April 4, 2012 (this day)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton most likely sat in this chair.

It’s four days until Easter.  Unless something unforeseen happens, this will be the first Easter that I haven’t seen my daughter since she was born.  I’m not happy about it.  Last year, Carole, Nicholas and I road tripped to Erika’s town to have Easter with her and head home.  That is when the 16-year-old dog decided to give up the ghost, and we ate Easter dinner while worrying about what was going on at home, trying to hurry and not to hurry.  It was pretty awful.  For that reason I didn’t ask for a road trip this year.  We saw Erika a few weeks ago, and she assures me that an Easter on her own doesn’t bother her in the least.  Both kids says say they are confirmed atheists.  There are much worse things, I know.

At work the staff for Friday, “Good” Friday, dwindles, and I worry.  I still haven’t heard about the state of my job and I’d really love it if I could learn much more quickly through bland experience than through pain.  Friday will pass and it will be fine.  Anxiety is doing nothing for me here.  I’ve been helping some younger (in the program) women with some steps.  For two of them, that’s Step Ten.  If only my inventory resulted in a better stock.

Hm.

The Fourth and the Tenth (Steps)

This is on my mind.  I have a friend who, with a few years sober, keeps doing fourth and mini- fourth steps.  She said that none of her sponsors ever talked to her about steps 10, 11 and/or 12.  Another woman I know has repeatedly slipped over several years, and has had two sponsors, and though the sponsors talked to her about a fourth step …… well, the way she put it is that when she asked them what she’s doing wrong, they couldn’t tell her.  Yet her fourth step remains a huge mountain her mind that she has yet to climb.

I was listening to a “Clancy” CD on the way home from work and he said that repeated and constant fourth steps are a socially acceptable way to stay completely self-absorbed.  He also said, as I guess we see every day, that many many people who climb the first three steps fail to do a fourth step and beyond.

As for my personal experience, I’ve done three formal fourth steps over 27 years of sobriety.  This has worked for me.  I anticipate that if I live long enough I will do another many years hence.  I wouldn’t call these constant or repeated.

My understanding of the tenth step is that there are two distinct and important parts of it.  Continued to take personal inventory is one part, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it is another part.  Often the parts go together, but not always.

It was a great relief and revelation to me to promptly admit when I’m wrong and I know that, compared to the way I was before the program, it has saved personal relationships, especially at work.  It was a freeing proposition when I first employed it.

But the continued inventory is almost more important.  If, for example, I am jealous, this is a character defect and I want to list it on my daily inventory.  If I fumed and stewed and made myself miserable with my jealousy, I don’t think I necessarily have to apologize to anyone, depending on what I did that day, or failed to do.  But for the sake of my argument say I had no responsibilities that day, and rather than enjoying the free time, I made myself miserable feeling jealous.  No harm done to anyone but me.

But say in my jealousy I snooped somewhere I shouldn’t.  Then I might owe an apology and and amend (a change).  Now I could wonder if the person I snooped on is better off not knowing I did that but that is beside my point.

I try to look out for excess negative emotion and in a daily (or more frequent) inventory think of which character defect is at play resulting in my excess negative emotion.  If the problem is bad enough or frequent enough I also try to think about how to do away with the defect, how to ask God to remove it and be able to let it go.  I don’t want to do the same thing over and over again, expecting and getting the same result.  All that, to me, is tenth step, not fourth.

Now all that confused me but I think I’ll go with it and move on to something simpler . . .

By This Time (Step Twelve continued)

By this time, at Step Ten, we had begun to get a basis for living, and we keenly realized that we would need to continue taking personal inventory, and that when we were in the wrong we ought to admit it promptly.

I want to tell a story, but it’s a difficult one to tell and not sound, to my own ear, like I’m bragging.  I will have to explore talking about successes some time soon, because there are a few things I can’t share without feeling like I’m being very prideful.  Sometimes, though, at an AA meeting, or with AA friends, I feel better about sharing successes because I feel that these people are mostly glad for me, glad with me.

