Thirty Wonderful Years and Still Going

When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That's when the sparkle started for me.

-- Mary Karr

Fight or flight...

or

Flow!

Fight against the negatives

Flee the hopelessness

Flow with life itself.

Go with it.

Embrace your shortcomings,

knowing they can lead you to something greater. 

Trust that life can be different.

That says it all- one day at a time!

Question: "If you had a magic pill that would cure your alcoholism or addiction, what would it do?"

Answer: Give me my life back.

No one said it would allow them to use without consequences. This is a disease and it would never allow that to happen.

Obvious next statement: There may not be a pill, but being in recovery will do the same thing.

Keeping On Keeping On

October 29 was a Saturday 28 years ago, too.

I was attending a church retreat with members of my congregation immediately following a week long conference on ministry to alcoholics and their families. I had discovered two days earlier that it was far more than just likely that I was an alcoholic. Sitting at that retreat, my world in and internal turmoil, uncertainty, and fear, I admitted to myself that I had a problem. I didn't tell anyone else, yet, outside of the leader of the conference the previous week.

Two days later, on Monday, Oct.31 I went for my assessment and on Thursday, November 3 I entered treatment.

Today I have 28 years of continuous sobriety and am nothing short of amazed and grateful for what has happened.

After that pause to acknowledge the work of my Higher Power over all these years, I return you- and me- to our regularly scheduled life already in progress.

The Power of Personality- Or More?

This past week was The Roosevelt Week- the 14 hour documentary on Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt, arguably three people who did more to change the American way of life than just about anybody in the 20th Century. I sat through the whole series shaking my head in awe, mouth open in amazement or just plain dumbstruck. First, of course, by the remarkable film making of Ken Burns and the writing of Geoffrey Ward. They have developed such a remarkable style over these past 30+ years that their work engages, teaches, and entertains you. There were pictures and films that have probably not seen the light of day in decades.

Just as amazing was also the three "stars" of the show and their story. As a fan of American history I devoured all these newly revealed facts and stories as well as all the old familiar ones since now they had a new twist- we could watch them and put them into historical perspective. Several things stood out as part of the secret of their incredible success in what they did.

In one of the segments, Geoff Ward described the impact that FDR had on people. Ward talked about the fact that a number of people said that Franklin Roosevelt would stand to greet them when they entered the Oval Office. In reality, he never rose to greet anyone. Ever. As we all know, FDR was paralyzed by polio at age 39 and never stood on his own again. It was impossible for him to stand and greet anyone at any time. Yet, Ward explained, it was the force of his personality that people imagined him able to do more than he could. His presence was so real and so large.

The same was said of Teddy Roosevelt. One person described being in the room with TR and then feeling like he had to "wring the personality from his clothes" since it was so overwhelming. Eleanor, considering her role as a woman in a very male-dominated world, may have been even more powerful than the two of them. She won over generals in the south Pacific war zone by her presence and dedication when she went on an exploratory visit.

Some of their personality strength came from the families they grew up in. But that is one of those correlation or causation questions. Other members of their families were far less able to overcome the demons they were afflicted by. Alcoholism ran through the whole Roosevelt clan. (Eleanor was TR's niece and FDR was a 5th cousin to TR.) Illness and depression plagued them, including the three of them as well. They all had complicated relationships with parents as well as their own children. They were, in spite of their much-larger-than-life personalities, very human.

Somehow we also want to make something of the fact that all three, as well as many other people of big egos, ambitions and personalities, had to overcome some significant issue. TR was plagued by asthma as a child, yet became this incredible outdoorsman, pushing everyone around him to greater acts of strength and (sometimes foolish) bravery. His first wife and mother both died on the same day. FDR was stricken by polio and all his future seemed lost. I never thought about how devastating polio was. My generation was the first to get the polio vaccines that have conquered what was a dreadful disease. Yet FDR campaigned as tirelessly as any candidate ever has- or will. Eleanor was looking for unconditional live and acceptance lost from her own parents. FDR was unfaithful to her- and she knew some of it. Yet she chaired the newly formed United Nations first committee that wrote the International Declaration of Human Rights- and became the only individual ever to receive a standing ovation from the UN General Assembly when it passed.

