Through the Red Door Blog

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule." —Matthew 5:3, The Message

In recovery, it is common to focus on the consequences of our addiction. If we are in a 12 Step program, we do this during our steps one, two and three as we identify how our lives had become unmanageable and we were powerless to stop our acting out. We look at the fallout of our addiction when we go to people we have harmed and offer amends, taking responsibility for our choices and the impact they have had on others’ lives. Some of us have legal consequences that may limit our opportunities and restrict our freedoms. Addiction has consequences.

So does recovery.

I am always excited to attend a speaker meeting where the majority of the share is about life in recovery and the blessings (consequences) that follow. The sad truth is that the behaviors that lead us to recovery are seemingly much more dramatic than the blessings of a recovered life. But oh, how we need to focus on the promises that have been delivered! Recently I have had the opportunity to consider the consequences of my own recovery journey and three things stood out.

1.    Recovery restores relationships - My recovery has given me the chance to be a part of the lives of people I love. In the past, while I was in my addiction, even when I was physically present, I was quite often mentally, emotionally, and spiritually absent. I felt this blessing recently when I was able to be present for the birth of my third grandchild. Addiction prevented me from being present for the birth of my first two grandchildren. However, working my program of recovery allowed me to be fully present - emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was able to celebrate this joyful arrival and invest in my son and daughter-in-law, making life long memories.

2.    Recovery brings unexpected opportunities - I was recently asked by the pastoral staff of the church I attend to present a sermon during our holy week services. After my moral failure, I surrendered the hope to ever fill the pulpit again. Instead, God gave me the chance to share a message about the need for death before resurrection, a message that is at its very heart about recovery. As I presented the message, I was aware of the blessing of recovery, being able to be who I really am for the first time in the pulpit of a church. What an amazing blessing.

3.    Recovery grounds us in gratitude - Recovery has given me the gift of accurately seeing my world. Regardless of the negative consequences of my addictive behavior, living, in reality, stems from the gratitude I have as a result of the healing recovery has introduced into my life. Life can be difficult, but on its worst day, I have more to be grateful about as a sober person than I ever had in my addiction.

Page 83 and 84 of The Big Book of AA tells us that the consequences of recovery are measurable! Here are a few promises: A new freedom; new happiness; lack of regret; possession of serenity and peace; a realization that our shortcomings are the key to helping others; we become of use to God and our fellow man; we see others as important; we become increasingly selfless; we gain a better outlook on life; we lose our focus on material wealth; and we gain the ability to make decisions easily even in the most confusing situations. Most of all, we have a sense that a higher power is at work in all of these transformations! That passage concludes like this…

"Are these extravagant promises (consequences)? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."

Those are consequences for which I can be grateful!

Affirmation: I am grateful that recovery is restoring my sanity, helping me live again and teaching me what it truly means to be happy.

Submitted gratefully by Shane M. from Conway, AR

In the April 10th piece, I asked how we were to deal with life’s problems without relapsing back to our addiction and I wondered how the Steps would look rewritten and outlining a way to solve real perhaps life-changing problems. So, you are confronted with a problem, maybe a big one. It’s causing an uncomfortable anxiousness that escaped what the usual remedies failed to solve. So, for what it’s worth, maybe this will help us work through a solution for the really tough ones … here goes …

1. Ask yourself if you are powerless over the problem, the solution is beyond you, maybe your life is in a paralyzing spot.

2. Remember that help is available: get to a meeting and see if that helps.

3. If that is of minimal help and we can’t solve it, and its outcome is in someone else’s hands, consult with your Higher Power seeking His way, not yours.

4. Make sure you have all the facts and confirm what facts have to be changed to solve it.

5. Identify any part of the problem you can assist with solving in whole or in part.

6. After seeking counsel from your sponsor or at meetings, meditate – don’t tell Him how to solve it and get His OK.

7. After making contact with your sponsor, a meeting and meditation, and find you have obsessed about the problem too much and created an anxiety in your day-to-day life, seek comfort from your Higher Power and increase your “meeting schedule.”

