How it Works: Humility

Part II

I’m grateful for Friday morning. I’m grateful for the bees already buzzing around the garden. I’m grateful for excursions and adventures. I’m grateful for the coffee in that cup. I’m grateful to be sober today.

If you recall, I recently launched a 237-part series I’m calling “How it Works,” and the first installment featured “Gratitude.”

I started doing this for my own benefit, there are so many words that get tossed around in recovery and I think it’s confusing because there are interconnections and also because some of the concepts are a little opaque. Gratitude is such an important concept because it not only works to put the “be present” blinders on, but it also places me at the right point of view. It’s part of the way I frame my days.

I think another pillar is “humility.” My own unscientific view is that the diseases of alcoholism and addiction proceed from and also generate this weird affliction of ego. I see the same traits in other alcoholics I see in myself: Tremendous insecurities and anticipating catastrophe at nearly every turn, but crazily grandiose at the same time. The ability to persuade oneself of truly fantastical versions of reality, and then drinking to fill in that gap between the fantastical version of the world that we think should be at our fingertips and the one that is.

The Big Book identifies the alcoholic ego as the real target over and over. It is that overheated, way-too-dopamined brain, spinning out crazy ideas about what should be happening, those crazy ideas gradually fermenting into crazy resentments. We know what happens to those resentments. Humility is a big part of the answer because it helps keep the crazy spinning at bay somehow. But this raises the question, what is humility?

I think humility is pretty simple and doesn’t require public abasement, which is often a covert request for validation. I think humility involves notions of equality. That I’m not intrinsically better, and no worse, than the person sitting on the folding chair next me. I think humility is the sense that we are here to learn and serve, not lecture and direct. I see people on Twitter say things like “I’ve got 37 days and want to help show you the way out, too.” That’s commendable and really nice, but it’s not humble.

I think humility and quiet often walk together. In early sobriety, I really felt the need to share often at meetings. There was so much spinning in my head and my footing felt so unsure to me, sharing at meetings was me looking for a little bit of direction. If I saw people nodding as I spoke, then I felt like I was doing the right thing. I finally realized that I was still seeking external validation for my view of the world, that I needed to talk less and listen more. I came to believe that finding pennies in the street was a more effective way of determining my alignment with the Universe.

Humility began to creep in as I spent more time listening at meetings and more time reading. The other exercise that made a huge difference was simply stopping and considering what I was really trying to accomplish in my interactions with others. A friend suggested that before saying or doing things, I make an honest effort to understand my real motivations. I started to see right away that the bulk of my actions during the day were designed to get things that I wanted. When I really started to examine my own motives, I saw they were selfish and self-aggrandizing.

I don’t mean to make myself sound like a horrible, manipulative bridge troll. The one being super helpful and funny and incisive and attentive and then making sure to emphasize my help wasn’t “free;”

you have to pay the troll toll, baby.

No, I think I’m a pretty nice person. The point is, I finally realized that a lot of my interactions with other people were about reinforcing me and my view of the world, they were expressions of my ego and less about expressing love. I wrote the other day about how it was acts of love that got me sober and acts of love that keep me sober, those acts of love flow from, and are enabled by, humility and empathy.

I think the point of the exercises outlined in the Big Book is not to land you in the first pew every Sunday morning worshipping someone else’s conception of the Universe. I think the point of those exercises is to prompt some thinking and a re-evaluation of what our role in the world ought to be going forward. It involves the recognition that what went before didn’t actually go so well and fortunately, can’t be sustained anyway. The new mission statement is actually a question:

How can I be of maximum service?

Back in my less humble days, when the book I wanted to write was horrifyingly called “The Prince of Logan Circle,” and I coincidentally was drinking morning, noon and night, I thought humility was mostly a funny screening joke that I’d tell to see who was following along:

I’m probably the most humble person you’ll ever meet

I thought that joke was always pretty funny but it eerily did suggest my grandiose, self-deceptive worldview. It’s not hard to see the difference between those two statements. That difference is true humility. The difference between raising one’s hand and exclaiming “I know the answer,” and listening to someone and asking “how can I help.” This doesn’t make me a better person or shine my already very shiny sense of self-nobility. It simply places me where I’m supposed to be, where I can be of maximum service. Sobriety has given me a chance to play a role that I think is pretty groovy and is actually conveniently summed up in one of my favorite songs ( complete with what I’m assuming are very unauthorized Star Trek images!!):

I keep my eyes on the prize,
on the long fallen skies, 
and I don't let my friends get hurt