The Sexual Subversive [Abstinence]

¡Hola! Everybody...
First: This week at the online magazine, Subversify, I wade into the Birther Bullshit. What? It had to be done! LOL Click here to read/ leave a comment.

Today’s post was inspired in part by a Facebook contact’s question…

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-=[ Requiem for a Serial fornicator ]=-

Until we lose ourselves there is no hope of finding of finding ourselves.
-- Arthur Miller

Today I want to explore what happens to the way we relate if we awaken even a little bit. This is the kicker, the fire with which we test ourselves. When one person meets another and the interplay of energy takes place, it pushes to the surface all the little places we pushed back from the light. Whether it’s a history of violence, emotional bulimia, habitual criticism, or the trauma that comes from repeatedly having our trust betrayed -- these become like little bubbles that rise to the top, that come to the surface. What happens in a relationship is that your beloved becomes a mirror of yourself.

For most of my adult life my relationships with women were a series of dysfunctional interactions that either left me bruised and bleeding, or caused others much pain. My relationship history resembled a series of horrific car crashes. My way of relating to women was screwed totally and so when I decided to make changes in my life, the first thing I did was call a moratorium on romantic relationships. I knew I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, so I wanted to stop, look, listen, and learn a new way.

At some deeper level I realized that there was something I was looking for, or better out, I had a sense of lack -- as if a piece of me were kissing. I felt that at the core of my being there was a broken window with a fierce wind blowing through -- a void, if you will. I experienced this void as a primal wound, a profound but delusional sense of loneliness.

I am not speaking of the regular, run-of-the-mill variety -- the kind of loneliness we all encounter at some point or another. There’s this kind of loneliness that no matter how firmly wrapped we are in our lover’s embrace still manages to slither in for a brief stay every once in while.

If I were to be honest, there’s not much to say about loneliness, for it’s not a broad subject. Shit, even a child, alone in her room, can travel the complete range of loneliness, from border to border, in less time than it will take you to read this.

But though it may not be broad, it is deep. Loneliness, dearest, is a river deeper than the ocean. But even here there’s no mystery. The same precocious child is liable to fall quickly to the very bottom without even trying. And since the depths of loneliness cannot sustain human life, the child will swim to the surface, perhaps none the worse for wear.

Some of us, however, insist on bringing breathing aids with us for longer stays: sex, more sex, imaginary friends, drugs and alcohol, soul-corroding relationships, mind-numbing entertainment, virtuality, inflexible routines, and pets (pets, in my opinion, are some of the best enablers of loneliness). With the help of these aids, a poor soul can survive the airless profundity of loneliness long enough to experience its worst horror -- its duration.

I wanted a way out, some measure of, if not happiness, at least some serenity. I went almost two and a half years without a relationship and was sexually abstinent during that time (yup). For clarity’s sake, I define sexual abstinence as refraining from having sex with another human being.

One of the first things I learned during this time was that I couldn’t love another until I could love myself. Not an earth-shattering insight, huh? I’m sure many will immediately make the point that they love themselves, but there’s a need to look at this a little deeper. People think if they boost their self-esteem that this equals self love. However, let me ask you this: if what you perceive as your self is basically fucked up, isn’t boosting the self-esteem of something inherently flawed still fucked up? Or put more bluntly, tell me you don’t experience yourself as alone and separate at least some of the time.

In other words, truly learning to love yourself unconditionally is to accept yourself as you are, fearlessly exploring where you are causing your own suffering, learning how to move away from those patterns, and creating newer ways of relating. I’m sure we have plenty of arrogant people walking around “loving” themselves, but that's not the kind of love I’m talking about here, people.

So there I was trying love to myself unconditionally, warts and all, trying to uncover where I was causing my own pain and embarking on that long and hard road back to my original self. I took a clear look at and became willing to undo my character defects. Along the way, I learned to relate to women as human beings, rather than as objects of my desire and made life-long friends in the process. In taking away the relationship (“I need you”) and sex (“I want to fuck you”) agenda, allowed me the space to relate to women as friends, as people, as equals.

And it was a great discovery for me. I mean women are totally fascinating creatures with thoughts, perspectives, ideas, compassion, etc. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little here, I knew all this before, but the process of removing the “game,” allowed me to experience women in ways I never dreamed of before and as a result, my relationships changed for the better.

