Month: December 2019

Step 10: Pay Attention, Admit When You’re Wrong, And Fix It If You Can

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

At this point in our journey we’ve presumably learned how to identify patterns of behavior and how they lead us to make mistakes as well as how to make amends for our failures. Step 10 asks us to practice these skills as we move through life.

The Big Book suggests doing this at night, before going to bed. Perhaps that works for you, but this doesn’t work for me. First and foremost, at the end of the day I need to let my mind rest. I have a routine that I already practice around bed time. It includes turning off screens, reading, perhaps listening to a relaxing podcast or meditation.

The idea of making a list of the things that I did wrong during the day and then resolving to fix them the next day sounds onerous. I don’t know about you, but I can’t settle down and go to sleep after that exercise. My monkey mind gets activated and I stress about how to fix things. That leads to a less than stellar night of sleep.

I find it much better to be conscious of my words and actions moment to moment during the day and to make my amends as soon as I recognize that I’ve made a mistake. This takes work. It takes awareness. It takes practice. In short, it takes mindfulness, which is a big part of how I approach the next step.

I’m not always great at this. There are times when I don’t recognize that I’ve hurt another person. There are times when I let my emotions get the better of me and go on the attack, forsaking the feelings of others. There are times when I feel justified in my anger and hold in to it longer than I should. But with practice, I’ve come to recognize when I’ve caused harm more quickly than I did in the past.

I find it interesting that this step doesn’t say anything about making amends. It simply says we should promptly admit that we were wrong. This seems strange. The Big Book explains that’s amends are implied, “Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.” — Alcoholics Anonymous page 84.

Why not make it explicit rather than implicit?

At any rate, one cannot have a clean conscious unless one tries to right a wrong. If we do this as part of Step 10, if we make it a habit — part of our existential being, our ethos — the we will never build up a long list of failures like we had in Step 4. We will be living more in harmony with ourselves and the others in our lives.

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My Fourth Sober Christmas

As is true if most days, Christmas 2019 was full of highs and lows. We started the day gathered around the Christmas tree, exchanging gifts. Our son is another year older, he no longer talks of Santa, but he’s still excited by the morning. Not so excited that he’s up at 5:00, but excited enough to have some really great reactions to his gifts. I took great pleasure watching him open his gifts, taking note of which ones were most exciting. There were some surprises in there, for me, not for him. He was as excited about the new scooter as he was about his headphones, but the biggest reaction was to the tickets to see The Beach Boys in April!

After gifts, I went to make scones for breakfast not to find that we had no butter. This would be a problem since I was also on deck for some pies for desert at the families. My brain is still stuck in a small town in the 80s and so I worked myself up into a small fright about how I would be able to get butter for the cooking. Now, we live one of the most densely populated areas on the East coast and it’s 2019, so the fact was that even though it was Christmas Day, the grocery store was, in fact, open. But I was stressing about it, assuming that I might only be able to find butter at a convenience store if I was lucky. Lizard brain in action there.

At the checkout I felt myself getting emotional. No one should have to work on Christmas Day and here I was being part of the problem. I felt guilty that
I needed to buy butter on Christmas. I felt guilty that the workers at the store had to be there because I couldn’t get my shit together and buy butter beforehand. I thanked the woman at the register for being there. “Of course,” she said. And I felt more guilt.

While I was preparing the food for the day, Mrs. TKD was preparing gifts for the extended family despite the fact that we’d agreed to only give gifts to my nieces and nephew. She had made small gift bags with small items that had Mr. Grey’s artwork on them. This was generous and kind but as we were leaving I realized that this probably meant that I didn’t have gifts for the two newest members of the family, my cousin’s kids. I felt guilt again, and I lost my temper in the car.

I stopped to get gift cards, a suitable remedy for the situation by any standard, but I was angry and I drove up the road in a huff. Mrs. TKD and Mr. Grey tried to get me to smile and relax in the car but I was being obstinate. I finally cracked and shed my asshole skin after Mrs. TKD traced the outline of a smile on my face asking, “are you going to be angry all day?”

