The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step 2]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Yeah, yeah, yeah... the weather here in the Land of the Snow at The Center of the Known Universe, is frightful. And Yeah (yeah, yeah)... it’s really nice where you live. But riddle me this: who the hell wants to live in that armpit you call a city? LOL!

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-=[ Faith and our Deepest Experience ]=-

We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
-- The Second Step, Narcotics Anonymous

As most who read these pages know, I am an addict in recovery. I’ve been clean, one day at a time (sometimes one breath at a time), for 20 years. What follows is a narrative of my journey toward wholeness. I don’t know if this will work for you, but if you were to ask me, this is how I recovered my life. My story is extreme and you might find it hard to identify with some of its elements. All I ask is that you try to identify with and not compare my story. Listen to the message and not the mess.

I believe all people, regardless of whether they are addicts or not, can benefit from a rigorous application of the 12 Steps.

So take a thorough First Step and what happens? We’re stuck in a bad place! I mean, c’mon now, coming to the full and painful realization that my way of doing things was fundamentally fucked up isn’t a nice space. Furthermore, my bottom had me staring at some very harsh consequences.

Talk about despair.

The first time I read this step, I literally walked away from Narcotics Anonymous. My understanding of the core principle of this step, faith, at that time caused me a lot of discomfort. I am not a religious person, nor do I believe in a patriarchal, God-in-the-sky. To make matters worse, as I continued reading down the steps, I kept seeing the “God” word and the phrase “Higher Power” and I decided then that it was bullshit.

Consequently, I went through the five worst years of my life. The second issue I had with this step was the implication that I was insane -- restore us to sanity. When I came back to NA, I did so with a more open mind. But still…

My sponsor at the time suggested that I simply commit to keeping an open mind and to make this process a personal search. The beauty of Narcotics Anonymous is that the fellowship doesn’t demand you do anything. There are no “thou shalts,” no “shoulds.” As part of taking this step, my sponsor suggested I take a close reading and learn the terms. One of the first things I liked about the step the second time around was how it starts, “came… ” and then, “came to… ,” then, “came to believe… ” In a very real way I was finally coming to my senses -- I was awakening. The opposite of despair is hope and hope is what the Second Step offered me.

Faith was a hard score to settle, but there are enough agnostics and even atheists who are recovering addicts because the Twelve Steps allow for a kind of spiritual democracy. You do not have to believe in anything, or join any religion. You do not even have to apply the steps. They are simply suggestions and since whenever I followed my own suggestions, I usually experienced tremendous suffering, I figured it was time for me to listen to some alternative suggestions.

There are many different meanings of faith. At one extreme, there is the more common understanding of faith as blind faith, but that’s just one way of looking at faith. There are degrees of faith. In fact, we all have daily moments of faith and belief. We have faith, for example, that when we turn on the spigot, water will flow. We have faith that our car will start, or that a toaster will work. We also have many beliefs. We believe, for example, that we have a personality. Actually, many of us believe we are our personality, but there’s no brain center that organizes personality. Your personality is a set of beliefs and quirks that you constructed in order to operate in the everyday world. Scientists have faith in reason and logic to solve problems.

Shit, some of us believe that if we shove money inside of hole in the wall, a bag of dope will materialize. LOL! I’m not kidding. Back in the day, the way you copped drugs was that you’d stick your hand with your money in a hole and a hand with bag would come out. I had complete faith in that transaction! LOL

Early on, faith for me had to mean a temporary suspension of disbelief. What that means is that I made an agreement with myself to keep an open mind. Sometimes faith can mean trust. I came to believe that the spiritual principles of hope, freedom and willingness would restore me to sanity. And believe me, by the second time around, I knew I was insane. I have been studying human behavior for over a decade now, and the best definition of insanity I have come across is doing the same actions and expecting different results.

Even an infant knows better not to stick his hand in the socket after the first go-round. But yet we as adults oftentimes commit the same behaviors -- especially in the area of relationships -- expecting different results.

Sometimes faith can mean trust in a teaching, or self-confidence. As a Buddhist, my Higher Power is the Dharma (The Law), a clearly defined set of ethical and cognitive principles. In sports, a group can develop faith in their ability as a team to overcome everybody’s expectations. In that same way, I came to believe that the fellowship and principles of Narcotics Anonymous could restore me to sanity. Why? Because people all around me were taking back their lives. People were helping heal themselves and one another. I have been to NA meetings where a particular individual cried because she couldn’t pay her rent, then see her cry once again several months later because she was able to pay her rent.

Initially, my Higher Power was the group -- that what I couldn’t do alone we could do together. Eventually, my spirituality would evolve and I would come to embrace Buddhism as my path. The historical Buddha didn’t make any claims to divinity and his last words, as he lay dying (of all things, food poisoning) were, “… be a lamp unto yourself.” What that means to me is that ultimately, you must walk your path. It means that sayings, scriptures, or instructions alone will not save you. Ultimately, if you want to awaken, to come to your full realization as a human being, you must walk your path -- whatever that path entails.

And that’s what the second step helped me begin. It helped begin to walk the walk, trusting in my experience that I could be restored to sanity by a power greater than myself. the Second Step helped me come to a different understanding of faith, one that wasn’t associated with dogma or religion. I wanted a faith that encouraged and emphasized love and respect for ourselves as a foundation. A faith that uncovers our connection to others, rather than designating anyone as separate and apart. The faith I came to know as part of my recovery process and that I describe in this post does not require a belief system, is not necessarily connected to a God, though it doesn’t deny one. This faith I speak of is not a commodity we either have or don't have -- it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.

My name is Eddie and I’m recovery from civilization...

Forgiveness and The Politics of Resentment

¡Hola! Everybody...
Today: A little bit of this and a little bit of that...
Is there anything more powerful than forgiveness? Is there anything more difficult than to truly forgive? “An eye for eye,” as one famous teacher noted, leaves everyone blind and is the driving force in many of the world’s political conflicts. In its more insidious form, it drives much of our personal conflict.

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-=[ The Politics of Resentment and the Practice of Forgiveness ]=-

Only genuine forgiveness breaks the cycle of suffering and in practice it benefits the forgiver far more than the one forgiven...

-- Me! (LOL)

First things first: on the same day set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre, Sarah Palin decided to portray herself as one of them. Apparently, only words critical of her hateful rhetoric are deemed dangerous. Ms. Palin, you’re only argument is really against this woman, who today lies in a hospital bed fighting for her life. This is what she had to say about your words before she was shot through the head:

This habit of painting themselves as the victims, even whey they are perpetrators of violent acts and speech, is what characterizes the politics of resentment from the right. Palin had a great opportunity to evolve into a force for unity and healing and instead delivered one of the most despicably politicized defenses in recent memory.

This cynicism plays into the hands of keeping the public apathetic to the political process. Most Americans do not participate in the political process and many are just turned off by the whole bullshit.

It’s meant to be that way. The more you ignore it, the better it is for the hypocrites who claim to be patriotic and who go on incessantly about “real American values, and “real” Americans. In some ways, I can understand why the American public would abandon its vigilance on our democracy.

The other day, I wrote about addiction and I believe we live in an addictive society. One of the hallmarks of addiction is how it erodes the family structure. Addiction is the only recognized medical disease that not only affects the afflicted, but everyone close to the addict. For example, addictive families almost never fully confront the dysfunction wrought by addiction. Shame, denial, and anger serve to keep the “problem” a secret and secrets kill:

Daddy isn’t a drunk, he just likes to tie one on every once in a while.

Junior isn’t a dope fiend; he’s really a good kid who’s strayed from the path.

Moms was forced to spend the rent money, she’s just trying to cope, she’s not a pill head.

