It's Not Them?! It's NOT Them!!

I have found over the years that there are threads that exist in most philosophies that center around human behavior and that these threads can be found in Twelve Step programs and in a lot of modern medicine.  I've taken the time to share this article written by the psychologist Dr. Robert Puff and found in the magazine Psychology Today.  I don't know anything about this guy and I've never read the magazine so I'm not shilling or advocating for either but I loved the sentiments.  To wit: We do not control other people.  We do not control the political system or the people at our jobs or the weather or the traffic patterns.  We control none of it.  None of it!   We have control over one thing and one thing only: our behavior, our reaction to these things out of our control and if we work hard on improving ourselves then our alignment with the rest of existence improves.

Every time I write about these amazing, baffling, incomprehensible spiritual principles - thinking of others before I think about myself and leaving the rest of the world to their own devices  - I'm tempted to rebel.  This kind of approach to life can't possibly be workable.  I think about others before myself?!  Insanity!  Apostasy!  The world is out there spinning today.  What can I do about that?  Not very much.  I know this to be true: I have tried to control things that are out of my control for years and years - I still do it today! - and I have rarely succeeded and when I have bent the world to my own design it rarely makes me happy.

So don't use your turn signals today!  Fuck do I care!?

Here's the article:

"When I was in high school, I found out I had an ulcer. I kept waking up in the middle of the night with these intense stomach pains that wouldn’t go away. I finally dragged myself to the doctor to figure out the issue. He asked me lots of questions about myself and my habits until he finally discovered that I drank soda every single day. He said that was the cause of the ulcer and if I wanted my pain to go away, I had to cut soda out of my life. Once I made this change, my pain did in fact go away and never came back.

Now, I’m going to share a silly story—and stick with me because I promise there’s a purpose. Let’s say I went to the doctor and I asked, “Hey Doc, can you give me something to give to my boss so he stops scheduling me to work so much?“ or “Hey Doc, what can I do to fix my teachers who are giving me tons of homework?” She would look at me like I had two heads!

The moral here is, when we go to the doctor, we want them to fix us, not the people who are in our lives. We do this not because other people can’t cause us stress, they certainly do, but we’re not in control of those people. This is why when we go to the doctor, they prescribe us medicine, not the people who are causing us suffering.

(Man, how great would that be?  Doctors fixing other people.)

Just like our doctors can’t control or fix outside forces in our lives, we can’t control the psychological stress people may put on us. What we can do is change who we are. When we struggle, we have a tendency to want to blame others for our problems. I’ve seen this countless times as a practicing psychologist. What I like to remind my patients is that we’re not in control of other people’s actions, but we are in control of our response.

By putting the control back into our hands, we now have a sense of power over our own healing. When we focus our attention on the actions of others, we waste our energy.

Let me use an example to illustrate this. As a clinical psychologist, I’ve helped many couples improve their marriages over the years. Here’s what almost always happens when these couples enter my office: They list the things that are wrong with each other and ask for me to help fix each other. Here’s what I tell them: “Imagine if all of your energy went towards improving yourself, and being the best partner you can possibly be?”

This is because it’s hugely beneficial to our relationships when we focus on ourselves. It allows us to look in the mirror and say that we like the person looking back at us. When we’re happy with ourselves, we can take the time to see if our partners are treating us in the way we deserve to be treated. I recommend when you’re in a situation with your partner where you feel as though they are treating you unfairly, to turn inward and perhaps get quiet with your own thoughts, or remove yourself from the situation entirely if need be.

Again, we only have control over our internal selves, not the external world. The key is to focus on our own behavior, not other people’s. There are many circumstances of life such as our parents, our socioeconomic background, where we’re from, etc. that we don’t have any control over. It may feel tempting to focus on these things that are out of our control, but I’m challenging you to switch your focus to the things you can control.

For example, perhaps you don’t make much money, and this is frustrating to you. I challenge you to zoom outwards and think about the people who make less money than you but are also happy. What this allows us to do is really get to the heart of why this lack of money is upsetting. In many cases, it’s our attachment, and wishing that the external world was different.

But, what if we reframed our thinking to be centered around making the most of what we have? We’ll have more time to spend with people we love, doing things that fill us with joy like getting outside and practicing gratitude and acceptance for what we do have.

When we focus on the things that are in our control, we have the opportunity to change our own thinking. A lot of the time we struggle because we wish things were different or we see things negatively rather than positively.

For example, when I drive with other people, they will point out rude drivers to me that I didn’t even notice. Maybe I noticed that they were fast, but I didn’t dedicate the time to even notice that they were acting rude. I am only focused on myself while driving, which is something that I really enjoy. I only have control over my own actions, not the impatience of these other Southern California drivers.

