Tag: spirituality

Don’t Fake It — You Might Not Make It

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

— Polonius, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene III

Polonius’s advice to his son Laertes comes in the context of finances and very likely was received by an Elizabethan audience as the recommendation to take care of one’s self first and foremost — Polonius being one of the villains of the story. Just two lines earlier, Polonius advises, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend.”

And yet, our modern reading of these words has become gentler — these words serve as a guiding moral principle advising us of the power of being true to our own codes of morality, often in terms of presenting ourselves as we are rather than as others might like us to be to the world, rather than as a selfish conceit about putting ourselves first in business dealings.

To be fair, I prefer the modern interpretation of these words, even if it may be out of context in the play.

This past Sunday was Easter — the day upon which Jesus Christ is said to have risen from the dead, a miracle, and opened the gates of heaven to the believers. In Christian churches around the world jubilant cries of “He is Risen” could be heard along with “Alleluia” and “Hosanna in the Highest.”

I did not partake.

I did attend our church service via Zoom and listened as our ministers spoke about the realities of Jesus Christ’s death. That he was a political agitator. That he was put to death by a Roman Empire that who saw him as a threat. That while the narrative is that he was not in the tomb when Mary Magdalene and Jesus’s mother came on the third day because he’d risen from the dead, it is very probable that his body was removed and desecrated by the Romans.

We know that powerful people do awful things a to their enemies and there is little reason to believe that the Romans simply let his body be buried. They were, to be sure, a bloodthirsty lot. They fed people to lions for sport for goodness sake. And we know this happens to the bodies of dissidents in our modern world, witness Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder at the hands of the Saudi government.

I do not wish to belittle or betray anyone’s belief here. If you believe the story of the Resurrection and it provides you with faith and comfort, it is wonderful. We all need comfort in this chaotic world. And a little faith goes a long way.

If I’m honest, though, I never believed it.

But I tried. I tried to believe it for a long time.

Fake it ‘til you make it.

This well meaning turn of phrase, employed so often when someone struggles, grates on me. Particularly in the context of addiction recovery, I find this advice highly problematic. Just think about it for a moment. Addiction leads so many of us to a life masked in half-truths, denials, and outright lies.

We hid our addiction, out of shame and fear. We lied about how often we drank, or where the money came from, or what happened the night before. Even if we didn’t lie to others, we lied to ourselves denying that the problem was as big as it was as we hid the bottles, empty or otherwise.

Faking it until we make it, is just another lie. We can’t fake sobriety. We can’t fake recovery. We have to do the work.

Now, there is something to be said for modeling good behaviors. There is something to be said for setting intention and how intention can be a strong predictor of success. But “acting as if” is different than “faking it.”

I know what it means to fake it.

For nearly half a century I faked it. I did what others told me I should. I went to confession for the first time in 5th grade and took first communion later that year after a well meaning teacher in my school asked me if I’d like to receive the sacraments. Never once did I believe that saying 10 “Hail Mary’s” would relieve me of my sins, or that the stale wafer had transmuted into the flesh of Christ — and thank God for that, I mean, can you say cannibalism? — Later in high school, I got confirmed, because it was what I was supposed to do — even though I was a few years late to the party.

In my twenties, I attended a Catholic Church on and off with friends, but slowly drifted away. I broke up with a wonderful woman largely because I could not accept her interest in an evangelical faith — I still owe an amends there. Throughout those years, I would go to church for the big days — Christmas and Easter — and if I’m honest, I always wanted to believe. I felt that believing might relieve some of the pain. I found myself jealous of the certainty that others had about the hereafter.

This big ball of chaos and confusion that we call earth just might make a little more sense if there was an afterlife of bliss. I mean, it’s a great fucking story, but my life experience runs counter to it at every turn.

When I met my wife, she was an Elder in the Presbyterian Church. I still don’t really know what that means, but I do know that she was invested in it — that it carried meaning for her. And I’d learned, by way of the aforementioned break up, that perhaps I needed to be sensitive to her faith even if I wasn’t all in. I attended church with her, because frankly, I’d have walked through a bed of hot coals to be with her.

It was uncomfortable. Not only was I not a true believer, but I’d been so thoroughly indoctrinated by the Catholic Church that I believed I was somehow committing a sin by attending another denomination’s services. They did a great job telling me that there was only one true church. To be honest, I still struggle with this from time to time even though I’ve all but renounced my Catholicism by burning the Pope in effigy.