In this way, the family plays an active part in maintaining the addiction. No one really talks about it. No one really confronts the lies, the cheating, and the abuse. Most often, the children will tune out in their attempt to find some inner sanity. And if one family member stands up and takes a stand, that family member is stigmatized. Furthermore, all the roles within the family are skewed: the children become the caregivers and the parents become the children. Or the parents co-sign the child’s addiction by indulging him. Oftentimes, the problem is ignored even when there’s a death or tragedy. The ruse that everything is normal must be maintained at whatever cost.

It’s not that these families are bad or evil, or morally bankrupt; it’s how the addictive process works.

I find the same corollary within our political process today. Most of the population has dropped out of the democratic process, turned off as they are from the politics of resentment. The few that do stick around are at a loss and there are no leaders. Finally, no one is addressing the root of the problem which is that the political process has been sold off to the highest bidder. No one is pointing at the burning cross in the room. No one is pointing out that a democracy with a two party system consisting of center-right/ extreme right is not really a true free society. Instead, those with the megaphone are busy demonizing those with solutions and some solutions aren’t even being considered.

You doubt me? Well let’s consider one of the most pernicious of our addictions, the military. Today, it’s considered reasonable to consider closing down schools, dismantling hospitals, and cutting benefits to the most vulnerable. In addition, a coming class war will most likely decimate middle class public sector employees. All these measures are considered “sane.” we spend more money on our military than the next ten nations combined. Most of this expenditure is allocated as sweetheart deals for the obscenely rich -- “wealthfare,” if you will. Try suggesting that we should decrease such unnecessary spending I will guarantee you will have a target painted on your back faster than you can wink and blurt “you betcha!”

Insanity is doing the same actions and expecting different results and tragically, not one of our leaders, from neither party, will stand up and point out the hanging noose in the room.

We live in an addictive society...

Last night, like many of you, I heard president Obama’s remarks on the day set aside to honor the true victims of the Tucson shootings. For me, the most powerful part was the Indian blessing because that was totally about healing. I also loved the way the students cheered when the man doing blessing said, “... a barrio kid like me could get an education and not only that, but come back here and teach.” The audience went wild when he stated his Latino and Yaqui Indian ancestry. And when he evoked his right to be standing there -- generations of Indians who came to the Tucson Valley to escape genocide. There was no anti-immigrant bullshit, no shit about “real” Americans, just being real. For me that was healing. This wasn’t lost on the youth at the university last night and maybe there’s hope yet...

Many of our conflicts, whether personal or global come from an inability to break free from habitual patterns of fear and resentment. the practice that most directly deals with this is forgiveness. Palin failed yesterday because she failed to forgive herself and instead chose the road of resentment and exceptionalism. At a time of mourning, Ms. Palin chose to resent, rather than entertain the potential of openness. Forgiveness is an often-misunderstood practice. Forgiveness isn’t mindless acceptance of wrongdoing by another. Forgiveness is the practice of looking deeply into ourselves -- into our own emotional reactions. The path to forgiveness demands our open-hearted attention to the things that block our way to it.

Last night, President Obama said something that reminded me of the time when I was volunteering at ward for the terminally ill. Me being me, I would ask everyone the same question: “If you knew you had one more disease-free year to live, what would you do?” Mind you, these were people who knew they wouldn’t last past six months, people in pain, many despairing. Their answers profoundly changed my life, how I perceived the process of healing. What mattered most to these people who knew their gift of life was at an end were simple things. Like making sure you let those close to you know how much you loved them. Simple things like making sure to take walks in the park more often, to let go of resentments faster. Not once did I ever hear someone say they would work longer hours, spend more time in the office, or spend more time fighting or feeling resentful. In other words, they taught me that the things that really mattered were the answers to the questions: Did I love deeply? Did I live fully? Did I honor the gift of live?

Make no mistake about it, “feel-good-ism” and pretty speeches will not be enough. At times during his speech, I heard President Obama trying too hard being the “professor-in-chief” rather than the “healer-in-chief.” Too often, I heard comfort instead of healing. The two, though not mutually exclusive, are not the same. Please, I am not saying Obama should’ve miraculously healed everyone. If that’s what you’re thinking, then you haven’t understood what I am writing. The president should set the tone, he points the finger, he leads. I felt he took the easy road. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.

Living life on life’s terms is a bitch and picking up the political pieces of what’s left of our democracy will be a long and hard journey. But before we can even begin that healing process, we must admit there’s a problem first. And the only way we can get there is by challenging the politics of resentment and in its place create a vision of a society where we are all empowered to answer those simple yet profound questions: Did we love deeply... did we live fully... did we honor life...

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization.

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step 1]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Life is change/ Growth is optional/ Choose wisely -- Karen Kaiser Clark

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-=[ Stopping the War ]=-

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
-- The First Step of Narcotics Anonymous

I was once told that my spiritual principles were as a bridge back to life. What I didn’t know then was that this bridge is built on the very bones of those who came before me. This series of posts is an attempt to honor that sacrifice.

I don’t know if this will work for you, but if you were to ask me, this is how I recovered my life. My story is a narrative of a life lived on the extreme edge and you might find it hard to identify with some of its elements. All I ask is that you try to identify with and not compare my story. Listen to the message and not the mess.

I believe all people, regardless of whether they are addicts or not, can benefit from an application of the 12 steps.

The First Step confronted me with two problematic words: powerless and unmanageable. I also didn’t notice at first that every step began with the word “We.” I was a loner; “we” wasn’t a word I used much. Everything was about me. They say an addict is an egomaniac with low self-esteem, and I believe that was how I felt.

Let me just say that 12-step recovery is about action. Every step involves growth, exploration, and action. I think people have huge misconceptions about 12-Step Fellowships. People in recovery like to say that the first step is the only step you have to get perfectly. I disagree, recovery is an ongoing process, and my understanding of the first step expands as I grow. However, there is a level of acceptance necessary for the integration of this step. But I get ahead of myself…

There are several powerful psycho-spiritual factors at work in the First Step. Primarily, there is an admission. Admitting to a problem has become a popular notion in our culture that first came to prominence in the recovery community. Admitting touches on the first spiritual principle of the first step: honesty. However, admitting means nothing without acceptance. For example, I had no problem admitting I was an addict; I could be honest about that. LOL! That and $2.50 got me on the train, which is another way of saying that admitting by itself it is worthless. It wasn’t until I embraced another core spiritual principle of the first step, acceptance, that I was then able to make changes in my life.

The more meetings I made, the more I heard my own story being told by others who were honest about themselves. I began to see that I had a lot in common with these people when it came to my to my addictive behaviors. It took me a long time to come to grips with powerlessness. I was raised to think of myself as powerful. I was taught that if I exerted my will on any issue, that I could overcome anything in the world. If I had enough cojones and worked hard enough, I could have power over anything.

Besides, it wasn’t my addiction that was the problem, it was everyone else. At least that was what I told myself. If only other people got their shit together and external situations in my life corrected themselves, I wouldn’t be in such a fix. The problem with my thinking was that it involved exerting willpower. The problem with my willpower was that it was warped. The more willpower I exerted, the more I fucked up. I tried everything: using only on the weekends, snorting instead of using needles, drinking instead of using other drugs, using only certain drugs in certain combinations, etc. No matter what I tried, I always ended up in the same place: all fucked up.

Imagine a machinery part that was made to perform only one action, or to move in only one direction. No matter how much you oil that part, no matter how much you try to fix it, it will still perform what is was meant to perform. Similarly, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail. simply put, if i wanted to change, I needed to develop new tools, to step out of confines of my comfort zone. For me to begin my journey, I first had to surrender. In fact, as I look back now, the whole process of recovery is one long, beautiful, liberating process of surrendering.

