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!

Only One Day at a Time

October 29, 1988 - October 29, 2017

Humbly awed!

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.

4. Dark Night of the Soul- Path of the Dark Night

A couple weeks ago I was talking with a friend about this series. I commented that the impetus to explore the role of the Dark Night of the Soul was the fear and anxiety I and many were feeling after the election of Donald Trump. His first reaction was, you don’t believe this is the worst it’s going to get, do you? Isn’t that what the dark night means- that it will get better from here on?

An article I found online addressed this issue. From Our Sunday Visitor:

The dark night of the soul is not an evil to be endured; it’s a good for which we should be grateful. Of course, it doesn’t always seem that way. The thought of plunging into a spiritual abyss and losing all the sweetness in our relationship with God strikes few as appealing.

A Protestant writing in Christianity Today put it this way:

One lesson we can learn from the ancient mystics is that dark nights are not problems, but opportunities. Grasping this reality moves us beyond "How do we fix this?" to "What might I learn in this?"
--The purpose of the dark night, of course, is to strip us of our futile attempts to find God on our own terms and awaken us to a much simpler desire for intimacy with God
--Chuck DeGroat

With the awareness that this dark night is going to be helpful let us also remember that darkness IS frightening. Think about how much we are aware of things in the dark- even things that aren’t there- except in our imagination. Every creak and bump in a dark house is multiplied. The old Celtic prayer for protection included “things that go bump in the night” right along with “ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties”. Darkness, sometimes described as “wilderness”, however, is almost always seen as the path to spiritual growth.

Traditionally, spiritual directors identify three primary stages (or ways) of growth in holiness.

• The first is the purgative way, where we break habits of vice, acquire habits of virtue and learn to live a Catholic life.
• The second is the illuminative way, where we grow in virtue, charity and the life of prayer.
• And the third is the unitive way, where our wills and hearts move in perfect harmony with God’s.

In the dark night of the senses, God purifies us of our attachments to the things of the world — physical comfort, physical pleasure, material success, popular acclaim — as well as even the comfort we seek in prayer. Sorrows afflict us, and things that used to ease us — food, sex, shopping, compliments, even the liturgy — no longer do. Through this dark night, God prepares us for the illuminative way and a deeper, more contemplative life of prayer.

The dark night of the soul occurs at the end of the illuminative way, as we prepare to enter the unitive way. During this dark night, God roots out our deepest attachments to sin and self, and the desolation that accompanies that rooting out is overwhelming and crushing. - Our Sunday Visitor:

Let me talk about these stages of moving through the dark night. As we walk these steps it is important to remember the wisdom of Winston Churchill:

If you're going through hell, keep going.

It is tempting to stop, to "give up", or "give in" to fear, cynicism, anger, or reprisal. We have seen all that and experienced all that in many different ways over these weeks since the election. Those are not the ways to get through the dark night; they do not help us- or anyone- move forward. We easily get stuck in these and don’t move anywhere helpful or healthy.

What then do we go through? As in that quote from Our Sunday Visitor the first part is the purgative way. Purgative means cleansing, intense purifying, even liberating. We are talking about the path of the dark night moving us away from our attachment to things of our own doing and making; we are realizing that we are powerless over people, places, and things; we become aware of how we cling to things that are not helpful or productive in order to gain fame, fortune, or even at times a sense of calm and peace. Does it really make us feel better when we revert to angry, nasty comments? Does it help us- or anyone- when we lash out at those who differ from us? These are all the ways we act when we don’t know what else to do. “Well, they started it,” is not a good reason.

But in the dark night nothing positive seems to be working either. As John of the Cross describes it, even the deepest and most sincere prayers and rituals seem to lose their effectiveness. God seems to have abandoned us. We may cry, “How can God let this happen?” We feel lost and lonely.

At that point we have two choices.

