Tag: healing

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.

Posted on by damien 1

Step 5: Unburdening Ourselves and Finding a Path To Forgiveness

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Early in recovery (and as a recovering Catholic), this step reminded me of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, better known as Confession. In my younger years this meant going into a stall where there was a thin veil between me and a creepy old man who wanted me to admit all my failures in life. It was particularly important to discuss impure thoughts and impure actions. That’s right, sex fantasies and masterbasion. This was supposedly the only way to actually commune with God, through another human being, in a creepy space, talking about creepy things. Is it any wonder that I became agnostic?

So, I ignored the part about God in this step. It’s as simple as that.

In most situations people working through step 5 share their fourth step inventory with their sponsor. This has become the convention in the 12 step community, but it’s important to recognize that this is not a requirement. The requirement is that the fourth step inventory is shared with another human being and the book makes it clear that this may be a friend, a doctor, a therapist or even a member of the clergy.

Regardless of who you choose to share your fourth step inventory it should be with someone whom you trust and someone who will not divulge your story to others. In short it must be someone who you feel safe sharing your inventory with openly and honestly.

No one should feel obligated to share their story with a sponsor. If you do, it’s probably time to reconsider your sponsor choice. This is my opinion and is not fact but I feel strongly about this because the approach to the fourth step recommended in the book can have undesired consequences in some situations, particularly when working with a sponsor who has no formal training.

The book emphasizes that we must find our part in the resentments we carry with us. I know people who were asked what “their part” was in their childhood sexual abuse by insensitive sponsors, and subsequently relapsed because of their guilt and shame.

As I mentioned in the last post I spent an afternoon talking with my sponsor about my fourth step inventory. It was a good experience and I was able to recognize that he and I are both human, and as such subject to faults.

Many of the people I’ve met over the years talk of a great feeling of relief that accompanies the fifth step. With no disrespect meant to my sponsor, I cannot say that I felt this great unburdening.

This was not because the session with my sponsor was unsatisfactory or unproductive. Prior to coming into recovery I’d been to see several therapists in my life. I already knew the value of sharing my dark thoughts and secrets. I’d already experienced the great relief that came from talking honestly about my past. And so, this conversation was no big deal for me.

I felt the same relief that comes from unburdening myself as I’d felt in the past. I can imagine however that it would have been more momentous if I’d never experienced the healing that accompanies the brutal honesty required in telling our stories to a trusted human being. Indeed, that’s exactly how I’d felt after the first few sessions with a professional therapist.

Sadly, in the United States, we have a problem with access to health care, mental health care in particular. Of all the providers I’ve ever seen in my adult life only one or two had accepted insurance. There is a very real economic burden associated with quality mental health care in our country. This may be why the fifth step figures so prominently in the lives of so many in recovery. Many of us have never been afforded this opportunity before in our lifetimes. I am grateful that I have been privileged to have the access to quality health care that I have.

The fifth step is about getting honest and sharing our the truth of our lives with another trusted human being. There is something powerful to giving voice our darkest secrets and our transgressions. There is something powerful in just being heard.

It is also about forgiveness, and maybe this is why the recovering Catholic in me saw the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the step. However it’s not that we are forgiven by the listener, rather as we become more aware of our selves, the patterns that have driven our behaviors, the fact that we are not the worst person in the history of the universe, and hopefully that we have some assets as well as our defects; we can find it within us to forgive ourselves. That’s when healing begins.

Posted on by damien 5

Reflections on Counting Days after Four Years of Sobriety

Lets talk about counting days. Opinions vary about whether or not counting the number of days one has been sober is useful or not, just as opinions vary on so many other things in the recovery community.

When I first got sober, I counted my days. I think most people do. As the days stacked up there was a sense of accomplishment. When I got my 30 day chip, it felt like an unbelievable milestone, because it was! I mean, in the previous twenty five years there hadn’t been a week that went by without getting smashed and in the previous seven it was a daily thing. Going 30 days without a drink was a miracle. And the same was true for my 60 day chip, and my 90 day chip, and my 6 month chip, and a year! A whole year without a drink!

But somewhere along the way counting days lost its shine. I certainly felt a sense of accomplishment with each passing milestone and I’d never belittle anyone for counting their days, but it just started not to matter to me. Perhaps it was that I’d become comfortable in my own skin, perhaps it no longer felt so miraculous — though to be fair, any day that someone like me gets through without a drink is miraculous — perhaps I just lost count.

I have not relapsed or slipped or whatever you want to call having a drink after a long period of abstinence. I suspect that I’d feel overwhelmed. I might feel shame. I might feel guilt. I might feel like I’d wasted my sober time. That I’d thrown it away.