The First Step is like the beginning of a hero’s journey. In the archetype of the hero (or errant knight), most heroes begin reluctantly, clumsily, and then forces beyond their control propel them past their ordinary lives into a journey of personal change and renewal. Like most addicts, I was unaware of aspects of myself -- my feelings, for example, and the wreckage I was creating. The first step freed me to begin my quest for self-knowledge and transformation.

Admitting to powerlessness took me years; accepting that admission brought me to the gateway of healing and sanity. That was also about another core spiritual principle: willingness. instead of willfullness, what I needed was willingness. It’s part of what is often called the HOW (honesty, openness, and willingness) of recovery.

The first step is not about defeat. It says powerlessness, not hopelessness. We have no power over many things. Take the weather, for example. You can’t stop the rain, but if you take the time to stop, look, and listen, you may come to realize that using an umbrella is a lot better that railing against the elements. We have no power over how others act or think yet we spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to exert control over other people. oftentimes, we don’t even have power over our own emotions, but we can learn to relate to them differently.

The first step is really about admitting powerlessness over living in the extremes. Try fighting the rain, or better yet, a hurricane, and you’ll get a sense of what it is to fight addiction. You have to surrender.

As part of taking the first step, you take an inventory of the consequences of your addiction. For me this meant documenting the jobs I lost, the people I hurt, and most of all, the harm I did to myself. In this way, I could no longer deny the unmanageability of life as an active addict. This was a hard nut to crack because I never wanted to admit my life was unmanageable. I had it together, I liked to think, I just went a little overboard sometimes.

I also discovered the insanity of the obsession that led to the compulsion and how my fight would be fruitless until I surrendered. If you’re fighting an inner war, then someone has to lose. If you’re fighting an inner war, it follows, you will always lose.

Taking the first step clearly showed me that my thinking had little connection to reality. There were countless times, for example, that I would experience a blackout. With a blackout, you can sit down one minute and the next thing you know you missed an entire episode of your life -- while conscious. It’s similar to what I imagine a time jumper would feel. One minute you’re in one place and the next, you’re somewhere else and you don’t know what the fuck is going on. One time coming out of a blackout, I had a whole party-full of people wanting to kick my ass, and I had no clue why. It seems I propositioned the bride-to-be (it was an engagement party) and that kinda pissed a few people off. I once came out of a blackout in a different state and different year. Still I couldn’t admit my powerlessness. It wasn’t that something was wrong with me, I rationalized, it was those damned stuck up muthafuckas, and besides, I know that bitch at the engagement party wanted me. Perhaps you may have never this extreme form of powerlessness, but have you ever had a situation spiral out of control to the point that you were at a loss?

Most of all, the first step is the beginning of the undoing of the karmic consequences of denial. I had to be brought my knees -- from hopelessly addicted to institutions and even close to death -- and still I wouldn’t admit my powerlessness. There was definitely a lot of evidence of unmanageability in my life. Shit, I attempted suicide at least once. What “normal” person can say that? More than anything, I was addicted to insanity.

Oh, and yes, I’ve kicked more habits than I can remember. I just could never stay stopped. It was never really hard kicking a habit. But addiction, I soon learned, was not merely about substance abuse. I would get “clean” and chill for six-seven months, but when I started again, it was as if I never stopped. My last day as an active addict, I had spent $300 after having been released from an institution for exactly fourteen days. I went from clean to a $300-a-day habit at the drop of a hat. I would say that’s unmanageable...

However, there are other ways our powerlessness and unmanageability manifests in our lives. Whether it’s food or cigarettes, or relationships, I think we can all look where we’re slowly killing ourselves, suffering needlessly, or causing ourselves and our loved ones harm. I believe we all can identify with the need to exert control and the denial of powerlessness. I use my life as an example because the extreme manner in which I lived it makes it easier to illustrate my points, but we all have the dark places, the places that scare us.

Today, I apply the first step to many things in my life, especially in relationships and to certain behaviors. Addictions like to migrate. One might be able to kick the heroin or the alcohol, but then you see people acting out sexually or financially. If you don’t do the inner work, applying these principles in all your affairs, then you’ll continue to be in the grips of addictive behavior. The first step stipulated that I was powerless over my addiction. Addiction is not about a substance, but a way of thinking.

Eventually, I began to think of the first step as something similar to the concepts of Aikido or Wing Chun, two martial arts that stress the importance of never meeting force with force. In a sense, the first step is about learning to flow with the forces of life instead of fighting all the time. It’s learning to transform difficult emotions into opportunities for healing. It’s knowing that you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

Love,

Eddie

Resources

Alcoholics Anonymous: Official website

Narcotics Anonymous: Official website

Recovery USA, llc: Recovery USA, llc is an online resource for those seeking recovery information, community connections, and high-quality 12 Step Recovery Supplies for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction.

Sober Recovery: The Alcoholism and Addictions Resource Guide. "Our Sober Community is always open 24 hours a day with helpful moderators in our message boards and Sober Forums."

Alano: "The Online Alano Club is a nonprofit association intended as a resource for Alcoholics Anonymous® members and groups, as well as any individual who has a desire to stop drinking. Members from other 12-Step programs, especially the Al-Anon Family Groups, also are welcome."

12 Step Radio: A great site for Recovery Music, Artist Interviews, Online Communities, Links and Resources, and more...

Note: The featured artwork is from an artist who sells the prints online. I happen to like them. His website features prints of all the 12 steps.

Jasmine's Story

Because it needs to be told and they need to be remembered...

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(above: Yemaya)

-=[ Jasmine’s Story ]=-

The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around… Throughout history, ‘tender loving care’ has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing.

-- Larry Dossey

When I first started school and beginning the process that eventually led to a career as a “healer,” I went through an experience that would forever change the way I understand healing.

Some years ago, as I was beginning to sort through the wreckage of my life, I received a phone call in the middle of the night. An old and dear friend called to tell me that a former lover was on her deathbed at a nearby hospital. I’ll never forget her words. She said, “Eddie, I know you and Jasmine did a lot of fucked up shit to each other, but she’s not expected to last the weekend. If you have anything you want to tell her, now is the time. They’re giving her last rites as we speak.”

I thanked my friend and as I put down the phone, I didn’t know what to do. Here was someone who had caused me great pain, who had been the object of numerous homicidal fantasies, who now was dying. As I thought of her, it was hard for me to feel the old resentment and anger without a pang of conscience. After all, I thought, I was equally cruel to her. I decided then that I would visit her that very moment.

As I began to get dressed (it was about 2 am), I realized I had several reservations. Her family wasn’t too fond of me. In fact, the joke was that they wouldn’t even mention my name, and when they did, they whispered my last name as if actually calling my given name aloud would evoke me. So, in essence, in that family anyway, I was something of a persona non grata, to put it lightly.

I decided that I would go anyway and that if there were any objections, that I would just leave and in that way I would know in my heart that I attempted to make amends.

That Serenity Prayer actually does come in handy, folks. LOL!

As I rode the bus to the hospital, my mind kept coming up with various scenarios: the mother would curse me, I would make a personal family tragedy worse, or my presence would only magnify the pain.

I finally arrived at the hospital and, after locating the room, I entered the dark room quietly. The room was full of family members all huddled around the bed where a wasted and frail young woman lay seemingly unconscious. No one noticed me, as I listened to the priest murmur some prayers. I waited for someone to recognize me and, as the priest finished his ministrations, the mother turned and looked at me and with tears in her eyes sobbed, “Eddie! Oh Eddie, mi hijo, lo que a llegamo!” As we embraced, she cried. I could feel a stirring, as my presence was made known.

