~

I’m taking a break from the norm, here.  I have decided not to participate in the rash of awards that are circulating, because of general AA principles, but I’m going to participate in the invitation of Jen’s at StepOnACrack to come out and play something. I always loved tag.

Tag Questions

1. Who is one person you love and why? I love my son because he is himself.
2. If you won 350 million dollars, what’s the first thing you’d buy? A private jet and body-guard so I could visit people I love and meet people I’m interested in knowing better without having to book flights or fear getting into more than I can handle.
3. If you were to write a book, what would it be about? My life. I’d have to wait for a lot of people to die first!
4. Favorite genre? Mystery
5. Name one book that changed your life. Alcoholics Anonymous
6. What is your idea of the perfect day? Being able to stay in the moment. Still working on that!
7. Where would you live if there were no limit? I’d live in my 5^th wheel with my best friend on a beach part of the time and close to a harbor the rest of the time.
8. What is something almost no one knows about you. I danced for pay. I was 8 and I got fudgesicles.
9. What phrase pops into your head from the past? Mill…mill…mill… That was what my boyfriend and I used to mumble as we shuffled around the cob burner in the living room during commercial breaks at the old farm place.

I’m inviting EVERYONE who wants to, to come out and join us!

If you can’t come out to play we all will understand!

If you don’t blog, but would like to play, just leave your answers in a comment here!

(Make up your own questions to add!)

TAG! You are IT!

Selfish? Who…me? Without a doubt. But it took a while to begin recognizing it. I had the idea that selfish meant focusing on what I had or didn’t have. It’s SO much more than that. Then as the scope of it broadened, it became so much harder to admit…this selfish trait!

“Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?”

To simplify this for myself, I’ve made a list of words–ing words. They seem to be attached to most of the selfish behavior that I exhibit. Since it’s hard to know when I’m being selfish, I made this list so that I can reference it quickly when I’m looking for the true source of my agitation.

For me, when I get agitated, there’s a character defect at work and I’m in an emotional free-fall. Not everyone experiences this; but if you do, you know what I mean.

When this happens, I’m more than agitated…free-falling into a meltdown and the only recourse is to stop everything and identify the character defect that is propelling me downward. If it fits any of the following, the character defect is Selfishness.

My first task is to examine the Ing words: wishing, reacting, demanding, pretending, obsessing

You probably have some of your own, but these are mine for now. I would share them, but if you don’t already have them, you don’t want them! You can make your own list.

The first word is wishing. I know I’m wishing again when I find myself thinking, oh, come on people!

Let’s start with Wishing:

• everything would come easily to me
• everyone would act like me, think like me
• other people would understand me and accept me
• someone else would meet my needs (dependence)
• my needs could come first in the scheme of things
• I could control others

The second word is pretending. I know I’m pretending when I get angry with someone, or feel really let down by them. To be disappointed is to have had an expectation. I’ve heard it described as a planned resentment.

Now look at Pretending:

• the people I love are who I think they should be
• my life can go according to my plan
• if I don’t pay attention to something that scares me, it will go away
• I am going to ‘arrive’, have everything under control and figured out
• that people can be who I think they should be if I have enough faith in them
• I am really wonderful, if everyone would just get to know me (grandiosity)

And look at Obsessing:

• about my point of view, not seeing anyone else’s problems or needs
• about wanting to feel special, be the best, have the most
• over material, financial or other goals
• about my needs
• about my appearance
• about who is to ‘blame’

And now, Reacting:

• from self-esteem issues
• from self-loathing
• from self-righteousness
• to people’s opinion of me
• to other people’s choices

Summary: the world would run according to Heidi When I get caught up in selfishness, it can take on the guise of any of this. Who knew? Not me, not before doing Step 4.