Well, time passed, I grew, I became more comfortable in my own skin, to borrow a phrase from a friend, and I thought I had made great progress. And you know what? I did! I learned for example, that I was acting scripts, some of which were written before I was born; that I had major trust issues, that I often resisted true intimacy because I was afraid of allowing people close to me (and then wonder why I felt alone); I encountered a fear that fueled my anger -- all this with an attitude of acceptance and unconditional love. In addition, I was in the process of living a more spiritually centered life and I like to think that made me a better person.

Then I met the woman who would eventually become my wife…

Oh boy! My marriage was one of the most challenging experiences. Don’t get me wrong, I loved and was loved in return; I grew in ways I never imagined as a result of my marriage and I still reap the rewards of that union. But remember all those things I mentioned working on? That I thought I had at least partially resolved? They all came back with a vengeance!

At first I couldn’t understand it, where were all these little monsters coming from? Why were all my ego centered goblins running rampant in my love life? Didn’t I work through that anger issue? And the trust thingee I thought I got rid of that little fucker. Like abandoned children, all my little inner monsters were wreaking havoc with the tidy picture I was attempting to construct.

As I said before, relationships act as a mirror to our deepest selves and those little gremlins running around in the dark corners of our psyches will come out to play as soon as we get close to someone. It is almost impossible for us to get to know ourselves alone. There are always blind spots, unexplored corners of our past and present lurking somewhere. In this way, relationships become a way for us to put to the test all that we have learned. A relationship, especially a romantic relationship, is the crucible in which we dissolve the impurities of our hearts. It is where the dross is turned into the golden thread with which we sew the tears in our hearts.

Genuine love lies in making relationship like a practice -- a sacred discipline -- in which two people agree to make (and change) agreements, explore honesty (true honesty), and questioning assumptions

For me, awakening, or living in a more conscious manner, is a process. Sometimes I'm in a groove and things flow, at other times, I slip and really make an asshole of myself in the process. However the point is the practice, not the perfection, or playing to some spiritual stereotype. The point, I guess, is that uncovering the heart means exposing the very core of the self. This is a scary move into unknown territory, even though it is a part of our inner selves that we are uncovering. The heart symbolizes feeling and intuition. Though we may be fearful, the true danger is in the death, not the exploration, of the heart. But I have learned that the uncovered heart contains both vulnerability and strength. Its strength perhaps lies precisely in that ability to open itself to itself, with an exquisite grace that invites the hearts of others to do so too.

Love,

Eddie

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step Four]

¡Hola! Everybody...

It’s that time of month once again!

Note: Every month, I dedicate a post to one of the steps of Narcotics Anonymous. These posts are by no means intended as extensive exploration of recovery. They are merely brief expression of my strengths, hopes, and experiences culled from my ongoing journey toward recovery.

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-=[ The Courage to Heal ]=-

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
-- Step Four

Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.
-- C.G. Jung

So far, we have explored what I call the “Recovery Cha Cha Cha” -- the first three steps that serve as the foundation to recovery and freedom from addiction. Step 1 (click here) confronted me with the major contradiction in my life: how I managed to feel powerful when, no matter how much I denied it, I was in actuality powerless and needed help. Step 2 (click here) challenged my grandiosity. I have heard it said that addicts are egomaniacs with low self-esteem and I couldn’t put it any better than that. My low self-esteem compelled me to inflate my ego, but all I ever felt inside was emptiness and feelings of worthlessness. Finally, Step 3 (click here) helped me see that my efforts at control were in reality ways in which to sabotage myself. Ultimately, I can only take responsibility for myself leaving the rest to my Higher Power, however I chose defined it.

Yesiree, the “Great I Am” is a hard bitch to ride!

Step Four took me a awhile mostly because I didn’t want to do it. I was afraid. I mean I did a lot of fucked up shit in my life -- especially towards the end of my active addiction. I took a lot. I was a taker. I became the kind of person that would steal something from you and then helped you look for it. My thinking was so fucked up that I could rationalize stealing toys from underneath a Christmas tree. I used (and was used) by women. I kid around that I was a former pimp and technically, I was. But I was no pimp, believe me. I used to like to say that I was a “broker for sexual services.” As much as the word is used today, it’s nothing to be proud of. What I was -- I was an addict. Period.

Who the fuck wants to look at that shit?

