Blocking is an appropriate subject on Super Bowl weekend. I am learning that my alcoholism throws up a lot more blockers than the Pittsburgh Steelers front line and each one of them is as big as any of those guys. Blocking was the focus of our Step Study meeting two nights ago as we discussed the first paragraph on page 28 in Step 2 of the 12 & 12:
“Consider next the plight of those who once had faith, but have lost it. There will be those who have drifted into indifference, those filled with self-sufficiency who have cut themselves off, those who have become prejudiced against religion, and those who are downright defiant because God has failed to fulfill their demands. Can A.A. experience tell all these they may still find a faith that works?”
I am always looking for the one thing that defines alcoholism and addiction. I imagine that if I just figure it out, I can throw up a roadblock and keep it out of my life. Unfortunately, alcoholism doesn’t work like that. It has an infinite number of ways to come at me. And it’s got some powerful roadblocks of it’s own.
The paragraph from Step 2 lists four specific blocks which keep me from coming to believe in a Power greater than me: indifference, self-sufficiency, prejudice and defiance. These blocks are the difficult or unfortunate situation of the one who has fallen from faith.
Step 2 is a great journey, one that is ongoing and will never end in my sobriety. I have come to believe in a Power as a whole idea, but coming to believe is an action which never stops. How could it? There is so much out there to explore when it comes to this concept of God. Remember, we are on a quest for faith. Step 2 describes a number of characters that struggle with coming to believe. Ultimately, I must see myself as each of these characters at one time or another, but I first identified with the one who had fallen from faith. It described my path and helped to get me in the door to this believing thing.
As always, I have to look up words to see what they mean for my life in recovery:
indifference: thinking it doesn’t matter one way or the other; lack of interest, emotion or enthusiasm; apathy
Basically, I just don’t give a shit. Stop there! The paragraph asks me to “consider”. Consider means “think carefully, contemplate, ponder, reflect.” I don’t want to slow down enough to do that. Remember, I’m in a rush to figure this alcoholism thing out. One of my wonderful attributes is that I lack the power to stay in the now. I lack the ability to “consider” anything.
So now I’m presented with the perfect opportunity to apply or practice coming to believe in a Power greater than me. I can do this whether I don’t believe yet or I’ve been here for years and have already come to believe. I practice by asking a Power to help me consider what it means to be indifferent. How am I indifferent in my life today?
I can easily see where I just don’t care about certain things. That is the first and most obvious sign. But this idea that indifference is lack of emotion is something I find really interesting. One of my biggest problems as an alcoholic and addict is that I never learned how to “feel” or express my emotions in a healthy way. I used drugs and alcohol to suppress my emotions. Not feeling is a tool I use in sobriety that has the same effect as the drugs and alcohol: it keeps me numb to my life, it keeps me out of the now and it blocks a Power from getting in. Emotional sobriety is the key to a happily and usefully whole life.
Consider this: How are you indifferent today?
Coming attractions: Self-sufficiency.
Indifference rears it’s head in so many ways in my daily life. The way you described the disease in your life makes me think you and I are sharing the same “tool kit”. Since we read this paragraph last Thursday night I have been not only looking at how indifference, self-sufficiency, prejudice and defiance manifest themselves in my daily life. But I have been seeing them with out the usual self loathing I experience when I see things like this in my life.
There is a pretty good mix of all of them at any given moment. Interestingly in identifying them and filtering them through the serenity prayer, again changing the prayer to pray specifically in regard to my powerless and acceptance over (fill in the blank) and courage to change what I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Wisdom has been settling into my mind and heart in a new way.
Specifically in regard to indifference in my daily dealings with my family. As you mentioned I possess the not so unique LACK of ability to express myself in the real world. Especially in the simple things like “What do you want to do?” and “What would you like for dinner?” or “What do you want to do on date night?” I have never been able to express these things, mostly due to my dissatisfied and irritable mind. “They” won’t do what I want. “It” never works out for me….etc,etc. As a response I pretend that it just doesn’t matter to me. Or that I could care less. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everything bothers me, I am easily hurt when I don’t get my way. I am an alcoholic.
Today, thanks to last weeks Thursday night meeting, I am able to identify the corrosive and what I consider to be dangerous and insidious effects indifference can have over my whole life when I wrongly use it as a tool to cover my damaged emotions and personality. Today I am learning to ask God to help me make simple decisions in the little microcosm of society which is my family. Today I am asking God for the courage to change my attitude toward the simple things in order to become a productive member of this little microcosm of society.
It is hard for me to believe that I am so indifferent in my home as I am one of the most prejudiced and opinionated people outside my home. I think my emotional silence has also been incredibly fear based with only slight smattering of inability to communicate. I am afraid that what I want or what I think will not be heard or taken seriously. If my wife and I disagree she will leave me. None of this is true but I still pretend it is when I live in my disease.
Indifference is so hard on those we love. I am realizing that I have done a lot of damage to my wife and kids by hiding behind the walls of indifference. It all stemmed from losing my faith and the disease of alcoholism, for me.
Today I ask for the serenity to accept the things I do not know, the courage to express the things I do know that I would like and wisdom to know the difference between not knowing what I want and when I am hiding behind indifference in order to “protect” my festering ego. When I see the ego festering I pray for the courage to turn it over and expose it to God.
And tonight for dessert I would like a large helping of humble pie, please.
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