Reblogged from Two Minutes of Grace:

You is kind. You is smart. You is important.                        ~ Aibileen Clark I read Kathryn Stockett’s The Help long before it became a New York Times Best Seller or was featured as an Oprah’s Book Club book. Last night I rented the movie from the Red Box outside of a tiny grocery store in a little town on the Texas bayou. My favorite part of the book was also my favorite part of the movie. It was when Aibileen said those 9 precious words to little Mae Mobley. It made me wonder – would …

Debbie has a way with words, even when she’s quoting someone else. That’s why I never miss the Two Minutes of Grace. It’s like a daily devotional.

Before I ever heard of a Step 3, I reveled in directing the school play rehearsals. There was a sense of satisfaction in seeing my creative ideas take on life and play out on the stage. I’ve carried that same sense of accomplishment into my life off the stage.

Therein is the problem.

It was appropriate for me to direct the execution of the play. I was responsible to do so, therefore, I worked with the students on all aspects of the production:

• Select a script best suited for the cast of characters
• Cast the production from wannabe thespians
• Collaborate with costume design team (moms)
• Plan the rehearsals
• Coach line delivery and use of the stage space
• Coordinate set design (time delivery of used furniture)

Guiding the actors in their work during rehearsals was my favorite aspect of the job. I love being in charge!

It was my role to direct them. It wasn’t, however my role to take care of them. They had to do that on their own: get enough rest, eat enough, do their memorizing, their homework, find transportation to school, etc. Just direct. That’s all I did.

In my life it’s not my role now to direct others. It’s my role to love them, support them by listening, and pray for them to find God’s direction. It’s not my role to direct them. It’s also not my job to take care of them. They have to do that on their own.

In AA, I’ve found that God can be relied upon to give me direction. It’s still my job to take action consistent with His direction, but it’s not smart for me to fall into the mindset that God has to take care of me. I still need to do the things that I can—the things I’m responsible for doing. I’m a mature adult in recovery, yet I’m a child of God. I’m not, however, in charge anymore.

…we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children….this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, 2011, p 62

My recovery and the quality of my life, my sanity, depends upon my grasp of that truth. If I miss the keystone principle, then I forfeit peace. Without the keystone of God being my Director, I may feel powerful and in charge, but I won’t feel the serenity that I was designed for. I’ll miss the triumphant walk through the arch towards personal freedom and wholeness.

Only my Creator can bring this character to life in the performance of His choosing. He created me; He directs me. I’m so glad to know Step 3 and to be learning to apply it daily.

PS: This week is the week I dread all year because it’s my tax preparation week. (Fear again) I went all stressed out to a meeting yesterday and the above excerpt from p 62 was quoted during the meeting. It wasn’t until today that I realized it was in the post that I had written weeks ago for today’s publishing.

Yessirree! He’s my Director!

In Step 3: Part 4  I asked how you would define ‘will’ and ‘lives’ in the wording of Step 3.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him. Alcoholics Anonymous, 2011 p 59

In the 70s I was willing to teach high school English by day and coach the drama club by night, and add to that, drive an hour commute. I was young, optimistic and enthusiastic—an ideal candidate for the small school district of Olin, Iowa.

The prospect of developing my own curriculum, teaching in my own classroom and being the only drama coach was exciting. I’d borrowed more money than I could envision (college tuition) and buried myself for 4 boring years in the dusty tiled halls of academia to reach this point of independence and responsibility. I was pumped! Life was going to be wonderful. I was using my will to accomplish my goals:

• Teach high school English
• Coach drama students
• Mentor kids in creative writing

It took roughly one school year to experience the defeat at the wheel of power and control. I, who virtually never get sick, was bedridden that Spring. I was depressed, exhausted and depleted. My life lesson plan was handed to me with my bed tray at the age of 23!

Being self-willed, I often trip up. I am an optimistic enthusiast, without the physical stamina, nor the right mindset to sustain my desire to rise to the level of Director. (drum roll) The cumulative price of controlling others is a debt I cannot assume.

(Granted, there are people who can easily teach, sponsor the drama club and drive a long commute without a breakdown, but I’m talking about me–again, typical alcoholic that I am—its all about me.)

