I am entering the dark, harsh magic of the 4th step once again, for a sponsee, and to insure a thourough housecleaning for myself. And this time, I’m not sure that it can be a FEARLESS inventory:
http://www.imeem.com/punkedude/video/NeND8Krv/linkin_park_linkin_park_from_the_inside_music_video/
http://www.imeem.com/punkedude/video/yhC7F2j-/linkin_park_crawling_music_video/
http://www.imeem.com/mcbdlm/video/PXzna_4g/linkin_park_papercut_music_video/
What is happening, my Higher Power? You really are a better person than I am. What is going on here? Who are you? Why do you care? My mind was going in bad places, a merry-go-round of futility. I asked for Your help, and You knocked me the fuck out. Although I am OK with not knowing, I really would like to understand what and who I am dealing with here. Step eleven can sound so sterile when we read it every meeting, and have it safely labeled, even given it its proper number and place. “Spiritual Maintenance?” Yeah. sure. You maintain an erection long enough, and you ejaculate. What sort of spiritual release are you bringing me to, my Higher Power?
11. “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our Higher Power, praying only for knowledge of our Higher Power’s will for us and the power to carry that out.”
2
I have witnessed those who relapse in recovery often return to some old, familiar judgements~ familiar to me because I have also seen and heard it in the stone cathedrals of an angry god.
“You have learned the answer, and so you can no longer say that your surrender to this disease is the result of powerlessness. If you have found the source of power, and voluntarily relinquished it – shame on you! It is all on your head now! ” Wow. Ouch.
Is this solid dose of shame given to the relapser to help them recover? Or is it picking up the church’s bad habits of trying to control behavior, do social damage control, and filter out any deviant concept to “our way” of thinking? Let’s go back to the beginning:
I often hear that self-knowledge will not save us, when speaking to the new-comer. But the relapser may be told that you missed something the first time around, and we need to go back through the steps. There are members who promote the Big Book as being the infallible Word of the Higher Power, and that being “properly armed with the facts” will preserve you. Maybe the reality is that recovery as a new mental obsession mearly builds a landing strip for the Vital Spiritual Experience. The VSE was the solution in the beginning, and it is still the solution for those who have suffered the humiliation and demoralization of a relapse. Self-knowledge was not the answer in the beginning, and I do not believe that it is now the answer after relapse.
Here we see that in the beginning, religious convictions were not the answer. It was necessary to have the VITAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. They are not the same. And yet this changes somewhat for the relapser. Learn the principles of the program. Gain strength of character. The implied message is the conditional love and acceptance of your Higher Power, and the fellowship, and that the VSE is a one shot deal.
In this passage the alcoholic / addict is simply asking do you have a better substitute for my drug of choice than a religious labotomy? And the answer is a very confident yes. Surrounded by a fellowship of friends and the presence of your Higher Power, you will find release from being isolated and soley responsible for you own care, so there goes the life of being stupid. You will find release from detached apathy as your imagination is fired. So there goes the religious life of safe boredom. Your life will mean something at last, so there goes depression of pretending to have value. It is a promise that as you cultivate the Vital Spiritual Experience you first gained in the program, the most satisfactory years of life are ahead of you. You will not look with vicarious pleasure backwards to the adventures of your insanity. They will be nothing compared to the adventures ahead of you.
In balance, the process requires the confronting and clearing away of our short-comings. But this is testimony to the fact that the VSE changes us in a very natural way, in conjunction with our free will, in order to make us more useful, and thus more connected, and finally more powerful.
In the first six months of Bill Wilson’s sobriety he preached to alcoholics as the Oxford movement had taught him, and everyone of them were lost to relapse. Then the Higher Power got him a job assignment that pulled him away from the Oxford movement, and I suspect, the church mindset of his wife (I suspect this because of the tone of the chapter he wrote called “To Wives”) and was left alone with his VSE. He listened to intuitive guidance which led to the connection with Dr Bob, against all odds. And Bill quit preaching. He shared from his experience. One alcoholic to another, confronting the human condition of powerlessness, as it specifically relates to this disease.
We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense?
As time passes (in this process), our thinking will be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.
So it appears to me that the initial goal of this process is to gain a Vital Spiritual Experience or a “Spiritual Awakening”. And I must continue to seek after, cultivate, and enlarge it – or I slowly return to isolated stupidity and, ultimately, drug-using insanity. The process is perfect for that one that first walks in the door, and for that one that comes back in the door from field research. Welcome home.