The mother quietly explained to me the situation: her daughter had fallen into a coma after a long bout with HIV and it was expected that she would die soon. I tried to apologize and explain that if my being there was inappropriate, I would leave, but the mother stopped me and led me to Jasmine’s bed. It was hard to look her, lying there now ravaged by disease. Her mother spoke to her as if she could hear her and said, “Mira nena, look who’s here to see you -- Eddie!”

Honestly, I didn’t know what the fuck to do, but something told me to take her hand. Then I bent over and whispered to her, telling her how sorry I was for the things I did to her and how we hurt each other; that I was now living a good life free of my destructive patterns and active addiction. Her hands felt cold so I rubbed my hands together to generate heat and warmed her hands. I kept this up -- talking to the unconscious Jasmine and warming her hands, and then her face, her arms, etc.

When I felt I had said what I had to say, I began to walk away and then I heard her whisper, “Eddie?” Everyone in the room stopped talking and when I turned around, there was Jasmine looking at me, whispering my name. At that point, everyone in the room started doing the sign of the cross and Jasmine’s mother was praying and saying that it was miracle, and people were just running around calling the doctors and there I was in the middle of that whole scene wondering what the fuck was going on.

Jasmine would live for about four more months. I don’t know if I had anything to do with that, but later, Jasmine said that it wasn’t until she felt the heat from my hands that she began to regain consciousness. Before, she said, she felt she had settled into a form of resignation of meeting her fate. It’s hard to describe what Jasmine said, but I now think she had surrendered to death. She had lost all hope for life, she told me, and had deteriorated rapidly. She said feeling the heat from my hands awakened her to the fact that there were certain things left undone, certain personal loose ends that needed tending before she moved on.

During those last few months of her life, I became one of Jasmine’s primary care-givers in that AIDS ward. The nurses called me Jasmine’s “boyfriend” and would arrange her hair in pigtails and her face would beam when I entered the room. Me? I resolved to do what I could -- to give what I could to a person in need. Not only because Jasmine needed it, but because it was what I wanted to do -- what I had to do. I felt there was a larger story being writ and that I had to play my role in it.

And she would often request, especially during times of extreme stress, that I use my hands in the same way I did that first night. I never got it at the time. And when I would ask her, she would only say that my hands ran hot (which they do) and that the heat would lessen the overwhelming feeling of numbness that would attack her body.

The doctors could not explain. Indeed, what I witnessed during those days was that the doctors were often at a loss for answers or “prescriptions.” What I learned at that time was that a healer, whether a doctor, therapist or whatever, must act as a channel, or conduit of a healing entity or force. I don’t care whether you call it, God, Goddess, Christ, The Great Spirit, Qi, or whatever. Furthermore, in order to become such a channel, there are four essential qualities a healer must possess: trust, faith, love, and humility.

Though different healers may channel this healing energy through different techniques, none of them can heal -- regardless of technique -- unless they use it with love and humility. Out of all of these qualities, love is probably the most troublesome because all healers have days when they are not open to love. There are no recipes or formulas for staying open that way. To love also doesn’t just mean loving others, it means loving one’s self too.

I learned in those days that healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well or to be able to get up and walk around again. I came to realize that healing means achieving some kind of balance between the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. For example, Jasmine would never walk again, and her T cells were, like, nil. Doctors were at a loss to explain why she was alive and resolved themselves to minister to her while she was still alive. However, Jasmine became spiritually awake and though she was young (33), sometimes she gave the impression of a very wise, very old soul with far more knowledge than her years. I believe that suffering kicks up the spiritual dimension by quite a few notches.

Don’t misunderstand, Jasmine, like many AIDS patients -- even more so than patients suffering from other life-threatening illnesses -- was lacking in qualities of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-trust. At one time, she told me, she felt these qualities were blocked by a lot of guilt, shame, and ambivalence. There were issues Jasmine never had a chance to address, some she took with her to her grave -- such as her addiction and her deep-seated feelings of guilt. But we did what we could, -- she and I. In some ways, we were like ships passing in the night. I was reinventing my life, starting anew, doing the things I never get a chance to do. Sometimes I would forget this. For Jasmine, this was as good as it was going to get. She was on borrowed time and that sometimes worked to minimize her motivation. Over the years, I have lost , too many friends to this disease. Some emphasized that they were living with a disease, not merely dying. I don’t know if Jasmine ever got there. But we learned to trust one another, one day at a time -- together -- and laughed many times at how easy it was to revert to old patterns. However, Jasmine also had a seven-year-old son she had to say goodbye to.

Jasmine’s “healing” didn’t occur at an individual level, because we are all connected through a vast neurological network of relationships to an infinite number of people and creatures on the planet. The process of healing even one person has consequences for all of us. It did for me: though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, acting as a channel for this healing energy Jasmine’s situation had a healing purpose for me.

As Jasmine began going about resolving the issues in her life, especially with her son, she seemed to become more at peace with her illness. There were days that her smile would remind me of the Jasmine I had known -- beautiful, alert, intelligent and spunky -- someone who took pleasure in challenging me and my interminable teasing. But those days became increasingly rare. Eventually taking care of Jasmine became a job that took priority over everything else in my life, in the process burning me out. A part of all this had a noble purpose, of course, but a lot of that was also my codependency issues. There were times I would forget that I was but a channel through which some of this was happening and I would forget that Jasmine would not get better.

And she took me hostage, Jasmine did. Her greatest fear was of dying alone in that cold, sterile hospital room. One day, after a particularly rough night (Jamsine’s other caregiver, her sister, and I had obtained special permission from the hospital administration), I was irritable and tired. My life had been consumed by Jasmine’s disease and I was feeling spent, confused, and angry -- all dangerous triggers. By then, Jasmine had lost her ability to speak and if we weren’t there doing it, she would not be cleaned in a prompt manner, so there I was cracking jokes about cleaning Jasmine’s ass and laughing about it. Sometimes I swore I saw a grin on Jasmine’s face during those times.

Anyway, I was tired and I wanted to go home, shower, and to re-energize myself. I tried calling her sister, but she could not be reached, so I turned to Jasmine and told her I was leaving and would be back as soon as I could. I hated doing this because she would become agitated if I left the room, let alone tell her I was leaving. Jasmine’s was horrified of the idea of dying alone.

As I left, I turned to look and there was this look of stark fear on Jasmine’s face. I felt so bad about my own anger. I blew her a kiss, my anger dissipated, and promised I would be right back. She was still upset… but I reminded myself she always got upset when I left the room. I took the elevator to the lobby and just when I was about to leave, something almost physical stopped me dead in my tracks. It was as if I had run into an invisible wall. And it hit me...

I knew what was happening.

Jasmine passed away as I was entering her room. When she saw me, the most beautiful smile of gratitude and contentment came over her face. She couldn’t mouth the words, but the look in her eyes -- I’m sure if she could she would’ve said, “Thank you, Eddie.” I stood by her, heard the death rattle, and she was gone…

Jasmine’s Story doesn’t end here, there are other ways that her life impacted mine, but that’s a larger, more complicated story.

The only difference between Jasmine and the rest of us, I came to understand, was Jasmine’s degree of illness. It seems to me that the whole planet is going through what Jasmine experienced with her terminal illness. My conclusion is that there must be a way to for all of us to go through a cleansing process to eliminate the hatred, greed, pain, grief, and rage that we harbor for so long.

I think Jasmine’s greatest gift was to teach me that we must all tap into this healing energy so that we might become whole...