This sense of betrayal was so strong in me that I struggled with the idea that we would be married in the Presbyterian Church — even though I loved the pastor of the church. He hooked me on the first day I attended his service which a sermon about how Liberals and Conservatives needed each other.

And yet, I overcame that sense of betrayal and actually became a member of not one, but two different Presbyterian churches. With time, I actually enjoyed the services. Those churches provided me with good people, good community.

But I still didn’t believe in the Resurrection.

And then I got sober.

I’ve written ad-nauseam about my challenges with religion versus spirituality and how I came to a sense of peace when I finally let go of the God of my childhood. It was only after doing so that I felt I could approach the 12 steps in a meaningful way. And it was only after letting go of that God, that I was able to seek out a church community where it was okay for me to have my doubts.

I tried to fake it until I made it for so many years, and never actually made it. Or at least, I didn’t make it in a way that looked like I thought it would. I had always thought that given enough time, I might eventually will myself into believing. That if I went to church and heard the message again and again, that it might some day actually be true for me. But that truth never crystallized.

This past Sunday was a glorious day in many ways. We had beautiful weather and I saw my family. Many of the adults in the family have been vaccinated and it feels like we might actually turn the corner in this god forsaken pandemic. I enjoyed our church service and felt connected to the universe. And I felt liberated because I didn’t need to pretend to believe in the Resurrection.

In the end, if I allow myself to believe that I’ve come to the end of this journey, which is probably another misconception, faking it until I made it did more harm than good. I struggled and suffered trying to reconcile a disjointed belief with my own life experience. It never fit and it was always uncomfortable. That certainty and the peace that I thought it might bring was never going to happen. I’d have been far better if I’d taken Polonius’ advice and been true to myself from the beginning.

It’s not that I have no faith, nor that there is no God — it’s that it doesn’t look like what I thought it would. Maybe, just maybe, that’s what making it looks like.

Posted on by damien 1

A Sober Agnostic’s Crisis of Faith

Things are really hard right now. Every day, I feel overwhelmed. Like so many others, I’m navigating uncharted waters without so much as a compass. The uncertainty of the moment weighs heavily on my mind and the challenges we face as a family feel insurmountable. It’s a game of wack-a-mole.

My company has been highly supportive of all employees during this pandemic and for that I’m grateful. There have been many opportunities to connect with the feelings and trials of the pandemic presented to us by management in the form of webinars and talks. The People Team has brought in many guest speakers and has worked diligently to help employees make sense of things that are hard to comprehend.

And yet, I still feel isolated and alone. My job has been reduced to a series of video conferences and fire fighting. I spend my days in a subterranean room that has been my office for 10 years and at the end of the day I spend some time in other rooms of the house, only to go to bed and get up and do it again.

While the company is doing well, my fiscal Q1 was miserable, perhaps the worst performance numbers wise in my career. I know it will get better, but I don’t know when. Underperformance and I don’t make good bed fellows. It saps my energy and I see it as a reflection of myself even if I know that it is not necessarily an indication of my efforts. Even when I know things are not in my control.

My son has been extraordinarily challenging since school started. I won’t say much more than that I’ve really struggled with what the next right thing should be for him, for us, as we try to navigate his seventh grade year. He started the school year in person, which was a small blessing as it gave us a sense of normalcy that we’d not had in months. But he is now doing remote school, and that is an added stress to our days.

I am trying to take time for self care, going for walks, runs, and bike rides, but at 48 there are only so many miles I can grind out on a daily basis to keep myself slightly sane. I’m making meetings. I’m eating well. But there is a lot on the plate. I’m practicing gratitude (you may have noticed based on my posts). All these things help, but to be honest, I’m struggling.

Struggling to make sense of things. Struggling to do the right things. Struggling to keep my cool. Struggling to get on task and to stay on task. Struggling to connect with others. Struggling in so many ways. Struggling to trust that the universe has my back. Struggling to believe that even if things are not okay, I will be okay.

I’ve long held this belief — the belief that no matter what, things will get better. That no matter what, nothing lasts forever. That I’ll be okay. I am clinging to these beliefs right now. I’m holding on. But it’s hard to keep the perspective. Hard to know it in my core the way I’ve known it all my life.