5
I swear I didn’t get this before posting 181. But it is so appropriate to what I was talking about that I will put the link here:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA]
Thank-you Rose for sending this my way.
When I was a child, I was empathetic. I felt others. I used this to help me fulfill a needed role within some of the difficult, maybe even dysfunctional, dynamics of my family of origin. I learned to build a wall of protection around my internal reality. That internal reality is often discarded by simply labeling it “fantasy.” But it is the source of inspiration and the true artist of our lives. So I protected it. I chose not to connect when school revealed how cruel others are to a happy and loving little child. Peers only reinforced what I learned at home, that a strategy of withdrawal was imperative for survival.
But it is so easy for a fortress to become a prison. Solitude becomes isolation. Protective ritual becomes mind-numbing ruts. I became trapped by the effectiveness of this strategy.
As I grew into my adult-trainee years, into my young adult life, I tried to find a way to overcome the powerful wall I had constructed so that I could at least visit the outside world, the interactive reality. I discovered and eventually modified emotional amplification. Whatever I wanted to accomplish that my fear prevented me from experiencing, I blew a hole in the wall with overwhelming emotional force. But the wall always fought back to heal the breach and bring me back inside.
And thus my life became a pattern of energy bursts and sudden retreats. An internal civil war developed. Although the 12 step program has worked well with the chemical dependency, it is difficult to apply to my emotional amplification. This seems to be a common strategy among the creative. It is easier to medicate the individual than to recognize the fractures of our societal consciences. Is it possible that a lifetime of internal civil war can be overcome in these 12 steps? I am not at all sure.
6
I kept trying to release her, to diminish her impact on Me. But I fell for her. I felt love again, and this caused me to tremble to My very core. How could I let this happen in this hellish world? I had been free of this fairytale. No longer.
I am mortal. Death is certain, the hereafter is speculation. But I discovered that My slave had pulled herself up, and the web of the universe honored her as she refused to be called a victim. She was no one’s victim. She had been hurt, but so what.
And now it is so clear to me. Gratitude for what we have is the ultimate FUCK YOU to our mortality. Choosing to announce the beauty and accomplishments of our lives rather than being weighted down by our slips and flaws was powerful.
I have two of the most beautiful and intelligent children on the face of this planet and we love each other. FUCK You death. I have a Father who loves me, loves being around me and all my idiosyncrasies. FUCK You judgment of Perfection! I have recovery and blood family who embrace me as their own. FUCK You self imposed prison of isolation. I am respected in my uniform and service of this great country and I can still run despite the pain of being over 40. FUCK you aging bones! And recovery has given me a Higher Power, a child’s reason to believe in magic once more. The saving heresies of this program:
– Choosing a God of my understanding. Thank-you Ebby Thatcher.
– Replacing moralistic sin concept with realistic disease concept, that promotes tolerance and mercy over judgment. Thank-you Dr. Silkworth.
– The need for a vital spiritual experience, a true goal and empowerment for my life. Thank-you Dr. Jung and Rolland Hazard.
– The connective empowerment of helping each other. We are all in this boat together. If there is a god, savior, angels, demons, devils…let them duke it out. We have take care of each other. Thank-you Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob.
The title of chapter four in the Big Book is “We Agnostics.” Those who had come to believe in a power greater than themselves still pronounced themselves agnostic.
Agnostos Theos ~ The Unknown God.
– From Wikpedia, “According to a story told by Diogenes Laërtius, Athens was once in the grips of a plague and desperate to appease the gods with the appropriate sacrifices. Thus Epimenides gathered a flock of sheep to the Areopagus and released them. The sheep roamed about Athens and the surrounding hills. On Epimenides’ suggestion wherever a sheep stopped and lay down a sacrifice was made to the local god of that place. Many of the gardens and buildings of Athens were indeed associated with a specific god or goddess and so the appropriate altar was constructed and the sacrifice was made. However, at least one, if not several sheep lead the Athenians to a location that had no god associated with it. Thus an altar was built there without a god’s name inscribed upon it.”