Love,

Eddie

The Friday Sex Blog [Transmutation]

¡Hola! Everybody...
If today happens to be your birthday, check this out: there about nine million people on earth who were born on the same day as you. Still feel lonely?

Today's blog art, Transmutation, is by the artist Luis Royo

* * *

-=[ Flipping the Script ]=-

A young lady had just begun menstruating, and was suffering from debilitating cramps. Unfortunately, massive doses of ibuprofen did nothing to relieve the distress, so she went to her acupuncturist, Dr. Lily Ming, to get relief.

Dr. Ming had her lie down on the table and proceeded to insert several needles in her belly and hand and ear. Then Dr. Ming did something our intrepid heroine was unfamiliar with: She light pounded on the nail of the young lady’s big toe with a silver hammer for a few minutes.

“Why are you doing that?” the young lady asked.

“It’s good for the uterus,” the doctor replied.

And sure enough, the young lady’s cramps dramatically decreased as the doctor thumped, and in the days to come they did not return.

After the session, as our young lady prepared to leave, the usually quiet and reserved Dr. Ming started up a conversation. Surprised, the young lady listened as the doctor made a series of revelations. By far the most surprising was Dr. Ming’s description of a traumatic event from her own childhood.

During the military occupation of her native Manchuria, a province of China, she was forced to witness Japanese soldiers torturing people she loved. Their primary act of atrocity was using hammers to drive bamboo shoots through their victims’ big toes.

The moral of the story you ask? (Okay, you didn’t ask, but I like to pretend you ask shit like that.) The point here is that Dr. Ming accomplished the heroic feat of reversing the meaning of her most traumatic imprint. She has turned a symbol of pain into a symbol and tool for healing.

Dr. Ming is a power of example for me and poses to all of us the challenging question: what’s your excuse?

Love,

Eddie

You Complete Me...

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’m sorry, but while I’m happy that a woman finally won the Best director award (after 70+ years?!!), I have to admit that I didn’t get Hurt Locker. Hurt Locker was at best a good cable TV film. The sleeper of the year, IMO, was An Education . It got almost no play, but featured one of the best performances (a very young Carey Mulligan! ) I’ve seen in quite some time. Sandra Bullock for a film that barely rises above the sappy shit you see on the Lifetime Channel?!! ::blank stare::

Now, I know imma get slammed for being a racist (again), but let me get this straight: M’nique wins (and rightfully so) for playing one of the most vile mothers to ever grace the screen, and Bullock wins for playing a mother to a black child no one else wanted? Ohhhhh-kaaayyyyy....

* * *

-=[ Wholeness ]=-

Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found it was ourselves.
-- Robert Frost

We all know that corniest of lines, the “You complete me” line uttered by the Tom Cruise character in the film, Jerry Maguire. A friend likes to joke that Tom had her at the knock on the door and if he just wanted some poonani... LOL!

The sad thing is that there is some truth to the line and it gets lost in the melodrama. We all complete one another. Not in the co-dependent not-feeling-complete-unless-you’re-in a-relationship sense. That’s not really about completion, connection, or wholeness. We complete each other in the very real sense that we wired for connection. Without connection, we’re fragmented. While in a smaller way we are whole unto ourselves, as we grow and mature our definition of self encompasses more than our individual wants and needs. Eventually, your sense of self encompasses your family, your community, the earth -- eventually all of creation. This is not at the expense of your self, just that your self grows...

Wholeness is our natural state and it’s this impulse or instinct toward wholeness that is the essence of true healing. Healing involves removing the obstacles to this natural state and bringing ones self and world into alignment. Freed from these obstacles, our natural “instinct to heal” will guide us toward a state of wholeness.

Many different healers take different approaches to healing, but essentially the role of the healer as a guide for those who have fallen out of balance is pretty much a universal philosophy. Healing, most of all, is going beyond the individual mind, body, and spirit to heal family relationships and eventually even global relations.

Love,

Eddie

The Gift and the Promise

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’ve been trying to write this post for a few days. It’s based on a conversation I had with a good friend this past Sunday. She, in turn, first came across the story in a book. There’s also a proposition at the end.

* * *

-=[ The Gift ]=-

The following is neither new nor earth shattering. It’s quite simple, actually. However, this post can change your life...

A good friend called me all excited this past Sunday, and as we walked together to have a late brunch, she related the following to me:

Imagine you’re on your deathbed, this very moment, tonight or fifty years from now. Try to make a mental picture. Got it?

I stand by your deathbed, look you in the eyes, and ask, “Was you life a complete success?”

You might say, “Yes, my life has been a complete success,” or you might say, “No, my life has not been a complete success.”

If you answered, “No, my life has not been a complete success,” you would have a reason why. For example, J. Paul Getty, who was once the wealthiest man in the world, is reputed to have said on his deathbed, “I’d gladly give up all my millions for one experience of marital happiness.” If he could have had one wish granted, that would’ve been his wish.

Still with me? Wondering what this has to do with you?

Well, here it is then, if you had told me on your deathbed that your life had not been a success, what would be the things you’d wished happened that would have made it a success?

The question cuts to the core: what are you really doing on this planet? What is your life purpose? Do you have a mission? As my friend asked me these questions, I felt more than a little anxiety, but on another level, there was a sense of relief. A sense of being able to go inside and reach into myself in an empowering way.

Back to you: you have to answer the question. You have can't get back to me while you mull your responses. You’re on your deathbed; you can’t afford to continue to live as if you’re never going to die. This moment is all you have anyway. There’s no right or wrong answer, or perhaps you’re one of those rare individuals who feels his or her life has been a total success (I have yet to meet one). Dig deep, give yourself permission and the answers will come.

Whatever your answer, look at it from the perspective of your deathbed. Put in the past tense, and do it from the point of view that your life was not a success.

Here’s one of my own:

My life was not a complete success because I never really got around to expressing to my loved ones how much I loved and appreciated them. I wish I had told my son how sad I felt at how we had grown apart.

In other words, I wished I had paid more attention to the relationships with the people most important to me and that I had communicated my feelings more often to the people I loved and cared about.

My friend then asked me, “Now turn that into a goal. Put it in the present tense.”

My life is a complete success because I express my most deepest feelings with all my friends and family. I say the important things I need to say and do all the important things I need to do. There is nothing significant that I leave unsaid or undone.

My friend went on to ask me to list four more deathbed wishes and then she asked me, “Where are you with achieving each of those goals?” Realistically, I had to admit that most of my deathbed wishes were mostly a lot of good ideas.

I was reminded of my experiences when I worked in a hospital ward of terminally ill patients. These were people who knew they were going to die -- soon. And whenever I asked them if they had one more illness-free year, what they would do with that one year, it never was anything like, “make more money,” or, “Invent some wonderful gadget,” or “Spend more time at the office,” or “Worry more about money.”

Their responses were mostly very simple: spend more time with their loved ones. Take the time to enjoy life more often. Say I’m sorry instead of holding a grudge, or spend more time with family and loved ones.

My friend took me a bookstore and showed me the book she had been reading. It’s called “The Five Wishes,” by Gay Hendricks. In it, he shares his five deathbed wishes and how he went about realizing them. It’s a small little book, and there’s a website where you can download a worksheet to help you recognize and realize your own five wishes. For me, they are more like personal promises and it’s a gentle way to make manifest a magnificent life and fulfilling life.

Why not?

So many of my friends online and off are really struggling these days. We’re all counting pennies and it seems like each day brings another struggle, another challenge or setback. Here’s my proposition. If there’s enough interest, I would love to start a support group using this book as the premise. Maybe we can all help one another realize our full potential. Perhaps, what we can’t do alone, we can do together. At the very least, we can reach out to one another in a meaningful -- or not. If this sounds like a good idea to you, let me know. If not, that’s OK too. I would strongly recommend you visit the website and check out the free video based on the book (click here ).

