Restraint of Tongue and Pen

The best advice at work and at home is to practice restraint of tongue and pen. And today we might add:    “…and restraint of keyboard, email and Facebook.” In most cases what is not said is safer and kinder than what is said.

One of my early sponsors used to say to me, “Don’t worry about doing any new stuff, just don’t do anything that you are going to have to make amends for.” In most cases that meant: Don’t say it. Don’t write it. And this, which I also love:

“I don’t have to go to every argument that I am invited to.”

By now you have learned your own body’s signals, the things that tell you that you need to be in the restraint mode: accelerated breathing, talking fast, eye rolling and and the clear sign: you are talking to people who are not in the room (or in the car) with you. When you are alone but “rehearsing” your arguments, like, “I’m gonna tell her this and this and this..” And then you do it again adding emphasis, or nastier words, that is your cue to toss the cell into the back seat or pull over and call your sponsor. 

Most of the time when I am in that state I am willing to text my sponsor but really—it is much better to make a phone call—even if you get voicemail—because just hearing yourself say out loud what you want to say to that Bad Person, or Awful Coworker or Selfish Family Member will get the attention of your own wiser, recovered self and you’ll be laughing by the end of the call.

And thank God! Because, really: Do you want to be making more amends? You did that at year 3 and five and ten and you don’t want more. And you don’t want to be the one at work who has “issues” or that everyone has to tiptoe around. So use my old sponsor’s wisdom: Do not say or write (or text, or reply) anything you will have to make amends for later.

 When times are tough put this note on your laptop screen or add a screensaver that says: Restraint of Tongue and Pen!

Teeny Tiny Willingness

Only 25 years later I’m starting to get the concept of willingness in a way that I can explain it to myself and begin to experience it as a practice. This is coming from the current round of step work I’m doing with my sponsor. Can I say this without sounding like the oldest of old-timers: “It’s in the steps”? It makes me laugh. There it is hidden in plain sight—it’s in the steps.

Now, willingness. It’s coming to me like this: I made a summary list of the amends I need—and want—to make. (See the blog post from July 8). I decide to give myself a quick review of that list once a day to keep the ideas fresh in my mind. And I prayed for willingness. I think that, in the past, I believed that if I really saw what needed to be changed and if I was really, really, really sincere in my willingness prayer—then swoosh!—change! But no.

Now I see that willingness is incremental and tiny and momentary. Something happens and I want to mind someone else’s business; I want to touch something that isn’t mine; I want to gossip; I have begun to say something that is gossip and that list I wrote of amends comes to mind. Oh, dam. I said I didn’t want to do this anymore. Now what? Am I willing to practice that big change right here, right now in this small way? In this particular situation? Am I willing to shift/drop/just not do that thing now?

In the moment when I want to mind her business; pick up his calendar; take on her feelings; tell myself I am crap; think that God loves everyone but me—that is when I get to be willing. The choice is tenuous, momentary, achingly hard.

I’ve worked on recovery in OA also so I can see the parallel with food: I said I didn’t want to eat cookies anymore. I prayed for that willingness. Then I am at someone’s home or in my kitchen and I’m eating a cookie! Instead of thinking, “Oh the willingness failed—I’m eating this cookie.” I can—if I’m home spit it out, or if I’m out I can sit the half eaten cookie down and push the plate away.

I guess I thought that if I ‘dropped the rock” it was going to be one big rock that would fall away and the freedom and relief would be huge and immediate. But no. It’s more like we have a bag of gravel and we drop a handful, maybe one pebble, at a time. But if we do it over and over—teeny, tiny willingness--the big rock “gets gone” just as truly.

No New Amends

Working through the steps again with my sponsor and I have a whole new list of amends—all—and this is humbling—things that occurred in recovery—in “good” sobriety. Yes, progress not perfection.

One step I’ve taken this time is looking thru that list again and distilling it down to some themes or central ideas. My step nine guidelines (kind of a personalized character defect prevention plan) include:

Mind my own business.

If it doesn’t have your name on it don’t pick it up. This is a variation of MMOB but includes things and feelings and concerns that belong to someone else.

Believe that God loves me. I act out of fear so often.

Believe I am loveable as I am. Again fear, fear, fear and wanting to make myself bigger, more important, more special.

Put myself first. Sounds like selfishness but I find that if I don’t ask for what I need and want it comes out later as resentment. Not pretty.

Change my thinking. This is the biggie. I think myself into fear, loss, abandonment, deprivation. I scare myself all by myself. It’s true I came for the drinking but stay for the thinking.

Today as I try to hold these concepts in mind and as I work thru my amends list to clean off my side of the street I say to myself over and over this advice from my very first sponsor:

“Try not to do anything else that you’ll have to make amends for.”

Making Amends in Baseball

Did you watch baseball last night? Did you see the end of the almost perfect game? We changed channels to be there, to see the moment, to witness baseball history. What we saw instead was heartbreak but also baseball history.

Tiger’s pitcher Armando Galarraga threw a perfect 8 and 2/3 innings. On the last ball the hitter makes contact and runs but Galarraga takes the ball to first and tags him out. The whoops begin but are cut short by the almost instant safe call by umpire Jim Joyce.

Shock everywhere. TV viewers could see it was out but the umpire called safe. Game over. Perfect game squelched. I rolled on the floor in pain. Sympathy. Empathy. Seeing something taken away unfairly.

That’s the part so many can relate too. Galarraga pitched a perfect baseball game and it was taken away from him by human error. It was unfair.

But get this. Jim Joyce did look stricken as he left the field. Then saw the instant replay in the clubhouse and came back to apologize to the manager and Galarraga. He named his error. He was remorseful. (I wouldn’t be in that guys belly for anything this morning.)

No, it doesn’t fix it. Jim Joyce is now a fatal baseball story and Armando Galarraga is now the answer to a baseball trivia question. Making amends doesn’t change what happened. It changes us.

Amends Prevention

This weekend visiting family I recalled a piece of advice I heard early in recovery:
“Don’t do anything you’ll have to make amends for later.” That is a kind of a failsafe slogan. I remember that it had a lot of impact after I had been working the 9th step and remembered how grisly some amends can be. This slogan reminds me that it can be very selfish and very self-protective to NOT get the last word and NOT make my point.

If you can’t do anything else: Just don’t do anything you're gonna have to make amends for later.