Turn Around

We're in an RV park just outside of Yosemite. The kids get into little screamy fights a few times a day because of the close quarters, (James says, "I just need my personal space!") but other than that we're having a great time. I'm still struggling, as I wrote in my last post. I spoke to my wife just a little bit ago, so that she knows what's going on, and I'm hoping if I keep doing the right things I can turn around.

Turn around is exactly the right phrase. The problem isn't as much what I'm doing, as where I'm heading. My gray-area, middle circle activities haven't taken me into to a relapse, but if they continue, they will. Even if I am "good" for a significant period of time, what I notice is that I am still heading the wrong direction. I'm in that cycle of obsession/anticipation/adrenaline/release, and it feels just like it does when I'm full-on in my addiction. This is what's so frightening. I relapsed during our vacation last year, and for months, Linsey said she never wanted to plan a vacation for us again.

So even if my activities don't look significantly different (I haven't really been able to act out in the crowded space of the RV), I am ready to be different inside, on a spiritual level. I'm glad I've been in recovery long enough to know when something is wrong spiritually, even if things aren't falling apart yet on the outside.

Back to recovery for me. Reading, prayer, talking to the right people, and gratitude. I will remember to see what's really happening: My addict tells me that by being honest I'm giving up the ability to get away with a few marginally exciting sketchy activities. What's really happening is I'm choosing to be present and sober on this vacation. Instead of being distracted by plans in the back of my mind for the selfish things I can do when I get home, I want to breathe deeply of the mountain air, and quietly take in all the beauty that defines this amazing and spiritual place.

Man in the Mirror

Lately I feel like an addict. It's a sucky feeling.

I find myself dancing on the cliff's edge, where there is neither serenity nor escape. I'm looking for something I can't have. Linsey was right: you can't have an ass-kicking experience every single day of your life that's better than the day before. For example, you only get one virgin viewing of Fight Club. Every time after that you're just re-watching it.

My addict is moving in, rearranging my furniture and hanging posters on my walls. He has the tactical advantage of knowing my weaknesses. He can match my debating skills and my powers of persuasion. His will is as great as mine. He has at his disposal my finely tuned ability to nonchalantly lie, and my tendency to passive-aggressively avoid healthy habits. He's got my charm and wit. Like the addicts we meet in real life, he's not a one-dimensional storybook bad guy, but a complex and confused human being, who will fight and deceive and cajole to get his needs met. He is all these things because he is me.

It's like those childless people who give you parenting advice: “You just take away the pacifier and hide it, and don't give it back no matter how much they cry.” Well shoot-howdy, if only I'd known this sooner! I must admit: I take far too much perverse pleasure in watching know-it-all couples get broken by their first baby. Children don't gradually learn to manipulate and control their parents, they shock you from day one with their infinitely varied bag of tricks. If you're a Star Trek fan, they're like the Borg: your shields only work once or twice before the rotating harmonics of their phasers find a new way to penetrate your defenses. By the time you've become an effective parent to today's child, it's tomorrow.

And so it is with my addict. I feel like I'm playing chess against myself. Or poker. In The Man Who Folded Himself, a time traveler repeatedly visits an ongoing poker game where he plays against multiple copies of himself, from different time lines and points in his life. How can you bluff someone who lives inside your own mind? I guess that's why I can't stay sober by myself. I need my Higher Power and the people in my program. Armed with the combined wisdom and literature of past addicts, we work together to outwit my opponent.

So I turn today to those who walk beside me, and to my God, because I am afraid. When I look in the mirror at the man who would so thoughtlessly murder me, I see a formidable and subtle enemy. He's cunning, baffling, and powerful. He's too much for me.

No Spin

Day 64.

I’ve been struggling.