Whatever the case, I truly wish all of you genuine happiness. If I prayed, my prayer for you would be that you’d be given the opportunity to do what you most love to do and to do it joyously and passionately.

Love,

Eddie

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step 2]

¡Hola! Everybody...
As promised, here’s the second installment (the first can be found here) of my proposed series, “The 12 Steps For Everyone” series. This year, I’ve committed to doing step work with a new sponsor. It’s an ongoing process...

* * *

-=[ Hope ]=-

We came to believe that a power higher than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

-- Step Two

As anyone who’s acquainted with my writing knows, I am an addict in recovery. I’ve been clean, one day at a time (sometimes one breath at a time LOL), for almost 20 years. Herein you will find my strengths, hopes, and experiences on one of the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous. What follows is a narrative of my journey toward wholeness. I don’t know if this will work for you, but if you were to ask me, this is how I recovered my life. My story is extreme and you might find it hard to identify with some of its elements. All I ask is that you try to identify with and not compare my story. Listen to the message and not the mess.

I believe all people can benefit from a rigorous application of the 12 steps.

So we take a thorough First Step and what happens? We’re stuck in a bad place! I mean, c’mon now, coming to the full and painful realization that my way of doing things was fundamentally fucked up isn’t a nice space. Furthermore, my bottom had me staring at the very real possibility of a long prison sentence.

Talk about despair.

The first time I read this step, I literally walked away from Narcotics Anonymous. My understanding at that time of the core principle of this step, faith, caused me to filter this step through a bias. I am not a religious person, nor do I believe in a paternal God-in-the-sky dogma. And as I continued reading down the steps, I kept seeing the “God” word and Higher Power and I decided then that it was bullshit. Consequently, I went through the five worst years of my life. The second issue I had with this step was the implication that I was insane – restore us to sanity. When I came back to NA, I did so with a more open mind.

But still…

My sponsor at the time suggested that I simply commit to keeping an open mind and to make this process a personal search. The beauty of Narcotics Anonymous is that the fellowship doesn’t demand you do anything. There are no “thou shalts,” no “shoulds.” As part of taking this step, my sponsor suggested I take a close reading and learn the terms. One of the first things I liked about the step the second time around was how it starts, “came… ” and then, “came to… ,” then, “came to believe… ” In a very real way I was finally coming to my senses -- awakening. The opposite of despair is hope and hope is what the Second Step offered me.

Faith was a hard score to settle, but there are enough agnostics and even atheists who are recovering addicts because the Twelve Steps allow for a kind of spiritual democracy. You do not have to do anything, or join any religion. You do not even have to apply the steps. They are suggestions and since whenever I followed my own suggestions, I usually arrived at a destination that brought tremendous suffering, I figured it was time for me to listen to some alternative suggestions.

There are many different meanings of faith. At one extreme, there is the more common understanding of faith as blind faith, but that’s just one way of looking at faith. There are degrees of faith. In fact, we all have daily moments of faith and belief. We have faith, for example, that when we turn on the spigot, water will flow. We have faith that our car will start, or that a toaster will work. We also have many beliefs. We believe, for example, that we have a personality. Actually, many of us believe we are our personality, but there’s no brain center that organizes personality. Your personality is a set of beliefs and quirks that you constructed in order to operate in the everyday world. Scientists have faith in reason and logic to solve problems.

Shit, some of us believe that if we shove money inside of hole in the wall, a bag of dope will materialize. LOL! I’m not kidding. Back in the day, the way you copped drugs was that you’d stick your hand with your money in a hole and a hand with bag would come out. I had complete faith in that transaction! LOL

Early on, faith for me had to mean a temporary suspension of disbelief. What that means is that I made an agreement with myself to keep an open mind. Sometimes faith can mean trust. I came to believe that the spiritual principles of hope, freedom and willingness would restore me to sanity. And believe me, by the second time around, I knew I was insane. I have been studying human behavior for over a decade now, and the best definition of insanity I have come across is doing the same actions and expecting different results.

Even an infant knows better not to stick his hand in the socket after the first go-round. But yet we as adults oftentimes commit the same behaviors -- especially in the area of relationships -- expecting different results.

Sometimes faith can mean trust in a teaching, or self-confidence. As a Buddhist, my Higher Power is the Dharma (The Law), a clearly defined set of ethical and cognitive principles. In sports, a group can develop faith in their ability as a team to overcome everybody’s expectations. In that same way, I came to believe that the fellowship and principles of Narcotics Anonymous could restore me to sanity. Why? Because people all around me were taking back their lives. People were helping heal themselves and one another. I have been to NA meetings where a particular individual cried because she couldn’t pay her rent, then see her cry once again several months later because she was able to pay her rent.

Initially, my Higher Power was the group -- that what I couldn’t do alone we could do together. Eventually, my spirituality would evolve and I would come to embrace Buddhism as my path. The historical Buddha didn’t make any claims to divinity and his last words, as he lay dying (of all things, food poisoning) were, “… be a lamp unto yourself.” What that means to me is that ultimately, you must walk your path. It means that sayings, scriptures, or instructions alone will not save you. Ultimately, if you want to awaken, to come to your full realization as a human being, you must walk your path -- whatever that path entails.

And that’s what the second step helped me begin. It helped begin to walk the walk, trusting in my experience that I could be restored to sanity by a power greater than myself.

Love,

Eddie

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step 1]

¡Hola! Everybody...
So, I began this series last year and I think I stopped at Step Four. I’m going to revive this and see if I can finish it out.

* * *

-=[ Surrender ]=-

“We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.”

-- The First Step of Narcotics Anonymous

This is for all those who still suffer needlessly, not knowing there is a way out. To you I offer my gratitude and love...

Every month, I will post my strengths, hopes, and experiences on one of the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous. What follows is a narrative of my journey toward healing. I don’t know if this will work for you, but if you were to ask me, this is how I recovered my life. My story is a narrative of a life lived on the edge -- extreme -- and you might find it hard to identify with some of its elements. All I ask is that you try to identify with and not compare my story. Listen to the message and not the mess.

I believe all people can benefit from a rigorous application of the 12 steps and I offer this in the spirit of hope.

The First Step confronted me with two problematic words: powerless and unmanageable. I also didn’t notice at first that every step began with the word “We.” I was a loner; “we” wasn’t a word I used much. Everything was about me. They say an addict is an egomaniac with low self-esteem, and I believe that was how I felt.

Let me just say that 12-step recovery is about action. Every step involves growth, exploration, and action. I think people have huge misconceptions about 12-Step Fellowships. People in recovery like to say that the first step is the only step you have to get perfectly. I disagree, recovery is an ongoing process, and my understanding of the first step expands as I grow. However, there is a level of acceptance necessary for the integration of this step. But I get ahead of myself…

There are several powerful psycho-spiritual factors at work in the first step. Primarily, there is an admission. Admitting to a problem has become a popular notion in our culture that first came to prominence in the recovery community. Admitting touches on the first spiritual principle of the first step: honesty. However, admitting means nothing without acceptance. For example, I had no problem admitting I was an addict; I could be honest about that. LOL! That and $2 got me on the train, which is another way of saying that admitting by itself it was worthless. It wasn’t until I embraced another core spiritual principle of the first step, acceptance, that I was then able to make changes in my life.

The more meetings I made, the more I heard my own story from the lips of others who were honest about themselves. I began to see that I had a lot in common with these people when it came to my relationship to addiction. It took me a long time to come to grips with powerlessness. I was raised to think of myself as powerful. I was taught that if I exerted my will on any issue, that I could overcome anything in the world. If I had enough cojones and worked hard enough, I could have power over anything.

