Coming into Agreement with these Ideas

Posted on August 22, 2010 by John W

I’m trying out a new look for the site and it may take me a bit to figure out the tech stuff. The bumps in my spiritual path are smoothing out as my life settles down after several months of turmoil and drama. I struggle to write during these difficult times as all of my writing time is taken up by journaling. The journaling helps me to process my thoughts and move through pain. I woke up early this morning and for the first time in quite a while, felt a desire to write a blog post. As the pain subsides, the desire for creative expression returns.

Meanwhile, our Emotional Sobriety Men’s Step Study group has been moving through Step 3 and last week came to the final paragraph which starts at the bottom of page 40 in “The 12&12″:

Once we have come into agreement with these ideas, it is really easy to begin the practice of Step Three. In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done.”

We’ve spent over ten months on the first three Steps, discussing and then attempting to practice the principles one paragraph at a time. This slow-it-way-down process taught to me by my first sponsor, K.C., is the only way I can truly come into agreement with these ideas. Although we applied fourth Step methods and principles to specific issues during my early sobriety, K.C. and I spent nearly a year and half on the first three Steps before I truly was ready to move into Step 4 with a God of my own understanding that would help me do a searching and fearless moral inventory.

For me, coming into agreement with these ideas means acceptance. It means that the concepts and principles being presented are not just understood intellectually, but have moved from my head to my heart where they become a knowing. There is no way I can do this without taking in each idea and going out and practicing it. What ideas are they talking about? Twenty pages of them starting with “Who cares to admit complete defeat?” and going all the way to the right use of my will which is to conform it with God’s will, which in turn is the purpose of A.A.’s Twelve Steps.

The end of Step Four says that thoroughness out to be the watchword. They are referring specifically to taking inventory, but thoroughness is a principle that can be applied to every idea presented in all of the Twelve Steps. Thoroughness is the only way I know of to come into agreement with so many ideas. Acceptance means to bring in with my will. I cannot do that without being thorough.

Coming into agreement with these ideas never stops from me. Alcoholism is a disease of forgetfulness. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago (Big Book p. 24). This ability to forget can be deadly. Just last month I was talking about drinking again. I was sitting across from a girl who was drinking a margarita and I actually questioned whether or not giving up alcohol was still necessary now that I understood that alcoholism was a disease of the mind. With nearly 8 years of sobriety, and after ten months of painstakingly going back through the first three Steps, I was talking about being able to drink again. In that moment, I was not in agreement with these ideas at all. More proof for me that alcoholism is alive and well in me and that I have to practice these Steps as a way of life.

Now the decision making I have practiced in Step Three comes into full bloom. Once I find myself in these moments of emotional disturbance or indecision, I only have to come into agreement with one idea to start back down the path to recovery. Admitting I’m powerless, the very beginning, is always a great place to start. Once I do this, pausing is possible, quiet and stillness enters my life in a moment and the solution presents itself through once again aligning my will with God’s. The true purpose of A.A.’s Twelve Steps. For me, the supreme art of life.

Posted in Decisions, Monday Night Take-Away, Step 3 | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Bumps In My Spiritual Path

Posted on July 19, 2010 by John W

I’m back again. My job is finished and I am looking forward to some writing time over the coming weeks as I rejoin my friends at the Emotional Sobriety Meetings. I have also just come through the end of a relationship which came about through a betrayal on my part and gave me proof once again that I am an alcoholic with alcoholism whether I drink or not. I am flawed and as hard as that is to admit, I need to do it in order to grow. The key for me today in recovery is to admit these mistakes and turn them into opportunities for growth.

I am not pretending to be anyone other than who I am. To me, being on a spiritual path doesn’t mean I am walking on water. A spiritual path is a quest to evolve and it is filled with twists and turns and even big bumps.

My lust defect has gotten me into a lot of trouble throughout my adult life. Becoming aware of it in recovery has not made it go away. That is one of our riddles as addicts and alcoholics. The awareness must become a knowing through my experience. It must make a journey from my head and my intellectual understanding, to my heart where I know it to be a truth. It is only in this momentary knowing that I can have it removed by a Power greater than me when it actually occurs rather than after the fact. It’s like taking a drink and then telling someone I drank. The key is to tell on myself before the act occurs, when the drink or the lust is simply a desire.

Obviously, I still have quite a ways to go on that journey….