I was thinking about drinking the whole way up the road. The idea of a glass of bourbon to ease my internal pain was so very attractive. I wanted to drink — a feeling that doesn’t come very often anymore, but was there nonetheless. And I felt more guilt and shame. I thought about all the people that I’d be letting down if I took a drink. I thought about how my family would react if I took a drink on Christmas Day — how I’d ruin the day for everyone. And I resolved that I would stay sober again, just for the day. It is amazing how “just for today” works in times like this.

When we got to the family’s house I admitted to Mrs. TKD that I was having a hard time as we unpacked the car. I had tears in my eyes, but she couldn’t see them behind the sunglasses. I admitted that I didn’t know why, but I was just having a hard time.

Only today can I really identify what was bothering me. It was the holidays. All the expectation. All the pressure. All the anticipation. All the overt consumerism. It’s all a trap. All geared to get us to buy more shit that we don’t need. And it’s all ultimately a let down.

Yes, there is magic in the holidays for the little ones, and I enjoy watching that. But as I’ve gotten older, there is less and less magic in them for me.

The holidays are at odds with my values and more importantly they expose how I am not living in accordance with my supposed values. They expose a certain failure on my part, a certain dishonesty and I’m left with that sense of guilt.

I’ve long struggled with a sense of guilt about my success and privilege in life. I’ve been wildly successful in my career as well as extraordinarily lucky. I’ve written before about how this manifests in a certain imposter syndrome for me. I come from a family of largely working class people and yet I live a life of comfort and even luxury. There are times when I am fearful of losing what I have. There are times when I worry that my son won’t have the success that I’ve had. The statistic that I’m in the first generation in the US that knows that the next generation is unlikely to have the same standard of living as I do haunts me.

These are heavy thoughts for a post about Christmas Day.

To be fair, the day improved after I made a conscious choice to let go of my fear and accept that things would be how they would be. We had a nice time with the family. Mom knocked herself out with a fabulous dinner. We had ham and brisket with roasted onions, potatoes au gratin, green beans, brussels spouts, and roasted carrots — a feast! And then there were pies, and fudge, and ice cream. Good conversation and happy children. I enjoyed watching my cousin’s son run around the house with his stuffed dinosaur, roaring at us.

My uncle gave us a Buddhist prayer bowl, with the instructions to write down our prayers on small pieces of paper and place them in the bowl near a window. When the sun hits the prayers they are sent out to the universe. I love this image, and I’m learning that prayers don’t need to be directed to a deity. I couldn’t have said that four years ago.

We got home around 7:00 and I chilled out with the Dude for a bit before bed. Once again, he told me how he’d had a great Christmas and I knew it wasn’t all about the gifts. I know that part of what makes these days special for him is that I am predictable and dependable — and that’s because I’m sober.

Perhaps I am too hard on myself with all the guilt I carry around. That guilt is heavy. I am going to look for a place to set it down.

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Step 9: It Must Be More than an Apology

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Most of us are taught from an early age that we must apologize when we do something wrong. We hear the words of a parent to a toddler:

“You shouldn’t take toys from your friends, say you are sorry.”

“That hurts! Don’t pull mommy’s hair. Say you’re sorry.”

“Daddy doesn’t like it when you talk back to him, please apologize.”

In our modern society, apology frequently never amounts to change. We see it at the micro and at the macro levels. People in our everyday lives apologize to us and move on to their next affront. Think of the person who rudely brushes past you to get into a better position in the line. Chances are they’ve done it before and will do it again, even if they apologize. At the macro level, we see this behavior from large corporations that make apologies when they are caught skirting the law, but they’ll do it again if it means better P&L numbers and a higher stock price. We see it in our world leaders who make embarrassingly insincere statements or even deny any wrongdoing whatsoever only to continue to support policies that enable their wrongdoing and insincerity, over and over, again and again.

It’s as if we’ve been conditioned to think that saying we are sorry is all that matters. And so, upon first glance at the steps it’s easy to read this step as “apologize for your wrong doings.”

This reading misses the mark.

Fundamentally, the steps are a guide to living that revolves around changing our patterns of behavior. Apologies without change are meaningless. If we don’t course correct, and do better in the future, we are still acting like the toddler, the chairmen, or the world leader.

