And Became Willing to Make Amends to Them All...

The first step in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive.
~Marianne Williamson~

We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

As my sobriety date approaches this year, I have been looking through some of my past step work - particularly steps 8 and 9. It seems like every year at this time, I enter into a place of darkness and uncertainty in my recovery. I find myself remembering, reliving, and revisiting some of my most regrettable moments and calling to mind my most painful, and most well deserved losses...the things I cannot change. More than anything, I think of the people that were the victims of my selfish recklessness. Looking back at some of the lists that I have made over the years, I see names that have dropped off of the page, and names that have stayed near the top - amends that I have just not been able to call finished. This year, however, what I notice about the list is not so much about the names that are on them, or have been crossed off of them. What I notice most is the name that has never appeared at all...my own.

At the height of my addiction, I was not a good person. I engaged in behaviors that make me feel sick to my stomach when I think about them. I hurt many people...my family, my friends, the people that cared about me the most. And I also hurt myself...over and over and over. I abandoned myself. I treated myself in the most horrifying ways imaginable. How can my list of persons I have harmed ever be complete without my own name listed right at the very top?

It is a difficult thing to get a handle on. In recovery, we learn that we must be vigilant against the disease by holding ourselves accountable and taking full responsibility for our actions. Giving myself a break often feels like making an excuse, and the notion of compassion for myself feels like a certain ticket to relapse. The idea of ever forgiving a time in my life that feels absolutely unforgivable to me is so incredibly hard to accept. But the step says "and became willing to make amends to them ALL."

I often refer to my addiction as a fire that consumed everything in it's path. It has taken a very long time, and a huge amount of care to bring the burned and barren landscape back to the point of being able to support new life. But new growth cannot happen in an environment of hostility and darkness. Just like plants need sun and water and good soil, my own soul needs love and compassion and understanding from the inside to bloom to it's potential beauty...

I am afraid, but I am willing.

Today, I will make a new list -

And my name will be at the top...

Searching and Fearless

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.
-August Wilson-

Inventories...we all do them at one time or another. We take stock of what is in our pantry before going to the grocery store and we make our list accordingly. Each season we look at our wardrobe to figure out what we have, what we need, what no longer fits, what needs to be discarded or donated, and what might be salvageable or even made almost new with some attention and mending. In business, inventories are designed to give us the information that we need to make decisions and plans for how to move successfully into a thriving future.

An inventory is a fact finding mission. Still, it is easy to get caught up in judgement. Who knows the annoyance associated with going to the grocery store and buying something only to find, as you stuff it into your already full cupboard, that you already have 15 other cans of whatever it is? Ok, well, maybe just me - I am obsessed with always having enough tomato sauce. But I would venture to guess that we have all been through the big closet raid - trying on pants that haven't seen action since Madonna was making bad movies and skinny jeans were the ones you wore when you weren't feeling bloated - and men didn't wear them at all. If you are anything like me, time has taken it's toll and, well, those pants bring up all kinds of feelings and judgements, don't they? Our questionable taste and that extra pound or two (ha!) collide head on with each other to create an epic session of self loathing and shame...do they not?

And so it goes with Step 4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. By embarking on this journey, we commit to taking stock of our fears, resentments, indiscretions, and responsibilities. We count specifically and remember in detail the people that we have injured and harmed. We seek out and own our part in the situations and events that have injured and harmed us. It is not an easy task and while it provides many opportunities to judge and berate, it is also ripe with opportunities for growth and compassion towards ourselves. This is the crossroads that step 4 presents to us after the understanding and relief that we find in steps 1, 2, and 3. When all of the unearthing is finished and our findings are laid out in front of us, how will we choose to use the facts that have been revealed? Will we use the information to expand our spirit or diminish it?

It is no coincidence to me that my step 4 work comes about in the spring season...around the same time as Lent. In Christian faiths, Lent is a time of observance for the sacrifice of Christ and preparation for the new hope that is coming through His resurrection. In nature, Spring is a time when the frozen ground of winter thaws into fertile soil ready for new growth and abundance. In both, we sacrifice. We remember. We prepare. We humble ourselves. We dig in the dirt, and analyze the light, the weather, and last year's successes and failures. Instead of getting stuck on what we didn't know last year, we marvel at how what we didn't know last year has taught us the things we need to know this year in order to plant the most amazing garden ever. Likewise, by practicing compassion with ourselves as we work through step 4, we are creating the space, conditions, and light that encourage spectacular new growth inside of our own souls. It is not always easy, and it hardly ever comes naturally - we have to choose it, and work at it to overcome the years of training that have taught us to do just the opposite.

