Guest post: Zen Spot #161 — Mindfulness, meditation, the Beastie Boys, potato salad, the number 12 and a phone call from a Buddhist monk

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Interracial

I married an African American woman. While dating, I was welcomed into her family and introduced to Black culture. And, for the politically correct in the audience, be assured that there is a black culture that is embraced and defended by the, well, black culture. Pursuant to full disclosure, I am white — bright white. My wife refers to my “tribe” — her words — as being comprised of “ish” people: Irish, English, Scottish, Swedish, Danish, etc. Further, I was not raised around many African Americans.

The learning curve wasn’t so much steep as it was broad. It was like having played baseball on a traditional field all my life and realizing that the field of all cultures is played with four pitchers and twelve outfields, in a 360 degree circle. That said, once you know the rules of the game, and can read the third base coach’s signs, sheer bliss is always nearby.

My black family and potato salad

If a friend of African descent invites you to a picnic, or a family gathering, and you want to have a little fun, remark about how the homemade potato salad tastes almost as good as the stuff you bought at the supermarket. I should have prefaced this suggestion by recommending that you dress like a baseball catcher, with a chest protector, shin guards, face mask and a protective cup, because stuff will go sideways quickly. 

Heads explode. Old women will throw whatever is close at hand — a ketchup bottle, soda cans, whole baked chickens. An eighty-six year old woman once grabbed a hot dog off a red-hot grill and whipped it at me. Grown men will shush you, trying to protect you from their relatives. You’d think you’d just mashed a sweet potato pie in their grandmother’s face.

Good times. Pun intended.

My black family and The Beastie Boys

A second suggestion, if you aren’t up to demands of a potato salad shit-storm, is to offer a lesson in the history of Hip Hop. In particular, stand firm on the observation that The Beastie Boys were the first true rap act. This observation doesn’t involve anyone’s mother or grandmother, so the reaction is different. Someone might actually throw a paper-plateful of potato salad residue at you, but they’ll probably just tell you you’re an idiot and walk away.

It’s fun, but make sure the group loves you and trusts you first. Besides, I’m an idiot.

Sponsors and the Twelve Steps

Alcoholics Anonymous recommends the use of a sponsor as a newcomer is introduced to the Twelve Steps. A sponsor acts like a guide through rough mountain terrain, offering directions, guidance, support and, where necessary, criticism. That said, there’s no perfect sponsor and their opinions vary widely. Some are hard core and unyielding. Others are analytical. Others are touchy-feely. It’s the hard core sponsors that are problematic and, that, most often, provide the best rationalization for a newcomer to start drinking again.

Power corrupts. Heads explode. Fingers fly. Potato salad all over again.

The night a Buddhist monk called me to disagree

I started drawing Dharma Wheels in 2013. Within twelve months, I had created over 600. Yes, 600. What some people think is compulsive, I think is focused. What others think is manic, I think of as energetic, knowing all the while that they are correct.

Some of the wheels were even good.

In 2013, I committed to posting one Dharma Wheel on Facebook each day in the coming year. Wanting people to know, I reached out to people across the globe via email to let them know about the project — monks, yoga instructors, practitioners, media people, etc.

One night, my phone rang and a monk in Detroit called to tell me that the Dharma Wheels were drawn incorrectly — that they should have twelve spokes, not eight. Now, while I may not listen to priests, I definitely listen to Buddhist monks. That said, throughout life, after I listen, I often respond. This case was no exception. Ask my sponsor.

I remarked about my research of the correlation between The Eightfold Path and the eight spokes of the Dharma Wheel. The monk wouldn’t accept my posit, as if I was questioning his potato salad recipe. Having made no progress, and after having listened respectfully, we politely hung up when he was finished. 

Fully believing he knew more than me, I was confused. 

I’m a simple dude

On January 1, 2014, with thirteen years of sobriety, I began to post my artwork daily and it was met with incredible approval, including from Buddhists of all backgrounds — and the approval was gratifying. Detroit’s finest never left my mind, not because I felt vindicated but because I felt true respect. He was the person who took the time to call and teach, and the lesson was hard. He’d gotten his metaphysical crowbar underneath my manhole cover because, for whatever reason, he cared, and because he would not compromise his viewpoint.

