If I can’t feel in my gut what is right and what is wrong, then there is something wrong with my program. We take Steps to restore our conscience and then it is up to us not to ignore these gut feelings.  If we feel something is right, we go and do it. If we feel that something is wrong, we avoid it at all costs. With the power to act or to refrain, we can now move away from the selfish part of our recovery and go help others. We can give back to the families, friends and the larger world that we have taken so much from. We can walk forward after walking backward for so long. It is now our responsibility to serve.

     Remember, addicts don’t deserve what we have. Sure we respect ourselves and we are nobody’s doormat… but we must never trample humility. If we have made it and recovered by some miracle, it is most certainly because we were CHOSEN to get better and to help others, not because we deserved it. Once we get involved in the Steps, we are in mystical territory. We must continue or bad things will happen. We must never ignore our conscience.

     By the way, YES, I still make tons of mistakes and I trample humility, regrettably. But if I do wrong, I don’t walk away and watch my soul slowly die. I make it right. And if I am too cooked or stupid to know that I wronged someone, please approach me and I swear to you that I will admit my wrongs and faults, and listen to all you have to say.

God, make me willing to change, grow and serve…

Building God vs God Building

Posted on by under AA, Church, God, Humility

     Not that it really matters, but the truth is that I feel the presence of God less in a building and more when I’m looking at the ocean, or walking in the woods, or watching a sunset. I feel It when I’m playing music or writing. And I especially feel It when I’m helping another addict or speaking to a room full of addicts. I feel It when I’m praying or meditating. I feel It when I’m taking action.

     But we don’t need to worry too much about the whole God thing. AA wants us to build our own conception of God, regardless of how simple it may be, although… if your sponsor tells you to use the coffee pot for a Higher Power, you might have some problems.

     The point is to get underneath. The point is realizing that we are not the most powerful force in our lives. The point is understanding that there is something far greater than us, something limitless in its power and capable of anything. If we are chained by addiction, it is important to stop believing in ourselves only. Chances are that hopeless alcoholics and junkies cannot recover without this inner change in attitude. Changing our understanding of what power is and where it comes from is humbling, and anything that humbles us is good for us.

God, please bring us closer to You and give us the strength and power to take spiritual action everyday… not just on Sunday.

Taking Credit

Posted on by under Arrogance, God, Humility, Taking Credit

     Who really gets us better?

     I pretty much figured that if I was going to recover, it was ME that was going to do it. Arrogance. I couldn’t even wrap my head around the idea that something else could fix me, especially something intangible and other-worldly. Enslaved by my ego, I became saturated with pride and self-love. I could only conceive of my own power. I’m the only one who can fix or change myself. I accomplish everything because I’m Charlie f’ing Peabody! 

     Addicts love to take credit for every good thing that happens to them, for every accomplishment no matter how minute. They simply can’t handle the possibility or even the idea that something else may be responsible for what they have achieved or what they have been blessed with. If they land a great job, it’s all them. If they make a bunch of money, it’s all them. If they meet a loving, loyal spouse, it’s all them. If they are showered with good friends and abundance, then yup, it’s all because of them. They create everything… unless it’s something negative. Then it’s suddenly someone else’s fault. This is the sad result of our narrow mind and pathological self-centeredness. We’ve become too small and too dumb to see greater powers at work. We need others to see what we can accomplish, how brilliant and talented we are.

     The sheer comedy of all this is that doing things my way, my genius way, landed me in a locked detox/psychiatric ward with my ass hanging out of a hospital johnny. So after failing repeatedly to control, shape and mold my life, desperately trying to exert my will, it was such a great RELIEF to just let go and rely on something other than my fucked up head to guide me through life. When I stopped trying to get myself better, that’s the moment I began to really change.

     So I don’t take credit for what changed me, for what removed the obsession to drink and use drugs. I don’t take credit for the things I’ve accomplished since I got sober. I don’t take credit for all of the miracles and blessings in my life. I don’t look around to see my wonderful life now and think, Wow, look what I did! I’m so the man! I’m so amazing and talented and strong! I can conquer anything! 

     You know who is strong? GOD.

     To note, I don’t really help the sponsees who happen to come my way. If someone gets better because of the work they’ve done as a result of my sponsorship, then all I did was arrange the meeting and it was God and God alone who fixed this person. I had nothing to do with it. So if you’re an addict and you are tempted to tap yourself on the back for something you just did, try not to. Chances are you didn’t have too much to do with it.

God, everything good that I do and that I have is from You and is You…