Balls to the wall...

There's the story of how the flight sound barrier was broken that relates to recovery from addictions in an interesting way.

As the story goes, American test pilots after World War II were desperately trying to break the sound barrier. Each time these test pilots would go up in their special jet planes they would push the throttle forward to gain speed and soar close to the speed of sound...about 800 miles an hour. They didn't make it for years. It seemed that just as they plane was approaching the sound barrier, the plane would shake so violently that pilots thought it would fall apart. So, they timidly back off on the throttle and the plane would calm down. Still, safe as they now were, the pilots didn't break through the barrier.

Then, one day in October of 1947, a certain pilot known for his daring and recklessness, accomplished what others only dreamed. Chuck Yaeger flew his jet, Glamorous Glennis, faster than any man ever before...he smashed through the sound barrier with a bang...a big bang called a sonic boom. When asked years later how he did it he is reputed to have said, "I went balls to the wall." Now Yaeger was not referring to his anatomy. He was referring to what he did when the jet was shaking and rattling and nearly falling apart as he approached the sound barrier: Instead of backing off the throttle the way everyone else had, Yaeger plunged the throttle forward and gave it full speed ahead. The throttle, with white plastic balls on top, was thrust forward to the cockpit's instrument panel called "the wall."

What's this got to do with addictions and recovery? Often, after a person stops drinking or taking drugs, they find themselves in a world that is troubled and full of problems that seem to baffle them. In effect, everything seems to be shaking, rattling and rolling...in turmoil as violent and confusing as those jet cockpits must've been like. Most people, confronted with having to solve this mess, back off and hope that things will calm down if they take a safer course and sit back with old ways of coping. Thinking they are safer and hoping that they will somehow get to their goal of serenity and peace of mind, many people cave in to the pressure, retrench and play it safe.

In fact, my experience is, that in order to solve problems causing the shakeup of my world, the exact opposite has to be done...instead of backing off, I need to go balls to the wall with a program of action that aggressively addresses problems in a new and bold way. Instead of being like the timid jet pilots, we have to be more like Chuck Yaeger. We may need to double or triple the number of 12step meetings we go to, finally call a psychotherapist, read the BigBook or NA basic text again, call a peer more often, or carry the message of recovery to some still-suffering addict. I sometimes need to pick up speed with my program of recovery to overcome the feeling of being stalled...I need to go balls to the wall!

All the best, Roger W.