Cunning, baffling and powerful

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AA, alcoholic, Alcoholics Anonymous, big book, character defects, cunning baffling powerful, dry drunk, ego, God, higher power, Leicester, london, women

What happens to me when I take my foot off the gas? As described in the Big Book: remorse, horror and hopelessness… a terrible sense of impending calamity… terror and madness… declining moral and bodily health… loneliness and despair… that bitter morass of self-pity… annihilation of all things worthwhile… misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity… a hopeless condition of mind and body… hopelessness and futility of life… pitiful and incomprehensible demoralisation… insanity… unhappiness… selfishness, dishonesty, self-seeking and fear… remorse, depression and inferiority…

Although this describes the still drinking alcoholic, it can similarly characterise the sober alcoholic who fails to practise the principles in all her affairs: ie. me. Of late I have been suffering from all of the above. It’s embarrassing to admit at five and a half years sober but it’s the truth and I need to be honest. I have worked the steps and continued to work the steps to a level sufficient to keep me sober and that’s amazing. There have been phases of my development during which I have been genuinely happy, joyous and free, consumed with gratitude, peaceful, a million miles from the girl I used to be – an embodiment of the promises come true. But the nature of my disease is cunning, baffling, powerful. It creeps back into my life like smoke under a door. I am oblivious to it at first until suddenly I can’t breathe.

Thankfully, there IS a solution. Which I have been taught and I believe lies in the steps. It lies in enlarging my spiritual condition. It lies in a truly honest appraisal of the gaps in my program. It lies in the application of the steps as outlined in the Big Book – with the help of a sponsor, without any wiggle room. It is taking the actions that keep my ego sufficiently at bay for sufficient power to remain in my life to keep me sober. And that is what I am currently attempting to do and have been for the last few weeks. The results in this short time are astounding and I am experiencing once again the POWER of this program. I can be lifted – by a power that is NOT me – from what felt like a deep depression without an antidepressant in sight.

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Self-reliance vs. God-reliance

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AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, big book, ego, fear, God-reliance, higher power, Leicester, london, meditation, prayers, Sandy B, self-reliance, step 4

What is self-reliance? It is my ego-driven attempts to attain happiness through inherently unstable externals: money, sex, property, prestige, appearance etc. Convinced these things will make me happy/ fill that hole I chase them, single-mindedly, only to discover through a lot of pain that they don’t deliver what they promise.

It means I depend on other peoples approval for my self-worth, which in turn can lead to dishonesty and attempts to manipulate what you think about me. It means paralysis into inactivity instead of risking making mistakes. It means staying in toxic relationships because I am afraid to be alone. It means bad decisions and horrible experiences. It means that from an observer’s perspective it looks like an idiot is running my life!!

It is to an alcoholic what kryptonite is to Superman. Yet whilst Superman accepts his powerlessness over kryptonite, the alcoholic will determinedly, persistently, unrelentingly wrestle with self-reliance and often refuse to accept its detrimental impact on his life. Ultimately the result is perpetual and inescapable fear.

The antidote? God-reliance. Which intellectually I am willing to do but emotionally I stumble. I frequently lack the humility to accept I don’t know best, to accept that my perception is distorted. I am frightened to move towards the unfamiliar – even if it’s better – because my ego doesn’t want to be wrong. But if I want to outgrow fear I must learn to move towards guidance – away from ego, towards God.

As someone who’s concept of God is fluid, who’s connection with God oscillates between non-existent and adequate (rarely strong), this is a difficult concept for me to get my head around, let alone apply. But Sandy B’s definition helps: God is a power source that restores me to a different perspective – one that is light instead of dark; kind instead of cruel; loving instead of hateful; hopeful instead of fearful.

This is a daily process for me. Practice. Practice. Practice. My ego is a powerful entity with an extremely loud voice. It creeps into my prayers and (feeble) meditation and can often be confused with the voice of God! For this reason I must repeatedly check in with others of higher spiritual development what I think I know. When I stop or forget to do these things, the delusion of self-sufficiency doesn’t just creep in, it swallows me whole and I am again left drowning in fear.

Greek Gods & Gratitude

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AA, alcoholic, Alcoholics Anonymous, big book, gratitude, Leicester, london, recovery, steps

Something I seem to struggle to let go of is this illusion that things keep getting “better” if I keep working at them. I erroneously believed and desperately hoped that life after completion of the twelve steps would be pain-free. In my head, being “well” meant being happy ALL the time, and I thought with each step I took I was approaching a plateaued state of euphoria. Obviously, I was seriously deluded. I was seeking euphoric perfection in sobriety, the same way I sought it via drugs and alcohol. For me, the frustration I can still feel as a result of life failing to deliver (my expectations) is sometimes very hard to bare. I have to let go of the struggle and let go of the illusion, have that truly blank canvas of a mind I pray for, if I am to have any peace.

