Through the Red Door Blog

In my primary recovery program, we have a list of 12 Signs of Recovery. I am always drawn to the third sign which reads…

“We surrender, one day at a time, our whole life strategy of, and our obsession with the pursuit of romantic and sexual intrigue and emotional dependency.”*

My struggle with sex, love and pornography addiction was at a base level, a life strategy that never delivered on its promises. I truly believed that by drinking in the images on my computer, searching for the “right” person to be intimate with, and becoming emotionally involved with people who were emotionally unavailable, I would find the right formula to be happy. It was my life strategy and everything I did was designed to accommodate this. My addiction became a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. Regretfully the promised goal of happiness and validation was a mirage. Addiction promises paradise but delivers pain.

Recovery has taught me that a new strategy of living is required to experience the serenity for which I was desperately looking. My new strategy involves a rigorous commitment to reality. I can no longer build my life around or upon an escape from reality. My recovery life/mental health is re-established when I am committed to reality at all costs.

One way I do this is to frequently ask myself, what is my current reality? I find the answer is most easily uncovered as I inventory my feelings. After almost seven years of recovery, I still rely on a written list of feelings to help me identify the ones I am experiencing. Writing down my feelings of anger, shame, fear, loneliness, and others which are less toxic point me in the direction of reality. I am able to breathe, examine these feelings, sit with them and move through them…not avoid them, not numb them, not sit in them as a victim…move through them.

When was the last time you inventoried your feelings? Grateful people in recovery are honest about their feelings, their character defects and as my friend says, “lean into the sharp edges of what makes them uncomfortable.” Only by embracing our pain can we truly make a commitment to reality at all costs. That strategy is the antithesis of the illusion my addiction promises. But it is one that delivers on its promise of being restored to wholeness and sanity.

This way of living reminds me of the words of the Apostle Paul that call me to embrace my “humanness” as a pathway to strength.

“My grace is enough; it ’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.”**

When I return to my old way of living I deny the reality of grace at work in my life. It is the purest way to distance myself from the reality that is God. Denying God ’s grace is not a good strategy for living. Setting aside my ego, my pride, my plans, my self-promotion, my self-propulsion, my, my, my is the path to recovery.

Just for today, I can get behind that strategy.

Maybe you can too.

Shane M

Conway, Arkansas

* S.L.A.A. Signs of Recovery © 1990 The Augustine Fellowship, S.L.A.A., Fellowship-Wide Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

** 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson

It’s a fundamental problem caused by our addiction. I might call it the excuse barrier. It’s a shifter – a shifter of blame, a shifter of fessing up, always blaming something else, or denying our perhaps long-term history of drunkenness. Did we really give the family or our kids or our employer our best? Some say the most damage is done to ourselves. We ignore honesty with ourselves. Oh, we may see some difficulties the morning-after. We may even cry and ask ourselves “Why do I continue riding this merry-go-round?” But that temporary immature childish self-pity is temporary. With the first reach for the bottle or the drug, poof, any slight vestige of responsibility disappears. We become children again. All we wish for is the silence of those around us who may once in a while “call us” on our alcoholic conduct and we respond with the usual: “I’m stressed. It was a mistake. I couldn’t sleep last night and that one drink threw me back into that old “Substance Briar Patch.” The worst excuse we may use is, “I don’t know what happened – been going to an AA meeting but it doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m not as bad as some of those people. This time I’ll really try”

The addict has developed over the years his or her own defenses and usually has a protective “think skin.” He has been through this before and knows what defense works. Often, the family contributes to the problem – covering up and enabling you to continue, not forcing you to take responsibility until an ultimatum is presented. There’s no progress until the family takes responsibility for its non-actions or its silence or its cover-up. It’s a poison stew overcooking a bit more each day the conduct continues, and the family can’t take it anymore and the stew boils over. In some sense, the addict is a coward, pure and simple. Perhaps so is the family or the employer. Everyone avoids facing the addiction, erecting their own barriers to block it out. Each member of the family retreats into their own self for maybe each has found a way to ignore or block-out or forget or excuse the addict’s conduct. Learning to get away from the fear of the worst happening to the addict, or the embarrassment suffered from the drunken conduct of the alcoholic, who in desperation cries out: “I’m really going to try this time to take responsibility and work the Steps ... I really mean it.”

The result is sadly usually the same if that is the only commitment the alcoholic makes.

“There’s no trying, only doing”.      