Besides, it wasn’t my addiction that was the problem, it was everyone else. If only other people got their shit together and external situations in my life mended themselves, I wouldn’t be in such a fix. The problem with my thinking was that it involved exerting willpower. The problem with my willpower was that it was warped. The more willpower I exerted, the more I fucked up. I tried everything: using only on the weekends, snorting instead of using needles, drinking instead of using other drugs, using only certain drugs in certain combinations, etc. No matter what I tried, I always ended up in the same place: all fucked up.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail. For me to begin my journey, I first had to surrender. In fact, as I look back now, the whole process of recovery is one long, beautiful, liberating process of surrendering.

For me, the first step is like the beginning of a hero’s journey. In the archetype of the hero, most heroes begin reluctantly, and then forces beyond their control propel them past their everyday lives into a journey of personal change and renewal. Like most addicts, I was unaware of aspects of myself -- my feelings, for example, and the wreckage I was creating. The first step was a tool I could use in my quest for self-knowledge.

Admitting to powerlessness took me years; accepting that admission brought me to the gateway of healing and sanity. That was also about another core spiritual principle: willingness. It’s often called the HOW (honesty, openness, and willingness) of recovery.

The first step is not about defeat. It says powerlessness, not hopelessness. We have no power over many things. Take the weather, for example. You can’t stop the rain, but if you take the time to stop, look, and listen, you may come to realize that using an umbrella is a lot better that railing against the elements. We have no power over how others act or think yet we spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to exert control over other people. We don’t even have power over our own emotions, but we can learn to relate to them differently.

The first step is really about admitting powerlessness over living in the extremes. Try fighting the rain, or better yet, a hurricane, and you’ll get a sense of what it is to fight addiction. You have to surrender.

As part of taking the first step, you take an inventory of the consequences of your addiction. For me this meant documenting the jobs I lost, the people I hurt, and most of all, the harm I did to myself. In this way, I could no longer deny the unmanageability of life as an active addict. This was a hard nut to crack because I never wanted to admit my life was unmanageable. I had it together, I liked to think, I just went a little overboard sometimes.

I also discovered the insanity of the obsession that led to the compulsion and how my fight would be fruitless until I surrendered. If you’re fighting an inner war, then someone has to lose. If you’re fighting an inner war, it follows, you will always lose.

Taking the first step clearly showed me that my thinking had little connection to reality. There were countless times, for example, that I would experience a blackout. With a blackout, you can sit down one minute and the next thing you know you missed an entire episode of your life -- while conscious. It’s like what a time jumper would feel. One minute you’re in one place and the next, you’re somewhere else and you don’t know what the fuck is going on. One time I came out of a blackout, I had a whole party-full of people wanting to kick my ass, and I had no clue why. It seems I propositioned the bride-to-be (it was an engagement party) and that kinda pissed a few people off. I once came out of a blackout in a different state and different year! LOL! Still I couldn’t admit my powerlessness. It wasn’t that something was wrong with me, it was those damned stuck up muthafuckas, and besides, I know that bitch wanted me.

Most of all, the first step is the beginning of the undoing of the karmic consequences of denial. I had to be brought my knees -- from hopelessly addicted to institutions and even close to death -- and still I wouldn’t admit my powerlessness. There was definitely a lot of evidence of unmanageability in my life. Shit, I attempted suicide at least once. What “normal” person can say that? More than anything, I was addicted to insanity.

Oh, and yes, I’ve kicked more habits than I can remember. I just could never stay stopped. Addiction, I soon learned, was not about using. I would get “clean” and chill for six-seven months, but when I started again, it was as if I never stopped. My last day as an active addict, I had spent $300 and I was on the street (released from an institution) exactly fourteen days. I went from clean to a $300-a-day habit at the drop of a hat. I would say that’s unmanageable...

However, there are other ways our powerlessness and unmanageability can manifest itself. Whether it’s food or cigarettes, or relationships, I think we can all look where we’re slowly killing ourselves, or causing ourselves and our loved ones harm. I believe we all can identify with the need to exert control and the denial of powerlessness. I use my life as an example because the extreme manner in which I lived makes it easier to illustrate my points, but we all have the dark places where we butt our heads.

Today, I apply the first step to many things in my life, especially in relationships and to certain behaviors. Addictions like to migrate. You might be able to kick the heroin or the alcohol, but then you see people acting out sexually or financially. If you don’t do the work, then you’ll continue to be in the grips of addictive behavior. The first step stipulated that I was powerless over my addiction. Addiction is not about a substance, but about a way of thinking.

Eventually, I began to think of the first step as something similar to the concepts of Aikido or Wing Chun, two martial arts that stress the importance of never meeting force with force. In a sense, the first step is about learning to flow with the forces of life instead of fighting all the time. It’s learning to transform difficult emotions into opportunities for healing. It’s knowing that you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

Love,

Eddie

Resources

Alcoholics Anonymous: Official website

Narcotics Anonymous: Official website

Recovery USA, llc: Recovery USA, llc is an online resource for those seeking recovery information, community connections, and high-quality 12 Step Recovery Supplies for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction.

Sober Recovery: The Alcoholism and Addictions Resource Guide. "Our Sober Community is always open 24 hours a day with helpful moderators in our message boards and Sober Forums."

Alano: "The Online Alano Club is a nonprofit association intended as a resource for Alcoholics Anonymous® members and groups, as well as any individual who has a desire to stop drinking. Members from other 12-Step programs, especially the Al-Anon Family Groups, also are welcome."

12 Step Radio: A great site for Recovery Music, Artist Interviews, Online Communities, Links and Resources, and more...

Note: The featured artwork is from an artist who sells the prints online. I happen to like them. His website features prints of all the 12 steps.

Eve's Story

¡Hola! Everybody...

* * *

(above: Yemaya)

-=[ Eve’s Story ]=-

“The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around… Throughout history, ‘tender loving care’ has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing.”

-- Larry Dossey

Life never ceases to amaze me: the cliché that life is stranger than fiction is true. I guess that’s why they’re clichés! When I first started school and beginning the process that eventually led to a career as a “healer,” I went through an experience that would forever change the way I look at healing.

Early in my recovery, I received a phone call in the middle of the night. An old and dear friend, who had stuck with me even during my darkest days, called to tell me that a former lover was on her deathbed at a nearby hospital. I’ll never forget her words. She said, “Eddie, I know you and Eve did a lot of fucked up shit to each other, but they don’t expect her to last the weekend. If you have anything you want to tell her, now is the time. They’re giving her last rites as we speak.”

I thanked my friend and as I put down the phone, I didn’t know what to do. Here was someone who had caused me great pain, who had been the object of numerous homicidal fantasies, who now was dying. As I thought of her, it was hard for me to feel the old resentment and anger without a pang of conscience. After all, I thought, I was equally cruel to her. I decided then that I would visit her that very moment.

As I began to get dressed (it was about 2 am), I had reservations. Her family wasn’t too fond of me. In fact, the joke was that they wouldn’t even mention my name, and when they did, they whispered my last name as if actually calling my given name aloud would evoke me! So, in essence, in that family anyway, I became “Rosario” in the shushed confines of their home.

I decided that I would go anyway and that if there were any objections, that I would just leave and in that way I would know in my heart that I attempted to make amends.

That Serenity Prayer actually does come in handy, folks. LOL!

As I rode the bus to the hospital, my mind kept coming up with various scenarios: the mother would curse me, I would make matters worse, or my presence would only magnify the pain.

