I read something interesting about character defects that made me think - it was a someone's story about how they had practiced step 6 and 7. They had written on poker chips all of their identified character defects and every day they would pull one out of a bag (or bowl - I forget which) and focus on working on that character defect that day. When I read this, I thought, "what a great idea!"
Then I read on. The person said that they did this for a couple of years I believe, but didn't actually receive any long term relief. They said that they were finally able to obtain relief when the figured out that they really had to turn their character defects over to God - that working on their character defects alone did not get them anywhere.
***screeching of tires, crashing noise of car, deafening silence***
or
***scratching of record as the music stops leaving awkward silence***
(I like both visuals and couldn't decide.)
I always have a hard time translating when I read something that literally flies in the face of what I have been working on in program when it comes to higher power. I know that I should be beyond this, and I can usually figure out some way around things eventually, but sometimes it can take longer than other times.
For starters, I was bummed that I thought "what a great idea" only to read on that it didn't work. Bummer. Except that truly, just because it didn't work for this person does not mean that it would not work for me. Perhaps this person really had not committed to practicing the principles earnestly on a daily basis. Or perhaps he/she needed a belief on the inside that a celestial God was helping before he/she could really set out to to practice the principles of program to the point that they become habit.
The other thought that occurred to me was that perhaps it is as simple as what "word" was pulled out of the bag/bowl - the thought occurred to me that maybe focusing on what you are NOT going to do that day is not the same as focusing on what you ARE going to do that day. So if I were to write the corresponding opposites to all of my character defects onto poker chips and put them in a bag, pulling one out each day to work on for that day, would I have a better shot at success? Instead of focusing on my character defect of 'dishonesty' and how not to lie, what if I consciously set out to be honest throughout the day? Or even if I identified places/situations where I might be inclined to fudge the truth, and set out to tell the truth instead - would the result then be any different??
And to step things up a little further, what about doing some reading on that particular principal that day, and then at the end of the day, some writing on what I might have learned that day. Might then I have more success then the person in this story???
I think that character defects are really just patterns of behavior - habits. Bad ones, that is. Habits are defined as "acquired behavior patterns regularly followed until they become almost involuntary" or "dominant or regular dispositions or tendencies; prevailing characters or qualities." I've read that it can take as little as 21 days to form a new habit, or as long as a full year, depending on a whole host of different things. Some other interesting things that I've learned about habits:
• replacing a bad habit with something different (a good habit) is essential in getting rid of the bad habit;
• noticing the bad habit when it's occurring is necessary to replace it with something different;
• using triggers associated with habits can help change them (e.g. changing how you respond to your alarm in the morning - sitting up in bed as soon as it goes off - can help alleviate oversleeping);
• connecting a new behavior with an old habit can help make the new behavior a habit (i.e. watching the morning news that you watch in bed everyday on the treadmill instead); and
• focusing on changing just one habit at a time increases the success in changing that habit.
Applying those things to what I know about myself (those addict tendencies) ... when I decide to "change me", rarely do I make it even a few days without reverting to old behaviors, let alone 21, 60 or 365 days! And as evidenced by my need to do a fourth step and unearth my list of character defects, I've never been particularly keen on identifying my character defects when they pop up, and when I do, I'm too busy justifying or rationalizing them to actually identify them properly as character defects. I also have a tendency to want to do things in an "all or nothing" fashion, so I certainly do not focus on only one thing, and I spend so much time listing all of the things I am NOT going to do anymore, I never get as far as coming up with any sane alternatives to work on instead.
None of this really resolves the initial puzzle, which is why the poker chip draw did not work for some anonymous person - I'll never know! And quite frankly, trying to figure it out only takes away my time and energy from working on what I should be working on, which is my recovery. I'm still tempted to try the modified poker chip draw (writing the opposites of my character defects on chips and working on practicing a different one each day), perhaps changing it to work on each chip for longer than a day (3 weeks? 2 months?), and perhaps identifying circumstances in which I am most likely to engage in my character defects and finding ways to overtly change those actions.
At the end of the day, I think that the most important thing of all is that I am doing SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to work on practicing the principles of the program in all my affairs. For me, I know that I have to mix things up a little on a regular basis - if I do the same thing for too long, it stops working - maybe that's all that happened to the person in the book - did the same thing for so long, he/she ceased to obtain any benefit from it.
