Tag Archives: Alcoholism

June 24, 2014 · 9:57 am

Looking Back from almost 20 Years Sober

Then vs. Now

My life is far from perfect.  In a few days, I’ll turn 54, having failed to achieve any of the goals I set in youth.  I’m not a famous writer, and I don’t have much money.  I drive a 1990 Honda that starts with a screwdriver (really), because all my money goes to keep a small house that’s in disrepair.  My boyfriend is out of state most of the time, and I haven’t spoken to my sister or brother in a year and a half.  But… I’m sober.

What does this mean?  It means my life today is a an amazing gift.  As I get closer to hitting the 2o year sober mark, it gets harder to remember who I used to be.  But as a sponsor, in helping other women who suffer as much as I used to, I get to look back and remember.

There was a day when I woke up morning after morning full of toxins and shame.  I’d hide my headaches from my partner, pretending brightness, but more importantly I’d hide reality from myself, pretending I’d just had a bit too much last night because of… whatever.  At least half the time, I’d also be hiding the exhilarating glow of obsessive dreams about whomever I was infatuated with.  I’d go about my day being whoever I thought others expected me to be, looking to you for signs that I was okay, and thinking up ways of impressing you.

And since nothing would work out as I planned, I’d end up filled with sickening envy at your easy life and disappointment at my unfair one.  Most of all, I lived with self-loathing: the conviction that I was a worthless loser.  This conviction could survive any accomplishment I achieved because its taproot ran so deep, all the way to my core: I was hopelessly defective, fundamentally flawed.  And yet, this same worthlessness was the one sure rock I could stand on, the one foundation I could know without doubt.  It set me apart from others, ordinary folk who seemed so naturally filled with well-being.  Honesty, to me in those years, felt like the flat out admission that I sucked.  And the only way to fix that was to have a drink (well…  maybe two.  And then, whoops, a dozen plus) thereby temporarily rendering life simple and myself fabulous.

So what’s the miracle?  What’s the amazing gift?  It’s freedom.  It’s that not only have I woken up clear headed and sober for the past 7,000 mornings or so, but I wake to perceptions much closer to real.  The overwhelmingly loud self-static that used to roar in my thoughts has been tuned down, so my consciousness is a pretty comfy place to live.  I can love being who I am instead of berating myself for all I “should” be, and I can even see that I am a good mom who loves many people and supports herself.

How does that happen?  I got here by working the 12 steps repeatedly, skimming off one layer of denial at a time, one unacknowledged fear at a time – and giving what’s out of my power to god.  (Long version here.)  Today I stay on course by using the serenity prayer as my compass, and as I progress, the landscape keeps changing: things that once seemed those “I cannot change” have jumped sides to things requiring the “courage to change” them, and vice versa.  Gradually, I acquire the wisdom that all I can change is myself – my attitudes and actions – but that doing so transforms my entire world.

My ambition today is not a newer car or even a bestselling novel.  It’s honesty.  I want to go deeper.  There are still untruths I tell myself, deceptions that auto-play in my thoughts.  With god providing the light, I want to root them out and turn them over.  Though they don’t now drive me to drink, I can still feel, as I get ready to meditate, grips on falseness that tighten my world.  “Give up,” I tell myself, “let them go!”  Whether they come from growing up in an alcoholic household or amid a society of warped values and assumptions, unidentified beliefs are incredibly hard to release.  There’s the challenge.

The closer I get to living in truth, the comfier my life becomes – to the point that it’s outrageously luxuriant.  No amount of material luxury can rival that.  Living in a twisted mind, I have traveled Europe, sailed on yachts, eaten at fancy restaurants, or worn sexy new outfits – all the while drowning in dis-ease and self-consciousness, prisoner of an edginess that maybe a few drinks could fix – couldn’t they?  Now, to be where I am, naked under my clothes, simple-minded in my thoughts, flawed in countless ways, and making boo-boos right and left as I use up this obscure lifetime that will vanish under the footprints of future generations – what an amazing party it is!

Plus I can start my car with that screwdriver without even looking faster than 99.999% of the planet’s population.  Ain’t that a heck of an achievement at almost 54?

2014-06-22-goat

Goat Peak, day before yesterday.  What more can I ask?  (Or so I thought… See 5/18/15 post)

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June 16, 2014 · 8:38 am

On Cussin’ during Prayer: Separating god from Religion

Step 11

This blog may upset some people, but, oh well.