I am not there yet, but I know that in the end it is going to be worth everything that I have to put into it...I have faith.

Nunc ceopi. Now I begin.
What was is past
What will be is hidden in the future
It is only now, this day, this moment, that counts.
Not what I did yesterday, or what I may do tomorrow...
Now I begin.
As long as there is life, there is the chance to start over.

What's In Front of You

What I learned in sobriety is that you don’t have to have courage. You just have to keep doing what’s in front of you. Courage is not necessarily the absence of fear and trepidation. It’s just putting one foot in front of the other... - Meredith Baxter*

Sometimes, I get tired. I lose my reasons. So many people around me hear my story and remark about my strength, courage, determination...and it never quite rings true for me. A short time ago, a friend even said that I am her hero. HERO?? REALLY?? I don't think so. I barely qualify as sane, according to some. But you know, I guess everyone has a different perspective on the concept of hero, so, I suppose I don't really mind the label - as false as it feels in my own soul.

When I think of the word courage, I think of people making choices to act in brave and heroic ways. I think of people standing up for what they believe, and defending others that cannot defend themselves. I think of human beings that face the most difficult circumstances...in situations where there can be no good outcome...with grace and dignity. I think of fearlessness, and strength, and boldness...normal human beings doing extraordinary things with their lives.

My own journey often seems unremarkable, and certainly somewhat less than courageous. I got clean because I had to...there was no other choice. I stayed clean for many years out of fear. I wanted to use every day, but I was terrified of the consequences. The first years of my sobriety involved three things - going to work, going to meetings, and going to sleep. It took a long time to venture beyond that simplicity into being social, being active in a community, and really beginning to build a new life.

Life is more complicated now and the past few months have been really difficult. I have been faced with some choices that have felt unfair, and some situations in which there really didn't seem to be a good outcome. I am doing the best I can with them - and it is really all I can expect of myself, I suppose. I have a bad habit of looking beyond the present and obsessing about things that could happen, or might happen, or probably won't happen (but what if they do!!). I do the same thing with the regrets of the past...ruminating and reliving and punishing myself with thoughts of all of the ways it could have been different - if only I had been better, normal, good. Oh, the things we cannot change. While I am doing this - I lose today, and this moment...which is, as we all know, the only thing we really have.

Its important to be reminded that courage can be defined in many ways and that, sobriety is not a destination...it is a journey taken one step at a time and always focused on the thing that is in front of me today. The past is over, and the future is going to happen with or without my input - but the choices that I make on THIS day are the ones that will prepare me for the ones ahead and whatever they may bring.

My life is anything but big...it is not loud or spectacular or heroic.

But I think, just maybe, I can accept courageous...

*Meredith Baxter is a beloved and iconic television actress. Her warmth, humor, and brilliant smile made her one of the most popular women on television. Meredith finally reveals the woman behind the image in her memoir Untied - available in stores and online now.

7 Years...Amen

At times this world can be so beautiful, it's hard to take it all in.
But don't you be afraid, just let it rain...and say Amen.

~Jen Foster~

August 23, 2010 marks 7 years of sobriety in my world...7 years since my world fell apart...7 years of slowly picking up the pieces and figuring out how they all fit back together...

August 23, 2003 was a Hell hot day in Dallas, and I guess I could say that it was the worst day of my life. Then again, I suppose I could also say it was the best. We all have moments in time that alter not just our circumstances, but the very essence of who we are...and, for me, this day and the weeks, months, and the immediate years that followed held many of them.

So much has changed, in fact, that I cannot even recognize the person that I was before I got sober. That person had such different values and perspectives than my own - and yet, there is proof of this existence in a handful of writings, photos, and legal papers that I keep in a box underneath the bed that I sleep in today - 700 miles from where it all happened. Most days, it might as well be 10,000. Some days, it feels more like 10. Always, I am aware that the road back is as short as the journey here has been long.

Every year on this day, I make a point of going back there in my mind and making a concerted effort to re-experience the "highlights" of the two years after my active addiction ended. Police cars, courtrooms, handcuffs, strip searches, work detail, letters home, family visits that never happened...endless days, and nights that seemed even longer. I don't force my mind back there to punish myself - I do it to remind myself of where I can never be again. For whatever the reasons I will say out loud that I stay sober...the real thing that keeps me clean is the pure and unadulterated terror of returning to that place. There is nothing that I fear more - and nothing makes me more grateful to be alive, and to be who I am now than the humbling memory of the path that led me here.