Yes, it may very well be that the ability to overcome such incredible obstacles and adversity played a big part on who they became and what they were able to accomplish. Yet others faced with similar or even lesser problems fail to thrive. What is it then that allows some to excel under such circumstances and others to fail? Why does one person who loses love and support crawl into their own oblivion and fail to thrive while another member of the family becomes president? The great Viktor Frankl wrote following World War II that a sense of meaning and purpose of one's life is what helped many prisoners of Nazi concentration camps survive. His Man's Search for Meaning is still one of the most important books in the field over 60 years later. He has a number of quotes that resonante:

• When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
• Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
• A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how".

But these, too, beg the question, why do some people, or how do some people, manage to maintain that sense of meaning or hope, purpose or love when everything around seems to be taking all that away? Frankl, and others, will here point to a sense of spirituality or the spiritual. Yet there are many who don't have that sense or are unable to experience whatever it may be.

Perhaps, then, all that we can do as individuals, family members, colleagues, friends,  therapists or fellow human beings, is hold up the possibilities for meaning and purpose. Perhaps what our tasks are is to be there when people face the adversity of their situation and be present with them, non-judgmentally, compassionately, and with a sense that there may be something greater than ourselves that will get us through.

Seems kind of weak and hopeless, I know. How can such stand up to things like the Holocaust, war, racism, debilitating illness? I don't know the answer to the "How?" but people like the Roosevelts and Frankl remind me that it isn't impossible.

Changing the Laguage

This came across my Facebook feed today about language and addiction. It was in the Science of Us section of New York Magazine online.

Think of the words and phrases we use to describe drug and alcohol addiction: “clean and sober,” “addicts,” “junkies.” It’s a vocabulary loaded with moralistic connotations. This isn’t good, argue the authors of a new editorial in the journal Substance Abuse, because the use of those terms can inadvertently lay the blame solely on the behavior of the person with the drug or alcohol addiction. And when people struggling with addiction internalize that attitude, it can undermine recovery.
-Link

My first thought was it reminded me of language usage 30 years ago as the AIDS epidemic was just ramping up and becoming really scary. The general phrase "AIDS victims" was often used at first. Then the AIDS activists decided that gave a bad morale to the individuals with HIV/AIDS. From then on it became "People with AIDS" or PWAs. It worked so well that I had to stop for a moment to even remember what we used before PWA. It also changed the face of AIDS in the country, most prominently for the people with AIDS themselves.

Victims is not what we want to make people with a disease feel like. That can engender self-pity, ongoing victimization,hopelessness.

I then put the two thoughts together in my head and realized the power of that insight. Dirty -vs.- clean? Drunks and junkies -vs.- people with addiction? The article even goes on to talk about the results of urine drug screens. For many years the phrase has been, a "dirty urine." (As if there is such a thing as "clean urine?") It is the difference language places on things. Dirty is bad- inherently bad. It is a negative state of being.

We have been working for years to change the metaphors of addiction language. We have been struggling to get beyond the ancient and incorrect moral judgements that we have often put on addiction and alcoholism. We have been wrestling with the greater society as well as the medical field itself to see the disease as real and not just some immorality.

Maybe part of it can become the language we decide to use. Even moving from a pathology to a healing language can help.

Here's a quote from another section of the editorial itself:

Recovery-oriented language refocuses the lens from pathology and suffering to resilience and healing. Recovery-oriented language also changes the discussion from one rooted in notions of one-time, acute treatments or interventions to one that appreciates the long-term modalities and strategies needed to sustain recovery.
-Link

One More Week for Now

I am coming to the end of one full quarter (13 weeks) of being at work "full-time" even though I went to a type of "semi-retirement" last December. By this time next week (actually Thursday at 4:30) I will be back as a supplemental employee working one to three days per week, depending on the week. I got back from our month in Alabama back in March to find that I was needed to come back and do some filling-in for a colleague on leave. I said yes for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it was going back to the position I held for about 4 full years that I loved the most of all that I have done in 20 years as an addictions counselor. It was also still winter around these parts, but that was only a small part of the reasoning. I truly liked the job and was excited to get one last chance to go back and do it one more time.