8. List those persons you have to work with to solve it.

9.  Plan to contact those persons and review your plan to do so with your sponsor.

10. Re-read your plan regularly to make certain it is still “the next right step.”

11. Stay in touch with your Higher Power and exercise your spiritual life.

12. Report appropriate pieces of your steps to those who encounter similar anxiety-producing problems and add this to your regular gratitude list.

Well, maybe this version of the Steps isn’t as helpful as it might be, but who knows? What I had been doing wasn’t working so let’s try a new idea to get to the bottom of this.  

…to be continued to May 29th

-Jim A/ Covington,

* With humble apologies to Bill W. and Dr. Bob and the millions who have worked the Steps to recover from their addiction.

It was suggested to me to write a break-up letter to alcohol and lay out my feelings, thoughts and memories on my relationship with alcohol. As putting pen to paper makes things a lot more real in deeply personal work like this I sat on it for a long time. The next step after writing it was to read it out loud and share it with someone else. In our episode entitled "Why is for It's so hard to say goodbye to alcohol" we did just that. What follows are those letters.

Dear Alcohol,

I am writing this letter to you because, I do a podcast with John about our experiences coping with breaking up with you, and trying to live life without relying on you… The other reason I’m writing this letter is because John is really into making this podcast seem “professional” and we should probably “plan them out beforehand” and also John loves homework (this is just one of the passive aggressive portions of this letter).

You were like most relationships I had in the past. You started like a grease fire in the kitchen and quickly grew out of control. Once it started going badly, I knew it in the very core of me, but chose to deny the obvious. (it was like ten elephants in the room, and I acted like it was just Wednesday). I would trudge through it completely miserable and in pain. But it was routine and ritual. This is who I am and this is what I do. This defines me and shapes me.

But, unlike every relationship I’ve had, I ghosted you. I cut off contact and caspered my way out this, and I haven’t reached out for you since. But true to form, I obsessed over you and came up with countless scenarios in which we could work it out, maybe something bad would happen and I could turn to you and we could move back into that coffin we shared. That would be rad (insert dripping Gen-X sarcasm here).

I came to the conclusion (one of many, just like the passive aggressive parts of this letter) that pursuing any relationship with you would be actively seeking my own death.

I also concluded that although you were the around for and caused many of my hardships, you were only a catalyst and not the true root of my disease. I believe this infirmity has existed in me before i met you. You just amplified the symptoms (you crazy little minx). Just like a physical debility, you must be treated in order for me regain health. So I sought a remedy.

I found my remedy in church basements around other people who dumped you -- people who got used up, chewed up, and spit out by you. We drink rough coffee, we tell stories about you, and we laugh. We share the turbulent parts of our lives with you and we cope. I COPE, because you’re always there, lingering around like a vampire expecting and invitation in. The wild part is that you’re an element of me. You live in me. I hate that. I resent that. But you’re there, so I have to accept it or be damned. Damned to be walking wounded and back in my disease without taking a drink.

All that being said (or written as it were), EVERYTHING IS SO MUCH BETTER WITHOUT YOU! None of my problems went away, some even got harder for a while (hear me out though); they finally became manageable. The unsolvable became easily solved. What was insurmountable became surmounted effortlessly (is surmounted a word?), contentment was achievable, my sense of entitlement has started to dissipate, and gratitude has become a genuine feeling. Not just something I would say in the rooms to other drunks to make it seem like I had it together. I still don’t have it together, but I believe I can achieve it! Trip out, right?

In all honesty I’m glad I rode with you, and I’m glad I got messed over by you. Because if I didn’t, I would have never realized that life is a good thing. That it doesn’t have to be chaotic and unmanageable. So in a way, thanks for that. I owe you my gratitude.

Now, if you could kindly get lost on this good night, that would be great.

Jerry

*****************************************************************************

Dear Alcohol,

In the beginning there seemed to be so much promise with you and I. I was lost and hurt and young. I had already endured so much trauma at such a young age. Pain, anxiety, and fear were daily. Raised with mistrust and abuse, always being on guard was just a way of life.

