Tag: willingness

Making Amends to Ourselves — a Path to Self Forgiveness

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

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of self forgiveness lately. I think that self forgiveness presents a challenge for many people, in and out of recovery. As humans, we often judge our own actions through an unrealistic lens and are particularly hard on ourselves.

According to Freud, we all have three parts of our personalities — the id, the ego, and the super-ego. The id being the part of our personalities that is responsible for our animal instincts, sexual desires, and aggressive drives. The super-ego is the part of our personalities that functions as the moral compass and the ego is the part that mediates between the id and the super-ego. Perhaps it’s the ego that can’t accept that we might say or so something that falls outside out ethics governed by the super-ego.

Now, I am not a psychologist, and I’m not sure that Freud got it all right, but this model may be somewhat useful as we explore the concept of self forgiveness.

When we do something that we regret, the idea of forgiving ourselves can be difficult. We act as the prosecutor (super-ego), defense (id), judge and jury (ego) in our own minds. Rarely do these disparate roles agree about an action that we regret. In fact, this internal conflict that arises between these three parts of our personalities may be the very essence of regret.

When this conflict is strong within us, forgiving ourselves may seem impossible. Perhaps the strength of the voices of our internal judge and jury make us feel that we are unable to forgive ourselves. But, I’ve learned it’s important not to confuse ability with willingness. We can always forgive — even ourselves — the question is are we willing to do so or not.

Steps 8 and 9 are all about making amends and hopefully receiving forgiveness. When we get to step 8, we often look back at step 4 to make our list of people based on our moral inventory — it makes sense that we would look to address our amends to the people who were affected by the items on the list. This list may include our friends, spouse, children, other family members, business associates or supervisors, former lovers, and even former friends or others to whom we are estranged because of our behaviors while drinking.

There is one person that I think is excluded from the list more often than not and I believe this is unfortunate. That person is ourself.

How often does the amends list include ourselves? Why should this list include ourselves? Don’t we owe it to others to make things right first? What does making amends to oneself even look like?

While it may appear egotistical to make amends to oneself at first glance, I believe that it is foundational to making amends with others. I believe it is foundational to loving oneself. Just as one can’t truly love another without loving oneself, I believe that one must make amends and forgive oneself in order to truly grow in the program.

If we go about our lives regretting the past and thinking horrible thoughts about ourselves then we can’t truly change as a person. Brené Brown says, “we become the stories we tell ourselves.” If we are constantly telling ourselves that we are no good because of our past or that we are defined by our past, we come to hold this as a core belief about ourselves. And if we believe in our core that we are unworthy, then we will live as if we are unworthy. We will act as if we are unworthy. We will hold in to and repeat those old behaviors.

One of the promises is, “we will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.” When we are newly sober this promise may seem the most extravagant of them all. How on earth could we not regret our past? It’s exactly what got us here. Our past is defined by problems, poor choices, misbehavior, and pain. How do we get to a point where we don’t regret it? The magic that makes this possible exists in self forgiveness. And self forgiveness begins with making amends to ourselves.

So, how do we do this? It starts, as all amends do, with an assessment of what when wrong and how it could have been handled differently — the core difference between an empty apology and an amends being that an amends tries to make things right, by fixing the mistake of possible and by ensuring that it doesn’t happen again. So in order to make an amends to ourselves we need to know how we hurt ourselves and how we might fix it, as well as have a plan not to do it again. Then we tell ourselves that we are sorry for what we did, acknowledging how it was hurtful, and explaining how we will avoid it in the future. That is what making an amends to ourselves looks like.

Suppose that we hurt ourselves emotionally and spiritually by putting ourselves and others in danger by driving under the influence. We now see that our behavior was reckless and dangerous and we may feel bad about it. We may feel a deep sense of regret and fell like we can’t forgive ourselves. We need to make an amends.

To do this, we could write ourselves an apology letter explaining that we can’t change the past, but we can ensure that we never drive under the influence again, which should be easy since we are not drinking. We could even take it further by promising ourselves that we wouldn’t drive under the influence even if we did have a slip. If writing a letter to ourselves seems strange, we could record ourselves making the amends and listen to it, or even say the words to ourselves with a mirror. And while this all sounds a little strange, there is something powerful about making this concrete rather than simply thinking about it.

After making the amends to ourselves, we are in a better position to forgive ourselves. Again, making it concrete is valuable. Actually saying the words “you’re forgiven” is invaluable. Repeating them to ourselves when we are triggered about the past is also valuable. We become the stories we tell ourselves.