• Admit we are lost and nothing can help us or 
• decide there has to be a power greater than ourselves who can get us through this. So we go searching in a sense of desperate hope. The Catholic Dictionary says we discover that as we detach from the things we have trusted we move closer to God and

the will becomes more firmly attracted to God and more securely attached to his divine will. This purification, however, is only a means to an end, namely, 1. to give greater glory to God, who is thereby loved for himself and not for the benefits he confers; 2. to lead the one thus purified to infused contemplation and even ecstatic union with God; 3. to enable the mystic to be used more effectively by God for the spiritual welfare of others, since the more holy a person is the more meritorious are that person's prayers and sacrifices for the human race. -Catholic Dictionary

This is the seed of the illuminative way- the second phase on the path. Down in the depths of that dark night, as we struggle and wrestle and seek beyond our deepest longings, we also discover some light. Enlightenment. In Twelve Step language, we come to believe that there is a power greater than ourselves. This is a power that can make sense of what is happening to us, that can lead us into new understandings of the world we inhabit- as well as the inner life we each can develop. We can be restored to sanity. We do not need to “give up” or “give in” to the world, our fears or desires, even our personal ideologies, political or religious positions, institutions. In our search for comfort and release of fear we have often relied on these. It is time to move on. We need to “surrender” to the Higher Power.

One would think that such a surrender would be the start of something wondrous and bright. And at first it does seem so. It is like a “pink cloud” where everything is hopeful. That is but the beginning. We are so used to hearing that all one must do is “trust God and all will be okay” that when it doesn’t happen that way we get upset, angry, or lose faith. What has happened is that we have experienced part of the joy of cleansing of the senses and physical issues. We must then, as John of the Cross guides us, also be cleansed of the spiritual issues.

It may be necessary for us to give up warm and fuzzy religious feelings, or have them taken from us by God so we can draw closer to Him. Catholics United for the Faith

The action of surrendering is not as easy as we would like; we are not done with the cleansing. Or more to the point, simply coming to believe is not the end. Much still can block us from the light at the end of the dark night. As part of the spiritual growth ahead of us we must also take a serious look at who we are and what has led us to this point. In the Twelve Step programs this is the “housecleaning” stage.

• We take a searching and fearless moral inventory and share it with a trusted mentor. (Twelve Steps, Four and Five)
• We discover our shortcomings and ongoing character defects and become willing to surrender them. (Twelve Steps, Six and Seven)
• We become aware of those we may have harmed or had difficult relationships with and make amends. (Twelve Steps, Eight and Nine)
• We learn how to take a regular self-inventory and be quick to make amends when we have hurt another. (Twelve Steps, Ten)

These are deeply spiritual steps.

• These force us to look inside and be honest about ourselves. 
• They make us confront the ways we may still cling to the old ways of self-centeredness, anger, resentment. 
• They lead us into finding new ways to relate to the people in our lives and the world around us. 
• They are preparing us to be awake in our spirit and in the Spirit of our Higher Power.

This may seem like a long way to get to what is happening in the world in these early days of 2017. We now have a new president, one who has arguably been the most controversial and disliked candidate-now-president in modern politics. Many remain fearful of what he is going to do. Many have seen him do things that they find unacceptable and promote values they have difficulty accepting. Many are ready to stand up to him and challenge him in the face of his supporters who tell us to “get over it.”

I believe what we are facing is an ongoing spiritual journey. We have only been at this specific journey since early November. It took many by surprise. Too many of us were complacent, almost sluggish. The election was a shock to our system. It told us that we didn't know our country as well as we thought we did. It told us that there is more going on here than we were paying attention to. Many of us have felt like we were swimming in quicksand, being pulled down and out. That is how, for me, the dark night began this journey.

Spiritual can be a confusing term. I am using it here in both the traditional "mystic" sense of becoming unified with a Higher Power (being part of something greater than ourselves) and in the awareness of being connected to those around us- our fellow human beings. These must always be together no matter what spiritual tradition, or lack of one, we may have come from. The journey will be unique for each of us, based on who we are and what we have experienced. It must also be in connection with others.

Marks of the spiritual can take many forms:

• love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
• humility, forgiveness, and acceptance
• honesty, openness, and willingness.

to name but a few.

For us to be prepared for a spiritual journey, one must have been spiritually prepared. That is where we are now. We are at a beginning. These stages of the journey, or the Twelve Steps as a paradigm, or your training and direction and how that happens. We are less than 90 days into this particular journey. We are preparing.