But by the time I made it back I was determined to see this through. I was tired of suffering needlessly and I wanted to do everything I could to bring some sanity into my life. This step mentions two important principles in recovery. One is “fearless.” But what is fearlessness? Is fearlessness a simple absence of fear? I started to look at the issue of fearlessness and I came upon the concept that courage (perhaps another way of saying “fearlessness”) is not so much the absence of fear, but committing to act in spite of the fear. And that became the first motivator for my doing a thorough Fourth Step: committing to act though I was shitting in my pants. I had had plenty of experience of plowing ahead even though I was scared. I did it all the time.

The next concept was the issue of morality. this one was a little more tricky for me. I was tired of the ‘crime and punishment” approach to morality. Yeah, I was (and still am) a fuckin sinner, but I didn’t need the black/ white sinner/ saint duality bullshit in my life. Beating up on myself wasn’t really working and in fact actually enabled my addiction (why get better if I was worthless?). So, I began to explore the meaning of moral and from a non-religious perspective “moral” could be viewed as a way of thinking, or what some psychologists call moral reasoning. There are developmental stages in moral reasoning, form the lower levels operating from purely selfish, narcissistic, infantile yearnings (the “me” stage) where actions are predicated solely on selfish needs, to higher forms of moral reasoning in which ones sense of self expands to include ones family, community, and eventually extends to all sentient beings.

What I found was that in my addiction I operated mostly from a purely infantile, selfish level of moral reasoning and it was killing me and infecting everyone who ever made contact with me.

I stole, but I stole more than property. I stole affection and trust and used that to feed my addiction. Perhaps my story is extreme, but let me ask: how many of us have stolen affection? How many of us have manipulated and controlled in order to feel better about ourselves?

Luckily, I had some great people around me in my early recovery. They helped me recover in spite of myself, because I was one dense mothefucker. To me the idea of a moral inventory was both scary but also contradictory. However, after having taken those first three steps and applying them to the best of my ability, I also knew I was still feeling a lot of shame and guilt about my past. My actions had clearly not been moral by any measure. It came to me that I needed to look into the shadows and to uncover those deep dark secrets or risk losing my recovery. By the time I had one year clean, I knew I wanted freedom from addiction more than anything in my life.

I took the advice of my sponsor and decided to write out my inventory. I used several different Fourth Step guides and my inventory was extensive (me being the perfectionist I am). What I saw when I did my Fourth Step were behavior patterns.

All around. Everywhere.

For the first time I saw I repeatedly fell into the same patterns and this revelation was largely liberating.

The Fourth Step gave me the gift of self-knowledge. By reviewing in detail my fears, desires, thoughts, motives, and actions, seeing how they created wreckage, I was better able to uncover the secrets. Some of you may have tried this with a therapist. I had also. However, what made this moral inventory different was the foundation of the first three steps paved the way for me to transcend my fear. I was on my way to living life based on love rather than an existence ruled by fear. What I saw underlying my habitual patterns was fear. Without the foundation of the first three steps, my moral inventory would’ve probably become another way to beat on myself, my shadow side eventually engulfing my efforts.

Because I was living the principle of the Third Step, I was able to turn over my fear and tendency to judge. I realized I was powerless to change my past, but that I was able to be accountable for now. Eventually, my Fourth Step gave me courage along with insight. And to a lesser degree, having faced myself with as much honesty as possible, I was able to lessen the fear and the shame. There were no more secrets, and more was being revealed.

The Fourth Step was a draining experience for me. Sometimes, when things seem their darkest, it’s difficult to see the positive in your life. It was difficult for me to acknowledge the positive in me. I lived as a phony, showing only the parts of myself that I thought were good. I lived between the secrets, the shame, exploitation, and abuse of my addiction and the good parts of my public persona. I felt like a phony about my public self because people did not know the real me. When I finally faced the addict in me, my addiction became my teacher and helped me uncover the goodness in me. I had to come to the realization that I was strong, enduring, clever, and willing to risk even in my addiction. All these were qualities the addict in me stole in order to pursue the illusion of being all-powerful

The addict in me was that same aspect of my personality that stole from me and then pretended it was helping me look for these qualities. I learned that all those good or skillful qualities were also a part of who I am and that they were available for me in my recovery.

My name is Eddie and I’m an addict in recovery...

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step Three]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I was watching some clips of Charlie Sheen last night and I have to say that if you want to see a meltdown, then watch these clips.