It is the resolve to make a change, to do better, that moves an out words from an apology to to the action of making amends. We are trying to right our wrongs rather than seeking forgiveness so that we feel better like a petulant child.

I’m not good at this. There are patterns of behavior that are deeply rooted in my life experience. They are my “go to” behaviors. I have learned that some of them are part of my trauma response. They are defense mechanisms that are almost instinctual, originating deep in my “lizard brain” — the amygdala. Changing these reactions is a big part of my personal work. I work with practicing the pause daily, with varying degrees of success.

The final words of this step are potentially dangerous. “Except when to do so would injure them or others” sounds like an escape clause. Many of us are good at finding the escape clause, in fact people with addictions are often masters the loophole. We must be conscious of this when we evaluate whether or not making an amends would cause harm. In most cases, making amends will not cause harm. In most cases making amends will help a relationship.

It is important to ensure that we do not confuse things — that we don’t hide behind this clause as a protective mechanism for ourselves. Indeed, there are some cases where it genuinely would cause harm to make an amends, and care should be taken to do no further harm, but we must be careful to ensure that we aren’t simply avoiding the amends process.

The best way to figure out whether or not an amends would cause harm is to discuss the situation openly and honestly with someone who we trust and who will be honest with us when we are clearly looking for an excuse to avoid doing the difficult work at hand.

This step can be miraculous. Indeed it is within the discussion of the ninth step that we are introduced to the AA Promises:

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

— Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition, Pages 83-84.

Despite what it says in the Big Book, these are extravagant promises, but it has been my experience that they do materialize just as the book says. In a few weeks I plan to begin a series on the Promises.

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Step 8: Focus on What Matters

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Let’s be honest, making a list of people who we have harmed can be a daunting task for anyone. No one wants to think about the mistakes they’ve made in life and how these mistakes have impacted others. Many of us have made poor choices in our active addictions.

For some of us, these choices led to severe consequences that we could not ignore. Others among us appear to have emerged unscathed because we never suffered severe consequences as a result of our drinking. But if we are honest, those poor choices weigh upon our minds, and often hold us back from making progress in our growth journey.

For me, personally, I still harbor a deep sense of guilt and shame for my failures during my active addiction. When I first got sober, I knew that my drinking was affecting my family, but I did not understand the extent of the damage. It’s only with some time, therapy, and perspective that I’ve been able to fully understand how badly I failed as a father when I was drinking.

I was there, but I was not fully present with my son or my wife. This is evidenced when I look back on those early years of my son’s life. I’m not in any of the professional pictures that my wife had made of our little boy. I have only vague recollections of important moments in his early life. I have vague recollections of family trips to the beach. And I have a few painful memories when I chose not to go in tips, because I wouldn’t be able to drink the way I wanted to.

Many people stress the importance of making a thorough list, starting in childhood and up through the present. I’ll be honest. I don’t see a point in this.

While, there are certainly things that I did in my early life that I regret, and I would make amends if I could, the reality of modern life is that I have no connection to many of the people from my childhood. But more importantly, these failures on my part were not caused by or causes of my alcohol addiction. The fact that I punched Jason on the playground when I was in 5th grade had no bearing on my future alcohol use.

So I focused my list on the people I hurt in my active addiction. This is what matters in terms of my recovery. This list is small because my drinking was a private affair. It basically comes down to my family. Thankfully, my drinking never got me in trouble at work or with the law. I never stole anything and I got into any nasty bar fights.

And I am quite willing to make my amends. In fact I do so every day by living my life in a manner that ensures that I am present both physically and emotionally for my family. I don’t do things perfectly, but I have made progress.

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Step 7: Get to Work

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

If you’ve been along for this ride with me, you probably know it was a foregone conclusion that I rejected the notion of a deity removing my shortcomings when I got to this step.

Much has been written about the word Humbly in this step and, in fact, this is often what people focus on in step 7. I won’t discount humility. I will admit that it’s a requirement for step 7, but to leave the discussion solely to humility misses the mark.

If step 6 asks us if we are ready to address our shortcomings, then step 7 is about getting to the work. What exactly does this mean?

There are many paths up the proverbial mountain. For me step 7 is about getting to work on the things that I know I need to change about myself so that I can live in better harmony with others in my life. It’s about working to live life on life’s terms. Both of these require humility and acceptance.

