Keep It Real

Serenity Prayer Art Work by Dallas Drotz

Since October 20 when I posted about my work in virtual Al Anon, I have attended several face to face meetings.  I am truly grateful for doing so.  My work in understanding the program has accelerated by virtue of being present in the rooms – seeing and most importantly, listening.

The chat rooms located at StepChat.com are good substitutes for when you can’t make it to a face-to-face meeting.  In my case, I needed the online chat rooms to really get started in the program.  In the virtual rooms, I read other’s people stories, received encouragement from other men in the program to keep trying to find the right face-to-face meetings, exchanged links for good information, and laughed at some really good jokes. If not for this experience, I likely would not have returned to the real rooms.

For newcomers, everyone tells you that you need to attend six meetings to really know if the program is for you or not.  It’s true.  I’ve tried three different group meetings and attended about a dozen meetings thus far.  I am now at a point where I would welcome a sponsor in the program.  I could not imagine a week going by without attending at least two meetings.

This week, I met another husband of an alcoholic who started the program this year.  He doesn’t have children, but dearly loves his wife and is afraid to lose her.  He stood up to share and talked about how after three years of sobriety, she slipped recently.  He called on her on it and she lashed back.

What struck me was his humility. “After I talked with her on the phone and told her I had found the bottle in the garage, I prayed.  Through the serenity prayer, I became calm.  I thought about the mistakes I’ve made in my life.  I have more speeding tickets than most everyone in this room.  And it hit me.  Who am I to judge her?  I’m not perfect. This is what happens during the holidays with the office parties and alcohol flowing so freely.   Why did I expect her to be perfect?”

He closed by talking about how grateful he was to have only a few months in the Al Anon program because he had learned to respond with love and compassion toward his wife.  “I know where she will be later tonight.  She’ll be back in her own meetings starting the steps over again.”

I admired the peace and humility exhibited by this man.  He was calm, not overly emotional.  There was no anger or resentment expressed toward his wife.  I am so tired of anger and resentment.

In the 45 minutes we talked after the meeting, he didn’t crack any demeaning jokes about his wife or her disease. He spoke of her respectfully, with grace.  He said he looked forward to going home and talking with her and laughing together.

As I drove home I thought, this is exactly where I would like to be in my relationship with my wife.  That’s what a real marriage feels like – the feeling of getting in the car and looking forward to going home knowing there’s a good chance for a laugh.

I thought about whether or not I missed any opportunities to laugh with my wife because I avoided her in holding my anger and resentment toward her disease. When I got home from the meeting, my wife wasn’t home. But I looked forward to her coming home if only for another chance.

Reader Response

Reader Jenna asks good questions.

how do you explain all of this to your children? I have a 22 month old and want to protect him more then anything and need some guidance from some one who has been/going through it. Anything you can share will be really appreciated.

wow..how come you did not say anything about the wine? how do you explain this to your children? how do they reconcile all this? what is the impact on them? Why do you stay?

I only ask all of these questions because I am so far behind you in this…I am trying to wrap my mind around all of this…my life seems so uncertain. i dont want my child to have t sit in a basement of church and attend al anon meetings when he is older as I would feel I did not protect him well enough….

Jenna:
All are good questions and there are no easy answers.

I stay married to my wife because of my children and I hold out hope that she will find her way to recovery.  There are no guarantees.  I only recently began taking the Al Anon steps seriously.  Working the steps in the Al Anon program is my last best chance to save my family.  I don’t feel like I know myself well enough as yet to make such a big decision as divorce.

In my efforts to control her drinking, I lost all touch with my own emotions and dreams.  My happiness depended on how well I managed this.  Guess what, it didn’t work.  I tried every trick in the big bag.  And I am stubborn about this.

Two years ago, I put a stake in the ground and declared victory.  When my wife started going to meetings, I walked around like I was St. George.  Hey folks, look what I did.  My wife stopped drinking!  The dragon is slain.  You can read more about this here,  here.  Here. And Here.