While it’s certainly not required, I believe that when we’ve forgiven ourselves for our past mistakes — when we believe the story that we are making changes and living a better life — then we are in a better position to make amends to others. Our belief in ourselves inside shows on the outside and we carry ourselves differently because we have a new found sense of self respect. Our self respect builds and becomes love of self and we are able to show others that we have changed, and it is per cicely these changes that enable us to make amends.

And what are amends, if not an act of love?

Posted on by damien 1

1827 — Five Years, One Day at a Time

One thousand, eight hundred, twenty-seven days without a drink — one day at a time. But who’s counting?

Well, I am.

Five years is a long-ass time without taking a drink, considering that I drank daily for seven years, and at least weekly for 25 years, leading up to September 23, 2015.

It has been a rough road, especially in the first year and in the last two years. The first year was, well, the first year. I spent months walking around in a fog. I sometimes forgot what I was saying mid-sentence. I craved booze, especially in the first six months. Everything was a trigger. Having a good day, I wanted to drink. Having a bad day, I wanted to drink. The weather was cold, the weather was warm…you get the picture.

The last two years have included family and societal trauma. I went through some things that no parent should ever go through. I watched my son suffer and he showed me what resilience looks like. I’ve been living in the same pandemic as you are and 2020 has been a shit-show with one hit after another. But I’ve always held on to hope and faith that things will get better. And I’ve stayed sober through it all.

These last five years have also been a time of self reflection, rediscovery, growth, and joy. I uncovered the root of my addiction. I discovered that I could let go of the God of my childhood and embrace an understanding of the universe that made room for the mystery without subscribing to a particular dogma. I began running at the young age of 45.

I am grateful that I am now living a life that I couldn’t have imagined back in 2015. I am safe, secure in who I am, have a loving family and a wide circle of friends. I’ve traveled and enjoyed making new friends. I’ve been a better dad and a better husband. I have truly discovered a new freedom and a new happiness. I don’t regret my past; I can look at it honestly and openly. I’ve found peace and I know that my experience can help others. I do not fear people or economic insecurity. My whole outlook on life has changed. These are only a few of the AA Promises, and I am here to tell you that they do come true.

I couldn’t have gotten here without help and hope. Hope and faith that things would be better. Nietzsche wrote, “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.” I came into the rooms with only a grain of a mustard seed of hope but I had a why. My reason to live was for my son and may family, quite simply, I wasn’t ready to die and I knew that dying was on the agenda.

I often think about the darkness and despair that I felt as I walked into that 6:00 AM meeting in 2015. I think about the newcomer, and all those out there who are struggling, often in silence — our stories may be different, but we have a kinship of common suffering. We also have a kinship of a common solution.

And so I want to leave you with this as I celebrate my fifth anniversary of choosing to live —

If you are struggling,
If your world feels dark and lonely,
If you look in the mirror and hate the person you see there,
If you can’t imagine living without alcohol or drugs,
If you can’t imagine another day of drinking or using,
If you know that you’re killing yourself with your addiction,
Know that this is how I felt,
Know that others have been right where you are,
Know that you are not alone,
Know that there are ways out,
Know that people want to help,
Know that they can help,
Know that you can accept their help,
Know that you are worthy,
Know that you can overcome this,
Know that you can not only make it, but thrive.

It all starts by surrendering, accepting the fact that you can’t continue to live like you have been, and asking for help.

Posted on by damien 17

Grateful for Technology

Since March, I haven’t been to an in person 12 Step meeting. I’ve been to meetings, just not in person. And really, at this point even as we’ve had in person meetings open back up and some have gone to a hybrid mode (in person and zoom at the same time), I have no intention of going back for the foreseeable future. Not because I don’t need meetings, I do, but because I am not quite ready to go sit in a room with other people in recovery who may or may not be taking this pandemic seriously.

On a relatively frequent basis, the topic of how bad Zoom meetings are comes up.

“They aren’t the same.”

“I don’t feel like I get much out of them.”

“I miss actual contact. Physical hugs.”

I get it. Zoom meetings are not the same as in person meetings.

I’ve spent the past 23 years either directly building the internet, or helping people build the internet. I remember in the late nineties when a friend of mine asked me, “Do you ever think we’ll see video delivered over the internet?” I answered no, that it was too slow. And in 1996, it was. A 33.6 Kbps connection was blazing fast for a home user. I had no idea what I’d see over the next 10 years.