Therefore, this quote is my favorite portion of the Big Book of AA.

“The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful.” Alcoholics Anonymous 2011, p 62

It would be wonderful? Wait. I was going to say that’s what I used to think. No… I still fall into thinking that. I’m still re-learning the lesson plan that was on my bed tray in 1976.

Last year I was an administrator of a beautiful beach-side resort. I loved the work and it was rewarding, but I also was having chest pains from the stress of the 24/7 job. The job wasn’t the problem. I was. My desire to CONTROL others dove-tailed with being in charge. Having taught leadership, I know better. Big difference between leading and controlling. I fell prey to my natural instincts again.

For a year now I’ve been working at a job that has very little stress. It’s still 24/7 when we work, but I’m finding that without anyone else to focus on, some days I don’t even do a commendable job of controlling me. But, after all, I am trying to let go of being the Director and let God do that job.

PS: What comes to mind when you think of being a Director?

Sometimes a comment illustrates a point so well, I just can’t resist reposting it.  Thank you, Chaz.

Comment:
Wow Heidi…. you’ve touched on a lot of issues for me in your post.  Sorry if a get a little Chaz-esque and reply at length.  Reflections in no particular order:

First off, I had been a big Sinatra fan.  I suppose I still enjoy his music to the degree I can, however, I know that woven through an artist’s music is much of themselves.  And as much as I like Frank Sinatra’s style, he has little that I would want to emulate on a character level.  The crowning jewel of which is his seeming self-centredness as expressed in his signature song.  The longer I am in recovery, the more I learn to surrender and sense a conscious contact with God, the less I want to do things my way.  Like you and the rest of us, I proved this doesn’t work for me.  So to my old friend Frank, I must continue to go my separate way.  Sorry that you emphasized your way, Frank.  I must go a different way, God’s way.

Next, I remember a significant day back in 2004 when I was in a “Treatment Centre” (the one I highlighted in my Recovery Superstars post).  This was not part of the official program, but for a period, each morning I would rise early and seek out a private classroom and pray.  I would just walk the floor praising God and asking for his will for my life.  Little did I know at the time that I was trying to direct God.  Until one day, I went to pray the same as any other day, and rather than pray, all I found I could do is sit on the floor and cry.  This was highly untypical for me.  So I said to God, “Sorry, I have nothing I feel I can say or do at this moment”.  I just bawled for a long time feeling the pain of my damaged life.

Now I am not a person who feels he hears from God audibly.  And this time was no exception.  What did happen was the sense of a vivid realization that came clearly to mind.  The realization was the clear thought that God was saying, “Great, this is exactly where I needed you to be in order for me to get through to you”.  Broken, beyond words, I had run out of petitions and good suggestions for God on how he should help me.  And I saw it clearly.  I was finally broken enough to be teachable.  It was quite an experience.

All these years I had been even trying to get God to buy into My Way.  If the pain, calamity, and tremendous cost was what it took for me to gain a ‘conscious contact with God’, then it was all worth it.  God has had to let me get to the point of brokenness a few times since.  I did not learn in one fail swoop.  But I learned to no longer fear the point of brokenness.  This is where God can do things His Way.

Thanks again for the post Heidi.

Ciao.

Chaz

No, Chaz, THANK YOU. I encourage GoodLife readers check out your link.

The following was a post from Debbie on TwoMinutesofGrace. I love it. If you haven’t checked out her short devotional posts, you’re missing a good dollop of inspiration and a sprinkling of hope.

The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.  ~ I Samuel 16:7

Not too long ago, a former colleague dropped by for a visit. We hadn’t seen each other for several years. She greeted me in a rather surprising way. She walked in the door and said: Hi! Yes, I’ve gained weight.

I was somewhat taken aback as I said Hi and hugged her and asked about her life. I like to think that if she knew me better, she would know that wouldn’t have even crossed my mind. How difficult it is in a weight obsessed culture, for anyone to feel completely at ease in their own skin.

