Teachability

Teachability is keeping me sober today. Tracy Chapman has a song I used to listen to back in the days when a pint of vodka per night was the norm. Part of the lyrics are, "I've done so many things wrong I don't know if I can do right." That was then. This is now.

Having alcoholism has nothing to do with moral ability. In my case it was activated by the poor coping skills of an 11-year old girl and her very young and inexperienced mother. If it hadn't been that it probably would've been activated by something else but no matter. That 11-year old girl is being given a golden opportunity at 47 to change the pattern.

The most difficult part of this newfound clarity of mine is realizing that there are people in my life for whom my alcoholism is somewhat convenient. Also, realizing that I've gone a long way towards keeping it convenient for them and only I can make the necessary changes to stop that from happening again. We alcoholics make fabulous scapegoats and the longer we fail to solve our drinking dilemma the more vulnerable we become. I, for one, am sick and tired of letting it happen over and over and over again.

Solving my alcoholism is about taking my own power back but I'm no more capable of doing that now than when I was an adolescent. I don't have that kind of power on my own. Luckily, I'm not on my own with it anymore. I have access to another power and right now it's speaking , among others, through Eric Frances over at PlanetWaves:

You have the moxie, the charm, the style, energy and most of all, the personal integrity required to succeed in the way that you want to. In fact, you can forget about everthing on that list except for the last item. Success does not usually happen fast, and we have good reason to question the kind that does. What I am telling you is that you have solid reasons to have faith in yourself. So what if various elements of your romantic (and professional) life make about as much sense as two jigsaw puzzles mixed together. Who cares if there are those nights you feel like you're holed up in a raft on the ocean of your own existence. You actually know who you are. You actually believe in yourself.

He's right. I do. That tastes a lot like freedom to me.

About Powerlessness

For a long time, I believed I was powerless over alcohol. That particular belief has contributed to my chronic relapse history and has kept me from doing what I need to do to stay sober. I suppose I can understand why adopting the belief that one is powerless over alcohol helps some people stay sober, but in my life the idea of powerlessness began to permeate all my activities. A deep and uncomfortable sense of powerlessness is one of the emotion-states that initially attracted me to alcohol and drugs. The belief in my own powerlessness didn't come overnight; I nurtured it for years with the assistance of the 12 steps and the fellowship of AA. I think the powerless idea only works really well if you've already had a sense of your own power and my only sense of power up to that point was that the only control I had was to ignore it, pray about it, or drink at it. Intellectually, I understand that by admitting powerlessness you are then supposed to be better able to tap into a higher power, but it didn't work that way for me. Because I believed wholeheartedly in m own powerlessness, the power I did have became distorted. I think I am beginning to unravel that.

Surrendering to sobriety doesn't necessarily mean surrendering to powerlessness over alcohol or people, places and things. I can see how falling into powerlessness, into victimhood, has colored my life since I adopted it and how my inability to stay sober (because I wasn't really trying - why try if you really believe you're powerless?) has fed into that mind-state.

It's been brought to my attention that it's time for me to exert all the power I can towards my recovery, and I have substantial power even before I connect with that universal source of all power.

I feel as if I'm going through a spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical detoxification process. Information is coming in at a rapid rate, connections and synchronicities are everywhere. Concepts that I've known in my head for years are now making their way to my body and it's as if the heart/mind that lives in me is coming to life. I'm aware of myself and the world around me in a way I never have been before. My body is filled with energy that it's not used to and it's having a hard time keeping up. I know that this is a time to fold in, to rest and let the new relaxation permeate every cell, to allow my spirit to continue to be rejuvenated. I have the power to do that and all I really need to do is to relax into the process. When I forget that, I return to the present moment.

A New Way of Thinking

In his book, "The Heart of Addiction", Lance Dodes, M. D. asks us to consider that addiction may be a behavior designed to reverse a sense of helplessness. Dr. Dodes gives many good examples of this in his book, but I don't have to think long about my own history to discover that my first addictive impulses were directly related to feelings of helplessness.

I was eleven or so when a situation occurred in my family which left me feeling very alone, helpless and angry. Unfortunately, I wasn't old enough at the time, nor emotionally mature enough, to find an effective way of dealing with this sense of powerlessness and rage. I lost my connection to the very things I needed most to sustain me through adolescence - that emotionally-fraught passage of life when everything is new and wonderful and scary as all hell! The most important thing I lost during this time was an ability to speak up for myself and feel that I would be backed up by those closest to me. Over the next couple of years I basically shut down in order to outwardly conform to what I thought family needed me to be.

