Series Three: Blog Seventy-Six

Recovery is never a static proposition. Once you decide that you have had enough chaos, heartache and hangover, it doesn’t all go away by attending a 12-step meeting. Rather than being “born again” once and for all, there is need for rebirth each and every day.

I like to establish goals for the next day before I retire each night. When I awake very early each day, I look at my goals and I question “why?” or wonder “what was I thinking?” I begin to build excuses for why it can’t be done. Every day in the early morning hours I must make a daily adjustment in attitude before I begin.

Long term sobriety requires the flexibility of making daily adjustments with attitude, thoughts and awareness of feelings. The way to serenity is often a circuitous journey. A rigid black and white outlook must give way to a malleable reality of life as it is. The world will not cooperate and pave the way for you to create the serenity you hope for and deserve. You must create it, be it and live it by directing the energies of your life toward harmony within, without controlling the environment outside. There are many things you can control—your schedule, daily actions, attitude, thoughts and mindsets. However, you cannot control other people in the world around you. The world is imbalanced, chaotic, unjust and unfair. Every day tragedies occur and lives are snuffed out with no more regard than a swatted mosquito. Someday your life will be a fatality statistic read by others.

Transforming this dour reality into a meaningful destiny demands a strategy that I refer to as a daily adjustment strategy (DAS). It starts with the Serenity Prayer in accepting the things you cannot change. You cannot change people, most circumstances or the problematic conditions that plague society and the world around you. However, when you do accept the things you cannot change, you position yourself to influence others with positive energy and empowered action. Step by step you can impact with positive force the energy and behavior of others around you.

Courageously, you change the things you can. When your attitude sucks, you can transform it with humility. By choice, you do not surrender to the forces of depression, darkness and defeat. When you are down, you lean into it and accept that ups and downs are part of recovery and you accept the downs as being human. Even when down you can still do the next right thing.

Depression is a life experience that can dominate. I remember being shut down by depression. I had no emotional energy and was overwhelmed with darkness. Yet, even then I changed the things I could. At the time, though unconscious of it, I did reach out to two friends and my wife who enrolled me in a psychiatric hospital. Even though I stared at a piece of fuzz on the window for hours, I did make the choice to be in a healing space that eventually saved my life. While gazing at a window, I decided to eat, to sleep and join the living again. I began making daily adjustments that transformed my life. I had lost 40 plus pounds in six weeks. I tried to end my life more than once. I learned to make a daily adjustment just to breathe each day. I was knocked down but not knocked out. I learned to fight—more for me and less for others. At first, I just fought—anyone and everything. I fought a guy who threw a chair into a TV while I was watching a Cubs game just to see it explode. Today I am not even a Cubs fan. I beat the hell out of my Bible until my knuckles were bloody in a padded cell. I needed to do those things to come back from the dead into the land of the living. It was a part of my daily adjustment at that time. From there I learned to be resilient and committed to positive reason. I became open to correction. I learned to champion doing what was right for me.

Recovery requires that you learn the difference between what you can and cannot change. People get lost trying to change others behavior, outlook and poor habits. It can become extreme to the point that you lose your own identity. Daily, you must clarify your expectations about what you want to change. Learn to realistically examine what’s going on. What is sensible in what is happening where the rubber meets the road in your life. Learn to trim away unrealistic expectations and employ a sweet reasonableness to what can and cannot be done. Bring yourself back relentlessly to the change you can control within you. Let go of others and quietly observe the transformation that happens in your world because of your daily adjustment and never-ending pursuit of shaping the destiny that exists within you. It all begins with your daily adjustment strategy. Are you ready to sift and sort the adjustments that are necessary today?

Series Three: Blog Seventy-Five

Addicts have many anxieties and fears. They grew up with holes in their souls with unmet childhood developmental needs from parents who failed to provide the fundamental emotional needs necessary. Some addicts suffered woeful negligence from physical, emotional and sexual abuse. For many their parents failed to provide necessary support because they didn’t know how. Their parents loved them but were unable to give their children which wasn’t given to them. Those addicts knew their parents loved them because they provided clothing, food, shelter, even education. However, children know they matter through parents spending sufficient amounts of time with them on the child’s terms, not the parents. When this doesn’t happen, kids figure they don’t matter rather than something is wrong with mom and dad and their priorities. Developmentally they become like a chunk of Swiss cheese with the holes. Each hole represents an unmet childhood need. Kids learn to compensate by trying to fill the hole from the outside through a cocktail of relational experience. It never works because the depth of emotional need can only be filled from within. They become like the little kid who can’t get enough sugar. Their emotional neediness becomes insatiable. Eventually they organize a dependency upon an addictive substance or process that delivers what it promises. For many, it involves a collection of addictions to assuage their fears and anxieties and to numb out what hurts.

One of the greatest fears that an addict faces is that of abandonment, physically, emotionally or both. Abandonment is like the metaphor of a pack of wolves that chases you through the woods. The pack pursues you relentlessly even though you create diversionary tactics of avoidance. Eventually, the pack corners you. Either the pack wins and consumes you with addictive behavior or you choose to face the gnashing teeth of abandonment to only realize that it is not the terrorizing force that its growl suggests.