Posted in Spiritual Awakening, The ism | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Discovering My Beliefs

Posted on May 21, 2010 by John W

I am working long hours these days with little time to write amidst a full and busy life. The movie business is challenging that way, requiring so much time and attention that things I love often get pushed aside for a period of time. Luckily, this current project is a shorter one and I will be finished in early July, in time to spend quality summer vacation time with my kids and at the computer doing what I truly love. Meanwhile, I am asking God to help me remain grateful for the work and for the second chance at life that my recovery has brought me.

Rather than trying to tackle posts on the paragraphs that the Emotional Sobriety groups are reading, I am going to try something new for a while: shorter posts that focus on principles that both groups are studying. It might be a word, a sentence or an idea. This way, I hope to be able to continue staying in touch with all of you through this blog over the next two months.

I have been taking a closer look at my beliefs these past few months. The Monday Men’s group helped me to do this on our journey through the recently completed Step 2 and Michelle and I have been hosting a Creative Journal Workshop that included exercises designed to help me to first see what I believe and tools to help me change negative beliefs to positive ones. I have found that I can’t come to believe in a Power greater than me, whether as a whole idea or today in a moment of struggle, without knowing what my beliefs are and where they come from. This is what Step 2 is all about for me.

So I’m going to share what came out of one of these exercises, a passage I wrote in my journal in response to the following questions:

What are my beliefs about life in general? What is my philosophy of life at the present time?

My life is a journey to knowing who I am. I often lose sight of this belief and think that it is nothing but a struggle. But every time I slow down, step back and look at the bigger picture, I see that the struggles are actually helping me to grow. This makes sense intellectually, but I have to feel it in my heart. It is through the struggles that I am getting to know myself and to become the man I desire to be. In this perspective, I see the struggles as gifts from God, gifts which are given to me so that I can move from not knowing, to knowing. They are the rocks and boulders in my stream, necessary diversions on my path to knowing, making me stronger and softening me at the same time.

Posted in Coming to Believe, Step 2 | Tagged | 2 Comments

Shaping My Life

Posted on April 3, 2010 by John W

Am I willing to take the measures necessary to shape my life?

Hi old friends, it’s been awhile. The Emotional Sobriety meetings have been going strong this past month. The Men’s meeting is approaching the end of Step 2 and our Thursday night Co-Ed group is nearing the end of Step 4. This past Thursday, we talked about applying the principles from the emotional insecurity paragraph on page 52 of “The 12 & 12″, then dug into the last paragraph on that page which suggests that financial insecurities create the same symptoms: worry, anger, self-pity and depression:

Suppose that financial insecurity constantly arouses these same feelings. I can ask myself to what extent have my own mistakes fed my gnawing anxieties. And if the actions of others are part of the cause, what can I do about that? If I am unable to change the present state of affairs, am I willing to take the measures necessary to shape my life to conditions as they are? Questions like these, more of which will come to mind easily in each individual case, will help turn up the root causes.

One of the things I love so much about our meetings is that we get to hear many different perspectives on the paragraphs we read each week. Then, comments from all of you here on this blog add yet another dimension. These varying views and opinions open up the text and help me to see so much more than I would trying to figure it out on my own. As Step 2 says, this is only one man’s opinion based on his own experience. The multiple perspectives open up doors for me that help me to see the principles in a whole new light.

We have been looking at defects like worry, anger, self-pity and depression and recognizing that these are only symptoms of a deeper cause. When I try to treat the symptoms, I get temporary relief, but I also ignore the cause and so the symptoms continue to resurface again and again. This is the same thing that happened when I was drinking and using and I used drugs and alcohol in an attempt to treat symptoms like worry and anger. It worked for a while, but each time I sobered up, the symptoms returned and I went back to the booze to treat them again and again.

The same thing happens in recovery. These surface level effects like worry and anger are easy to spot once I become aware of them. At first I try to treat them with whatever I can easily grab onto. I’m looking for relief from the pain I am feeling and I go to quick fixes to relieve the pain and help me to not feel my feelings: sex, shopping, food, work, gambling, whatever works in a moment. But like drugs and alcohol, these things only bring temporary relief. Once they subside, the pain returns, the defects appear again and I look for something else to fill the hole. It is a lot like Western medicine. Got a pain, take a pill.