And it’s important that I record the good things, because I am trying to be, here, a positive reflection of long time sobriety.

Almost all of my circumstances and details are good, though I know that more of that has to do with luck than with skill or even with sobriety.  I was born quite privileged in many ways.

And my children are not perfect, though I don’t write about some of their more harrowing incidents here because although I’m trying to be anonymous, I’m not trying all that hard.

But the story.  My son is very bright.  He just is.  All throughout school, he just showed up and was bright.  He played one sport, which is a story in itself, but he didn’t do anything beyond that.  His brightness got him excellent grades with little effort.  From the time he was small, he had said that he wanted to go to the best college he could get in to.  When college time came, he had one elite university in mind, and one second choice.  He applied to those schools, and, because (I think because) I asked him to, he applied to several other schools.  He applied to the nearest Ivy League (because it’s all about distance for me), to a nearby “New Ivy,” his second choice, and to two lesser but excellent schools.

His first choice did not accept him, I think, because being very bright and showing up is not enough.  All the others did accept him, though, and he said he wanted to go to his second choice, the nearby New Ivy.

Well the nearby excellent school offered him a major scholarship, and as he didn’t accept, they upped the offer.  The New Ivy offered him lots, but he’d still have to pay a lot to go there.  His grandparents had saved some money for his college, but he’d need that and then some for the New Ivy.  For the excellent school, he’d come out debt free with the other money still saved for future education.  I was also worried a bit about him actually graduating, since I know it’s a long road and not at all certain.

I asked him to consider the excellent school.  I asked him to visit the department of his proposed major at the excellent school, and to attend a class and talk to students.  He did all of this, I’m sure, because I went with him.  Right there is a success that means a lot to me.  I would not have done this at his age, for my mother.  I absolutely would not have.

After all this he chose the New Ivy, just like he’d said he would.

A year or so into it, he told me that I was right, that he should have attended the excellent school.

I’m still amazed that he admitted this to me.

I don’t know if having a sober mother helped give him the attitude that made it OK for him to express that to me.  I also know it’s entirely possible that he expressed a passing thought, and is really glad he went to the New Ivy, and my feeling of success with this is really all wet.

But yay.

For me there are different levels of the tenth step, with some wrongs being easier to admit promptly than others.  I personally feel that it’s likely one of my more glaring defects that I don’t practice this as I should.  But it is one of the very most important principles of the program, for me, and I’m very grateful that I have this ideal in my life.

 

Restraint of Tongue and Pen (from Step Ten)

Restraint – the act of restraining, holding back, controlling, or checking.  It’s a word that comes up a bit in the literature of AA.  Holding back, controlling, and checking myself and my reactions is one of the best lessons I continue to learn in AA.  My work partner, who doesn’t know much about the Twelve Steps of my involvement with them, often tells me what she wants to say to someone, followed by, “I know, you’ll tell me to sleep on it.”  Because that’s what I tell her.

The next day she, and I, are almost always less angry, hurt, upset, whatever excess of negative emotion we are feeling.  I’ve had some longer, bigger upsets where it took more than one night, but inevitably my emotions cool and moderate with time when I think of things that hurt or upset me.

I used it, also, when my kids were younger, and they decided they wanted something expensive.  I always asked them to continue to want it for two weeks before they spent their money on it.  It was funny a few times, when one or the other approached me with, “Mom, I’ve been thinking about this for two weeks, and I really want ______.”

For me, not sharing my negative reactions is not really “stuffing” it.  Not for me, not that I can see.  I understand that some people have grown up in an environment where they were told not to react to things that were not acceptable.  I wonder, though, when I hear them share something like at a meeting:  What is it today that they find unacceptable?  What calls for an immediate reaction that shouldn’t be held back, checked, controlled or restrained?  I think sometimes in my own judgmental mind that they are talking about appropriate reactions to bad things that happened to them as kids.  Rarely, as an adult, do I have people out and out insult or harm me.  Usually I want to react to an injustice I perceive, perpetrated by someone who may also feel slighted.