Addicts become pleasers, workaholics, and deniers to avoid conflict. Behind their behavior is the pernicious fear of abandonment. They will do anything to avoid feeling deserted. Addiction becomes a lifelong affair to avoid abandonment. Some addicts have described their relationship to their drug of choice as a snuggly blanket that offers consistent warmth from fear and anxiety. What lurks behind every addictive high is the fear of abandonment. How to address abandonment is critical to the long term sobriety from addiction. Here are a few steps to consider:

• Embrace that the fear of abandonment is universal. Abandonment is not just a fear that afflicts addicts. It impacts the world at large. It is a common thread of life experience. Recognizing that everyone experiences this fear helps to avoid isolation or concluding that you are particularly flawed and different from those around you. You are not! We all must face our fears of abandonment.
• Others may dessert you but the key is to learn not to dessert yourself. This may seem obvious. Yet, simple things are not easy. It’s an automatic response for a child to subconsciously attempt to capture a parents’ attention when neglected. When a child lacks recognition for who they are they try to compensate by what they do. If the inattentiveness is chronic the child will learn to do something they hope will get their parent’s recognition to avoid abandonment. Over time they learn that who they are matters less than how they act or what they do. Essentially, they learn to abandon themselves. Overcoming the fear of abandonment requires that you learn to reclaim the importance of being and parent yourself in healthy ways. You must learn to pay attention to your genuine needs and not abandon yourself through pleasing others.
• Listen to your triggers, don’t just run from them. Triggered with fear or lust for your drug of choice can be a gift! Put yourself out of harm’s way and take time to let the trigger talk to you about unmet needs that must be met in a healthy way. Some addicts spend much of their recovery reporting about triggers and chronic high risk behaviors, thinking that telling another addict when they have been tempted is enough. However, it is a beginning. When tempted think about the legitimate need that is represented in the trigger and endeavor to self parent by meeting the need through adult choice and interaction. Rather than abandon yourself by running from the trigger, allow the trigger to speak its truth and transform the trigger from a curse to a blessing. Practicing this skill set is a major step that avoids abandonment of self.
• Take the people with you who abandon you. People hurt each other and abandon one another. People die. Relationships end through the passage of time, betrayal and a myriad of other reasons. It sucks to feel abandoned. Yet, it is a broken experience that is common to all. It requires skills to grieve the loss of what once was. Some people live life longing for yesterday’s experiences in order to avoid feeling abandoned. I suggest that you take the lost person or experience with you. Keep it with you in your heart. It is not necessary to live in the past. Yet, you can bring those experiences with others with you in the here and now through treasured memory. Even in the face of betrayal, you can embrace your truth and the closeness that once was and the intent you generated when others had ulterior motives. Precious memories need not be abandoned. Loved ones who are now deceased can be alive in your heart. We all live in a nanosecond of present time and then it too becomes historical. So we hold precious experience by treasuring its memory in our hearts. Learn to address abandonment by taking your precious personal intents and initiatives with you in your heart. The good in all the relationships you have ever experienced can dwell inside of you no matter what others choose to do. Take the experience of relationship with you. When you consider the power and potential that exists within, you never need be dominated by abandonment again.

Series Three: Blog Seventy-Four

Clients who are addicts in recovery and in a relationship often tell me that it is very difficult to physically be at home and emotionally connected with their partner. Like Carole King wrote in the song “So Far Away”— “Holding you again could only do me good—How I wish I could—-But you’re so far away” —-. These lyrics are true for those who are emotionally distant but physically present.

Without emotional connection a couples relationship is reduced to mere roommates who become like ships passing in the night. There are many relationships stuck in this dynamic. Resentment, fear, emptiness, shame and loneliness dominate. For addicts who have eliminated the drug of choice from their life, filling the black hole inside through cultivating emotional intimacy is practically impossible because they have never known how to connect to and express their own feelings. Left with their own inadequacy, difficult topics that need to be engaged are avoided and the distance grows.

Here are a few suggestions to help create emotional closeness:

• Cultivate an intimate relationship with yourself. The core addiction for every addict is codependency. You try to regulate yourself by regulating your environment and others. You lose your own identity in this way. There is no way to create an intimate connection with someone else if you do not have a sense of connection with yourself. Addicts learn to define themselves through controlling others. They become enmeshed not knowing where they stop and others begin. Life becomes a mishmash of what other people think of them and rebellious attempt to do what you want when you want it. Addicts live life with the dread that they are a fraud. Intimacy with others first requires that you create a sense of who you are, what you feel and how to meet the needs that are revealed to you through your affect. Without this skill set you will be stuck with being physically together but emotionally apart.
• Become more tolerant of others through listening. Without listening to each other, people objectify others. By that I mean, we presume how others think, what they want or will do based on our own data collection gathered without due process of checking things out with the other person. To do this, you must listen to others with your heart. Put yourself in the shoes of others. Attempt to think as they do. Endeavor to see the world through their eyes. You don’t have to surrender your view. Rather, you expand options by considering how the other person sees the world. Sit with their awareness by hearing them out. Summarize what they think, feel and want. You may never agree but you will deepen connection simply because you have increased understanding and tolerance by listening with your heart. When you listen with your heart you bring the other person closer to you. You will take down barriers of defense and bias. You will increase consideration of the other person’s point of view.
• Balance personal power with shared decision-making. It doesn’t always have to be about you. Practice taking up less space. You do have social power which is influence and clout by who you are and the privilege you carry. Use it wisely. Be reverent about your influence. You don’t have to brandish your position of power with every decision just because you are the bread winner. Practice letting go and sharing decision-making with your capable partner. When it is all about you, distance will intensify even though your partner will go along to get along. You may think all is well and good when your partner is feeling distance and disconnected from the ideas and relationship you cherish. Set your personal power aside and share the decision-making.
• Eliminate “power over” dynamics by cultivating “power with” experiences with your partner. Bond together in solidarity. Power over is coercive and controlling. It creates distance in relationships and disrupts connection. Practice making collective decisions. Empowerment comes from “power-within”. It’s the power that comes from speaking an uncomfortable truth and standing up for a value you believe in. It creates the force we feel flowing through us in the moments of deep connection with the compassionate energies that exist between two people. Harnessed in a coupleship it creates an unstoppable “power-with” dynamic that forms a solidarity that helps a couple get through difficult times. It creates a willingness to set aside your own individual interests in favor of your collective interests in the relationship.