Over the years I’ve sponsored a lot of women in AA and developed some of my own ways that make me a good fit for some and not others.  For example, many of my newcomer sponsees have a problem with “the god thing” and thus a problem with prayer.  They aren’t sure if they should get down on their knees or clasp their hands, whether to look ceilingward or what to call their god.  It all feels so contrived.

In this case, I suggest they try dropping a few F-bombs while they pray.  That is, if I’ve gotten to know a sponsee a bit and in telling me her story she’s dropped a few, I suggest she do the same with god.  Not in anger, mind you, but as she might with a close friend.  I ask her to try it for a week and check back with me.

Why do I do this?  To help that person separate god from religion.  Religion works fine for some, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  But for an increasing number of people who desperately need god, religion is not an option.  Fortunately, the 12 Steps give us the freedom to conceptualize god in whatever way works for us.  Chapter 4, “We Agnostics,” urges us: “Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you” (p. 47).

In my view, many of us assume that our conception of god has to import with it a shitload of trappings from religion.  We carry these prejudices around with us, i.e. ideas based on thinking we have not “honestly” examined.  We may have gotten far enough to let go of the old dude with a white beard image, but many hesitate to go further than that.

Among these imported God-trappings I will, for the purpose of keeping this blog short, limit my discussion to the the assumption that God can get pissed off by a lack of respect.  In this case, to appease Him, we should address God as we would any other authority figure: a police officer, a professor, a judge.  And since God is wa-ay old, we should definitely avoid language that would shock, let’s say, our grandmother.  For that matter, we need to capitalize every friggin’ pronoun referring to the Dude because He, essentially, demands Ass-kissing.

Approach prayer as our regular farting, burping selves?  Heavens, no!  Much of religion involves an effort to partition God off from the vulgarities of real life.  Over the centuries, our urban religious ancestors built temples, mosques, and cathedrals as sanctuaries, in part because there was just too much sheep shit and caterwauling and flies everywhere to let them string two thoughts together in prayer.  Prayer became a solemn supplication devoid of spontaneous personality because religion drilled into us that God wanted it that way.

I am so done with this view of God!  As I explain more fully in my essay, “God Evolved,” this view of God runs counter to my spiritual beliefs in every way.  It’s founded in feudalistic traditions and furthers agendas of classicism, sexism, and species-ism – not to mention personal hypocrisy.  Neither does it match the experience of anyone who has undergone an NDE.  What people experience when they die is an inundation of overwhelming love that exceeds our capacity for description.

There are, however, certain spiritual principles that hold true in life, many of which religion has accurately named.  When you act from unselfish love, you grow.  Any connection between us and god has to be initiated by us.  Anger and fear cut us off from god.  These principles aren’t god’s “judgement.”  They’re just spiritual equivalents of the laws of gravity or thermodynamics.

So, why would I recommend swearing in prayer to my sponsees?  Because… they swear!  And they’re the one who’s seeking god.  What matters when I approach god is that I show up as Louisa, 100%.  Sure, there are times when I feel solemn and ceremonial, but there are others when I’m flippant or pissy or frustrated.  It goes without saying that my god knows and loves all these modes of Louisa.

My sponsees, by contrast, are standing in the shadow of a cold, religious idol that requires thee-and-thou-style grovelling.  Swearing defies that idol, lets it tumble aside, and might just open them to the light of a god they can put their trust in.

As I describe in my addiction memoir (which also contains “God Evolved”),  I was somewhere between atheist and agnostic throughout my first years in the program.  But then from a tattoo artist with a huge afro, I heard these words: “A relationship with god is just like any other relationship: the more you hang out, the tighter you get.”

I hang out with god all the time now – when I’m teaching a class, when I’m peeing, when I’m chopping broccoli.  I talk to it honestly, and I listen.  So far, I’ve been healed of more maladies than you can shake a stick at: active alcoholism, clinical depression/anxiety, sexual obsession addiction, social phobia, (most of my) codependence, and the pessimism that kept me from living the adventures I dreamed of.   Most importantly, god has broken down my walls of isolation and opened me to love freely and try to help others – by posting this, for example, because it may help some reader move a bit closer to grasping their own truth.

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The “F*ck it” Prayer

Steps 2 and 3

Drinking was to me what spinach is to Popeye, except that Popeye doesn’t particularly seem to loathe himself without spinach.  But, as I’ve said in previous blogs, the stuff eventually quit working.  Then I loathed myself with or without alcohol.  Essentially, by the end I could drink enough to walk into walls and still feel chained to the dumbest scumbag on the planet.