This sober agnostic is having a crisis of faith.

Posted on by damien 16

Courage, Rebellion, and a Universe that has Your Back

Something that isn’t talked about enough in the rooms of the recovery community — courage. It takes courage to admit that we have a problem. It takes courage to ask for help. It takes courage to leave behind old habits and old coping mechanisms. It takes courage to get honest with ourselves and others. It takes courage to get sober or get clean.

In some ways, getting sober is a radical act. I mean, one day I was drinking to excess and the next day I made a decision not to drink. And while we use the one day at a time mantra, I knew that I was making a life decision. I knew that I was making a commitment not just fit the day, not just for the foreseeable future, but really for every day of the rest of my life. I knew that in my core.

Getting sober was an act of protest against the substance that had been my tyrant for so long. An act of rebellion. I put my foot down and said, “Enough! I can’t live like this anymore!”

But I didn’t do this on my own. I needed help. I needed people to show me the way. I needed people to lean on. People to call when things got rough. Because, let’s face it, rebellion is a hard road. There are times when we need support. A kind face. An open mind. Someone to listen. Someone to hear. Simone to cry with.

Last Monday, I had one of those hard days. Things went off the rails with my son. I lost my temper. I was angry and escalating the situation — it’s telling that a week later I can’t even recall what the argument was about. And the I paused. I took a breath and left the Hoise for a walk, right after setting dinner in the table.

I went for a long walk and was contemplating the concept of a higher power. Contemplating how the God of my childhood had been a failure and how I had let that go. I was thinking about the mystery of the universe, and thinking about how things always seem to work out. My faith in things getting better is definitely part of my higher power.

The universe has your back.

The thought crossed my mind, just as I was looking at the liquor store where I’d been a regular customer. I kept walking, down an old rails to trails path in my town when I came upon two friendly faces from the rooms sitting outside a local coffee shop.

“How’s it going?”

“Shitty,” I said as I pulled up a chair.

We talked briefly and it felt good to let it out. There was something cathartic about talking about my feelings and frustrations, if only for five minutes. I said I needed to be going and that I was planning to go to a meeting that night.

Both men got up and gave me a hug. Hugs have been sparse in this COVID-19 world and while I’ll admit that they felt damn good, I also felt guilty for accepting them, and vaguely worried that I’d unknowingly exposed myself to the virus.

But, mostly I felt good. Even courageous and rebellious people in recovery need hugs and support.

The universe has your back.

Posted on by damien 2

Step 12: Give Others Hope

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Fundamentally, the 12 Steps are a roadmap for change as well as a guide for living a rich and full life. Whether one calls it a spiritual awakening or something else is immaterial. Some folks do feel that they have undergone a monumental psychic shift as the result of working through the steps. Others feel that the change is more subtle.

I personally suspect that the degree to which one feels a change is highly dependent upon how circumstances of their active addiction. For an addict who found himself or herself living on the street, steeling to survive, and living in constant fear, the shift is undoubtedly monumental. But for others who managed to keep their outward lives together while they suffered existential dread internally the shift may seem less dramatic, at least from outward appearances.

Personally, it took more than the 12 Steps for me to feel a fundamental shift in my outlook on life. Specifically it has taken the support of friends and family as well as trauma therapy. I began trauma therapy about nine months ago and as I’ve learned what triggers me, how to recognize with these triggers, and how to be with these triggers in the moment, I have felt a calmness that I’ve never known before in my life.

Many people do find this calmness through the 12 Steps. I didn’t. I felt just the opposite for a long time because the 12 Steps tripped my triggers. I am triggered by the word God. I am triggered by the the notion of an omniscient, omnipresent, and benevolent deity. The root of these triggers are in my life experience. I suffered spiritual trauma when I was told that my birth father could never go to heaven because he died of suicide. Additionally, my life experience is at odds with the idea that there is a benevolent deity directing the world — my direct experience is the opposite. The universe is chaos.

And yet, I’ve learned to accept this. I’ve learned that even if the universe is chaotic, it can still be a power greater than myself. I’ve learned that the mystery of the universe shows me that there is something more out there. Something that deeply connects us to all other things in the universe.

Recently, I was reminded of the scientific Law of Conservation of Mass, which states that matter can not be created or destroyed. When I consume food, that matter gets converted into either cells in my body or waste. For my rational brain, this is proof enough of the interconnectedness of everything in the universe.