How naive.  For the next 24 months, she was more angry than ever.  I started to miss the drunk.  At least with the drunk wife, we had alot of sex.  I began to doubt the old cliche, there’s no such thing as bad sex.  With her sobriety, this less than good sex became no sex.  Kissing her was like kissing an ashtray.  I even called her Virginia…..as in Virginia Slims.  Even though she wasn’t drinking, we still argued.  The boys got little to no attention.

I try very hard to make sure I treat my wife with respect and compassion especially when the kids are present with us.  This is difficult as she wants to bring up issues in front of them quite frequently.

Now that I have begun internalizing the Al Anon program and working the steps I think I provide a better response for me and the boys.

There’s no doubt my two oldest know something is not right with Mom.  There will come a time when this will click and they will understand their mother has a disease.  I don’t think they have the capacity to do so now.

I see my main job with them now is to make sure they continue to have open channels to communicate with me about anything and everything for when that time comes.  They need at least one rational, sane parent.  I can only control my own path toward that end.  With my wife, there are no guarantees.

Jenna, I wish you well in your own recovery.  You are not alone in your journey.  There are many people who have been through what you are going through.  You can find these people in the rooms at your local Al Anon group meetings. You can bear your soul to them and they will love you. And, if you keep coming back, you will find an answer to your questions.  I promise.

When A Man Loves A Woman – Part II

I watched When A Man Loves A Woman for the third time today.  The second time I watched it was over two years ago at my wife’s first attempt to get sober and the first time might have been sometime in the last century.

When I wrote about the movie back in June, I had different recollections about a number of scenes.  In fact, the movie I watched today is a different movie than the one I saw two years ago…..or at least I’m watching with a different set of eyes.

In June, I could clearly recall Michael’s (Andy Garcia) disdain for Al Anon meetings.  His later appreciation seemed less dramatic and unremarkable from where I was in my own recovery six months ago.

In fact, if you had asked me in May or June to write a summary about the movie I might have written that its the story about how an alcoholic wife Alice (Meg Ryan) finds her way back to sanity and appreciation for her husband who saves her life.  That’s not the movie I watched today.

There are even more parallels between this movie and my marriage than I had originally thought.

Alice’s character is still alot like my wife.  My wife still doesn’t like herself.  She carries around her inferiority complex on a serving tray.  I hope she finds her way back. But that’s not what strikes me about the movie today.

It’s Michael’s character and how it changed in my own perception between viewings.  Michael exhibits arrogance and judgment in talking about the “losers” and self-piting victims he saw at his first Al-Anon meeting.  I thought I was better too.

I relate much better to the character of Michael than I thought.   The extent to which I step over my wife’s efforts at parenting is strikingly similar to what Michael does in the movie. When I watched it two years ago, I don’t think I noticed his sharing at the Al Anon meeting toward the end of the movie. My ego helped me ignore the healing Michael went through in the movie because I didn’t think I had a problem two years ago.

I’m glad I have Al Anon to help me open my eyes.

Never Leave Home Without It

I am an avid fan of House.  I can’t say I was a fan from the beginning as I only discovered the show recently and was surprised it was already into its 6th season.  On Thursday, USA Network featured the Words and Deeds rerun of House, M.D. from season three, January 2007.

Fans of the show will know this episode where Detective Tritter is trying to nail Dr. Greg House for his vicodin addiction.  As House works on Day Two of rehab there’s a sharp exchange about working the steps:

THERAPIST: He may never be ready, you’re doing the only thing you can do, keep trying. How about you Greg? You thought about how to fix things with people in your life?

HOUSE: No need, people in my life have no expectations of me, makes all our lives easier.

THERAPIST: Apparently not. The first step in recovery…

HOUSE: [cuts him off] Is admitting I have a problem, I’ve obviously already done that or I wouldn’t be here. I’ve even embraced step 2, I’ve admitted there’s a higher power, may not be a god perse…[Therapist nods in acceptance] but that Andre the giant guy was powerful. Where I start to butt up against it is step 3, surrendering my will to this higher power. I’m sure Andre’s ghost has my back and all but my free will, I never leave home without it.