Ultimately, I have to work on continuing to take personal inventory (step 10), promptly admitting it when I am wrong (step 10), studying the principles of program to improve my conscious awareness of it and how to apply it in my everyday life (step 11), practicing the principles in all my affairs (step 12) and carrying the message to others (step 12). That's it in a nutshell - a simple nutshell, but the devil is in the details! The outline never changes, but my methods have to constantly adjust to stay at least a step or two ahead of my disease.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
long overdue
Gosh, it has been forever since I have written! I guess the holidays just got the best of me - busy at work, busy at home, dealing with crappy weather, blah, blah, blah. At the end of the day, all I can say is that I am SLACKING. Yep, slacking ... resting on my laurels.
It's all just a balancing act really - the pain of my disease on the one side, and the pain of recovery on the other. When the pain of my disease gets bad enough, then I'm willing to face the pain of recovery. And make no mistake about it - the recovery part really can be painful! If it weren't, it would be really, really easy to simply be recovered. The problem is, I lack some of those basic skills needed to reside in this place called life without suffering pain. Thus, I retreat, which is where my disease can find me and start poking at me like a pesky, annoying, bratty little brother. (Can you feel this? Can you feel this?? Can you feel this??? How 'bout this????)
Then I've got that perfectionist in me that just wants to know when I'm going to GET IT and move the heck on. It's the perfectionist in me that starts nagging that I'm not doing it right, I'm not doing enough, I suck, etc. I tell ya, that almighty holier-than-thou perfectionist in me is a real pill! She expects me to always get things right and do things perfectly, and she expects everyone else to always get things right and do things perfectly, and always on the first try no less! Oh-so-critical! Frankly, I'm surprised she can even stand herself, being so intolerant, unaccepting and full of conceit.
But, despite all of the nagging to the contrary, I don't think that the perfectionist really likes recovery. For starters, it is not always pretty or neat, and it is certainly never perfect! Often I find myself uncomfortable in recovery - having to talk about things I don't want to talk about, feel things I don't want to feel, look at things I don't want to look at ... it's not pretty. Recovery is all about living in the imperfections of myself - seeing them, admitting them, and working on trying to make them better, all the while knowing that another thing to work on is always right around the corner. Unfortunately, the perfectionist is never satisfied with mere progress, and yet progress is really the best that recovery has to offer. Being O.K. with mere progress is where I find the greatest peace.
So I'm babbling, I realize ... I don't know what the point of this post is, other than to just start writing again probably. My higher power these days is simply "program," and I don't think I've been very effective at truly turning my will and my life over to program. Part of it, I believe, is because my perfectionist has taken over a tad, and since there is no such thing as "good enough", why bother at all? I know that's not logical, but as established above, the perfectionist is not particularly logical.
Part of it too, I think, is that I've been rather distracted by all these other things in my life - health issues, work issues, home issues ... you know, all those things that get in the way of recovery because I'm living my life ... all those things I wouldn't have at all if it weren't for my recovery ...
But sometimes I miss those exciting days of first coming to program ... when admitting there's a problem is the biggest, newest thing ever ... when reading step 1 is "all new" ... when doing it forever is the scariest thing ever and the phrase "one day at a time" is the only thing that can get you through (or one hour, one minute, one second - whatever the situation may call for).
Except that going back to that time for me would require going back to a time when I didn't believe, and didn't know if I could believe, in a power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity. That was a particularly sucky time because I thought that the only way was if I believed in something that I just didn't believe in, and all the pretending in the world was not making me any more sane!
I never had a problem with whether there is a power greater than me, nor did I have a problem with the idea that I needed to be restored to sanity. It was reconciling those two things that I had difficulty with - those things that I perceived as powers "greater than I" were not things that could restore me to sanity. Struggling through all of that seemed so hard at the time, but in hindsight, so much better than the afterward. In the afterward, when I know what it is that I need to be doing, getting myself to actually do it seems to be even harder.
Perhaps I've reached that point where I've realized that, while "one day at a time" is a helpful way to think of things, it doesn't change the fact that it is still really forever and ever and ever. And all of the dramatics that came with questioning what most other people's notion of a higher power is ... those have actually gone away as I've come to peace with what works for me (and perhaps more importantly, what works for them).
But then the real work sets in ... the monotonous, day-in, day-out work of trying to really live a program of recovery. Sometimes I think that I'd really rather just be a jerk - I don't want to be a better person, I don't want to keep working on my own stuff, and by all means, I really don't want to have to be kind, considerate and compassionate ... can't I just suck for awhile and be O.K. with that???
