I Will Let You Know

I spent my last session with my counselor discussing the rules I operate under and how difficult it was for me to ask others what rules they follow. I never considered myself one who lived by rules considering I break many very often. However, I described many of them to her through tears and when I saw her face I could see the disbelief that someone like me actually puts herself through misery that is unnecessary. Now I pretty much have confirmation of someone's rule I have been tracking for awhile. The phrase "I will let you know" pops up often which leaves me in a state of waiting. It reminds of the time when a lover would only see me on Friday nights without any calls during the week. The days dragged on. When Friday finally came I seemed to bust at the seams so lovemaking was totally ecstatic for me, not to mention the power he must have felt. Then a time came when it was less important to feel ecstatic and more important to have control. So I skipped a Friday night. He told me later that he waited, then I had some power. Eventually, I stopped meeting him altogether. What did I lose in the deal? A lot. My submission enabled a great love affair but my rebellion ended it. Was he hurt? Not seriously. Was I? Detrimentally. So is it worth playing by someone else's rules? It depends if the rewards are worth having. I hope I don't refuse to play the game because I don't own the ball, but it is hard to play the game when you don't know what the prize is. Right now, I don't know what the prize is and I'm waiting to see the prize. It's been six months and I don't even know what the carrot is. In my mind I imagine what it is, but I'm afraid it's an illusion. How much longer must I wait?

Picking a topic: Spiritual experience

Today as a topic of the Sunday 2PM meeting I read from the Appendix of AA Big Book concerning spiritual experience.

This line intrigued me: "Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the 'educational variety' because they develop slowly over a period of time."

I agree and I'll tell you why.

I have been in a place, a place of doubt and skepticism about some spiritual principles of the AA program. My deepest desires want to surface honestly, however the fear of what my group will think of me has stifled my confession. Therefore, I put my confession in writing to get the desired effect of sharing in a meeting.

I have no desire to drink today, because of a personal discovery I realized was happening to me for the past two years as a member of AA.

It started when someone in a meeting when I was thirty days sober said:

If I doubt the process, I will get drunk.

I disagreed unreservedly.

My logic:

1. If I truly determine the choice of when to drink or not to drink, I am responsible for my drunkenness.
2. And I may choose to drink even if I believe in the process.
3. My doubts about the process is not a trigger for relapse. My thoughts of the decision to drink is what will get me drunk, not questioning if the process agrees with what I already believe.

Do you ever wonder what a normal person thinks about before he takes a drink? I rest assure you it is not what what an alcoholic thinks. Thus our thoughts categorize us as alcoholic, but what thoughts particularly categorize us.

Shad Helmstetter, a motivational speaker, labels our thoughts as programs, programs that are constructed by what we say to ourselves. So what does an alcoholic say to himself that produces drunkenness.

My routine involves first the perception of rejection which produces sequences that label me a victim. Once I become a victim, I perceive my freedom taken away which leads to emotions of anger. That anger for me produces the desire for drunkenness, because I am afraid I will physically hurt someone. Therefore, alcohol supposedly calmed be down in the past when I became angry. That was the effect I desired.

Many alcoholics would say the justification that I provided above is immaterial since I want to drink because that what alcoholics want to do or what they are programmed to do: drink.

So I accepted that for awhile until I realized believing that made me passively angry. Why am I angry? Because I perceive that someone is controlling my thoughts which makes me feel like a victim.

So here I am sitting in a meeting that is designed to allow me to face my emotions so I will think before I drink. In reality I am mad. Now what?

Here I am mad, but not drinking or hurting anyone.

Why?

Is God doing something I can't do for myself? Or is it my belief in this creating chemical reactions in my brain desiring sobriety over drunkenness even when I'm angry, chemical reactions produced over time because I did not put alcohol in my body when I wanted to drink or when I was angry.

What did I do instead?

I grabbed somebody that would listen to me and shared my frustration. Sometimes.

Most of the time, I found a quiet place and wept.

Just like Jesus.

A positive note

I have been in a pinch the last few days. Quite scared actually since this downbeat has lasted a little longer than usual (two days straight and hard to climb out).

This time it took listening to a one hour interview with the motivational speaker Shad Helmstetter, Ph.D. His storytelling pulled me out. He spoke about how he would practice public speaking in the wheat fields when he was six. He especially remarked that at times the way the stalks rubbed together often sounded like applause and it came back to him one day when he heard some applause at one of his talks, the noise sounded so familiar. His voice was soft and you could imagine yourself talking to him for hours...and I did and that's when I popped out of "it".

