July 4--It's About War

“Well, it’s one, two, three. What are we fighting for? Don’t ask me; I don’t give a dam; Next stop is Viet Nam. And it’s five, six, seven open up the pearly gates; Ain’t no time to wonder why. Whoopee! We’re all gonna die”.

That song by Country Joe and The Fish was my introduction to war. It made me laugh and it gave me the cheap thrill of having an opinion without having to trouble with actual thought. Another song of that time asked, “War; what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” 

I was in high school then and memorizing facts about wars: The French and Indian, Revolutionary and World Wars. I filled blue books with wordy essays about the causes, winners, losers and political implications. Now, more than 30 years later, I remember few of the facts, but more troubling I still know little about why we really go to war.

This weekend is ripe with war’s resonance. July 4^th

we celebrate the American colonists bold declaration of their independence and their willingness to kill for it. On these same few days, later in our history, was the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest battles of our Civil War. This is the 150^th anniversary. We alternate fighting others and ourselves, but the constant in this is that we fight.

I’ve always liked the idea of pacifism but it’s not my truth; I fight too many things.  I hate that war is about killing but what else could it be? We talk about rules and conventions but isn’t the point to hurt the enemy so badly that they quit? No one surrenders because the other side has a better idea; we quit when the losses are too great.

In his book, The History of Warfare, John Keegan explains how man’s proclivity for violence evolved, and the benefits accruing to mankind from war. He writes about war’s contributions to agriculture and the relationship between the domestication of animals and the needs of war. Keegan explains that before anyone ever rode horses they were just food like cows or pigs are today. It took years of breeding for horses to support a rider.

Similarly early horses were not tractable—they couldn’t be harnessed for work--until they were bred for warfare. So even My Friend Flicka and the summer season at Saratoga owe something to war. Keegan’s list is extensive: advances in medicine and science, and the developments of metallurgy are among the secondary gains of war.  Of course, the moral gains and losses are another matter.

In our American wars we often fight in the name of democracy. But democracy is not a condition, it’s a process. And like any process or progress it’s often achieved by taking three steps forward and two steps back. In some instances a particular war may represent a step forward but in another case it may be a step back.

What is troubling is that we can’t know which it is until we have the benefit of perspective, of time passing. That’s what makes war and the political process terrifying and exhilarating. We have to make our choices based on the past and what we imagine of the future.

What we are missing is the courage to say that we don’t know.

The rhetoric of war—pro and con—allows us to shortcut having to think, and to escape living in the vast expanse of the imperfect present. It’s so much easier to be for or against than to sit with the messy, heartbreaking gray of war’s reality. But posturing any absolute truth makes us all prisoners of war.

This weekend, in the midst of picnics and parades we need a moment to honor this imperfection, and while surrounded by red, white and blue we need to leave some room for the gray.

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And yes, there is more on war and what we have learned about our military and trauma, and cultural attitudes about war in my new book, "Never Leave Your Dead", published by Central Recovery Press.

Fighting and Freedom

I had a fight with my husband. It was one of those with the repeating theme. It was our same fight, but with different details. And, yes, me saying, “Why don’t you…?” and “You always…”

As much as I really wanted to enjoy my righteous rightness (and I am 89.5% right) I also felt the undeniable familiarity of this fight. That’s one of the downsides of longer recovery—you can’t hide from yourself so well anymore—knowing that you own part of it  takes the fun out of fighting in a flash.

So what was I going to do? How could I walk through a conflict that was hard and where I really did have hurt feelings?

I used some recovery tools. I sent email to my sponsor; called another sober woman and I also went to my bookshelf. I always go to books. I came to recovery by the grace of Robin Norwood’s books, so for me bibliotherapy is real.

I started with our Big Book. Step 3, yep, and surrender—yuck --but also yep. I added some Alice Miller—definitely—I have those issues for sure. But “how”—how could I move past hurt feelings? How could I shift the energy from fantasies of revenge to using this situation for growth?

I landed on the book called How Can I Forgive You? By Janis Abrahms Spring and I got relief. Spring writes about really hard stuff like overcoming infidelity and parental betrayal so I knew I could lean into her wisdom for this fuss we were having. Here’s what I read:

“Your freedom lies not in protesting the unfairness of the violation or in getting the offender to care. Your freedom –perhaps your only freedom—is in deciding how to survive and transcend the injury. Don’t underestimate this freedom: it’s enormous. With it comes the power to decide how you’re going to live the rest of your life. As you take the task of healing into your own hands, you empower yourself and have peace.”