Jim A./Covington, KY

What combination of sobriety, scripture and liturgy am I going to write about for this blogpost?

A new guy showed up at a meeting last week. The newcomer, a mechanic who had just gotten off work and who had half-moons of embedded grease under his fingernails and a patina of dust and sweat on his skin, had no idea what to expect. He knew he drank a pint of liquor and a dozen beers every night. He knew he had gotten into trouble with his family and with his boss, but he wasn’t in trouble with the law: he hadn’t lost his license or been arrested or ever been court-ordered to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. This was his first experience stepping into the halls.

Up to the podium came the next speaker—a big guy, a larger-than-life biker—a scraggly-bearded forty-something man, all leather and tattoos and Harley logos. This speaker talked about what it had been like, what happened, and what it was like now. He talked about promises coming true. He wept when he spoke of his gratitude to Alcoholics Anonymous for giving him a “life second to none.”

The newcomer turned to the stranger next to him and said, “I never knew there were other people who feel exactly the way I do.”

And so the conversation began.

At a retreat years ago, the priest said to those of us gathered there, “Conversion is gathering up the fragments of your life.”

That is what sobriety is: it is conversion to a totally new way of life. Leaving nothing behind, being ashamed of no part of our story but accepting each misstep and each bad choice as essential, we speak—we tell the story that will someday save the life of another alcoholic as we speak from whatever podium we are standing at.

And we are saved.

We learn we are not alone. We learn to value ourselves and bring honor back into our lives. By acknowledging—not judging—our stories and ourselves, we learn to accept responsibility for our actions and for their consequences.

As James writes in his epistle, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Although in our apostolic, Episcopal tradition only a priest can confer absolution,  James clearly states that the confession and the praying bring about the healing.

Our Twelve Step fellowships are oases of healing in our sin-parched world.

By speaking out loud and listening intently, we hear exactly what that newcomer heard: there are other people who feel exactly the way we do. More than anything, at meetings and through the wisdom of the program, each of us learns the truth that we are not alone. Not ever. Being sober means having our eyes opened more and more. Each day, each experience reveals to us another moment where we can see God within ourselves and in everyone else we meet along the way.

Thanks be to God.

My understanding of my Higher Power can be as flexible as I want it to be. This idea made me acutely uncomfortable when I first encountered it. But it helps to place it within the framework of the story of the elephant and the blind men. One, touching the creature's tail, said “It's a rope-like beast, frayed at the end.” Another, catching hold of the elephant's trunk, cried “No, it's a thick snake.” A third, touching a tusk, declared the animal was smooth and hard, much like a spear.

I am blind to all the wide world, with only a thimbleful of awareness about my own self at best. With my limited, all-too-human perceptions, I will never know the extent of my Higher Power, if I were to spend every day of the rest of my life trying. I still believe even to imagine I can fully comprehend Her is awfully presumptuous. But within the loving guidance of my twelve-step recovery group, I am encouraged to explore my understanding of the force I choose to call “God.”

When I was new to the program, my sponsor told me I could borrow her Higher Power if I didn't have one already. If my own HP wasn't working for me, why not try another source? She also made an assignment that seemed remarkably forward: define the God of my understanding. The exercise was difficult and revealing. I discovered that the God I called on was all-loving, and all-knowing. But I didn't really believe this entity was all-powerful. My perceptions of the world's great pain and its effects on all living beings made it impossible to believe God had the power to end suffering.

With my sponsor's help, and through the alchemy of the group's experience, strength and hope, I began to see how God's power permeates all of existence. A word in a meeting, a chance phone call, a stray beam of light: just the right thing, at the time I needed it most. I witnessed HP's strength lifting and sustaining my fellow 12-step members. I am beginning to see, dimly still, how pain and suffering differ: pain is a human condition and inescapable, but I can choose whether or not I suffer.

Now, I have an ever-growing understanding of God, and I often envision myself as a simple electric plug. All I need to do to experience the power of God's grace is push the prongs into the outlet and the power flows through me, along with HP's limitless love and unbounded wisdom. But when that analogy fails me, as it probably will at some point, there is another perspective, another way to look at it that will carry me through the pain and relieve my suffering. My HP is all-powerful, and my life is touched by grace every moment I allow it to be so.

The gospel reading last Sunday was from Luke 2: the Presentation of Our Lord. Joseph and Mary present Jesus in the temple and there are two devout Wise Ones who bear witness to the event. They have each waited a long time, in their own ways, for this day. It has a profound, life changing impact on them.