THERAPIST: Kinda like your pills. If you could do this on your own I assume you wouldn’t be here.

HOUSE: [thinks about it] True.

I can relate all to easily to Dr. House in asking the 3rd Step question:  make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

Last week I attended a beginner’s Al Anon meeting where I heard one of the Al Anon lifers or black belts talk about how the third step is always the toughest.  I don’t see any of them in a cake walk.

But the group leader last week talked about the 3rd step as a big tripping block.  If you deal in an world of absolutes, i.e. it’s free will versus a deterministic God, then I can see where and why people will fall out.

My own faith experience tells me something different.  I don’t believe God has an IEP for each and every one of us.  Please excuse the acronym.  IEP is Individual Education Plan.  Parents in the United States who have children with developmental disabilities will recognize it right away. I simply can’t worship a God of individual design. I cannot reconcile this against the conditions of people in Darfur, what people on Sumatra experienced on December 26, 2004 or what happened to God’s chosen people in Dachau.

So what do I believe in?

I am beginning to understand the fear and reluctance I cling to in engaging the 12 Steps.  It feels like I’m tentatively putting a toe down on the third step but withholding the rest of my being.  My ego’s need for certainty and control keeps me from embracing my own understanding of God.  Today’s reflection from One Day At A Time in Al Anon helps me some with my control issues.

“The central truth to all worship, creed, church or dogma is that God is the essence of our being, and this is the spiritual idea of Al-Anon.

….However we regard Him, or even if we do not recognize Him at all, He is always there, within us, within every thing and every person in the universe, constantly available for our help if we are willing to accept.  How well we use the consciousness of God in our daily lives depends not on Him, but on us.

As I have looked at step three I’ve been confused about turning my will and my life over to a higher power because I have viewed God as a Being external to me.  If my higher power or God is the essence of my being – the life and sense of being I perhaps was created to fulfill – then I can see where this becomes more easily reconciled.  Yet, at the same time, it becomes the challenge of a lifetime.

As a perfectionist, my ego has not served me well.  Through the experience of dealing with my wife’s alcoholism, I have come to learn much about myself and the source of my worst habits such as procrastination and its accompanying irrational beliefs and unrealistic expectations.  This is where my ego has driven me.  I fear making commitments, developing relationships and the required trust in people and the self-respect needed to sustain these aspects of life.  And I have detached from many of my emotions both the healthy and unhealthy.

Since I began working the steps and practicing mindfulness, I now pay attention to a more wholistic sense of being.  This includes more than just my thoughts but also my emotions.  I’m reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now.  He articulates some of what I am experiencing in working the steps.

A more powerful point of reference for me has been the podcasts offered through the Insight Meditation Center at ZenCast and AudioDharma. And perhaps the most impactful understanding from AudioDharma has come from the simple question:  what am I ignoring?

In my relationship with my wife as an alcoholic, I saw first her disease and ignored her humanity.  As I shifted the focus away from my alcoholic wife to me, I saw the problem was in the mirror.  As I begin to focus on mindfulness and God’s presence within my life, I still struggle with the discipline of stopping and turning over worries, anxieties, problems, questions, decisions – all of these things over to this God.

If I am to attain the inner peace I seek, it means changing my life habits, long held beliefs and world views that have blocked me from realizing this higher essence, and letting go of my ego and the need for control and certainty.

This is why people fall short.  This is difficult work–not for the feint of heart.  It requires staying atuned to a wholistic presence in both word and deed each and every moment of the day to myself and the people in my life.

Picture Perfect Day

The sun rose quickly and bright Thanksgiving Day morning.  But, because the kids were making too much noise, my wife declared at 11:00am that this Thanksgiving day was to be the worst day ever.

They were having a good time and once or twice during their brotherly fighting some fun broke out.  We have ten, eight and five year old boys.  She established the tradition for our young family of cinnamon rolls and Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving morning.  This is what boys on sugar do especially when one gets a bigger cinnamon roll than another.

