Step Two, HP and Me

When confronted with Step Two my initial reaction was less than pleasant and much of what I said out loud was not appropriate for any social situation. My personal issue was that I was reading words that were not there. It may as well have read, “Was told that Jesus Christ was the only one who could fix me.” Instantly all of my opinions about God and organized religion and hypocrites flood my head. The repulsion, the anger, and the fear drown out the simple message of the step. I convince myself that I know what the hell is going on here and I’m not doing it. And so, I become unmovable. 


To think of it in these terms was getting ahead of myself in this process, but the short detour was part of the pathway to moving forward. I think that conjuring up these old images was the issue I’d had with this step in the past. But this is not where I want to be, yet. For me I had to have it pointed out to me that developing my concept of this God, as I understand Him, is Step Three. We’re only on Step Two. So rather than sabotage my progress with old ideas, once again I had to get out of the way and take the path of least resistance.


Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. The first thing that I had to look at was my belief system. I had a childhood filled with violence. I had an adolescence filled with booze and drug addled rebellion. I had an early adulthood filled with reckless abandon. I believed there was nothing wrong with my drinking because I was owed a good time. I deserved it. If you’d had the life I’d had, you’d be like me too. I came to believe that there may be plenty wrong with me, but it was everyone else’s fault.
  
Those Powers greater than myself, they were the problem. They wanted to control me. They wanted to take away my fun. They wanted to place the blame on me.  Those Powers would tell me to sit down and shut up. They would tell me that I had to take responsibility for my actions. I couldn’t be bothered. I had nothing to be sorry for.


As for the idea of being restored to sanity, well I had ideas on how to get there. First of all, put everyone who had harmed me in front of me and then give me the means to make their lives a living hell. That would make me feel better. When it came to my drinking, just shut up and mind your own business. That will give me some peace and quiet. And isn’t that what sanity is? No one constantly on your back about what you did and how much you drank and where did all your money go?
  
In my skewed perceptions, I couldn’t acknowledge the concept of an intangible Power greater than myself. I associated that phrase with authority figures. All the cops, teachers, parents, all of them were just trying to hold me down, trying to control me with their rules. When I finally stopped struggling against the imaginary restraints, when I finally wore myself out, then and only then was I able to hear the truth in my own words when I related different things that had happened to me.


When I considered the number of times I had woke up in my own vomit and had not choked to death while I was passed out, was that not a sign of something greater than myself protecting me? Was I still going to insist that it was just dumb luck that I was laying a certain way that allowed all the bile to come out of my mouth instead of going back into my windpipe?
  
When I thought about my blackouts, waking up in my bed with no memory of how I got there, could I still deny the existence of a power greater than myself? After all, something had to have kept me from falling down a flight of stairs and bashing my skull in. When I stepped off the curb, could I say with confidence that I was the one who kept myself from walking head long into traffic? When I was on the train platform, could I explain how I could have stood at the edge of the platform without falling onto the tracks or in front of the train as it pulled into the station?


When I wrote out the things that I had done that could have ended my life, I couldn’t deny it any longer. There was a Power greater than myself at work here. While it may not have been a physical form of protection, there was something looking over me that was stronger than luck or coincidence. How could I rationally explain away these facts that were before me in black and white? I couldn’t, especially when I was always the first one to admit that there are things in the world that are beyond our comprehension.  If I was willing to believe in something like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, then why couldn’t I believe in a Power greater than myself?


Once again, as I moved down this path of least resistance and just stopped and breathed and sat with this new idea of a force, a Power greater than myself, I could hear the static in my head turn down a notch. I could feel my body relax ever so slightly. For the first time in a long time, I felt something akin to hope. With hope, I didn’t feel quite as unhinged as I did before.


This was the beginning of my restoration to sanity. With it came an understanding of how things work in the real world, not my drunken suits-me-fine world. There are simple tasks that I can do, like making my bed or doing my dishes, help maintain my sanity. I continually strive to educate myself, to keep moving forward in my career and life. That sense of accomplishment gives me a greater sense of self and that helps maintain my sanity. I had to learn how to talk to people, but more importantly, I had to learn how to listen. Being able to admit that I don’t know everything helps maintain my sanity.


I have seen someone die in the parking lot of a hospital from an alcoholic seizure. Even seeing someone hemorrhaging from every opening of their body wasn’t enough to convince me that alcohol will kill me. When I went out on a relapse, it was the farthest thing from my mind. Unlike that moment when I learned not to touch the hot stove, perhaps seeing that person die in front of me wasn’t enough because I wasn’t emotionally connected to the lesson.


I’m not smart enough to know how to fix the world.  I’m not an authority on finance or romance. I’m not an expert in the areas of psychology, philosophy or religion. I only know what I have learned from those times that I was paying attention. I am only an expert on myself. Even then, my knowledge is questionable. Thus, with the care of a Power greater than myself, I have daily reminders that humility is the key to being teachable.  And knowledge, if used correctly, can be the key to a life of sanity.

Me, Sober and Step One

So when I decided to start this blog, I had to consider how much of myself am I going to put out there? My first reaction was, well I’m just going to pick a topic and write about my thoughts on it. That’s fine and all, but one of the things that I find fascinating about people is their thought process. And how I look at the world is influenced by my experience. When it comes down to it, the most valuable thing I can share with anyone is my experience, strength and hope. 

I want to preface this by saying that I’ve been clean and sober since May 10^th, 1984. I made my first attempt in March of 1981, when I was 19. I am not one of those people who tries to get everyone sober. While interventions may work for some, they didn’t work for me. I am not one of those people in recovery who goes out and drags people out of the bar and takes them to detox. When people tried that with me, it just strengthened my resolve to drink. 