Over the course of writing my Zen Spot essays, their mission, motivation and inspiration have evolved. In particular, the process has introduced me to my own soul dirt. In comparison to what I read in other Buddhist blogs or what I witness when around other practitioners, my lack of commitment to a pure path can appear to border on filthy defiance. I’m not clean, small, quiet, flowery or calm. I get angry. Compassion comes hard. I loathe dogma.

Despite all these things, I know, in my heart, I’m moving in the right direction. — and I believe there are a million other people just like me, all trying to get to the light. This essay is for those people. Especially those new to the Twelve Steps. Before I got to my current destination, I worked them with a hard core sponsor, and it hurt like hell—but it worked.

I believe in the Four Noble Truths. I practice the Noble Eightfold Path. I walk the Middle Way.

That’s it.

This has been a guest post by DharmaMechanic.

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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The Cathedral of Chartres

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I heard this story and I would like to share it with you:

Several hundred years ago, a traveler was walking through the French countryside. He came to the site of the Cathedral of Chartres, which was being built at that time.

He entered the construction site, and saw a sculptor working. He asked the sculptor what he was doing, and the sculptor said “I am making a statue”.

He walked around, and he saw a glazier. He asked the glazier what she was doing, and she said “I am making stained glass”.

He then saw a carpenter, and asked the carpenter what he was doing. The carpenter said “I am making pews”.

The traveler then saw a janitor. The janitor was pushing a broom. That janitor was cleaning up pieces of marble from the sculptor, stained glass from the glazier, and wood from the carpenter. The traveler asked the janitor what he was doing, and the janitor replied “I am building a monument to the glory of God”.

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I will go to my home group tomorrow morning, and I will make coffee. I am the Coffee Guy. I’ll get out the coffee, and I’ll find the coffee filters, and I’ll start the water. I’ll make a lot of coffee (we get about 100 people at the Saturday morning meeting).

If a traveler approaches me and asks me what I’m doing, I hope I remember to say more than “I’m making coffee”. I hope I remember to say “I’m helping alcoholics to get sober”.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

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Guest post: Addiction and spirituality

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President Trump has declared the opioid epidemic a national health emergency, addiction experts compare it with the AIDS epidemic, educators grapple with drugs in schools, and parents lie awake at night dreading a 3:00 a.m. phone call.  

Still, the body count rises. There were more than 63,000 drug-related deaths in 2016, up 21 percent from the year before and the biggest one-year rise in three decades.

This may be an opportune time to pause, step back and ask whether we are fully utilizing all the tools at our disposal.

David H. Rosmarin, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Spirituality and Mental Health Program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass, posits that spirituality may be one such instrument.    

In a December 2017 Wall Street Journal article, Mr. Rosmarin wrote that in his first six months as a pre-doctoral psychology intern at McLean Hospital, he was approached by at least 10 patients asking to discuss their problems not in psychological terms but in spiritual ones.  

Mr. Rosmarin is not a theologian. He is a practicing Orthodox Jew and clinical scientist. He smilingly credits his yarmulke with conferring an air of authenticity.   

Although rarely mentioned in thousands of media reports about the current opioid crisis, the idea of a nexus between spirituality and psychiatry is not new.   

Carl Jung called alcoholism “a spiritual thirst …. for wholeness: the union with God.”  

In 1950 Jung wrote that a “nodding acquaintance with the theory and pathology of neurosis is totally inadequate, because medical knowledge of this kind is merely information about an illness, but not knowledge of the soul that is ill.”

A crusty former addict of my acquaintance declares that the next doctor who claims to have cured an addict will be the first.  He concedes that addicts suffer severe mental distress (“dis-ease”), but favors “soul sickness” to disease.

A prominent local psychiatrist, now deceased, working in the addiction field once confided to me that the medical profession “knows (nothing) about addiction.”  

The issue then is whether education, therapy, treatment, needle exchanges, Narcan and the rest merely treat the symptoms of the “dis-ease” while the “soul that is ill” inexorably sinks deeper into John Bunyan’s “slough of despond.”  