It builds a foundation for being physically together and emotionally connected.

Series Three: Blog Seventy-Three

Community is a place to grow and a sanctuary to be safe. It’s a place to build accountability and to seek guidance from mentors. Healthy community gives birth to individual and collective identity. It’s a place to learn rituals and to experience leadership. Most importantly it a place to find and foster dignity and respect.

Healthy community does not just happen. There are many components that go into making a dynamic commonwealth. Listed here are a few to consider:

• There is a beginner’s desire to grow:  A vital community believes that growth is sacred. This dynamic protects it from becoming insular. New additions are welcome because they provide the adventure and the new vitality that a beginner brings to the community. There is a sense of desperation so much needed to create transformational change. There is a determination to make things work rather than waiting on someone to provide growth for them. There is an intense desire to create connection rather than taking place at the periphery and expecting someone to reach out. There is a profound willingness to apply suggestions made by those in the community who are growing. A deep respect and recognition for those who have paid the price to create prosperity permeates the atmosphere.
• A healthy community is marked with a number of givers and not just takers. This characteristic is developed by the elders role-playing sacrificial giving and generous celebration—Not one without the other. There is value and respect for those who harness themselves like an ox to the cart. There is admiration for those who are not parlor generals and field deserters. The work of the community is common as mud. Valued are those who move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. There are more givers than takers in a healthy community.
• No ducking and diving. Healthy spaces are “care-frontational” meaning members confront conflict directly from the inside out. This approach underscores open frankness by first identifying one’s own inner struggle that is experienced by a peer. There is the practice of velvet steel, being gentle and considerate when needed and being firm and uncompromising about principles of truth when needed.
• There is follow through—doing what you say you will do. Members of the community don’t just talk about commitments; they live the commitments. Emphasis is not on what you are going to do but on what you are going to be. Commitment words without follow through is empty.
• Healthy community cultivates collective power. Be your own guru. No room for celebrity worship. Plenty of room for appreciation of special skills. There is recognition that everyone is a celebrity in their own world. It is characterized by humility which cultivates collaboration. Power-over and domination of others gives way to power-within that fosters solidarity and empowerment within the community. Gurus tend to create power over dynamics. Leaders in a group role model the sacrifice and soul of community. There is no special privilege. No double standards.
• Dynamic communities treasure story-telling. The greatest healing power within a community is found in the power of individual story. Growth is most likely to occur when individuals within the community relentlessly dig into the deeper content of their history and tell the stories of personal healing.
• Healing communities develop elders. In many indigenous cultures, elders are accorded great respect. To be an elder is more than being old. It means to be a person who has learned wisdom from life experience including failures and mistakes. An elder may be one who has lived a life of complete integrity or it could be the recovering town drunk who knows personally what it means to struggle with an addiction. It is more than being old. Not everyone old is wise. Some elders may be young, blessed with good judgment, compassion and sound sense. Elders gain social power and help keep the balance in a healthy community.

There are many parts to a healthy community. Take time to consider your thoughts and add to the list. Creating a growing and healthy community is up to you and me. Examine your mindset and adjust your attitude to create a healthy community in your world.

Series Three: Blog Seventy-Three

Alex has never been able to establish more than 30 days of sobriety. It’s not for a lack of effort. He goes to meetings, has a sponsor, completed the Steps, does service work and just got out of rehab for the second time. Still he is stuck with chronic relapse. He’s confused wondering what other steps must he consider to stop his use of cocaine.

John’s not much different. Just a different vice. Johnny Walker Red has been his constant companion through thick and thin . . . lots of pressure as a commodity stock broker. Adrenaline flows every day at work which creates a ton of volatility. Over time his only constant friend has been his Johnny Walker Red. After losing his family, he entered rehab wondering what will it take to stop the crazy making.  He feels the junkie worm crawling up his spine for just one more drink after completing a Step 4 with his sponsor. He’s wondering what more can he do?

Kerry got caught ogling and flirting with another waitress by his beleaguered wife, who is going insane from his disrespect. Even though he attends 12-step meetings, has a sponsor, and does therapy, he secretly returned to old destructive behaviors, after being sober for a long period of time. He began accessing porn on a secret burner phone. He has been strongly entertaining engaging a hooker.  He wonders why he abandoned his established sobriety and doesn’t come clean to his recovery support and wife.

Recovery requires an understanding of lapse and relapse behaviors. Relapse occurs when an addict re-engages the old lifestyle of destructive addictive behaviors. Some think of a single act out with a drug of choice as a “slip”. The difference between a “slip” and relapse is that relapse involves a consistent pursuit of old behaviors and not a mere single use. The vernacular is controversial. However, you choose to reference a return to old destructive behavior it is against bottom lines and must be addressed.

