A GUIDE TO THE RECOVERY TOOL BOX
Recovery Book Press
~
A GUIDE TO THE RECOVERY TOOL BOX
Recovery Book Press
Copyright © 2010 – 2011
All Rights Reserved.
Smashwords edition
ISBN 978-0-615-45837-3
Purchase the book at:
Ebook: www.smashwords.com/books/view/106569
Paperback: www.lulu.com/product/paperback/a-guide-to-the-recovery-toolbox/18825364
Find Recovery Book Press online at:
http://www.RecoveryBookPress.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Recovery-Book-Press/202822993077561
http://www.myspace.com/recoverybookpress
http://www.twitter.com/RecoveryToolBox
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address:
Recovery Book Press, PO Box 166, Pinellas Park, FL, 33780
Formatting and layout by Everything Indie
http://www.everything-indie.com
~
CONTENTS
Screwdrivers Aren’t Male or Female
Replacing Old Beliefs with New Ones
Finding Issues in Myself, Not Others
Take What You Like, Leave the Rest
Finding a Group That’s Right for You
A Higher Power of My Own Understanding
Listening Without Planning a Reply
Letting the Foundation Solidify
People’s Behaviors Are a Reflection of Themselves
Family of Origin, Family of Choice
Starting to Take Care of Myself
It’s None of My Business What Other People Think of Me
Fix Others by Fixing Myself First, Part I
Fix Others by Fixing Myself First, Part II
Fix Others by Fixing Myself First, Part III
I Can’t Control Other People 24/7
Success is Not Always a Straight Line, Part I
Success is Not Always a Straight Line, Part II
I Don’t Have to Be Superman (or Superwoman)
Keep Seeking, Room After Room, Part I
Keep Seeking, Room After Room, Part II
This Isn’t a Selfish Program; It’s a Self Care Program
Never Let Anyone “Should” On You
Being a Bitch or an Asshole Isn’t Always a Bad Thing
When One Door Closes, Another One Opens
Break It Into Manageable Pieces
It’s Not a Task; It’s a Process
I Own My Own Actions (Victim Role)
Rejection is Their Stuff, Not Mine
Expressing Emotions is Allowed
Share Feelings, Not Accusations
What Love Feels Like, Part III
Am I Supposed to Be This Person’s Lover?
I Want to Get to Know You; Understanding You is Optional
The Twelve Steps Are Tools Too
I’m Not a Human Doing; I’m a Human Being
When Are Unhealthy Behaviors Healthy?
A Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
~
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank …
The person who broke my heart…
Then stomped on it … then put it through a shredder.
It was the worst relationship of my life, but it was also an alarm clock. I forgive you.
The college professor
Who showed me a good example of a healthy boundary by pointing me
towards a good book and then letting me do the rest.
My counselor and the groups whose meetings I’ve attended
For helping me learn the things I have, and the things I continue to learn.
My friends who helped proofread the book
It’s not easy keeping 100+ pages straight and you guys n’ gals
caught things after my eyes glazed over.
Ed Spielman, Jerry Thorpe, and Herman Miller
Your television series Kung Fu introduced Master Kan and Master Po,
who taught many valuable and enlightening lessons.
My grandmother
For teaching me that to master the self is an even greater
(and in the end more important) challenge than mastering others.
~
Introduction
I intend for this book to be helpful to both people who are and who are not seeing a counselor or attending meetings of a twelve-step program (any of them). People who are often hear references to “the tools” but don’t often get any firm explanation on what this means. (What are the tools? Where do I find them? When do I use them? How do I use them?) There are 80+ sections to this book, each describing a tool I’ve learned.
For people who are not seeing a counselor or attending a twelve-step program, I won’t try to convince you that you should. Everyone has their own path in life and there are many ways to learn (like reading a book). Maybe you’ll find some tools in this book that you can apply to your own life. I’m all for that.
Lastly, this book will help by donating to charity. I’ll start with donating 51% of the profits, and as time passes I’ll gradually increase the percentage until 100% of the proceeds are going to charity. This book will help me and you, and others too.
A few tips on how the book is laid out:
I refer to the sections of this book as sections. I don’t call them chapters because some aren’t even a page long. Some tools don’t need much explanation.
Many of these tools are like a big network – they’re all interconnected and your understanding of each affects your understanding of the others. So don’t worry if you don’t feel you have a 100% handle on any particular topic. I kept the book small on purpose because I wanted to make it very easy to read through more than once or to use as a reference guide. After you finish the book go back to the tools you weren’t sure about and see if they make more sense.
The first group of tools I call “Pouring the Foundation” … most of them are ‘beginner’ topics, but a few of them are some of the harder topics I’ve dealt with. Those can be scary or alienating topics, so I address them right away to put them into perspective for you so you can look past them and move on to other topics you may find more helpful.