Broadband exploded in the early 2000’s and people started having fast connections at home. Technology improved exponentially and as connections got faster, we started streaming music and video over the internet. In 2007, the iPhone was introduced and the world was revolutionized. Suddenly we had portable screens with us at all hours of the day. Phone plans changed from talk time minutes to megabytes and gigabytes of data per month. In 2011, FaceTime made it’s debut.

And for all of that, I was still using conference calls for most of my business as late as 2017. In fact, it wasn’t until I joined my current company that I started to use video conferencing regularly. That was in 2017.

So, lets put some perspective on this whole Zoom thing in the pandemic. We are blessed, absolutely blessed, to have Zoom in this pandemic. As I said, I’ve been in the industry for 23 years and I only started using video conferencing from my home a few years ago.

While we may not have flying cars, this is some real George Jetson shit. If this pandemic had happened only a few short years ago, we would be in quite a pickle. We wouldn’t be getting on Zoom calls to complain about how they are not the same as in person meetings.

Look, I hate Zoom at this point. I use it all damn day for my job. I haven’t been to see a customer since March 12th and I don’t expect to make an in person sales call for the rest of 2020. The last thing I want to do in the evening is get on a Zoom call.

But when I said I wanted to get sober, I was asked if I was willing to to go any length to get there. So, I get on the calls.

Are they perfect? Not in the least. But I’ll take them over sitting around in a room with people who, lets face it, don’t always have the best track records with personal hygiene and health.

I recognize that I am privileged. I recognize that there are people who need in person meetings because they don’t have access to technology.

I am grateful for the technology and for my privilege. I think those of us in recovery who have these privileges, owe it to ourselves and to those less fortunate to be grateful rather than to bitch and moan about how the meetings aren’t as fulfilling.

Posted on by damien 2

Strengthening Our Hearts

Of all the muscles in the body, the heart is probably the most essential. In conjunction with the diaphragm, the heart works to delivering oxygen and nutrients to every other system in the body by pumping blood 24 hours a day.

One of the many signals the universe sent telling me it was time to make a change in my life, time to quit drinking, was on a weekend that should have been enjoyable but was pure misery. In 2015, I’d been riding in an organized metric century bike ride benefiting the MS Society since 2010 for five years. The first ride in 2010 was a two day ride in July. I was new to cycling and out of shape and it was ridiculously hot and humid. We were staying in the dorms at a local university and several people spent the night heaving in the bathroom after the first day of riding. I vowed to get better and started training.

Over the next few year’s my riding improved despite heavier and heavier drinking, but when I look at my annual miles I can see that things started to go south in 2013. I dropped from well over 1500 miles a year to a few hundred. When we stared the 60 mile ride in August of 2015, I may have had 100 miles under my belt for the season. We planned to ride the metric century in the first day and ride another 40 on Sunday.

On Saturday, I suffered. I a struggled mightily and barely finished the first ride. Wiped out I went to bed early and woke the next day knowing I would never be able to ride another 5 miles let alone 40. I drive home defeated and dejected.

I hadn’t trained because I was no longer in the game. My game was drinking and I was a professional at it. I was no longer a cyclist. It took me another month to gain the courage to address my alcoholism.

When I first quit drinking I tried to address everything at once. I figured that if I was making one life change, making several at once was a good idea. I tried to address my drinking, eating, and exercise habits all at once and quickly became overwhelmed. Luckily, I had the sense to let go and focus on the problem that was most urgent, my drinking.

In the spring of 2018, I went on a trip back to Penn State for the first time and was inspired by a fraternity brother who had lost over 50 pounds who ran a 5K that I walked. It was time to start addressing my exercise habits.

At the age of 45, I decided that I was going to become a runner. The only problem was that I hated running and I was convinced that my knees couldn’t take it. I started out slow, using the C25K app, and icing my knees after every run. The first run/walk had me do 8 reps of 60 seconds of running, followed by 90 seconds of walking. Those 60 seconds were awful. But gradually, I got better and I was able to run for longer periods of time. Gradually, I was strengthening my heart.

Two years on, and I’m still running. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in. Never before in my entire life have I had this kind of aerobic base. And I’m seeing results. I’m down 4 inches in my waist and my face is visibly thinner. But what’s really been impressive to me is how much better I am at cycling. I’m setting PRs again on my rides, for the first time since 2013.

