Proof positive that there is Life after Meth

I guess that admitting there’s a problem really is the place where change begins. I am happy to report that since my last entry about anything that’s actually going on with me, the messy bedroom/dirty laundry/no job/slacking on step work problem I’ve been harboring, I have

1. Done my laundry. All of it.
2. Substantially cleaned my room.
3. Gotten a job, in the not-for-profit sector which always makes me feel like I’m cleaning up some of my karma and being of maximum service to my Creator.
4. Done some step work every day. Sometimes not much, but some.

In addition I have remodeled the women’s restroom at the “Red House,” the meeting house for AA meetings that I most frequently attend. The tasks I completed, with the help of two other men, include laying new vinyl tile, installing a new toilet, installing new cabinetry and a new counter top and basin. Pretty butch for a faggot, eh?

So this morning I’m a little tired. In fact I think I’m going to go back to bed now. I am much relieved, though, that I’ve actually made some progress; moved forward a little. Those things were weighing me down so much that I was nearly unable to carry the burden. I really feel like making them concrete by naming them made me better able to focus on improving them. They say the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem, right? It seems to apply to more than my addiction, or perhaps part of my addiction is procrastination. Either way, naming the problem is a good starting point to work toward improvement from.

One of my closest friends is a young woman who is a survivor of incest. From a young age she was abused by both her father and her brother. For years she drank to numb the feelings of anger and worthlessness she felt as a result of the abuse she had survived. She had long since accepted as fact that she would never be in a happy relationship, never own a home, never have a child and never find joy or peace. She remained enmeshed herself in relationships that validated those feelings. She hid her alcoholism from her friends and family and engaged in sexual relationships with people who didn’t or couldn’t love her.

About five years ago, at the suggestion of her therapist, she began to attend AA meetings. With the support of new friendships she made there she began the arduous task of doing step work. Like so many people she made it to her 4th step and began to stagnate. The work there was simply too overwhelming, brought up too many painful memories that she hadn’t and couldn’t fully resolve alone. Thankfully she didn’t stop showing up and though she slacked on her step work she has remained sober during that time and has maintained a relationship with a sponsor who is understanding of the special burden that my friend’s history creates. “It was apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong.” ” If we were to live, we had to be free of anger.” “We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.”

Fortunately for my friend being around people who are working hard at the steps outlined in the program motivated her to begin anew working on those things which had been troubling her most, her familial relationships, her feelings of worthlessness, the anger and hurt she has carried for so many years. Over the last several days she also had a series of dreams that seemed to indicate to her that she was in fact making progress in that area. In her dreams she was able to view her brother with compassion and be caring to her father.

I was with my friend last night at an AA meeting. As the meeting was about to start she received a phone call from her grandfather. Her father had died.

Because of doing the work, of utilizing the simple tools that 12 step programs give us, she has no fear of going to the funeral. She is able to be present for her grandparents who have lost their son. She is able to be present for and compassionate to her brother who has lost his father. She is able to recognize her own loss, not just the death of her father, but of the childhood he deprived her of, and to forgive him. She had actually been able to forgive him before he died. Nothing but a complete rearrangement of her mind could have accomplished that. I believe that nothing but a relationship with her Creator could have accomplished that.

Getting sober, to me, is not about seeking forgiveness from the people I have harmed. I have to forgive the people who have harmed me. I cannot commence to do that until I have become humble enough to be willing to do what is necessary to right the wrongs that I have done to others, not because I seek their forgiveness, but because without humbling myself in that way I am allowing something to stand in the way of my relationship with my creator. I’m saying that my pride is more important than my God.

There are those in this world who have done me great harm. But through my friends example I can see that my ability to forgive them will only come from gaining humility by clearing away those things I have created that stand in the way of my relationship with my Creator. I believe that my Creator forgives me no matter what. But by repairing the harm I have done to others I can forgive myself. It is not others forgiveness that I’m seeking after all. It is my own forgiveness I seek, and the ability to forgive others.

Know what I mean? Not that I’m dragging my feet, though that’s true, too. I’ve had a tension headache for about 24 hours. Tylenol doesn’t touch it. I’m too poor to buy Aleve. I’m tired, in spite of the ‘wakefulness agent’ Provigil. And I have a new outbreak of toe herpes in spite of the acyclovir I’m taking. Thankfully that’s not painful. Just a heavy drag to get through. Eventually I’ll come out the other side (and change my pants).

I was thinking last night though that it’s been an awfully long time since I’ve had any kind of craving for crystal methamphetamine. The book says that when I’m really better I’ll “recoil from it as from a hot flame.” I’m afraid that if I were faced with the opportunity to use at the moment I’d have to work really hard at tearing myself from it, rather than recoil.

There is a woman who attends many of the same meetings that I do who just celebrated 18 years of continuous sobriety. From all accounts she was pretty wild in her using days. She’s pretty wild now. But she said that for the first six years the thing that kept her sober was that she wanted to stay sober more than she wanted anything else in the world. It wasn’t until then shat she had the “deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized [her] whole attitude toward life, toward [her] fellows and toward God’s universe.”

I’m afraid that my intellect may stand in the way of having that sort of thing. I trust few people. Learning to trust my Creator is a challenge. I’m not unwilling to keep trying. Perhaps it’s that my expectations are high. In “Bill’s Story” the change is overnight; the ‘burning bush’ variety of experience. I usually joke that if you have a burning bush your experience has either involved nudity and a campfire or crabs. That’s probably indicative of some sort of prejudice, don’t you think? I’m sure my upbringing has played a roll in that. I was raised in a church that claims to be the only path to God, the only true church on Earth. At about 14 I rejected that. I couldn’t see how a loving Creator would reject so many hundreds of millions of Buddhists, Muslims and Jews, not to mention Catholics and Protestants. And the fact of the matter is that the leaders of my congregation had failed me and my siblings entirely; had failed us when it was important not to. I assumed that meant that God had failed us, too. I’ve gained some understanding of what happened but I haven’t entirely let go of the resentment.

The other thing that stands in my way is my fear of what I don’t understand. And I don’t understand God. A silly paradox, to see my Creator at work in the lives of others and in my own life and yet to not trust that it will be there when I need it, especially if I should need it to stand in the way of a relapse. I’ve been trying to do this under force of will.

There are things I could be doing to overcome my prejudice. I could be taking the ’suggestion’ (requirement) that I ‘hit my knees’ and pray each day to be “divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives” and to end the day by “ask[ing] God’s forgiveness and inquire[ing] what corrective measures should be taken.” I don’t actually do that with any sort of consistency.

I’m told that it is in the seeking that one finds. “Knock and it shall open unto you.” I’m here, text messaging my friend who is on her way to a funeral where she’ll be surrounded by a completely toxic family, reminding her to remember that her Creator is with her and yet doubting that He’s with me. Silly.

They also ’suggest’ (demand) that in situations like mine, that one pray for the willingness to have faith. I guess I’m jealous of those who have the ‘burning bush’ kind of experience. It’s not that I haven’t had experiences. I have. Just not the kind that always lift me out of the pudding.

Perhaps I should just enjoy it and have myself a snack.