Some people are color blind, literally, and some are color blind in a more figurative, ethnic, sense. I’m weight blind. I truly never notice. It isn’t particularly a virtue; it just isn’t what I’m focused on. I’m more inclined to weigh words and moods than pounds.

When my kids were growing up, it became clear we needed to find a different kind of scale- one that would measure emotions. My daughter, who was unfailingly kind and thoughtful, consistently understated any problems. My son was perpetually happy and positive. These are wonderful traits but it made it much more difficult to know what might be weighing on their hearts and I these were hearts that I really wanted to know.

Eventually I developed a new set of household scales. When they were younger, we used it face to face. When they left for college, I asked them to weigh in via phone calls or emails. On a scale from 1 – 10, how’s your heart? I learned that I’m good could be anything from a 4 to a 9 1/2.

God’s seems much more interested in the weight we carry in our hearts, than the weight we carry on our thighs. Maybe we could start a new diet trend, weighing what really matters by asking each other: On a scale from 1 – 10, how’s your heart?

I already had His attention! In reality, the problem was: He didn’t have mine.

In retrospect, I don’t remember ever saying to myself, I just want to run my own life, God, so butt out. But in reality, that’s how I was living. One decision at a time, I was taking charge of my own life and controlling things to suit me. I was putting my own ideas and my own thinking into action.

Being candid here, I thought it was being responsible, I was stepping up to the plate. I was taking charge, being invested and being smart, even. I was accomplishing things that were on my goal list, wasn’t I? What’s so wrong with that?

Just count the number of times I’ve used I or implied I in the previous paragraph. Yup. I, I, I…

That’s the problem. It’s called playing God. (I had no clue.)

The way out was to get a clue by examining my thought process. I thought I was supposed to be in charge of my own life, so I was. Look where that got me: drunk and suicidal. My way of thinking is what got me on the wrong path. My self-will took me further and further down a destructive trail towards an inevitable dead end.

It was going to take a flat-out decision on my part to remedy my predicament, my self-willed life, before I prematurely ended it.

I finally hurt enough to make this flat-out decision. The motivator was the pain. The pain is why I was lying flat out on the carpet in an empty room at the Fellowship Club. Without the crippling pain, I never would have made the decision. I know there are people who don’t have to reach such a crisis point to make this decision, but I’m the kind that does.

Maybe it’s the Irish red-headed stubbornness in me. Maybe it’s the German bull-headedness. Maybe it’s the 4^th of July birthday. Who cares? I’m just so thankful I finally flat-out decided to take Step 3.

If my life was the result of bull-headed wrong thinking and stubborn wrong action, then I could have a remarkably different life by taking Step 3 seriously. Step 3 bears careful reading, and not just because I’m an English major, either.

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.”

As Joe and Charlie say, “We don’t turn anything over to God in Step 3. We make a decision to do something in Step 3, and the decision itself implies we’re going to take some further action to carry it out.”

PS: But how do we do that? First, I wonder how you define “will” and “lives”?

These are the basics that come from accepting the information presented to us in the Doctors Opinion and Chapters 1 through 4 of the AA text. Beyond just conclusions, they are our beliefs that we now own. On these truths we can build a program of recovery. Without the ABCs, it’s not possible. Only then are we ready for the Third Step. Look at what Bill says,

Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do? Alcoholics Anonymous, 2012, p 60

What we do is forge ahead with the knowledge based on the ABCs. From here forward we are not looking to self for solutions. We make a radical decision. My way or the highway, is not a workable slogan for addicts.

Frank Sinatra’s I Did It My Way was my theme song before AA. I chose this video because it’s his last concert. It’s how he went out. I tried to live like that, I really did.

It reinforced my worship of self. It it was obvious even to me by the spring of 2007 that doing it my way was not working. During my first few months of AA, I was so crazy that I’d find myself driving over gravel roads looking for the perfect suicide bridge: right slope, right embankment, right buttress– so that it would work and still look accidental. I was hopelessly sick in my addiction, racing on the straightaways and skidding into corners. It’s a metaphor for my life in addiction and my early days of recovery.