I’ve added “See Also” references at the end of many sections to help show how the tools interconnect and support each other. I hope this’ll make for a handy reference guide once you’ve read the book, but if this is your first time reading it I suggest reading the tools in order – I did try to put them in a logical order so the later tools build on the ones before.
I’ll be publishing this both as an e-book and a paperback. Both should be laid out exactly the same, but if you find this book in one format and prefer the other it should be available, just check your favorite retailer.
~
Pouring the Foundation
Screwdrivers Aren’t Male or Female
Replacing Old Beliefs with New Ones
Finding Issues in Myself, Not Others
You’re Not Alone
Take What You Like, Leave the Rest
Perfectionism
Codependent vs. Independent
These Are Rooms for Training
Finding a Group That’s Right for You
Crosstalk
A Higher Power of My Own Understanding
Listening Without Planning a Reply
Gratitude
Getting Current
~
Screwdrivers Aren’t Male or Female
You use the right tool for the right job. If you need to screw in a screw you use a screwdriver, not a spatula. It doesn’t matter if the screwdriver is blue or pink. There are a few places in this book where I reference something that gives you a clue about my gender, my sexual preference, or which of the twelve-step programs I participate in, but I’ve tried to remove those things wherever possible because I believe as people we need to focus on what helps us – the tools. It’s very easy to get distracted by some minor thing and then write it off as though it wouldn’t work for us even though it sure as hell would if we could just see the tool for what it is. So that’s lesson number one: see the tool for what it is. Look past the things your brain wants to use as excuses and figure out how these tools apply to your own life.
~
Replacing Old Beliefs with New Ones
I’m going to use an analogy in this section that’ll start off sounding like it’s going to be violent and disturbing, but I promise it won’t be.
In some parts of the world it’s considered a delicacy to eat monkeys. The method for trapping these monkeys is rather ingenious. The hunter will find a gourd (a hard-shelled vegetable), cut a hole in it, hollow it out, and tie it to a tree or a stake in the ground. Then they’ll take a piece of fruit and cut it so it’s just small enough to fall into the hole in the gourd. They’ll put the fruit in the gourd and leave for a while. The monkeys come, find the gourds, stick their hands in and grasp the fruit, and when they go to pull their hands out they find that they can’t. The hole in the gourd is just big enough to let the fruit out, but not big enough to let the fruit out with the monkey’s hand wrapped around it. When the hunters come back the monkeys panic because they know they need to get away – but their brains aren’t developed enough to understand that they need to let go of the fruit in order to get away. Their brains only know that the fruit is a good thing, and if they could get away then they could enjoy the fruit. They’re stuck in a situation they don’t fully understand. Now here’s the interesting part – can you figure out how the local animal lovers release the monkeys from these traps?
To release the monkeys people get other pieces of fruit and throw them on the ground near the monkey – close enough that the monkey has to make a choice to either continue holding on to the fruit in the gourd or let go and take the one on the ground. The monkeys are smart enough to know the other piece is just as good as the one in their hands, so they let go of the one in the gourd, grab the one on the ground, and take off into the forest.
When my counselor told me this I immediately understood – it’s the same advice we hear about quitting smoking. They say to take up another habit: chew gum, exercise, join a sporting club, then whenever we get the urge to follow the old patterns, participate in that new habit instead. We can’t just drop one habit. Without something else to take its place we just sit there thinking about how we can’t submit to the old habit.
The tools in this book are to be used the same way. When I feel myself struggling to retain control of something that’s out of my hands I use the tool called Letting Go of the Outcome. When I feel that being hungry, angry, lonely, or tired is about to cause me to do something I’ll regret later: H.A.L.T. When someone comes screaming at me for no reason, I don’t yell back at them: People’s Behaviors Are a Reflection of Themselves … and I remember: Take Back My Power.
Over time I’ve learned ways to incorporate more and more of these tools into my life, and I’ve gotten faster at applying them. As you practice using these tools you’ll get better with them too. My life has become much more peaceful and centered, and the drama in other people’s lives stays there and doesn’t invade mine. But before you can keep other people’s drama out you’ll need to figure out your own drama and deal with it yourself, which leads me to the sections called Finding Issues In Myself, Not Others and These Are Rooms for Training.
See Also:
People’s Behaviors Are a Reflection of Themselves
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
~
Finding Issues in Myself, Not Others
The fact that you’re reading this book tells me you’re willing to learn new tools and apply them to your life, and that’s good. But the important thing to remember is that you need to apply these tools to yourself, not to others. I knew two people once who were in a relationship, and together they both started reading about addiction and codependency. They both started to go to meetings. Soon Person A was quoting things they’d learned from the books and meetings in an attempt to force Person B into doing things they didn’t want to do. This is absolutely the wrong idea. We do not use these tools to change other people – we use them to change ourselves.
The goal is to look at yourself and your own thoughts/feelings/behaviors. If you catch yourself reading something in this book and immediately thinking of someone else being a good example, challenge yourself. See if you can think of a time when you thought/felt/acted that way. You may find it’s something you’ve done too. That’s where you’ll need to apply the tool.