On Thursday, as the parade wrapped up and they got their glimpse of Santa Claus, we had them get dressed for a brief road trip to my brother’s home in the low country.  With them neatly dressed and hair combed we decided to take a stab at their annual Christmas picture.  Outside on our front lawn in front of the rose bushes, I snapped off about 40 shots of my boys hanging on each other, pulling rabbit ears above with the digital camera and came back inside to see how we did.

Not bad.  There were probably 3 good candidates for the postcard.  I left my laptop running the slide show of pictures as I ran off to take a shower.  As I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, I heard my wife come into the bathroom.  The cadence and tone of her voice told me something was wrong.  “Your son was clicking around on your computer and pulled up pictures of wine bottles,” she said dryly.

I paused.  I started to shut off the water.  I thought about running in to the kitchen and shut down the computer.  Then I stopped and started laughing, not out loud though inside I felt like it. I calmly finished my shower.

The wife left the bathroom.  I stepped out to dry off and got dressed to go.  As I stepped into our bedroom, I saw her sitting in the corner chair glaring angrily at me. She was sitting in sweat pants and t-shirt having removed her nice clothes she spent an hour that morning pulling from her closet.

“I have no idea what you were going to do with those pictures.  You told me you didn’t want to see the wine anywhere.  And now your sneaking around taking pictures of it.”

“You’re right.  This is why I go to Al Anon,” I told her.

“Oh, is that what they tell you to do.  Sneak around and take pictures of my drinking.”

“No, that’s not what Al Anon teaches me.  It helps me respond appropriately to your disease and not get angry and resentful when you drink.  It was insane for me to pull empty bottles out of the trash can to take pictures of them.  Since I started working the steps, I haven’t taken any pictures of your wine. The last one I took was probably in August or September.  Now, I’m focused on my own recovery.  And, I’m really sorry he pulled those pictures up.”

I was more ambivalent than sorry in the moment. At some point in working my steps, I had thought I would apologize to my wife for invading her privacy to document her drinking.  I have taken lots of pictures.  My intention in taking pictures of her stash was to use them in the divorce filing to get full custody of the boys.

In finding my way toward recovery, I realize in going through my wife’s closet and snapping pictures of wine and vodka bottles, I violated something within myself more than anything.  She may feel different about it.  It was one thing for which I intend to make amends.

In spite of her earlier protestations, she decided to go with us to my brother’s for Thanksgiving.    I had a good time visiting with my family and didn’t think twice about her reaction to the pictures nor the obvious drinking.  She got drunk. My parents loved visiting with their grandsons.

As we were loading up the car to leave, a small box of her wine tumbled out of the diaper bag she carries her juice in. She didn’t even notice it though I think the boys did.

I felt the anger well up inside.  I started to throw it at her, but refrained.  For the next 20 minutes in the car I stewed about it.  I thought about pulling into the next gas station and tossing it in the trash.

Then I remembered.  Oh, I need to turn this over to my higher power.  I began following my breath and worked on being present.  I stayed with my anger for a period of time and witnessed it melting away.  This Thanksgiving day, I am thankful to God for giving me the peace to handle the moment.  It was far from the worst day ever.  In looking at the smiles on my son’s faces, it was a picture perfect day.

Higher Power

If you are struggling with the acceptance of a higher power in your life, then that’s OK.  I’ve been there as well.   So have many others.

For me it’s been the struggle between the ego self established by my brain and that of a wholistic self.  Syd articulates well how we can get lost being attached to our ego self.

As I’ve struggled with gaining a more wholistic sense of self, I have encountered some intriguing questions that have helped shaped my path.

Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way asks some good questions for those of us wrestling with Step Two in the Al Anon program.  I don’t necessarily agree that we owe some tribute to this higher power, but the questions are important in the asking.

It’s my experience that we’re much more afraid that there might be a God than we are that there might not be.

If God-by which I do not necessarily mean a single pointed Christian concept but an all-powerful and all-knowing force-does not exist, well then, we’re all of the hook, aren’t we.  There’s no divine retribution, no divine consolation. And if the whole experience stinks – ah well.  What did you expect?