The 4th Step is an attempt to get down to the root causes. These methods laid out in the Big Book and The 12 & 12 are sure-fire ways for me to dig deep inside of myself and find out why I do what I do. In this way, I am healing myself from the inside out. These defects which I start to become more and more aware of are the indicators that there is a disturbance inside of me. The defects are important to recognize because they are the signs. Once I find myself in the midst of a defect like anger, I am in the perfect place to look for the cause. I do this with the questions presented here and help from another alcoholic who brings another perspective and is essential in helping me to see myself. As it says in Step 5, no defect can be corrected unless we clearly see what it is.

The only requirement to be a member of A.A. is a desire to stop drinking. The desire, this longing and hope for something, is what opens the door to my recovery. There is no failure. As long as I have the desire, the willingness will unfold. The same is true with getting down to the root causes of my behavior. In this paragraph, I can ask myself: Am I willing to take the measures necessary to shape my life…? The measures are laid out in the print. The willingness comes from me, my individual case, backed by a Power I have come to believe in in Alcoholics Anonymous. What measures am I willing to take today to shape my life into the life I have always wanted to live?

Posted in Step 4, Thursday Night Take-Away | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Ordinary Attributes

Posted on February 27, 2010 by John W

Reaching for the extraordinary

The Monday night Emotional Sobriety men’s group is deep into Step 2 now, having dug into the paragraphs about the roadblocks of indifference, fancied self-sufficiency, prejudice and defiance and taken a look at where I can become the bewildered one and the drifter, especially with time in recovery. (For more on this, have a look at some of the posts I wrote last year when the Thursday night group was in Step 2, What is Blocking Me? , The Bewilderbeast, and The Drifter). Last Monday, we looked at the first paragraph on page 29 of “The 12 & 12″:

As material success founded on no more than these ordinary attributes began to come to us, we felt we were winning at the game of life. This was exhilarating, and it made us happy. Why should we be bothered with theological abstractions and religious duties, or with the state of our souls here or hereafter? The here and now was good enough for us. The will to win would carry us through. But then alcohol began to have its way with us. Finally, when all our score cards read ‘zero,’ and we saw that one more strike would put us out of the game forever, we had to look for our lost faith. It was in A.A. that we rediscovered it. And so can you.

And so can you. Sometimes I get the thought that this A.A. thing is working for everyone else, but not for me. I’m different, don’t you know! It’s exactly that attitude that separates me from other alcoholics and from the solution. But this says, so can you. Each time I drift into indifference, become bewildered, prejudiced or defiant, I have yet another opportunity to discover my lost faith.

The previous paragraph helped me to see that I have gone through life in this overconfident state of believing that certain values such as being honest, tolerant, just, ambitious and hardworking would be enough to carry me through. They called these values simple rules of fair play. Now this current paragraph refers to these simple rules as ordinary attributes. Ordinary? Wait, I thought I was different!

Material success has always been important to me and this paragraph was a real eye opener in helping me to see that my drive for material success has been, and still can be, founded on nothing more than ordinary attributes. My father really did talk about all of these values as being important. He lived his life by them and did his best to instill them in me. Of course, he was not an alcoholic. He didn’t need something beyond the ordinary, but I do.

Throughout my recovery, I have still attempted to base my material success on these ordinary attributes. It’s exhilarating at times to chase after something that promises to bring the reward of money. Rather than theological abstractions or religious duties, I often don’t want to be bothered with spiritual matters and my A.A. duties. Just give me the money and I’ll be okay! The will to win will carry me through.

But my new character continues to be built today as result of a living application of the 12 Steps and my reliance on a Power greater than me that I choose to call God. My scorecard reading ‘zero’ is a representation of hitting bottom once again. However, I make choices to raise the bottom now so it will hit me and I don’t have to go so deep. As soon as I’m there, I rediscover my faith in the A.A. program and a Power one more time. And the answers come.

Just yesterday, I was faced with a dilemma, a choice between two prospects for work. One clearly represented my old character and material success. It is a big, high-profile project, the kind that has always fed my ego in the past. It even has lots of nice people working on it, people I like spending time with. But it also would take me out of state and out of the country for 6 months, away from Michelle, my kids, my friends, my meetings – my life that I have worked so hard to build.

The second project is smaller, less visible and will bring in about 1/3 of the money. But it is also in Los Angeles, my hometown. I will get to be with the people I love and care about and even sleep in my own bed. It finishes in time for me to spend some summer vacation with my kids. The benefits are too numerous to list in a blog post. This job is a representation of the desires of my new character, the one who wants balance and healthy relationships. This is the obvious choice for the new life I am building and has shown up as a direct result of my desires to have that life.

