Joe and I are out at a school to teach fly fishing in Ferguson Falls MN. Now, ordinarily one might think, "fly fishing school!...who needs to go to school to learn how to fish?" but, you need to take into consideration who we are...two basically egghead academic-types who think anything worth doing must have a teacher attached to it somewhere. So, when we thought about the challenging idea of how to catch a fish on a tiny fly-like lure, we automatically thought about finding a school for it.
Our host and teacher is a real character. Ted does a lot of things professionally that earn him a great living and the chance to live in a wonderful lodge-like house on beautiful Long Lake, have a condo in The Cities, travel around the world, hunt big game, fly his own sea plane, run several companies, and (by the way) also become a world-class fly fisherman. He literally opens his doors to two strangers and makes you feel at home while he cooks a home-spun meal and regales you with stories from his life. Fishing is never far from the main story line and, whether he's talking about his frequent trips to Vietnam or his experiences owning a fine dining restaurant in town, he neatly ties it all together like he's tying one of his exquisite flies.
While we're sure to have fun here the next two days, the, point of this is not lost: There's much to be thankful for as my son and I enjoy the bounty of what has been given to us. We learn that there is value to using limited resources in creative ways that encourage us to be together to share good times. We meet and make new friends who share our interests. We gain an appreciation for the animal life around us and the fun you can have with sport. But, more than anything else, we get to feel the love we have for one another and express it by investing time with each other.
Life is good for us now and I know this is only due to the fact I am clean and sober. Joe knows and appreciates this too.
All the best, Roger W.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
A Useful Metaphor...
When I am trying to explain the power of the disease of addiction to one of my patients, I sometimes use an escalator as a metaphor to describe how relapse works in the lives of recovering people.
Have you ever tried to walk up a "down" escalator? Most of us have tried this when we were kids. There's a certain thrill as we run up the moving steps and try to beat the constant flow of stairs moving against us.
In every respect, this is like the disease of addiction.
An escalator going down can easily represent the disease of addiction: It is constantly moving and changing and going in only one direction...down. It is trying to take us from a high place to a low one. It is trying to use its considerable power to transport us, change us, from one condition (being someplace we might not want to be) to another place (someplace we think is better).
So too, the disease of addiction is pulling at a recovering person to change his or her place in recovery. The disease is going only in one direction...down...and its considerable energy will transport us from someplace where the disease does not want to be (in recovery) to another place (relapse). And, this energy pushing down is relentless, powerful and aggressive.
Now...what happens when you start walking up this down escalator? When you jump on you immediately recognize that you must either keep up with the downward pressure or move faster than it in order to not be dragged down to the bottom. So, most people find the pace of the escalator and climb with a steady gait. The trouble with this solution is that sooner or later you notice that you are not going anywhere, get bored or fatigued, and generally give in soon to the pressure and give up. There are adventurous souls who want to climb to the top by going faster than the speed of the stairs, and they begin their ascent. They run up the stairs by leaps and bounds, or they make steady headway with a pace faster than the escalator, and sooner or later, they end up at the top having beaten the system arranged against them.
So too with recovery. If you generally just try to keep pace with the forces of relapse that are arrayed against you, sooner or later you realize that this is boring, you get fatigued and give up to those pressures and let them drag you down. If your strategy after a period of time of trying to keep pace is to rest for a moment and stand still on the stairs, you soon notice that the pressure of relapse keeps moving you down...you cannot stand pat in your recovery. But, if your strategy is to move continuously forward in recovery, you will move at a pace that is faster than the forces that would bring you down and you will eventually beat out some of those forces by reaching the goal of serenity.
I mention this to people who seem to be stuck in recovery, or listless and drifting, or even those who want to take a break from the rigor of striving against the powerful relapse warning signs, triggers and high risk situations that are arrayed against them daily. It's not enough to just keep pace with these signs of relapse, and it's certainly not sufficient to stand pat for a while when just trying to gather yourself together enough to figure out what is going on. Regrettably, a recovering person must always be moving forward in their recovery lest the forces of relapse surrounding them take over their recovery pace and push them down into full-blown chaos again.
I think this metaphor is useful to describe the forces of any addiction that is working against a person's recovery. Whether it be alcohol or other drugs, food, sex, gambling, spending, hoarding, or any type of compulsive behavior, there are forces that can drag a person down and spur a relapse. The solution is to have a child-like approach to life and scramble forward at a pace greater than these forces.
So long as I follow that way I have nothing to fear.
All the best, Roger W.
In every respect, this is like the disease of addiction.