Mr. Rosmarin cites a 2014 study which concluded that “religion and spirituality have the ability to promote, or damage, mental health.” It urged “an increased awareness of religious matters by practitioners in the mental health field as well as ongoing attention in psychiatric research.”   

A 2015 review examining over 3000 scholarly articles for the International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience found a “positive effect” of religion/spirituality on a variety of health outcomes, including: “…...lower rates of suicide, less use, abuse, and substance dependence (emphasis added), greater well-being, and reported happiness.”

The hope, meaning, purpose and connection to the divine that a spiritual life provides apparently can serve as a resource to cope with the mental distress that triggers flight into addiction.

McLean Hospital asks incoming psychiatric patients if they wish to discuss spirituality. If yes, they are then asked how is their spirituality relevant to their symptoms and treatment and ‘the conversation typically takes off from there.”.  

When nothing is working, what have we got to lose?

This article was written by a friend of the Urchin who practices law, and has a long-term interest in the legal and scientific study and treatment of substance abusers and substance abuse issues.  He is a regular contributor to articles pertaining to these topics.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

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Meetings When I Travel

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On page 162 of the book “Alcoholics Anonymous”, Bill W. wrote “someday we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at his destination”.  These were amazing words for him to write, because at the time he wrote them, there were fewer than 100 recovering alcoholics in Ohio and New York.

Eighty years later, alcoholics journey all the time.  I am one of them. I was lucky enough to go on a vacation in the first year of my sobriety.  My sponsor suggested that I should attend a meeting (or 7) while on vacation. He explained to me that my alcoholism didn’t take vacations, even if I did.

I promised him that I would go to meetings, and I am so glad that I did.  I remember those meetings even though 28 years have passed.

I am now in a position where I travel overseas for work.  So I make it a point to go to meetings when I travel for work.  As of today, I am lucky enough to have attended AA meetings in 14 countries.

I hope that you do not mind if I share some of my experience in locating and attending meetings when I travel.  I hope that my experience is helpful for you.

It helps me to do a little bit of research before I travel.  Since I have an internet connection at home (and I don’t necessarily have one in every destination), it helps to find a meeting schedule in advance, and print it out.

It helps me to commit to someone else (my sponsor, my wife) that I will go to a meeting when I am travelling. The truth is that travel is hard.  Sometimes I don’t have a lot of energy after flying for 14 hours.  But since I have made a commitment to someone else, I feel obligated to go to a meeting.

It helps to have cell phone (mobile) service when I travel.  If you travel internationally, make sure your cell phone works in your destination.  This is helpful for navigating from your hotel (or apartment) to a meeting.

It is really helpful to do a bit of mapping, in advance, if you are travelling to a large foreign city.  Some places are complicated. Going to meetings in Tokyo, for example, is very complicated (at least to me).  The layout of the city was confusing for me the first time I travelled there.

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One of the great benefits of going to meetings in other places is that I have met wonderful people, and attended some of the best meetings I’ve ever been to.  Here are a couple of travel stories from some of those meetings:

1) My wife and I attended a meeting in Bermuda.  At the meeting, three gentlemen started talking to us, and were surprised that we were attending a meeting where this meeting was located.  They graciously noted that the neighborhood was not very safe for visitors, and they escorted us to the bus after the meeting. Theirs was a kindness I have not forgotten many years later.

2) I recently attended a sunrise beach meeting in Florida.  I did very little advance preparation (I ignored my own advice) and I came to the meetings with only a towel.  I noted that every other person at the meeting had a beach chair, but I didn’t think much of it. A few minutes into the meeting, I felt some pain in my feet and my ankles, and I realized that I was being eaten alive by a swarm of fire ants.  I spent the rest of the meeting watching these ants carry parts of my body away for breakfast. Next time I’ll bring a chair.

3) This year I visited Africa for the first time.  I arranged to attend a meeting in Johannesburg. I connected with a wonderful man at Intergroup, and he picked me up at my hotel and took me to the meeting.  The people there were so passionate about their sobriety. One thing they did that I’ve never seen before- they lit a Serenity Prayer candle at the start of the meeting.  I stared at that candle for an hour, during one of the best meetings I’ve ever attended.

