Honesty, Open-Mindedness and Willingness

All around the rooms of recovery are located signs with sayings that to the uninitiated seem simultaneously simple, kitschy and opaque.

“One Day at a Time”

Twenty-four Hours in a Day”

“Surrender to Win”

“Take it Easy”

“Honesty, Open-Mindedness and Willingness”

While all of these can be universally applicable, I‘d like to focus on that last like sliver of gold. I have found those three words and the concepts they represent to be central to my recovery and to my ability to live this life successfully with serenity.

Honesty: the quality of being honest. How does a person “be honest?” It seems simple enough; tell the truth, without fail or compromise. However, when the time comes to practice this in all our affairs, the vision of what honesty is becomes a bit clouded and half-truths, exaggerations, white lies and all-out fabrications are the norm. Honestly, honesty is the exception to the rule in today’s society. Deceit seems to be a required corporate character trait and “what they don’t know won’t hurt them” is a rule of day-to-day operations.

Rigorous honesty is an across the board application of s virtue all should possess. Being rigorously honest is not the same as practicing brutal honesty, and at times can be more difficult. Those that profess brutal honesty are often doing so as a function of projecting insecurities, while those that practice rigorous honesty are honest, forthright and trustworthy in all their interactions, big or small. At no point does going out of your way to hurt the feelings of another or offend come to be a requirement.

Open-Mindedness: the state of having a mind that is open to all truths and possibilities, no matter how far-fetched or illogical they may seem on the surface. An open mind often requires a closed mouth, at least initially, and that can be a huge stopping point in a person’s growth. Having an open mind asks of you to be more ready to listen than you are to speak, more intent on understanding than being understood. It means being more interested in seeking and finding truth than you are hell-bent on disproving or disparaging possible untruth. It requires a measure of acceptance and the ability to extend faith. You cannot be open-minded only within certain contexts or under the auspices of restriction. You must open the doors of your perception fully and without restraint. You cannot be open-minded about only the things with which you agree; this is in fact closed-mindedness and counter to the ultimate goal of real freedom.

Willingness: the state of being willing. Willing to make changes, to live outside of your normal comfort, to sacrifice and to sometimes struggle, to accept that your way isn’t the best way all in the name of growth. You must become willing to try things you have never given a real shot in the past. You must become willing to accept responsibility for your thoughts, words and actions without reservation or qualification. Most of all, you must be willing to change.

For an addict at rock bottom, the willingness to change may seem like low-hanging fruit. In reality it is often horribly difficult, as you must deprogram years of learned, diseased thinking and behaviors. You must become deconstructed in order to rebuild what life you have left and if you are to ever have any hope of growth. You must be willing to change, sacrifice, or abandon EVERYTHING if it means it will keep you sober. You simply must become willing and have faith in the idea that at some point you will become able with the help of humility and your Higher Power.

These principles have served to help guide my actions, and while I am not always as honest, as open-minded or as willing as I would like to be I am nowhere near as dishonest, closed-minded and unwilling as I used to be. I’m not where I want to be but I am so thankful that I am not where I once was. That my friends is progress, not perfection. 

Setting Boundaries

We all know the person (or are the person) who can never tell anyone no. This is rooted in the desire to make others happy or to be the one “Go-To Guy” upon whom everyone can count. We all have those friends and they are beloved and appreciated more than we can ever say.

The place where it gets dicey is where other, more important priorities end up having to take a back seat to that “Open 24 Hours a Day” accommodation of everyone else. This is the time that boundaries must be set; it’s also the time that it may be too late to do so. In some cases you just can’t un-spill that milk.

In the case of an addict in recovery, it’s natural for us to feel like we owe the universe some unresolved and eternal debt. No matter how far we have come, we cannot escape the feeling that we have screwed so many things up that we’ll never be able to get the balance back even. We go above and beyond the logical limits of personal accessibility in an effort to be all things to all people and to try to dig ourselves out of this never-ending hole of spiritual debt.

This is almost without fail a horrible disservice to our own needs for self-care and the true working of our respective program of recovery. Our recovery has to become and remain one of the top priorities in our lives bar none, along with growing our spiritual life in whatever way works best for us. Without those things, nothing else matters because nothing else will really work.

It is such a delicate balance, as service is a necessity of recovery. Overdoing it is kinda our M.O., so we have a tendency to neglect the most important things while chasing this ghost of reparation we can never catch. We can never do enough to feel as though we have reconciled fully with our past.

This is yet another instance where our Higher Power can come in and make all the difference. If we can believe in and truly accept forgiveness from our chosen deity, we can forgive ourselves long enough to not subconsciously sabotage our recovery and sanity by stretching our efforts too thin in any direction.