An escalator going down can easily represent the disease of addiction: It is constantly moving and changing and going in only one direction...down. It is trying to take us from a high place to a low one. It is trying to use its considerable power to transport us, change us, from one condition (being someplace we might not want to be) to another place (someplace we think is better).
So too, the disease of addiction is pulling at a recovering person to change his or her place in recovery. The disease is going only in one direction...down...and its considerable energy will transport us from someplace where the disease does not want to be (in recovery) to another place (relapse). And, this energy pushing down is relentless, powerful and aggressive.
Now...what happens when you start walking up this down escalator? When you jump on you immediately recognize that you must either keep up with the downward pressure or move faster than it in order to not be dragged down to the bottom. So, most people find the pace of the escalator and climb with a steady gait. The trouble with this solution is that sooner or later you notice that you are not going anywhere, get bored or fatigued, and generally give in soon to the pressure and give up. There are adventurous souls who want to climb to the top by going faster than the speed of the stairs, and they begin their ascent. They run up the stairs by leaps and bounds, or they make steady headway with a pace faster than the escalator, and sooner or later, they end up at the top having beaten the system arranged against them.
So too with recovery. If you generally just try to keep pace with the forces of relapse that are arrayed against you, sooner or later you realize that this is boring, you get fatigued and give up to those pressures and let them drag you down. If your strategy after a period of time of trying to keep pace is to rest for a moment and stand still on the stairs, you soon notice that the pressure of relapse keeps moving you down...you cannot stand pat in your recovery. But, if your strategy is to move continuously forward in recovery, you will move at a pace that is faster than the forces that would bring you down and you will eventually beat out some of those forces by reaching the goal of serenity.
I mention this to people who seem to be stuck in recovery, or listless and drifting, or even those who want to take a break from the rigor of striving against the powerful relapse warning signs, triggers and high risk situations that are arrayed against them daily. It's not enough to just keep pace with these signs of relapse, and it's certainly not sufficient to stand pat for a while when just trying to gather yourself together enough to figure out what is going on. Regrettably, a recovering person must always be moving forward in their recovery lest the forces of relapse surrounding them take over their recovery pace and push them down into full-blown chaos again.
I think this metaphor is useful to describe the forces of any addiction that is working against a person's recovery. Whether it be alcohol or other drugs, food, sex, gambling, spending, hoarding, or any type of compulsive behavior, there are forces that can drag a person down and spur a relapse. The solution is to have a child-like approach to life and scramble forward at a pace greater than these forces.
So long as I follow that way I have nothing to fear.
All the best, Roger W.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Power of Narcotics Anonymous...
Today, I am grateful NA exists. Were it not for this fellowship I may not have been able to stay clean all these years. And, the overall acceptance NA members have had for me at nearly every turn has spelled the difference between who I was before and who I became after December 19, 1987.
NA accepted me when I could not accept myself, and that is its extraordinary Power. When I was struggling with identifying as being an addict, NA was there to help me. When I was desperately trying to identify with NA peers by overstating my drug use history in those early years, they accepted me despite knowing I was doing that. I have long struggled with being accepted for who I am, and I have often created a "personna of the moment" just to fit in. It almost always worked...people accepted who I presented myself as being. Only problem was, I felt I did not belong. It took years before I felt comfortable with being a member of a club where I had basically faked my way in. Adapting the way I did worked since I was able to stay clean and enjoy NA's fellowship, but it always came at the price of me not feeling welcome.
It took years before I was able to tell my story in NA from a truthful point of view because of the shame at thinking I had gained entry based on lies and fabrication. I feel I have hurt some people along the way and I do not like looking at that fact. But, as Mary (my counselor at the drug rehab center where I got clean) once told me, I will change my behaviors when I truly realize that of all the people harmed by my behaviors, I am the one who has been harmed the most. I hurt myself when I lied to NA.
I need to come to accept that my alcoholism - comparatively shallow as it was - was sufficiently bad enough to cause me extraordinary pain and earn admission into the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous. I need to repeat to myself that the loss of jobs, two marriages, access to my children, numerous personal relationships, and my mental health were all due to drinking and taking drugs. I need to keep it very green that I was one of those people whose personality change was total and dramatic - every bit as much as the change between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - when I drank and smoked marijuana or Thai sticks. And even now, 23 years after my last drink, I need to remember that it is not the drug I use, or when or how much of it I use, but the fact that I can become addicted to any drug that causes a threat or consequence in my life. I cannot drink safely. I cannot use other drugs safely. Moreover, I cannot afford the loss of my mental health when I use because I become unsafe.