Bingo! It was peace that I really wanted…not to let my husband off he hook necessarily but to get me off my own hook and out of my spinning head. It’s that wonderful paradox of AA and Alanon—being selfish enough to take the focus off of being right and take back your own good life.

The rest of her book is even more wonderful and you can apply her Ten Principles of Acceptance to home and work. Check it out: “How Can I Forgive You” by Janis Abrahms Spring, Ph.D.

It's About Freedom

This 4th of July is about an extra summer day and writing time and swimming in the pool and indulging in some local-sourced Vitamin D--the real thing from the sky--so forbidden. The 4th of July is also about freedom--our country, constitution, and choices.

Folks in recovery understand freedom. We know what it tastes like. After many years of living free of compulsion and addiction we may forget how very changed our inner and outer lives are. Hence we say "keep it green".

I love finding new recovery writers and I want to introduce Dawn who blogs at RecoveringDawn and SheRecovers. Here's her link:

http://recoveringdawn.blogspot.ca/

Jealousy is a Gold Mine

Jealousy is one of the oldest and icky-est emotions, and it is linked to shame so it has real sticking power. What I find interesting is that it’s one of the hardest emotions to talk about in recovery because we, sober people, shame each other for feeling it. In 12 step programs and even in therapy we may hear how wrong jealousy is—and yet—here it is.

But as I was feeling some of this green icky stuff this week I dipped back into a rare and provocative resource.

My tutor is French analyst Marcianne Blevis and her book “Jealousy: True stories of Love’s Favorite Decoy.” She makes the powerful case that jealousy exists to help us and to free us. Yes, I know it never feels anything like that, does it? She’s onto something though.

Look at this thing she says: “Jealousy is a response to anxiety. (Jealousy is not the anxiety but a response to a preexisting anxiety”). She writes that the anxiety arose early in our lives: “If an impulse in childhood is struck down by a prohibition, it transforms itself into a terror and anguish” Ok, that makes sense: I will be jealous of one whom I perceive to be the thing I was never allowed to be. But then she says this: “Jealousy not only tangles our memories, but also puts us in contact with those unconscious forces of childhood that are struggling to free themselves from the realm of the incommunicable.” Jealousy is actually the route out of childhood anguish.

So when we shove away or shame away the jealous feelings we are cutting off a life preserver and tossing it back to the one trying to rescue us.

Blevis insists that jealousy is not bad no matter how bad it feels. It is built in as a gift to save us. It is as if it is the antidote that is taped to the side of the poison bottle. It comes to free us and give back to us the thing that was prohibited in our early lives, the thing we transformed into terror long before we had words.

Here’s a simple way to get at this in yourself: What were you not allowed to do that you did naturally and freely as a child? What did your mother or father prohibit? What were you shamed for as a kid? Was there something you did or liked to do for which affection or love was withdrawn? This will show up in your jealousy targets as an adult. For many women it has something to do with bodies, sexuality, attractiveness --and creativity--which is why we get confused as adults when we think our jealousy is about another woman’s attractiveness it’s actually about our own—and its repression.

There is freedom here –in the jealousy—for the taking. But it means not shaming ourselves for feeling jealous—but rather relishing it and mining those jealous feelings for the gold buried there.

Controlling Other People

It’s not even about controlling other people. We can’t actually. But the trying and trying.

I found this in my journal: “Abandoning our attempts to control other people is a profound form of personal liberation.”

Controlling Others

Reminder to me:
When I try to control him or her or them—it just makes me more dependent on them. Letting go is a gift to me and step toward my freedom.

Happy, Joyous and Free

We are told that the gift of recovery is that we will become happy, joyous and free. Freedom we know: freedom from hangovers and sickness and obsession and shame. Freedom from fear. And happiness yes. Not all the time. We do not stop being human; and life happens to us as it does to everyone else. So happiness is not a constant even though periods of happiness will increase the longer we are active in recovery.

But Joy is something else. One of the best things I learned about Joy is this:

“Joy comes from my relationship with God.  So I can be Joyous even when I am not happy.”

As we daily pursue a connection with our Higher Power we can be happy, joyous and free. This is why recovery continues even after our last drink was many years ago.

Freedom

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think.”


--David Foster Wallace, Commencement address Kenyon College, 2005