It’s imperative that we stop focusing on what other people do. We can create boundaries around these people to protect ourselves, but again, that is for our own benefit, not theirs. It is very difficult to change other people, but we have the power to make adjustments to ourselves.

What this looks like in practice is this—if you’re in a situation that is causing you anxiety or stress, you may ask yourself, “What can I do in this instance to make things better for myself?” Notice how this is very different than asking, “What can I do to make this person stop doing what they’re doing because it is stressing me out?” The solution to problems lies within ourselves, not others.

This may feel overwhelming at first, but I also think that can be an empowering feeling. It takes the control out of the hands of others and places it back into our own. We are in control of our reactions and our own happiness. And when we focus on improving ourselves vs. the actions of others, we’ll find that happiness is always within an arm’s reach."

More Plain Language For Ya

"We believed that somehow, someday we will be able to control and enjoy our drinking.  (Is this verbatim from the original Big Book?  I think it is, or nearly so.)  

"As alcoholics, we have lost the ability to control our drinking.  We have lost this ability permanently."  (Once you change a cucumber into a pickle you can never change it back.)  

"People with strong willpower in all other areas of life will have zero willpower when it comes to drinking.  Alcoholism doesn't care who you are or what you've done.  We have plenty of knowledge about ourselves as alcoholics but we just ignore it all when we want to drink."  (Never met anyone who wasn't bright enough to grasp The Program but I've sure run into a lot of folks too smart to pick up the essentials and stay sober.)

"The members of A.A. have learned to see and understand the signs of a relapse.  We know how alcoholics think.  We know how they're feeling when they want to stop drinking and cannot do it.   We can see when someone is only doing some of the things needed to stay sober."  (And I'll tell you this - it's usually not difficult to see when someone is dicking around with their recovery program and gotten back on the Road to Perdition.  You're not fooling us.  You can't bullshit a bullshitter.  New people are like teenagers trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their parents.  You think we haven't tried to get away with the same crap you're trying to get away with?)

"Even if we are smart and sensible in all other areas of life, when alcohol is involved we seem almost insane.  It's strong language, but to most of us it feels true.  We feel as though we have lost our sanity.  Actual alcoholics will be absolutely unable to stop drinking just because they want to."

Wasn't Me . . . Or Was It?

I am who I am and it took me a long time to figure out who I am but, man, is it great to know who I am.

A long time.

I think about my parents and how they did the best they could and how they passed along the best parts of themselves to me while also infecting me with their anger and resentments and paranoid depressions.  They did the best they could.  There's no tried and true manual for raising kids.  Every parent is kind of winging it, playing it by ear.   And - c'mon, let's get serious - I was a nightmare as a child and teenager and young adult.  Maybe not a nightmare - more of an unknowable mass of contradictions and bad choices and resistance to any and all help.  I cannot imagine how it must have been watching a talented, popular kid run his life into brick wall after brick wall.

The Statute of Limitations for blaming your parents expires when you hit thirty.  You're thirty!  Quit bitching about your parents for chrissake!

I received a lovely email from a high school classmate about a reunion coming up.  He and I were on the same basketball team and I was privileged to be a member of a group of athletes who shared a special bond and stayed close in the fifty years since we graduated.  In many ways my fondest memories of those years included this group of boys.  My friend shared a long story of gratitude about kindnesses that I gave him during this time.  It was heartfelt and made me feel great about myself . . .  but it never happened.  It was someone else he was writing about, at least partially.  I could recognize aspects of my personality in his memories to a certain degree - he was definitely talking about me - but the actions he mentioned weren't mine.  He was describing our relationship but in an out-of-whack Twilight Zone episode.  It makes me think about the fact that our minds are  composed of malleable plastic, rearranging memories in a fashion that makes us feel comfortable about how we have changed over the years.  I consider this when someone tells me something that may not be factually true, regarding it as a faulty memory rather than a deliberate lie.  And, shit, you know what?  Maybe that stuff really did happen and I'm in the one having a brain fart.  "Euphoric Recall" we call it in AA where we sanitize the disaster of our lives, remembering the good and erasing the bad.

Bluntly Said

One of the most amazing, frustrating, uplifting, infuriating aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous is dealing with the new person.  When you get down to brass tacks the magic of recovery occurs when we pass the message along - it is our Twelfth Step for good reasons.  Bill W, alone and beginning to rationalize a "normal" drink outside a hotel bar during a failed business trip far from home, saved his own ass by calling churches until he found another floundering drunk he could talk to.  I watch new people swirl in and out of The Rooms, mostly swirling out and staying out but sometimes coming in and sticking around until the miracle happens and they find the relief they were looking for in The Bottle.