I remember the first time you shared yourself with me. You spilled your secrets and poured your promises in my glass. We ditched class together and went to a friend's house. We sang the Beatles, "Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life. You were only waiting for this moment to arise."

Your first taste was foreign and jarring but your feeling was sweet and warming. You calmed my mind and relaxed my body in a way nothing else ever did. From that day on I knew it was meant to be.

Those promises and feelings stayed true for a while. But little by little things started falling apart.

Some mornings you would leave me feeling battered and bruised always coming back to say, "I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean it. Take me back, I promise it'll be different this time." This cliche went on and on and on. I kept thinking things would change. You kept on being you and doing the same damn thing every single time. Things got worse. You hurt me more and more. You took my money. You yelled at my friends. You hurt people I cared deeply about and led me into situations where I was nearly arrested. Some, where I certainly should have been killed.

And still the:
"I'm sorry baby. It'll be different this time."
Which turned into
"You need me.
"You won't leave me."
"You are nothing without me.
"You disgust me."
"You disgust yourself.
"I'm the only thing that will make you feel better." And that was true for a while or at least I believed it.

And on and on it went for so many years. Broken promises lead to failed attempts to make it work. So many people were hurt by our toxic relationship. So much time wasted and money spent chasing a dream, a high, an ideal state of being that, with you, was never going to exist, ever. I tried to make room for you in my life but you wanted every part of it. All my mornings spent cursing you in sickening physical, mental, and emotional pain. All my nights in foggy vagaries of distraction leading to numbness and always ending in darkness. Both literal and figurative.

The level of destruction overshadows the fun, good, and memorable times we had. And there were some and I will cherish those memories

I have changed. Three years on since we last spoke. that last night after our last fling even I was unsure if it was our final kiss but I knew that I couldn't trust you ever again and that, in fact, it was me, not you. Truly. You were always the same. Never changing. I heard what I wanted to hear and lied to myself time and time again.

In the first months after our break up I still wanted you back. Thought about you constantly. Had vivid dreams about you. It was so hard to let you go. We had been together for decades but it wasn't hard to remember how much I hated myself when I was with you.

In the years since we split I have discovered other things that have made me happy. Helping others, connection and relationships based on self-esteem, exercise, eating better, and creating art. All the things you used to tell me we didn't need as long as we were together. More lies.

Now when I think about you the moments of missing are overshadowed by the lessons learned, memories of the pain and loss and hurt I caused and endured because of you. So today I stand in the truth, experience and knowledge I have gained by letting you go and say emphatically...

Goodbye.
John

The contemptuous passer-by, the priests, elders, rulers jeered: “…come down from the cross and save yourself!” ^{Mark 15: 30} ; and bellowed: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” ^{Matthew 27: 42} The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷ and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” Even “…one of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” ^{Luke 23:38-39}

Jesus, as “God made man” doesn’t merely feel for us; he is not simply among us, he is one of us. Repeatedly, Jesus says he does all things by the authority, the grace, the power, the love of the Father. He does not trade on his own divinity; his power is derived. If he has the power to save himself, were he actually to do so, he negates his humanity and then, Jesus most definitely would not be one of us. Jesus’s death on the cross is the apex of God’s complete union with us… like us, he is damaged goods, and he is mortal.

“God [through Jesus] has entered into our suffering through his own suffering… What God offers… the promise that he is with us in our suffering; that he can bring good out of it (life out of death, forgiveness out of sin); and that one day he will put a stop to it and redeem it.¹

“I am Jesus, I am an alcoholic.” Preposterous? Being human, injustice, pain, resentment, addiction, disease are all within his sway – yet his communion with the Father never falters, never fails him, even in his despair at the moment of death. But Jesus could not save himself. It wasn’t a choice… Jesus powerless on the cross. One of us. Yet his faith prevails.

When we idealize Jesus (or for that matter, solons with long-term sobriety) we purge him of his humanity, the very core of God’s presence as one of us. That includes wrestling with character defects along with graces and gifts. He engages us – talking, listening, questioning, learning in relationship with us, his brothers and sisters. All those conversations with Nicodemus in the night; with Mary, while Martha seethed; with John, the beloved; and what are the bonds that tie him to Lazarus, for whom he wept? Living in real time as one of us.