So I went to AA.

When I first got sober, the world came at me with all its razor sharp edges, angry intensity, and impatient people who seemed to always know what the hell they were doing.  Meanwhile I was constantly frantic, bumbling on stage without a script and faking everything at a furious pace.  I knew no way to slow down.  I had to BE all the damn time.  Aack!  I developed panic attacks and a fear-driven hyperactivity that eventually landed me in a clinical depression – my body’s way of forcing me to stop trying to control EVERYTHING.

Fortunately, over the 19.5 years since then, I’ve gradually learned that I can grant myself a lot of the freedom that alcohol once gave me to flow with life and even ride its rapids with relative serenity.  All I need is two things.  One of those is a very special prayer I offer in times of stress.  Yep.  Fold your hands and say it with me now: “F*ck it.”

But wait a minute!  There are f*ck its and then there are f*ck its.  Without a higher power, when I said “f*ck it,” I meant: “F*ck all you assholes!  It’s no fair!  You’re full of shit anyway!”  It was a cry of anger, attack, and self-pity.

Nowadays, with a higher power, the f*ck it prayer means something more like this: “F*ck my mind’s pointless efforts to control this shit.  I quit.  It’s all yours, god, cause I can’t f*ckin’ deal.  I’m gonna trust that all will be well one way or another.”  (The prayer, as you can see, is way quicker!)  In all sincerity, this is a 3rd Step prayer of humility and acceptance.  It signals the admission that we’re powerless to control the outcomes of situations around us, and willingness to let go and let god.

Here are a few opportune situations where you might try out the “f*ck it” prayer.

PEOPLE #1: SMALL TALK: Social awkwardness.  Wanting not to be left standing dumbassedly alone in a group setting.  Wanting people to like me.  Maybe even to let them know I like them.  So… what is there to say?  Aack!  Around me acquaintances seem to produce bon mots of witty exchange as easily as a gumball machine produces gumballs.  I, meanwhile, can talk about my… um… couch!  It has a lot of dog hair.  Except that would be so boring. I’d be shunned, cupping my social worth like a small dog turd as I wandered away…

Time for the prayer! F*ck it.  “You know, I’ve got so much dog hair on my couch, it’s kinda woven in.”  There, I said it!  Maybe it’ll fly somewhere, or maybe crash and burn.  But if I’ve prayed my “f*ck it” prayer in the right spirit, I don’t care.  Why?  Because “I’m going to trust that all will be well one way or another.”  My world won’t end if this conversation fizzles.

PEOPLE #2: DROPPING INHIBITIONS: Something we rarely stop to think about is that social fun involves trusting others.  It means being spontaneous – saying or doing the silly thing that comes to mind as we dance or Slip n’ Slide or stuff our faces with marshmallows.  Whatever it is, you have to just do it.

EXCEPT… we have inhibitions.  As communal primates, we’re genetically programmed to suppress behavior that might get us ostracized.  That’s why we don’t go to school without pants on or sing really loudly on the bus.  Inhibitions are like little uniformed censors in a brain booth who stamp “denied” on any idea that might make us look like an idiot.  Unless you’re drunk.  Whenever I got shitfaced, so did my censor.  He got a sense of humor, cranked some tunes in his booth, and really didn’t give a rat’s ass anymore what anyone thought about us.

Once we get sober, though, that damn censor is always awake and wary that people might judge.  “Don’t risk it,” he says.  “We can’t pull it off.”  Goofy idea DENIED!

What sober people have to learn to do is manually relieve the censor of his duty.  Like this:

“F*ck it.  The friends around me love me enough to see me and not judge.  Besides, everyone is way too busy thinking about themselves!  I’m gonna tell the joke.  I’m gonna make the face, do the voice.”  Here’s a picture from an AA birthday party at my house years ago.  All these friends are stone cold sober.  We’ve sent the censor packing and leapt from seaside cliffs.  We’re freed not by mood altering drugs, but by our love and trust.

dance2

PEOPLE #3: CONFLICT:  Conflicts come up with family and coworkers, and sometimes even in our programs.   The other person sees things differently because of loads of stuff predating this clash. F*ck it.  I can’t change their childhood or prevailing brain patterns or set ways of responding to whatever.  I can only change myself.