I will say Mr. Sheen has major cojones, but I would have to qualify that by noting that he seems to be extraordinarily defended. Mr. Sheen’s bravado seems to be a defense mechanism against a glaringly obvious insecurity. In other words, he appears to me like an egomaniac with low self-esteem.

Actually, he reminds me of me when I was an active addict. In fact, if I had had the fame and money Mr. Sheen has when I was active, I would most likely be dead. And while I wasn’t fucking Denise Richards-caliber starlets, I was just as recklessly promiscuous. In fact, I get kinda turned on thinking about what Mr. Sheen did with Ms. Richards... never mind!

Seriously, I’m not here to pass judgment on Sheen, nor do I think what he’s going through is in any way humorous. In fact, I’m not even calling him an addict. I can’t do that. I do find the clips difficult to watch. However, he’s correct in at least one thing: 12 step fellowships aren’t for everybody. However, if you were to ask me how I got clean, I would have to tell you that the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous saved my life. My experience also tells me that working the 12 Steps could be beneficial for everyone, regardless of whether they identify as an addict.

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-=[ Turning it Over ]=-

Step Three: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

The first time I came to the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous, by the time I reached this step, I had quit. This is bullshit! I told myself. Fuck that God shit.

I wasn’t ready for recovery and I spent the next five years, the worst of my life, chasing a bag, a piece of ass -- anything that could get me outside of myself. In a very real way, my addiction was my Higher Power, and at some level I knew this, but I would not kneel before a God I didn’t believe, or religious principles that I saw as intolerant and juvenile.

I didn’t sit still long enough to read the part of the step that says: ... as we understood Him. The second time around, I was desperate to learn and to live more effectively, more wisely. I was more open, but I also knew that I couldn’t pretend to submit to religious dogma and not go back out.

My First Step work forced me confront the contradiction of my addictive process: that I felt powerful when in fact, I was powerless and needed help. The First Step gave me hope... However, having internalized and accepted my powerlessness (not to be confused with hopelessness), I was left open and vulnerable, and while I understood my powerlessness, I needed something to latch onto, some form of support.

My Second Step work helped me come to terms with trust -- at least a little bit and it challenged my feelings of grandiosity, bringing me to the realization that I am a human being, and as such, I am not all-powerful -- the “Great I Am.” It taught me the value of surrendering my small self in favor of my Higher Self. The Second Step helped me take a good look at faith and it helped me begin my spiritual search anew with fresh eyes. In fact, I see my entire history of active addiction as a spiritual search gone wrong. Recovery was a matter of turning that mad search into something sane and good.

In the beginning, I was able to accept the collective consciousness of the fellowship of NA as my Higher Power, but as I continued to work the steps in my life, I came upon the teachings of Buddhism (The Dharma) and I accepted them as my Higher Power. In Buddhism, I found a Higher Power that could restore me to sanity.

In NA, there are no “shalts,” nothing is forced down our throats and everyone works the steps to the best of their abilities and at their own pace. The first three steps serve as a foundation, a bridge, back to life. It’s not about belief, but about practice. Believing is not enough; it is through living and applying the steps that we recover our Original Self. I think what’s most important for anyone, is maintaining a frame of mind described by Zen masters as “beginner’s mind.” In the mind of an expert, it is said, there are few possibilities. But in the mind of a beginner, everything is possible.

Let me add that I as I have progressed spiritually, I have come to realize that bridge back to life was made from the bones of those who came before me. many of whom never got clean, never tasted spiritual freedom...

Truly, change and recovery are about coming back to a state where we’re open to suggestions and looking at life with fresh eyes. It’s about dropping the mess and listening to the message. If you’re like me and many others, there are issues that have tested you sorely. Whether it is drugs, sex, relationships, your emotions, food, or other people, we all have found ourselves at our wit’s end at one time or another. The Third Step is about letting be, as the Taoists put it.

One thing I was painfully aware of was that whenever I imposed my will, things got messed up quick. If I was in a relationship, my will meant lot’s of insanity. Imposing my will on my addiction meant that it made it worse because my will was warped. So recovery (and the Third Step) is a lot about letting go of the impulsive need to control. It’s about allowing a Higher Principle, Higher Power, or God -- or whatever you choose to call it -- guide your actions.