4) Lastly, I attended a meeting many years ago in Hawaii.  At the end of the meeting, it was the chairperson’s prerogative on how to close the meeting.  This chairperson announced that we were going to hold hands, and sing the first two verses of “Mustang Sally”.  I kid you not, we sang the first two verses of Mustang Sally.

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I do hope that you have the opportunity to attend some meetings when you travel.  And as it says on page 164 of the Big Book, “may God bless you and keep you until then”.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

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Why Discipline Matters

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When I first started attending AA meetings, I thought that my problem was “just alcohol”. I understood that I had a drinking problem, but I thought that the rest of my life was ok. I still had a roof over my head, most of my bills were paid, and I had a decent job.

When I came to AA, I was practicing as a healthcare provider in my community. I asked for help in my profession, and they were very kind in providing help. I attended a Twelve-Step meeting of people in my profession, and they helped me find a detox and a rehab.

I did have an unusual situation when I left rehab. I was asked, as a condition of continuing employment in my profession, to sign a “recovery contract”. In order to continue practicing my profession, I had to agree to:

  • attend 90 meetings in 90 days

  • provide 2-3 urine screens weekly

  • see a therapist one on one

  • go to group therapy

  • see a monitor from my profession at least once a month

  • provide a written summary report of my recovery activity once a month

In order to maintain my professional license (and my career and my income) I had to agree to do all ofthose things for three years. I was really unhappy about having to do all of those things, but I didn’t really have a choice. My boss knew about my alcoholism, and signing the contract was the only way I could keep my job.

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I did all of the things required of my contract (and a lot more). I attended hundreds of meetings in those first three years, provided every urine screen, attended every therapy appointment, and showed up every place I was supposed to show up to.

When the contract was coming up to the end of its three year period, I could not wait to go to the first AA meeting that wasn’t required. I couldn’t wait to demonstrate to others, and myself, that I was serious about sobriety. I couldn’t wait for “the training wheels to come off”.

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I sometimes speak in paradoxes, and I am about to do so again.

I was not happy at all about having to sign that recovery contract. And I am so grateful that I did.

That recovery contract provided discipline in my life at a time that I sorely lacked discipline. That contract forced me to go places that i might not have gone on my own.

Discipline is defined as “orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior”. It was prescribed for me that I was supposed to show up certain places. Had that contract not been in place, I might not have survived.

If you’re thinking “wait—a contract? That sounds weird”, or “I totally disagree with the idea of a contract”, let me ask you the following questions. Suppose the pilot of your airplane is a recovering alcoholic. Do you want to know that that pilot is sober? Or are you willing to take a chance with your life? Suppose that the pediatric anesthesiologist for your child is in recovery, and is about to administer anesthesia to your child—do you want that anesthesiologist to be sober?

Of course you do. You may not think about it, but there are people who have healthcare jobs or transportation jobs who get sober and stay sober. And you and I have a right to know that, while they are practicing their professions, that they are sober.

That was the belief of the profession I was in when I got sober in 1990. I didn’t agree with them then, but I agree with them now.

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On page 88 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, it says “we alcoholics are undisciplined”. That is so true.

We really are. How do we get help for this? Right after, the book states “so we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined”, which refers to the steps discussed in the chapter Into Action

(steps 4-11).

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I realize that this essay may be provocative. Most people in recovery are in a situation where they ‘do things “on their own”. They are not in professions where they are required to sign contracts, and they don’t have discipline required of them.

At the same time, most people coming into the rooms of twelve step programs don’t get sober and stay sober.

I’d rather have had required discipline (and stay sober) than not have required discipline (and not stay sober).

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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Meditations on Anonymity

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What is anonymity?  Why do we need to maintain anonymity? What is the Eleventh Tradition all about?

The Eleventh Tradition states “Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films”.  I’m going to focus on the highlighted part that states “we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films”.