See Also:
Fix Others By Fixing Myself First, Part I
Fix Others By Fixing Myself First, Part II
~
You’re Not Alone
Don’t Give Up Too Fast
Many times I’ve seen people come to a twelve-step meeting and hear something they think is wrong (or worse, an insult) and they choose to leave and never come back. People are quick to put the blame on the program, on the person who shared something they disagreed with, their counselor … anyone but themselves. You own your thoughts and opinions. Own your fear. If you want to run, that fear is what’s making you want to run. Challenging ourselves is the hardest battle any of us face.
Everyone you see at a meeting is there fighting their own fight or flight response; everyone who’s ever been to one has done it. Even if you think your problems are unique – maybe they are – what’s not unique is that you’re not the only person trying to learn new ways to cope. Focus on the common goal: learning new tools, new ways of coping with problems, new ways to live life. Some days are harder than others, but as you continue it does get easier. When you’re having one of those hard days remember – you’re not alone in the struggle.
If you’re at a meeting and you hear someone say, “You’re not alone,” they’re referring to this tool. Once you’ve read this section someone else will be able to say those three words and you’ll have three paragraphs of understanding. That’s one of the benefits of the tools – the titles are like abbreviations, or mantras – a shorthand way of saying a whole lot with only a few words.
I didn’t start practicing Tool #1 and perfect it before moving on to Tool #2 and perfecting it (this is why I won’t number these sections). The tools in this book were all learned gradually, and many of them were being practiced all at the same time. I’m sure that anyone reading this book will end up doing the same, because so many of these tools are related to each other. I’ll try to write this book in an order that makes sense, but you’ll find that they all intertwine. At some point a couple tools will come together and a light bulb will come on, and then you’ll start on the next group.
When you spend enough time practicing the things I’m writing about … implementing, and implementing, and implementing again… you’ll come to love yourself more than you ever have. It sounds silly and trite, but it’s true. If you think you love yourself now, just wait. When I first started going to meetings I went twice a week. I looked at it like a college class – except it doesn’t end when the semester is up. You can keep attending for as long as you need to. You can leave and come back years later and it’ll still be there for you. But going even once a week for a year is 52 hours spent focusing your mind. It may not seem like much at first, but it adds up. If you live out in the woods, then re-read this book 10 times. Eventually it’ll sink in, gel together, and you’ll see the connections between the tools without needing the “see also” references at all.
~
Take What You Like, Leave the Rest
It’s a challenge to face life and look at the choices I’ve made – and more importantly, the choices I’m continuing to make. Looking at my past I may feel guilt or regret, but the saving grace is that those things are in the past – they can’t be changed. But the choices I make today and tomorrow … those can be changed, if I have the courage. Not everyone has the courage. Some people find one or two things about the tools or twelve-step programs that they disagree with and use them as reasons to turn their back on changing at all. You don’t have to do this.
If I start a new career I don’t expect to know how to use every tool in that field within the first week in the career. Some tools don’t make sense the first time you look at them; some might seem to be completely backwards. It can take years to become an expert. But that’s okay. Start out slow, use the ones you can, leave the rest. Come back and look at it again in six months and you may find another one makes sense now. As you keep coming back, you’ll find more and more things click. In the mean time don’t let that stop you from taking advantage of the tools you can use.
I came to my first twelve-step meeting because I wanted to change, but expecting to change 100% (or even 50% or 20%) overnight is unrealistic. The difference between life and death can be as small as a 1% change. I started with the 1% I could use and let the rest lay there until I found a use for them. I kept going to the meetings so I could continue to learn about the other tools – how they’re used, and when. Eventually I found other tools I could put to use, and I learned additional ways of applying the ones I already knew about.
~
Perfectionism
When I was young I was pushed to be a straight-A student. I always tried to score 100% on all my tests. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I looked back and realized I’d continued that pursuit of perfection into adulthood – and that having done so actually hurt me. This is what enabled me to see how.
One day my grandmother had a stroke. My family told me I needed to move the things I’d been keeping in her spare bedroom in case they had to hire a live in nurse or sell the house. I’d bought a few things on the Internet before and I knew I could also sell things, but I’d never done anything like this before. I didn’t have much choice though, so I borrowed a digital camera and started to sell off personal items I didn’t really need. Over the next three months I made about $1,000. I used that and the knowledge I gained from the experience to start a self-owned business I still run today. From this perspective I was able to look back and see something interesting about my life.
I’d had a number of business ideas earlier that never got off the ground because all I did was sit and think about them. All I had was a high-school diploma. I was living from one paycheck to the next. I wanted to make sure I thought of everything before I spent any money. Looking back I can’t help but wonder – maybe I would’ve been in business sooner if I’d gotten off my butt and started working when I only had 60% of the business planned out.