Tortured, humiliated, scorned and slaughtered, his sheep scattered, his ministry in tatters, dying, Jesus: one of us. Powerless, he turns his will and his life over to care of the Father: one of us. Triumphant, alive: one with the Father, one of us.

-Martin McE

1 Peter Wehner What It Means to Worship a Man Crucified as a Criminal
NYT 4/19/19, quoting Scott Dudley, Sr. Pastor, Bellevue Presbyterian Church, Bellevue WA
“Jesus, as “God made man” doesn’t merely feel for us; he is not simply among us, he is one of us.”

¹⁵ I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, ²³ but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:15-25, NRSV)

In today’s passage from Twenty-four Hours a Day (April 6), the author asks, “Was my personality problem ever solved by going on the wagon or taking the pledge?”

My addictions served to hide me from myself. I practice sobriety in order to be authentic and to live a liberated life of love of self and others.

When I first sought sobriety, I began with Celebrate Recovery (CR), and I quickly realized that alcohol and drugs were not the only addictions over which I was powerless. In CR, each of the 12 steps is paired with a Biblical principle (Scripture). Step 1 is important to us all, but, in these many years, the CR paired Bible passage for Step 1 has had a more profound influence on me than so many other parts of my spiritual recovery journey.

In CR, Step 1 and its Biblical comparison read as follows:

1.   We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (Romans 7:18)

I must be bold, now, and share with you that I am not a fan of St. Paul, and I am quite sure that were he and I to meet on the road today, sit together in prayer and conversation, spend time studying the Law, we would have very different interpretations of what sin is and how God through Christ responds to me missing the mark in my journey toward a fuller life with Christ.

Nonetheless, the words of Romans 7:18 meant much more to me, all those years ago when I first set out to get clean, than the words of step 1. And this was at a time when I was not yet baptized or proclaiming faith. I was, as it were, Saul. I recognized in myself this sense that I very much wanted to stop drinking and drugging, stop lashing out in anger, stop lying, stop spending into debt, stop hurting myself, stop promiscuous living. But the desire didn’t seem to be enough. I had a hole in my heart. I had a gap in my knowledge. I had no impulse control. And these words of Paul were saying that it was ok, that I was not alone, that people from all times and places and walks of life struggled in these ways, too.

Over the years, I learned about myself and my God-ness. I grew in faith and recovery. My doctrine changed, and I moved from one denomination to another. I am an Episcopalian now, and I am proud to be part of Integrity and TransEpiscopal. I have left my days with CR behind, but I still meditate on those Biblical principles CR compared to their adaptation of the 12 steps. I especially meditate on that passage from Romans. And not just Romans 7:18 – Romans 7:15-25. After getting sober, opening up to Christ and Christians, accepting Christ as my life guide, coming out as queer and trans, realizing that queer trans Christians DO exist and are LOVED, I found that I needed recovery more than I ever had because I still wasn’t doing what I wanted but was doing what I hate.

I was judgmental. I was a gossip. I was angry. I was controlling. I was afraid. I wanted to run away. I sought love through approval and praise for perfection, and I expected perfection from others.

I was hospitalized for decompensating into a psychotic state. What else does one do when one demands perfection and control of themselves and others and continually falls short but has no was to forgive themselves or others and also judges/condemns themselves because this thought/behavior pattern is incompatible with their worldview/faith/rule of life?

How closely I felt a connection to Paul.

Coming out of the hospital, I let go and let God. I put Christ first, myself second, and my family and church third. I turned taking my medication and attending therapy and letting people know when I needed help and accountability into daily offices (Rev. Mary Earle). I made a rule of life that included daily work and prayer and service related to mental health and recovery.

As I continue to learn and change, I know that Christ was there in the beginning, is here now, and will be with me always. In the valleys, on the mountains, and all the elevations in between. So, my personality problem wasn’t solved by going on the wagon or taking the pledge, but I’m glad that it wasn’t. Those defects of character challenge me every day to seek Christ more, and they have driven me to listen to others carefully and critically in order to discern who I am in Christ and what paths I might take to get closer.