For the past few months, I’ve been attending a Unitarian Universalist church and have found in this church a welcoming of my skepticism. It’s as if I suddenly found a bunch of people who think like me. Who suspect that there is something out there but who may not always be sure. The church is welcoming of theists, non-theists, atheists and agnostics. There is very little dogma. They don’t tell me how to believe. And that’s what I needed. This is my spiritual tribe, at least for now.

Importantly, I couldn’t have considered attending this church without going through the therapy process. I needed to deprogram old thinking and old patterns of behavior that no longer served me.

In the 12th step, we are asked to carry the message to other alcoholics. I believe the message is simple. There is a way out of the horrors of addiction and we can have a happy, healthy, and full life without the bondage of addiction. In short, it is a message of hope.

That is what I felt when I came into the rooms in 2015, a great sense of hope. Hope that I could turn things around. Hope that I could feel better. Hope that I could get the monkey off my back. Hope that I could be free. Hope that I might live past fifty years old.

Interestingly, when I was in high school I knew the importance of hope. In a very dark time I scrawled out a short poem that likened life to a matchstick. It shines bright and strong. Intense and dramatic after being lit. And then it’s over. The poem asked the question, if there’s nothing more than this life “why even spark the match?” Years later, one of my teachers found this poem tucked inside my old social studies book and got it to my mother.

And so, when I was confronted in therapy with the question, “what does a God provide to people who believe?” I knew the answer even if I wasn’t ready to accept it. The answer is hope and meaning.

And hope was vital. Without hope, my recovery would not have been possible. And so, even if I don’t like the words, I’ve had what one might call a spiritual awakening.

We need to be able to see that there is a way out of the things that we struggle with. We need to see that our struggles are part of the human condition. All humans struggle with “character defects.” All humans have problems with their egos. All humans have thoughts that if given voice might cause others to pause, to be taken aback. There is nothing unique or special about alcoholics and addicts that predisposes us to these things. The difference is how we have attempted to cope. Alcoholics and addicts have attempted to numb the pain of being human. But numbing the pain doesn’t make it go away.

What helps in times of struggle is the belief that the present reality won’t always be the reality. That things can and will get better. It doesn’t matter what the struggle is — it may be addiction but it may be something else — the message of hope is the answer.

I carry the message of hope with me in my daily life. Through my words and actions, I share it with others who are struggling. Sometimes in one on one conversations, sometimes in tweets with the RecoveryPosse on Twitter, and sometimes here on this blog.

Posted on by damien 5

Step 11: This Too Is Prayer

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

“Seriously? We haven’t talked about God for a while so we better bring Him back into the picture.” This was how I felt when I looked at Step 11 for a long time. The only saving grace for me was that the payer recommended in the Twelve and Twelve was the Prayer of Saint Francis, which despite being a Catholic prayer, has always been a personal favorite and that peculiar word “meditation” in the step.

I really couldn’t imagine myself praying. Certainly not to an omniscient, interventionist deity who had fixed me and now had a plan for me. I struggled with this step. As a way to make this work, I tried to get comfortable with ignoring all the theistic overtones and focusing on meditation.

I’ll be honest, my success with meditation has been less than stellar. I have tried doing it in my own. I’ve tried to do it with the help of apps. I’ve read about it to the point of recognizing that reading about it isn’t actually doing it.

Where I struggle with meditation is making it a ritual. I’m just not a very ritualistic person. The only ritual that I adhere to is the ritual of making coffee in the morning. That happens every day, right after getting up.

But when I do make time to meditate, something happens to my monkey mind that is hard to explain. It never stops. The thoughts keep coming. But I’ve learned that this is not actually the point of meditation. By recognizing the thoughts, noting the thinking and not judging it, over and over and over again, I come to a more peaceful state of mind.

I do a fair amount of walking, running, and in the past cycling. I’ve always found that cycling by myself is meditative, and the same is true of walking and running. It’s time for me to slow down the thoughts, focus on one thing, get moving, and just be in a state of flow. Time passes effortlessly.

Still, I wondered if I was doin this step wrong since I was so adverse to praying. I worried that I needed to actually be praying — on my knees, hands folded, eyes closed, saying some rote words to a deity that I knew in my bones does not exist. And so I did a lot of reading. One book that really helped me is Waiting: A Nonbeliever’s Higher Power, by Marya Hornbacher.