There are some things in life you can only learn by doing. I can watch people run a marathon on television all day but there are certain things about running that I won’t discover until I get out the door and start running myself. My experience with my business taught me not to worry about knowing what I’m doing 100%. All I really need is enough to get me started. Then I get the rest of the training by actively participating in the learning. Will I make mistakes? Yes. In my first year of business I had one mistake alone that cost me $500. I learned and made sure I never made that mistake again. By the end of the year I’d made $10,000. That $500 mistake hurt a lot at the time, but in the grand scheme of things it was a small price to pay, and worth it.
As a further example - when started writing this book I had about 25 tools I wanted to write about. As I wrote the list grew to over 70. There are probably more, but I have a choice to make. I’d rather move forward and publish the book now than wait to see if I remember more tools… if I don’t and life pushes me in another direction then what I’ve written so far might never see the world. I’d rather get this out now and deal with the rest later. I might revise this book, I might write another one as a companion to this one, who knows? Even if I don’t I’ll have contributed something by writing this one. In that regard I’m satisfied.
PS – A few days ago I read this quote attributed to Confucius, “By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter.” I guess I learned that without having someone else to imitate I had to find a balance between learning through reflection and actual experience. Trying to learn only by one or the other is hard and takes a long time. When I started attending meetings life got even easier because I then had the third ingredient: people who have already learned that I can imitate. Using two of the methods is better than one … and three is better than two.
~
Codependent vs. Independent
(Two Sides of the Same Coin)
I firmly believe that whether they realize it or not codependency is a topic that touches everyone on Earth – because everyone has relationships. In this sense “relationship” doesn’t just mean a lover. It includes families, friends, coworkers, strangers, and – most importantly – the relationship we have with ourselves.
One person may have an honest to goodness imbalance in their body chemistry that causes them to be addicted to a substance or behavior and this leads to problems in their relationships. For another person maybe the relationship problems came first and the substance/behavior addiction was started to numb the pain caused by the unhealthy relationship. Maybe you don’t have an addiction issue at all; you’re just dealing with an unhealthy relationship. It doesn’t matter how you got here, relationship issues are part of the puzzle of life, so it makes sense to look at this.
It took a few years to get my brain around what codependency means to me. I think there’s a misunderstanding between the clinical definition of the word and how the public interprets it. When I ask people who aren’t familiar with the term, most people say it refers to people who are clingy or needy, who are afraid of being alone. That’s only part of it.
Most people seem to think we should all strive towards the opposite end of the spectrum – to be independent, self-reliant people who don’t need help. It surprises people to find out that those personality traits can also be part of the clinical definition of codependency. They wonder, “How can this be? There’s nothing clingy about someone independent.”
Unfortunately most people hear the “dependent” part of codependent and they think the person with the clingy beliefs is the codependent one and the person with independent beliefs is not. The reality is that they’re opposite sides of the same coin. They’re simply choosing two different ways to deal with the same situations – for example the fears of loss, of pain, of being hurt by another. One person may battle those fears by holding on as best they can, another may push people away, or not let anyone get close to begin with. Both perspectives stem from unhealthy and/or illogical beliefs about what they believe defines a safe and happy relationship. There are more fears than the three I mentioned, and there are other considerations too. Our beliefs about our fears, desires, and our responsibility to each other are fertile ground for miscommunication and disagreement.
Originally the term codependent was used to describe the traits of a non-addict in a relationship with an addict. It was believed both were depending on each other in an unhealthy way, needing certain things from each other to sustain their relationship (hence, co-dependent). Over time it’s been seen that these unhealthy and/or illogical beliefs can also exist in relationships that don’t involve a substance or behavioral addiction. It really just boils down to discovering that certain things I always believed were healthy beliefs and behaviors may not always be as helpful as I thought. When my beliefs about what’s healthy turn out to be damaging relationships instead of helping them, then on some deep level I’m having a codependent moment and I need to examine it. Not doing so means I’ll continue to subconsciously find my way back into the same situation again and again.
There’s another important word here – interdependent. I think this shows us the goal more clearly, which is to be neither too clingy nor too independent – instead finding a middle ground where we can both respect ourselves and our partners, get what we need, give others what they need, and do so in an arrangement everyone can live with.
“Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. Without interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness with the universe or suppress his egotism. His social interdependence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on the touchstone of reality.” - Mahatma Gandhi, 1929
“Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality. Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players. They're not coming from the paradigm of interdependence necessary to succeed in marriage, family, or organizational reality.” - Stephen Covey, 1989
It’s not just between lovers either. We have sets of beliefs about what’s acceptable behavior between strangers, friends, family, and coworkers too. The lovers group can be broken down: what I expect of a boyfriend/girlfriend is different from what I expect from a fiancé, and that’s different from what I expect from a spouse. I have different sets of expectations for my boss, coworkers in my unit, other employees outside my unit, and coworkers I associate with outside of work. Many of the problems I face can be traced back to someone having unhealthy beliefs about what any of these relationships should be like. Sometimes that someone was me, and I didn’t even know it. Counseling and my twelve-step program have helped me figure out which of my beliefs are logical and what to do with the ones that aren’t. Some of the tools in this book have helped me with this.