For me, that Higher Power as I understand it, is The Dharma. In other words, instead of exerting my will on my addictive behaviors, I was letting go in favor of a set of spiritual principles that emphasized ethical behavior, contemplation, and cognitive restructuring. Rather than chasing a bag, or the delusional grasp for happiness through destructive behavior, I was instead flowing into a spiritual practice that guided me toward a saner way of life. For my purposes, I do not believe in an Abrahamic God, but I am an addict in recovery.

My experience teaches me that when I’m less reactive and defensive, life becomes less stressful and simpler. The truth of the matter is that I’m constantly taking my will back. I become a backseat driver to my life and demand to make a left turn, when my Higher Power (as I understand It) is telling me to make a right. There are times I’m downright nasty about it and I take the wheel and “all of sudden” there I am, ass out on Broadway. In my early recovery I would take my will back on an hourly basis. I had the good fortune to have someone explain to me that recovery (and life) is really about practice not perfection. The point is if we’re to evolve, then letting go becomes a way of life. These principles are guidelines to progress. The issue isn’t spiritual perfection, but spiritual practice. No one, my guide told me, gets this perfectly.

Whatever your understanding of your Higher Power, it is suggested that it be a loving and understanding. For me this means living a life of non-harming, of skillful speech and action. If I can turn my life over to that Higher Power, then I’m released from the bondage of my smaller, ego-driven self. For some this can mean throwing away the concept of an angry and jealous God for one that is loving, accepting, and compassionate. It could mean an understanding of God that resides within, instead of the concept of a God-in-the-sky. Perhaps the Universal Principle is a stream flowing through all of us. Maybe my Higher Power, rather than being an old white guy with a beard can look like Halle Berry, instead. Who’s to say? LOL! What’s important, in this spirituality, is that your Higher Power be loving and trustworthy.

Most importantly, this step is all about coming to terms with trust. It is really about learning acceptance, of letting go the compulsive need for control. In my active addiction, I was more concerned with control than about relationships. Lack of trust, my friends, is really about control. If you don’t trust someone, then you’re trying to control that person. In other words, lack of trust is the impulse to control because if you can’t trust another, you want to do everything yourself. And how has that worked so far?

Let go...

This is for you, whoever you are. Take what is useful. but this is mostly for the still sick and suffering addict out there all alone thinking there’s no way out, or defending a madness slowly killing him or her.

My name is Eddie and I am an addict in recovery...

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...

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step 1]

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

* * *

-=[ 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.

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step Five]

¡Hola! Everybody…
Every month, I dedicate a post to one of the steps of Narcotics Anonymous. These posts are by no means intended as extensive exploration of recovery. They are merely brief expression of my strengths, hopes, and experiences culled from my ongoing journey toward recovery.

* * *

-=[ The Heart of Kindness ]=-

Step Five: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

* * *

Recap time!

First, we explored what I call the “Recovery Cha Cha Cha” -- the first three steps that serve as the foundation to recovery and freedom from addiction. Step 1 (click here) confronted me with the major contradiction in my life: how I managed to feel powerful when, in fact, I was powerless and needed help. Step 2 (click here) challenged my grandiosity. I have heard it said that addicts are egomaniacs with low self-esteem and I couldn’t put it any better than that. My low self-esteem pushed me to inflate my ego, but all I ever felt inside was emptiness and feelings of worthlessness. Step 3 (click here) helped me see that my efforts at control were in actuality ways of sabotaging myself. Ultimately, I can only take responsibility for myself leaving the rest to my Higher Power however I defined it. Lastly, the Fourth Step (click here) gave me the gift of self-knowledge. By reviewing in detail my fears, desires, thoughts, motives, and actions, seeing how they created wreckage, I was better able to uncover the secrets.

I raised a Roman Catholic and I can still remember the ritual Saturday confessionals. We would tease our friends and cousins if they took too long in the confessional because we all knew that meant there was a lot of sinning goin’ on. LOL Still, the feeling of catharsis that always accompanied a confession was always refreshing. Always, the priest listened quietly and no matter what you said or admitted to, it was taken in stride, with no judgment. The message, at least for me anyway, is that no one is ever truly beyond redemption.

As much as I dreaded the Fourth Step, the Fifth Step was the scariest for me. Shame was acting as an obstacle against my journey to freedom. In Step five, we are asked to bare our soul to our Higher Power (as we define it), ourselves, and another human being. Reveal all, put it all out there, and take the risk of coming face to face with our shadow and dragging it out into the open.