Why do we need to maintain anonymity?  There are a few reasons. For the best discussion, it’s best if you go read the Eleventh Tradition in the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.  But briefly, imagine if a movie star or rock star goes on TV and talks about getting sober. Then imagine if that star then quickly relapses. You can imagine that someone at home might think “getting sober doesn’t work-it didn’t work for Johnny Rockstar”.  In addition, if you weren’t a fan of Johnny Rockstar anyway, you might think “maybe that sobriety thing isn’t for me- I never liked that guys music very much”.

So one potential way of breaking with the Eleventh Tradition is not staying anonymous enough.  

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Another potential way of breaking with the Eleventh Tradition is staying too anonymous.  I don’t hear as much about this (compared to not staying anonymous enough) in my recovery community.  There is a good discussion of this topic on pages 264-265 of the book “Dr. Bob & The Good Oldtimers”. I won’t repeat it all, but Dr. Bob was quoted as saying “If I gave my name as only “Dr. Bob” without my last name, people who needed my help would have a hard time getting in touch with me”.  He was quoted as saying “there were two ways to break the Eleventh Tradition: by giving your name at the level of press or radio, or being so anonymous that you can’t be reached by other alcoholics”.

In my recovery community, people know my name.  I’m on my home group’s telephone list. I have a unique name, and I’m easy to contact.

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What about anonymity in the Internet Age?  The Eleventh Tradition only states “....anonymity at the level of press, radio and films”.  It doesn’t mention the internet, because the Eleventh Tradition (and all of the Traditions) were developed in the late 1940’s and published for the first time in 1953.

AA published a Guideline on the Internet (https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/mg-18_internet.pdf), which notes that “the internet and social media are implicit in the last phrase of Tradition Eleven which states at the level of press radio and films”.  In other words, anonymity should apply on social media and the internet. A bit further in the Guideline, the authors note that “AA’s do not publicly identify themselves using full names or full-face photographs”.

Because of that, you won’t find my name on this site.  I decided to use a pseudonym: The Recovering Urchin. But at the same time, what if you want to contact me? What if you really need to contact me?  You can do that my sending me an email at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. I promise I will respond, and long as you aren’t abusive or acting like a troll (an experience too common on the Internet nowadays).

So there you have it.  It is possible to be not anonymous enough and break the Eleventh Tradition.  It is also possible to be too anonymous and break the Eleventh Tradition.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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Guest post: Zen Spot #36 — Mindfulness, meditation, autopilot and the internal gyroscope

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Auto-pilot and gyroscopes

It happens, from time to time, that a memory returns from an alcohol-fueled blackout. There’s no telling what will jar the memory loose. Sometimes, it’s like walking into a wall. At other times, the memory fades in slowly, over the course of a minute. Even after fifteen years of sobriety, it still happens once in a while.

At its worst, while still drinking, I would end up passed-out on a park bench, in a nice business suit. It happened in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Miami, Washington D.C and other cities. Perhaps my physical size was the only thing that kept me safe. Predators must have moved on to easier targets. The police ignored me as well.

It is a time I never want to revisit.

Washington Square, PHL

Walking from corner to corner, at about 9 pm on a recent Friday night, on my way to an art gallery, my memory opened up. This rarely happens in Philadelphia. My auto-pilot and internal gyroscope could always help me find my way through my hometown without having to sleep on a bench.

This time was different.

Slow

I don’t shuffle, but my foot speed is noticeably slower than in the life I have since forgotten. That night, I was taking my time, too. It was a beautiful evening. As I passed a particular park bench, my memory faded into a time having crawled across the sidewalk of rectangular flagstone, until I could pull myself onto the bench. To the best of my estimation, the year was 1998. I had probably been at Dirty Franks, a bar about twelve blocks away, which falls in line with my modus operandi of walkabouts while living in oblivion. No recollection of the stroll has returned.

The bench

As the flashback fully returned, I stood looking down at the bench for a full minute. Shaking my head, I closed my eyes and swayed back and forth on unsteady feet. Shame accompanies these experiences no matter how much time has passed.

I chose to sit. Sobriety, and clarity, provided the option to choose. I further chose to take a breath, with my hands on my knees, in the dark, and make peace with the memory. The quiet was full of distant sirens, plates being cleared by waiters in a nearby restaurant and the sound of rubber tires turning on asphalt.

