Sometimes I'm too "old school"

When I came into the rooms for the first time in 1983, old-timers didn't sugar coat the program for us. They told us to "take the cotton out of our ears and put it in our mouths." And that was one of the nicer things they said to us. Today, we seem to need to sugar coat the message so we don't offend anyone. Sometimes I fail at that.

A newcomer called me the other day who's been in and out of the rooms for years. This time, she came back after a near-fatal overdose and about a month in intensive care. Although today I make it a rule not to sponsor newcomers because I'm simply to busy to handhold them (and I don't believe if you are newly clean you need a sponsor with decades, you need someone who can relate to the current insanity in your life), I did offer to try to help her along.

She's been calling almost every day with various issues with her group home and dental problems. She went to the dentist, had a tooth pulled, which was a big decision, and her dentist gave her a narcotic. The group home manager took it away.

When she called me, she was in high drama. I calmly told her if she was looking for a co-sign to take a narcotic even short term for a tooth pull, she was barking up the wrong tree. I told her I went through a liver transplant with aspirin post ICU. My advice was to suck it up and take aspirin.

Was I wrong? She didn't call me for a few days, then called and left a message on my phone thanking me for the tough love. I wish I could have been more sympathetic, but I've seen far too many people die from taking pain medication over the long haul. With her history, why tempt fate for a tooth pull?

Today I am extremely busy. I work full-time, help my husband with his business, and travel a lot. I don't have time to sugar coat things. What's worked for me for 31 years may not work for you. But I have learned a few things along the way and the main thing I learned is that pain medication takes out the best of us.

Perhaps I sound harsh. I don't mean to. I know my own sponsor would have handled it a lot more lovingly than I did. That's why she's my sponsor--I want to be more loving. But the gal got through the problem and is still clean, or at least she was yesterday.

If you're new in recovery and you think your sponsor is harsh, know that it's because she is speaking the truth. Often the truth comes out unvarnished.

Have a great day!

New to recovery? Consider it a trust walk.

 

 

Today I spent some time with my sponsor, who, at 63 years old, is returning to college for a masters’ degree. She went to Montana for a symposium for her degree. In it, they did a trust walk in the wilds near Helena. She said when she was walking the women she was paired with who was blindfolded, she realized the woman knew nothing, not where rocks were, trees that might stand in her path, nothing. It was my sponsor’s responsibility to ensure she was aware of her surroundings.

 

We both reflected how much that is like working with newcomers who come into the rooms blindfolded by addiction. Yes, they have the language of the streets and they may have seen much tragedy and chaos in their addiction. But they know nothing of this new recovery language or anything about the Twelve Steps or the Traditions. Much like a trust walk, it’s our responsibility as old-timers to  handhold them as they gradually regain vision, a new vision, of life without drugs and alcohol.

 

I try never to forget how important our work is with newcomers and how we are responsible to carry the message and safeguard the newcomer’s experience as much as we can.

 

I hope you have a great day and that life is full of amazing people and experiences. Today, mine is.

Sponsors get us through "the moment"

I often hear exactly what I need to hear at meetings. I had been having one of those weeks. I'm coming up on my first anniversary of my marriage to my husband and we had a tough few days last week. I couldn't pinpoint what was wrong except that I felt trapped and irritable and afraid. So I called my sponsor.

She's been married for many years and can offer help for me in this area. I told her what was going on and she immediately suggested, as she has before, that I consider going back to Alanon, the program for those who have alcoholics in their lives. I did go to Naranon when my first husband began using and it helped me tremendously. However, I stopped going when we divorced.

What I find, though, is that the more I feel fearful or uncertain, the stronger my need to control. When I try to control, I'm sometimes not even polite. I may bark orders, thinking I know what is best for everyone but me. Then, I don't like my behaviors and begin to dislike myself. Then, I become depressed. It's a vicious cycle.

Sponsors get us through the moment, as I heard at a meeting a day into our marital travails. Sometimes I think I've been clean so long, "I've got this." But sometimes, I don't.

As I reflected for a few days on our marriage and my husband and I gingerly talked to each other, or for a few hours didn't, was that if anyone was going to screw up my marriage, it was me. Therefore, I had to be the one to figure it out and communicate.

I was able to talk through my fears with my husband, my feelings of being trapped and "we don't have enough in common." Today, all is well. We had a great Sunday together and both feel at peace.

Today my sponsor and I are going to visit a friend who just received her liver transplant. And the best part is that I'm emotionally available once again. Thank God for sponsorship. Thank God for God.

Fear is not always lack of faith

I spent most of the weekend at ARCNA, the Arizona region's NA convention. It was awesome. We had great speakers, I saw many of my friends who have moved to different areas of the Valley of the Sun yet all manage to make the convention. It was time to recharge my batteries and lunch with the women in my sponsorship family.