How many of us in our recovery have felt like Anna and Simeon waiting to see the Promised One? Anna, the aging widow prophetess, is in the temple the day Jesus is presented and declares this is the Child that will bring redemption. Simeon believed he would see the Lord’s Messiah before he died and, when he does, breaks into his own Magnificat. He affirms God’s dismissal of him in peace and declares his eyes have seen salvation.

It feels like Anna and Simeon have been in recovery and have finally tasted sobriety.

After the fourth time in detox. After three years of sobriety. After the second DUI. After 84 years of age, never leaving the temple and fasting and praying night and day. After waiting and waiting for the consolation of Israel, the Baby is placed in Simeon’s arms and he sees the light for revelation to the Gentiles! And sometimes the tremors stop and the drug dreams stop and we get a 30 day coin and then a 90 day coin and we, too, find glory!

It would be easy to dismiss the hard work Anna and Simeon had to endure to see the redemption for Jerusalem. It would be easy to focus on the happy day in the temple when all is well and everyone goes home happy. But Anna is a widow and has endured loss and grief and it would be probable to assume Simeon is near death. And recovery isn’t about the end, is it?

It’s about the process. Along the way things get messed up and a sword pierces your own soul. There are jobs lost and relationships destroyed and hospitalizations. And there are fallings and risings of many. There are fallings and risings of way too many.

And there are late night phone calls to our sponsor and endless group sessions. We start keeping a gratitude journal and admitting our helplessness. We learn to breathe and trust a therapist. We make the 7am meeting. And another. And another.

And, over time, the child within us grows and becomes strong. Sometimes we get moments of wisdom and the favor of God. Until one day…our eyes begin to see our own salvation.

Deborah M. MA, LPC
Lancaster, PA

“And they left for their country by another route.” This is a quotation from a gospel in which we are told the story of three wise men who came to seek the Messiah and afterwards they returned to their country by a different path.

What has this got to do with AA and Recovery? A lot. At least from my viewpoint. I came into this program with all kind of opinions and “facts.” In my ignorance I believed I knew what I was letting myself into. After all, any idiot can stop drinking. It’s no big deal.

What I learned was information I already knew but I did not understand it. And because I was too busy being a ‘big shot” I was missing everything I should have been learning. I had to begin a journey on a different route. What I needed was a “metanoia” a “change of heart.” It took almost five years of a dry drunk to get to this new road home.

Coming into the tent of Alcoholics Anonymous led me to one group of 12 Steps and then I realized that I needed to visit another program – Alanon. If this was not enough, by the middle of my fourth year I was presented with the book Adult Children of Alcoholics and all of it applied to me.

Over the years I have been active in A.A. I have, where appropriate, encouraged individuals to work an Alanon program. However, what I have come to realize is that the majority of us in A.A. grew up in homes where there was active addiction of one kind or another. We are literally adult children of alcoholics.

Like the Wise Men, I was looking for something outstanding, something that was different. What I found was something simple; Go to meetings, Read the Big Book and Talk to your Sponsor (and don’t drink). It’s that simple- like a little child.

As the child grew, his parents and others discovered his knowledge was such that it turned a religion on its head with simplicity; he made it make a difference, not in the world of politics or international relations, but rather within oneself.

Bill Wilson discovered that by talking to other drunks he did not drink. Then he met one who believed him and then another. Over the next few years, others joined them from around the country. Sharing their experience, strength and hope they discovered that this included “house-cleaning,” making amends, learning humility, finding a Higher Power, helping others. And as the numbers grew and the program grew like an Irish family, there was needed Traditions and modes of operation.

“Keep it simple” became the mode of operation. The road I had been looking for was one in which “I” would be center stage; one in which “I” would not only be important but also indispensable.

The road by which I returned was one of humility. I needed to learn to ask for directions. I learned to ask for help. This was a much different road than the selfish and self-centered road I had walked most of my life, even long before I picked up that first drink.

The road by which I returned to find myself was filled with wounded-healers who knew how I felt, knew how I thought, accepted me long before I accepted myself, forgave myself or loved myself.

The road by which I returned was not religious but spiritual, filled with life and love, compassion and understanding.

I came looking for a Bonfire and found a match that lit a fire within me; it slowly burned till it ignited and let me see the light that was already there. Such was the joy I discovered and wanted to sing “Go tell it on the mountain” but all that was needed was to say “I’ve been there. I know how you feel. Tell me how I can help you.”