(For advanced studies of the “f*ck it” prayer in this context, go to Al-Anon.)

LIFE’S PIDDLEDY-SHIT, e.g. traffic, messy house, long lines, deadlines, stuff I gotta do:  To me, when this kind of stuff is happening, it’s always a huge deal.  If my son is late for school on a Tuesday, if I’m late to meet a client, if the line I’m in is long, it means ruin and utter devastation will ensue.  That’s why I need to pray…

F*ck it.  I am so not in control, here.  God, it’s all yours!  I’m just here doing my best and leaving the results up to you.

The trouble with life’s piddledy-shit is that it really is life – or the majority of it.  The challenge is to love it as life.  For me, big risks survived have helped take the stress out of piddledy-shit, but the effect is temporary.  Each time I climbed Mount Rainier and made it back, I thought I’d never sweat the small stuff again.  Having gone through breast cancer had something of the same effect.  But I forget!

FINANCIAL FEAR: Every month it seems there’s no way I’m going to make the mortgage.  I often delay until the last day possible, but somehow it gets paid, and while my bank balance reads, say, $7.36 for a while, we just eat whatever’s in the cupboards.  But do I learn that things work out?  No.  I seem to prefer envisioning a future where my son and I reside in our car.

The thing about financial fear is, it’s ALWAYS about the future.  If we stay in the now, we’re okay and needs are met.  Even sober friends of mine who’ve lived through homelessness have come out okay on the other side, so long as they didn’t drink.

God – not people, places, and things (including dollars) – is ultimately what cares for us.

At the beginning of this blog, I said there were two things I need to live with the same freedom alcohol once gave me.  One of them is the “f*ck it” prayer, which I’ve just told you about.  But what about the other?

It’s love.  Love for you.  Love for god.   Love for every detail of life’s experiences.  But I’ll save that for another blog.  Can’t write everything!  F*ck it!

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June 2, 2014 · 9:52 am
May 19, 2014 · 4:27 pm

What (most) Normal Drinkers Will Never Understand

The Curious Mental Blank SpotWoodsCoverFinal

Alcoholism is a physical, mental, and spiritual disease.  That’s what we learn in AA.

Alcoholism is just a lack of self-discipline.  That’s what most of the world thinks.

Alcoholics can exert all the self-discipline in the world and still end up drunk.

No, says the rest of the world.  If they really kept up their self-discipline, if they really stuck to their guns, they could stop or moderate.

Only accessing a power greater than themselves – aka god – can keep an alcoholic sober one day at a time.

That’s just religiosity, says the rest of the world, in a cultish slogan. 

Sometimes it’s frustrating to live in a world that doesn’t “get” my disease.  My blood family and casual acquaintances assume the mind works according to certain principles.  The notion of the Curious Mental Blank Spot (see Ch 2, p 24) is foreign to them and to almost anyone who hasn’t been utterly stumped and defeated by it.  Thank god I’ve been both, though to get there took about 4,000 attempts of rallying resolve with every fiber of my being that I was not going to drink (or would drink with moderation) and then finding myself plastered – again.  It took the admission that I’d run my life into the ground despite countless advantages, to the point where I no longer wanted to live.

But I still would have clung to alcohol as my only friend, determined to manage my drinking, if the stuff hadn’t quit working for me.  When it no longer brought about the magical transformation that had made it a staple of my life, taking away my nervous, self-conscious unworthiness and replacing it with sociability and confidence, only then was I willing to consider the counter-betrayal of checking out AA.  “Alcoholism only made one mistake,” goes the saying: “It’s the same for all of us.”  Not exactly the same, but close enough that I could learn from other people the hallmarks of alcoholic thinking, feeling, and experience.

The main hallmark is not drinking a lot.  I’ve had several partners who matched me drink for drink for years on end.  But as soon as they made up their minds to exert their self-disciple, it took.  They could stop.  They had brakes.  Mine might work for a few hours or even days, during which I was able to act on my resolve.  But then along comes that Curious Mental Blank spot.  My resolve is greased with coconut oil.  Thoughts of an hour or even a minute ago create no traction.  None.  They become meaningless.