During lunch, I met a young gal who lives in the West Valley who moved here from Washington. She works for a business where she is being asked to take on more human resource (HR) duties and feels a little intimidated.

I happen to have a lot of experience and a professional designation in HR, so I asked her what her hesitancy was. It seemed to me that fear and uncertainty were holding her back in her career progression.

Fear in our lives can be many things. It can be our body's warning system, telling us, "Beware! Something is not right here! Proceed with caution!" That is healthy fear.

Fear may be simply a feeling of being overwhelmed. I know while I waited for the decision on my liver transplant and grew progressively sicker with each passing day, I often felt extreme fear. I finally got to that point where I took the first three steps thoroughly and said, "Okay, God, I have no idea what your plan is, but I don't think I'm finished here." I let God guide me as best I could with extreme brain fog caused by advanced liver disease.

Fear may be lack of faith. I once had a major job in the Bay Area, responsible for managing a $60M budget. When I realized what I had gotten myself into, I was paralyzed. I talked to my brother, who was much wiser than me in spiritual matters (and many other things). He reminded me that any decision I make based in fear, like whether to leave a job or stay, would probably be the wrong decision. In other words, if fear was the reason I said, "I can't do this," my decision not to do it would be passing up a major opportunity for growth.

Can faith and fear coexist? Absolutely! Back to my liver transplant, I was terrified most of the time. How was I going to get to the next doctor's appointment two hours away? Who would take care of my slightly irrational dog(s) if I died? Who would dispose of my things? But I had faith that God had a plan for me and in that plan, mostly what I needed to do was get dressed each day and wait.

So back to this gal who is struggling to expand her career. I offered to stop by her office when I'm in the area and show her some resources where she can get free HR training and a professional organization she can join. Many of us in the rooms have amazing professional lives and we owe it to others to give them a hand up. Who better to handle human resources matters than recovering addicts who understand how human we all are? 

When I'm struggling with fear or working with others who are afraid, I always ask, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" Sometimes we see that the worst thing may be we aren't good at a particular task or effort that we explore. In that case, we've still learned something about ourselves.

Fear need not be paralyzing if we break it down by asking, "Why am I afraid?" and "What's the worst thing that could happen if I do this?"

You know what I like about sobriety?

One of my family members struggled for years with his drinking. Finally, he went to a few meetings and has remained sober now for a few years.

The other day he was visiting and he said, "You know what I like about sobriety?" I said, "No, what?" "Everything," was his response. It was an awesome moment. Today I'm grateful I recognize I'm powerless over alcohol, no matter who it's in.

There are no atheists in a foxhole

Nearly 20 percent of Americans (and one-third of Americans under 30) are unaffiliated with any religion. About 30 percent of this group identified themselves as atheists or agnostics, according to a 2012 Pew Research Center study. 

The Pew Center refers to non-believers as “nones.” The Center points out that while nones may be non-religious, this does not mean they do not embrace spirituality. 

Yet in our 12-Step rooms, we frequently refer to God as if there is no doubt in God’s existence. Few of us stop and consider the non-believers in the rooms. At least I didn’t until I heard an atheist share in a meeting how this dialogue about God impacted him. I also thought about how I would have reacted when I arrived in the rooms if members had pushed their idea of God down my throat. 

My experience with a God was simple when I got here – I knew that since I was still alive, there was a God. That’s how dangerous the world was where my addiction took me. I had no problem with the concept of a loving God or a Higher Power, although the “restoration to sanity” outlined in Step Two eluded me for a number of years.

The question to me is this: When I am so intensely pro-God, how can I share my experience, strength and hope in a way that does not offend or even drive away non-believers? I turned to several of my agnostic friends for answers. 

Here are the tips I got from agnostics and atheists for sharing my experience with a God of my understanding without alienating the nones. 

• Don’t push a particular God. Simply describe your personal experience and how you came into the rooms.
• Describe your personal experience with Step Two. Never say things like, “You must believe this way” or “This is the only way.”
• Don’t criticize those who do not believe.
• Don’t label others as “atheist” or “agnostic” unless they choose that label.
• Don’t warn people they won’t stay clean if they fail to find God. A Higher Power is a highly personal experience for each person seeking recovery; it is not “one size fits all.”

My understanding of God has changed since I came to the rooms. In my addiction, I was angry with God, often asking, “Why me, God, why am I an addict?” I often prayed for help in getting out of various messes my behavior caused while under the influence or in attempting to get drugs. Only when I was at my bottom and humbly asked God to help me, however, did He arrest my addiction. 

This I do know from my own personal tribulations: There are no atheists in a foxhole. 

Feel free to post your input in the comments.