So, for the past 13 weeks that is what I have done. I have not regretted it for a moment.

Over there on the right sidebar is a quote that for me describes what I have been doing for most of my adult working life.

Some want to live
within the sound
of church or chapel bell;
I want to run
a rescue shop
within a yard of hell.
-- C. T. Studd

As a pastor and substance abuse counselor I have been along one of those front lines where people come to do something unique and different with their lives. Most of the time these amounted to standing with them as they attempted to turn from the "gates of hell" itself. When I first saw that quote about 10 years ago it jumped at me, grabbed me, and I knew it was mine.

It brought to mind an incident back about 22 years or so ago. A member of the church was in a bad situation and was threatening suicide. They showed up at the front door of the parsonage and I spent the next three hours talking with them in my living room, attempting to contact a counselor they had been working with and finally contacting a treatment center in a neighboring community. At the end of those three hours I took them to that center for an evaluation and care.

A few days later I was at my own therapy appointment and was describing the event to my therapist. My counselor looked at me and said that she never thought about those of us who were there on the front line of situations like that. She, as an outpatient, hospital-based counselor only saw people after they were stabilized, "talked-down" so to speak. She commented on how important that front-line work was.

I remembered many other such times. Some were being there with a family as their loved-one died. Sometimes it was sitting in the ICU waiting room as life was artificially upheld long enough to make arrangements for an organ donation. It has also been the young mother who has discovered her husband was abusing their daughter and was shaking with anger and a sense of deep betrayal. Or it was baptizing a baby who may not make it. Once it was being a "shaman-like" presence in a wind-swept cemetery as a few family members, the funeral director and myself paid our last respects to a recently found homeless relative who had died of tuberculosis or AIDS or both.

I could go on and on. There are many I no longer remember in detail but in that spiritual place in my memory where rest the spirit of those souls who were facing the gates of hell. These moments of seeming hopelessness, fear, sadness, panic or just plain numbness at the depth of ones soul need not be faced alone. We humans have known this for millennia. We seek the people who can stand with us and the places where a sense of peace can begin to permeate the emptiness that has suddenly or even slowly taken over our world.

To be a counselor, a presence of hope and healing with those facing the devastation of addiction and alcoholism is to be at the same kind of junction of hope and despair, life and death. No, I don't believe that is too strong. Many people in that position are at the place where life is teetering. They are facing hell- or perhaps realize they have just stepped back from an abyss that can only be described as hell. They do not know if they can make it. They are aware of a sense of powerlessness. To be there with them is at once humbling, scary, and challenging. It is a place where the deepest compassion and acceptance is needed. But they must be tempered with a willingness to speak to the truth of what they are facing, to not sugar-coat it or make it seem less dangerous.

It is to run a rescue station at the gate of hell- their very own personal torment of hell.

So for the past 3 months I have had that privilege one more time as a full-time counselor. It was developing the helping and healing relationship that can hopefully break through denial and uncertainty.

It is a great way to work and I am grateful I had the chance to do it again. I am sure there will be other ways I am called to do that work in the future. But for today, as much as part of me doesn't want to stop, I know it is what I am going to do next that needs my attention.

Back in December I spoke of my move to part-time employment as beginning my Third Career. I have no doubt it will continue as part of my lifelong call to be part of that rescue shop. It may not be as immediate or quite as close to the gates as I have been, but it is where I have been called.