There is a place in the Christian New Testament where Paul recognized the Unknown God as the true expression of god. In Chapter 17 of the Acts of the Apostles, he pronounces, “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. 30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead”
How much of the Hebrew temples and images had been the work of gold and silver and stone? Paul’s people killed in the name of their religion as did Paul himself. Is this the ignorance that is to be overlooked, and ultimately judged? Since it is answered with resurrection, was the killing condemned? Paul, a devoted Jew now seeking to generalize the faith among the non-Jewish population? Paul was a heretic among his own people in order to be true to the Unknown God.
The Gathering of the Unknown God
No More Middle Men!
Ezekiel 34:15- I will feed My sheep and I will cause them to lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost and bring back that which has strayed, and I will bandage the hurt and the crippled and will strengthen the weak and the sick, but I will destroy the fat and the strong [who have become hardhearted and perverse]; I will feed them with judgment and punishment. And as for you, O My flock, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between the rams and the great he-goats [the malicious and the tyrants of the pasture]. Is it too little for you that you feed on the best pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? And to have drunk of the waters clarified by subsiding, but you must foul the rest of the water with your feet?
And My flock, must they feed on what your feet have trodden and drink what your feet have fouled? Therefore thus says the Lord God to them: Behold, I, I Myself, will judge between fat sheep and impoverished sheep, or fat goats and lean goats. Because you push with side and with shoulder and thrust with your horns all those that have become weak and diseased, till you have scattered them abroad, therefore will I rescue My flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. And I will raise up over them one Shepherd and He shall feed them, even My Servant David; He shall feed them and He shall be their Shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God and My Servant David a Prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it. And I will confirm with them a covenant of peace and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land, and [My people] shall dwell safely in the wilderness, desert, or pastureland and sleep [confidently] in the woods. And I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing, and I will cause the showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing [of good insured by God’s favor]. And the tree of the field shall yield its fruit and the earth shall yield its increase; and [My people] shall be secure in their land, and they shall be confident and know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered them out of the hand of those who made slaves of them.
I personally have decided that I shall walk this path of Not-Knowing:
1. My knowledge is finite, my resources are finite, and my life span here is limited. I will experience not- knowing, powerlessness, and death while I exist here. And that is alright with me. I accept life on life’s terms.
2. In order for me to walk freely in any area, I must suspend disbelief to follow that path.
3. The “gods” are jealous of our ability to face mortality, to know that this intense experience is once in a life time. The new testament of the Christians say that their angels long to look into these things. We are a universal curiosity. In the Rise of the Lycans, Underworld movie, the powerful black human valued being a courageous mortal over being an enslaved beast with eternal life. It was a mortal who confronted the immortal Victor at the cost of his own life. Who then expessed the greater power? As Captain Kirk in Star Trek used to say, the unpredictability of humans is their greatest strength. We are able to fill in the unknown of the universe with the passion of our limited existance.
4. The very existence of our self-awareness is a testimony to a spiritual instinct. And this powerful instinct is hindered only by self isolating enthronement.
5. Word is perfect expression of our own fulfilled personal mythology. This is the law written in our hearts. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
6. When we are united with this unknown God, it is an extremely romantic, erotic connection; one that all other erotic connections reflect.
7. Religion is pretended knowing. We have to learn to be alright with not-knowing. This frees us to live, connect, release.
10
I came in from my first day of work, nothing but reading. But I think I am going to enjoy this job. After a long nap, I felt that emotional obsession, the amplification of anxieties. I got in my shorts and t-shirt and went out to the municiple complex and ran in this fucking cold for about 30 minutes. I feel so much better. The brain drugs are shooting off and the sense of well-being is undeniable. Now I bettter get some rest before tomorrow.
13
I have been thinking about relapse, why some of us struggle with this and others seem to get recovery and run with it. Here are some speculations:
1. Those who struggle with relapse are those who are very sensitive to their emotions, and as a result can be very empathetic people. Creative people would probably fall into this category as well. Recovery works best the first time around if you can distance yourself from your emotions. Some are naturally or unnaturally wired this way. Others have so many negative consequences as a result of their using that they “scar over” and their ability to feel emotion is deadened. I speculate further that regular, physically demanding exercise produces changes in the brain chemistry that aid an alcoholic / addict in emotional stabilization.
2. I think there is something in the brain that is able to connect with the energy of other people and beings, but we often protect ourselves from using it. That part of the brain that defines self acts as a filter to our wireless connection to spiritual energy. Ego deflation is a way of opening that resource up to the addict / alcoholic. I speculate that this is a risky process that will not work in isolation. If the protective ego wall is lowered, this invisible energy must be tapped. The ideal is for the sense of self to work in partnership with our spirit connection. The program works when the goal is connection, not moral exclusion and self-flagellation.