You have to put first things first, and that without a doubt includes your sobriety if you want to keep it intact. You also must remember that you can find value in taking inventory of more than just your deeds; inventory your life to ensure that your priorities remain in their rightful place. You must be willing to toss away the chaff and give the right attention to that which most requires and deserves it.

Check your motives

Sometimes even when doing the right thing we are doing it for the wrong reason. It is important to understand that your motivation is often more important than the action you take. In the case of an addict, constant checking of our motives is a necessity. Per our hardwired instincts, we could potentially take the most benevolent act and turn it into a manipulation for our own sake.

Our motives must remain pure and fully transparent. We have to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing and nothing more, no matter the result. There must be a detachment from the notion of expecting anything in return outside of the peace of having done the right thing. This can go as far as turning down an available “side benefit” that may be associated with a charitable or kind act. Truthfully, that really comes down to your own conscience in the moment.

For instance, I don’t by any means think that something like claiming a deduction on your taxes for making a donation has to be avoided, but you and only you can judge whether or not you made the donation simply because it was what you felt led to do and not due to the gainful side-effect. If that write-off was the only thing that kept you from throwing it in the trash, you probably need to inventory your heart. If you are an addict, this is not actually just a suggestion. While the result may be preferable regardless of the motive, your conscience is always keeping a tally.

I do my best to make honest recommendations borne out of my personal experience. If you are reading this, you quite possibly believe that I possess some validity and am writing from a place of love and the desire to help other addicts, still-suffering or in recovery. Believe me when I tell you that your mind and heart will carry around the baggage of a seemingly harmless decision long after you have forgotten the act itself. You’ll find yourself cursing, screaming and spitting at the wind without even knowing why you’re so angry and by then it may be too late.

This idea of checking your motives is an area where the concept of personal accountability really shines through. You must hold yourself in check; there is literally no other human who can truly know what is on your mind and fuels your motivation. The first check is on the front end as you decide to do something; this isn’t always doable as at times immediate action is the only choice. In that case, you must defer to the option that is always available.

The second check is reflective: the after action review, as it were. This option is virtually always available and must be undertaken as often as possible when the action is of any consequence. If there is any doubt, you must take the time to deconstruct the act and anything that led to it. You must measure it against a rigorous standard of honesty and only you can evaluate the score.

Don’t cheat yourself and don’t give yourself extra credit or a waiver. Get real, be honest and preserve your serenity. The value of that asset cannot be accurately expressed, so defend it vigorously. There may come a time when it is all you have, and if you are an addict that may be enough to keep you alive.

Anger

From an early age I have had issues with anger. As an over-emotional tyke, my reactions ran the gamut. In the case of some sort of pain or emotional hurt, my mind immediately flashed with white-hot anger and I started to cry shortly thereafter. As a teen, that anger turned into punching doors or walls and throwing telephones. While there were pretty typical things that triggered my anger it was always boiling just under the surface, waiting for an excuse to be turned loose on an inanimate object.

I remember my father punching a hole in a wall in the hallway of the home in which we grew up as a reaction to hitting his head on the corner of an open cabinet door. This stuck with me as a way that a man might express his anger when things got tough and served as all the excuse that I needed for acting out on the anger I often felt.

While my childhood and teen years were relatively great in a big-picture sense, I had a lot of deep-seated insecurity and hurt. I was an overweight, nerdy white kid and until eighth grade I went to schools where I was surrounded by people that were NOT LIKE ME. I unspectacularly tried to play sports or find some other non-nerdy niche without a heck of a lot of success so I eventually just tried to be the funny guy. That at least seemed to help bridge the gap between my “Revenge of the Nerds” existence and the Michael Jordan/James Dean/Miles Davis super cool kids by which I seemed to be surrounded.

This didn’t always work and I spent more time feeling hurt and angry than I did feeling liked (although I never lacked for familial love). My desire was simple: I just wanted EVERYONE to like me. One or two other guys thinking I was cool weren’t enough; to be honest twenty or more people probably wouldn’t have been enough to overcome the horrendous self-perception I held. As a natural-born fixator I couldn’t see the friends but could always remember the insults and as a result I stayed angry even when I seemed happy.

When alcohol was added to the mix in my late teens my temper went from volatile to full-blown explosion in 0.2 seconds. I was a wild card, and to be honest I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was attention that I viewed as respect or admiration; in truth I was a train wreck in the making so people often couldn’t look away. What would I say this time? How would I react? Who would I cuss out or threaten? What would I smash?

That edginess was my way of insulating from my insecurities, which had honestly only been magnified by the injuries from my wreck. I knew I’d never feel physically whole again and much worse than that my mind, so long the defense upon which I could always rely, would never again be such a capable ally.

