I’m grateful for a lovely Christmas. I’m grateful for quiet and peace. I’m grateful for the way faith and hope replace fear.I’m grateful for making a way a step at time. I’m grateful to be sober today.
I had a very Merry Christmas and hope that you did, too (if that was what you were seeking).1 It’s an incredibly foggy morning here in New York, which I’m choosing to regard as a personal gift from the Big Guy, who plainly knows that I’m due for a very long walk and that this is my favorite kind of weather. You may just point out that this is another form of self-delusion; isn’t asserting something you can’t prove a form of dishonesty?
You sometimes hear the phrase, “Fake it ‘til You Make it.” This phrase has a number of competing definitions and not all of them seem recovery-focused. I’m still not 100% clear on the official AA definition, but I know one way it worked in my life and that was with faith and belief in a Higher Power.
The upshot is this, if you start pretending there is a Higher Power that can restore you and others to sanity, it’s possible it will just become true. I go on and on about this, but understanding how it finally happened, after so many years of not happening, is important to me in terms of it not happening again.2 I’ve talked about how I was kind of cornered into sobriety, I may have been tricked into the faith and belief part.
Right here, I’m going to deliberately digress (is that possible?), and state that I 100% believe that trickery and deceit may be used, without penalty, in the service of recovery and sobriety.3 Whether it’s promising rainbows and unicorns upon the completion of a 90-in-90. or suggesting that golf was an important part of the program of recovery, as I was perhaps led to believe. I may have discussed this moment before, I was sitting on a barstool at The Commissary, negotiating the terms of my surrender with the admissions folks at my first sleep-away rehab, and had this conversation:
Deranged Alcoholic: So, is it true the folks in the “Grandview” program get to play golf? Wily Admissions Counselor: Absolutely! Those guys get to play golf, if that’s what they want to do. Deranged Alcoholic: Oh wow, that's fantastic! So, I should bring my clubs when I check in? Wily Admissions Counselor: Absolutely!
Yeah, so it turns out that there wasn’t so much golf. Bill W was a consummate salesman and one of the things I love about the Big Book is seeing all of the “suggestions,’ and “demi-lies,” involved in coaxing people into recovery. “Working With Others,” a chapter in the Big Book that I think anyone who sponsors someone else in AA ought to know backwards and forwards, or at least forwards, is masterful in the way it walks the line between encouragement and outright trickery. Bill W takes the alcoholic reader on a whirlwind tour from “you just need to keep an open mind, don’t decide today,” to “remember, you agreed you were willing to go to any lengths….” The alcoholic chases the cheese, the sobriety trap snaps shut.
Ok, that’s my own interpretation of “How it Works,” your mileage may vary. As I’ve been fond of saying, AA and the Twelve Steps work kind of like Judo, re-directing energy to accomplish a positive goal.4 I tricked myself into believing that drinking was necessary to make me a person deserving of love and respect and admiration. Asking me to voluntarily give my secret power away? Let’s remember that Frodo lacked the willpower to throw the Ring into the Crack of Doom:
Or you can maybe reframe that more positively into one of those moments where the person gripping the ledge has to exercise the old trust and faith muscle, release their vice-like grip on the ledge, and reach up for help and to be pulled to safety. Or jail, sometimes. It’s the movies.
I think, for me, it started sitting in a park here in NYC, writing an essay on “What I Believe,” for my Sponsor. I remember thinking a lot about my Grandmother as I wrote. She was someone who definitely suffered from undiagnosed depression and anxiety, but she had the most beautiful, open heart and was a great cook. She was still sending me homemade Ginger Snap cookies in tins when I was a lawyer in my 30’s. She went to Our Redeemer lutheran church nearly every Sunday and no matter how nervous or anxious she got, she always believed, always had faith, that things would turn out the way they were meant to. She had that “Thy will be done” kind of faith.
Sitting in that park, doing step-work is when it occurred to me that maybe I could try acting like I had her kind of faith, kind of an “as-if” experiment. Of course, me being me, I had to change the words, so my battle-cry became “The things that are supposed to happen, generally do happen.”5
This moment, upon reflection, is probably when I had my version of the Bill W realization, that all it took to make my beginning was a willingness to believe in a Higher Power. Now, clearly note, he did use the word “beginning,” there on page 12, so don’t be surprised when the hook gets set a little later and slightly more is involved. For me, faith is less about specific outcomes, it’s faith in a process. That if I do the next right thing, to the best of my ability, that if I do the “to thine own self be true” thing on a regular basis, that if I live and let live and do the page 417 “Acceptance Drill” whenever necessary, then the next “right” things will happen.