Yet, as obvious as it is, my old patterned behavior is hard to break. On auto-pilot I am drawn to the money and blinded to the big picture taking the first job would mean. The amazing gift I have today is this wisdom to know the difference between this old character and the new character which is based on spiritual principles and backed by a Power greater than me, a Power which has brought me these two choices to begin with so that I may have an opportunity to grow.

With my scorecard reading ‘zero’ on the ability to make this crucial decision, I called another alcoholic, someone who I respect who I know is also on this spiritual path. As always in these situations, I need another alcoholic to expose my struggle too so that he can help me to find the truth within myself, not make the decision for me. He reminded me that this life is not about me anymore and asked me one simple question: Where will you be of the most service to others?

The choice was clear in an instant. It was in A.A. that I rediscovered the faith I had lost only hours before. I’m going with the smaller project and relying on a Power greater than me that allows me to live a life that is truly extraordinary.

Posted in Decisions, Monday Night Take-Away, Power Greater Than Me, Step 2 | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

A Lifetime Practice

Posted on February 24, 2010 by John W

The road doesn't end, so sit back and enjoy the ride!

I am enjoying this life I get to live in recovery, my second chance to discover who I am and really live my new life to the fullest. I returned recently from a business trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, a place I have wanted to visit for a long time. It’s amazing to be totally present for an experience even as those around me used alcohol to heighten or perhaps dull their own experience. I know that feeling because I was that guy for a long time. But now, I get to be conscious and of equal importance, allow others to have their own experience.

Back at home, our Thursday night Emotional Sobriety step study group has been continuing the journey through Step 4. Last week the group took a close look at the 2nd paragraph on page 50 of “The 12&12″:

Since Step Four is but the beginning of a lifetime practice, it can be suggested that he first have a look at those personal flaws which are acutely troublesome and fairly obvious. Using his best judgment of what has been right and what has been wrong, he might make a rough survey of his conduct with respect to his primary instincts for sex, security , and society. Looking back over his life, he can readily get under way by consideration of questions such as these:

This paragraph ends with a colon, but the questions that follow are spread over the next two pages, so in keeping with the format of looking at one paragraph at a time, we stopped the reading right there knowing that there was plenty to look at before we even get to the questions. In addition, it was important to note that we were coming out of a previous paragraph that ended with a question: Now willing to commence the search for his own defects, he will ask, “Just how do I go about this? How do I take inventory on myself?”

It is interesting to note at this point that we have come through eight pages of Step 4 and they are just now talking about beginning to take an inventory. Those eight pages have been helping me to look at myself in relation to my instincts and character defects and how fear drives me into this viscous cycle of acting in these defects and never having my instincts satisfied. I’ve had to find the shoes that fit, to see myself in each of the alcoholic characters they describe. And of course, as the passage above states, I must be willing to begin the search for my own defects.

What hits me the most about this paragraph is the differences in the 4th Step techniques between the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous and “The 12&12″. The “Big Book” was written by the first 100 in early sobriety and is the basic text. The 4th Step columns method is a great beginners way for me to look at myself. At the same time, the method is so straightforward and simple that I can use it as a lifetime practice beyond the first time I do it. As a matter of fact, I’m doing one right now. My list is very short compared to the the last time I did it, proof that I am growing in this program, but also proof that I still have stuff to work on no matter how long I have been sober.

Since the “Big Book” method was laid down in 1939, others have taken the column method further, broadening and deepening the application as it was first written. One particular example is the Big Book Awakening Workbook which I find to be an invaluable study guide when working with the men I sponsor.

The other broadening/deepening technique I love is right here in “The 12 & 12″.  ”The 12 & 12″ method has some similar qualities and some very obvious differences to the “Big Book”. Traditionally, I and most others I know were to taught to follow the example of the column method set forth in the “Big Book” (BB page 65) which starts with making a list of resentments: In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry (BB page 64). From this first step of making a list, I then create my columns. But what wasn’t talked about in much detail and doesn’t figure into this first list is the part the “Big Book” actually asks me to do first: First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure (BB page 64).

Obviously, it was much easier to get me to look at my resentments as a jumping off point before I came around to my part, but nonetheless, there is no clear cut method for first looking at my flaws in the “Big Book”. It unfolds later as part of the 4th column process after the resentments are looked at: Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes….Where were we to blame?…When we saw our faults we listed them (BB page 67).