The other day, as I was running I was thinking about how I’ve strengthened my heart through running and it occurred to me that I’ve strengthened my emotional heart in my recovery. We all have two hearts, the physical one that pumps our blood as well as our emotional heart. The heart is the life force of our existence, physically and emotionally.

Over the past four years and nine months, I’ve learned a lot about my emotional heart. I’ve learned that it was suppressed by my addiction. I’ve learned that addiction numbs not just the negative feelings, but all our feelings. In the early days of sobriety, when I was beginning to feel my feelings again, it was often painful. It felt like walking through the world without my skin. The highs were high, the lows were low, and everything felt overwhelming.

Just as with running, over time I strengthened my emotional heart by working with the 12 steps and in therapy. And my emotions became less difficult and more manageable. Just as with running, it’s been a slow and at times painful process, but I’m also seeing results.

I’ve become more tolerant and more mindful of my reactions to situations. I notice how my body responds to things that once spurred an immediate negative reaction from me. Often there is a bodily sensation that precedes the emotion. And when I recognize that sensation, I know what is about to happen and can (sometimes) short circuit the reaction and respond rather than react. It is definitely a work in progress.

By getting honest and sharing my struggles in my recovery, I learned the miracle of vulnerability. I’ve learned how to have my feelings again, how to respond rather than to react, how to sit with pain and how to forgive. In these ways, I have strengthened my emotional heart, and built a more resilient emotional base.

Posted on by damien 7

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 4: Honestly Recognizing Our Own Humanity

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

This step scares most people. The language feels foreboding, heavy, daunting. It sounds really hard. And for many people it is really hard.

This step is all about getting honest with ourselves. Some of us have suffered grave consequences and some of us have not. But we all know in our hearts that our addiction has caused harm. And so we must get honest about what we’ve done in our lives. Honest about how we’ve hurt ourselves and others. Honest about how our addiction affected others in our lives.

If you read the big book, there is a description of how to approach this step. For many the book is the only source they need. Others find the book’s recommendations problematic for a variety of reasons. I didn’t know it at the time but there are many ways to do the fourth step. One can find several guides online.

Step 4 was scary for me because I felt that I had to get it right. I thought that this was a one shot deal and that I had to make sure I got into all the things that I’d ever done wrong in my life. If I stole a 5¢ candy from the corner store when I was 10, it better be in the inventory along side my admission that I had punched a boy in my class in eighth grade. I felt that I had to do it exactly as it was described in the book and I was terrified.

Additionally, I could see no reason why I needed to include a sex inventory in my fourth step. What I did in the privacy of my own bedroom with other consenting adults was (and is) my business. Bill Wilson, who wrote the chapters that describe the steps, had a problem with infidelity. It made sense that he would include a sex inventory in his fourth step. I have always been monogamous and so it made no sense to include this.

And so, I wrote the list and sat on it. And I’d pull it out and look at it, decide that there was nothing more to add but that sometime something would come to me, and put it away. I did this for eight months. My sponsor was going through some heavy life changes at the time and so he didn’t pester me about it. And so I kept it to myself.

I was firmly convinced that I would never get it done perfectly, and thus could never progress. Luckily, about a month before my first anniversary I opened up to a friend that I was struggling and that I’d been carrying around this step for months. I told him that I was nervous because I really wanted to ask another man to be my sponsor but I was afraid of hurting my current sponsor’s feelings. My friend told me that I shouldn’t worry about that, that it would be okay, and that I should ask the other man and move as quickly as possible to step 5 with him so I could get the weight off my shoulders.

And that’s what I did. When it came time to talk through step 4 we spent an afternoon at his house talking through it. And not only did we talk about all the bad things but we identified some assets as well. My sponsor shared some things that he’d done in his past and I saw that we are both human beings — neither innately good nor innately evil.

It was really valuable to me to look not only at my defects but also at my assets. I think this is something that is often overlooked in 12 Step rooms. We have a tendency toward self flagellation. We are quick to identify how we fail, but often slow to identify our successes. Part of this may be related to the sense that we need to keep our ego in check. But there’s a difference between grandiosity and acknowledging that we aren’t entirely rotten to the core.

Really, we are all human beings. People with addiction issues may make more mistakes that are driven by their addictions but the final analysis we are human. Humans make mistakes. We have moral and ethical lapses. It’s part of the human condition.

In my mind this is what step four is all about — Getting honest and recognize our own humanity.