My delay in writing has largely been due to this. I so desperately want only to write positive and uplifting content and ignore my struggles, but I guess to do so would be to deny who I am, and I am supposed to be embracing all that I am.

I will get to those struggles, but for today I just wanted to share something that made me laugh and made me grateful.

Dionysus was the ancient Greek god of wine. “His reported behaviour, which ranged unpredictably from sentimental to savage, confirms the diagnosis (that he was a classic alcoholic).”* This made me laugh because it is quite possibly the most accurate description of my old self I have ever read! And it made me grateful, because I am no longer like that. I have my ups I have my downs. I have phases of thinking I am well and then boom! I’m back in my armchair with a blanket, movie marathon and only my solitude for comfort. But the difference is now I know it will pass. And the volatile, ferocious beast is gone (well, unconscious – never definitely gone).

* Quote from The Spirituality of Imperfection – Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham

Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands…

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AA, alcoholic, Alcoholics Anonymous, big book, character defect, Leicester, london, perfectionism, recovery, step 6

…But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.” Carl Schurz

Perfectionism. To write about this perfectly 😉 I could be here for days, so I will attempt to do it imperfectly, and as concisely as possible. Defined by Wikipedia it is a “disposition characterized by an individual striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.” In its maladaptive form it “drives individuals to attempt to achieve an unobtainable ideal, and their failure to meet their expectations causes psychological distress“.

For me, these expectations extend to other people and I have always demanded perfection from not only myself but those around me. Setting impossible standards for myself and others has inevitably led to a lot of failure, discontent and pain. My first step 4 illuminated this in excruciating fluorescent white light.

Today I live in a very different place, wrapped up in the Serenity Prayer* like a blanket. It’s a very old blanket though, moth eaten and threadbare, holes threaten to destroy it. It is imperfect. (The Serenity Prayer is not imperfect, it is my thinking that pokes the holes. ) This prayer, and the integration of it into my being, is my protection from my own thinking, from my expectations of how the world should be. When I (attempt to) stop imposing my beliefs/ views/ expectations of perfection onto others and myself I am much happier. It really is that simple. Unfortunately, it is not always so simple to put into practise. Ultimately I believe perfectionism is (perhaps unconsciously) a resistance to reality, a refusal to accept very normal and very real flaws and limitations of the self and others.

Perfectionism is also an attempt at an antidote to poor self-esteem, yet paradoxically can exacerbate feelings of low self-worth. I was always filled with feelings of inadequacy, believing I was stupid, ugly, worthless etc and by striving to achieve perfection I believed I could eradicate these feelings. I was wrong. What actually resulted was a persistent, aching reminder of my shortcomings, as I was never able to attain my impossible goal of perfection. This failure to achieve led me to paralysis and the bottle.

Today I truly believe that as a result of being sober, as a result of working the steps, my increased self-esteem has contributed to a decline in my perfectionism. I am comfortable in my own skin in a way I never was before and consequently don’t feel the need to overcompensate with the perfect grades, the perfect job, the perfect relationship, perfect hair/ face etc.

Lastly, a massive issue of contention for me was how do I reconcile embracing my flaws/ defects with striving for perfection, as it is suggested in step 6? How do I pray for the removal of my perfectionism whilst striving to be perfect?! This really bent my head for a long time, still does if I’m honest. But an old sponsor of mine explained it to me beautifully, much in the same way that Carl Shurz did. Look at perfection simply as if it were a star – use it for guidance but know that it is unattainable.   Is perfection therefore the absence of perfectionism? I think it must be.

Perfect post-it

*God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

“Just keep swimming…” Dory, Finding Nemo

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AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, big book, gratitude, just keep swimming, Leicester, london, recovery

“When life gets you down…. just keep swimming”. My words of inspiration today, as spoken by Dory in Finding Nemo.

I’ve had a shit few days and I just keep swimming (trying to anyway). My head has felt like a washing machine, feelings reminiscent of way too much MDMA. Don’t like feeling like I’ve consumed too many drugs when I’m stone cold sober, but that’s what emotional upheaval can do to me. Dealing with other people’s idiosyncrasies  (and that’s putting it mildly!) can turn my head inside out. I literally want to slice open my head to relieve the pressure, “crazy” a physical presence that resides in my skull.

But alas no such drastic measures were needed. Just a fucking good cry. On and off for two days. And with that came the support of a lot of people for whom I am incredibly grateful. It’s times like this that gratitude is difficult for me, but these people, who metaphorically hold my hand through difficulty, force gratitude upon me effortlessly. I love you so much, you know who you are xx

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” William Arthur Ward