Séamus D.  is an Episcopal priest in the Greater New Orleans area.

I knew I was an alcoholic pretty early, I think. I started young and I loved alcohol from the first taste. It was very hard to drink without eventually blacking out. I knew I couldn’t drink like other people, though I could pretend pretty well in public because I got quiet once I was drunk. I usually drank at home, though, and I drank a heck of a lot. The upside of this was that I never got myself a bad reputation as a sloppy, reckless drunk. The problem with this was that, once I went into recovery, many people in my life looked at me like I was a melodramatic teenager.

“Oh please,” they said. “You don’t even know what a real alcoholic looks like. Just have a damned glass of wine already.” Or “Don’t you think you’re going a little overboard with this stuff? It’s not like you lost your job or anything. I think you’re just being a little oversensitive.” Best yet was the eye roll coupled with, “You don’t go to those meetings do you?”

Well, those meetings were the only place where I was truly understood and believed. People like me sat in those basements with cups of coffee passing out coins and putting dollar bills in a basket. They shared stories like mine. I could share my story and people would know that alcohol is poison to me and that I have a disease just like they do. They told me time and time again not to drink and to stick to my program. I felt heard.

I was drinking myself into oblivion when I first stopped. I had visited a psychiatrist and told him that I was drinking a liter and a half a night and had consumed about 25 drinks at a party the night before- I didn’t think anything of it. I mean, this is what people do, isn’t it? Well he did think something of it. I was diagnosed with Alcohol Dependence and sent to AA.

I have bipolar disorder which was part of what I was numbing with my alcohol use. After I quit the first time, I later relapsed and attempted suicide... two separate times while impaired. Some people in my life still aren’t convinced that drinking is deadly for me. Eye rolls and sighs. “Just have a drink already.”

I have wondered if I make these folks uncomfortable on some level. Part of me feels badly about that, but part of me knows I can’t take responsibility for their feelings if that’s what’s going on. I don’t stand on a table and preach about the dangers of alcohol. I don’t lecture anyone. I don’t ask anyone else to not drink. I just quietly ask for a Diet Coke with lime and carry on with my life.

If I’m going to keep this up, I need these rooms and I need my fellow alcoholics. We understand each other. I know that I’m never going to be seen as a drama queen for walking through those doors. I’ll be welcomed with open arms.

“Serenity”, in a word.  We came into the Program angry, beaten down, having alienated family, friends and employers. We were ashamed of our conduct. We’d probably tried several times to quit by ourselves – all resulting in failure. Maybe our early weeks of sobriety didn’t impress anyone. They all made it clear they were just awaiting your failure, your fall backwards into those usual alcoholic and drug nightmares. Even in recovery, depression can be a wet blanket over our comfort level.

There is sort of a surprise in the Steps. The Steps aim for us to “let go,” to ease up, to remember that there is a joy in successfully walking the Steps. We learn that Step Eleven takes us someplace we may not have known was present – the reliance on a Higher Power and his Will for us – we cease traveling alone, wired to our own resources. Now we have a steady companion who will respond to our calls to identify his Will for us. It may be hard to see it. It may take us on a path we least expected. We may not like the direction you perceive as God’s Will.

We came to the Program admitting there was a being more powerful than our own humanness. As we worked the Steps, perhaps the role of our Higher Power slipped from our attention as we undertook our inventories, amends and all the rest. 

We may forget that by working “to improve” our “conscious contact,” the door opens our lives to true serenity. That door accepts life’s bumps and grind – but at the same time rids us of over-reaching, of merely descending into a morass of self-pit – if we meet these intrusions without assistance.  That door calls us to look to our Higher Power to seek guidance – “His will for us” together with the power to carry it out.

And, we know that sometimes that Will for us” is difficult to discern. Sometimes it takes more meditation than we’d like – steady meditation. Quiet listening is needed. Meditation takes us away from ourselves. We rid ourselves of self-management. We ask only for his Will to solve a problem. That saves a lot of mental energy and avoids our reaching for the substance that seemingly provided a solution, a temporary solution that at the same time continued our addiction.

At my best, when encountering one of these problems and I turn to my Higher Power for assistance, I do find His Way. Sometimes it takes time. We have to be patient. It’s not always what I alone wanted. It’s something that we haven’t done for years and years and look where that failure got us. I need to get outside myself and at least for a period come to believe that it isn’t all about me. I’m not the general contractor. Sometimes it’s a partial answer, one we have to work with and grow with His support.