Posted on by damien 7

Step 3: This is Going To Require Some Help

‌Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

I must admit that upon reaching this step my thoughts were something along the lines of this: “So, here we are. Face to face with the religion inherent in these steps. God. Him. I’ll never be able to deal with this.

Many people told me something along the lines of “but it’s God as you understand Him. Not helpful. My understanding of God was that he was that relative who came over at Thanksgiving, got drunk, insulted everyone, and pissed in the bathroom floor before leaving in a huff. That was my experience with the God of my childhood.

It wasn’t until I understood that I could let go of that God, the God of my childhood, that I was even able to consider this step as it is written. And, to be honest, even then it triggered me.

I was not ready to give up my free will or my life to a deity. I read and re-red the step. I dissected it over and over and completely missed the critical words in the step.

Care of.

When I noticed these words in the step I felt like I’d been thrown a life line. Maybe I could work with this?!

My sponsor at the time told me to read the Third Step Prayer in the Big Book and you say it every day for two weeks. I didn’t do that. I couldn’t get past the archaic language. It ruffled my feathers so much that I decided to “fake it til I made it” – bad advice in my opinion but that’s another blog post.

After two weeks I told my sponsor that I was ready to move on to step four. “No your not, you haven’t done step three yet.” I don’t know how he knew that but he did and I confessed that I couldn’t get past that language and he told me to write it in my own words. Apparently I am not alone in this because the blog post about re-writing the 3rd step prayer is the most viewed post on this site.

Even after writing that post I was not sure if I’d done it right. I continued to search. I’ve read many alternate versions of this step in Secular AA sites and books and I like this version from The Alternative 12 Steps: A Secular Guide to Recovery a lot:

Make a decision to be open to spiritual energy as we take deliberate action for change in our lives.

When I break down this step today, I’ve eliminated all the references to a deity and spirituality. For me, it’s really quite simple.

I can’t do this on my own. I need help from a variety of sources and I need to be willing to ask for it, regularly.

Posted on by damien 1

Vegas, Baby…Vegas

If there is a place on earth for which I hold more disdain than Las Vegas, I have yet to see it. In truth, Vegas was never my place even when I was a drinker. Sure, I had some wild times here, and even a few that might be considered fun, but on the whole it’s loud and obnoxious and the main point in Vegas is debauchery. And still, I come to Vegas at least twice a year for my job. Believe me, it’s not by choice. It’s hard to be a sober guy in Sin City.

I’m here for my company’s annual Sales Kick Off which is part hype machine, part celebration, part learning, and part marathon. I’m surrounded by people who are pushing the limits of their bodies with drugs, alcohol, and PowerPoint. I spent the past two nights hanging out with coworkers and genuinely had a good time with them but I’m pretty well done at this point. There’s only so much hanging around in a party atmosphere I can take these days.

We’ve got very full days here. The first session is at eight in the morning and we go until six at night, followed by dinner and a party. This is just part of the job when you’re in sales. And it could be miserable for a guy in recovery, but I don’t let that happen.

I knew I needed a plan to keep my sanity here, so I made the commitment to myself that I would leave the socializing events as soon as I felt it was time and I planned to find a few meals that weren’t provided by the company — all the meals are buffet style at these things, it’s the only way to feed several thousand people. I was especially encouraged after a friend on twitter told me about a few good spots in my hotel, including an Asian noodle spot. I’ve made a point of getting some good meals instead of the buffet and passed appetizers that are on offer at the social functions.

On the first night, I didn’t keep my commitment to myself and I stayed out with the boys longer than I should have. As the conversation got repetitive and the drinking got harder I hung out as if I were trying to prove something. This was a mistake. I found myself questioning why I was hanging out. When I found the idea of a drink starting to sound good I made my way to the room. I was pretty worn out the next day. Social Fatigue had set in and taken it’s toll. Last night, I was truer to myself and bailed early. I was in bed and asleep by 9:30. It was good. Let me tell you, dealing with an 8:00 start is much easier without a hangover.

Tonight, I skipped the social event and instead had a date with myself. I made it to the noodle place, and ate some really great soup. Then I went to see Jackson Browne play in the Venetian Theater. Man, what a show! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a dude in his seventies play his heart out. He played a number of his greatest songs. It was artful and beautify.