Another interesting thing is that I came into my program leaning more toward the clingy type of beliefs. After about three or four years in the program I’d learned enough to be quite confident in my ability to be safe and self-sufficient as an independent person. After another four years of leaning towards the independent side of things I came to realize what I’d done. I was learning to look at life from the other side. Now I recognize I need to learn to balance the two: live interdependently, give both to others and to myself, and respect others and myself.
Regardless of which side of the coin you’re on now you may find yourself gradually moving to the other side. That may last months, maybe years. Treasure the experience. Eventually you may come back to the center and find balance in interdependence, and that balance may bring a sense of peace to your life that has been absent for a long time. Treasure that too.
~
These Are Rooms for Training
“You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” – Albert Einstein
“There’s wisdom out there about how to live life that I do not possess – but if I seek it I will find it, and I will learn.” – Me
It’s gruesome, but the fact stands that all over the world, remains are found of people who are frozen in their last attempts to save themselves. From their remains you can tell what they were trying to do when they died. In extremely stressful life or death situations we sometimes rise to the occasion – but not always. If we haven’t been trained to deal with a particular situation our brains sort through every situation we’ve ever been in and try to find a match – or the closest match we can think of – and then we do whatever we did in that situation. But what if that doesn’t work?
Some people experience a spark of creativity and live to tell about it. Some survive through sheer luck. But for some, time runs out as they’re trying to use old methods to solve the new problem. This is why it’s very important for people in military and police forces to constantly upgrade their skills by being trained with new techniques – and continue refreshing their existing training – because drilling the training into their heads until it’s second nature can mean the difference between living through something or not. If we don’t get that spark of creativity, if we aren’t blessed with a stroke of luck, then we default to our highest level of training. It only makes sense that we should raise the bar of our training whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Whether they realize it or not, people all over the world use churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, twelve-step groups, counseling, and the like to train themselves on the emotional and intellectual level. We use these things to ingrain in ourselves reminders to respect ourselves and others, and by hearing the stories of other people over and over (and over again) we learn to deal with the tragedies of life those others have gone through. How do you cope with the failure of a marriage, or the death of a parent or spouse? How do you deal with the jealousy that comes from seeing your friend get something you wanted? How do you deal with the challenging relationship you have with your neighbor, your boss, your spouse, or your child? How do you say yes or no to things that stress you out?
These are problems for which there are no college courses. Our friends and relatives may offer us suggestions, but when we’ve exhausted all the options our friends can offer, what then? What if the issues with the relationship in question are so private that you can’t talk to anyone about them? I’ve often said half-jokingly that one of the reasons I value my twelve-step group is because I can go there and openly talk about problems that are so private that I’d normally only talk them over with my friends after I’ve had a few drinks … and not only do my friends not want to get that drunk that often, I don’t know how long my liver would hold up. With the anonymity of the group I can share my problems and get answers without worrying about whether my friends or family will hear about it, or what they’ll think. Also, when I’ve already gone through all the advice my friends and family have to offer then I might be able to get other suggestions from my group. If my friends and family are dysfunctional then the suggestions I get from my group may be healthier and more functional.
The truth is, many of these groups are filled with people who’ve spent years (and sometimes decades) learning how to improve their lives. Writing off twelve-step groups as a bunch of losers who sit around and whine about their lives is like refusing to go to college because you think all the professors are high school dropouts. Okay, granted – not every college professor is an Albert Einstein or a Stephen Hawking – but even the student next to me who’s been there studying this stuff for six months has six months more experience with it than I did when I walked in that door. When I started attending meetings at my twelve-step group the person with the most experience had thirteen years. She’s got almost twenty-three years now. When she started she had zero too.
Getting back to the point – the rooms these groups meet in are rooms for healing, and rooms for training. We come to these groups to share our problems and get feedback. People who’ve been doing it longer teach us the tools and which ones we need to deal with a particular problem. We learn to find new ways to handle problems, and we get support by knowing we’re not alone in the world. And most importantly, over time, we ingrain in ourselves good thought patterns and habits, healthy and functional attitudes and behaviors that will help us deal with stressful relationships in life. Armed with this training we’ll know what to do when we’re challenged at work, at home, or out in the world – and we’ll react in ways that are healthier and wiser than we have in the past.
There’ve been many times in life that I’ve walked away from some situation and later thought, “Dang it, I should’ve said ____!” Through my group and repeated exposure to the things I’ve learned there I’ve managed to train myself, getting faster and faster until I can now handle situations in real time that would’ve stumped me previously. The first time I managed to do this I was thrilled – and I’m still proud of myself for doing it when the need arises. And let me clarify one thing: I’m not saying I’ve gotten faster at being able to go on the attack or defensive. Sometimes that’s what’s called for, but there are also times where my first instinct was to attack or defend, only to find out that wasn’t what was needed at all. I’ve gotten better at realizing both situations faster and handling them both better. In the end, that’s made my life much healthier, as well as the lives of those around me.