That’s one way to look at it. But it’s zero sum. It’s fixed mindset. It’s black and white. Binary.

I believe that there is growth in sobriety. I believe that we become more fully ourselves in sobriety. I know that I’m not the same person I was 1461 days ago (I had to do the math on that). If I took a drink today, all that growth is still there. It doesn’t get obliterated. My perspective has shifted and I am more conscious of myself and others. One drink, one night of drinking, one week of drinking even wouldn’t change all of that. I might backslide but I don’t believe the narrative that I lose all my growth.

Sure I’d reset my sobriety date, but resetting ones sobriety date doesn’t set us back to square one. It’s just a number of days strung together.

What really matters is today. That’s why we talk about one day at a time. That’s why the Buddha spoke about the impermanence of everything.

That’s not to say that there wouldn’t be consequences if I were to take a drink. There surely would be consequences. They may be minor or they may be huge. It’s not something that I could predict. And that’s why I won’t be taking a drink today, just as I haven’t for the last 4 years of continuous sobriety, one day at a time.

Posted on by damien 7

I Haven’t Written a Post In 2019, Here’s an Update

At the end of 2018 I was thinking of combining this blog with an older one and renaming it. I was considering the change because I wasn’t sure that the idea of a sober blog, a sober persona online, was serving me. I’ve long struggled with the idea of identity. And so I’d shut down one twitter handle and renamed my primary handle.

Then life happened.

In January one of my high school friends died, potentially as a result of his substance use. I really don’t know but it hit me pretty hard because I’d been talking to him about my sobriety and his for months. It seemed like he was doing great. And then he was dead.

February came and went, as it does. Nothing exciting. Cold and grey.

March was a shit show. I can’t get into the details but my sobriety was tested by events in my life that no parent should ever have to go through. I struggled with cravings in a way that I haven’t in years. The desire to numb and escape was stronger than it has been since my early rays in sobriety. But I did the right things. I went to meetings and I talked with lots of people both in and out of the program. I should note that everyone is safe and healthy but it was one of the most traumatic events of my life.

I also was interviewing for a job in March. I couldn’t give the interview process my complete attention and as a result I would learn that I didn’t get the job in April. This is probably a good thing.

As a result of the events of March I started seeing a trauma therapist. This is long over due and it’s been helpful. I am learning more about myself that I learned through the steps. This experience has reenforced my belief that outside help is more important than the 12 step community generally acknowledges.

April was better. The weather started getting warmer. I started running again, We went in a trip to Grand Cayman.

But April was not 100% peaches and cream. I learned that I didn’t get the promotion and I also got my first ever call from HR. It turns out that even though I was ready to consolidate my online personas, my employer was not happy with one of my politically charged tweets. To be fair, I said some rather unprofessional things to our Tweeter in Chief.

The call from HR was really a non-issue because I was happy to remove the tweet and didn’t fight their objection, but it opened my eyes a bit and made me recognize that some separation between my personal life, my personal online presence, and my professional self and online presence is probably warranted.

And suddenly, it’s the middle of May and I haven’t posted in 5 months.

I have a few ideas about some topics to post in the near future but for now, I’ll just say that I’m doing okay.

I’m still sober and I keep moving forward.

Posted on by damien 7

False Narratives: Overcoming the Internal Voice that says, “You Can’t”

“I only run if someone is chasing me, like you know, the cops.”

I’ve said that thousands of times, perhaps hundreds of thousands of times. Usually, I said it either when someone suggested that I go for a run with them, or when they were bragging about their latest extraordinary run. Fitting that I’d move to a running town, made famous by some fool who runs in all sorts of weather wearing nothing but a Speedo. One of the few successful shops on Main Street in Annapolis is a running store. It’s been there as long as I can remember. You can’t take a drive for more than 30 minutes without seeing at least 25 of those obnoxious 26.2 euro style stickers on cars. I’ve always enjoyed seeing the occasional 0.0 sticker, thinking to myself “I’m not the only one who doesn’t run.”

Except now I do.

Perhaps it’s peer pressure. Perhaps, I’ve just finally succumbed to the influences of the area. Perhaps it’s another case of ego getting the best of me. Or perhaps, it’s just that I’ve learned a few things about myself over the past two years and eight months without a drink. While it’s quite conceivable that I have indeed let my ego take over and given into peer pressure, I prefer to believe that I’ve learned to believe in myself.

For years, I told myself that I couldn’t do things. Running was only one of them. I told myself that I couldn’t lose weight, couldn’t eat the right foods, couldn’t leave jobs, couldn’t get the girl, couldn’t stop drinking, couldn’t be an alcoholic. My faith in the fact that I wasn’t capable of doing things or of being things was perhaps the strongest faith I’ve ever known. I was sure that I couldn’t run.