A lapse in behavior is not a relapse. Lapses involved high risk situations with people and places. They include mind states, powerful emotions and behaviors that lead up to a relapse with a drug of choice if ignored.

Addicts in recovery often refer to their behavioral contract around their drug of choice as a sobriety contract. During 12-step meetings they will talk about inner, middle and outer circles. Sometimes it is referred to as red, yellow and green circles. Inner/red circles focus on behaviors that define acting out addictive behaviors. Middle/yellow circles define high risk zones and outer/green circles identify positive, healthy behaviors designed to replace old destructive behaviors.

Lapse behavior is focused around middle circle and imbalanced outer circle behaviors. Frequently, when an addict relapses, there is significant focus on recovery tasks that were neglected and an emphasis on getting back to the basics that establish sobriety. Usually this includes consistent attendance to 12-step meetings, regular contact with your sponsor, working the Steps and picking up the phone and reaching out to other addicts during craving for your drug of choice.

In general, these are important first steps to “getting back on the horse” and addressing your addiction when you engage either lapse or relapse behaviors. That said, if you primarily focus on outside program intervention, you are likely to overlook what is critically missing on the inside.

During addiction recovery, when relapse occurs most addicts look to outside interventions that trigger an inside collapse of values and commitment to sobriety.  But many addicts fail to look inside.  Generally, it makes sense to examine tools for inside that were either not used or misused that opened the door to backsliding.

Here are some examples.

• Alex: While Alex was sincere in prioritizing therapy, meetings, step, and service work, he failed to address self-sabotage inside. Enmeshed with mother as a teenager he felt responsible to be her emotional support when dad abandoned the family for another woman. Overwhelmed and depressed, Alex learned to depend on speedballs to get thru the rigors of academia in college. He likely won’t experience consistent sobriety without addressing his enmeshment with mom no matter how many meetings or rehab stints he engages. Unpacking destructive enmeshment and discovering his own self-identity (inside work) will be necessary for him to establish distance from his drug of choice and provide inner healthy resource.
• John– While 12-step work is critical for John’s healing, he likely will not put a cork in the bottle until he addresses unresolved issues with his family of origin. Mom and dad were both alcoholic. Dad was a successful high volume gastroenterologist who worked long hours during the week and drank and fought with his wife during the weekend. John learned to pretend his family was All American and that what was really important was to figure out how to be productive in his professional life. Without addressing the trauma of neglect and abandonment inside, it is unlikely that John will find a better friend than his Johnny Walker Red. He might learn to switch to another addiction but the craving that dominates within will remain until he addresses his trauma.
• Kerry– While he knows what to do to bring himself in balance with his recovery program, he hesitates because he is fearful to face the anger of his wife and the accountability from his recovery group. So he deepens isolation. He minimizes his behavior when discovered by his wife and paints a biased picture to his recovery support about his wife being over-controlling and making him the identified patient. The truth is that Kerry, who had been the face of a well-known corporation, was pushed out the door because of his high salary.  Experts assessed that they can do better by repurposing his job and paying Kerry to retire. Well-compensated with a healthy retirement income, Kerry struggles with resentment of being forced into retirement, a loss of identity and what to do to find significance. He turns to porn and flirtation to salve his wounded ego and soul. Until he learns to deeply grieve his transition, he probably will not stabilize his recovery program.

Recovery is about grieving. Most of us don’t want to practice grieving. Doing recovery is more an inside than outside job. It is one thing to do outer program work- meetings/calls/written step work, etc and another to go deep and heal inside wounds. Confidence in recovery is not dependent upon controlling outside results but knowing that you can go deep inside to embrace painful reality and rise again.

Craving for your drug of choice is like sitting in the middle of a busy intersection in a major city. You must remove yourself to avoid getting run over by the bus barreling toward you (your addiction). This is the outer program intervention. Yet, inwardly, it is important to recognize the legitimate emotional need that must be met in a healthy way. This requires recognizing affect and deepening self-parenting skills.

Series 3: Blog 71

Addicts in recovery often struggle with knowing how to meet their needs in healthy ways. As a child, many developmental needs were left unmet because parents who never had their needs met fail to meet the child’s needs when they were young and vulnerable. They pass along to the addict the same dysfunctional patterns they learned from their parents. This is one way dysfunctional patterns of behavior are intergenerationally transferred.

As a child, they learn to compensate in order to survive. They become very good at improvising—doing what pleases their parents and gets their attention. They learn to do and perform because the value of being is de-emphasized. Children learn to do anything to avoid neglect and abandonment which are terrifying experiences. This is when a child loses a sense of identity. Children mistakenly believe that whatever they do to get noticed is who they are. So they lose themselves in family roles (hero, scapegoat, lost child, etc) or in taking care of others. Sometimes they act out with negative behavior or through personal accomplishments to get attention. They hope to be noticed by caregivers. The result is that they are never able to do enough outside behavior to fill the empty space inside. That is when they create a cocktail of life experience to avoid the feelings of neglect and abandonment.

The mistaken beliefs that come with abandonment are, I am not worthy, not enough, or don’t measure up to matter to those you most want to be noticed by. So they learn to numb out and avoid the extreme emotional pain and fear associated with neglect and abandonment. Addiction doesn’t take away the pain but it does give what it promises. It is like a warm blanket on a cold night that offers temporary relief and escape from the harsh reality of a world full of winter experiences.