It’s been my observation that in my group there are two types of training going on at the same time. The tools are one half. The other half is learning to see our own problems. Sometimes it’s easy to look at other people’s lives and see what’s really going on under the surface, and yet sometimes I can’t see what’s going on in my own. As long as I can only see some of what goes on in my life I’ll only be able to use some of the tools. Going to a meeting and sharing my problems enables me to get feedback from more experienced members. This trains me to see more of what I’ve been overlooking in my own life. That broadens my vision and enables me to use more tools. I hope this book will eliminate some of the confusion about what the tools are, and make it easier to focus on learning to see when we need to use them.
~
Finding a Group That’s Right for You
First a little terminology:
Program – a twelve-step program, such as AA, NA, CoDA, Alanon, etc.
Group – a group of people who meet regularly on a specific night at a specific location
Meeting – the specific meeting that a group is holding on a particular night
Each of the different twelve-step programs is arranged a little differently, and there’s also variation within a program from one group to the next. There are a number of groups of my chosen program in my area, and they’re all run a little differently. It can be hard to learn the rules of each particular group, but if you decide to attend a meeting I encourage you to attend more than one meeting (the normal advice ranges anywhere from 3 to 10 meetings) before deciding whether or not that group or that program is right for you. If you’re interrupted while the meeting is in session it may be because you broke a house rule without knowing it. You may not fully understand the rules at first – even if they’re explained to you (see the next section on Crosstalk for an example) – but keep attending and asking questions. Eventually you’ll form a picture of what that group’s rules are.
If you do pick one group that you like I also encourage people to try other groups, even if they’re within the same program. Seeing how other groups run their meeting will give you more options about what you like or don’t like that you can choose from. Also, if you only have one group in your area and you then travel to some other part of the country and go to a meeting there, you may find it’s either just like your meeting, or it might be completely different. So visiting more than one group will broaden your experiences and hopefully make it not seem like such a shock if/when you attend a meeting that’s run a little differently.
Even within the same group different people may lead on different nights, each with a different style or manner of relating to people, and of course the topic of any one night may or may not be of particular use to you that day, so giving it enough tries before choosing can make the difference between “getting it” and “not getting it”.
And lastly, it’s also a good idea to ask if the group is “peer-led” or “professional-led”. All the twelve-step meetings I’ve been to have been peer-led, ones led by professionals may have different rules and methods of running the meetings. Again, there’s always a chance you may or may not like how that meeting is run, so it’s good to check out other ones in your area if you can.
~
Crosstalk
Crosstalk is a topic that often confuses newcomers. Our group’s opening reading does mention it briefly but it’s a somewhat complex topic and would take too long to explain in detail at the start of every meeting, so I’m glad to have the space here to share what it means. Hopefully after this it won’t take you by surprise if it comes up.
Crosstalk is speaking directly to someone else while a meeting is in session, or using your turn to speak to refer directly to someone or what that person shared. For example we would prefer that someone say, “Someone earlier shared about feeling _____ and I think ____.” Saying, “Steve was talking about ____ and I think ____” would be crosstalk. Mentioning the person by name puts the other person on the spot. You might not have a problem with that, but not everyone comes from the same background as you. Some people might hear that and panic or go into a defensive mode. Neither is needed, so we try to avoid it.
Further, your comments may be either supportive (I agree) or negative (I disagree). It’s confusing to some people, but even positive crosstalk is not allowed. If I share something and you praise me for it then there’s a chance that the next time I see you at a meeting I might think, “Oh, I know what that person would like to hear. I’ll share about _____.” One of the primary goals of any twelve-step group is to allow its members to focus on themselves, and then be honest about what they see. The temptation to think about others is – at the very first and most basic level – getting away from what we’re here to do. So here too, rather than call someone out specifically we find it better to say, “Someone shared about ____ and I really got a lot out of that because ____.” This way we’re focusing on the topics, not the people.
We do allow people to talk before and after the meetings to discuss ideas directly with one another, but while the meeting is in session we want everyone to be able to say whatever they need without having to worry about whether or not anyone else will approve or disapprove. Again, this may not be much of an issue for you, but not everyone comes from the same background. Some people are coming from families or a situation where pleasing someone else or hiding how they truly feel is the only way they know to survive. Having a place that they can go and know that they can be themselves – truly themselves – is priceless.