I imagined a space ship having departed some 5000 days before, disappearing into the blackness, only to return, unannounced, just minutes before. A guy about my size got out, sat down next to me and disappeared into nothingness.

This has been a guest post by DharmaMechanic.

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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This Is Our Plague

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Suppose I told you that a lot of people were dying from something and most people didn’t know it?

Suppose I told you that a shockingly high number of people were dying from a disease, and most people had no idea?

Suppose I told you that more Americans died last year from this epidemic than died in any single war we’ve ever fought? Would you be surprised?

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I saw an article in my news feed recently that noted that 632,000 Americans died last year from tobacco, alcohol and drug addictions. The data was compiled by the Centers for Disease Control. I have attached links to the CDC report at the bottom of this page.

632,000 deaths a year in the U.S. Think about that. By comparison, the most Americans who died in any war was the Civil War, where 620,000 died. Those 620,000 who died in the Civil War died over the course of four years (April 1861-May 1865).

About 1,264,000 Americans have died in all wars combined.

What this means is that every year, more Americans die from addictions than died in the entire Civil War. Every two years, we lose as many Americans to addictions as we have lost in all of our wars.

That is appalling.

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The World Health Organization just released a report entitled “Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health 2018”. In the report, they estimate that 3 million people died worldwide in 2016 from alcohol abuse.

Three million.

In 2017, Alcoholics Anonymous estimated its total membership at just under 2.1 million people.

That means that more people (many more) are dying every year, than are members of AA.

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Whatever we are doing isn’t working. Whatever we are doing isn’t enough. It isn’t enough for the 3 million people who died of alcohol abuse last year.

I will continue to do everything that I can to spread the news that there is a solution available for those who want help and are willing to work for it.

The Recovering Urchin

CDC references

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0329-drug-overdose-deaths.html

WHO reference page XV

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/274603/9789241565639-eng.pdf?ua=1

AA Membership

https://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/smf-132_en.pdf

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Guest post: Zen Spot #143— Mindfulness, meditation and the intersection of Broad and Vine

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The intersection

Traveling west on Vine Street, I ran a red light at the corner of Broad at about 9 p.m. on a Thursday night. Halfway through the intersection, I knew I was in trouble. The terror of such a mistake, in the moment before an impact, is hard to describe. Time slows down and speeds up simultaneously. The impact is expected .

There wasn’t an impact.

I sailed to the other side of Broad unscathed. Cars going north and south narrowly missed me. Pursuant to the time warp, the vehicles never slammed on their brakes or honked their horns. It all happened too quickly — everybody was safe—never having time to react. 

Suspicion

Before I made it to the other side, I knew I had a problem with alcohol. In fact, I’d suspected a problem for about six months. My suspicions were confirmed as I crossed the double line on Broad Street. 

I’d had two drinks, so I wasn’t blind. One’s accountability, however, is the same whether one drink or one fifth is involved. Drinking and driving had never been a problem to that point in my life— it just wasn’t my thing. Doesn’t matter.

A needle was awaiting thread.

Grace, karma, luck, coincidence, nothing or being ferried by an angel?

For the previous seven years— perhaps more—I’d done little to earn favor from the universe — always  taking more than giving. And, while I understand that the idea of karma is much more than cause and effect, I fundamentally believe in cause and effect, especially since the negative effect caused by a negative action can bring considerable suffering. Simplistic, I know, but it works for me.

Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t kill somebody or myself. We were saved by inches and physics. The experience begs questions. What were the karma profiles of everybody involved? Those driving north and south? The pedestrians? Was it grace, karma, luck, coincidence, nothing or being ferried by an angel?

I threaded the needle.

When the eye of a needle is a threshold

I committed to change. It took me another year to stop drinking but I never got behind the wheel of a car again. With the help of my first sponsor I stopped altogether and, as of the essay, it’s been 5873 days.

When the eye of a needle is a tunnel

Things got harder for a long time. The metaphor of the light at the end of the tunnel being a train ended up being true. It took time to learn, though, that I’d been in the tunnel long before the needle was threaded. 

