Daily Reprieve

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In 2011, I found that I perceived God as the ultimate manipulator, which was a terribly unuseful idea in this spiritual program of recovery. I remember a particular alcoholic relapse where I showed up to a meeting inebriated. As I was departing, one of the other members stopped me and told me that I needed to learn to surrender. I turned toward him in the full bravado of my intoxication and let him know that I was trained in the military that the only time surrender is discussed is when you are overwhelmed by an enemy. “Is God my enemy?” I asked. I slammed my fist into the side of my pick-up and proclaimed, “I will not surrender!”

“At least let me get you a cab,” he pleaded.

“No, I drive better when I drink.”

In jail that night I pondered my own angry question; “Is God my enemy?” No, I would not even be an annoyance to the force of His will. No, not an enemy. He was something much worse. He was the personification of all the irrational guilt and controlling manipulation I inheritied from my family of origin.

In reality, my active co-dependency associated initmacy with manipulation. In all my attempts to manipulate the Infinite One into what I viewed as a geniune relationship, I felt God ignored me. Today I recognize that the Higher Power is absolutely devoted to the expression of my own will unfettered by burning bush novas that terrify me into compliance. I understand that surrender is active, repetitive consent for aid. Eventually, consent rewarded becomes trust.

Sometimes my fear of life’s terms causes me to attempt to milk God for detailed blueprints. This is where I return to the insanity of pursuing absolute control over my living environment. When I respect the Spirit of Life as a free agent, I myself live free. The mighty force that smashs the chains of addiction and co-dependant expactations is not desinged to forge new bindings for religious appeasement.

Unuseful Idea of 2011: God is a manipulator ~ God is not interested in me, only in controlling me for his own purposes, to protect his distant control on the human species.

Useful Idea of 2021: God and I are one, even though I am not God. This is the paradoxical truth that makes me free in recovery and life. ~ Improving my communication skills between my truest Self and My Higher Power is a key element to spiritual growth and empowerment. God ignores my linguistics degree in manipulation.

In 2006 I officially entered the 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous and began my long journey out of adult onset alcoholism and the childhood darkness of a codependant legacy. My maternal grandfather died of untreated alcoholism in Mobile when my mother was seventeen years old. I remember her talkng of his great intellect and salesmenship. His death threw her into a whilrwind of madness that her youth was not equipped to manage. She would marry three times, have an illegal abortion, and produce six offspring. She would use her children to buffer her from emotional collapse. We where all left with our own wounds from that experience.

The 12 Step program helped me identify eight manifestations of my family of origin’s emotional abuse; maternal emashment, alcoholism, a murderous heart, the humiliation of an unaddressed reading problem, self-hatred for an asthmetic condition, Christ appeasement obsession, curse of financial indebtedness, and a strong dose of imposter’s syndrome. The chaos storm of 2020 helped solidify this realization.

It was 2011 that I began looking to Al-Anon’s 12 Step program to dig at the roots of my destructive manifestations. It was that year that I was able to dip my bloody hands around in the gaping wound of my soul and identify the embedded philosophy of a tragic end. I tucked it away attempting to safely deal with it piece-mill. I have decided that the me of 2021 can now answer the me of 2011 to avert the gravity of my self-destructive black hole.

I share this process in writing in hope that it might be helpful to those who happen upon these words. I will also continue the “Courgage to Change” reflections.

Here is the voice of 2011:

1.  God is a manipulator (A co-dependant assertion, a family of origin adaption)

~ God is not interested in me, only in controlling me for his own purposes, to protect his distant control on the human species.

~ God wants to control me for his purposes, wants me to be his sissy whore.  He uses my heart’s desires against me.  He has no desire for my ultimate success, only my advancement to control others.

~ If I get out of line, God has a kill switch to amplify my lusts and natural desires to consume me, or, if I am able to overcome that, God can use my disconnected strength to turn me into a predator.

2.  In order to love others, you must hate yourself (confusing compassion and empathy with co-dependency)

~ You must hate yourself to love another.  The depth of effective love is measured in the level of self-hatred you can embody.

3.  I lack potency. (Public school peer interaction in conjunction with distrust of outsiders)

~ The concepts and thoughts that I value will be overshadowed by a stronger presence.  The products of my mind and heart will be dismissed as insignificant in a crowd, and assaulted in the presence of a strong presentation.

~ Uncontrolled and spiritually undeveloped people will attack or hurt me.

~ Personal assertions that are not wrapped in a mantle of pain, depression, and anguish will not be taken seriously.  Assertions expressed with happiness will be seen as frivolous and thus, discarded.

~ Honesty is a social control mechanism and has very little to do with the discovery of truth.

~ My internal reality is more important than my external reality

4.  I am bound by family icons of devotion, resulting in the two statements on failure.  Outside the family, inevitable and lethal.

~ If I desire to be free of emotional blackmail and manipulation, I must accept that failure is inevitable and I will disappoint those who become intimate, who get close to me.

~ If my failure is exposed, what is left of my honor demands my death.

Standby as I answers me.