I have almost no way of knowing what those “right” things will be or when they will happen or how they will happen. I’ve learned to be okay with that, because, in the view of this alcoholic, “okay” is kind of the goal:
Or, if you prefer the “Give a Mouse a Cookie” approach, this also works on the same small nibbles principle. It’s these small, very incremental faith-leaps (trust falls later) that began to build confidence around the crazy notion that maybe there is a Higher Power, because once you start believing a little, well, you know the ending of the book, right?6
The Judo part comes in here; just as I was willing to believe some complete and utter horse-shit about how drinking was actually the most important thing in my life, the thing that made “me” possible, well, this is a much smaller serving.7 St. Paul probably made up the part about getting knocked off his donkey, most of the Bible seems to reserve the IRL meetings with God to people who have already demonstrated some level of faith. Unless you are talking about the bad stuff, like destroying cities and smiting people and plagues of locusts and other horrible things. Those fall mostly in the category of catastrophes designed to get one’s attention, and we alcoholics are very familiar with that concept:
The point is, the results of faith have to be taken on faith.
The brilliance and magic of the Steps and the Big Book come from the way they take the fundamental skills involved in being an alcoholic and turn them into the tools of recovery. The horrible stories of loss and shame and grief and despair become the foundation of someone else’s budding belief that maybe they can do this, too.Most importantly, it turns the alcoholic’s willingness to believe complete nonsense into the chain saw of recovery. Maybe that metaphor doesn’t work, but cutting stuff with a chain saw is a pretty awesome experience.
Once you start believing the world works in a certain, mysterious, uncontrollable (by me) way, things just kind of snowball:
Maybe that’s not a great example. But the coincidences do start to mount, once you begin looking. On the topic of minor coincidences, the very park where I had that realization will now be part of the TBD daily routine. The elliptical baseball and pinch-hitting stuff, well, it has come to pass, the ball did indeed smack off the wall and roll back quite a ways towards the infield, allowing a certain aging veteran to arrive standing up at second. I’m very excited, it’s going to require the use of the old legal skills and law license, and the swanky office overlooks said park.
Embarking on a new career in one’s 60’s can be a bit terrifying, doing it sober for the first time is also quite novel. But, man, does it feel good! I’m excited, nervous, eager, and raring to get at it. Of course, part of the deliberations were whether it fit with the “to thine own self be true” thing, that’s the crux of every decision in sobriety. The new gig is going to be kind of demanding, and I’ve been thinking a lot about time allocation decisions and I was getting a little sad.
Writing this is incredibly important to me, I can’t imagine not doing this. And having all of you lovely, lovely readers, subscribers, friends (really), along for the ride, leaves me grateful in a way that I’m not sure you can imagine. Just as things always happen these days, the correct answer was presented to me. I was talking with “S,” or “Sean,” one of my Sponsees, and when I was talking about having to cut back on the writing a bit, he expressed remorse and then volunteered to start writing here. Home run! You’ve heard of and from Sean before:
Beginning tomorrow, Sean will be writing here on Wednesdays and I couldn’t be more excited. Sean just celebrated two years of sobriety and talking with him about sobriety and recovery is always one of the highlights of my week. The remarkable thing is that Sean is someone who, by his own admission, did not enjoy writing and now look!8 I think you will enjoy hearing Sean’s perspective on recovery on the Reg from here on out. I’ll continue to write on Tuesdays and Fridays and, of course,
is here on Mondays and Thursdays.For me, faith became simply an unshakeable (so far) belief that things will turn out the way they should. It started with little nibbles of willingness in Bryant Park, chased by coffee from one of of my Top 5 spots. Now, that’s my life every day. Remember what I said about magic?
With regard to the “Mystery Button,” I’m just sorry, but I think we all knew this day was coming.
I like the word “Happening.” In the TMI category, I captained an intramural basketball team named, “It’s Happening.” It wasn’t a groovy ‘70’s reference, it might have been what they call in the business “an overheard utterance,” yelled from the next dorm room over. We’d all do the “It’s Happening on 3” thing before games. That still makes me laugh because the person who was in that other dorm room was also on the team.
Also, I’m cool with witchcraft and sorcery. Also, magic.
My knowledge of Judo comes from my Junior High BFF who had pretty serious Judo skills which resulted in a guy that we all affectionately called “Pug-Face,” (real name was maybe Doug?), getting his elbow broken like in a Steven Seagal movie.
What about “Onward Christian Soldiers,”marching as if to war…?”
Also, “When You Give a Moose a Cookie” has a very similar conclusion.
A restaurant where small plates are definitely better.
I very much believe in the power of writing stuff down, if you are interested in doing some of that and potentially sharing it (a super powerful thing IMO), you should let me know. Things can be arranged.
Is there a meeting tonight, TBD? I’ve been thinking of attending.