I am not out to convince or save anyone. Each of us as individuals has to convince ourselves to save ourselves. All I am doing here is giving you my experience as it relates to my journey of recovering from alcoholism. So if you don’t want to read it, don’t. It’s your choice. But if you do read it and if you have any questions, that’s fine. Ask me anything. If it’s something I don’t want to answer, I’ll say so. 

I will also add that I feel like I’m the last of the old fashioned drunks. What I mean by that is my primary addiction was booze. Nowadays, there are a lot of people addicted to meth and a whole host of other ‘club drugs’, in addition to your standards. I think the only reason I never went down that path was because booze met my needs. 

I smoked a little pot and for a while I was hooked on Black Beauties. But I mainly drank. Southern Comfort or Jack Daniels was the drink of choice, straight up on the rocks. I didn’t like beer. I hated scotch. I would drink gin, rum and vodka, but I thought of those in terms of being mixed with something else. Whiskey was the preferred drink. It was simple and to the point and a good whiskey can stand on its own.  

In hindsight I can see where the first step is what set the tone for my early recovery and my personal interpretation of HOW to work the steps. I’ll come back to this in a moment and explain what I mean. But in the meantime, when I first read step one, I was confronted with my first opportunity to take the path of least resistance.   

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable. My initial interpretation of this step seemed like it was just a mental exercise. All I had to do is admit that I can’t drink and when I do my life is a mess. Didn’t I just do that by coming into the door and sitting down at the table? What else do you people want? Do I have to give you proof? I told you what it was like and what happened, what more do you people want?

When I tell my story I’m telling you what I want you to know. When I do that, I am trying to fit in while keeping some of my shame hidden. I can tell about the night that I did all this, but I’ll leave that part out because I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me. Keeping secrets takes effort. It requires masking my shame, pretending that nothing is wrong. It generates worry that I’m going to be found out.

To take the path of least resistance frees me up from all of that worry and fear. When I admit my powerlessness over alcohol I remove hesitation. I wipe away my fear of what you or you or you will think of me. When I take the path of least resistance, I own my addiction. I own how much I drank. I own how much I spent. I own how often I did it. I own how selfish I was towards others.

When I tell my story about my unmanageability, once again, shame may keep me from telling the truth in just how unmanageable my life was. Especially if I was fortunate to have the intellect, the resources, the advantages that make someone look at me and think, “They’ve got it made.” Once again, when I stopped and was confronted by my unmanageability, I didn’t want to confess how badly everything had spun out of control.

To take the path of least resistance allowed me to abolish my fears of what you would think of me. I had to come to a place where I understood that I was here for my life. When I was unmanageable, I was acting out of character. I was the alcoholic, the addict. I wasn’t myself. Once again, I had to own the things I found myself doing to get money or booze. I had to own the fact that I had lied, cheated, stolen, physically hurt others and myself, all in an attempt to get manage my life. Unfortunately I believed that alcohol was what helped make it all better to deal with. If I could just get a drink, I’ll be able to handle this. But that wasn’t truth. Truth came only after I was able to look at how my world had become undone by my powerlessness over alcohol.

When I said initially how my approach to the first step set the tone for my early recovery, that upon first glance it seemed as simple as flipping a switch, I had to have three relapses before I understood that this  blasé approach had no conviction, no substance. When I came back to the rooms that last time, I had to be told, point blank, that I had to scrap EVERYTHING I thought the program of Alcoholics Anonymous was. Everything I had heard from that first meeting in March of 1981 up to that first meeting back in May of 1984, all of it had to be thrown out like so much spoiled food in the back of the refrigerator.

My initial reaction was to protest. I’d read the Big Book. I’d read the 12&12. I’d done 12 step calls, chaired meetings, made coffee. I’d been there and done that. Let’s get on with it, let’s just pick up from where I left off. It wasn’t very hard, but when the person I was talking to LITERALLY slapped my face, it was enough to shut me up and hear what he was trying to get through to me.

I had exposure to the program, but I had no connection to what I’d been taught. When I made a comment in a meeting, it was no different than when I was a kid and had to give an oral report on the Civil War. I was just parroting what I’d memorized from the book. To make the program part of me, I had to give myself to the program, he explained. To do that, I had to get out of the way.

The physical exercise of sitting down and writing all the ways I was powerless over alcohol was like reading a laundry list of things someone else had done to get booze. It was so much more than I wanted to admit to doing and so much more detailed than simply flipping that mental light switch. Seeing everything I had done, much of it secrets I had kept hidden out of shame, was humbling. The proof that I was powerless was undeniable. Even people consumed by greed of money wouldn’t have done some of the things I’d done to get drunk.

When I wrote down all the ways that my life had become unmanageable as a result of being powerless, once again, I was ashamed. I had let opportunities for education, employment, even love, slip right past me like it meant nothing. The school work would take up too much time, the better paying job would be more responsibilities, and the relationship would turn into constant nagging about my drinking. So I remained uneducated to the fullest of my potential and I was only able to get the lowest of paying jobs and I got into relationships with people just like me.

I was ashamed of my life and how things had turned out. I became angry and sullen. I began to believe that the world owed me something. Each time I acted on these beliefs, my life became more and more unmanageable. I came close to losing everything so many times, that it didn’t seem unusual to live so close to the edge of destruction. It was my normal.

For me the path of least resistance was to take action. Even if it was just the physical act of sitting down and writing out my inventory of powerlessness and unmanageability, it was still action. It opened my eyes to my behavior and removed any doubt that I belonged in these rooms. When I looked over what I’d written, I realized that people who can have one drink and be done, do not put this much effort into having that one drink. And as I would come to realize, this inventory that I was told to do, would become the foundation for the searching and fearless moral inventory that was coming.