In the chapter on Step 11, I came across some words that would totally change my perception of prayer on page 114:

“November morning. The sky turning from indigo to violet blue, the curly oak sketched in black on the sky. Steam rising off the lake. I sat in absolute stillness, absolute peace.

This, too, is prayer.”

These words encapsulate what I’d sensed all along in my life every time I’d stood in awe of the natural world. The sense of finiteness in the infinite that I feel when I’m alone on the beach looking at the ocean. The feeling that everything would be okay when I’d hike up to the top of the ridge at Shingletown Gap and look down in the campus of Penn State when things felt overwhelming. The sense of peace that comes when I can no longer hear the sounds of cars as I walk down a trail in the woods.

Those words also showed me that prayer need not be directed to a specific deity. That you could simply send prayers out to the great mysterious universe. My uncle gave us a small Buddhist prayer bowl for Christmas. The bowl came with the instructions to write our prayers on a small piece of paper, to put them in the bowl, and to set it near a window. When the suns rays hit the papers the prayers are carried out to the universe. This gift reinforced the notion that prayers need not be directed to a specific deity.

Today I think of many things as prayer. My silent walks in the woods can be prayerful. My time writing these words can be prayerful. Simply closing my eyes and noticing the breath is prayer. There is something centering about prayer. Something contemplative. Something quieting.

It all comes down to intentionally making time to refocus, to find a small amount of peace in an otherwise chaotic world.

That’s what prayer is for me.

Posted on by damien 4

Accepting the Language of Others

I thought I’d laid my angst with the God talk to rest when I had my breakthrough last winter and came to understand that my challenge was with the God of my childhood rather than with the God of my understanding. I thought I’d finally gotten to the point that I could hear others talk about how God was doing things in their lives that they couldn’t do for themselves without having a visceral reaction. I thought that I’d made progress. And then I went to a Step meeting on a Friday.

I heard people sharing their truths in that meeting. I heard them talking about the God of their understanding. Intellectually, I knew that their understanding was theirs and not mine. Intellectually, I knew that they weren’t preaching to me — that their God talk was not aimed at me. But emotionally, I was not prepared to hear those things for what they were. Emotionally, I heard these people talking about the God of my childhood — God that I don’t believe in and even if I did we wouldn’t be in speaking terms. And I found myself in a foul mood questioning the one thing that had made a difference when other things couldn’t. Questioning the validity of 12-Step as a mode of recovery.

That’s the insanity of being affected by an addiction. If there is one thing for certain about my addiction to booze it’s that I was not able to stop drinking without help. And for me that help came in the form of 12-Step meetings, the fellowship, and the program.

I’ve spent some time wrestling with this. What is it about hearing other people talk about the God of their understanding that triggers me? Why do I automatically assume that they are talking about the God of my childhood when they use Christian terms and names for God?

After some soul searching I think that it comes down to this: I went to Catholic school in a rural area. While Vatican II occurred between 1963 and 1965 and, in part, attempted to reconcile modern life with Catholic orthodoxy, you wouldn’t have known that nearly 30 years had passed in the churches of the area. We had very conservative priests. One of the key messages that I received was this: “Roman Catholicism is the only true religion with a direct lineage between the Pope and God starting with Peter.”

While I rejected many things about the Catholic Church, this particular nugget stuck with me. So powerful were these words that I viewed all Protestant faiths as being somehow unworthy, not quite real if not outright false. This sense that there was no true religion outside the Catholic Church tainted my view of the world, so much so that I secretly struggled with getting married in the Presbyterian Church even though I consistently found the message of our pastor to be beautiful and in lock step with my understanding of the universe.

And so, I struggle when I hear the people talk about God because I haven’t let go of the idea that the only true interpretation of God sources from the Roman Catholic Church — a notion that I rejected long ago but one in which I still feel entrapped. I struggle with accepting that when people speak of the God of their understanding, they are not necessarily speaking of the God of my childhood — a God that repeatedly failed me.

And so, I have some work to do. The work of letting go of old ideas and sitting with the discomfort. And I have to work on accepting what I know to be true — that there are other faiths which are true and pure, that language gets in the way of spiritual connections, that we are all really speaking about the same mystery, regardless of the name we put on it.