Every addict must stop the run-away train going down the track in order to get at the root cause of their destructive behavior. They learn to identify and express their feelings, which they were disconnected from in addiction. They have to be taught how to recognize needs represented in personal affect. They must learn how to assert meeting the needs housed within the emotions expressed.  This journey requires education and a lot of practice. Ultimately, they must face their fears of neglect and abandonment. Most people are afraid to express what they feel or need because they fear they will be abandoned.  As children, they have been abandoned emotionally, physically or both. They learn to avoid this fear by the thoughts they embrace and the things they do. They compartmentalize what happened or did not happen as children. They protect those who have abandoned them with staunch family loyalty. They forgive prematurely, minimize results and deny the impact of abandonment. They do everything possible to avoid facing the fear of abandonment. They learn to regulate themselves emotionally by trying to regulate everyone around them.

In my book, Dare to Be Average—Finding Your Brilliance in the Commonplace, I told the story about a little boy who loved PBJ (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches). He would go to the pantry, take the jar of peanut butter and spread it on his bread. Then he would slap the jelly and peanut butter together and enjoy his PBJ. When there was daylight at the bottom of the jar of peanut butter, he would pitch it in the trash and reach for a new jar. All was good until one day there was daylight and the bottom of the jar but no backup jar in the pantry. So with disappointment he resigned to do without. As he walked away, his father noticed and asked him to come back to the kitchen. He took the jar of peanut butter that was thrown in the trash, made sure there was no gunk on it, and then scraped the sides of the jar which provided for 1/2” thick of peanut butter rather than the normal 1” thickness. He then noted to his son that he was willing to go without when he could take what is and spread it around and make it enough.

This story points to a skillset that many addicts fail to incorporate in their recovery program. When faced with the fear of abandonment in a relationship, they panic. Some insist that their partner fix the fear.  They focus on their partner’s shortcomings. This is a subtle way to make the partner the identified problem. Others run from the relationship through an approved replacement addiction like work etc. Many refuse to face their fear of abandonment and resolve the pain. They look outside themselves to medicate their fear. If not through acting out with their drug of choice, they utilize schemes of manipulation and over control, impression management or a myriad of caretaking strategies to avoid facing their fear of abandonment. They perceive their relationships through the view of a terrorized disempowered child. Consequently, they look for others to fix what they can only fix from within themselves. It renders them ineffective to take what is in a relationship and do their part to make it enough. Paralyzed in neediness, addicts look to others outside to fix their fear of abandonment.

Managing the fear of abandonment requires empowering an adult perspective in the following areas:

• Recognizing your fear. In reactivity we can cover our fear of abandonment by focusing on the injustice behavior of a partner. Since we cannot fix out partner when h/she complains or is unhappy, we become defensive and become embroiled in a circular argument trying to fix the blame. What gets lost in the skirmish around who is at fault, is the reality that you fear abandonment from your partner at some level.
• Address the childhood fear of abandonment. This requires taking time to identify ways that you were abandoned in childhood. You will need to dismantle family loyalty by taking your parents off the pedestal in order to perceive the ways you were abandoned. You will know you have your parents on a pedestal by the feelings of guilt you experience when you speak to the times they abandoned you physically, emotionally or both. You will need to grieve for the young impressionable part of you that was abandoned. In your grief work, you will need to move the energy of what you feared from your parents to the issue of abandonment. You will then need to transfer this energy to the empowered adult self to provide the safety you need in the here and now. This is not a one and done life experience. Rather, it is an adult skill set that must be honed and practice throughout life.
• Make amends when you fail to empower the adult. Insight does not create perfection. You will backslide into giving the reins to the child within to negotiate decisions that require an adult mindset with your partner. When you recognize this to be true, take a deep breath, step back, gather yourself and make amends. Then request a do over. Practice will not make perfect. Yet, the combination of practice and a willingness to make amends will provide the incremental progress necessary to grow intimacy and to reduce the fear of abandonment.

Don’t forget the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Always remember that as the adult in charge, you will have the power to take what is in a relationship and spread it around and make it enough. You do not have to be dominated by the fear of abandonment.

Series Three: Blog Seventy-One

“Dear God, my spiritual awakening continues to unfold. The help I have received I shall pass on and give to others, both in and out of the Fellowship”— a 12th step prayer

The 12th step is “having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” If not an alcoholic, you replace the correct addictive behavior that has been your challenge. This step springs an addict forward in recovery toward a life of service.

It is necessary to engage the 12 steps daily in order to practice these principles in all our affairs. A life of service includes sharing hope and strength for recovery to another addict. You carry the message of hope and strength to individuals with whom you have influence. Everyone has impact. We are all celebrities in our own small world. When you are tempted to return to a life of addiction it is critical to consider those who are counting on you to be true to who you are before imbibing destructive behavior. There is a partner or spouse, kids, friends and colleagues who are counting on your influence to help them be true to their principles in life calling. The 12th step is a clarion call to remind every addict of their influence with others in the program and in the community at large.

Becoming a sponsor is an act of service that every addict in recovery should consider at some time. The primary role of a sponsor is to help a sponsee complete the 12 steps. The influence of a sponsor guides a sponsee in living a sober life in all their affairs. Sponsors become mentors who assist sponsees to solve everyday challenges in recovery life. Through my many years of recovery and counsel, here are a few observations to consider toward becoming a transformative sponsor.