And then I think of how the story has changed. I think of how broken I was, and how strong I am now - mainly because I was just too dumb or hard headed to understand that giving up was, indeed, an option. 7 years - more than 2500 days - have passed since then, and each and every one of them has begun and ended with a prayer of thanksgiving to the higher power of my understanding - an entity for which I have no name...only the concept of a universal energy that encompasses the ideals of truth, love, compassion, wisdom, kindness, tolerance, patience, humility, forgiveness, mercy, and faith. The hours in between are filled with steps counted one at a time in the hopes that enough of these steps taken consecutively will eventually come together to create some sort of productive and meaningful life that is worth at least an honorable mention. It's a work in progress. When I stumble, I get up. When regret threatens to choke me, I fight myself out of it's grasp until I can breathe again. When the winds of change blow so hard that forward movement seems impossible, I go through the motions anyway...step...step...step...step. Eventually, the storm will calm and I will be on my way once again. Building my life upon these foundations has brought immeasurable joy and blessed me with the ability to reach beyond my comfort zones and into the places where my dreams await. There is less fear, and more risk (calculated as it might be) with the understanding that any given failure will not be my last...or necessarily even the end of the story at hand.

Looking out into the rain at the dawn of the 8th year of my second chance...I acknowledge the battered and broken person that has become a mere whisper in my mind in the darkest moments of night...and I celebrate the strong, hopeful, (and ever so slightly neurotic, many would say) individual that has taken her place. And each breath I draw into my lungs is released as a prayer of gratitude to the universe...

...Amen, once again.

The List

From the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:

8
We made a list of the persons we had harmed and
became willing to make amends to them all.
9
We made direct amends to such people whenever possible
except when to do so would injure them or others.

I have a list. Anyone whose life has ever been touched by the disease of addiction has a list. The list that I keep consists primarily of those people and offenses that I remember, however vaguely - but I am certain that there are individuals out there that I am not even aware of whose names should be added. If I got really honest, I could likely fill a novel sized book with situations and events in which someone other than me was hurt, offended, saddened, or otherwise affected during the course of my active addiction.

Early in my recovery, as I tried to burn through the steps in record time, I tried to "do" amends. I made it my mission to try to track down every soul that I was aware of ever hurting so that I could tell them I was sorry and make amends to them in whatever way I needed to. One person after another responded with a mostly lukewarm "That's Nice" or "I'm Happy For You." Some were a little slow to respond, and some never did at all. A handful made it clear that no amend that I could ever make would undo or repair the damage that had already been done. Since that time, I have learned more about amends and what they are supposed to involve. I have accomplished some milestones related to step 9 that I never thought I would be able to accomplish. It has taken great patience and monumental effort, along with deep compassion and forgiveness in most cases - to begin to rebuild some of the relationships that were lost so long ago. But it is the images and memories of that handful of people that stay with me...visiting my dreams and occupying the dark corners of my heart that I only become aware of in my most solitary and silent moments. This is the regret that I carry with me. Some days it feels like it is strengthening me, and others, it seems to be crushing me. But always, it is there...like a boulder that I can't seem to set down.

Every night as I leave my job, I pass under an arch that reads "Let Go and Let God." It is a concept that all in recovery are familiar with, for it is only when we loosen our grasp on trying to control that which we cannot, that a new freedom opens up to us - not surprisingly, we also have to be ready for that freedom in order to really, fully, completely let go and give in to the surrender. Almost on a daily basis, I ask myself what purpose the pain and regret are serving in my life and what it will take to finally be able to loosen my grip on them, turn them over to the care of the universe, and free myself from limitations that they put on my own growth and happiness. Sometimes I think that keeping them with me provides the punishment that I feel I deserve for some of the things that I have done, and sometimes I think holding on to those regrets is my way of keeping those people with me that I cannot bear to think of living the rest of my life without...even though I know in my mind that there is not enough good intention and positive change in the world to restore what those relationships once were to me.

And so, even as I continue to go through the process of righting wrongs, rebuilding that which I destroyed, and marking off my progress with tiny little check marks...I doubt that I will ever be able to completely relinquish the hope that one day the list will be complete.

Until that day, I keep working.

The Things We Cannot Change

I open my lungs
To breathe in forgiveness and love
Haunting me now
Reminders of how I used to be...

...Tell me how to make right
All the wrong turns that I've learned
So this can all end tonight...

-Chris Daughtry