Now as I take a deep breath I have established some goals to prevent me from going there again. I forget how far down really is but I also always miss how high can be.

sucking our life energy into specific obsessions and compulsions

"sucking our life energy into specific obsessions and compulsions"--Gerald G. May, M.D., Addiction & Grace

I read these phrase in a book I bought at a library sack sale. So I began to think hard. This is the weekend I tried once again to quit smoking. At 9 am this morning it will be 60 hours and I'm sure glad I went to my doctor this time for some help. However, when you quit a habit, or an addiction, you are left with a big hole in your lifestyle that you feel compelled to fill.

Filling a hole can be quite comical when you trace back what you will do (no matter how ridiculous) to prevent starting your old habit anew. My weekend unfolded aimlessly, finding myself doing new things to recreate the ecstasy of lighting up a smoke. I watched a few shows on TV, shows that peeked my curiosity since I haven't watched television in over two years. First, the Ghost Whisperer and then Numbers. Both episodes had a theme about "chasing someone down before it was too late." I glued my eyes to the screen, because all the dialog soaked up by my desperate ears painted an image of the suffering one can truly experience in pursuit. And yes, your addiction will talk to you, begging like a close friend borrowing money with no intentions of paying it back. My committee circling in conference over my lost reality of tasting the nicotine on my lips, a taste that is now noticeable with its absence. I wanted a cigarette so bad, but I remained seated through the shows, praying for the desire to be replaced by an infatuation with a hot new star or possession by a script that I had to follow week after week. No dice. The shows came and went. My desire still fixated on the pleasures of smoking.

Sampling Fruit

I purchased a novel yesterday,
scavenging through the discount racks at Hastings,
some books jumping out at me. First, whip by maggie mayhew
catching my eye, an eye focusing
on a beater loaded with butter cream,
hurling me back
to a day I sat in a corner
jamming my finger
into a Betty Crocker container,
scooping heaping mouthfuls
of off-white pillows of icing,
curing my rejection
by a man that I deemed full of promise.

Infatuation slaps me again,
embedding in my mind at The Spanish Village,
some passions springing into me. Next, the novel purchased
clicking a tumbler, a tumbler fingering
on a woman filled with wet dreams,
heaving me back
to a night I lay in my lover's bed
squeezing my legs
around fanny pillows,
cooing massing moans
of unfulfilled lust of whipping,
healing my infatuation
of a man that I deem full of promise.

My child button is stuck

I woke up in the foulest mood. Very sensitive today. People everywhere seem to be telling me what to do plus while cashiering one of my transactions ran pretty slow because it involved a discount, three gift cards to activate, and a payment by check. Then four others with simpler transactions piled up in a line. After the transaction was done I received the "gleering look": You could have done way better, Louisa. And I wanted to jump up and down like a kid scolded. Then I remembered about the PAC buttons from TA. I finally realized it was me today...me not wanting to be an adult today because I'm cramping and everyone around me expecting me to be one (or rather my perception of everyone expecting me to be an adult). I want to go home and pull the blankets over my head and sulk because I'm tired and cranky. I don't want to play today.

My little secret

There's this zit on my face that has been bothering me for weeks but I just didn't want to take care of it. I have been avoiding the issue, never finding the head of it because I refused looking at myself in the mirror and squeezing the zit out. I was concerned about the pain of pushing the core through the head so I let it sit and it eventually scabbed over but it never came to a head and it started bulging out and I continued to be conscious of it wondering if anyone noticed then I read Luke and Jesus' analogy of the "smear" on our face and how we often want to take care of other's faces before our own and you know the feeling when you see a big zit on the end of someone's nose and you just want to reach out and pop it but if we have one ourselves we want to go to the store and buy the most expensive acne medication, hopefully the one that works fast, the one with some tint to cover it up while it is healing but to our neighbor we want to just squeeze it out with no mercy and actually get this sick relief of feeling it burst in front of us. What is that? What is that lust to fix others on a different level than we fix ourselves? Is that true compassion or we don't want to see it in front of us? We can tolerate it on our face, because we don't have to look at it. It doesn't have our full attention unless we are alone in front of a mirror, but to see it in others it becomes a problem we want to fix immediately. We have patience for ourselves or rather we have enough tolerance to carry our faults until someone else reflects them. Go to the mirror. Grab your face and pop that zit. You'll feel better for it. Plus you'll give a great sense of relief to your neighbor who has been watching it fester for so long.