We have to be humble enough to admit that there are things that we don’t do well. We must be humble enough to accept that others may see things differently. We must accept that life isn’t always fair — that we don’t control the outcome. We don’t always win. And that sometimes we need to give a bit in order to win. Surrender to win.

Clearly steps 8 and 9 provide some guidance with the call to list out people we have harmed and work to make amends. Step 10 talks about a daily inventory, step 11, prayer and meditation, and step 12 talks of carrying the message. These are all important parts of the work to improve ourselves but when I looked at myself I found there was more to the story.

For me, a big part of the work to change myself has involved “external help.” It has involved medical professionals as well as therapists. There is no magic pill out there that makes me less of an asshole, but I am less of an asshole when I’m not caught in the depths of depression. Medication and therapy help me with that.

In my therapy I’ve learned a lot about myself, about how I react rather than respond. About how I carry trauma with me that informs my response. I’ve learned that my primary trauma response is to stand and fight rather than to flee. I’ve also learned that if I take a moment to pause, the triggering event usually fades and I can respond more skillfully. I don’t do this by nature. I don’t always do it well. But I practice this.

I’ve learned that meditation is a part of the work. When I meditate I am able to train my brain to respond differently to triggers. I am able to become mindful of the very real physiological sensations that come along with my emotions and feelings. And with practice I can notice these sensations and identify the feelings when I’m being triggered. And noticing them gives me the opportunity to respond differently.

So step 7 may be about humility, but that’s just the surface in my opinion. The rest of the steps are all examples of the work that we commit to doing in step 7 and that work is all about improving ourselves so that we can live fuller and richer lives.

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Step 6: Willing to Work?

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

When I first read the steps, step six seemed to be the step that would cause me to go over the edge. On the surface this step appears to be pulled directly from a nineteenth century revivalist sermon. The language is extraordinarily troublesome for a guy like me.

It speaks directly an interventionist God who will remove our defects of character. How insulting?

Was I supposed to list my character defects in step four? It certainly didn’t sound like it.

Was my sponsor supposed to highlight my defects of character to me in step 5? That wouldn’t have ended well.

This step felt like a chigger under my skin.

Even so, I must admit that the idea of a deity that magically fixes me sounded appealing, but being a realist, I didn’t see that happening. If it really were that simple I could have asked a deity to make me sober. I could have asked a deity to make me thin. I can ask for all of those things, and none are just going to happen.

Every drunk is guilty of a foxhole prayer or two in which he or she asks God to make them sober. I’ve never seen that work. What works is when we make a decision to work at getting sober. Change takes work. There is no way around it.

And so, even with a few years under my belt, I saw this step and the next one as filler. Bill Wilson needed to have 12 steps to match the twelve apostles, or maybe it was the twelve months of the year — I wasn’t sure but I knew in my bones that these steps were meaningless.

Or so I thought.

Fortunately, this isn’t the first step, it’s the sixth step and eventually, after a lot of soul searching, therapy, and work to sort out the difference between spirituality and religion, I was willing to examine below the surface, beyond the words.

When I got past the poor grammar and the interventionist deity I came to understand that this step is about being willing to address our shortcomings.

The question step six asks us is, “Are you willing to make changes in your life that may be difficult so that you can have a better life?”

If we want to live happier and healthier lives, full with people who are our friends and who love us, then we must be willing to work on ourselves by changing our past patterns of behavior.

And let’s be clear, the work is often difficult and painful. And that’s precisely why we need to be willing to do the work. If we aren’t willing, then we’ll likely abandon the work. And when we abandon the work we are likely to go back to our old behaviors and patterns. And that means relapse.

The only words in this step that I didn’t bristle at were “entirely ready.” Even at a few months sober. Knew I could be entirely ready to work on myself. In fact, I’d been doing that from the first step.

I’ve written a lot about my struggles with the God Talk in the rooms. It took me a long time to make some semblance of peace with the very real trauma that gets triggered by that talk. I had to do the work around that trauma to be able to sit with the triggering language of this step. Once I’d done that I was willing to look past the words. I’d become entirely ready. I was willing to work on myself.

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