The only thing that calmed me was going to meetings and reading the AA book. That’s why I sometimes went to 13 meetings a week. Life was too scary outside the rooms. I still didn’t want to ‘say the words of one who kneels’.

Step 3 for me actually started between two meetings. I went to the sunrise 7 o’clock meeting at the Fellowship Club. As with all newly sober alcoholics, I was experiencing agonizingly raw feelings that previously I had numbed. That morning both rage and fear gripped my mind and paralyzed me as soon as I left the corner meeting room.

Avoiding the coffee club in the hallway, I ducked into the first empty room and shut the door. I curled up in the corner and cried, before laying down prostrate * on the carpet. It didn’t smell good. I remember that. My life stunk and it felt right to be there, though.

I cried and I prayed. I gave up. Gave it all up. I was done trying to control, trying to make sense of my life. I made a decision that day. Come whatever, I wanted God to control my life. There was not one thing I was withholding from Him any longer. I gave up. The decision was made.

Admittedly, I had no idea of the cost, the process or the outcome of taking Step 3, but I had the heart for it. I had trust that He could and would help me out of the mess that was my life.

I made a decision, once and for all to do whatever the program prescribed. I was going to take the Steps, and take them like my life depended upon it, because that was true. It did. I was done trying to do it my way. And those are the words of one who kneels.

PS: What was your theme song?

* I was a drama coach while I taught high school English, so while this didn’t seem overly dramatic for me, it wouldn’t fit for most people.

You may have read the following sentence before, if you’ve studied the history of the Big Book, but it’s no longer in the pages of our text. It not only gives us a clue to Bill’s forceful personality, but also sums up his convictions concerning the principles of AA. I laughed out loud when I heard it.

~

If you aren’t convinced of these vital issues, you ought to reread the book to this point or else throw it away!

Amen! I would have loved to have met the guy.

What he meant by vital issues is on page 60 following the 12 Steps:

• a. That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives
• b. That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism
• c. That God could and would if He were sought

Bill’s suggestion of re-reading the book up to this point for those who are not convinced of the ABCs, is not a blustery attempt at humor. The statistics of alcoholism are on the rise and the demographics have broadened dramatically since the first publication of the text in 1939.

We alcoholics are fighting for our lives, or else in a gesture of defeat, we’re drinking ourselves into an early grave. There’s no riding the fence for an alcoholic. To drink is to give up; to drink is to die or slowly become brain-damaged and disabled first, and then die a tragic alcoholic death. I’ve met a lot of sober alcoholics that quit drinking for the sole reason that they didn’t want to die like that.*

Of course, there’s another option. We can just put the cork in the jug and live an emotionally crippled life without the numbing effects of alcohol but with the craziness of alcoholic thinking. We can choose to be a dry drunk, going on emotional binges and isolating ourselves while we nurse our grudges and focus on maintaining our pride, refusing to change. This is not recovery.

On the other hand, to believe that the ABCs are true, means that we can look forward to learning new ways; changing our lives, walking forward with hope and help, and into new solutions for living.

It’s a choice. We can choose to remain victims of alcohol by volunteering for the role of victim and continuing to drink; or we can discover a better way of living by assessing the reality of our situation and taking the 12 Steps to recover.

It’s not quite as easy as my quick summary sounds, but it’s not real complicated, either. It’s simple…very simple. It’s not easy.

It all starts with the ABCs. Elementary. It’s so foundational that a recovery without using the ABCs is not the recovery Bill had in mind. I don’t know about you but my definition of recovery is his. I couldn’t have my recovery without these. It would be like writing a post without being able to use A or B or C. For me, it wouldn’t work. Without them, I would have given up. Many do.

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Alcoholics Anonymous, 2012, p 60

PS:If you want to pull back the curtain of grief that is alcohol, I would suggest you take a look at Danger-alcohol, a post by a young woman who fights daily to become a survivor of alcoholic grief.