But I secretly wanted to. Just as I secretly wanted to stop drinking, and secretly wanted my wife to tell me I was an alcoholic. As if I needed someone to tell me that I could be.

External affirmation and confirmation is something that I’ve sought my entire life. When I was a kid, I needed desperately for other kids to like me. Perhaps that started because I moved around so much after my birth father committed suicide. By the time I was in fourth grade, I’d lived in six different apartments or houses and been to five different schools. I was already different from all the other kids because my dad had died. I was different in other ways too, ways that I didn’t know at the time, and am grateful for today. But it was not easy being the new kid all the time.

In addition to that, by the time I settled into a private school in fourth grade, I was living in a neighborhood in the country which had two other kids my age. And all my friends from school lived 5, 10, 15 miles away from me. During the summers, we would go to the pool, and I would know who the other kids at the pool were by their reputations as bad kids. They were easy to spot. They were the bullies who would dunk younger kids in the pool. But I didn’t know many of the other local kids, because I didn’t go to school with them.

Today I know that my near constant need for external affirmation was driven by the deep rooted feelings of abandonment that arose from my father’s suicide. I still struggle with wanting things that I can’t have or don’t need to this day. It’s as if I’m trying to fill a void with material things. Only those things don’t fill the void, they just collect dust in the house when they are no longer exciting and new.

I suspect that many people who suffer from addictions have similar stories. And by that I mean, I know they do, because I’ve heard them. Like many others in recovery, I suffer from a deep sense of not being worthy. And for me that deep sense of unworthiness has manifest as a voice that tells me that I can’t do things.

But I’ve learned that I can do things that I once thought were impossible. I’ve learned that I am worthy. And I’ve made it through the day today without taking a drink — one day at a time, 978 times in a row and counting.

So I got to thinking about this running thing a few months ago. Maybe, just maybe, the idea that I can’t run was another lie that I’d told myself. Maybe it was another story I’d made up to cover up a sense of shame I felt for not being athletic, for not being fit, for being overweight. And maybe, like so many other narratives, it was false.

I started reading a few sites about running. I started thinking about it more and more. I did the walking version of the Beaver Stadium 5K run event over Blue White Weekend. And I saw most of my friends doing the run. Dudes in their forties just like me, running a 5K. Some of them, still heavier than they should be, and some recently slimmed down smaller than I’d ever known them to be. And I wanted to be like them.

I thought to myself, what’s stopping you?

And I answered: “My ankles are fucked. I did a lot of damage to them as a young skate rat. Same with my knees. You don’t have it in you to run, your body just isn’t built for it.”

Except I suspected that maybe I didn’t know these things to be true as much as I suspected them to be excuses. I have been an avid cyclist. I walk a lot and I love to hike. Sure, I’ve had some problems with the left knee, but maybe I was letting that get the best of me.

It was about 5 weeks ago that I had a conversation with a long time friend who happens to be a runner over a bowl of pho where I confided that I’d been thinking of giving it a try. Dave told me that many people start out by trying to run for a given period of time or a given distance and find that it’s painful and end up hurting themselves. This sounded familiar, in fact I sounded like what I expected to happen. But he went on to say that the best way to start would be to essentially sprinkle short distances of running into my walks. He suggested that I look into an app called Couch to 5K that would help me to time the intervals.

Suddenly this made sense. I could try this, even if it didn’t sound like running. Because, really, it didn’t sound like running. It sounded a lot like walking. And it also sounded very different than how I’d gotten back into cycling. See with cycling, you get on the bike and ride. Sure you go short distances, and maybe you ride intervals at different speeds, but you ride the bike. You don’t ride for a bit, and then push the bike, and then ride again. You get on the bike and you ride it. I’d always figured that starting running meant, well, running.

Dave also suggested that I look into some plans that Jeff Galloway had published. Now, I had no idea who the hell Galloway was, but I figured if Dave said I should look into him, then I should. And of course I found out that he’s a famous Olympian who advocates a walk/run program for people who are starting out. Suddenly, this running thing seemed less like something that I coulnd’t do, and more like something that I maybe I could do. And so I started on the C25K program.

The first run was horrible. And by that I mean the 8 minutes of running that were sprinkled in between 22 other minutes of walking were awful. My knee hurt. My calves hurt. I was winded. I wasn’t dressed appropriately so I was fucking hot. But I did it. And after I did it, I had sense of accomplishment. The next day, I went for a bike ride, and promptly had my hip flexors and hamstrings tighten up like a guitar string tuned an octave too high. I could barely walk was I got out of the car and headed to my customer appointments that day.