So it's back to semi-retirement. I have lots of music to make, especially over the next two months, lots of genealogical research to do for those ghosts in my family that are nowhere to be found prior to 1940, time with my wife and daughter and her boyfriend, time to write and read and dream of more ways to be what I am called to do next. Yet always to be one who can help bring healing and to continue to build my life in secular ministry- ministry beyond the doors and walls of the institutional church where I am now called to serve.

Overheard in Recovery: Freedom

One of the "secrets" of recovery is to stay away from resentments, something tough for an alcoholic or addict. Addiction feeds on resentments, loves them, turns them into giant mountains.

One of the classic ways of dealing with resentments is found in one of the stories in the back of the Big Book of AA. It is titled "Freedom from Bondage" and is one of the best stories that sums up the AA program. The anonymous writer gives her solution, which she credits to some unnamed clergy writing in an unnamed magazine. It is classic recovery-

And actually works.

If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.
--Alcoholics Anonymous, P. 552

Seventy-Five Years of Recovery

April 1939:
Alcoholics Anonymous publishes the first edition of its basic text, known to most as the "Big Book."

Now in its Fourth Edition it continues to be a source of hope and inspiration, not to mention instruction and direction, for millions.

Now I Wait

Yesterday was a tense day. It was my day to take the workshop/tests for certification as a Group Fitness Instructor with the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA). It was a short story with a long prelude.

Back around a year ago when I was beginning to head toward my semi-retirement I came across a story in a local paper about a fitness instructor at a local center. He was in his early 80s, taught water aerobics (among others) and started in the fitness field when he was in his early 60s.

Over the past 8 years I have slowly but surely worked toward a broader and deeper understanding of fitness. It began when I wanted to do 60 miles of biking for my 60th birthday. For an uncounted time I joined a health club. I was periodic in attendance, but I did keep going. I then moved and joined the healthy living center at my new residence.

That has continued for most of the past 5 years through three surgeries and a few other physical concerns cropping up. As I got into biking and I even commuted to work on my bike. When I read the article on the fitness instructor in town it was like an "Aha!" moment. I have something new to offer, even as I have (now) passed age 65.

So I began to pursue that angle. I took a couple online courses from AFAA on getting ready to be a group fitness instructor and a personal fitness instructor. Yesterday I did the day-long certification workshop ending in the four-part examination. Three of those are "practical," something that AFAA is known for and, I think, is an essential part of becoming a fitness instructor. In this part of the day we had to demonstrate that

1) we knew two strength and one stretching action for each of 10 muscle groups;
2) could do a 3-minute warm-up and five-minute cardio routine; and
3) lead the group in one activity showing beginning, intermediate and advanced options.

There is then a written exam with 100 matching or multiple choice questions. Perhaps the largest single group of questions dealt with the different muscles and muscle groups along with their locations and actions.

I won't know for 4 - 6 weeks how I did. Since no job is hinging on passing the test and getting the certification I am not in any hurry, other than to know.

What will I do with this? At this point I don't know. I would like to be able to help others my age- or approaching my age- to know that age doesn't have to be a reason to get out of shape or even to get back into shape.

I have also discovered Yoga and Tai Chi as important mental supports and mindfulness practices. I don't think I will get special certifications in either of those areas, but you never know how I can use those experiences as well.

In addition all this has a big part to play in addiction/alcoholism recovery. Specialized groups in fitness centers or community programs for recovering people to help their sobriety would be a good move. But at this point, I am not trying to shoehorn this into something. Rather I am trying to be open to whatever directions come.

By the way, the experience yesterday at the workshop was wonderful. I learned a lot and was directed well by the instructor. The field of fitness and exercise is changing rapidly and there are obvious needs for good instructors and trained leaders.

But for now, I wait. Since I am also back to work full-time for a while, it will give me time to think through how this can fit into my semi-retired life.

Words So Sadly True

Listening to music the other evening, a Neil Young song came on the mix from Folk Alley. I was only half listening as I was studying for a certification exam today. As the song ended the words came through loud and clear:

Every junkie's
Like a setting sun

It was from Neil Young and a song from 1972- The Needle and the Damage Done. It speaks to what will never come to life or be seen by others thanks to the destructiveness of heroin addiction.