Never coming out on the other side of the tunnel

Metaphors are sometimes inappropriate or ineffective. This is one of those times.

Coming out on the other side of the tunnel

It was grace, karma, luck, coincidence, nothing and being ferried by an angel  that got me to the other side of Broad Street— because they’re all the same thing. Every time I cross that intersection I’m grateful.

With gratitude comes compassion. With compassion, anything is possible.

This has been a guest post by DharmaMechanic.

P.S. Do you like The Recovering Urchin? Let me know at therecoveringurchin@gmail.com. Please tell your friends, and remember to sign up for my e-mail list so that I can deliver this content straight to your inbox.

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Seven Things My Sponsor Suggested

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When I was about 90 days sober, I thought I was going to drink again.  I knew what “drinking again” felt like.  I had previously relapsed four times in the last 18 months of my active alcoholism, after repeatedly vowing to never drink again.

After a Tuesday night meeting at St. Asaph’s, I approached my sponsor, and I told him the truth-that I felt like I was going to drink again. He reached for a piece of paper, and he quickly wrote the following:

I still have this piece of paper, 28 1/2 years later.  Of course I do-it helped save my life.  What did he write on that piece of paper?

1) Ask God for help staying sober in the morning.  My recovery doesn’t come from me. My recovery is a gift from a Higher Power.  I am convinced of that.  On April 30, 1990, I got down on my knees, crying, and said “Help me God”.  God helped me that day.  Two days later I was at my first AA meeting, and I haven’t had a drink since.  So I don’t mind asking my Higher Power for help.  I need it.  For more on this topic, see my essay “I Need Help”.

2) Thank God at night for that sober day.  Every day that I have asked for help staying sober, I have been kept sober.  Every one.  As of today, that is 10,379 days.  So I thank my Higher Power at night for this sober day.

3) Go to a meeting.  At the time, my sponsor was gravely concerned about my sobriety, so he suggested that I go to a meeting every day.  So I did.  I don’t get to a meeting every day now, but I do have substantial contact with the program every day.  Every day I listen to the First Step or the Second Step in my car, and talk to another alcoholic.   When I’m on an airplane (a frequent happening in my life) I listen to a meeting on my phone. 

4) Call your sponsor.  My sponsor is one of my role models.  I speak to him as much as I can.  For more about this topic, see my essay “Role Models”.  My sponsor always changes my perspective when I speak with him.

5) Read the Big Book. I believe that the first 164 pages of the book “Alcoholics Anonymous”, (also known as “The Big Book”) represent the best spiritual writing I’ve ever read.  I have copies of all four editions of the Big Book, as well as copies on CD and on my phone.  When I can’t get to a meeting, I read or listen to the Big Book.

6) Avoid Hungry, Angry, Lonely & Tired (“HALT”).  Alcoholics are susceptible to “triggers”- things that make us susceptible to a drink.  For me, some of those triggers include being hungry, angry, lonely or tired.  In order to practice self-care, I need to avoid these triggers, using tools like having a healthy snack, talking to my sponsor, being with my family and friends in recovery, and taking a nap.

7) If all else fails, help another alcoholic.   On page 89 of the Big Book, it says “frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives”.  It’s true.  Speaking with a sponsee, or another alcoholic in distress, helps me like nothing else can.

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Now there is a postscript to this story.  I looked at the list my sponsor handed me, and I asked him if doing these things would help me recover from alcoholism.  I was absolutely certain that he was going to say yes.  But instead, he said no.  So I asked him what this list of seven tasks was, and he explained to me that since I thought I was going to drink, I needed to do these seven things every day until the feeling passed (and for a long time after, as well).

I then asked him what I think is the most important question I’ve ever asked any person:  What do I need to do to recover from alcoholism?  And he answered, “if you want to recover from alcoholism, you need to work the twelve steps”.

We started working the twelve steps together that same Tuesday night, and my life has not been the same since.  I’ll write a lot more about the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous on this site.  Those steps are the most important gift I’ve ever been given.

With Love,

The Recovering Urchin

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