Who Has What You Want?

In early recovery I heard this advice over and over: “Look for someone who has what you want, and ask them how they got it.” That was, I was told, also how to pick a sponsor. It’s funny looking back. I mean how does a really new newcomer know what someone has? Yes, you can hear a sense of humor or see who bathes regularly. But when I look around the rooms today it’s not always the shiny stars or fine talkers of AA who have what I want.

I’ve been thinking about this because this week I was trying to explain to a sponsee why she should do more step work. “I don’t drink and I don’t want to drink, and I’m really happy about that,” she told me. And I get that, but I tried to tell her that I want so much more than that from AA, and from of my life.

I want so much more than abstinence from alcohol. And I even want so much more than no more “jackpots”. I want the whole enchilada that I believe is possible: peace, serenity and joy (not daily happiness but real joy.) I also want great relationships: with husband, friends and colleagues. And a great relationship with my Higher Power and with myself.

But here’s where it gets tricky. Some of that good, changed life comes with longevity—more time in recovery equals more exposure to new ideas, concepts and layer upon layer of the Steps. But not for everybody. I still have to look around the rooms and ask myself, “Who has what I want?”

It’s possible to have 35 years of sobriety and be obese, angry, gambling, smoking or using some behavior or  “legal” substance and still be miserable. I see it and hear it. We share the rooms with folks who have been around a very long time and are miserable in marriage or on the job. That’s not the recovery I want for myself.

In some ways the pool gets smaller the further we go if we are committed to going all the way. What do you think about this? If you have been around a while what kind of recovery are you still working toward? I want deep change as much --or more --than I want long years. In a sense that is where my deep joy comes from—knowing there is some crazy character defect I didn’t even know I had two years ago, that I recognized in myself one year ago, and that I see gradually changing this summer. I’m in awe of that, and I can only want more.

Creative Girls

Something that comes up after we have been in recovery for a while is our creative longings or aspirations. Maybe we always wanted to write a book—but instead we just bored everyone at the bar. Or maybe we kept buying art supplies and not using them, or we wanted to buy art supplies but we drank that money instead.

I think that under a lot of addiction there is art and creativity trying to surface but shoved back by substances and shame. But then, a few years into recovery, we take a baby step of telling a sponsor, “Well, I always wanted to write, dance, act, make jewelry, design my own sweaters or make sculpture.” We laugh when we say it, as if, “Isn’t that the dumbest thing?” but if we are lucky—and this is why we have them—our sponsor or other women in recovery say, “So try it.”

You know these stories from the rooms: The lawyer becomes a painter, the doctor starts dancing, the mom writes a memoir—and sells it. Part of our recovery from substance abuse also means recovering our dreams. For many of us doing something creative was a dream.

I’ve found a wonderful book to help recover and take action toward those dreams. I’m reading “Creative Girl: The Ultimate Guide for Turning Talent and Creativity into a Real Career.” This paperback/workbook is by Katharine Sise who is a jeweler, designer, fiction and nonfiction writer. She has lived the slog from secret wishes to trying several kinds of creative work to making it happen. And the best part: making it happen imperfectly!

This is not one of those “Do these three things and you can quit your job and dance with Alvin Ailey” kind of books. She talks about money and fear and holding a job to support your creative work, and fear, and starting, and starting over, and yeah, the fear --and the joy.

I don’t know this woman but she feels like someone I could have a cup of coffee with and be very comfortable talking about wanting to write and what gets in the way. This book has exercises to do—or not do. And great takeaways like the “ten minute rule”—if you are procrastinating on a creative task set a timer and just do it for ten minutes. (A common fear is getting started.)

Ours is a program of action and Sise’s book may be a helpful guide to taking a next creative step.

The Other Program

Here is one of those changes that happen when recovery becomes “out of the woods”: Many of us go to --or go back to –AlAnon.

It’s a funny thing about recovery in AA. In the early days we have to learn to be less selfish. We learn to actually consider the impact of our behavior on other people. We laugh at the Big Book story of the man who comes out of the storm cellar, surveys all the damage of his disease and declares, “Look Ma, ain’t it grand the wind stopped blowing.” We laugh. Oh yeah, no one—especially those near and dear-- is applauding that we simply stopped drinking.

So we learn to listen, to consider the needs of others, to compromise.

But then if we keep at our recovery, we reach a point where we actually have to learn to be selfish again. You may hate that word and prefer “self-caring”, but really, it’s selfish and it’s a good thing. It’s almost like we have to go back over the old ground again and say, “So what do I want?” And, “What do I need—even if it makes someone else unhappy?”

And when we find that is hard to do or when we or someone near us—like a sponsor—notices that we are not putting our needs first—we are invited—or sent—to an AlAnon meeting.

Rules for beginners are the same: try six meetings, raise your hand and claim your seat, listen to the people with experience, read the literature and even do service. It’s hard to be a beginner again, but the payoff is that there is a real multiplier effect from working both programs.

It really is the best of both worlds: care for self and care for others. Detaching with love. Continuing to grow. One day at a time.

Uncomfortable Feelings

Today I’m remembering something that my first sponsor used to say to me when I would tell her how hard it was to go through my day with all kinds of uncomfortable feelings coursing through me.

She’d say, “Yes, those are very uncomfortable feelings, and they are simply that:

Feelings, and uncomfortable.

Lean Into It

Yesterday I had the opportunity (Another growth opportunity!) to practice the idea of going toward what troubles you. This is a lesson I seem to learn, forget, learn again and forget again over and over in my recovery.

When someone bugs you go toward them. Do not avoid them or pull away but go toward that person and lean into the uncomfortable experience.

I’ve used this lesson well in the work place many times. The coworker that I “hate”, the boss that scares me, the volunteer I wish would disappear. At first I try to avoid them, hide, and limit exposure to these folks— all the while building a case in my head and sharing my brilliance with anyone who will listen to my judgments and my certain rightness.

But if the feelings persist I finally remember that my work is not to stand back from these people but rather to lean into them and go toward what troubles me.

Last night I almost skipped an event because I didn’t want to be around a woman who bugs me—her demeanor stirs my blood in unattractive ways. But luckily a recovery friend said, “No I think you should go to the party and go right up to her and see what happens.”

And I did. Not happily. Not comfortably. But with some prayers and with the mantra, “Go toward her”. And in the course of the evening I saw a fuller picture and got a deeper sense of the issues underneath. (Mine and maybe even hers.)

No, she is not my new friend. And no, I don’t suddenly like her. But today I am not obsessing about, worrying over or envying this chick at all.

Relief and peace because I leaned in, and I went toward her.

At Dinner on the Titanic

This week a discussion with other woman who are past the 20 year mark in recovery. Whatever issue or substance brought us in we acknowledged that it wasn’t the only thing we had to face to have good recovery. Maybe it was alcohol that led us to our first bottom, or food that provided the gift of desperation. Maybe it was men or money or work. Inevitably we get to take a good look at all of them and get help for more than one addiction.

But there is also a time in later recovery where we might decide that some issues are black and white: drugs or alcohol or certain trigger foods for some of us, but that in other areas—different ones for each woman—we’ll endorse the grey of “progress not perfection”. In some cases it is accepting life on life’s terms: there is no perfect relationship or perfect partner. And with sex and food and work we practice discernment and self-honesty.

Anhedonic by nature, I have to be careful to not live too narrow a life in the name of good recovery.

I do not want to be one of the women who refused dessert at dinner that final night on the Titanic.