In order for me to recover, I have to understand at least some of the ideas flitting around in my head. Telling someone else is the best way to get the mess organized. Saying what’s happening to me in a way that others can understand — putting it into words and sentences — removes the secrecy, the mystery, and clarifies things in my own mind. My thoughts have to stop running around in circles (at least a little bit), and that allows me to see through my own mental static. But there is another powerful reason for sharing our experience, strength and hope.
No one gets into recovery by accident. We used alcohol, other drugs or behaviors — often all three – because they made us feel better about ourselves. After they stopped working we kept using them because we were physically and emotionally addicted, and because we didn’t know what else to do. Eventually something happened that made us willing to take a terrified leap into the unknown, because we could no longer tolerate what was going on in our lives. I didn’t get up one morning and say to myself, “Hey, it’s nice out; I think I’ll go to detox!” Neither did you.
But what got us into recovery doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we have to repair the damaged thinking that made acting out our addictions seem preferable to facing reality. As many have said, “I’m not responsible for being an addict, but I am responsible for my recovery!” Back then, we didn’t know any better; now we do.
And that’s where the experience, strength and hope of others matters. In order for us to have faith in the program, we have to see that it works. Listening to other addicts tell how it was with them, what worked for them, the results and their hopes for the future — or maybe just how scared they are — tells us that we’re not alone, and gives us hope. I may not believe that I can do it, but if I see and hear that there are people who felt the way I felt, who had many of the same or similar experiences, who suffered the same shame, guilt and despair, and that they’ve managed to get beyond all that, turned their thinking around and begun to live, then just maybe I will begin to believe that I can do it too.
Further into our recovery, we may listen with a changed ear and be able to hear how we can apply the experiences of others in our own lives. In the beginning, though, we simply need the reassurance that we are not the only ones who behaved the way we did, that others have recovered successfully and are willing to share what they’ve learned, and that we are not alone.
That’s why we’re told to identify with the lives and feelings of others, and not compare. The details don’t matter. The feelings, fears, and humanity that we share with our fellow addicts are the keys.
Experience. Strength. But, most of all, HOPE!
Let’s Not Take Boston To Chicago
I know I speak for the entire Sunrise family when I extend our deepest concerns and sympathy to the victims, families and others whose lives have been devastated by yesterday’s awful tragedies at the Boston Marathon and nearby. We have friends, colleagues and former clients in the Boston area, and some of us have family there as well. Words can’t express our dismay at these events — one more example of folks’ inability to resolve differences without violence.
Ron P., one of my therapists when I was in treatment (you know, back when everyone was eating fermented fruit that they picked up on the way to the water hole), used to have a favorite way of putting things. He’d ask a simple question, or be listening to someone going on at length in group, and then he’d say, “C’mon! You’re taking it to Chicago!” Then he’d bring us back to the point or, as often as not, make it for us.
I couldn’t help thinking of Ron while reading snippets here and there about the Boston bombings. One theorist blames the US Government, who are allegedly trying to frame the opposite political party. Still others are sure they know who and what ethnic groups were responsible, and so on. Blah, blah, blah.
The bare fact is, no one knows who was responsible except for the people directly involved. It is likely that the rest of us will know more soon, but it’s by no means certain, and it’s important that we keep our heads and not jump on our horse and ride off in all directions like the codependent cowboy. It’s especially important that we keep these issues out of the rooms of recovery.
We all have our feelings, and many of us aren’t that good at keeping them to ourselves. If we feel as though we need to talk about things, we need to remember the first rule of sharing in the rooms or elsewhere: keep in in “the I.” We share about how these things are affecting us and our recovery. We do not voice opinions on outside issues, in violation of our traditions, and we don’t take a chance of offending others in the meeting. We are not there to ride a political (or religious) hobby horse, but to facilitate our recovery, and that of others.
Let’s keep our primary purpose in mind, when tempted to air the opinions that all us addicts have in abundance, shall we? As a bonus, it may prevent us from having to eat crow later, when our pet theory may be shown to be incorrect. Let’s not take Boston to Chicago.