I was most certainly the youngest person in the audience, and I’m sure some of the septuagenarians were wondering what the hell I was doing there all by my self, but I felt right at home. It’s so good to be comfortable in my own skin. I never would have done this when I was drinking. The idea of going to a concert by myself would have been horrifying. But not these days. These days, it’s great. Several times during the show, I thought to myself that I was exactly where I was supposed to be tonight. I was taking in great music, stone cold sober, and enjoying myself. For once, I felt like I actually belonged in Vegas and that it might not be such an awful town.

Posted on by damien 4

Belief vs Faith

I believe in facts; verifiable, indisputable, precise, truths. The sun rises in the East, at dawn, after the night. This is factual. I cannot disbelieve this truth. I can verify this with tools. Even on days when it is cold and rainy and I cannot see the sun, I know that it is true that it rose in the East, at dawn, after the night. I believe this because I have evidence.

I have faith in the idea that there is something bigger than us mere mortal humans. Some call this by name: God, Spirit of the Universe, Great Spirit, Allah, Elohim, Shén, Yahweh, Jehovah, Jesus, Shàngdì, Creator, Holy Spirit, Hu or Huwa, Krishna, Bhagavan, and Akal Purakh are all names for this unverifiable being or thing.

I cannot prove that this something exists. I cannot verify that it is out there. I do not know that it is benevolent, nor do I know that it is malicious. I have faith that it is good, but just as I cannot prove its existence, I cannot prove that to be true. Some people claim that they can prove the existence of a benevolent being, but, for me, the proof always hinges on something that really is unknowable. As an example, some people will say that what I might term a bizarre coincidence is proof of this god thing.

When we sit down to watch a movie, or to read a work of fiction, we engage in something called the willing suspension of disbelief. While we objectively know that what we are watching or reading is indeed fictional (i.e., made up to use the words my son uses), we suspend our mind’s disbelief and willingly believe that it is real for the time being. If we failed to do this, we would not enjoy the movie or the book because we’d be constantly questioning how our protagonist was able to do something that a mere mortal could not.

In some ways, faith is similar. When we have faith, we are essentially willingly suspending our disbelief. We are saying, yes, I know that i can’t prove this, but I believe it anyway.

I have a confession to make. I am closing in on two years sober, I attend 12 step meetings, and I have not completed the 12 steps. In fact, I not convinced the steps actually keep people sober. I’ve written about my struggles with the wording of the 2nd and 3rd steps in the past. By many people’s judgement, I’d be a Dry Drunk. Some would say that my chances are slim, or less than average. Some would say that the definition of insanity is, “attending 12 step meetings without working the steps.”

But I don’t see it that way. See, I am a person who wrestles with words. I listen intently at meetings. Sometimes I hear things that resonate, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I hear things that really piss me off. Sometimes I get pissed at the person who said those things. And then sometimes I find out that the person who said those things is actually really cool, once I get to know them.

I recall a man in a meeting talking about the difference between faith and belief. He spoke of how Mother Teresa wrote letters to God and often questioned the existence of God in those very letters. I’ve been wrestling with this for a a long time.

I have long seen faith as the dictionary defines it: complete trust or confidence in someone or something. And I’ve rejected this because this kind faith seems dangerous. Complete trust in someone or something leads to people following false prophets or worse, demagogues. Complete confidence in something unknowable leads to binary thinking; a type of thinking where things are black and white, right or wrong and there is no room for debate. This is Blind Faith. This is Televangelist Faith. This is dangerous and has lead to centuries of conflict.

And still, still there is this nagging idea that yes, there is something to this concept of a higher power. Yes, there quite possibly is something that out there that others call God — and it’s not little green men from Mars.

Last year I read Help, Thanks, Wow: Three Essential Prayers and Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. I cannot express how relieved I was to find another human being who claims to have known all along that there is this something but who also questions it and uses the F-Bomb, just like me. At this point, what I can say is that it is startling how similar my faith story is to Anne Lamott’s — They are not mirror images, but there are certainly reflections.

So I’ve been thinking about faith, and reading, and here’s what I’ve come to — Faith is the willingness to believe that something is true without tangible evidence.

When I’m not hearing how grateful everyone is or how acceptance is the answer to all our problems, I hear a lot about willingness in the rooms. I never fully understood what was so key about willingness before. I knew that I needed to be willing to address my short comings. I knew that I needed to be willing to stop drinking. But I didn’t make the connection between willingness and faith until recently. One cannot have faith without being willing to suspend disbelief.

Willingness goes a long way.

Posted on by damien 9