Brandon B.

For me, the Steps open doors for us. Each brings something important to the Program: a call for the assembly of a moral inventory of one’s life, making amends, developing a spirit-filled life. Each calls us to continuously check our progress and changing and making amends where we have erred, and carrying the message of hope to others who are still suffering.

My path to addiction accelerated when I discovered that alcohol was a means to rectify a personal shortfall which had always troubled me forestalling any growth to maturity. I discovered that my addiction released my inhibitions enabling me to strive to become well-liked, part of a group and accepted. I discovered that this addiction partially blanked out moral standards, enabling me to recklessly live for what I wanted. I discovered that alcohol was my safety line, a means to erase feelings of inadequacy, fear, loneliness, inferiority, and failure. It permitted me to live in that black pit of “woe is me, you’d become an addict also if you had my job, my stuttering, my family.” Self-pity was my mantra permitting me to remain addicted far too long.

Early in the Program and having to confront a serious issue, I had to ask, “But how was I going to deal with all that life threw at me – the really tough serious stuff – without my drug of choice?”

The difficult problems certainly weren’t going away just because I wasn’t using my drug of choice to manage them. Some problems are really serious, life-threatening even. Was I deluding myself about future encounters with issues that in the past had “compelled” me to continue my addiction? Was I to become a hermit and live in a cave or some safe monastery? 

I thought a lot about this. Then at a meeting, I seemed to have what I guess I would call a “flash of light.” To me it did seem to be somewhat of an “aha moment.” Specifically, I saw that… 

It’s the Steps, stupid. I saw the Steps as “right there” enabling us to face life’s terribleness and securing a tranquil, happy, joyous, and free existence. Sure, they guided us to clean up our act and deal with the bare fact of our addiction.  But with the Steps, I now understand that at least for me, we can deal with life’s biggest problems by simply working the Steps as they applied to my problem de jour -the serious issues worse than the run of the mill bumps in the road. You usually can deal with those by going to meetings, mixing up the meetings attended, drawing on spiritual reserves, working with others, undertaking new service work, and so forth.

So, what would the Twelve Steps look like if we phrased them as steps specially outlining a path of recovery from the really bad issues, the ones that cause you all that anxiety you’re suffering right now.

To be continued May 15^th  Red Door
Jim A. Covington, Kentucky

Hebrews 10:24-25

²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

I remember the first few days of my stay in a rehab center.  To say the least, I was overwhelmed.  “What am I doing in this place with all these losers.”  How could I possibly benefit from being ‘exposed to them’.”  Didn’t take me long to realize that these “losers” had truck-loads of wisdom to share with me if I would just listen.  Their stories--their amazing experiences, their heart-breaking lives--were amazing.  I was so “blown away” to realize that in spite of their struggles, they survived.  After peeling back their stories and getting to the core I found me.  Yes, I had found my story in their stories.  We may not look the same, talk the same, or dress the same; but at the core of our being, we are brothers and sisters whose hearts were the same, our pain was the same, our desires were the same, our longings were the same.  It was then that I began to understand what this 12-step program was trying to teach me when it spoke of community. 

I pastored a church for over 30 years before retiring.  In one of my last sermons to my church family I shared insight into what church should look like.  I told them that if they wanted to know what church should look like, they should attend a 12-step meeting.  A place where everyone is accepted just as they are.  A place where there is no one at the door with “registration forms” which will determine whether they qualify to become members.  A place where no one asks:  “What do you do for living?” “What’s your yearly income?” etc., etc.  A place where everyone is equal and the newest member is just as much a part of the community as those who have been present for multiple years.  That is what church should be like.  The 12-step program has given me a new perspective on what family is all about.  After 33 years of clean time, thanks to my God and this ongoing experience, I look at people in a different way.  If I look at them through the eyes of my God, I always see someone who is a survivor, someone whose story I will be blessed to hear, someone who is a warrior.  And yes, in the midst of all these beautiful broken losers --- I found me.