NA knows this and uses its power of the fellowship to keep me in the fold by having other members welcome me and accept me as the man I am today. In fact, this is very much a Higher Power for me today that I trust will keep me clean. This Power knows what only other addicts can fully understand and appreciate: I was once obsessed with drugs in my life and compelled to use them even when my will was to not use. There is no other place on earth that I can find where I will be so accepted. And, this makes me grateful today. "My gratitude speaks when I care and when I share the NA way..." the prayer goes, and I hope to return the love, acceptance and care to fellow addicts everyday.
So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear!
All the best, Roger W.
NA accepted me when I could not accept myself, and that is its extraordinary Power. When I was struggling with identifying as being an addict, NA was there to help me. When I was desperately trying to identify with NA peers by overstating my drug use history in those early years, they accepted me despite knowing I was doing that. I have long struggled with being accepted for who I am, and I have often created a "personna of the moment" just to fit in. It almost always worked...people accepted who I presented myself as being. Only problem was, I felt I did not belong. It took years before I felt comfortable with being a member of a club where I had basically faked my way in. Adapting the way I did worked since I was able to stay clean and enjoy NA's fellowship, but it always came at the price of me not feeling welcome.
It took years before I was able to tell my story in NA from a truthful point of view because of the shame at thinking I had gained entry based on lies and fabrication. I feel I have hurt some people along the way and I do not like looking at that fact. But, as Mary (my counselor at the drug rehab center where I got clean) once told me, I will change my behaviors when I truly realize that of all the people harmed by my behaviors, I am the one who has been harmed the most. I hurt myself when I lied to NA.
I need to come to accept that my alcoholism - comparatively shallow as it was - was sufficiently bad enough to cause me extraordinary pain and earn admission into the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous. I need to repeat to myself that the loss of jobs, two marriages, access to my children, numerous personal relationships, and my mental health were all due to drinking and taking drugs. I need to keep it very green that I was one of those people whose personality change was total and dramatic - every bit as much as the change between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - when I drank and smoked marijuana or Thai sticks. And even now, 23 years after my last drink, I need to remember that it is not the drug I use, or when or how much of it I use, but the fact that I can become addicted to any drug that causes a threat or consequence in my life. I cannot drink safely. I cannot use other drugs safely. Moreover, I cannot afford the loss of my mental health when I use because I become unsafe.
NA knows this and uses its power of the fellowship to keep me in the fold by having other members welcome me and accept me as the man I am today. In fact, this is very much a Higher Power for me today that I trust will keep me clean. This Power knows what only other addicts can fully understand and appreciate: I was once obsessed with drugs in my life and compelled to use them even when my will was to not use. There is no other place on earth that I can find where I will be so accepted. And, this makes me grateful today. "My gratitude speaks when I care and when I share the NA way..." the prayer goes, and I hope to return the love, acceptance and care to fellow addicts everyday.
So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear!
All the best, Roger W.
Monday, August 8, 2011
When is minimizing, not so...
One of the things that kept me psychologically sick for several years after I stopped using alcohol and other drugs was the rather constant refrain that would run through my mind that "I was not like these other people in recovery." I can distinctly remember saying that, while I recognize I have problems with drugs, I certainly haven't got the same number or kinds of problems that others do. No...I had not lost a family, or a job, or scads of money or property due to my drinking the way many other people in AA or NA have. And, I certainly haven't lost my mental faculties or physical abilities due to drinking or drugging. I never lost my license due to drinking and I certainly never lost my mind to it.
But, sometime during the middle stage of my recovery - about 10-15 years ago, it suddenly occurred to me that I had been minimizing the impact that drinking and drugging had on my life. I think it was around the time that Kristine, my third wife, died of alcohol-related disease when she was using that I started to think about the losses that alcohol had caused in my life. I used to tell myself that no one ever told me that I was getting a divorce because of my drinking, but I got two when I was using and a third when I was minimizing the extent of my disease. I used to tell myself that no one had ever fired me for my drinking or drugging, even though I lost every single job I ever had because of "them" and "the way they run the company" and because "they're a jerk, anyway". And, I used to tell myself that I never lost any money because I was a drunk, even though I conveniently forgot about a fist fight with a vendor that cost me $25,000 or discounted the number of jobs I had because I was an out-of-control alcoholic. No...the losses happened to other people, not me because I could always find an excuse for why my life took a sudden dive.