As one who works in the addiction field these lines are as true as any can be. I have seen too many "junkies" die from the effects of their illness. Some are heroin overdoses; others are the slow and very painful death of alcohol liver disease; then there's lung cancer and heart attacks; or the death in life from "wet-brain."

All are horrible to watch or be impacted by as a family member or friend.

Hearing those words again in Young's plaintive vocals raised the pain of addiction to depths of pain and sadness.

Moments of silence are always appropriate

• for the addict who continues to suffer, 
• for family members and friends who are as powerless as the addict,
• and for the losses our world sustains with each death.

Addiction Sucks!

That is stated as succinctly as possible:

Addiction sucks!

I listened today to two interviews that Terry Gross had with Philip Seymour Hoffman on Fresh Air. He was a remarkable talent. He had the ability to make his characters come alive.

Of course we never really knew his demons. He had been sober for 23 years and then relapsed.

That relapse took his life this past weekend.

Addiction is never gone.

It is always lurking to take one more grab at the addict-

one more toke,

one more shot,

one more snort,

one more pill

one more needle.

It takes away all that we think we have.

It makes us think we are invincible- or even more to the point-

it makes us think we are gods of our own domain.

I heard a recovering heroin addict on radio talking about the truly scary part of Hoffman's death- the cautionary reminder to absolutely every addict out here that they are in danger. It should make every recovering addict stop in the moment and be grateful for what they have today

BUT at the same moment

to never forget that the addiction is patiently waiting,
doing push-ups, waiting

and waiting.

Don't ever be complacent. Don't think you have it made.

All one has is a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of one's spiritual condition.

I have had alcoholics and addicts question whether they have hit their bottom yet. They wonder. They look for ways to continue using. They look for all the excuses whispered in their mid-brain, just below consciousness:

"What if this isn't the bottom?" they ask.

I have two things I tell them.

• First, if you are still alive and breathing, you haven't hit the ultimate bottom of addiction. It will only get worse if you keep using.

• And second- you know you have reached bottom

when you stop digging.

So stop digging and start building a new life.

Addiction sucks!

What's worse is that it also kills.

Rest in peace, Philip. Rest in peace.

Humbled and Silent

I sat listening to a great deal of talk about God. It’s not usually that specific, but this was a night about

Step 2: Came to believe

Reading from a chapter To The Agnostic.

The members talked; I listened as I often do on that subject; a “professional”

                Spiritual person needs to remain silent in the face of

                The Words of God being spoken so eloquently.

Honest Theology flowing

From the heart split by pain and alcohol

Visions of God shared

From dark days long gone yet ever so present

In memory or ever so real possibility

Words of Grace received

When not worthy; never worthy, really;

Filling the cracks and

black holes

with Light

                and

                                wonder.

I listen in silence to a sermon far

                Better than any I ever preached.

No big words filling the spaces,

                No deep, unintelligible thoughts

Instead a common experience of

                Uncommon awakening.

The humble moment of gratitude not just for their experiences

But because they are mine as well.

The empowerment of the

                Powerless by a

                Power greater than any of us;

Shared through each of us

                To all of us.

Recovery!

The Answer

It is probably the most often quoted passage in the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book. It is, many will tell you, The Answer. I agree. It is on page 417 in the 4th edition, page 449 in the 3rd. Dennis S. quoted it to me and introduced me to its importance over two decades ago. I strive to live it each and every day. It is why this week with the theme of acceptance is so much fun for me.

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic. I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation. And I was always glad to point it out, because I knew you wanted perfection, just as I did. A.A. and acceptance have taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here. When I complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God’s handiwork. I am saying that I know better than God.

Sharing Sobriety

Came across a few posts at Recovery Now about celebrities and their ongoing sobriety. Here are some of them- and their years of sobriety.