Either way, with my responses to real or imagined harm, I always find that sleeping on it is best.  I usually talk about it, also, at least to Carole and perhaps to others.  Often at that point I let it go, but if I feel that I must respond, at least that response has been checked, controlled, held back (to a point) and restrained.

Getting Past “Mistakes”

Many years ago, I got in trouble at work for something I had said.  Now “trouble” isn’t really the best word to describe it, but I got “talked to” because I had said the wrong thing.  I work with people who have mental retardation, and my supervisor had to tell me that I had said the wrong thing at a meeting.  I took that hard.  Obviously I’m still hanging on to it.

Also many years ago, The Daily Word had a meditation about doing the wrong thing and getting past mistakes.  I kept it and applied it to that situation.  I still do.  It’s still hard for me when I do the wrong thing.

Sometimes, it’s hard to admit I’m wrong and I’ve done the wrong thing.  Sometimes, it’s hard to apologize or even be sorry, even though the thing was wrong.  Sometimes, it’s hard for me not to beat myself up and apologize and apologize and apologize.

Carole and I, along with another couple, are planning a trip to Hawaii in May.  Most of my thoughts about this center on flying and my fear of flying.  But really, I don’t like vacation.  I like to see certain things or spend time doing certain things but I don’t like leaving home and my stuff and my job and my animals.  I don’t hate it so much that I don’t want to go, and I actually do want to go or, more precisely, I want to have gone and be back.

Part of my coping strategy has involved not participating in the planning of the vacation, and I describe it like participating in the planning of your surgery.  Some people want to participate and some insist on participating.  I would like someone to wake me up when it’s over.

So I’ve been very minimally involved in the planning of this Hawaii trip until yesterday, when the plan tickets were purchased.  Last night, it occurred to me that our son, Nicholas, is a senior in college and might be graduating in May.

In my defense, Carole and I were both under the impression that he was not going to graduate but was going straight to a Master’s without graduating but still, his plans were never final, and we should have thought to check.

As soon as the tickets were purchased my planner kicked into gear just a little bit and allowed me to wonder about this.  This morning I talked to Nicholas and he is indeed graduating in May, during the time that we would be gone.

So now the arrangements have to be changed and I don’t know how much that will cost.  It was so unnecessary and I should have checked a long time ago and now people will have to go through expense and trouble to make it right.

And now I’ve sent the other couple flowers and spoken to all the people involved and as far as I can tell they are all annoyed but OK with it and with me.  Now I have to stop apologizing and start doing better now, which I am.  I’m not going to disengage because of my silly self-serving fear.  I release the past and I live in the now.

Having So Considered (Step Ten continued)

Having so considered our day, not omitting to take due note of things well done, and having searched our hearts with neither fear nor favor, we can truly thank God for the blessings we have received and sleep in good conscience.

The step is “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”  And these are the final words of the text.

Looking back, I see that I started writing on this step in February.  February!  That really shocked me.  I had the feeling that I’d been at it for a month or two.  Not even three.  Certainly not eight months.  All spring and all summer.  Yikes.

The step forward I’ve taken, that I can see from here, is that I’ve come to try to link an excess of negative emotion with a character defect of mine.  I hope this brings me a little closer to understanding “my part” in difficult situations and relationships.  Just looking for “my part” brings me up empty sometimes, when I feel I’m right and I’ve been wronged, but linking that feeling to a character defect of mine helps me focus on me in what I hope is a meaningful way that will help me improve.

We Will Not Regret the Past (from the Promises)

This is me, messing with literature before the meeting.  That is pizza for the anniversary party, and the flowers belong to the church.  I really like the space we have for my home group.  Also, the church does not charge us rent, though we make a donation each month.

The promise that “we will not regret the past” is one I don’t yet understand well.  When it comes up in conversation (between AA folks) or as a topic in a meeting, I really don’t hear anyone understanding it well, though that may just be my listening.