If there is no God, or if that God is disinterested in our puny little affairs, then everything can roll along as always and we can feel quite justified in declaring certain things impossible, other things unfair.  If God, or the lack of God, is responsible for the state of the world, then we can easily wax cynical and resign ourselves to apathy.  What’s the use?  Why try changing anything?….

If we do, in fact, have to deal with a force beyond ourselves that involves itself in our lives, then we may have to move into action on those previously impossible dreams.

This blog post isn’t about whether or not there is a creator God.  Evolutionary biologists like David Sloan Wilson have alot to say about group selection that seems compelling to that question.

However, this blog post is about my own discovery process.  The understanding I have in the moment is a reflection that the existence of a higher power is necessary for me to achieve a sense of happiness, peace, and be respectful and loving to others.

I agree with what I have heard from others when they say “I don’t need a God to be nice to my neighbor.” I don’t.  If being nice to your neighbor was the full extent of enlightenment, then I’m almost there.  For me, I need a God to help me figure things out.

As I have explored my own problems and those of my marriage, I realized my brain cannot be trusted alone to provide the right response and guide my choices in a way consistent with my own understanding of an integrated self.  I have to reach for another source of energy and comprehension to sustain these goals and maintain my self worth.

There’s this analogy from this Audio Dharma podcast. If a fly buzzes around and lands on an ant, this fly is a big nuisance to the ant. It dominates his point of view.   But if the same fly buzzes around an elephant, the elephant hardly notices.

Until I began walking the Al Anon walk, my life was that of the ant.  I viewed my wife’s alcoholism like the giant fly buzzing around my head.  I couldn’t get past to focus on anything but her drinking and coniving.  I am just beginning this journey.  As I look ahead, I can see that I can look ahead.  My horizon is expanding.  Yet my wife still drinks.

As Gil Fronsdal explains in the podcast, the Dharma suggests we have the option of living like the elephant, and not like the ant.   So too it is with Al Anon, by working the 12 Steps, I am told I can learn to live in peace and happiness with or without my alcoholic wife.

Committing Original Sin

This is absolutely nuts but I have noticed how gratitude for my wife’s alcoholism is leaking into my conscious state of being.  Had this crisis not affected my life, I never would have recognized my own quest for perfection and how this has shaped my journey.

Unfortunately, my perfectionism presents itself in many forms, the most debilitating symptom has been procrastination and indecision.  Neither my house, my office or any other aspect of my life is neat and clean.  In fact, its quite disorganized.  I keep alot of old journal articles, magazines and newspapers because I want to post a blog on them….someday.  I also have alot of data DVDs with pdf docs saved on them because you never know if they will disappear off of the host site servers.

Another way my perfectionism presents itself is in my relationships with myself and others.  At work (when I was employed) I accepted every task and assignment and volunteered to be on every work group.  I tried to respond to every email with the perfect words in response.

Yet as much as I aspired to do this, I couldn’t pull it off.  My inbox grew to exceed over 800 unread emails.  I was number 2 in the company for clogged space on the outlook server. (The number 1 person was certified nuts.)  I developed a reputation for not being responsive – though I sought to respond to everything.  Key projects which should have taken 6 weeks took 4 months because I insisted on the perfect design.  So not only was I blocking my own development and progress, I was also a hurdle for others.

A lecturer at a local church talked about this sort of expectation for perfection as original sin.

If you’ve grown up in the Christian faith tradition, you know the story.  Eve talks to the snake.  The snake convinces Eve she would be as smart as God if she bit fruit off of the tree of knowledge.  Eve talks to Adam.  He bites.  And they lose their home while all of humanity for the ages carries this stain.

People in the Christian tradition are baptized with water to wash away this original sin and are welcomed into the family of believers.  Of course, most Christians have rejected the concept that babies are born with sin and see the story of The Garden of Eden as metaphoric.