• Bob Dylan, 47 years clean from heroin
• Buzz Aldrin, astronaut, more than 30 years
• Tim McGraw, country singer, 3 years
• Bradley Cooper, actor, 7 years
• Diana Ross, singer, 4 years
• Neil Young, 1 year
• Ringo Starr, 25 years
• James Taylor, 29 years
• Eric Clapton, 25 years
• Ben Affleck, 11 years

If these stars (and others) who live in the midst of a drug and alcohol-soaked culture can maintain sobriety, it sure must be possible!

When Addiction Was Always Fatal

At least, a time when there was no treatment for it in any way, shape, or form.

That was the other reaction I had to the Guthrie Theater's production of Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey Into Night. The play is based on O'Neill's own family history, taking place on one day in August 1912. In that day we see the father and two sons of the Tyrone family drink as their own way of coping with the wife/mother's morphine addiction take control after some time of sobriety that they hoped would be more permanent. Everyone is caught up in the devastation of addiction.

Hope? None! It is tragedy at it's worst. King Lear and Macbeth on the coast of Connecticut in 1912.

In 1912 addiction had no treatment available. It was a death sentence which everyone felt was a matter of choice. They could stop if they wanted to, was the standard thinking. It was an issue of morals and will-power and wanting it badly enough. In August 1912 Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson was only 16 years old.

Hope? Nope!

O'Neill's own family history shows the destructive power of alcoholism and addiction. He older brother and two sons died of alcoholism/addiction.

Today we live in a fortunately better time. We have a little better understanding of some of the underlying issues that have made addiction so difficult. We have seen the development of neuroscience giving us insight into the brain chemistry that is the possible cause and likely result of alcoholism and addiction. There are millions of recovering addicts today. They can live with a sense of hope that Eugene O'Neill and his family would never have known.

We are only at the early stages of our awareness. There is still so much we don't know and so many people who still don't get into recovery and stay there. Relapses occur at a frustrating frequency and we can't predict who will relapse and who won't.

But today we do have hope. It is not a 100% fatal disease. People do make it into recovery and stay there. The odds are better than in 1912 when O'Neill and his family stood in the midst of a multi-generational story of loss and pain. We have made a start and we can offer possibilities for the future so other families can liv with a sense of optimism.

A New Classic

Flight
(77% Tomatometer)
Another !!!!! (5!) movie. I know it hasn't been talked about as a new entry into the list of great alcoholism and substance abuse movies, but it is. It will stand there along with the true classics like Leaving Las Vegas, When a Man Loves a Woman, The Lost Weekend, and Blow.

Director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future (1,2,3); Forrest Gump; Castaway, etc.) is still at the top of his game in this thriller/drama/morality play.  Denzel Washington is superb living the variations of mood and person that his character, Capt. Whip Whitaker, goes through. He is as over-the-top as any alcoholic and as certain of himself and who he is- a savior of souls destined to die if not for his amazing skill.

John Goodman, again superb, is the comic relief pusher-man. As in Argo he manages to infuse as much chutzpah as possible into a man who in this movie is selling and buying souls.

Don Cheadle underplays his role as the pilots' union lawyer to a "T." Kelly Reilly portrays a recovering addict who finally practices what she is learning. Melissa Leo comes in at the end as the NTSB lead investigator. Bruce Greenwood is the union rep and Brian Geraghty is Washington's co-pilot. The ensemble works well.

Expect a bumpy ride and great acting. I also noted the excellent use of music to reinforce the scenes on-screen and even as hints at what might be coming.

I wonder about the relatively lower Tomatometer score of 77%. I have to admit I wonder if part of it is the perception of "soap-opera-ness" that many can have when watching alcoholism in action. Addiction, when active, is every bit as real and unpredictably predictable as anything you can put on the screen. Whether it's Nicholas Cage, Ray Milland, Meg Ryan, Johnny Depp or now Denzel Washington, the characters we see on-screen are real. I have seen them in real life. When they get up there on the big screen, they can truly take over. It is something to watch and the stuff of true drama. This one will certainly get some Academy Award nominations.