I mentioned in “Ego-Part One” that we have to watch out when we wonder if our egos are perhaps becoming too aggressive; we need to be aware of the fact that there are “good egos” and “bad” ones, but which is which?

I sought to dump the “bad” ones when I took the first Steps of turning over a new leaf of humility, gratitude, and comfort with ourselves. We dumped the arrogant and selfish parts of our beings. Ultimately, we found our Higher Power’s grace for us, if we but seek it through the Program.   

Not all egos are bad, sometimes good ones emerge.  The medical profession is a good place to look at the difference. Take a surgeon who is extremely technically skilled. Does he project a self-righteous feeling of superiority over you? “Bombastic” is a good word that usually fits him or her.  But we certainly need surgeons who feel and project confidence that he/she can undertake the operation and complete it successfully and accompanied by a positive recovery cycle

But we have to be on our guard. These “positive” good egos can morph into something else; something that we wrestled with during our times of addiction. If a person in the Program has worked the Steps, found recovery, and feels the Grace of the Higher Power, he or she is entitled to a little bit of positive feelings. “I did it and I’m proud of that! … with the help of the Program and others.” We deserve to be proud, but our gratitude and humility are always needed to trump ego’s emerging selfish, self-centered outlooks. After all, each of us is only one drink from a new descent into that pit of addiction.

One spot we need to keep careful track of our egos is our Twelve Step work. We need to remember that we aren’t telling anyone what they should do (“follow me for I have achieved sobriety!”). We pass along only what worked for us and it may or may not work for them.  Grandiosity isn’t  welcome at this point. Humbleness is the watchword.

The line we draw here can be slippery for like our alcoholic addiction, the way and extent we assert our ego can be one of those spots. We realize our ego, like our drug of choice, is cunning, baffling, and powerful. If we ignore that fact, humility may drop from the picture, and we risk a relapse back into the old feelings of superiority and ego-centric behavior.

“Good ego” is akin to feelings of self-worth but we don’t go around broadcasting and pointing out our self-worth with a cunning, baffling, and powerful aura of how good we feel about ourselves—for we are one drink away from…

It’s another piece of life that calls for balance—the old Greek “Golden Mean.”  We lost this “ability to balance” our alcohol intake and we descended to the depths of addiction.

So, “good” or “bad” ego is our choice. We need to be alert to the fork in the road and seek “His Will for Us and the Power to Carry it Out.”

Jim A., Covington, Kentucky

“A lie is not an object at rest.” 

“Bred to Be a Superstar - Learning To Be Human Again” [Todd Marinovich], Michael Rosenberg, Sports Illustrated, 1/11/19

“The Saromsker Rebbe had lied, directly and by omission and with dreadful, unholy serpentines. Lying was an unsolicited insult to the divine order. … One uncourageous lie destroys the core of the imagination. “  “Perfection” a short story by Mark Helprin in The Pacific and Other Stories, 2004

 “Those who do not recover are …, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.”  “How It Works”, Chapter 5, page 58, Alcoholics Anonymous [Big Book]

“How do I lie to thee? Let me count the ways.”  Variation on Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Deceive, distort, exaggerate, con, obfuscate, deny, mislead, distract, camouflage, dupe, pretend, prevaricate, fake, equivocate, quibble, pose, fib, invent … and on, and on…

to myself, especially and intensely to myself, and to my family, my friends, colleagues, acquaintances… people barely met … and more…

about affairs that are heartfelt and incidental, grand and trivial, on matters big and small …

by “dreadful, unholy serpentines” and stark assertions …

for any and every reason and for no reason …

Willfully and unwittingly, I was “constitutionally incapable” of reckoning with reality.  So it was last week, mired in boredom in a doctor’s waiting room, grabbing a random magazine, reading an arbitrary piece about a half-remembered, failed wannabe in a sport that holds only a fragment of interest for me, I was arrested by the revelation that according to Newton’s First Law “a lie is not an object at rest.” 