Over the next twelve years after the “Big Book” was written, Bill W. and others appeared to have desired a way to go deeper. This is my case as well. With long term sobriety, I have dealt with resentments and seen my part and I’m not afraid to look at myself. I recognize that I have character flaws and they aren’t your fault. I need a way to dig deeper, to continue this inventory taking as a lifetime practice.

The 4th Step method that we are introduced to in this current paragraph of “The 12 & 12″  gives me a specific technique for looking at my flaws first. As a matter of fact, the whole 4th Step method in this book is designed around searching out my character flaws. It starts with pondering, then making a list of my defects or flaws rather than my resentments and now starts to introduce me to a series of questions which will allow me to do some deep writing on those flaws.

The good news for me in all of this is that I am not just bound to one technique. I have two different ones from A.A’s two primary books on the Steps which I may apply at any time in my recovery that I find my self struggling. The other good news is that “The 12 & 12″ is written in essay style and its 4th Step method encourages me to do my own writing in response to the upcoming questions in that same essay style. Having this option means the 4th Step stays alive as a lifetime practice because it allows me to go deeper each and every time.

Posted in Inventory, Step 4, Thursday Night Take-Away | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Widening the Hoop

Posted on January 27, 2010 by John W

The hoop is a lot wider than you think!

Today I’m bouncing back to Step 2 and looking at a paragraph that the Emotional Sobriety men’s group discussed several weeks ago, but one that I feel needs another look. This paragraph comes on the heels of my Savage State of Mind post and offers simple and practical applications that can help me come to believe and get me back on track.

The first paragraph on page 26 in the “12&12″ states:

At this juncture, his A.A. sponsor usually laughs. This the newcomer thinks, is just about the last straw. This is the beginning of the end. And so it is: the beginning of the end of his old life, and the beginning of his emergence into a new one. His sponsor probably says, “Take it easy. The hoop you have to jump through is a lot wider than you think. At least I’ve found it so. So did a friend of mine who was a one-time vice-president of the American Atheist Society, but he got through with room to spare.”

The previous paragraph on the savage state of mind ended with a question: must I renounce all this to save myself? And now comes the solution, the escape from my savage mind and promises of a better life if I am willing to renounce. The recognition of my savage state of mind is essential for bringing me to this point, this juncture.

Once I am aware of my alcoholism, in a moment, I am at a crossroads. At this juncture I have a choice to go down the old path I’ve always gone down, or enter into a new life. This is a great definition of surrender, the end of the old and the beginning of the new, the letting go of all I think I know for a brand new experience. But doing in this on my own can be challenging because I have trouble seeing myself. That’s why I need a sponsor and A.A. friends. They can relate to my struggles and they don’t have the emotional attachment to them. That’s why they can laugh and say, “take it easy.”

The laughter is not at me, it’s with me. The laughter is because they have been there before and crossed through to the other side. Laughter is a principle, meaning no matter who applies it, we all get the same result. It’s universal. It changes the energy from the dark to the light, right now. It widens the hoop.

Coming to believe was a tiny little hoop for me. My childhood faith came into question when I was in high school and was destroyed when my father passed away when I was 18. I wasn’t the vice-president of the American Atheist Society, but my disbelief was about the same. Years of running on self-will and lots of self-righteousness when it came to religion helped me down the path of self-destruction.

I came into A.A. angry at God, and actually ran out the door at one of my first meetings because some guy tried to tell me that it was a spiritual program. Fortunately, the hoop was a lot wider than I thought. I even tried to run my own program in untreated alcoholism without a sponsor for 9 months and got to see how ugly that was. I was at a juncture by circumstance, a chance to experience the end of the old and the beginning of the new. I had nowhere else to go. I had to come to believe. The more I tried, the wider the hoop got.

Today, I have to squeeze through hoops all the time. The hoops are called struggles, struggles in relationships, struggles at work, struggles with family, struggles with friends, struggles with money. And that’s what I often try to do at first, squeeze. My old character is on auto-pilot. But I am building a new character based on spiritual principles in the 12 Steps and this new character has an awareness that there is an old life and a new life.

The new character has learned by repeated behavior how to widen the hoop and it all starts with the awareness that I am acting in old behavior. At this juncture, I can pick up the phone and call my sponsor. The hoop widens. I can call another alcoholic. The hoop widens. I can pause, get quiet, try talking to a Power other than me. The hoop widens. I can take out my journal and start writing about my struggle. The hoop widens. I can make a gratitude list instead of focussing on everything that is wrong in my life and the world. The hoop widens. I can go to a meeting. The hoop widens. I can laugh.