In terms of a rough, cartoon image of the brain, what happens is this.  We like to think the conscious parts of our brain determine our actions – the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex, which hosts thoughts and decisions.  But there’s a little lizard living in the basement of our brains – the amygdala – that generates basic survival impulses like fear and anger.   Alcoholism seems to live here.  Like a vine that winds its way front and center, it’s able to circumvent even the most determined, powerful resolves of the frontal lobe, connecting a drink to the basic conditions of being alive.  Drinking becomes an impulse, almost like breathing, that you act on without a rational choice.

The subjective experience goes like this.  You’re all set to not drink today.  You’ve made up your mind, and it’s just not an option.  You’re going to drink healthy stuff, maybe exercise, busy yourself with – you should have a drink.  A drink is a great idea.  Why not just relax, enjoy just one or two, like a little get-away to Maui that nobody needs to know about?  Eh?  You know there’s something wrong with this thinking.  A drink is what you weren’t going to do.  Yes.  And the reason you weren’t going to do it was… was…

Here something happens similar to flipping through an old fashioned Rolodex rolodexand recognizing not a single name:  Let’s see it was here somewhere: “Not good for my body” – who’s that?  “Always make a fool of myself” – do I know him?  “Swore to my loved one” – might have met briefly.  No, no… none of these ring a bell.  Meanwhile, here’s your amygdala holding out a frosty, aesthetically perfect image of your favorite drink.  It asks, What are you, a pussy?  You gonna let these cards you don’t even recognize tell you what to do?  Just do what you wanna do – THIS!

It makes so much sense.  It makes perfect sense.  The idea of abstaining for any reason seems absurdly far-fetched, while the idea of drinking rings every bell of recognition for a natural, sensible, sound idea.  So, you decide, “Yes.” All it takes is a millisecond of assent and that genie is out of the bottle again, running your life.

As I once put it in an AA meeting: “My frontal lobe is my amygdala’s BITCH!”

Equally preposterous to the normal drinker or active alcoholic is the solution – asking the help of a higher power.  When you quit thinking that you, yourself, have the means to quit drinking, when you give up using your resolve and sincerely ask a higher power for help, something shifts.  Some change happens.  Suddenly, you’re able to weather those Curious Mental Blank Spots with just enough resistance to avoid saying yes.  Do this long enough, and eventually the constant obsession to drink is lifted.

In my case, after 19.5 years’ sobriety, I am still occasionally struck by the Curious Mental Blank Spot, instances in which I still don’t recognize a single reason not to take a drink.  “You’re in AA!” seems so stupid.  “You’d lose all your time!” – Really?! Who gives a fuck?  But in my case, something steps between me and whatever image of a flawless, aftermath-free drink my amygdala is advertising.  A cloudy thought wades to the front of my mind: “How about we just wait five minutes and see if all this is still true?  The drink won’t vanish in five minutes, will it?”

Within thirty seconds, in my experience, my conscious mind is back at the wheel.  That is, the window of blindness, when I could have assented “yes” and released the genie, lasts only that long.

It may seem unlikely, but that’s pretty much the scenario experienced by millions of alcoholics meeting in 170 nations all over the world.  When we do the things suggested in AA’s program of recovery, that mediating influence restores us to sanity.

There are people in my AA meetings who claim to be atheist.  That’s fine, but ideas of what constitutes god are amorphous.  I don’t believe, either, in what they think of as God – an omnipotent humanesque boss figure.  I certainly don’t believe in religion (though teachings of some figures, including Buddha and Jesus, contain tremendous wisdom).  I believe in the very same thing most of these alleged atheists believe in: the power of love; the power of goodwill.  If they didn’t believe in connection to other human beings (which is love & goodwill), they wouldn’t come to meetings.  If they’re sharing, they’re seeking even more connection, to be heard by others, to participate.  And in that feeling, they’re seeking the help of a higher power, whether they call it that or not.

I believe without a doubt that I was graced in all the life events that forced me to AA.  I still am graced by events that lead me along the path of spiritual growth – as described in my addiction memoir.  The lessons I hear in AA meetings match seamlessly with those I hear in IANDS* meetings, brought back from the other side by those who’ve had out of body experiences.  Nothing is more important than loving kindness.  Even casual slights hurt people, malevolence is poison, and each resentment you hold against others sticks to your spirit – a filth like diarrhea all over your skin, as one IANDS speaker experienced it in her NDE.  And by contrast, the goodness of helping others glows through us like the Light.

We’re here to love, which cures all our afflictions – including alcoholism.

 

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*IANDS: International Association of Near Death Studies.  Local chapter: Seattle IANDS.

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