• Recognize your privilege. Sponsorship is a privilege in recovery. You have grown and completed necessary steps in recovery to guide and influence others who are struggling. You have worked hard in your program and are qualified to be an agent for change in the life of another. This privilege carries great responsibility to remain true and sober to your own program. You build trust and establish social power and influence when you humbly walk your talk. The privilege of sponsorship requires credibility. If you are a sponsor and chronically act out against your values, step away from sponsorship and address your continuous backsliding.  Establish accountability and then return to sponsorship.  Recently an addict shared that his sponsor regularly acts out against his values. Receiving guidance from someone who can’t stop acting out is like being lost in the woods and following someone who doesn’t know how to read a compass.
• Know your own addiction history. Keep an eye on your own limits, shortcomings and historical background in addiction. Pay attention to your roots of addiction. Many addicts in recovery stop the train of compulsive behavior running out of control down the tracks without understanding the root causes of the compulsive behavior. Be sure to treat the roots of your addiction, else you become vulnerable to exchange one addiction for another. Some sponsors load up with too many sponsees. They learn to regulate their lives by regulating others. Know your history and be sure to treat root causation.
• Service as a sponsor means to listen to the spondee’s heart. Being comfortable with who you are will help you listen. You will be less urgent to share cold rapped out counsel. Listening will help you tune in to the spirit of your sponsee and gain understanding of the challenges that exist in their heart.
• Share your failures. Many times as a mentor or elder in recovery, sponsors think they cannot admit to their own shortcomings to a sponsee. This is a mistake. The common thread that brings addicts together is common-shared brokenness. The free flow exchange of this truth is the energy that maintains a healing dynamic between sponsor and sponsee. Being willing to face and admit shortcomings and mistakes with a sponsee establishes a credential to be heard. It strengthens trust and influence.
• Practice compassion and forgiveness toward self and others. As a sponsor, you will blow it sometimes. Poor suggestions, a breakdown in follow through, judgmentalism are all likely mistakes in sponsorships. It would be a mistake to try to role model perfection! Simply, forgive yourself, apologize, correct the mistake or failed behavior and move forward. Doing the same when a sponsee blows it is equally important.
• Foster growth by being intentional, through example, and by empowering a sponsee to run with the ball in their own life. There must be regularity with connection between sponsor and sponsee. When you fail to consistently connect you lose your influence as a sponsor. Your sponsee will do what they see in you. Care enough to be honest with your sponsor even when it hurts or you risk conflict. Help your sponsor evaluate h/her failures. Focus on the value of learning from failures more than successes. You only grow yourself when you know yourself.

Hold a spondee’s power in trust. You walk by their side for a season of time. They turn their power of choice over to you for a short period of time because their poor choice making got them into the predicament they are in. However, this time period is short.  The goal is to empower the sponsee. A format for assisting sponsees to incorporate recovery tasks can be: (1) You demonstrate the task while the sponsee is with you; (2) They do the task while you walk alongside; (3) They do the task alone; (4) they do it while modeling it for someone else.

Everyone is hypocritical, incongruent and inconsistent. The role of a sponsor requires accountability and consultation. Embracing this lifestyle is necessary toward becoming a transformational influence in your community.

Series Three: Blog Seventy

I watched a National Geographic program once that presented the nurture and development of wolves. In this program, the mother died unexpectedly. The four pups were not quite ready to strike out on their own. So they hovered next to the dead carcass, sucking on the tits of the dead mother. The program filmed the pups hovering, hoping for life sustenance. The filmmaker flash forwarded to snow falling and beginning to cover the carcass of the mother. Each of the four pups drifted off in separate directions. The narrator stated that the pups now will never return to the mother or to each other. It was their time to move forward in life or die with the mother.

This portrayal is a picture of recovery growth. Life is dynamic. Bob Dylan crooned “Times are A-Changin’”. There have always been arguments to refute biological evolution. However, what is irrefutable is that who we are tomorrow will not be the same as who we are today.

Many addicts grew up in unpredictable environments. Those who sought refuge from the chaos and turmoil created by addiction pandemonium found safety in recovery rooms. The acceptance and closeness from other addicts gave to us what we never received growing up in our family-of-origin. The 12-step community created a much needed safe haven for those of us who were driven by the demons of addiction.

I love the Old Testament story about the children of Israel crossing the wilderness headed for the promise land. The story goes that God provided manna from heaven while the people of Israel wondered through the wilderness. It was great. Wake up, go out and pick breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was all provided by the generous Yahweh! Most wanted to settle and hang out for good. Why move forward. Let the promise land remain distant. We’re good right where we are! There were many problems and conflicts that ensued for those who settled and refused to move forward.

It’s that way where the rubber meets the road in recovery, too. The cocoon of support provided through a 12-step community is only as safe as you are willing to commit to personal growth. Growth means that you will not remain the same. Neither will the environment you first entered for recovery. The very nature of a 12-step community will intensify the need for change.

Most of us don’t want change. Yet, without change you stagnate. At some point, you can plateau in your recovery and build a fortress within a 12-step group that helps you not act out, which is good. Some people hover around the fortress and refuse to dig deeper for new recovery growth.

It is not to say that we outgrow our need for a 12-step group. Growth will require that our recovery move past our 12-step group into the lives of our family, community and occupation. It is not that we evangelize others to do 12-step work. It is that we promote acceptance, principled living, tolerance and a transformative lifestyle in all aspects of living.