3. In the first year or so, this risky process of ego deflation is the main focus. But in the second year, the prospect of emotional relapse looms larger for some than others. And the program is limited in dealing with that issue. The obsession in the first year focuses on reconnecting with the drug that gave the illusion of control, the empowerment of the ego. But as recovery takes hold, the obsession becomes more about emotional amplification. Swollen emotions have the power to override the judgment center.
So, I started running again. Not for the military. Not for my job. But to overcome the power of emotional relapse. It has to be consistent and demanding to alter my brain’s chemistry. I am my own lab rat.
15
In the third step of this recovery program, one exercise is to establish a working concept of your Higher Power. The program isn’t giving you a HP, only saying that you have some working model, something that will give you a spiritual focus. A non-god HP is as legitimate as a religious god HP. It matters not.
But I was considering my sponsee, and this question of the concept of god. Many sponsors will have you write out what you don’t like about god, and what you like. Your HP thus becomes defined by what you like. For me, the problem was that I used that exercise to create my god. If I am its creator, it is definitely not a power greater than myself. I prayed about this, because it seems to be such an important beginning. Then it hit me – that intuitive zap.
First ask and answer this question – what does your HP see when it-she-he looks at you. No fair answering dismissive terms like “a ball of shit” or “a bad person.” Sit a moment and describe what you believe this being, who can see into you, actually sees.
As an example, I wrote this; My HP sees a caring Father, Lover, Master, a well-intentioned man who is unstable, up and down, ambitious but second-guessing. often times HP sees me give into fear, hesitant, withdrawing, assaulted by guilt, procrastinates and fails to follow through. He sees me distracted from important things, confused, and unfocused. Although HP sees that I am intelligent, ItSheHe sees that I am often unable to truly interact with others and really get down and do the work that needs to be done. Thus my intelligence becomes irrelevant. I feel that ItSheHe is often disappointed because HP is unable to count on me, as many of my loved ones and dependants have also experienced. I am very creative but it is stuffed into a protective ball of wax because of personal fears. HP sees a poor steward of time and resources. He sees that I am really unclear what I am all about.
Now, when I look back over what I have just written, I see my current understanding of my HP. Although ItSheHe loves me and may be well-intentioned, it is unstable and chaotic. It expresses ambition without following through. It is irrelivant, distracted, withdraws, procrastinates. Those things that I count as important, HP ignores. I am often disappointed because I cannot depend on my HP.
The second question is, what would I like my HP to see. My answer was that I would like ItSheHe to see a focused, stable, man. Someone who is strong and clear in communication, who is faithful to his own expression, his own word and promises, and thus to those who love and depend on me. I would like for my HP to see that I exercise gifts of intelligence and creativity in an empowering way. ItSheHe would see me as a confident and effective steward of time and resource, with a sharp and active mind.
The final question is, what do I not want the HP to see in me. My answer was that I wish that my HP would no longer see me depressed, or fearful, and riddled with guilt. I would like ItSheHe to never have to gaze upon my procrastination or second-guessing again.
So, the second question helps me describe what my HP needs to look like for me to stay sober. My HP is focused, stable and masculine. My HP is strong and clear in communication. When I meditate, and prayer, I will know what it is saying to me. And once my HP communicates something to me, ItSheHe is faithful to that expression, to whatever promise given to me. I can count on it. What I viewed as chaos was the manifestation of creativity sent to empower me. My HP will mess up my universe to insure that I am living my life in the most powerful way possible. My HP is a highly effective steward of time and resource, full of energy and sharpness. If I need a parent, lover, master, or just a friend, my HP can be any or all of them, because ItSheHe is more than all those things. Most of the time I just need a friend, and then I just call ItSheHe John. If I call my HP Gomu, I need a parent. And if I call ItSheHe the Lady in Leather, I need a lover, an intimate.
As for the final question – the characteristics of depression, fear, guilt are not my HP. Any voice that amplifies those feelings I reject and begin looking to see why I have become disconnected. Anything that makes me second-guess and procrastinate is a anti-spiritual force. Most of my personal religious experiences have amplified this energy in my life.
Anyway, I am going to add these questions to the “explore 164” document.
19
Daily Reprieve 
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