I had to be quiet. I was told I had to be quiet, or else. I found that the most effective way to be quiet was to get quietly and totally fucked up as often as possible.

I've finally realized that I can explore these issues without assigning blame. I hold nothing but the greatest love in my heart for the family that raised me and continues to be a constant source of support and strength. I had some crazy idea that looking at the past was a betrayal, that being honest about my own experience would hurt those I love, but I've come to realize nothing could be further from the truth. It's a betrayal of myself to not look, to not examine, to not understand.

From the book:

The action of addictive behavior to reverse helplessness explains its purpose, but it is only one factor in the new way to understand addiction. The second factor is an explanation of the drive behind addiction. When anyone is trapped, physically or emotionally, he or she will sooner or later feel a great anger - a rage, really, at being helpless. It is this rage at helplessness that is the nearly irresistible force that drives addiction.

There is also a third, critical, aspect of the new way to understand alcoholism and other addictions. It arises from this fact: if the purpose and drive behind addictive behavior - an effort to preserve one's power and control against helplessness - make sense, and if an addictive act is merely a very unfortunate way to express this sensible function, then it follows that there must be a better way to achieve this sensible aim. That is, addictions must be substitutes for some other, more useful actions to respond to the helplessness. Indeed, I have found that every addiction results from a redirection of energy to a substitute or displaced action (usually because another, more direct, action is not considered permissible.)

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Put another way, knowing that every addiction is displacement means that there is always another, specific behavior that is being ignored or denied by the substitute behavior of the addictive act, and that this alternative can be found. This idea of looking for the specific alternative is very different from finding general "triggers" to addiction, such as walking into a bar or being with drinking friends. It also differs from the usual advice to distract yourself or keep busy when the urge is upon you. Those efforts often fail because they do not address the individualized issues that are driving the addiction.

A final word about displacement. The fact that all addictions are displacements, or substitutions, is of great importance because without this displacement, addictions would not exist! It is precisely the shifting of the effort to reverse helplessness to another activity, such as drinking, that creates the phenomenon that we call addiction. When actions are taken directly to deal with helplessness, there is no addiction.

Running?

Since you've not finished telling us your story, I don't know what it was you were running away from when you moved to Montana. Have you considered that "it" will also follow you to Bozeman or Missoula?

This comment was left anonymously on my last entry. I didn't intend to give the impression that I was running from anything as I have no desire to leave Polson and hope it doesn't come to that. However, economic necessity may prevail and if it does and all signs point to moving as a viable option, I will probably do so.

If the commentor would like to know what I was running from when I left Georgia, he/she can find part of the answer in this post. The longer answer, and what I'm realizing a little more each day, is that I was running from standing in my own power. By the time I left Georgia in 2002, I had given my power over to so many, so much and so often, there was really none left. As I have begun to learn, ever so slowly, to inhabit myself fully, to allow the innate power that I was originally gifted with to come forth and to most importantly, not be afraid of it myself, I no longer have a desire to run from anything or anyone. It no longer matters to me WHY I gave my power away so freely, or why I am finding the strength to inhabit it now, it only matters that I am.

There's a lot of talk in recovery circles about the "geographic cure". What they mean by that is that many people with drinking problems will move from one city to the next on a regular basis to leave the wake of destruction that was created. I was never one of those. As a matter of fact, I probably stayed in places a lot longer than I should have. But when I made the decision to move to Montana, I was "reminded" many times that it was probably a "geographic", as they're called. Well, maybe it was. And if it was, thank goddess. Because had I remained in Georgia under the conditions that I had created for myself there, I would likely not be writing this today. And I guess that's one thing that bothers me a lot about recovery circles. There often seems to be no room for individual circumstances, or stories, or decisions, or plans. WE have found it to be that if you move, you are only doing a geographic and all your problems will follow you. Well, I gotta tell you. A lot of them did. But not all of them. And apparently, it was enough because I no longer drink a bottle of vodka a night with a handful of pills as chaser. But that was five years ago and I can tell you for sure it wasn't a seamless cross-over.

I'm paying close attention to my body these days, and the more attention I pay, the less I drink. I realize that some will not be able to believe that. It's okay. I know. It's clear to me that the recovery movement is this country leaves no room for an individual to naturally move out of addiction unaided by the 12 steps and/or not having abstinence as a goal. But I want to tell you, I'm just allowing it to happen and it's happening.