Here are a few considerations:

1. Defensiveness and complaint are signals for needed growth. When someone touches an area of pain in your life and you bristle and push back with defensiveness, this is a signal that you need to grow in this area. For example, someone pushes you to stop being so codependent, to look at your payoff toward self-harm and sabotage and you scream back at them that either they don’t know what they are talking about or that you have got this! If you scream loud enough people will leave you alone to address your dilemma. You can justify your pain and lack of growth because of your misfortune. Like a little kid who skinned his knee you can go through 12-step living hollering “don’t touch it” and no one will and you will seek someone to commiserate in your misery. Recovery is a river that moves forward with or without you. If 8 or 9 people say you’ve got a tail, at least look at your rear in the mirror. Pay attention to the signals that tell you to grow!
2. Simply adjust. The dynamic of life presents the need for continual adjustment. Your rituals are interrupted with a sick child. You have a flat tire on the way to a 12-step meeting that you were scheduled to present and that you stayed up late working very hard to get just right. Your sponsor stands you up and you sit at a coffee shop twiddling your thumbs and pissed. People let you down and some days everything just goes wrong. The solution to all of these every day experiences is to simply adjust. Be flexible. Be adventurous. Take a deep breath and look for the nugget of wisdom in everything that you deem has gone wrong. None of us are perfect with this skillset. Perfection is not required. What is required is that you know where the tool of “adjustment” is on the recovery shelf and you know when to reach for it and how to use it. This only requires practice. Adjustment isn’t fancy. It just works.
3. Shift your focus away from the goal of day-count and zero in on how much you can grow. Goals are important. A commitment to lifetime growth is more meaningful. Your commitment to growth will take you to new unknown territory in your life that will stretch and develop you beyond the safety zones that you found in early recovery. Take the risk and go with it. It doesn’t mean that you have to give up 12-step community and work. It means that it will take you way beyond to help you fulfill your destiny. Be willing to throw everything up for grabs for the sake of personal growth and depth. You don’t need to ignore your personal limitations, but you will need to go deep within. There is no limit to going deep inside. Go for it.

There are times in life that you find that the well you have gone to is dry. It’s time to dig a new well. Time to launch into the deep. Like the wolf pups who recognized it is time to move on to something new, it’s time for you to move ahead and grow. Whether you are just beginning your recovery journey or you are an old geezer like me, today is the day to remove the excuses and go deep.

Series Three: Blog Sixty-Nine

There is an interesting phenomena when things happen that hurt. People don’t want to talk about it. When sexual abuse happens children become silent. It is common for a child to want to hide from the reality of abuse. They don’t tell anyone because they think the behavior is their fault. For many the story is not told for many years. For some it is never told.

When I disclosed to the church judicatory officials about the details of clergy sexual abuse perpetrated toward me and others, the church blamed my parents for being trouble makers. The judicatory official told my sister, through my dad, to keep her mouth shut after she had confronted another person who made inaccurate remarks about the abuse. My dad followed orders and my sister kept quiet. I learned only a few months ago about the inappropriate behavior from the church official.  It has been over 50 years since the abuse took place!

The tendency to remain silent when abuse and injustice takes place occurs at different levels of our society. For example, a recent 50-state survey of Millennials and Gen Z participants found that over 60% did not know 6 million Jews were killed. Approximately half (49%) of them have seen Holocaust denial or distortion posts on social media or elsewhere online (Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany).

This troubling trend is assisted with a mentality of embracing the improbable and ignoring the obvious which exists in many dysfunctional families. If you don’t talk about it, somehow it doesn’t exist. It’s out of sight, out of mind. This thinking contributes to abusive behavior being passed from one generation to another.

The reason to tell the story is to stop the abuse. Secrets carry the shame to the next generation. Shame influences the creation of abusive behavior that dominates others. Abuse hides in secrecy. Telling the story stops the crazy-making abuse. When silence covers abuse, healing stops and reparations do not happen. It is imperative that the stories of abuse be told. This includes physical, sexual, religious, emotional and intellectual abuses. To avoid the stories is to pass the mantel of shame to the next generation who will suffer the past generations’ unwillingness to speak to the issue and likely recreate the abusive dynamics in their own day and time. It takes courage to stop an abusive and unhealthy legacy. Some day your children will thank you for doing so.

The deepest truth is found by means of a simple story. To me, the greatest single tool for my personal healing has been my own story. Powerful stories of healing are housed in average everyday living. Contained within every life story is the truth that liberates. This is why Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has been so powerful for so many for so long. Within the community of alcoholics there are “shared stories”. Each unique story is tied together through shared weakness.

Nothing changes until it becomes real. No one goes through childhood and avoids disappointment and other hurts. There are major traumas and minor traumas. All are significant. The accumulation of major/minor traumas creates a pool of pain that must be drained for personal healing to occur. That pool of pain encompasses the average everyday experiences of our childhood that were hurtful, whether major or minor. Understanding the impact of these “minor” traumas in average everyday living takes focused effort.

Many of us sort of walk “around the dead dog” in the living room when it comes to recognizing unmet emotional needs from ordinary past experiences. It takes courage to tell our stories and deepen our awareness of what is real. We are often afraid to unravel the uneventful uncomfortable times of our past. We fear that if we do so, our notions of reality will disintegrate and all that we have always thought to be true will crumble into nothingness. Yet, personal healing demands that we tell our story to uncover the meaningfulness that exists when we allow ourselves to lean into the pain.