At my meeting a 65 year old man is currently working on his sobriety.  He laughs a lot but he's clearly pissed off deep down inside and clearly defiant.  He's not a guy I would tell what to do - that would be looking for a pointless argument.  He's not going to do anything anyone else tells him to do.  I personally approach this type of hard head with a pat on the back and some vague, positive noises, then stand back and see if they began to stop the destruction they're causing to their own selves.  I find my message is best received when it's delivered in the  "this is what I do and you can do whatever you want because I got no fucking idea what you should do."  While I do have a fucking idea what they should do if they want to get sober I honor each person's path to recovery.  In my mind we all have to drink until we've had enough to drink, until we're not thirsty anymore.  Telling someone to stop drinking may not be the best message to someone who isn't done drinking.  All I can say is that when I was ready this is what I did.  Fuck if I know what you should do.

One of our treasured long-timers offered to be this guy's sponsor.  He's pretty doctrinaire about his recovery - never a drug user, just a drunk - so when the new guy said he was smoking some weed - California Sober! - the sponsor suggested he reset his sobriety date which understandably pissed him off.  While this was going down another one of our treasured long-timers - one of the valuable members who's a little more willing to call things as he sees them in an unvarnished way - offered the new guy some work at his house, and doing their conversation the new guy started in on his idiot sponsor and then veered off into some political stuff that the long-timer found offensive.  This was not in a meeting but on the phone so there was some flexibility in how to handle the screed.  That being said the long-timer finally had enough and pushed back which really pissed off the new guy, so much so that he didn't come to a meeting for a few days.  Luckily and hopefully he has returned but there's a little conflict hanging in the air.

That defiance can really be a killer.  The long-timer called me to go over his conversation.  I was very supportive and very complimentary.  Sometimes our message needs to be blunt.  I don't do blunt very well but I really appreciate it when some members deliver the message bluntly.  Sometimes saying "You are acting like an idiot" is more effective than saying "This is what I did when I was tired of acting like an idiot."

Stay tuned to find out who the idiot is.

Sneaking Up On Spirituality, Dressed in Black, Late at Night

Tidbits and small bites from The Plain Language Big Book . . . 

The word "Fellowship" appears often and it is capitalized.

Fellowship: A friendly feeling that exists between people who have a shared interest or are doing something as a group.

The term "tremendous fact" carries over from the original Big Book.  It's a fact!  It's tremendous!  Some of us believe that this is another of the many coded words or phrases for God that are sprinkled throughout the text.

There is a comparison between "average drinkers" and "hard drinkers."  The Book suggests that ". . .  if we continue to drink frequently, we will  form a drinking habit that's almost impossible to break.  When this happens, it can seem like we've crossed an invisible line."  Yes, indeed.  I jumped on that line, I stomped the shit out of it before I crossed over.  I tried to rub that invisible line off the face of the earth with my metal-tipped jackboots.

"The alcoholic's main problem lives within the mind.  Once in a while, alcoholics tell the truth.  And the truth is usually that we have absolutely no idea why we take that first drink.  Some drinkers make up excuses when people ask about their drinking, but in our hearts we don't know why we do it."

I laughed out loud when I read that.  No way that's in the original Big Book, right?  That's a witty little bastardization.  Except it's in the original, the only change being substituting "alcoholics" for "he" because they were talking about one specific member.  We all know the joke: "How can you  tell if an alcoholic's lying?  His lips are moving."

This sentence is also taken directly from the original, word for word, even including the italization.  "But there is a solution."  While that is certainly great news the solution is that "We have had deeply spiritual experiences."  If this is offensive to you - don't despair.  Approach the spirituality aspect however you'd like: pissed and defiant, sneaking up on it in the middle of the night, dressed in dark clothes and a black balaclava, skeptical and dismissive, laughing at the naivete of the easily duped long-timers.  You'll get there.  Or maybe not.  Maybe you'll ". . . continue drinking to escape from how awful our lives have become until we eventually die, bitter and alone."  If that sounds good keep doing what you're doing.  You'll get there, too, if you need to.  Some of us do.

The concept of a "vital spiritual experience" is referenced as well, leading to a "profound transformation."  A spiritually transformative experience.  

The Angel of Death Part II

"That is what, in the Toltec way, the Angel of Death teaches us.  The Angel of Death comes to us and says, 'You see everything that exists here is mine.  It is not yours.  Your house, your spouse, your  children, your car, your career, your money - everything is mine and I can take it away when I want to, but for now you can use it." 