Dark Night of the Soul #3: An Earlier Experience

My only previous experience of a dark night-type experience was over 30 years ago now. Details have become foggy, but it all began with a premonition. I envisioned a war in the Middle East during August of 1982. About two years earlier, in 1980, I had been asked to choose hymn verses and write prayers for our denominational devotional, The Daily Texts. I was assigned August 1982. As I read through the daily scriptures for the month I found myself growing afraid. They seemed to indicate that a war was coming in the Middle East. This idea got planted firmly in my conscious and unconscious mind.

This was only enhanced in November 1980 when I hosted a trip to Israel. Among the group who traveled with me were several people who believed that the Second Coming was imminent. An important part of that view is war in the Middle East. They spent a great deal of time talking about that as we toured the country. They almost seemed more interested in that than in the religious and spiritual aspects of the trip. The visit to Har Megiddo (Armageddon) was particularly difficult!

One afternoon I had some free time and I went to one of the hills on the outskirts of Jerusalem and sat there meditating, contemplating and praying. I could envision fighter jets flying over the walls of the Old City. My overactive imagination did its thing. It cemented the fear and uncertainty I was feeling. It remained there when I returned home. A few months after the trip our daughter was born. Now there was more reason to fear and worry.

I lost many nights sleep over the next 18 months. I didn’t talk about it to anyone for months. It was a constant presence in my thoughts, under the surface at times, but always bubbling up in the night. I became interested in St. John of the Cross and his writing at that point, but was unable to truly connect it with what I was going through. Nothing I did seemed to ease the tension. I began trying to figure out how to survive the coming war. It was no longer located in the Middle East in my imagination. It had become World War III. We owned a vacation place in the wilds of northern Pennsylvania so I decided that this would be as good a place as any to survive such a war. I planned that we would go there for the month of August. I never explained why.

I did go to see a pastoral counselor at one point. All he did was make it worse. “It must be something to have that ability at premonition,” was the only comment I remember. Not a help. I don’t think he was being sarcastic. Ironic, maybe. I did finally talk to my wife about it, but by then I was overwhelmed and just looking forward to getting past August. I knew it was crazy, but it was still alive.

Needless to say nothing happened. August 1982 came and went. I went back to “normal” life- or so I thought. Looking back from 35 years later I see that something else happened. It was but the beginning of a longer dark night that took another six years to finish. During this time my use of alcohol increased significantly. I would go up to our vacation place by myself. I would spend days alternating between drinking myself drunk at night and working on sermon and worship planning during the days. Days were productive; nights were hell. I would find renewal in the daylit woods and writing but the darkness would bring the demons. It is not an unusual pattern for a deepening alcoholic. I didn’t realize it was happening and even had trouble describing it several years later when faced with the outcome. But I tried something- in July 1984 we moved from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin.

Geographic escapes don’t work any better than any other actions of denial. The darkness was deepening and I was oblivious to the problems. A number of other personal and emotional storms began to develop. I began to question my own direction, desires, calling. I was outwardly doing well; inwardly I was falling apart. And no one knew it. Least of all myself. Can I blame it on the inability to identify the dark night of the early 1980s? Could it have been avoided if I had taken a different approach before it reached these stages?

No, I don’t think so. One of the difficulties of becoming spiritually mature and insightful is that you have to be old enough to have had the necessary experiences. Premature maturity is truly an oxymoron. The darkness at the beginning of that decade was the start of the dark night. It was setting the stage for what was to come. Through the mid-1980s I struggled with an inner darkness. I thought there had to be light shining somewhere in there; in truth I was fooling myself since I was looking for answers in my own understanding. I was refusing to allow the spirit touch my soul, although I knew that I wanted it.

My drinking expanded. It was a classic binge drinking pattern. It was easy to binge when I was away from home. I would go to conferences and hide in my room at night. I would visit friends in New York and make sure I had enough to drink when I was alone in what I called my “monk’s cell” in their apartment. I would walk the streets of New York with loneliness in the midst of eight million people. I was lost in my own darkness and unable to see the dark night St. John talked about.