Check out some of my older posts on this paragraph: Widen the Hoop , Begin the New , The Principle of Laughter , and This Juncture

Posted in Coming to Believe, Monday Night Take-Away, Step 2 | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Give it to God

Posted on January 25, 2010 by John W

Give it to God

In my last post on Pride, I mentioned that some members of our group felt pride could be a good thing and were struggling with the idea that it was so destructive. After reading all of your great comments on the pride topic, I felt the need to post a part 2 of sorts, especially after reading Bev B.’s comments where she addressed the positive side of pride:

“After finding only one positive definition of Pride- self respect- in a sea of “exalting oneself above others, superior”, definitions .. it seems a pretty dicey business full of fine lines to get at that “good pride” so maybe going for self acceptance and humility is a better bet rather than trying to “justify ” pride.”

You hit the nail on the head Bev! When this confusion over pride came up at the Emotional Sobriety meeting last week, I read two paragraphs from Step 10 that have always helped me with the proper use of pride. It starts on Page 91, last paragraph and continues with the first paragraph on page 92:

“Disagreeable or unexpected problems are not the only ones that call for self-control. We must be quite as careful when we begin to achieve some measure of importance and material success. For no people have ever loved personal triumphs more than we have loved them; we drank of success as of a wine which could never fail to make us feel elated. When temporary good fortune came our way, we indulged ourselves in fantasies of still greater victories over people and circumstances. Thus blinded by prideful self-confidence, we were apt to play the big shot. Of course, people turned away from us, bored or hurt.

Now that we’re in A.A. and sober, and winning back the esteem of our friends and business associates, we find that we still need to exercise special vigilance. As an insurance against ‘big-shot-ism’ we can often check ourselves by remembering that we are today sober only by the grace of God and that any success we may be having is far more his success than ours.”

The forward of the “12&12″ states that A.A.’s 12 Steps are a group of principles, meaning that they are all connected. I often find that connecting the dots from one paragraph to another, whether it’s in the same Step or another one, helps me to have a deeper understanding of the principles.

This first paragraph from Step 10 describes me when I am acting in pride. I don’t know how to handle good fortune or even compliments for that matter. The problem is, once I get some, I want some more. Hmmm, sounds like alcohol and drugs. I love the description that I am blinded by prideful self-confidence. Pride does not allow me to see myself. Pride is a total lack of humility.

The second paragraph offers a simple solution of what to do with pride: Give it to God. At the meeting, I shared a story about how these two paragraphs became  a part of my life. The only way these truths become a part of me instead of words in a book is when I touch them to a moment in my life in the day that I’m in. Most of the time, I need the help of another alcoholic to do this.

When I was ten months sober, I used to attend a big Sunday morning meeting in Hollywood with Michelle. It was a speaker meeting and the main speaker was always someone with over ten years of sobriety and oftentimes circuit speakers made appearances here. The first half of the meeting featured a speaker with less time, usually a member of the group. As we walked into the room that day, the secretary asked me if I wanted to be the first speaker. No! was my first reaction. There was usually 200-300 people there. And this was Hollywood! Rock stars and tattoos. I reluctantly gave in.

I don’t know what I said. I remember telling my story a little, then talking about my short but challenging journey in recovery so far. Afterwards, there was a huge line of people thanking me for my words. This was amazing! I was high as a kite on the complements. I floated out of the room. The rest of the day was amazing. The So Cal sky had never been bluer and I know that for a fact because that is exactly where my head was.

I called my sponsor and told him what had happened. He could hear the excitement in my voice and he asked me a simple question.

“Did you remember to thank God?”

God? What does God have to do with this, I thought. I told him no. He told me that pride was a dangerous place for an alcoholic to go and that when people thanked me, the best thing to do with that gratitude was to give it straight to God.

“They thank you, you thank God.”

Bummer. What about me? The wind was gone out of my sails for the rest of the day.

The next morning, I woke up and felt like I had been hit by a truck, or more appropriately, like I was hungover. This emotional hangover had come from an excess of pride in my own accomplishment. I called my sponsor again and he took me to these two paragraphs in Step 10 so that I could see through this specific experience how I had been blind-sided by pride.