If I stretch for a meaning, I come up with fact that if I could become perfectly humble and have perfect humility, I would at last understand that I am a person like all other people.  No better and no worse.  Then I guess my past would be just one of unfathomable zillions.

Regret in the dictionary reveals “to feel sorrow or remorse for” or “to think of with a sense of loss.”  I don’t understand how I could fail to feel sorrow, remorse and loss about things in the past.  Some of the synonyms, “deplore, lament, bewail, bemoan, mourn, sorrow, grieve,” OK.  I can readily see that these things are a waste of the present.

Regret, penitence, remorse imply a sense of sorrow about events in the past, usually wrongs committed or errors made. Regret is distress of mind, sorrow for what has been done or failed to be done.

Sorrow about events in the past, wrongs committed, errors made – yes.  Distress of mind – not so much.  The program has taught me to right the wrongs as much as possible and move on.  If I spend much time thinking about how bad I am or have been, I am being self-centered as surely as if I spend time thinking about how wonderful I am.

So, I will not have much distress of mind for what I’ve done or failed to do in the past.  I will not regret the past?  I don’t think I can ever make it there.

Learning Daily to Spot, Admit, and Correct These Flaws (step ten coninuted)

Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of character-building and good living.  An honest regret for harms done, a genuine gratitude for blessings received, and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent assets we shall seek.

Saturday night the topic at my meeting was “willingness.”    Several people struggled with the concept of what we should actually be willing to do.  I wish I had written about these sentences beforehand, as I could have contributed something specific from the plan that is the steps.

“A willingness to try for better things tomorrow” summarizes in a way all of AA to me.  To achieve sobriety I had to be willing to take directions and work the program.  As I move through the years, I have to be willing to try for better things tomorrow.

Every day I have to be willing to spot, admit, and correct these flaws.  Thankfully for me they have died down in intensity as I’ve moved farther away from alcohol.  Over the past few weeks, as a result of examining this step closely, I’ve come to understand that when I am “triggered” in pop psychology lingo it is because a character defect of mine has been activated.  I can try to look at the situation that upsets me in terms of my own character defects.

I feel very let down by someone close to me.

Sadly, someone I work with has passed away.  This is someone I took care of for years, and he was quite a character.  He was young, and it was unexpected.

I often picture these folks in heaven, writing notes in the book that will be used to judge me when it’s my time.  I don’t really believe anything like that happens.  I don’t know what happens.  But I want to live so that what they say about me is good.  Simply put, good.  Yet daily I fail to be as good as I know I can be.

When someone like this dies, I have no more chances to be good to that person.  I need to remember that there is nothing but now.

An Honest Regret for Harms Done (Step Ten continued)

An honest regret for harms done . . .

Today this is almost baffling.  I’m trying to imagine a situation in which I would harm someone, and not be sorry for it.  I don’t think my deepest, most violent anger even goes there.

I was temperamentally made this way, though, it’s nothing to my credit.  I do get angry and hurtful and violent but I hope I’m always sorry if I harm someone.

I like sayings like, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that,” and “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”

Two people I work with had a serious and scary fight.  I wasn’t there for the fight, but I was there for the aftermath when my work partner and I tried to make sense of it and repair what we could.  One woman, let’s call her Flora, felt disrespected by the other woman.  Let’s call her Sara.

Flora stood up to Sara in an aggressive way, because she felt disrespected, and Sara reacted to that aggression with aggression of her own.  She did things like shout, wave her finger and physically move forward.

It’s plain to me that even as that began, it was going no where good.  The aggression of both of them was not going to make the other see it her way.  It could do nothing but escalate.

I have a few certain triggers when someone flips my switch.  I have to try to remember the scenario and not escalate and not get aggressive.  That behavior does harm the other person, whether that person is also harming me, or not.  My wrath does not produce God’s righteousness.

This Odd Trait of Mind and Emotion (Step Ten continued)

This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom.  This subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought.

I’m going to stall right here and say I forgot to think about this, and all day so far I have failed to identify a time I have done this.  But I need to.  So I’m stalling.