Maybe We Should Regret the Past

One of the Promises from the book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” says, “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” Yet we hear people with good recovery sometimes admit that they still have regrets. Is that flawed recovery or is that good mental health?

We talk both in and outside of recovery rooms about not having regrets and suggest that it’s a good thing.  What I think we mean by that is that we don’t want to be stuck in or shamed by our past. But if we have been around a while we all have some “stuff”—things we did and people we hurt.  They may be things from before our recovery began, though for many of is they are also things that happened over the years of our long recovery. We are not saints.

We often think of our regrets as mistakes but they are not quite that.  Living without regrets isn’t possible. And maybe it isn’t even desirable.

A new book, “Missing Out—In Praise of the Unlived Life” by psychoanalyst Adam Phillips presents this very provocative idea: We need regrets to shape our best lives. Phillips suggests that the regrets that we hold represent the options we didn’t choose and they are the mechanism that let us see the life we did choose.

This makes sense when I read the daily news. Life changes in a split second. We understood this after the World Trade Towers were attacked and again with the Indonesian tsunami. On a smaller scale we feel it any time we read about a terrible accident or a fire.

A couple of years ago my life had to change. Someone asked me, “But what about your career?” and I answered, being flip but surprising myself with the truth, “I don’t have a career, I have a life.”

That insight had been incubating over time. When my brother Larry was just weeks from death and we finally, awkwardly got around to talking about that reality, I took a deep breath and asked, “Are you afraid to die?” There was a long silence. Then he said quietly, “Di, all I ever did was work.”

I love my work too. But the day that I see the water receding too fast at the beach or hear the terrible screech of tires, or notice the cough that won’t quit I want to be more or less OK with my choices and with my regrets.

 If we live a conscious and examined life we should die with at least a few regrets. The goal isn’t to have no regrets; it’s to be fully aware of them and what they represent.

Do You Have a Softball Team?

This week I am on Cape Cod finishing the book, "Out of the Woods".  A friend has loaned me her beautiful home so I can write all day long. Today I took a break and went into town for a pedicure. I went to a salon I'd never been in and a young woman with a British accent had time to do my toes. When she asked me why I was on the Cape I took a breath and said, “I’m writing a book.” “What’s it about?” she said, running the water for my feet. “Well”, I said, taking a breath, “It’s about women in 12-step recovery.” And I paused, not sure what would happen next. “Are you in recovery?” she asked. And I nodded. Then she said,  “I am too, ten years.” And we had a great conversation.

When I asked her about sponsorship she told me about her sponsor’s advice. “You need to have your own softball team”, she was told. “You need seven people that you can call in as needed; seven who are your team.” “You need seven people in recovery that you know well enough—and who know you well enough-- that you can call them any time.” I had never heard that advice before and I think it is terrific.

I immediately and discretely started counting on my fingers. Yep, I have seven. So that’s another mini guideline we can use for our ongoing recovery. Do you have seven women that you know well enough to call anytime? That means seven women who are watching you recover just as you are watching them. And of course to get and keep that seven you gotta be in meetings on a regular basis because life happens and that seven won’t be the same seven a few years from now. Life happens, schedules change, we get new jobs, we fall in love and sometimes we move to a new town.

Do you have a softball team? Should we get shirts?

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.