Along with the truth about how pride worked in me as an alcoholic was a simple solution: Give it to God – any success I may be having is far more His success than mine. Practicing this principle of turning my success over to God requires what Bill W. refers to as exercising special vigilance. I have to keep a close eye on this pride thing, to monitor it with caution and each time I recognize it, give it to God.

Posted in Pride, Principles, Step 10, Thursday Night Take-Away | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Secret Ingredient: Pride

Posted on January 23, 2010 by John W

Lured down the path by pride

It’s so good to be back in the flow. After traveling for work the first 2 weeks of the year, I was able to attend the Thursday night Emotional Sobriety meeting this week along with all the others who were willing to venture out in the rain. We’re funny about rain here in Southern California. We don’t see it much, so we don’t know quite what to make of it when it shows up, especially for 5 days straight.

This week, we talked about the last paragraph on page 48 in Step 4 of the “12&12″:

“To avoid falling into confusion over the names these defects should be called, let’s take a universally recognized list of major human failings – the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. It is not by accident that pride heads the procession. For pride, leading to self-justification, and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears, is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress. Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses.”

What a mouthful! Chew on that for a while!

First off, I have to remember that I’m in Step 4 here. I have built a foundation with the first 3 Steps and I have a Power in my life that I call God whom I can bring into this paragraph to help me look deeper at myself. Not only that, I have also really contemplated and applied principles from the previous paragraphs in Step 4. These paragraphs have introduced me, step by step, to the instincts and how they function. They have helped me to find the “shoes that fit”, recognizing when I am a power driver and when I am a door mat.

Finally, I am in the midst of pondering the need for a list of my more glaring defects and this current paragraph is going to help me define what those defects are and how they function. We could spend months studying this paragraph!

“For pride, leading to self-justification, and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears, is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress.” I remember reading this paragraph about 4 or 5 years ago and having this sentence hit me like a ton of bricks. I still can see myself clearly in the moment, where I was sitting, what I was doing. I had read it before, many times actually, but on this particular occasion it set the alarms off. Was this the key to the kingdom? If so, what was doing buried in the middle of this paragraph? Why wasn’t it in bold print capital letters with arrows pointing at it.

I read it over and over. I grabbed a dictionary and looked up pride, self-justification, spurred, conscious, unconscious, fear, breeder. I called my sponsor and I could almost hear his smile on the other end of line when I told him that I had found a secret ingredient in the alcoholism recipe. He had had the same experience early in his recovery, but he reminded me that although this was a powerful and meaningful principle, we couldn’t forget that there are an unlimited number of reasons we drank and used and still continue to struggle with this disease. This principle was merely opening an important door to deeper insights. We talked for a long time. I wrote down the sentence and all the definitions and put the slip of paper in my wallet to carry with me and contemplate some more.

Time passed and I was still struggling with this whole instinct, fear, defect thing. I just couldn’t connect the dots and I was frustrated. I felt like my sponsor was speaking Chinese when he talked about all this stuff, but that if I could just make that leap between an intellectual understanding and a true knowing, I would feel some relief.

We were at my sponsor’s house one afternoon and I expressed my frustration once again. I asked him if he could give me a visual because my mind worked better with visuals and the magic of one alcoholic working with another unfolded right before my eyes once again.

He held his hand up high:

Defect

Then a little lower, below that:

Fear

Then lower still, below that:

Instinct

Bingo! When I act in a defect such as anger, there is a fear driving that defect. The fear can be conscious or even more dangerous, unconscious, meaning I am not even aware of it. Under the fear is an instinct for sex, security or society. My fear is that my instinct won’t be satisfied.

Someone says something at work that hints at the fact that I haven’t done my job right. I get angry and yell at them, a defect. Under my anger is a fear that my instinct for financial security won’t be satisfied because I’ll get fired and won’t have money to support my family. This all happens in a fraction of second and I’m not even aware of it. And then the secret ingredient, pride, steps in to justify my anger. How could I ever think that there isn’t plenty wrong with me about which plenty must be done if I am going to stay sober and live a good life.

There are many definitions of pride, including an excessively high opinion of oneself or abilities; conceit; arrogance; ego. But the one that Michelle gave me really has me thinking today: pride is about an identity made up. I have all these stories about who I am that I have made up and desperately need to protect. No wonder I have so much trouble making progress. Pride likes where I am and wants me to stay right there.