Secrets and shame are two of the hallmarks of the disease of addiction. Many of us come from families in which addiction was a way of life. Throughout our developmental years and beyond, many of us feared outsiders would see us and our “horrible” families truthfully, so we developed coping skills that developed into strategies of denial. Step Five, people, was my first taste of true freedom. And recovery isn’t about putting down a drug or a drink -- recovery is about freedom from active addiction.

Period.

Still, I couldn’t possibly share my most shameful secrets with another human being, I thought to myself. Surely, no one has ever done the despicable things I had done. I was stuck at Step Five for sure. Eventually I came to learn an important truth, and I feel this applies to anyone, not just addicts. When we try to carry the load alone, we suffer needlessly. And in an unconscious manner, in seeking relief from that load, sometimes we will accuse even our loved ones and friends of the very character defects we are desperately attempting to conceal. Psychological relief never comes from confessing the “sins” of other people. Everybody has to come to terms with their own.

The practice of confessing, admitting the exact nature of our wrongs to another person is not new; it’s an ancient spiritual practice, in fact. And religion is by no means the sole advocate for this principle, contemporary Western psychology has long ago acknowledged the value the profound need every human being has for practical insight and knowledge of their personality flaws.

After much thought, I decided to share my Fifth Step with a Jesuit priest who was a recovering addict himself. This priest, who I will call Eddie, was one of the kindest persons I have ever met. And he was far from the stereotypical clergyman. He sometimes cussed, for example, and he smoked cigarettes. Most of all, like many truly spiritual people I have met, he had a great, evolved sense of humor.

As I began sharing my Fifth Step with father Eddie, he just listened. He was present, listening to everything and I felt there was no judgment. In fact, he kept nodding as I read off my list and sometimes sharing that he had committed some of the same acts himself. At other times, we would laugh together at some of the things on my list. Eventually, I was able to share fully, without holding back, ad all the fear and shame seemed as if it were being washed away. I felt accepted and unburdened. Most of all, I felt relieved of the “burden of self.”

The first great insight during the sharing of my Fifth Step was that I wasn’t as unique or terrible or horrible as I thought. Yes, I had committed many wrongs, but I wasn’t the only human being to commit those acts, and being held in the cradle of kindness -- in the heart of the heart of kindness -- I came to know my first taste of true freedom. The 12 Steps aren’t about formulating ideas about freedom, they compel us to act on the pract5ice of freedom. The 12 Steps are experiential exercises, action steps, toward personal and communal liberation.

Taking Step freed me from the chains of my shame and secrecy. I realized that I was a good person at heart and being freed from a repressive morality, I was able to become a moral agent in my life. Most of all, you have to understand, the Steps are about compassion, not punishment. The Steps can be the start of cultivating loving compassion toward ourselves. Personally, it was liberating to discover that my very vulnerability, that uncomfortable sensation of being exposed, is actually the bridge to deeper connections to myself and others. It’s called emotional safety, and what that means is dropping the shame and the sham and committing to being as translucent as possible. And now, all these years after my first Fifth Step, emotional safety and genuine intimacy is the norm among the circle of my dearest friends.

Love,

Eddie

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step Four]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I forgot to include this as part of an April posting...

* * *

-=[ Uncovering the Patterns]=-

Step Four: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Note: Every month, I dedicate a post to one of the steps of Narcotics Anonymous. These posts are by no means intended as extensive exploration of recovery. They are merely brief expression of my strengths, hopes, and experiences culled from my ongoing journey toward recovery.

* * *

Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.

-- C.G. Jung

So far, we have explored what I call the “Recovery Cha Cha Cha” -- the first three steps that serve as the foundation to recovery and freedom from addiction. Step 1 (click here) confronted me with the major contradiction in my life: how I managed to feel powerful when, in fact, I was powerless and needed help. Step 2 (click here) challenged my grandiosity. I have heard it said that addicts are egomaniacs with low self-esteem and I couldn’t put it any better than that. My low self-esteem pushed me to inflate my ego, but all I ever felt inside was emptiness and feelings of worthlessness. Finally, Step 3 (click here) helped me see that my efforts at control were in actuality ways in which to sabotage myself. Ultimately, I can only take responsibility for myself leaving the rest to my Higher Power however I defined it.