I finally arrived at the hospital and, after locating the room, I entered the dark room quietly. The room was full of family members all huddled around the bed where a wasted and frail young woman lay seemingly unconscious. No one noticed me, as I listened to the priest murmur some prayers. I waited for someone to recognize me and, as the priest finished his ministrations, the mother turned and looked at me and with tears in her eyes cried, “Eddie! Oh Eddie, mi hijo, lo que a llegamo!” And she took me in her arms and sobbed. I could hear murmurings, as my presence was made known.

The mother explained to me quietly the situation: her daughter had fallen into a coma after a long bout with HIV and it was expected that she would die soon. I tried to apologize and explain that if my being there was inappropriate, I would leave, but the mother stopped me and led me to Eve’s bed. It was hard to look her, lying there now ravaged by disease. Her mother spoke to her as if she could hear her and said, “Mira nena, look who’s here to see you -- Eddie!”

Honestly, I didn’t know what the fuck to do, but something told me to take her hand. Then I bent over and whispered to her, and I told her how sorry I was for the things I did to her and how we hurt each other; that I was now living a good life free of my destructive patterns and active addiction. Her hands felt cold so I rubbed my hands together to generate heat and warmed her hands. I kept this up -- talking to the unconscious Eve and warming her hands, and then her face, her arms, etc.

When I felt I had said what I had to say, I began to walk away and then I heard her whisper, “Eddie?” Everyone in the room stopped talking and when I turned around, there was Eve looking at me, whispering my name. At that point, everyone in the room started doing the sign of the cross and Eve’s mother was praying and saying that it was miracle, and people were just running around calling the doctors and there I was in the middle of that whole scene wondering what the fuck was going on.

Eve would live for about four more months. I don’t know if I had anything to do with that, but Eve said that it wasn’t until she felt the heat from my hands that she began to regain consciousness. Before, she said, she felt she had settled into a form of resignation of meeting her fate. It’s hard to describe what Eve said, but I now think she was on her way to meet her maker. She had lost all hope for life, she told me, and had deteriorated rapidly. She said feeling the heat from my hands awakened her to the fact that there were certain things left undone that needed doing.

During those last few months of her life, I became one of the primary care-givers to Eve in that AIDS ward. The nurses called me Eve’s “boyfriend” and would arrange her hair in pigtails and her face would beam when I entered the room. Me? I resolved to do what I could -- to give what I could to a person in need. Not only because Eve needed it, but because it was what I wanted to do -- what I had to do. I felt there was a larger story being writ and that I had to play my role in it.

And she would often request, especially during times of extreme stress, that I use my hands in the same way I did that first night. I never got it at the time. And when I would ask her, she would only say that my hands ran hot (which they do) and that the heat would lessen the overwhelming feeling of numbness that would attack her body.

The doctors could not explain. Indeed, what I witnessed during those days in that ward was that the doctors were often at a loss for answers or “prescriptions.” What I learned at that time was that a healer, whether a doctor, therapist or whatever, must act as a channel, or conduit of a healing entity or force. I don’t care whether you call it, God, Goddess, Christ, The Great Spirit, Chi, or whatever. Furthermore, in order to become such a channel, there are four essential qualities a healer must possess: trust, faith, love, and humility.

Though different healers may channel this healing energy through different techniques, none of them can heal – no matter what their technique – unless they use it with love and humility. Out of all of these qualities, love is probably the most troublesome because all healers have days when they are not open to love. There are no recipes or formulas for staying open that way. To love also doesn’t just mean loving others, it means loving one’s self too.

I learned in those days that healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well or to be able to get up and walk around again. For me, healing means achieving some kind of balance between the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. For example, Eve would never walk again, and her T cells were, like, nil. Doctors were at a loss to explain why she was alive and resolved themselves to minister to her while she was still alive. However, Eve became spiritually awake and though she was young (33), sometimes she gave the impression of a very wise, very old soul with far more knowledge than her years. I believe that suffering kicks up the spiritual dimension by quite a few notches.

Don’t misunderstand, Eve, like many AIDS patients -- even more so than patients suffering from other life-threatening illnesses -- was lacking in qualities of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-trust. At one time, she told me, she felt these qualities were blocked by a lot of guilt, shame, and ambivalence. There were issues Eve never had a chance to address, that she took with her to her grave – such as her addiction and her deep-seated feelings of guilt. But we did what we could, – she and I. In some ways, we were like ships passing in the night. I was reinventing my life, starting anew, doing the things I never get a chance to do. Sometimes I would forget this. For Eve, this was as good as it was going to get. She was on borrowed time and that sometimes worked to minimize her motivation. I have friends who say that they were living with a disease, not merely dying. I don’t know if Eve ever got there. But we learned to trust one another, one day at a time -- together -- and laughed many times at how easy it was to revert to old patterns. However, Eve also had a seven-year-old son she had to say goodbye to.

Eve’s “healing” didn’t occur at an individual level, because we are all connected through a vast network of relationships to an infinite number of people and creatures on the planet. The process of healing even one person has consequences for all of us. It did for me: acting as a channel for this energy, I now know, looking back, that Eve’s situation had a healing purpose for me.

As Eve began going about resolving the issues in her life, especially with her son, she seemed to become more at peace with her illness. There were days that her smile would remind me of the Eve I had known – beautiful, alert, intelligent and spunky -- someone who took pleasure in challenging me and my interminable teasing. But those days became more and more rare. Eventually taking care of Eve became a job that took priority over everything else in my life, threatening to burn me out. A part of all this had a noble purpose, of course, but much of that was also my codependency issue. There were times I would forget that I was but a channel through which some of this was happening and I would forget that Eve would not get better.

She took me hostage, Eve did. She was afraid of dying alone in that cold, sterile hospital room. One day, after a particularly rough night (we had obtained special permission from the hospital administration), I was irritable and tired. My life had been consumed by Eve’s disease and I was feeling spent, confused, and sometimes angry -- all dangerous triggers for my addiction. By then, Eve had lost her ability to speak for days and if I wasn’t there doing it, she would not be cleaned in a nice way, so there I was cracking jokes about cleaning Eve’s ass and laughing about it. Sometimes I swore I saw a grin on Eve’s face during those times.

Anyway, I was tired and I wanted to go home, shower, and re-energize myself. I tried calling her sister, who was her other primary care-giver, but she could not be reached, so I turned to Eve and told her I was leaving and would be back as soon as I could. I hated doing this because she would become agitated if I left the room, let alone tell her I was leaving. Eve’s greatest overriding fear-- her horror -- was to die alone.

As I left, I turned to look and there was this look of stark fear on Eve’s face. I felt so bad about my own anger. I blew her a kiss, my anger gone now, and promised I would be right back. She was upset… but I reminded myself she always got upset when I left the room. I took the elevator to the lobby and just when I was about to leave, something almost physical stopped me dead in my tracks. It was as if I had run into an invisible wall. And it hit me...

I knew what was happening.

Eve passed away as I was entering her room. When she saw me, the most beautiful smile of gratitude and contentment came over her face. She couldn’t mouth the words, but the look in her eyes -- I’m sure if she could she would’ve said, “Thank you, Eddie.” I stood by her, heard the death rattle, and she was gone…

Eve’s Story doesn’t end here, there are other ways that her life impacted mine, but that’s for another time, another day.

The only difference between Eve and the rest of us, I came to understand, was Eve’s degree of illness. It seems to me that the whole planet is going through what Eve experienced with her terminal illness. My conclusion is that there must be a way to for all of us to go through a cleansing process to eliminate the hatred, greed, pain, grief, and rage that has been repressed for so long.

The thing is there is a way to do this if you only give yourself the time and space required to do it. There is a way to tap into the healing energy.

Love,

Eddie