Our Take-Aways from the meeting were to take a look at pride and how it functions in me, how it leads to self-justification, how it causes me difficulty and blocks my progress. We also are looking for where we make demands on ourselves and others. Some members who had trouble seeing that pride was a negative thing are looking at what pride really means to them.

I’m barely scratching the surface here so I really hope to hear comments from all of you on what you discover in contemplating this paragraph.

Posted in Defects, Instincts, Pride, Step 4, Thursday Night Take-Away | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

A Savage State of Mind

Posted on January 18, 2010 by John W

Is the beauty in the mountains or is it in me?

Both Emotional Sobriety meetings have been amazing over the past month, the men’s group continuing to look at Step 2 and the coed group working its way through Step 4. I would like to say that I will write posts about all that has transpired over this time, but that wouldn’t be realistic. As a matter of fact, that would be a good example of alcoholism, over-scheduling myself. So I will write about what inspires me which is always the best way to go.

The 2nd paragraph on page 25 of the “12&12″ was the subject of one of our recent Monday meetings:

“Let’s look first at the case of the one who says he won’t believe – the belligerent one. He is in a state of mind which can be described only as savage. His whole philosophy of life, in which he so gloried, is threatened. It’s bad enough, he thinks, to admit alcohol has him down for keeps. But now, still smarting from that admission, he is faced with something really impossible. How he does cherish the thought that man, risen so majestically from a single cell in the primordial ooze, is the spearhead of evolution and therefore the only god that his universe knows! Must he renounce all this to save himself?”

I don’t walk around with the conscious thought that I am risen so majestically  from the primordial ooze and that I am the spearhead of evolution, but when I get into this state of mind they call belligerent and savage, that is exactly what I am doing. I won’t believe in God because I am making all the decisions for my life. The reason that this is a savage philosophy is that I have proven that I am a complete failure at deciding what to think and how to act. I just have to look at my track record to see that this kind of thinking led me straight to Alcoholics Anonymous where I am forced by circumstance to ask for help on how to live.

Belligerent means of warlike character, aggressively hostile, combative, quarrelsome, antagonistic.

Savage means fierce, ferocious, or cruel, enraged or furiously angry, unpolished; rude

On the surface, the A.A. literature is talking about my behavior. But like all spiritual books, below the surface of the words, they are really talking about my state of mind. Luckily, this paragraph uses those actual words – a state of mind which can be described only as savage. We talk about the alcoholic mind in our meetings and this is exactly what they are referring to here. I am savage in my thoughts, my thoughts about you and even more damaging, my thoughts about myself.

I had a great example of savage thinking happen just recently. I was working on a commercial project for a week, a logistically challenging job in the snow, but nothing new that I hadn’t encountered before. My boss was stressed to max, under the pressure to deliver what he had promised. I could see he was struggling on the inside and that inside struggle was turning outward toward others in anger, impatience, frustration.

Emotional Sobriety is all about right reactions to people in situations in my life. The trouble for me this particular day was that I was trying to run my day on self-will and my previous experience in these situations and it wasn’t working. I had a challenge equal to that of my boss and defects flowed from me just as easily as they did from him. I couldn’t just allow him to feel his own feelings and let him process things in his own way. Of course I wasn’t even aware of all of this while I was in it. I went back to the hotel that night, exhausted and pissed off.

The next morning I woke up with a raging headache, still angry and even more irritated. Fortunately, I have tools to deal with situations like this now, a method in the 12 Steps and a Power I call God. I wrote in my journal, getting my anger and frustration out, then got quiet. In the stillness, the truth about what had happened the day before was revealed. I was mirroring my bosses savage thinking and behavior. Despite much previous experience working in these conditions, I had doubted my own abilities. I was tearing myself apart on the inside. I  had tried to savagely run my day on self-will.

I took this new perspective and a sense of relief from seeing myself into the new day. My boss had not changed at all and we were filming in the same location under the same circumstances. What was different on this day, however, was me. I asked God to come with me, to help me detach from others, to be of service to my boss and co-workers, to notice the beauty of the mountains all around me.

My experience in an identical situation was completely different as a result. I had a great day and the only thing that had changed was my perspective. There was a noticeable difference between savage, alcoholic thinking and positive thinking that came from a Power greater than me. My new perspective even managed to change my boss who gradually saw things in a new light for himself and started smiling and having fun the second half of the day.

One of the principles to apply from this paragraph is to become aware of when I get into this savage state of mind. The awareness opens a door for a Power to come in. Post a comment and let us know what you discover.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 8 Comments