Yesiree, the “Great I Am” is a hard bitch to ride! LOL

Step Four took me a awhile mostly because I didn’t want to do it. I was afraid. I mean I did a lot of fucked up shit in my life -- especially towards the end of my active addiction. I took a lot. I was a taker. I became the kind of person that would steal something from you and then helped you look for it. My thinking was so fucked up that I could rationalize stealing toys from underneath a Christmas tree. I used (and was used) by women. I kid around that I was a former pimp and technically, I was. But I was no pimp, believe me. I used to like to say that I was a “broker for sexual services.” As much as the word is used today, it’s nothing to be proud of. What I was -- I was an addict. Period.

Who the fuck wants to look at that shit?

I stole, but I stole more than property. I stole affection and trust and used that to feed my addiction. Perhaps my story is extreme, but let me ask: how many of us have stolen affection? How many of us have manipulated and controlled in order to feel better about ourselves?

Luckily, I had some great people around me in my early recovery. Quite a few of them are no longer with us, and my post today is dedicated to them. They helped me recover in spite of myself, because I was (still am? LOL!), one dense ma’fucca. To me the idea of a moral inventory was both scary but also contradictory. However, after having taken those first three steps and applying them to the best of my ability, I also knew I was still feeling a lot of shame and guilt about my past. My actions had clearly not been moral by any measure. It came to me that I needed to look into the shadows and to uncover those deep dark secrets or risk losing my recovery. By the time I had one year clean, I knew I wanted freedom from addiction more than anything in my life.

I took the advice of my sponsor and decided to write out my inventory. I used several different 4th Step guides and my inventory was extensive (me being the perfectionist I am). What I saw when I did my 4th Step were behavior patterns. All around. Everywhere. For the first time I saw that I fell repeatedly into the same patterns and this revelation was largely liberating.

The 4th Step gave me the gift of self-knowledge. By reviewing in detail my fears, desires, thoughts, motives, and actions, seeing how they created wreckage, I was better able to uncover the secrets. Some of you may have tried this with a therapist. I had also. However, what made this moral inventory different was the foundation of the first three steps because those steps became the foundation upon which I was able to vanquish fear. What I saw underlying my habitual patterns was fear. Without the foundation of the first three steps, my moral inventory would’ve been weak and my shadow side would’ve eventually engulfed my efforts.

Because I was living the principle of the Third Step, I was able to turn over my fear and tendency to judge. I realized I was powerless to change my past, but that I was able to be accountable for now. Eventually, my Fourth Step gave me courage along with insight. And to a lesser degree, having faced myself with as much honesty as possible, I was able to lessen the fear and the shame. There were no more secrets, and more was being revealed.

The 4th Step was a draining experience for me. Sometimes, when things seem their darkest, it’s difficult to see the positive in your life. It was difficult for me to acknowledge the positive in me. I lived as a phony, showing only the parts of myself that I thought were good. I lived between the secrets, the shame, exploitation, and abuse of my addiction and the good parts of my public persona. I felt like a phony about my public self because people did not know the real me. When I finally faced the addict in me, my addiction became my teacher and helped me uncover the goodness in me. I had to come to the realization that I was strong, enduring, clever, and willing to risk even in my addiction. All these were qualities the addict in me stole in order to become powerful

The addict in me was that same entity that stole from me and then pretended he was helping me look for these qualities. I learned that all those qualities were mine and that they were available for me in my recovery.

Love,

Eddie

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step Three]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I realized this morning that March had passed and I had forgotten to post Step Three...

* * *

-=[ Turning it Over ]=-

Step Three: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

The first time I came to the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous, by the time I reached this step, I had quit. This is bullshit! I told myself. Fuck that God shit.

I wasn’t ready for recovery and I spent the next five years, the worst of my life, chasing a bag, a piece of ass -- anything that could get me outside of myself. In a very real way, my addiction was my Higher Power, and at some level I knew this, but I would not kneel before a God I didn’t believe, or religious principles that I saw as intolerant and juvenile.

I didn’t sit still long enough to read the part of the step that says: ... as we understood Him. The second time around, I was desperate to learn and to live more effectively, more wisely. I was more open, but I also knew that I couldn’t pretend to submit to religious dogma and not go back out.