Then I realize that I've got plenty of that sucking even while trying really hard to live a principled life, so doing it intentionally isn't exactly a workable plan.
Anyway ... I'm still here ... :)
It's all just a balancing act really - the pain of my disease on the one side, and the pain of recovery on the other. When the pain of my disease gets bad enough, then I'm willing to face the pain of recovery. And make no mistake about it - the recovery part really can be painful! If it weren't, it would be really, really easy to simply be recovered. The problem is, I lack some of those basic skills needed to reside in this place called life without suffering pain. Thus, I retreat, which is where my disease can find me and start poking at me like a pesky, annoying, bratty little brother. (Can you feel this? Can you feel this?? Can you feel this??? How 'bout this????)
Then I've got that perfectionist in me that just wants to know when I'm going to GET IT and move the heck on. It's the perfectionist in me that starts nagging that I'm not doing it right, I'm not doing enough, I suck, etc. I tell ya, that almighty holier-than-thou perfectionist in me is a real pill! She expects me to always get things right and do things perfectly, and she expects everyone else to always get things right and do things perfectly, and always on the first try no less! Oh-so-critical! Frankly, I'm surprised she can even stand herself, being so intolerant, unaccepting and full of conceit.
But, despite all of the nagging to the contrary, I don't think that the perfectionist really likes recovery. For starters, it is not always pretty or neat, and it is certainly never perfect! Often I find myself uncomfortable in recovery - having to talk about things I don't want to talk about, feel things I don't want to feel, look at things I don't want to look at ... it's not pretty. Recovery is all about living in the imperfections of myself - seeing them, admitting them, and working on trying to make them better, all the while knowing that another thing to work on is always right around the corner. Unfortunately, the perfectionist is never satisfied with mere progress, and yet progress is really the best that recovery has to offer. Being O.K. with mere progress is where I find the greatest peace.
So I'm babbling, I realize ... I don't know what the point of this post is, other than to just start writing again probably. My higher power these days is simply "program," and I don't think I've been very effective at truly turning my will and my life over to program. Part of it, I believe, is because my perfectionist has taken over a tad, and since there is no such thing as "good enough", why bother at all? I know that's not logical, but as established above, the perfectionist is not particularly logical.
Part of it too, I think, is that I've been rather distracted by all these other things in my life - health issues, work issues, home issues ... you know, all those things that get in the way of recovery because I'm living my life ... all those things I wouldn't have at all if it weren't for my recovery ...
But sometimes I miss those exciting days of first coming to program ... when admitting there's a problem is the biggest, newest thing ever ... when reading step 1 is "all new" ... when doing it forever is the scariest thing ever and the phrase "one day at a time" is the only thing that can get you through (or one hour, one minute, one second - whatever the situation may call for).
Except that going back to that time for me would require going back to a time when I didn't believe, and didn't know if I could believe, in a power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity. That was a particularly sucky time because I thought that the only way was if I believed in something that I just didn't believe in, and all the pretending in the world was not making me any more sane!
I never had a problem with whether there is a power greater than me, nor did I have a problem with the idea that I needed to be restored to sanity. It was reconciling those two things that I had difficulty with - those things that I perceived as powers "greater than I" were not things that could restore me to sanity. Struggling through all of that seemed so hard at the time, but in hindsight, so much better than the afterward. In the afterward, when I know what it is that I need to be doing, getting myself to actually do it seems to be even harder.
Perhaps I've reached that point where I've realized that, while "one day at a time" is a helpful way to think of things, it doesn't change the fact that it is still really forever and ever and ever. And all of the dramatics that came with questioning what most other people's notion of a higher power is ... those have actually gone away as I've come to peace with what works for me (and perhaps more importantly, what works for them).
But then the real work sets in ... the monotonous, day-in, day-out work of trying to really live a program of recovery. Sometimes I think that I'd really rather just be a jerk - I don't want to be a better person, I don't want to keep working on my own stuff, and by all means, I really don't want to have to be kind, considerate and compassionate ... can't I just suck for awhile and be O.K. with that???
Then I realize that I've got plenty of that sucking even while trying really hard to live a principled life, so doing it intentionally isn't exactly a workable plan.
Anyway ... I'm still here ... :)
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