Go. By all means, see this movie. But be prepared as anything can fall apart when you are dealing with active alcoholism and addiction.

A Daily Reprieve

In Alcoholics Anonymous they report that the recovering alcoholic is always in danger of using again. What they have, it says, is "a daily reprieve" based on how we maintain our spiritual life.

I thought of that the other day when the Hebrew Bible lesson was read on Sunday in Church. It is the passage in the wilderness where the people are getting bored with an unchanging menu of manna. Morning and night, no variation, manna. Each day like the one before. And on weekends, enough for the Sabbath so no one has to work to gather any. Hoard it- and it goes bad. Take all you need, but don't try and store it.

There is nothing but manna in front of us.

Only manna.

Only manna?

Enough to eat. Sure it isn't the "gourmet" food of a slave in Egypt. No meat and veggies. Just manna. Just a daily miracle.

All they have is a daily miracle. A daily reprieve from starving in a desert wilderness. A daily gift, right there. No questions asked.

How narrow and selfish we humans can be. We even get bored with miracles. We even get tired of the same old miracle day in and day out.

Like a sunrise or sunset.

Like a newborn child.

Like the possibility of love and hope and relationship with family and friends.

Like growing closer and closer to God.

Auntie Mame: Oh, Agnes! Here you've been taking my dictations for weeks and you haven't gotten the message of my book: live!
Agnes Gooch: Live?
Auntie Mame: Yes! Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!

Life is a spiritual banquet. Yet so often we starve in our boredom. Our spirits wilt and shrink because we can't see the miracle of the everyday all around us.

Don't Stare at the Marshmallow

There is a classic psychology experiment with young children. From Wikipedia:

The Stanford marshmallow experiment was a study on deferred gratification conducted in 1972 by psychologist Walter Mischel of Stanford University. A marshmallow was offered to each child. If the child could resist eating the marshmallow, he was promised two instead of one. The scientists analyzed how long each child resisted the temptation of eating the marshmallow, and whether or not doing so was correlated with future success....

In over 600 children who took part in the experiment, a minority ate the marshmallow immediately. Of those who attempted to delay, one third deferred gratification long enough to get the second marshmallow.

It was the results of the follow-up study that would take place many years later that surprised Mischel. [He] discovered there existed an unexpected correlation between the results of the marshmallow test, and the success of the children many years later.

The first follow-up study, in 1988, showed that "preschool children who delayed gratification longer in the self-imposed delay paradigm, were described more than 10 years later by their parents as adolescents who were significantly more competent". A second follow-up study, in 1990, showed that the ability to delay gratification also correlated with higher SAT scores.

A 2011 study of the same participants indicates that the characteristic remains with the person for life.

As one who works with a population that needs to deal with cravings on a regular basis whether they realize it or not, this experiment has a great deal of information of use. One of the things that made a difference in resisting the marshmallow was how they dealt with the temptation. Aside from those with no impulse control who grabbed the marshmallow immediately, the group that had the greatest difficulty as I understand it was the ones who sat and stared at the marshmallow trying to wait it out.

Staring at the object of one's temptation while trying to avoid temptation just wasn't a good idea.

Which is what I often tell people about their addictions/alcoholism- don't notice how many people around you in a restaurant are drinking, pay attention to how many people are NOT drinking. Don't sit facing the bar, turn your back on it. Don't have alcohol in the house; you might as well be staring at it.

Yet it is amazing that some of these people disagree with me. They believe they are strong enough to deal with it. Oh if that were only true. The ability to delay gratification (aka, resist temptation) may be harder than it looks for many people. One other more recent bit of information from the ongoing follow-up of the original Stanford Marshmallow Experiment participants:

Additionally, brain imaging showed key differences between the two groups in two areas: the prefrontal cortex (more active in high delayers) and the ventral striatum (an area linked to addictions).