I learned that ice, and stretching were my friend. I got new shoes that were properly fitted at a running shop. And I followed the guidance of the app religiously. If it told me to walk, I walked — and if it said to run, I ran. I put a day between each run, and took two days off after three runs. In short, I followed a plan. And soon enough, I found that I could run pretty comfortably for five minutes at a time, and recover quickly as I was walking. And the knee pain disappeared.

Suddenly, I’d started to feel like I was actually running, because I was spending more time on a 30 minute session actually running than walking. And then, yesterday, I opened the app and it said, “your’e gonna run for 20 minutes straight today, but you’re ready for it.” I didn’t believe that. I was sure that I’d collapse. I was sure that my virtual trainer, Constance, was smoking some serious crack.

But then, I did it. I ran for 20 minutes straight, and I felt good doing it. And even better after it was done. I am amazed how far I’ve come in 5 weeks. And I know now that the narrative that I can’t run is a false narrative.

I also know that there are other false narratives that I have told myself that I need to address. But they will have to wait. Just as I learned when I first started my journey in recovery that I couldn’t stop drinking, start exercising, and eat right all at the same time, some things are conquered best one thing at a time.

Posted on by damien 2

A Tale of Two Weddings

Anxiety. Fear. Agony.

Those are the words that come to mind when I recall the first wedding I attended sober. It was a scant sixteen days after I’d given up the drink. I was still in withdrawal, and probably had no business going to a wedding of a fraternity brother. Still, I was committed to attending and even more committed to not drinking.

I gave myself the out and canceled the Friday night room at the hotel, opting to drive up to the Philly area on Saturday, the day of the wedding, in order to minimize the exposure. As my wife and I drove up I95 my neck and shoulders tightened. I’m sure my pulse quickened. My stomach turned to knots.

When we got to the hotel, many of my fraternity brothers were already well oiled. I felt left out. I ran an errand, and while I was out got a call from a large client about a TAC case that was going sideways with a critical piece of gear in their network. I desperately wanted to drink.

I gritted my teeth. My knuckles turned white. I managed.

Well before the wedding, well before I passed the table of Manhattans that was awaiting the guests after the ceremony, I was in agony with a migraine.

I wish I could say that I had fun, but if I’m honest, while it was nice to see my life long friends, that night was pure hell for me. There are photos of me with smiles, but that was all a front. I always have been good at hiding what’s wrong.

We split early, shortly after cake was served. I’d done my duty, and I was done.

Last night, I attended the wedding of one of my pledge brothers, Dave. I was surrounded by the same group of friends who drank heavily two years ago and many of them were drinking heavily again. But this event was different.

Gone were the feelings of apprehension, anxiety, and fear. I did not feel left out. I did not miss the drinking. I socialized with my life long friends and enjoyed myself.

No migraine, just fun.

I was in the moment, and at peace. We laughed, we sang, and we danced. I smiled genuine smiles and loved every minute of the wedding and reception.

So much has changed in my world in the last 22 months. I’ve learned how to have fun without alcohol. I’ve learned how to have fun in the presence of alcohol while abstaining. I’ve learned how to embrace my sober life.

Many times you’ll hear folks say that being sober isn’t just about putting down the drink or the drug, and there are usually a lofty words that follow about connecting with a higher power or your spiritual condition. And for many people I’m sure these words are genuine.

What I’ve come to realize is that recovery is not about simply abstaining it’s about living a full and rewarding life. If that means that I’ve connected with a higher power, then so be it, but the resistant self in me doesn’t fully accept that. And that’s okay.

I’ve learned that there will be cycles in my recovery. Times when I feel that the spiritual side of things is of the greatest importance and times when I will see it as a less important. There will be times when I resist the program and times when I embrace it. And that’s why people talk about this being a life long journey. That’s why people talk about staying connected to their recovery and their higher power, because we’re never cured — we only get a daily reprieve.

And still, we do heal. That’s the only word I can use to explain the difference between the two experiences. Aside from geography and time, the only significant difference in my experience of these two weddings is the healing of my mind, body, and spirit.

We do recover.

Posted on by damien 8

Three Months: It doesn’t ever have to be like that again.

Today marks three months since I traded in my drinking shoes for a pair of sober boots.

“It’s taken me a long time to get here.”

That’s what I said when I introduced myself at the first meeting.  In fact, it’s all I said.  Defeated, I was surrendering.

My healing began that day, though I didn’t know or recognize it.  I have been fortunate in my recovery, I’ve undergone trans-formative healing in a short period of time.  Others have told me that it took years for them to see the progress I’ve made in a few short months. Continue reading →

Posted on by damien 4