While there are many interpretations on the story, the lecturer I listened to had a rather compelling take on this first sin.  She asks the question what if the first sin was in the metaphorical act itself carried out by Adam and Eve – the hubris of belief that we human beings can be all-knowing, perfect like the creator.   To paraphrase her, if you understand that God never intended any of us to be perfect, then why should you harbor this expectation for yourself or others.

So why do I continue to take a bite out of that poisonous apple.  This irrational belief that I have to be the perfect husband, father, son, brother, employee etc has driven me to insanity.

So, today I am feeling the stress of the job hunt.  I have a decision to make.  I am coping with the stress by worrying about the consequences.  I have spent several hours ruminating about the mistakes I made in the past in making this type of decision and I am no better off or closer to making a decision.

When I became aware of this pattern, I turned to read the reflection from today’s Al Anon Courage to Change:

Let me make this day a celebration of the spirit. There is a part of me that retains a childlike sense of curiosity, wonder, enthusiasm, and delight. I may have lost touch with it, but I know it still exists. I will set my problems to the side for a little while and appreciate what it means to be vitally alive.

I can’t make a good decision through rumination and fear.  But I can when I am engaged with my sense of self and pursue it with a sense of curiosity and enthusiasm.  This might be the best decision I have ever made for myself.  This is what it means to be alive – taking chances for a better life.

And, today I am grateful for Al Anon and the opportunity to feel alive through its lessons – a path toward cultivating my own garden and making it as perfect as I am capable.

Hi, my name is……and I’m a recovering perfectionist.

Changing My Voice

Now for the first part of the Al Anon mantra “Let Go and Let God.”

Letting go of resentment and anger is a challenge.  Lori Deschene over at Tiny Buddha is getting in my head.

We replay past mistakes over and over again in our head, allowing feelings of shame and regret to shape our actions in the present. We cling to frustration and worry about the future, as if the act of fixation somehow gives us power. We hold stress in our minds and bodies, potentially creating serious health issues, and accept that state of tension as the norm.”

In her blog posts she recommends 40 ways to Let Go. Each of the ways are worth some thought and consideration.  I found 10 which resonate well with me where I am on my journey.  I am particularly fond of #30 on the list though its one I will have to work on.  My comments are in the parenthesis:

1. Learn a new skill instead of dwelling on the skills you never mastered. (Is it possible to learn how to play the guitar after age 40?)

5. Use meditation or yoga to bring you into the present moment (If you’re not already practicing mindfulness meditation, then get started.  Listen to Gil Fronsdal at the Insight Meditation Center through ZenCast or purchase a copy of Jon Kabat Zinn’s Mindfulness for Beginners.)

6. Make a list of your accomplishments—even the small ones— and add to it daily.

8. Engage in a physical activity.

10. Express your feelings through a creative outlet, like blogging or painting.

20. Remind yourself these are your only three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it. These acts create happiness; holding onto bitterness never does.

23. Remember both the good and the bad. Even if appears this way now, the past was not perfect. Acknowledging this may minimize your sense of loss. As Laura Oliver says, “It’s easier to let go of a human than a hero.”

24. Un-romanticize the way you view love. Of course you’ll feel devastated if you believe you lost your soul mate. If you think you can find a love that amazing or better again it will be easier to move on. (A biggie for those of us in Al Anon.)

30. Use the silly voice technique. According to Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap, swapping the voice in your head with a cartoon voice will help take back power from the troubling thought. (This one is at the top of my list of things to incorporate.  I’m thinking about the Marvin the Martian from Bugs Bunny as the new voice for my irrational thoughts and fears.)

40. Laugh it out. Research shows that laughter soothes tension, improves your immune system, and even eases pain. If you can’t relax for long, start with just ten minutes watching a funny video on YouTube.

Taking the second step

I believe that there is a higher power that can help restore me to sanity.  It wasn’t easy getting here.

It’s not like I have lived my first 40 as an atheist or even agnostic.  I believed in the God I inherited.  Until I faced my wife’s alcoholism and the consequences of the unhealthy choices I made in responding to her sickness, I got along just fine with the God of my ancestry. Through this legacy gift, I have a connection with family who have struggled with the same questions as me.  I never realized or accepted that faith required a consistent practice to maintain relevance in my life.   Nor did I understand the relentless approach I personally have to follow to stay connected with my higher power.

