I’m not entirely sure how clean I am, let me check my calendar, 13th March. I might remember it eventually. It doesn’t mean much to me. I haven’t celebrated 30 or 60 days this time. I have pretty much done everything against the culture of NA this time. However, I haven’t done anything in contradiction to the AA big book. It will be interesting to reflect back on this in a year or 2. Was I right? Is the AA big book all enough on its own and the cultural additions of NA and AA are optional extras?
My 20 years sober (alcohol and heroin) date, 23rd Dec, 2000, means a lot more to me than my new clean date. I’ve felt 20 years clean this last month. Everything in my life has been smooth sailing with an emotionally even keel. I don’t remember a time in the 15 years clean before I started my psychedelic journey I was this stable.
The steps worked. All the promises came true. Obviously not all the time, but for considerable periods of time. I just followed a very short book that has some very simple instructions. I asked God for help and decided I would do the next right thing that I believed was His will. I wrote all my resentments and fears, how they affected me, my part in them, and then shared that with God and another human being. I looked at my defects of character, asked God to remove them, formally apologized to all those my addiction had harmed, and then went back to my life as usual apart from one addition. I now did a 10th step in an excel spread sheet most mornings.
I didn’t really make any other conscious changes. I did less meeting than previously, feeling pretty free of restlessness, irritability and discontent from 2 face-to-face and one online meeting a week. That was part of making amends to my wife by giving her my time instead of running off to meetings. In the first month I had a lot of financial insecurity come up so decided to go back to DA. I also felt guilty not having a sponsor and had a friend in DA that was also 30 years clean in NA so I thought I could get involved with DA and him be my sponsor for both. But then life got in the way and I have missed the last three weeks of my DA meeting, and my financial insecurity disappeared – it’s hard to commit to a 12 step fellowship without a bit of fear as the motivator. I will go back to DA, but more as a maintenance, I’m so far away from the acute stage of that addiction.
I didn’t commit to ringing recovery friends and never pushed myself to do it because “it was good for my recovery”, but I did find myself wanting to ring a few friends and have spoken to a range of people at least a few times a week. This is the steps in action, removing my self-centredness and isolation. I have wanted to connect with people. And meetings are the same, I really look forward to my Monday night meeting, with the same faces and bonding. I feel part of that group, although I don’t want to join it because I don’t want to be involved in the group conscience. There are a couple of personalities there that I can’t deal with. I can unofficially join the group. I get there early, set up the room, and go and buy milk if needed.
I committed to my writing as a long term vocation. I have done this before, but I have never been so sure of my niche and voice. It’s my answer to the 12 step, in fact I should actually read the chapter Working with Others again and align my writing with that – experience strength and hope. Last year I committed to my personal story version of the 4th step and I wrote 60,000 words covering only the first 25 years. Then I relapsed again. I’m not blaming the personal story and think my recovery has gone exactly to plan, including (especially) the relapses. But that personal story was hard! Writing through the trauma of my childhood and teenage years, I felt so sorry for that kid. But I slogged away. I made myself sit for at least an hour most mornings and wrote my story. I had a break when I relapsed last year and decided not to return to it for now. I had got up until where I got clean in 2000, so part 1 felt well and truly done.
From then on I would just write a blog post when I felt inspired. This was good for a while, but I have heard many famous writers say they write every day regardless of inspiration. They are writers because they write – regardless of inspiration or not. And I realised if I was to build a body of work and dedicate myself to my writing as my way of working the 12th step, then I was going to have to commit with more discipline. I also recognised God had put me in a position where I had the time and could dedicate a couple hours most mornings to my writing. I was going to write short novels about my journey and offer them for sale on this blog for $5 while keeping writing the blog content for free. I may change that strategy, but for now it feels pretty good.
I got to work and wrote all the blog posts about my recent relapse and taking myself through the steps. I finished that story, which really could be a novella and likely will be one day, and then decided that I would proof read and edit my personal story and make the first 18 years a short novel. I knew this would be hard because it was the most traumatic time of my life, but it felt strongly intuitive the place I had to start. Not long after I started this project I got a call from the real estate office of the house we were renting to say the owners were selling and they wanted to have a chat about showing prospective buyers through our home. I said I would give notice and they could do it after we were gone. We would move back into the apartment in my warehouse.
So there I was again, moving house and proof reading the most traumatic part of my life. God works in mysterious way. I pushed on feeling it was the right thing to do. It was hard. I had 2 weeks to finish the renovations in the warehouse and then furnish it. I had to sort through all my personal effects again, where the fuck should I put these old journals and photos? Oh look there’s the crystals my girlfriend have me in 96. Do I really need to keep them? Fuck it, throw them in the box.
I pushed on and found myself resorting to old behaviours. I was getting addicted to my thinking, my plans and aspirations, and I was manipulating others in this. I love getting others excited about my future business plans and projects, but when I’m in this “diseased” state there is always an under-current of control. I lure them in with my delusions of grandeur and put myself on a pedestal capable of achieving anything. Narcissist is off the chain again.
I enjoy the disease for a few days and then hit a bit of a wall. I realise I have become self-centred again. My thoughts are loud and about me and my plans. I feel a little distant from others. That didn’t take long – I only finished the steps 6 weeks ago. Oh well, let’s run through them again. I read step three in the “book” and I feel the weight of the world leave me. I have an employer. I don’t need to be doing this. I say the 3rd step prayer alone and mean it with all my heart.
I feel a little better, but life is still heavy and I still have to move house and do step 4. I write the columns; my resentments and fears, the affects and my defects. I share them with my employee over lunch who is also in recovery. I tell him he satisfies he criteria because he is human. We finish the move, unpack and get to some standard of living, fuck where did I put the salt.
I write my 6 step list and decide to publish it. I’m fucking free. My head is quiet, I don’t need to make any effort to be involved in the fellowship. I am more considerate of my family and enjoy their love. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I always am. The steps are so powerful. Not as a psychological tool to understand, but a spiritual tool the remove ego. If I have to go back and do them again in 6-8 weeks I can consider myself blessed.
Red Pill Recovery 