Sometimes we forget that our Higher Power is always available if we but seek Him. That’s why the Eleventh Step is there. We are to “continue to seek” to remind us. It reminds us to forget the old ways of “me, me, me” and move to a higher plane of sobriety.

The Program is not a “one-trick-pony.” Certainly we need to work the Steps to free us of addiction’s grasp. But don’t forget the Program also gives us a tool to continue living an addiction-free and serene life through meditation, seeking ”His Will for us and the Power to carry it out.”      

Jim A/Covington, KY

When I was in elementary school, we used to spend part of the summer at a house in the country owned by my grandmother and aunt. It had a wide porch for playing house, and a huge tree with a rope swing. The best part of that time, though, was swimming in the brook. It was clear and cold and generations of kids had piled up rocks to make a dam for a swimming hole. It was heaven on a hot day.

There was one problem with the brook, though. We crossed the corner of a pasture in order to get there, and the pasture was inhabited by a bull. We had long debates about how to get by him. Run fast, creep slowly, wait until it was really hot and hope he was asleep, or go early in the morning. It never occurred to us to just stay on the other side of the fence.

I dealt with my addiction the way we dealt with the bull. Only drink on weekends, drink the first drink really slowly, alternate with water or soda, wait until just before bed... it never occurred to me to just not drink.

Now I use the fellowship and the steps to get me past the bull. A good fence is strong, with closely spaced posts and rails between them. If I only get to one or two meetings a week, the posts are too far apart and my addiction starts looking at me over the fence. If I don’t pray regularly, talk to my sponsor and other alcoholics and addicts, and pass along what I’ve learned, the rails aren’t strong enough to keep the bull away from me.

Sometimes the bull is sleeping at the other end of the pasture, but if he’s riled up, I want a strong fence between us. Sometimes my addiction feels dormant, but I know that on any given day the stresses of life can upset my balance and make me vulnerable. When that happens, I don’t want to be standing alone in the field. I want to have the steps, the fellowship and my higher power between me and the danger.

At my Wednesday 7 AM meeting last week a person said, “The answer to your prayers is not going to come through your head…pay attention to the people you encounter and listen to what they talk about.”

Wow. I’ve been sober in AA for a long time—decades--and I’ve never heard that bit of wisdom put just that way before. (That observation could very easily set me off on a tangent about why I believe going to meetings is as important today as it was when I was just beginning my sober life…but that will be a different blogpost.)

I try to have a daily spiritual practice of reading the day’s page in one 12-Step book or another and then writing/reflecting on it. Today’s reading was about how meditation can open the doors to God’s solution…

So here are two messages—the answer to prayers comes through other people and the answer to prayers comes through meditation. I notice that ruminating, list-making, and brainstorming are not included. How are attending to others and attending to meditation alike—and how are they different from worrying? They are alike in what they both are not: attention to others and meditation are not trying to figure things out. They are both from the heart and not from the head.

I have no problem at all with head stuff. I love discussion. I love reading opinion columns, 19th century novels and post-modern literature. I have never liked any of the AA slogans that suggest that intelligence, intellect and education are in any way a handicap in recovery. “Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth” and “Keep it simple, stupid,” are, to my way of thinking, abusive and denigrating. There is nothing wrong with pondering the meaning of life and searching for answers to life’s deep questions.

But I also know that recovery does not include denial. We are not to shut off one part of our selves in order to enhance another part. Recovery means integration. Recovery means reconciling body, mind and spirit. Intellect and emotion are the obverse and reverse of the same coin and the coin is the individual. What paying attention to others and paying attention to meditation have in common is that they are acts of love, generosity, and respect.

The best way I know how to meditate is to count my breaths. Just to notice my breathing in and breathing out. Maybe consciously extending the exhale a little bit. Not making a big deal out of posture, distraction, time of day, number of minutes, mantra. Just breathing in and out and noticing our own breath (our spirit) keeping us alive and connecting us to something outside ourselves.

Basil Pennington, the great teacher of Centering Prayer, said in one of his recordings, “Pray as you can and not as you can’t.” We beseech, we praise, we honor, we implore, we listen, we meditate—we pray as we can.

As we learn to listen—to other people—to God’s quiet voice—to our own breathing—we recover. One day at a time.

Happy New Year.