Much of the anger I felt was dissipated when I was forced in treatment to come out from behind the mask of alcohol, drugs and rage to which I was so accustomed and to get honest with myself and everyone else. I was humbled and broken, mentally and spiritually beaten and humiliated and I was tired of lying and living out of my emotions.

Another factor in my life has had what some who don’t really understand it might find to be a counterintuitive effect: my time training in mixed martial arts. While I don’t get into the training room at SSF very often right now, my mind is never far from it and I certainly haven’t forgotten the constant ego-checks and the lesson that anger doesn’t often (if ever) serve to do anything besides make you tired.

I do still get angry. At times I get very angry. I get angry with the people of this world with closed minds or hearts. I find moments of rage when rejected or slighted.  I hate myself each and every time I fail or fall short in the least way. I am a man of faith who gets angry with my Higher Power when things happen that I don’t understand.

The difference is that now I neither have to dwell in it nor run from it. I can and will acknowledge it and seek out its’ roots. I know that most often my anger is a direct reflection of something that I dislike within myself. As with most everything negative that exists in my world my issue begins with me, whether it’s a matter of ego or insecurity (or both. If you’ve hung on with me this long you already know the addict’s persona is that of an egomaniac without an ounce of self-esteem).

A horrible picture of a man is that which is painted while he is controlled by his emotions. That doesn’t have to be me today. I hope it won’t be again, but if it does I know how to get right back to the place where I belong. That path is always clear and will exist no matter the collateral damage I perpetrate. 

Validating My Struggle, Part 2

My own struggle with addiction came to life when alcohol went from being an add-on to the fun to a coping mechanism whenever things got uncomfortable. This really hit home when my father passed. I have surely had my share of difficulties, but at some point things changed from seeking healthy forms of relief to always trying to find solace in the bottle or the gram bag. I made a conscious choice to stop even trying to deal with life on life’s terms, instead running far and fast from the crucial moment of confrontation when things got tough. I was a coward in the truest sense.

Somewhere along the line, the difficulties that came into my life became the currency with which I bought legitimacy. I couldn’t point to any tragic abuse or abandonment in my childhood or any destitute poverty. I had to find something to leverage into my admission to the select, sordid company of addiction. I allowed and even promoted the few hardships I’d endured to be in the position of identifying me. They became who I was rather than points of inspiration or lessons about perseverance.

When your difficulties are your identity, wallowing in them consumes your life. They become all that you are. Instead of focusing on the overcoming of these things you become enraptured with living smack-dab in the middle of the misery. “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” becomes the tagline of every picture you view when looking at your life and you begin to figure that no one has suffered as you have; this gives you the right and high privilege of living out of all of that pain every day. Pain is all we allow ourselves to know and by extension all we allow ourselves to be.

This self-imposed limitation is manifest every time we drink, snort, smoke or swallow. It signifies our surrender to the abyss of negativity that has engulfed us. At some point in the future, there’s typically a transition whereupon we begin to compare our struggle to those of other people in an effort to validate ourselves.

There comes a point where we must all learn to respect the struggles of others and/or recognize that those struggles aren’t even our business unless we make them so. Money or reputation does not equate to happiness or success and we cannot allow ourselves to feel as though people with money or visible privilege can’t or don’t have very real, very toxic problems.

If anyone spends too much time living comparatively they lose sight of that which must be the true focus of their mental effort: improving their own life and by extension improving the lives of those in their spiritual vicinity. As a recovering addict (or just a human, honestly) you must be too concerned with becoming better for your own sake to spend time tearing down anyone else. It is not your business. Your own side of the street no doubt needs constant care in order to be anything like clean, so be concerned with that.

Stay in your lane.

If you must break from that to concern yourself with anyone else’s life or struggles, do it only in a constructive, helpful manner. Do not waste one scant smidgen of energy on negative pursuit, and if you find yourself heading down that path you must stop immediately and break away.

You’ve torn down so much in your own life (and while in recovery that can begin to translate to a good thing) that it is time to focus solely on building things up. Leave that destruction in your past life and refuse to look back unless you decide to head that direction. You must put it down and LEAVE IT THERE. You’ll be a much happier person once you do. 

Validating my struggle, Part 1

I have often been put in situations that make me feel guilty for being where I am in life right now. Contrary to how I may occasionally portray it in casual conversation, my childhood was pretty freaking great. My parents loved my sister and I deeply and supported us wholeheartedly. I never wanted for anything I needed and was rarely if ever denied the chance to experience things like school trips or cool, not-inexpensive things on the weekends.