Some people who’ve been around a while will bend this rule, whispering to the person next to them about things not directly related to what’s being shared (please pass a tissue, comment about an overhead light flickering, or a mosquito in the room, etc). But if these people have been around long enough they’ll know not to interrupt the person sharing or comment directly on what’s being shared. It’s up to the person leading the meeting that night to decide what crosses the line and interrupt it if needed. If someone else feels a line’s been crossed and the leader doesn’t intervene then others can, but one must be careful about assuming control of the meeting. Most of the time the only reason someone other than the leader will interrupt the meeting is if that individual feels threatened or unsafe in some way. The rules exist to make everyone feel safe and free to share.
~
A Higher Power of My Own Understanding
This is a scary topic for a lot of people, and it was scary for me too, so I’m going to address it right away and hope that by taking a moment to make sense of it you won’t be scared away.
For more than two years I participated in my twelve-step group without thinking about a higher power, and when the topic would come up I pretty much ignored it. I decided that there were enough good things to be learned from the program that I’d just shut my mouth about this part of it. I was taking what I could use and leaving the rest, and you’re free to do the same.
After two years of meetings, one day a man said something that finally made this concept clear to me. He was an older man (in his 70s), he was homosexual, and had been raised by very judgmental and religious parents. He said that for a long time he had trouble with the idea of a higher power, but one day someone shared something that helped him – the step in question refers to a higher power “of our own understanding”, not our parents’ understanding. For him, that was the key. His parents believed in the Old Testament Christian God, full of wrath and vengeance. As a child he wasn’t given an option; the God of his parents was his God. He realized that now, as an adult in his own right, he had the option of choice. He could choose to believe in the God his parents believed in, or he could believe in the more forgiving God of the New Testament – or he could believe in any other god he wanted, or none at all.
Until I’d heard this it never occurred to me that I had such an option. My grandmother was very religious, and she was the one that raised me. I’d always claimed the same religion even though I didn’t really believe much of it. To suddenly realize there was no law obligating me to believe what my parents believed … that gave me a new sense of freedom. I always knew that was true of other topics like sports or politics, I don’t know why it never occurred to me that it was also true of spirituality. The only thing that matters is that I know now.
You’re not obligated to hold the same beliefs as others, even if those people are related to you. You have the right to come to your own understanding. You can choose to believe what you were raised with, you can choose to believe something else, or you can choose to believe in nothing at all. You have the right to not deal with this topic at all until you want to … you even have the right to never want to.
See Also:
Take What You Like, Leave the Rest
~
Listening Without Planning a Reply
There are a number of meetings of my chosen program in my area. They’re all run a little differently when it comes to what’s permitted while a meeting is in session. We can gather and chat both before and after the meeting, but once the meeting officially starts there are certain rules we follow in order to respect each other. I’ve already mentioned crosstalk; the other big rule is no interrupting.
This can be difficult for two reasons. Some people feel if they don’t answer immediately then it’s a sign that they don’t care. Some people think if they’re not allowed to answer immediately they’re being told their opinion isn’t important. For others it’s simply a memory issue – if you’re listening to someone talk for 3-5 minutes you may find yourself forgetting some of the points you wanted to make. Some people bring a small notepad to jot notes about what they’d like to say when it’s their turn to share.
Something I’ve noticed is that if I sit and listen I might hear ten different ideas, and when my turn comes I can only remember two or three points I wanted to make. The first thing this tells me is which of the ten original items are most important to me personally (which I may not have otherwise realized). It also allows me to focus on sitting back to get an overall picture of what the person is trying to convey instead of arguing with someone on a point-by-point basis. Sometimes I’ll find myself walking away after a conversation and later and realizing what the other person was really feeling emotionally during the discussion – but I didn’t catch it at the time because I was focused on arguing the individual points.
The common thread between this rule and the one about crosstalk is that they force us to listen. Really listen. Yes, we can reply in an indirect way when our turn comes, but it allows us the time to reflect on not only the points made but the emotions underneath. Sometimes those emotions are what need to be addressed, not the points we made vocally.
See Also:
~
Gratitude
Let me say this right up front: I hate this topic. Hate it. I especially hated it when I was new to my program. So again I’m putting this near the start of the book so you can get an introduction to it right away. If you understand it here maybe you’ll push through and continue on with the program and get the help you need.
When you’re first starting a program you’re raw. Life’s put you through some difficult situations – tough enough that you decided to seek help from complete strangers. Here they are talking about how great life is, how great the program is, and how everything’s peachy keen and even though the world is tough it’s still a great place. You think, “This doesn’t help me. My life sucks.” So you get up and walk out. I’m not going to lie to you – I actually got up and walked out of a few meetings on this topic when I first started attending meetings. The important thing is that I understood it was only the topic for that night, the next time it would be something different and something I could get some use out of. If you really feel your time could be better spent doing something else, fine, but just so you understand let me give a better explanation.