Until finally, in late 1988 I had my own epiphany. I had become an alcoholic. I needed help. I entered treatment. Part of me expected it to be an escape. It turned into freedom. I thought it would be a way out of the inner hell I had created. Instead it became a way through that hell. It was a true dark night for in reality the night that John describes is an awareness of- and acceptance of- powerlessness and personal unmanageability in all areas of one’s life. Which is, of course, the First Step of Alcoholics Anonymous. I wouldn’t have used the words from John’s first stanza at that time. I do now!

On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.

John describes this first stanza of the dark night as purging the lower self- the sensual self. In my years of sobriety and work as a substance abuse counselor, I would say that this is a good way to describe the work of the first three steps of AA. That purging or “housecleaning” is then described in steps four through nine. It is necessary. Most addicts and alcoholics have been hijacked by the senses and feelings of the “pleasure center” of the brain. Or rather, their chemical use has hijacked that area and turned their lives into hell. There is a constant search in the bottle or the pills, the weed or the next line, to get rid of the thoughts and feelings that seem to never go away.

—Oh, happy chance!— 

 that I was able to go forth and discover, in the midst of darkness, the light that shines in that darkness.

I could spend many days putting the dark night and early recovery together, which is not the purpose of this particular series. When I started this discussion of the dark night and how I have come to approach the current political and cultural issue I did not expect it to go this direction. I did not- and do not- have the whole thing outlined and ready for “prime time.” It is through my times of writing that these things work out. As I wrote the first two posts I realized that, for me, this is part of a longer and more profound journey. In putting this together I am describing my pilgrimage and its present location. I do not believe that this is unique to me. The language I use in the telling is mine but the experiences are far more common than not.

Within the next week we will have a new president. The divisiveness, anger, fear, and even hatred shown in the campaign and transition period was what spurred this series. There are times when I see a post on Facebook or a news story about some particularly difficult event that I get this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Anxiety builds; darkness seems to be more prevalent. It doesn’t appear as if that is going away any time soon. For today, and at least the next few weeks, the question is how do I live and grow through this? The Dark Night remains the best paradigm for me to work from.

In the next post I will delve more deeply into the path the dark night takes us on. John is very clear about what that is and why. I will utilize my experience of the Twelve Steps in that, but it is not about alcoholism or addiction. It is about the spiritual journey. John states that the goal of this journey into the dark night is

the state of the perfect, which is that of the Divine union of the soul with God.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the purpose of the twelve Steps is the same, though in different words-

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps… and to practice these principles in all our affairs. [emphasis added]

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 Problem with the Biggest Losers

Three years ago a group of us at work did our own version of "The Biggest Loser," the popular TV reality show that gets highly obese people to lose a lot of weight. None of us were at the level of obesity seen on TV. Some of us even had a relatively healthy habit of exercise when we started the competition. We did all need to lose weight, though.

Over the next several months we did our weigh-ins and kept doing whatever we each wanted to do to lose the weight. I cut back my sugar consumption, added a boost to my exercise, and counted calories. I was successful. I placed second in the group. I had started at 211 and, over the two months I lost around 25 pounds. I continued on my regimen. By November 2013 I was at 176 pounds.

Two things happened then.

1- I semi-retired and got out of what had been an almost daily six-year habit of exercise because I was no longer working every day.
2- I had a minor surgery that slowed me down a little.

The results:

• By March 2014 I was consistently above 185: +10 pounds in 4 months.
• I went over 190 for the first time in mid-year 2014.
• By May 2015 it was 203.
• My cholesterol and blood sugar crept back up to borderline levels by Fall 2015
• I peaked in March 2016 at 214. Back up 38 pounds. 

With all this in mind I saw the news articles last week on a study of "Biggest Loser" TV participants:

"Biggest Loser" study: Why keeping weight off is so hard

Here's a little bit as reported by CBS News:

It's well known among obesity experts that when people lose weight, their resting metabolic rate slows, meaning they burn fewer calories while at rest. Their rate is often slower than it would be compared to other people of the same size who hadn't lost a lot of weight.

"The phenomenon is called 'metabolic adaptation' or 'adaptive thermogenesis,' and it acts to counter weight loss and is thought to contribute to weight regain," wrote the authors, researchers from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in Bethesda, Maryland.