My First Step work forced me confront the contradiction of my addictive process: that I felt powerful when in fact, I was powerless and needed help. The First Step gave me hope... However, having internalized and accepted my powerlessness (not to be confused with hopelessness), I was left open and vulnerable, and while I understood my powerlessness, I needed something to latch onto, some form of support.

My Second Step work helped me come to terms with trust -- at least a little bit and it challenged my feelings of grandiosity, bringing me to the realization that I am a human being, and as such, I am not all-powerful. It taught me the value of surrendering my small self in favor of my Higher Self. The Second Step helped me take a good look at faith and it helped me begin my spiritual search anew with fresh eyes. In fact, I see my entire history of active addiction as a spiritual search gone wrong. Recovery was a matter of turning that mad search into something sane and good.

In the beginning, I was able to accept the collective consciousness of the fellowship of NA as my Higher Power, but as I continued to work the steps in my life, I came upon the teachings of Buddhism (The Dharma) and I accepted them as my Higher Power. In Buddhism, I found a Higher Power that could restore me to sanity.

In NA, there are no “shalts,” nothing is forced down our throats and everyone works the steps to the best of their abilities and at their own pace. The first three steps serve as a foundation, a bridge, back to life. It’s not about belief, but about practice. Believing is not enough; it is through living and applying the steps that we recover our Original Self. I think what’s most important for anyone, is maintaining a frame of mind described by Zen masters as “beginner’s mind.” In the mind of an expert, it is said, there are few possibilities. But in the mind of a beginner, everything is possible.

Truly, change and recovery are about coming back to a state where we’re open to suggestions and looking at life with fresh eyes. It’s about dropping the mess and listening to the message. If you’re like me and many others, there are issues that have tested you sorely. Whether it is drugs, sex, relationships, your emotions, food, or other people, we all have found ourselves at our wit’s end at one time or another. The Third Step is about letting be, as the Taoists put it.

One thing I was painfully aware of was that whenever I imposed my will, things got messed up quick. If I was in a relationship, my will meant lot’s of insanity. *grin* Imposing my will on my addiction meant that it made it worse because my will was warped. So recovery (and the Third Step) is a lot about letting go of the impulsive need to control. It’s about allowing a Higher Principle, Higher Power, or God -- or whatever you choose to call it -- guide your actions.

For me, that Higher Power as I understand it, is The Dharma. In other words, instead of exerting my will on my addictive behaviors, I was letting go in favor of a set of spiritual principles that emphasized ethical behavior, contemplation, and mind training. Rather than chasing a bag, or the delusional grasp for happiness through destructive behavior, I was instead flowing into a spiritual practice that guided me toward a saner way of life. For my purposes, I do not believe in an Abrahamic God, but I am an addict in recovery.

My experience teaches me that when I’m less reactive and defensive, life becomes less stressful and simpler. The truth of the matter is that I’m constantly taking my will back. I become a backseat driver to my life and demand to make a left turn, when my Higher Power (as I understand It) is telling me to make a right. There are times I’m downright nasty about it and I take the wheel and “all of sudden” there I am, ass out on Broadway. In my early recovery I would take my will back on an hourly basis. I had the good fortune to have someone explain to me that recovery (and life) is really about practice willing and not perfection. The point is if we’re to evolve, then letting go becomes a way of life. These principles are guidelines to progress. The issue isn’t spiritual perfection, but spiritual practice. No one, my guide told me, gets this perfectly.

Whatever your understanding of your Higher Power, it is suggested that it be a loving and understanding. For me this means living a life of non-harming, of skillful speech and action. If I can turn my life over to that Higher Power, then I’m released from the bondage of self. For some this can mean throwing away the concept of an angry and jealous God for one that is loving, accepting, and compassionate. It could mean an understanding of God that resides within, instead of a concept of a God-in-the-sky. Perhaps the Universal Principle is a stream flowing through all of us. What’s important, in this spirituality, is that your Higher Power be loving and trustworthy.

Most importantly, this step is all about coming to terms with our trust. It is really about learning acceptance, of letting go the compulsive need for control. In my active addiction, I was more concerned with control than about relationships. Lack of trust, my friends, is really about control. If you don’t trust someone, then you’re trying to control that person. In other words, lack of trust is the impulse to control because if you can’t trust another, you want to do everything yourself. And how has that worked so far?

Let go...

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