I was so afraid of being uncomfortable before I staggered into The Rooms.  I was terrified of pain.  I tried to avoid it or make it go away and when I couldn't manage the world in a way that stopped the pain I simply buried it under drugs and alcohol.  And Death?  Hoo Wee that was a whole big can of whoop-ass.  I couldn't think about that at all.  Why so much fear?  That is the million dollar question, isn't it?  I had no perspective.  I had no ability to look outside my own little prison of self-regard and see that pain and death are facts of life, part of the Nature of Existence.  Now that I don't run screaming into the night whenever I'm in pain -  or, worse yet, anticipating being in pain even though that doesn't happen often and when it does I have the tools and support to deal with it - it has nowhere near the hold on me that it used to.  I understand, in my limited, very human way, that pain and death is coming and there ain't too much I can do about it.  In the olden days, before we stuffed old age and death into sterile nursing homes and mortuaries and hospitals, the family was responsible for cleaning up and dressing the body and preparing it for viewing by friends and family.  It couldn't have been easy, doing that, but it made death more intimate and immediate and real, less terrifying, to see the reality right there in your face and not tucked away somewhere, covered up with a white sheet, lying on a stainless steel table under buzzing fluorescent lights.

Here Comes the Angel of Death

"It is when we try to make our will conform with God's that we begin to use it rightly.  Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower.  We had sought to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's intention for us. "

12 & 12 p. 40

There's a game run by a demented P.E. teacher in a Simpson's episode called Bombardment.  Whenever he feels particularly vindictive he yells "Bombardment!" and starts flinging balls into the faces of little children, destroying teeth and noses in the process.  He's a big, fit guy so he does some real damage.  I know of a politician who does a thing he calls "The Weave" where instead of answering a question he just barfs out, rapid-fire-like, dozens of contradictory and inflammatory and irrelevant facts or lies so that the questioner is left gaping and gawking.  This is a technique in formal debate - bury the competition with so many points they find it impossible to respond coherently to all of them.  They freeze and panic and whatever point you are trying to make is lost in the wheels of confusion.  This was me when I was spiritually unfit - I threw shit against the wall to see what would stick but nothing would ever stick and I usually couldn't get off the couch, in my brain fog, to actually throw the shit so what I was left with were some buckets of shit in my living room.  I couldn't even be bothered to flush the shit down the toilet.  The shit did me no good whatsoever.  Maybe this is why I had very few visitors.   Maybe the buckets of unflung shit in my living room were off-putting.  

"Humans are mentally sick with a disease called fear.  If we can see our state of mind as a disease, we find there is a cure.  We must forgive those we feel have wronged us, not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because we love ourselves so much we don't want to keep paying for the injustice.  Forgiveness is the only way to heal.  You will know you have forgiven someone when you see them and you no longer have an emotional reaction.  That's the beginning of the free human.  Forgiveness is the key."

Toltecs

It is amazing to me how often the human battle with fear is mentioned in spiritual texts.  It's the fear itself that's the real problem - not the thing or situation or person provoking the fear response.  I'm going to be able to handle the scary thing.  I am not able to handle being afraid that I'm not going to be able to handle the thing I'm afraid of.  It's a riddle wrapped up in a conundrum.  It's a maze of circular logic.  It's like looking in one of those repeating fun house mirrors where you see an infinite number of Yous receding into eternity.  The only helpful thing I can do is to bust up that first mirror.  But what I do is try to break the 13th or 82nd or 133rd mirror, the mirror that is only an illusion in a diseased part of my mind.

It is also amazing to me how often the concept of forgiveness is mentioned in our spiritual texts.  The fact that forgiveness frees us comes up again and again as does the concept that when we learn to truly forgive others then we're finally able to forgive ourselves.

"We have entered the world of the Spirit.  Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness.  This is not an overnight matter.  It should continue for our lifetime."

The Big Book p. 84

The Toltecs talk openly about the Angel of Death.  They are not doing this to scare the shit out of us - "omigod I'm going to die here comes the Angel of Death!" - but to lend some perspective to today.  Here's a fact: I'm going to die and so are you so let's deal with this, put it to good use.  If I can look at this somewhat unpleasant truth and not run screaming into the night, into the fog and gloaming, then I can live in today more fully. 

"That is the way I see life, that is what the Angel of death taught me - to be completely open, to know that there is nothing to be afraid of. The Angel of Death can teach us to live every day as if it is the last day of our lives, as if there may be no tomorrow.  And of course I treat the people I love with love because this may be the last day that I can tell you how much I love you.  I don't know if I am going to see you again, so I don't want to fight with you.  So the choice today is to use every moment to be happy, to do what we really enjoyed doing.  If we only have one week to live, let's enjoy life.  Let's be alive."

I used to reject this kind of thinking as gloomy and negative but today I find that it helps me live in this moment which is - after all - the only moment that I'm giving.