For me gratitude is all about a one-on-one connection between my higher power and myself. I’ll give you an example. Right now I live in a town that has a long bridge, and for a year I had to cross that bridge every day to go to work. It just so happened that I headed East in the morning and West in the afternoon. This meant the Sun was directly in front of me on both trips, every day. It was often hard to see, but on days where there was just enough cloud cover to keep me from being blinded I had an amazing view. It took about fifteen minutes to cross the bridge, and almost every day I wondered how many people in the hundreds of cars around me made those trips every day without looking out over the water or up at the sky and appreciating the beauty. It was during those moments that I felt what’s called sublime beauty. One of the definitions of the word sublime is that it refers to something that’s so big that it makes our ego seem as small as a grain of sand. It was then that I felt my perspective shift and I realized how small I was on this planet, in this universe.
For me, that was a moment of gratitude - I was glad to be here at all, to be able to witness everything around me. I don’t mean just the petty human daily squabbles, but everything. To have gone to school and read books, to have learned about our planet, our solar system, the universe … to think how awe-inspiring it is that we’re capable of knowing all that we do, and that we continue to learn more every day.
In my opinion, no one can tell another person when to have a moment like that. It’s why I feel the idea of organized religion is mocked by so many – how do you take a hundred people and tell them, “Ok, now everyone sit still and ready … okay … now … FEEL!” It just doesn’t work that way. If you’re ready you’re ready, if you’re not you’re not. I know there are other roles that religion plays in life, and I do agree with some of them. Even if you support religion I think you’ll probably agree that this is one of the harder aspects of what it tries to do.
So the main thing I have against the topic of Gratitude is that it seems like an attempt at telling people what they should feel. We’ll talk about this more in the section titled Never Let Anyone Should On You, but one thing at a time. For now what I’m trying to convey to you is that if you’re a newcomer then yes, it’s understandable and valid for you to feel that this is not an appropriate topic for you yet, and you’re not the only one who has felt this way. Don’t let that discourage you from going back to further meetings. In time you’ll find that you do have a few things to feel gratitude for. For the moment you can walk out of the meeting and come back the next week, or you can use the tool called Getting Current, which I’ll explain in the next section.
See Also:
Take What You Like, Leave the Rest
~
Getting Current
Sometimes I’ll go to a meeting and the leader for that night’s meeting will decide to introduce a topic I’m not ready to discuss. Maybe I’ve just come from a horrible day at work or something’s happened since my last meeting that’s so stressful I just need to get it out, and maybe ask for help on it. When it’s my turn to share all I have to do is say, “I know it’s off-topic, but I’ve got something I need to get current on.” Then I can talk about whatever it is I need to talk about. When I end my turn the next person can talk about whatever they want to talk about. That may be the original topic of the meeting, what I just brought up, or maybe some other topic that they want to get current on.
If you do this and no one shares about your topic during the meeting then stick around for a few minutes after the meeting and talk to two or three people. Someone may come up to talk to you about it. It’s a good idea to stick around and talk to more than one person when something like this happens because there’ve been times I wanted to talk to someone but couldn’t get away from the conversation I was in to catch them before they left. This is why most groups provide phone lists. If you add your name and phone number to the list it gives people the chance to contact you later.
~
Letting the Foundation Solidify
Peeling the Onion
People’s Behaviors Are a Reflection of Themselves
H.A.L.T.
Start With Little Choices
Letting Go of the Outcome
I Make Sense
Journaling
~
Peeling the Onion
In our group we sometimes talk about “peeling the onion”. This is a reference to the fact that we have to start with things on the surface, peel that layer back, and look there to make sense of what was on the surface. To understand each layer you can only look one layer deeper, maybe two at most. We’re all complex and often what we’re doing on the surface isn’t just the result of one issue inside but of many. If you try to jump from the outer surface to the innermost layer you may not understand what connections are being made on the levels in between.
The title of this section is sometimes used to remind us that this process takes time.
See Also:
~
People’s Behaviors Are a Reflection of Themselves
I’m Not Responsible for What Other People Do
That’s Their Stuff
One of the first things I learned from my group is that People’s Behaviors Are a Reflection of Themselves. Another way it’s said is that “people’s behaviors are a reflection of where they are in life.” The other subtitles of this section are sayings used to reinforce this idea. The saying “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part” also points to the idea behind this, but the title of this section refers to more. The specific emotion doesn’t matter, what matters is that someone else’s life is causing them to feel something or behave in a way that has nothing to do with you.
Picture yourself working on an assembly line. You know the job, you’ve been doing it for years, and you’ve won quality awards for doing a good job. One day your boss comes to you screaming about how you need to improve your quality, disregarding all the fine work you’ve been doing. Another day your boss shuffles by, depressed about something and not really interested in what anyone is doing. The next day your boss comes by so excited you think he must’ve won the lottery. He praises you and everyone around you. This whole week you’ve just been sitting there doing your job the exact same way. You didn’t do anything different from one day to the next. Clearly there are things going on in your boss’ life that are affecting his personality. You have no idea what those things are; all you see is the effect they’re having on how he behaves. His behavior is a reflection of where he is in life at that moment, mentally.