Where do my lies lead me? What contortions are required by my distortions, my licenses and liberties with facts as I know them, forces as I encounter them, compressing my life into an ever-shrinking coffer of my dwindling capacities to control the acceleration of my escalating fear? The panic that I can no longer heft the fronts that hide the horror I know myself to be – lies shielding the lie of my own existence. 

How then, how now, to consider all the harms the energy of my lies in motion inflicted upon those I would have loved, could I have loved, more or better, or at least faithfully? 

“… an object in motion stays in motion… .” There’s more, yes?  … with the same speed and direction until acted upon by an unbalanced force that upsets the equilibrium of the forces acting upon it. A Higher Power, perhaps.

My lies rose in layers like tiles for nearly forty years, from my earliest childhood to the end of my drinking. They were not quickly reconciled, and even yet are not resolved, not fully. Happily, truth is grace, a face of God that illuminates our lives and diminishes our deceptions. By grace, we can face ourselves, account for our behaviors, repent of the wreckage we strew across the landscape of our relationships. Truth too, comes in many guises and in serendipitous ways to save us.

Each day, a new beginning. We are objects in motion encountering life forces,  experiencing powerful graces, uplifted by powers greater than ourselves, pulled forward by a Love our most extravagant imaginings could never conceive. Life in Truth.

On Ash Wednesday a few years back, I decided I was going to give up drinking for Lent. Somehow I knew that I couldn’t do it by willpower alone, and I really wanted it to work.

I figured that if I could surrender my whole self - my life - to God on my knees back in the Cathedral ten years earlier and not turn into a Jesus freak, I could surrender to the power of alcohol and turn it over to God for the forty days of Lent until Easter.

I always remembered a little sign that I saw in a Christian bookstore, it said something like … “Nothing is going to happen today that you and God can’t handle together.”

I thought to myself, “If I put aside the masculine - ‘I can do it by myself’ - part of my ego, and let God help me, it might work.”

I’m an optimist. To me the glass is half full, not half empty. Maybe that’s why I’ve loved the saying, “When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.”

Well, that was like my plan to abstain from alcohol until Easter.

Here’s what I did: Every time I had a fleeting thought about that next beer or glass of wine, it would be like a signal that God was tapping me on the shoulder. The Holy Spirit enabled me to turn cravings for alcohol into a chance to pray. Turn lemons into lemonade. Turn dependence on alcohol into dependence on God.

Also part of my plan - what I didn’t know was a Lenten Devotion - was to drive the half hour to work in the morning with the radio off - (that was a toughie) - and use that time to pray. But day after day my mind would wander when I ran out of word prayers, even though my intention was to spend that whole drive to work praying. But every day when I pulled into the parking lot and look back at that half hour ride in silence, I’d kick myself for only giving God the first four minutes - and then the monkey chatter would begin and I’d be thinking about earthly trivialities that my self-centered ego generated. I hoped God wasn’t timing me.

Well, I did make it to Easter without drinking that Lent. My Lord and I did it together.

God and I worked together to forestall and prevent so many tragic outcomes that would have ensued if I had continued drinking. He and I had preserved my cherished marriage, my fathership, my family, my job, my financial security, my friends, my faith, my life, my sanity, my self-worth, my self-pride, etc, etc.

That Ash Wednesday, the disease of alcoholism had not progressed to a crisis. My drinking had not caused legal or marital, or employment or medical problems. So why would I quit? I can only explain that it had a lot to do with what God laid out for me  to follow:

Lent in the church calendar calls me, every single year, to deny some particular worldly pleasure that takes my eye off my intended relationship with God.

Prayer called upon God’s outreached hand to help me. In my life in 1987, it was to resist alcohol. I can only thank God for this affliction. It led me to a closer walk with Him, strengthened my faith, and blessed me with a spiritual healing.

Thanks be to God, Ash Wednesday this year will be 32 years since I have had any alcohol except the blood of Jesus from the chalice at Eucharist.

Think about using this Lent, and God’s help to give yourself a cherished gift at Easter, and get to know Him better.

Jim Fox
St. Mary’s Church, Bonita Springs, FL
2/11/2018