Today, it's clear to me that I am not only like all those other people in the 12 Step fellowships...I am those people. But, this identification I now feel with people is not based on the facts that may be similar or not. Rather, the identification with others that I can now see and feel in my life is based on the spiritual losses I know I sustained that are the very same losses anyone else has endured who comes to AA or NA for recovery. And, while I cannot speak to long prison terms, terminal losses of family relationships, or severe physical or mental impairments due to my drinking and drugging, I can speak loudly about the loss of spiritual values at the end of my using career.
Primarily I lost hope. Like the great poet Vaclav Havel (who was also the first president of the Czech Republic) once noted..."Hope is not that I believe everything in my life will turn out just fine: Hope is that no matter how things in my life turn out, I will be just fine." For most of my life I, like so many others, prayed that things in my life would turn out OK. I invested a lot of emotion and faith in that. But, when things didn't go the way I thought they should I gradually lost what I thought was hope for the future. That's all any good alcoholic needs, to lose hope for the future, because then s/he is off on another self-justifying bender. My life turned around when I realized that I would be able to survive no matter how life turned out...I think I can trace my real recovery from that moment on.
There are many thousands of people like me who minimized the impact using alcohol and other drugs had on their life and still subsequently lost hope. We all believed that if we didn't look at the real world the way it truly was, then we would be able to control that world and thereby survive it. The hard truth is that we didn't survive that world. Our time using was filled with losses and pain and missed opportunity, and the feelings of all that led to a loss of hope for the future that nearly killed us all. What this teaches me is that I am no different than others who come into the rooms of AA or NA, and that I must not ever forget that, although the facts may not be the same, the feelings are.
As it says in the NA Basic Text, "As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well." The ties that bind us together are the feelings we share about the loss of spiritual principles like hope. It is that which allows us to come together in the rooms and know that we share a common bond.
All the best, Roger W.
But, sometime during the middle stage of my recovery - about 10-15 years ago, it suddenly occurred to me that I had been minimizing the impact that drinking and drugging had on my life. I think it was around the time that Kristine, my third wife, died of alcohol-related disease when she was using that I started to think about the losses that alcohol had caused in my life. I used to tell myself that no one ever told me that I was getting a divorce because of my drinking, but I got two when I was using and a third when I was minimizing the extent of my disease. I used to tell myself that no one had ever fired me for my drinking or drugging, even though I lost every single job I ever had because of "them" and "the way they run the company" and because "they're a jerk, anyway". And, I used to tell myself that I never lost any money because I was a drunk, even though I conveniently forgot about a fist fight with a vendor that cost me $25,000 or discounted the number of jobs I had because I was an out-of-control alcoholic. No...the losses happened to other people, not me because I could always find an excuse for why my life took a sudden dive.
Today, it's clear to me that I am not only like all those other people in the 12 Step fellowships...I am those people. But, this identification I now feel with people is not based on the facts that may be similar or not. Rather, the identification with others that I can now see and feel in my life is based on the spiritual losses I know I sustained that are the very same losses anyone else has endured who comes to AA or NA for recovery. And, while I cannot speak to long prison terms, terminal losses of family relationships, or severe physical or mental impairments due to my drinking and drugging, I can speak loudly about the loss of spiritual values at the end of my using career.
Primarily I lost hope. Like the great poet Vaclav Havel (who was also the first president of the Czech Republic) once noted..."Hope is not that I believe everything in my life will turn out just fine: Hope is that no matter how things in my life turn out, I will be just fine." For most of my life I, like so many others, prayed that things in my life would turn out OK. I invested a lot of emotion and faith in that. But, when things didn't go the way I thought they should I gradually lost what I thought was hope for the future. That's all any good alcoholic needs, to lose hope for the future, because then s/he is off on another self-justifying bender. My life turned around when I realized that I would be able to survive no matter how life turned out...I think I can trace my real recovery from that moment on.
There are many thousands of people like me who minimized the impact using alcohol and other drugs had on their life and still subsequently lost hope. We all believed that if we didn't look at the real world the way it truly was, then we would be able to control that world and thereby survive it. The hard truth is that we didn't survive that world. Our time using was filled with losses and pain and missed opportunity, and the feelings of all that led to a loss of hope for the future that nearly killed us all. What this teaches me is that I am no different than others who come into the rooms of AA or NA, and that I must not ever forget that, although the facts may not be the same, the feelings are.
As it says in the NA Basic Text, "As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well." The ties that bind us together are the feelings we share about the loss of spiritual principles like hope. It is that which allows us to come together in the rooms and know that we share a common bond.
All the best, Roger W.
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