Posted on by damien 7

It’s a Mystery

Step 2 Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Oh, this step! The savior for so many and the downfall of so many more. The capitalization of Power seems to imply a deity, yet we are told it needn’t be a specific deity or God, a thought that on the surface seems absurd to many of us.

How many people have walked out of their first meeting and never returned because of this very sentence? We have no way of knowing. That’s one of the downsides of a decentralized, anonymous organization. But I’d wager the number is staggering and that the percentage is only increasing as our society becomes more and more secular.

If you’re a newcomer and struggling with these words, I’m going to share a little secret with you. Many of us in recovery struggle with the concept of a higher power and many people use the words “God and “prayer” either because that’s what we know or that’s what we’ve been told to do.

There are many reasons why we might struggle with this step. Maybe it’s because we don’t believe. Maybe it’s because we aren’t sure if we believe. Maybe we were hurt by someone who was exuberant in their beliefs. Maybe the only Higher Power we’ve ever known was a vengeful, fear inspiring God.

Doubt is part of the mystery. We don’t know for certain that a God exists, or not.

But we do know that there are questions. Questions which have not or cannot be answered by human experience. Why is there life on Earth? Are we alone in the universe? What happens when we die?

So, we struggle. I struggled. And that’s okay.

Over time I realized that I was struggling with the deity of someone else’s understanding. I realized that my visceral reaction to the God talk in the rooms had nothing to do with my understanding of a deity, but rather my rejection of others’ understanding of their deities. And I realized that putting energy into these feelings wasn’t helpful.

So, I spent time considering the difference between religion and spirituality. I have always been fascinated by the notion of connection. I know that there is something that connects all life in the universe.  And over time, I came to understand that this is, in fact, the very essence of Spirituality. As Brené Brown writes in The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are:

Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us , and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion . Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective , meaning , and purpose to our lives .

I won’t necessarily name this something, and it’s okay by me if you disagree with me. I’m more interested in a thought I recently had about whether one could substitute the word purpose for power. What if rather than talking about a power greater than one’s self, we focused on a purpose greater than one’s self?

Now, I’m not looking to re-write the Big Book, or change the language of the steps. They are what they are. They are instructive of one way to live a good, contented, and useful life.  They have helped millions to recover from all sorts of addictions.

I am, however, interested in how to help people who, like me, struggle with the language of the Big Book.

What is a good and useful life if not a purposeful life?

When I was in 11th grade, we studied Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning in which he tells of his time in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwits and how he came to believe in what he called logotherapy — therapy based on finding meaning in life. I’ve written about this before, and so I won’t go into great detail here, but the book had a huge impact on me and also introduced me to the Nietzsche quote “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.”

As, I’ve mentioned before, I went to Catholic school. As one might imagine there are times in Catholic school when little boys are asked to consider whether the priesthood may be a suitable calling for them in life. And so at an early age, I was introduced to a very big word:

vocation | vōˈkāSH(ə)n |

noun
a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation: not all of us have a vocation to be nurses or doctors.

Suffice it to say, I did not feel a calling to become a priest, at least not for very long after the initial sell-job. I did however feel a calling to become a father. I knew in my heart of hearts that one day I would become a father. I had no idea that becoming a father would trigger a huge psychic shift in my life that would lead to me down a very dark path.

When I got sober, I discovered that I had a lot of work to do to become the father I’d imagined myself to be. I discovered that feelings I had about my birth father and my step father and both of their deaths were at the root of the trauma that lead to my addiction to alcohol.

And yet, here I was, a father to a seven year old son. A son who I love dearly but who can be challenging. Gradually, I learned to let go of my pre-conceived notions of what being a father meant. Gradually, I let go of the self-judgement that I harbored. Gradually, I realized that I’m human, and both my fathers were human as well.

And gradually, I began to understand that for now, my purpose in life, in fact my higher purpose, is to be the best father that I can be. That doesn’t mean perfect, it means being honest. It means being caring. It means guiding my son into his adulthood as best I can. And it means that there will be plenty of opportunity for growth, and plenty of failures.

Today, there are times when things get too heavy. Times when the idea of a drink sounds appealing. Times when the idea of a whole bottle sounds fantastic. Because, that’s how my lizard brain operates. When the going get rough, my lizard brain screams for a potent elixir to numb the pain.