To learn more, using blood, urine and other tests, they calculated the resting metabolic rate and body composition changes in Season 8 contestants six years after the end of the weight loss competition.

The results are both shocking and not surprising with even the small, personal anecdotal evidence in my own situation:

...only one of the 14 contestants succeeded in maintaining their slimmer weight. The rest regained a significant amount of the weight lost during the competition, and their resting metabolic rates (RMR) remained unusually low.

And obesity experts said it supports previous research and what they've seen in their patient populations -- that it's really hard for people who've been obese and then lose a lot of weight to maintain their lower weight, or to lose weight again after they've buoyed back up to a higher weight.

Yep!

I know I have faced the problem talked about above. Along with the medical findings I have seen two other factors involved:

• Judgement of others who wonder why you can't exercise will-power. This breeds our own self-esteem issues as we buy into it. We wonder why we are so weak and powerless.Then the second factor kicks in:
• Instant gratification. We want to lose the weight quickly. We can't be patient and let it be a slow, daily process. That is partly because slow daily progress only shows up in the long-term, the big picture that few of us are able to sustain.

In the end we become losers at being The Loser.

It may very well be that we have been pursuing the wrong goals or missing some important points. Back to the news articles:

Dr. William Yancy, director of the Duke Diet and Fitness Center, said "The Biggest Loser" perpetuates the idea that the recipe for weight loss is simple: diet and exercise and you can drop the weight. But he said the study helps show how much more complicated an equation it is to keep the weight off for the long term.

"There's that constant mentality that if you diet and exercise to lose weight it can be fixed. But it's a lifelong challenge and we've struggled really hard to make it be seen like diabetes, that it [obesity] needs to be treated like a chronic illness," said Yancy.

He said that he's seen people manage to keep the weight off when they've approached obesity with the attitude that it's a chronic illness.

Yes, I realize the danger in making everything into a "disease" or "illness." That can easily become a cop-out, a reason to give up and just keep on eating and gaining. It is the issue that I have faced every day for the last 27+ years with addiction and alcoholism, both personally in recovery and professionally as a counselor. It can lead to a denial of responsibility and a fatalism that can be truly fatal.

What if our ability to lose weight and keep it off IS an illness? Well, I don't know the details of how that works, per se, but I do know how it works with addiction. As a result I also know that there is a key element that we need to bear in mind.

Responsibility. I am not a victim of my disease.

As a recovering person I have the responsibility (!) of daily managing my disease of addiction. I have to:

• take responsibility for the actions I take each day 
• live in a way that allows for daily management of my symptoms and
• be willing to change my lifestyle to deal with the symptoms and the consequences of my disease.

This could be a description of the disease of not being able to keep the weight off, a disease that could be called pre-obesity or food-ism. I have to give it a name that is meaningful to me and describes my situation. Borderline obesity and borderline diabetes could be my description of it in my situation. It is not a disease of will-power. It is, as indicated above in the studies of the Biggest Loser participants, a disease of metabolism. Just losing the weight doesn't change the metabolic system very quickly, if at all.

I am not sure at this point where all this takes me. I can, however, begin to apply what I know about addiction and see if it works. Things like "turning it over" and daily prayer and meditation. It could be things like awareness of triggers and urges- cravings- and the many ways I have discovered and used over 27 years to deal with chemical cravings. It may be as basic (though not simple) as "easy does it" and "one day at a time."

• For today I will practice a different lifestyle.
• For today I will be aware of the urges to eat in unhealthy ways
• For today I will ask for help and support to deal with stressors
• For today I will be grateful for the healthy opportunities ahead of me
• For today I will be good to myself, not allowing my impatience to overcome my daily movement toward health.

There are probably more that I could add. But that's a start.


Link to CBS News article referenced above.

More Musical Memories

I was listening to Bob Dylan while trying to figure out what to write for this day's post. So I looked at this date in music history. (See tomorrow when it comes for why I was listening to Bob Dylan.)

So here were some of the important events on this date.

First a real piece of history for jazz:

• 1922 - The New Orleans Rhythm Kings recorded for the first time.