Why is that so hard to say? When I started this blog, I wanted to lay it all out, everything from the beautiful to the repulsive. Essentially, I wanted to document what it’s like to be an addict. But I find it surprisingly difficult to reveal the ugly stuff until I’m ready to pair it with a redeeming ray of sunshine, which I will now proceed to do. But what if I’d written this entry yesterday? All I could have said was this:

I’m looking for relief in all the wrong places. I’m in emotional and physical pain, and I’m trying to fix it by taking medicine I don’t need, smoking obsessively, drinking energy drinks, and looking at not-quite-porn. It started when my wife left for the weekend, in an attempt to soothe the obsession without falling off into relapse. It wasn’t necessarily that destructive or hurtful, but it was wasteful, and kinda lame. I set up a bunch of safety precautions – phone calls, accountability reports – but it really comes down to what’s going on inside. Once I stayed at my parent’s house while Linsey was out of town, to be “safe.” I ended up using in the bedroom next to my son while he slept. I mean, until I fix what’s going on inside, what can you do? Chain me up?

I’m not fixed.

In my efforts to reign it in, and get through this rough patch, I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone with my new sponsor. This is growth – I hate the phone. We’ve talked a lot about “middle circle behavoir.” SAA’s middle circle is a double-edged sword, with both powerful and dangerous potential. I firmly believe in the concept: define behaviors that can lead to relapse, so that you know where you’re headed before you get there. If you do it right, you’re asking for help before you crash and burn. This takes a lot of honesty and vulnerability. If you do it wrong, you’re defining behaviors as middle circle “on the fly” to suit your desires in the moment. Then you’re in trouble. Basically, you’ll do OK with the middle circle concept if you can admit that you’ll never be fixed. If you’re looking for complete release, the ability to say “I used to be an addict,” then it won’t work for you. Because every time you call up a program friend and say you’re in the middle circle, you’re acknowledging that you’re still looking for illicit comfort, you’re still messed up, and you’re still a heartbeat away from relapse.

In this morning’s meeting, my sponsor gave up two and a half years of sobriety. His slip had been a little bit of internet porn. I remembered the relief I felt when I recently started over. He echoed my experience, that honesty and continued growth are more important than your chip-record. Chips and the sobriety time they represent are invaluable. So is being able to admit that I’m not yet (and never will be) fixed. I find it interesting and relevant that God never did take away Paul's "thorn in the flesh."

I’m broken.

This week in my church, a woman shared her testimony. It boiled down to this: She is heading to Korea for missions work, and wasn’t sure they’d want her. The reason? A few years back, she went through a divorce. I caught her after the service and told her with tears in my eyes that I admired her. Not for going to Korea, but for choosing to share with us her struggles. As a newly single woman, she had been living in her parents’ home, but avoided our church out of shame. Going back meant walking into the building where she’d married, and facing friends who had attended her wedding. Eventually, she did return, and found love and acceptance. (Thank God – that’s the kind of church I want to be a part of.) I learned that my actions as her Worship Pastor had been part of her healing. What a humbling lesson on the mystery of God’s plans: I was filling an orchestra and a choir. God was healing a broken heart. I believe that in her ministry, she will discover, as I have, that her wound is not a liability. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” [2Cor12] It’s really true.

I need God.

Our guest speaker had worked as a missionary in China. She was down to earth, funny and authentic. She had recently spent two weeks in a poor farming province teaching about the Old Testament. (Shout-out to my Jewish friends…) Everyone wore thick jackets in the pictures, the kind I wear once a year when we take the kids to the snow. They sat on a kang, a raised heated platform, where they also ate and slept. It was crowded. The church service in the city was also crowded, and had expanded from a living room to an entire floor of a factory. How does one keep an illegal church service (with 200 people) secret? These people are hungry. They need and want more of God in their lives. And when given the opportunity, they respond. Our speaker contrasted this with our reluctance to go to the altar. We worry, what will people think if they I know I need God? How did we get the idea in our heads that needing God makes us less spiritual? I have a long way to go, but I’m done debating the first couple of steps. I’m powerless, my life’s unmanageable, and only a power greater then myself can restore me to sanity.