In other words, there may very well be something genetic that we have to deal with about the ability to delay gratification, or, perhaps just as likely, those who have been unable to delay gratification weaken that part of the brain that allows one to delay gratification. Not being able to wait for gratification may feed on itself and make it even more difficult.

In any case, to anyone attempting to resist temptation, the best advice is stay away from the object of the temptation. Move away from it, distract yourself, get occupied in something else.

In other words (remember this), don't stare at the marshmallow.

Wikipedia

Overheard in Recovery: No Words Needed

Before we were sober we didn't have to tell people we were alcoholic. Our actions showed it.

Now that we are in recovery we don't have to tell people we are in recovery. Our actions show it.

Sounds a lot like James of New Testament biblical fame.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.(Jame 2: 14-17)

Perhaps there really is nothing new under the sun.

Recovery if it is not lived is heading for a relapse.

Makes a lot of sense.

No One is Perfect

We all know that no one is perfect, even though we may at times want to defend our heroes from their frailties. Many times I have a hunch that we- and our heroes- end up working out our frailties - our salvation- in fear and trembling.

I thought of the other week when the artist Thomas Kinkade died. (Wiki) I never knew much about him other than his paintings that always seemed to me to be a little too schmaltzy, over-the-top with his images of light. When he died I read some of the articles and found that there were stories of a darker side to Kinkade. Stories of drunken behavior, possible sexual harassment, crude actions and language. This from the "Painter of Light"?

Sure. Why not? Then it struck me that perhaps that painting style, the over-the-top desire to present the presence of light so strongly in his work was an attempt to work out his own salvation in fear and trembling. There in his paintings may very well be the attempts at his own exorcisms, the desire to bring light into his darkness and in that work allow the light to overcome the darkness.

No, I don't mean in some way that he was trying to earn his salvation. I mean it as an act of pilgrimage or penitence or personal reflection. As he painted, I wondered, did he try to absorb that light to overcome his own demons? Did he seek to connect more fully with his God as he placed the light into those scenes? Did he see the light seeping in through the cracks in his own soul?

It made me think of Mother Theresa, as well. (Wiki) On the Wikipedia page for her:

Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which lasted nearly 50 years until the end of her life, during which "she felt no presence of God whatsoever", "neither in her heart or in the eucharist" as put by her postulator Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk. Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of faith... [He] indicated there was a risk that some might misinterpret her meaning, but her faith that God was working through her remained undiminished, and that while she pined for the lost sentiment of closeness with God, she did not question his existence.

Actually, I think many of us do that. It may be our way to find meaning, to journey through the darkness toward a light that calls us in the deepest portions of our soul. I don't think that diminishes the work of Mother Theresa nor does it call into question the faith and spirit that Kinkade wanted people to see. Rather it all reminds us that we are all earthen vessels, weak and powerless human beings who are prone to mess up as much as we build up.

Thanks be to God for His grace!

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UPDATE: I originally wrote this just after Easter but pushed the posting date out to today. I expected something to come out by today that would confirm my suspicions.  Well, such information did come out on Friday. The LA Times reported:

Artist Thomas Kinkade had been battling alcoholism for years and apparently suffered a relapse just prior to his unexpected death last week.

On April 6, the dispatcher who sent a fire truck to Kinkade's home reported a “54-year-old male unconscious, not breathing," according to a recording on FireScan.net.

"Apparently he's been drinking all night and not moving," the dispatcher said after Kinkade's live-in girlfriend called 911. He was pronounced dead at his home.

The painter's official cause of death will be determined by the Santa Clara County Coroner’s office, whose autopsy results are still pending.
--Link

Due to my particular profession, experiences, and history, I silently assumed we would discover addiction/alcoholism. No I am not clairvoyant. I just adhere to the words of a Episcopal priest friend many years ago:

Every time someone walks into my office with problems I assume alcoholism until proven otherwise.

And then I continue to suspect it.

More to come at some future date.