 Two dates from the history of a small  group from Great Britain:

• 1958 - George Harrison joined the band Quarrymen. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were also members.
• 1966 - The Beatles ended their fourth American tour at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, CA. It turned out that the show was their last public concert.

Here was one of the great songs:

• 1964 - Roy Orbison's single "Oh, Pretty Woman" was released. The song was Orbison's second #1 hit in the U.S and his third in the U.K.

In the out-in-left-field category:

• 1977 - 3 people were arrested in Memphis after trying to steal Elvis' body. As a result his body was moved to Graceland.

A BIG congratulations for 25 years clean and sober:

• 1990 - Elton John checked into a rehab center in Chicago, IL, for bulimia, drinking and drugs.

And one of the really off-beat stories. This is nothing but funny (to everyone but Isaac Hayes and Bob Dole):

• 1996 - Isaac Hayes, who co-wrote the Stax classic "Soul Man," sent a protest letter to presidential candidate Bob Dole requesting Dole to stop using his song, which his supporters had changed to "I'm A Dole Man."

# # # # # # # #

Remembering

Saturday, October 29, 1988:

Best Selling books on the New York Times List:
THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED, by Anne Rice. (Fiction)
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, by Stephen W. Hawking. (Non-fiction)

Top 5 songs in the USA:
1 GROOVY KIND OF LOVE –•– Phil Collins
2 KOKOMO –•– The Beach Boys
3 WILD, WILD WEST –•– The Escape Club
4 RED RED WINE –•– UB40
5 WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND (PURE ENERGY) –•– Information Society

Ronald Reagan was President and George H. W. Bush was a little more than a week shy of being elected to replace him.

The Berlin Wall still stood.

That is only 26 years ago.

Today I give thanks for 26 years of sobriety.

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.

Awake for Twenty-Five Years

When I first got sober and was still in treatment another recovering person, an Episcopal priest, came to visit me. He was sober for a couple years at the time and reflected for a moment on his own journey up to that point. As he spoke he stopped and said:

Just wait until Easter. You won't believe it.

A little less than 5 months later I stood in our local Moravian cemetery for our wondrous Easter dawn service. I remember that there was some type of sunrise that morning. My wife/pastor spoke the ancient words:

The Lord is risen!

As I joined the rest of the gathered congregation in responding:

The Lord is risen indeed!

The congregation, led by our brass choir, me on trumpet, sang

Hail, all hail victorious Lord and Savior!

I played, hearing the well-known words in my head, and remembered the words of my recovering clergy colleague back in November and was amazed.

The twelfth step of Alcoholics Anonymous starts with the phrase

Having had a spiritual awakening...

At that moment I understood it.

I was awake.

That was 25 years ago on Easter. I remember it every year when we proclaim that the Lord is risen. I also remember that I, too, have been raised with Him to new life.

I am still awake and more grateful every year.

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.

A Neat Video

Earlier this week a video came across the Facebook feeds of some of my friends. It was a video I had been showing to patients to describe the power of yoga and Tai Chi as part of a strong recovery program. I realized I hadn't shared it here.

On one level what Arthur does in his own life is develop a strong physical therapy program. But more than that, as we all know, a strong physical treatment program needs a strong spiritual component. That's where utilizing the double-sidedness of programs like Yoga and Tai Chi can be of such a strong benefit.

I have also found a good starting video that is helpful in getting into the early phases of Tai Chi. Embedding is not allowed, but here's the link. It is an 8-minute daily introduction. Well done and easy to follow for a beginner.

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.

Time Keeps on Marching

Twenty-five years...
One Day at a Time...
Easy Does It...

and

Acceptance is the key to all my problems.

 Pretty much sums up what I am celebrating today.

Oh- and since the Promises in the Big Book say that we will be amazed before we are  half-way through....

I am still amazed at what each day brings.

Must mean I am only half-way through.

Thanks to all my family and friends for support and love throughout all these days.

Overheard in Recovery: Anger

They didn't mean it as a take-off on an old line about Jesus and life, but I heard it that way:

Know anger, no happiness
No anger, know happiness.

One of those truisms heard around 12-Step meeting tables is that for those in recovery issues of anger are downright poisonous. They will, without question, build in dangerous thoughts and finally into a relapse. It comes from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous where Bill W. and friends said:

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.[Emphasis added.]