I was blessed to go to college right out of high school. My parents paid my tuition for my first year and allowed me to live at home for free. I only moved out when I determined that I had to (wanted to) live on my own. The support didn’t end at that point. Through all of my ups and downs, self-generated or otherwise my family and friends never gave up on me and never abandoned me.

These factors coupled with a few others feed into my desire to continuously legitimize my struggles with life and/or addiction in my own mind. You can imagine how it felt inside my mind to be the only “college boy” in the program during my month in treatment. I wasn’t coming from or going directly to lockup around my stint and I’d never lived on the street. I never had a gun held to my head, nor had I ever done the same to anyone else (I’ve never even carried or fired a pistol). I wasn’t a gangster or anyone with much of a reputation outside of that of being a guy that drank and used a LOT, had a pretty bad temper and didn’t seem to be afraid of much.

Let’s look at this objectively: my rock bottom came after losing a $39,000 a year salaried office job as an administrative departmental director at a technical college. I wasn’t stuck living under a bridge and I wasn’t wondering where I would find my next meal. I hadn’t destroyed a marriage or alienated my children. I didn’t OD and wake up in the hospital.

I haven’t relapsed and at no point have I ever lost everything. Even the people who I alienated in my active addiction never got so pushed away that they didn’t remain in my life. All of these seemingly “not so bad” factors have led me to struggle with the legitimacy of my story. In a world where each time in jail is another notch on the gunbelt mine is relatively unscathed. I often shy away from speaking at meetings because of it; how can people fresh out of the gutter relate to a guy who had a pretty good life even at the point I hit my rock bottom?

This also leads me to belittling the struggle of others or to “hating on” people with “unearned” money or what I deem to be undeserved fame or notoriety. You see just like anyone else, the easiest way I can refocus my mind from fixating on how relatively “soft” my life history is has been to ridicule someone else for the same thing. Seriously? Am I in the third grade all over again? I despise the mindset that says: “I’ll bring myself up by tearing other people down,” yet within recovery or life in general I revert to this exact line of thinking far too often. 

Pocket Translation Guide: What Do I Really Mean?

In this day and age the idea of expressing yourself authentically is a fairly common and adopted modus operandi. For the addict, we’ve made our method of communicating be what it must in order to get what we want, authenticity being a secondary priority (if it is one at all).  You morph into whatever form will best appeal to your audience and away you go.

In order that you may better understand my meaning, I want to offer up for you a sort of translation guide to Addict Speak. Bear in mind that the addicted mind works in the same fashion no matter the manifestation of the actual addiction (alcoholic, drug addict, sex addict, food addict, etc). In that spirit, understand that some of the verbiage may need to be slightly adjusted to fit a different set of circumstances but the spirit will remain universally applicable.

-       “Thank you so much for this compliment/award/gift/ pat on the back!”

Translation: ”Awesome. Something else I don’t think I deserve that I can’t really afford to accept or acknowledge, lest I get lazy and start sucking at life again. How fast can I make you forget about this?”

-       “Things are good for/with me. Thanks for asking.”

Translation: “I’m not drunk/stoned/laid up with a hooker, right? Stuff is going well enough I’d say.”

-       “ _______________ (Insert witty or philosophical Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn  

quote/quip)”

Translation: “This is exactly what is on my mind that I am struggling with this very moment. It doesn’t actually matter if it applies to you, but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME YOU LIKE IT/LOVE IT/WANT SOME MORE OF IT!!! I’m saying it both to get attention and to validate my thought process by testing it in front of a jury of my virtual peers. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!”

-       “I’m just taking things one day at a time.”

Translation: “I really think my life sucks right now. I’m stuck inside my own head and wallowing in the aforementioned suckiness. Don’t give me advice; just tell me you love me and that you’re proud of me even when you aren’t. If you really want to know how things are, take a seat and get ready to stay a while.”

-       “Sorry about that. I’ll do better next time, man.’

Translation: “Look jerk, get off my back. I know I messed up and I’m already totally shredding myself over it on the inside. Go back to whatever you were doing and leave me to my own torment. I feel bad enough anyway.”

-       “Nah man, I’m not nervous.”

Translation: “Of course I’m anxious, but I always am. I constantly second-guess and doubt myself, and this is no different than that. Unlike a normal human, I live in mental discomfort. This is no big deal. Now leave me alone.”

This is a raw, mostly unedited (read: minus all the cussing) glimpse into the mind of an addict. There’s no better therapy for me than to be transparent with you and to make myself vulnerable and less shiny. Like any other addict I am relieved to finally be “real” with people. If it makes me feel bad or guilty, even better; those are the mindsets to which I am the most accustomed.

We all just want to be a bit more understood, right? This is another opportunity to process some of the addict's insanity.