But, I don’t succumb to that lizard brain temptation. I take a few minutes to think through the idea. I take a few minutes to remember what it is that I’m supposed to be doing. I remember my purpose.

And when I remember my purpose — to be the best father I can be and to guide my son into adulthood — I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can’t do that as a drunk. I’ve already tried that and failed.

Strangely, the exact thing that drove me to the bottle has become the thing that I see as my higher purpose. Perhaps, it’s divine providence. Perhaps, not.

I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Posted on by damien 11

October 23, 2017: Reflections on Thirteen Years of Marriage

Thirteen years ago, I woke to brilliant sunshine after a week straight of rain, with a banging headache, in a hotel room at the O’Callahan on West Street, in Annapolis, MD. My addiction to alcohol would not take full root for several more years, but the previous night had been full of revelry with friends and family. We’d been celebrating in preparation of this day, the day that I would commit my life to the most amazing and beautiful woman I’d ever met. Yes, Mrs. TKD and I were getting married!

We had fretted about the weather for the entire week as it poured rain on Maryland. The forecast had predicted more rain on Saturday but here I was, awake with sun streaming in the window and clear skies as far as I could see. The air crisp and clear, we would have the perfect weather for our October wedding day after all.

The day became a bit of a blur once things got rolling, but at six in the morning I had a lot on my mind and couldn’t go back to sleep. Around seven, I met Mom for breakfast. I took a walk around ten and ate oysters at the Market House in Annapolis, shucked by a kind old black man named Lester Jones.

Lester had known my father and after he died always asked me how Mom was doing. When I shared the plan of the day with Lester his broad smiled showed through his slat and pepper beard and he told me that Dad would be proud. He told me that Dad would be with me that day. And I knew that he was with me in spirit. I carry my dad’s spirit with me everywhere I go, even now.

I’ve been reading a book called Waiting: A nonbeliever’s Higher Power, and one of the central tenets of the book is that we live in the here and now and that the very act of being present with other human beings — the act of communicating and participating in fellowship with other human beings — is in and of itself spiritual. I believe that this sense of community that we find in the rooms is perhaps even more powerful in our recovery than understanding any Higher Power in which we may believe.

I know for me this has been the case. The recognition that we are not alone that comes from spending time with others who seem to understand us vitalizes our lives. Talking about our pains and joys, actively listening to others, and offering our thoughtful suggestions are indeed connections between our spirit and the spirits of others fostered by a common language of struggle and triumph. When I came to understand that I was not alone in the rooms, my world expanded many fold.

Lester’s reminder that my father was with me was no accident. Indeed, I’d gone to get oysters from Lester specifically to spend time with my father’s memory. It was a small way to bring him into the day. I knew, if only subconsciously, that Lester and I would talk about dad and that by talking about him, we would bring his spirit to the day.

I did not know Lester Jones well, but I know a bit about his life. I knew that he’d been born south of Annapolis in a house on Muddy Creek Road in Edgewater, MD. I knew that he’d worked on the water as a younger man. I knew that he’d been married and divorced and that his current woman drove him a bit nutty but that he loved her. I knew that he was in his late fifties (at the time) but looked much older and weathered.

His had not been an easy life but he was a gentleman who had kind words and a smile. I didn’t know his entire life story, but I knew enough to know that his life was very different from my own, and yet, I considered him a friend — someone who was important enough in my family’s story to visit and to share the memory of my father with on my wedding day. I’ll never know if Lester considered me anything more than a customer, but I suspect he did. Lester made connections with people. He never forgot to ask about Mom when I visited his stand.

Today, as I celebrate thirteen years of marriage, I’m thinking about the connection between my spirit and Mrs. TKD’s spirit. I fell in love with her spirit first. It was here spirit that told me the stories of hiking Machu Picchu, of travels in Europe, of wanting to be a cartographer at National Geographic. It was here spirit that showed up on dates in pink and white cow printed sandals, and wore sparkly flip flops on that warm April day in 2003 when I met her. And it is her spirit that lifts me up when I am down. He spirit gave here the strength to never give up on me even in my darkest hours.

Our spirits are forever entwined and changed by the other. They will never be one, but they are close and I hope will never be separated.