Anger is a barrier, a block that keeps what Bill W. called the "sunlight of the Spirit." I believe from what I have seen over the years that this is not even a "dubious luxury of normal men." The pain that anger engenders is devastating. It tears people, families, communities and nations apart. Anger undermines any possibility for hope.

Anger is often appropriate when someone hurts you, of course. But what do you do with it? How does it eat away at you as you seek revenge or retribution? That is the point where anger moves from a human emotion to a primal or primitive survival reaction.

Underneath anger is often a secondary emotion. It is a response to hurt, fear, embarrassment, sadness. When one is anger we feel as if we can at least do something. Strike back! In reality whether the anger is directed outward and hurts other or turns inward and hurts ourselves (our self) it can destroy more than it can build.

Righteous anger can even be worse. Righteousness is always a difficult foundation on which to build anger. It justifies and gives permission to do something that can hurt others. It is far better to take that energy of anger and turn it somewhere helpful, positive and hopeful. It is better to build with it rather than tear down.

As the anonymous quote at the top said, the result will be happiness.

Self-Confidence as Empowerment- and Vice Versa

Talking to a former pastor the other day I was caught up short by something they were told after they left the parish pastorate. "You have had more self-confidence since you have been away from the parish."

That caused some time of thought on my part. But I understood where it came from.

When one is in the parish ministry they often find themselves constantly looking over their shoulder. Much time is spent second-guessing what was going on in people's thoughts, wondering who might be ready to find something they said as offensive but not say anything about it. What was that look about during the service on Sunday? John Doe wasn't here for two weeks. What's wrong? Even friends can be suspect, especially after one back years ago turned into an antagonist at one board meeting and left the church.

I remember one of the first times I had a performance evaluation after leaving the parish. I was a nervous wreck. My experience had often been quite difficult with performance evaluations in the ministry. In fact, I became quite adept at avoiding them whenever possible. Very seldom were they positive experiences. It was almost like people often felt that performance evaluations were meant to criticize and point out all ones shortcomings.

No wonder the pastor's comment rang a bell. It is hard to maintain a sense of one's being at least "OK" in the midst of that. Self-confidence could turn into a negative quite quickly in what others saw as arrogance. It could be seen easily as not being open to listening to what others had to say. Aloofness, stuck-up, self-centered, uncertain all became adjectives to describe the self-confident pastor.

The result of this is disillusionment, spiritual walls that separate the pastor from the congregation, a lack of self and self-confidence that only the family at home sees. The public persona remains smiling, engaged, even happy. Internally many pastors end up questioning their very faith and calling. They become burned out and barely make it from vacation to vacation, times of renewal.

I found some answers for myself in a couple of ways. One was the process of recovery for myself from chemical dependence. The work of the Twelve Steps opened up a whole new view of myself and the ability to let go of things that were beyond my control. What other people thought of me was one of those things beyond my control. Being part of a 12 Step group where I was just me was refreshing and allowed me to begin to discover who I was - and how God wanted to utilize that in me.

Doing the next right thing, also called doing God's Will, was another. If I was being honest and truthful, open and willing to do the next right thing, most times it would be good enough and often more that that. There was a freedom in that which can't be overstated.

Finally, the long pilgrimage into prayer and meditation became the foundation. It was there that I personally discovered that prayer is not an act of magic or wishful thinking. It was, instead, an act of faith and acceptance of whatever was in front of me. It was in that I also found the freedom to live out the vision empowered in my prayer and meditation.

It wasn't always easy; but it worked to lead me deeper into God's life with me and into a broader understanding of God's will for me and the whole idea of call, vocation, and ministry. I still wrestle with how the church fits into all this. I have a hunch that will never stop. But I know the way of self-confidence can be more than just feeling good about oneself. It is also the way of service and responding to the ways of God and God's ministry around us.

Oh, and by the way, that first performance evaluation and every one since I left the parish was nothing but empowering and hopeful. Much time was spent affirming what was going well and then a dialogue about what areas needed growth, instigated by people who cared. I walked out of my supervisor's office on a cloud and committed to working on new goals for the next year.

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!

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!