Carl Jung concluded that every person has a story. When derangement occurs, it is because the personal story has been denied or rejected. Healing and integration come when people discover or rediscover their personal story. Voicing our story is that important. One author declared that stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses. Sue Monk in The Secret of Bees wrote that “stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we are here.”

Collective and individual healing is dependent upon you and I telling our story. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”— Maya Angelou.

Series Three: Blog Sixty-Seven

Relapse leaves an aftermath of hopeless discouragement and devastating defeat. Ringing in the ears of every addict who relapses is “I know I didn’t have to do it but somehow I just can’t stop!” Other addicts in recovery say, “I get it but there’s something about me that can’t! I am destined to fail!”  Then there is the tide of thought that tells you to “Just give up!” The voice of shame says “Addicts like you are destined to fail! It’s part of your legacy to be flawed. You will never get it!” And so it goes.

The 5th tool in relapse recovery is well known but sparingly utilized. Addicts in recovery know about shame. They have heard sponsors and therapists talk about shame reduction. Maybe they have listened or read some of Brene Brown’s thoughts about shame.  I have written about shame many times in this blog. Yet, shame continues to dominate addicts in recovery.

Education about shame is important. The more written about shame the greater the insight and instruction about how to manage. We live in a golden era of enlightenment. However, what is critical to shame management is consistent action. People won’t rid themselves from shame simply through insight and understanding. It requires taking consistent action steps to manage. Shame is a dynamic that every person must regulate. It is not a dynamic that goes away with maturity, recovery or spiritual growth. It is a life experience to be supervised and maintained with healthy choices.

Addicts who relapse find themselves in a gulf of shame. Negative cognitions pepper their brain like an unrelenting hurricane. Battered by a toxic chatterbox within, the likely choice is to continue the destructive acting-out behavior. At least, you will have some relief through the numbing experience afterward. Yet like the eye of the storm in a hurricane, the backside of the storm of shame is wicked and devastating. It ravages self-esteem while addicts wallow in the mud of misbelief. For some, this blitz of battering has ended in fatality. A category 5 storm of shame is serious business and requires an all hands on deck approach to manage and regulate. Here are my suggestions:

1. After you have relapsed, practice doing the next right thing no matter how you feel inside. Absolutely, force yourself to get back on track. Make yourself dinner. Finish the project at work. Go to a meeting. Make a phone call. Focus on one thing you can do that represents self-care. Tell on yourself.  No matter what or how you feel, take one step in the right direction and then build on that. You will feel phony. There will be a tremendous war inside to wallow in self-pity. Practice taking one step uninspired. When your insides scream at you to quit, just take one more step in the right direction. Stay the course.  It will get better. You will feel different in time. There will be no reduction in shame without this process.
2. Cocoon yourself with affirmation. This is difficult when your inner chatterbox is telling you what a screw-up you are. That said, write out positive affirmations about your being, not so much about what you do. “I am an unrepeatable miracle of the universe”. “I am worthy of love”.  “I am doing the next right thing” etc. Your negative chatterbox will want to swat you down when you affirm yourself. There will a war inside. You must win the war by regularly training your brain with positive affirmation. Most addicts in recovery overlook the value of repetition and visualization of positive affirmation. It takes work. Greatness comes from consistency. This work will bring you back to center. It is the greatest tool I know toward establishing long-term sobriety. Don’t underestimate its power and efficacy.
3. Practice ignoring your inner negative chatterbox. You can sit in a room full of people and be very lonely. You can sit in a room full of people and be battered by your inner negative chatterbox and no one will ever know. This is your battle. To overcome your chatterbox, it is not necessary to eliminate the negative voices. What you must do is practice and train yourself to ignore its message. Right now I have a hundred different messages screaming hurtful, discouraging messages about my inadequacy, helplessness, and inept ability to create inspiration and positive outcomes in my life. The key is not to escape these negative cognitions. Rather, what is important is to practice ignoring what they have to say to me. There are times that I will need to address each cognition. However, throughout my day-to-day life I practice ignoring their suggestions. It is similar to an athlete ignoring the negative booing or derisive cat calls that are screamed by fans in the stands. You simply ignore and focus on the task at hand by immersing yourself in the positive belief that comes from inspiring affirmations that you have learned to feed your spirit.
4. Take time to grieve your loss and refuel your visions.  When failure is experienced most of us don’t take time for effective grieving. When you are in the middle of the intersection and a bus is barreling toward you, it is not the time to sit down and grieve. I am always amazed at how many addicts hunker down and let the bus run over them again and again. No, this is the time to get up and move your ass out of harm’s way. However, once you have gotten out of harm’s way, it is important to grieve. Anger, sadness, regret, misgivings, disappointment, even despair are all hallmark feelings that characterize appropriate grief. Learning to grieve deeply is critical to refueling your dreams. There is a time to act and function and a time to grieve. There is a time to not mix the two together and a time to function while you grieve. Both are important. You don’t have to feel 100% to be 100% committed to necessary action and function. As you grieve, it will be necessary to step back and refuel your visions. Every mistake provides an insight for future destiny. Be gentle with yourself. Be determined that you will extract meaningfulness from every mistake in recovery you make. Transform your fear of abandonment and nagging self-blame to unconditional confidence that comes when you allow yourself to go down and grieve the losses. You will come back up. Trust this process. This is the place shame recedes, and unconditional confidence rules, not in control of outcomes but within your spirit. You will know that no defeat, no disappointment, will be experienced that you cannot come back up from with greater strength.