Beginning the Al Anon walk and finding the gift of presence through mindfulness meditation and working The Artist’s Way, I realize I have a ways and means of being in this life as it is and no longer pretending it to be something else.   I can find a sense of peace and happiness that has eluded me.  Through these struggles, I know I have to come to terms with my own values and beliefs and not those others expect me to carry.

I have written about my wrestling match with taking the second step.  I have looked externally for expressions of faith that might resonate with my own sense of being.   There are so many trite expressions bandied about in 12 step programs.  Some fit while others don’t.  In working Step Two, I struggled with meaning behind the words describing God as a higher power.  Words seem so limiting.

Take this one: “Let Go and Let God.”  I have no idea what this means.  There’s a passive connotation that makes me uncomfortable.  This one particular mantra has rattled around my brain for more than a few months. Perhaps “Let God” is the same as the “trust” Thomas Merton refers to in his famous prayer:

“MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Or, perhaps the phrase means something else.  What I realized in my own meditation is that trying to figure out what “Let God” means has kept me from making progress in my own recovery.  I’ve judged those who have uttered this phrase rather than focused on my own understanding of God. I even hesitate to use the three letter word “G-O-D” because its connotation means so many different things to so many different people.

Like Merton, I don’t yet understand God, the creator or his ways.  But, I can’t wait to have a perfect understanding as I have to get on with my recovery. This is why I love the Al Anon expression “Take what you need and leave the rest.”

While I would like to have knowledge of God or be able to confidently talk about “my personal Jesus,” I am stuck with a stone age brain only capable of a blind belief.  And I choose to walk with God on my path through a relentless, mindful approach to his power.  I can’t see this God, taste it or touch it.

Yet there is no doubt to me that there is a life giving peace and presence in this world – an enlightenment described by Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha. I feel like I am on the path authoring my recovery through the inspiration of this holy spirit of presence. In fact, I can’t stay on the path without its presence in my life.

In the past, I’ve allowed my mind to crowd every moment of my daily life with anxiety and irrational beliefs. With my alcoholic wife, I have made poor choices in responding to her that have put my self-development to the back burner.  What a mistake. I shut-off my relationship with her when I thought she was drinking. At work, I have put off projects because I feared that someone might find out I am not the best program director at work.  My thoughts hijacked my ability to produce in ways that made my life unmanageable.

But my life doesn’t have to be this way.  As my brain runs wild with fear that my wife is drinking and trying to destroy my career, mindfulness meditation gives me the ability to make space.  When I practice this on a regular basis I can feel a sense of presence, the presence of a higher power in my life and I can move above the resentfulness and anger to respond appropriately.

On Friday, I walked in from picking up the boys from school and found a half full glass of wine on the kitchen counter.  She must have felt flying shards of ice shooting at her from my stare.  We hardly interacted that night.  As I read the daily reflection from One Day At A Time in Al Anon the next morning after meditation practice, I had a real insight.

“I hear again and again in [Al Anon that] alcoholism is a disease-the alcoholic is a sick human being-we do not punish people for being sick.”

I may give ample lip service to this idea, but when it comes to real acceptance, my instinctive attitude toward the alcoholic is often hostile, as though [she] were an enemy, willfully bent on destroying me.  I need Al Anon’s constant reminders that such feelings hinder both my spiritual progress and improvement in the family situation.  I must rid myself of the poison of resentment, indignation at a person I am not capable of judging fairly, and useless pity for myself.”

Of course, she keeps drinking.  When a glass of Chardonnay offers warmth and comfort versus my anger and resentment, what else would a person choose.  Al Anon has given me a new perspective that the choice doesn’t have to be between me and the Modavi Brothers.  For the remainder of the weekend, I kept this insight at the front of my interaction with my wife.  We talked and had a little fun, together.

