While working with somebody today, it became apparent to me just how wrong our approach to life is.  We want to be accepted, which is totally normal, but we go about it in a very weird way.  Rather than be who we are unconditionally, we allow ourselves to be told how to feel by how others treat us.  And then, as if that weren’t bad enough, when we act badly or inappropriately, we see ourselves through the perceived perception of other people.  We are mind readers and our own worst critics.  We accuse others of being judgmental when really, we are the ones who are judging ourselves, but it seems less painful because it’s through somebody else’s eyes.  

Let me tell you why this is more painful.  Because you’re combining thought and emotion. When the two are in sync and coming from the same entity, they have the ability to move mountains, however, when it’s our emotions and what we THINK are their thoughts, that’s when disastrous results occur.  

There is no way to safely combine my emotional experience with your thought pattern. I wind up as the loser every time.

The man in the mirror is not the man that stands in front of the mirror.  The man in the mirror is a 2 dimensional reflection of what is being presented to the world.  How the world receives the man is up to the world.  You exist in the body, mind, and heart of that man standing in the mirror.  Spend less time focusing on the reflection and more time manipulating the actions of the body and mind you live from.  (Or woman).  

I’m not talking about sex, or drink.  I’m talking about relationship.  You never forget your first healthy relationship.  That the more you put into it, the more you got out of it.  It wasn’t tit for tat, and it was beyond reciprocal.  It was exponential.  I heard a woman say today that the first relationship she had like that was with her sponsor.  I think I agree.

For most people, this relationship is with their parents.  At some point they ween off their parents and they begin to depend on a higher power, all on their own, without having to be almost killed by alcohol and drugs.  Some people come to be fully self sufficient and lead really awesome lives fraught with knowledge and achievement.  

This was not my case.  My relationship with my parents was codependent and that’s how I treated everybody else.  I remember the first time I had this thought, “When I get off the phone with my sponsor and he tells me he just got home, I believe him.  Why don’t I believe my girlfriends?”  I always thought everybody was trying to fuck me, and not because they didn’t like me or wanted to hurt me, just because that’s what people did.  What I’ve learned, is that’s NOT what they do.  That’s what you expect when you’ve lived a life of emotional insatiability, but that’s not the norm.  

She shaped all of her relationships based on that model, and guess what happened.  She started to create healthier relationships with people as a result of it.  So just get that one healthy relationship going, and then base everything off that.  You did the opposite for so long.  Why not give it a shot?

Self loathing is not unique to alcoholics.  It’s something anybody with an ego suffers from.  For me it sprang from never getting exactly what I needed when I was a child.  In my parents defense, I was insatiable in every sense of the word.  

But the truth is, when I did something bad I got yelled at, and when I did something good, it went unnoticed.  I grew up and began treating myself the same way.  I’ve never been one to respond to negative reinforcement, so why did I carry that into adulthood?

Because I never re-parented myself.  If we are to be healthy, we need to ween ourself off the emotional teet of our parents and start giving ourselves what we need.

As somebody in recovery though, I need to watch for the ever inflating ego.  If unchecked, it can be disastrous.  So here’s what I do now and here’s what I used to do.

I used to keep myself sick on purpose so that I’d always have something to work on.  I knew drugs and alcohol would kill me, but I figured as long as I was acting out on character defects like lust, gluttony, self centered fear, etc., I would remain imperfect and I would always have something to remind me that I can never drink safely again.

I’m here to tell you, that without your help, your human nature will always keep you imperfect. But that’s no reason to keep yourself sick on purpose.  I’ve learned that since perfection is unattainable, I can trudge ahead and charge at it as long and as hard as I want, and I’ll never reach it.  And if I ever do reach it, try and be perfect for two seconds in a row.  The point is, imperfection is involuntary, so let growth be voluntary. There’s no need to hold yourself stagnant to reduce liability.  

As a matter of fact, the more I retard my growth, the more of a liability it is.  

Step into your greatness, today.

I know that ego inflation is something we need to watch for, but I was told the most wonderful thing a couple of years ago.  I can become as great as I possibly can, as long as I realize that it’s through the empowerment of my higher power AND the people around me.  Of myself, I am nothing, literally.

Watching somebody struggle in AA is a very strange thing.  Sometimes you want to clap because they made it back into the rooms, and others you wanna drag ‘em outside the room and shake the shit out of them.  You get attached to people and you want to see them succeed.  

It’s not like karate where I only teach you enough to be good, but not better than me.  In sobriety, I teach anybody anything I know.  There will be a time when I’m going to need you to be healthy for me.  We’re all sick, thank god just not at the same time.

You pray for people to hit bottom, but I think a lot of people think a bottom is a big bang or massive thud.  It’s usually not.  This is how people die: they are unsatisfied with their last drunk or high.  Because it’s going to be their last “forever” they feel it should be something monumental.  That’s not the case. Few people hit a tree and get pregnant in the same night, then come stumbling into AA the next day.  I heard a woman describe today what happened to her and I thought it was brilliant.  I’ve often said that a bottom is usually not one big occurrence.  It’s a slow grinding away of one’s self esteem and soul until one day, you just decide you’ve had enough, in the most complete sense of the word.  If you’re struggling, looking for that one last ultimate party, consider this:

Instead of going out with a bang, go out with a whimper.  It’s so much more natural.

Alcohol and drugs truly are the great equalizers.  They make joy feel like pain and pain feel like pain.  As a human being, you are blessed with this outrageously intricate emotion system in which all things have their place.  We know that feelings aren’t facts, but sometimes feelings feel more factual than thoughts.  But when you use alcohol or drugs to numb the pain, you also cut off your privilege to the joy, and that is a damn shame.  

Life is to be enjoyed, not endured.

Feelings are meant to felt, not figured out.  Feel your feelings as they come and go.  You are nothing more than a vessel of emotion and circumstance.  The pain is in the resistance.  The pain happens when you start to think “I shouldn’t be feeling this” or “I should feel this way”.  Take should out of your vocabulary.  

This whole thing is ultimately about you.  Recovering from any addiction or compulsive behavior is a LOT of work.  It takes a lot of effort and attention.  It’s like a newborn baby.  You can’t take your eye off it for one second in the beginning, lest it run off and turn into a beast.

All that work you put in will reward you the most, so don’t feel so awful taking time and devoting tons of energy to self care.  The people around you will thank you for it, and if they don’t, they probably won’t be around.  The better you treat yourself the better you’ll expect to be treated.  People only treat you how you let them, or how you make them.  They’re taking their cues on how to treat you from you.  Make sure to point them in the right direction.