Posted on by damien 7

When “We Agnostics” Fails Us

If you’re like me, the idea of an interventionist god, who is going to fix you, who is going to save you, simply does not resonate. And if you’re like me, you were probably told that you don’t need to believe in God to practice the 12 steps. You may have been told that there is a difference between Spirituality and Religion. And when you insisted that there was too much God talk in the steps, you were probably pointed to the chapter “We Agnostics” in the Big Book.

And if you’re anything like me, when you read “We Agnostics” you probably read it for what it is — A half assed attempt to cover up the religion that dominates the steps as written in the Big Book. Indeed the entire chapter seems to focus not on acknowledging that you don’t need an interventionist god to get sober, but rather to convince you that you do. The story of Bill Wilson’s conversion figures prominently in this chapter. So too do stories designed to prove that science and reason are not always right — such as the recounting of the widespread belief that man would never fly until the Wright Brothers developed the airplane.

When I finished it, I felt like it read as follows:

Yes, we were like you too. We were men of science and reason. We didn’t believe in God. But we couldn’t reason our way out of drinking and in our moment of utter defeat, we succumbed to the idea that we needed to believe in God to get sober. And you will too, just you wait.

And just in case you don’t get it, in the first paragraph of the next chapter “How It Works” we are told “Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program.”1

Every time I hear that in a meeting I cringe because I know that there are many paths up the mountain.

My relationship with organized religion is complicated. I’ve written about my challenges with the phrase “a God of my understanding” in the past. I’ve struggled with the notion of spirituality without the heavy handedness of evangelical christianity (and make no mistake, the Oxford Group from which the 12 steps came was an evangelical group).

My last post explored the idea of Faith rather than Belief. After reading it, one of my friends on Twitter pointed me to the book The Alternate 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery. I wondered if I would find it valuable. So many of the things that I’ve been pointed to on this question have failed so miserably that I had my doubts. But I knew that Paul was a kindred spirt and that there just might be something worth reading in this book.

So I bought it.

As I read the first chapter of the book, “What is Your Suffering?” I immediately felt at home. The chapter lays out the intent of the book, which is not to change the 12 steps, but to explain them in non-theistic language. As I read this chapter, I became excited that I might finally read the 12 steps without feeling my skin crawl. I felt that the authors were speaking my language and when I read the final sentence of the chapter I knew it. The authors write, “It isn’t important how we climb the mountain, as long as we commit ourselves to the journey.” 2

I found the book to be true to it’s intent. While the steps have been re-written to remove the theism that dominates the 1935 version of the steps, the intent does not change. The book provides clear guidance for those of us who wish to approach the steps without approaching god. The book makes clear the distinction between the religious and spiritual.

There are a couple of really great quotes from the chapter on Step 2 that really resonated with me:

“The word spirit comes from a Latin word that means breath, life, vigor. We call something spiritual when it represents life or when it enhances life.” 3

“Spiritual power comes from whatever gives us peace, hope or strength and enhances our humanity.” 4

This is what people mean when they say that anything can be your higher power. As Nietzche wrote, “He who has a why to live, can bear with almost any how.” Anything that is life giving, anything that gives your life meaning can be your “why” — a.k.a. your higher power. (That said, you’ll never convince me that a fucking light bulb or a doorknob is your higher power — you’re just being obstinate.)

One final note, is that this book really puts the onus of recovery on the individual. “What matters is to have faith in our spiritual selves – in other words, to have faith in the energy that gives us life.”5 This really resonates with me — after all is said and done, no one can do anything for anyone else. No one can make us better. We are not dependent on an interventionist god to make us better. We have to accept our responsibility to ourselves in order to get better.

So, if you’re like me, and you struggle with the god talk in the recovery community, I highly recommend you read this book. It made a big difference for me.

  1. A.A. World Services Inc. Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition (Kindle Locations 973-974). A.A. World Services, Inc.. Kindle Edition ↩︎
  2. Cleveland, Martha; G., Arlys. The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery (Kindle Locations 205-206). AA Agnostica. Kindle Edition. ↩︎
  3. Cleveland, Martha; G., Arlys. The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery (Kindle Locations 496-497). AA Agnostica. Kindle Edition. ↩︎
  4. Cleveland, Martha; G., Arlys. The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery (Kindle Locations 502-503). AA Agnostica. Kindle Edition. ↩︎
  5. Cleveland, Martha; G., Arlys. The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery (Kindle Locations 499-500). AA Agnostica. Kindle Edition. ↩︎
Posted on by damien 14