With that said, I am not naive.  My wife is an alcoholic.  Alcoholics drink.  They manipulate.  They lie.  They neglect themselves.  They neglect others.  My wife does these things.  Thanks to Al Anon and my mindfulness practice, I can look beyond the disease and see my wife. I see someone struggling with some really ugly ghosts from her past.  I see someone who wants help right now, but has lost her way.  I can help her find her way by finding my own.

Daily practice of mindfulness meditation gives me access to a higher power – my higher power.  With discipline and determination I have the ability to make the space to make good choices, choices which may not be perfect but are pleasing to God.  I know I am not alone in this journey and that my recovery is as good for my alcoholic wife as its is good for me.

A Proper Response

I am wrestling with the 2nd step in the Al Anon program, the belief that a power greater than myself could restore my sanity.

Image from http://www.artofdharma.org/

In my morning meditation, I focused briefly on the presence of God in my life.  In that moment, I felt a sense of peace – an awareness of a life energy that existed outside of my thoughts.  It was a deeper sense of being I had not encountered.

It took about 20 minutes of meditation to get there as I woke up this morning quite agitated about my circumstances.  The anxiety I am experiencing has been a direct result of my reaction to my wife’s alcoholism.

I tried to control her drinking – out of fear for having to raise our children alone and for what others might think of me if they knew my wife was an alcoholic.

So why am I still experiencing and responding to this agitation and anxiety – not knowing fully what to do with it? What about all of this time I’ve been spending learning about mindfulness and working the 12 steps.  Why am I getting tripped up on the idea that I need help from something greater than myself.  Talk about hubris.  Is this what Julia Cameron was talking about in The Artist’s Way when she wrote:

“As long as we are blocked, we often felt that it was arrogance and self-will to speak of ourselves as creative artists.  The truth is that is was self-will to refuse to acknowledge our creativity…. We could wonder and worry about our arrogance instead of being humble enough to ask help to move through our fear…. By not asking for the Great Creator’s help with our creativity and by not seeing the Great Creator’s hand in our creativity, we could proceed to righteously ignore our creativity and never have to take the risks in fulfilling it.”

You can easily substitute the word “recovery” for “creativity” and have a nice reflection of Al Anon’s 2nd step.  So why can’t I humbly accept the help of a higher power?   Am I that addicted to control? Have I become that much risk-averse?  Am I that co-dependent?

While I would desperately like to move on to the third, fourth, fifth steps, I simply do not think I have accomplished the second.  I feel like I am engaged in working with a higher power and I do well with these emotions when I do the following:

1.  Daily Reading from Al Anon Literature: Today’s One Day At A Time in Al-Anon lesson is so timely.  “Troubles grow bigger as we spend more and more time thinking about them.  I will interupt such thoughts with a meditation whenever their weight is too much for me.  It will calm my thinking and put my difficulty into proper focus.”

2.  Morning Pages:  Each day as recommended by The Artist’s Way, I write three long-hand pages of stream of consciousness thoughts.  This daily discipline helps me clear my anxiety and gives me a reason not to linger in bed.

3. Physical Exercise:  It’s too easy to get caught up in negative thoughts and lose focus on your own health.  With physical exercise, I challenge myself to accomplish goals which benefit me.

4.  Mindfulness Meditation:  As the selection from One Day At A Time from November 10 says meditation gives proper focus.  I never knew what it meant to meditate until this crisis.  Through my research on procrastination, I was introduced to mindfulness practice as a means of managing procrastination.  I found ZenCast to be an excellent tool to learn about meditation and mindfulness.  Recently as I was listening to an older podcast, I felt my path to recovery validated by this anecdote provided by Gil Fronsdal.  In closing the podcast, Fronsdal shared the story of  an old buddhist monk who was asked by a young, aspiring student what was the goal of his mindfulness practice.  The old monk replied, “a proper response.”

I have such a long way to go in my recovery.  I am hopeful as I practice these steps and incorporate these tools into my daily life that I will be able to respond properly to my wife as she chooses to deal with her disease and restore my own sense of self in the process.  But I am not there yet.  This is difficult work.