Step Eleven

This morning someone asked me how an atheist does step eleven. This person seemed a little incredulous, perhaps even angry, pointing out that the original authors intended this as a spiritual program, helpfully pointing out that it was “God” in the book, not “higher power.” So I wonder if this person really wants to know how I work step 11 or if they want to argue about whether someone like me belongs in the rooms.

If it was a rule that I had to profess a belief in God I’d have to leave since that would put me in the untenable position of having to practice a program of rigorous honesty while lying. I’m not leaving and I’m not going to lie either. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop lusting (SA), or to stop addictive sexual behavior (SAA). I qualify. I’ve earned my chair and have an absolute right to participate fully. My life depends on staying sober so perhaps I’m overly sensitive to the suggestion that I can’t be a part of unless I profess a willingness to believe in a deity. That’s bullshit. I belong.

Most people in the rooms are not atheists and just like I learn from how believers work their program (obviously since I’m the only atheist in recovery I know) they can learn something from hearing how I work my program. So although I do mind the insinuation that I don’t belong, I don’t mind explaining how I work my program.

Here’s how I do step eleven:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

 

Prayer is an expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship. Worship is reverence, adoration, or devotion show toward a person or principle. I guess reality is the best name for the principle I am devoted to. I am grateful that I exist, that the universe exists. I consciously revere and adore existence. I crave an increase in my knowledge of everything, but most especially how I can better align myself with reality. To work step eleven, I think deeply about this.

To keep from becoming overwhelmed by my feelings, I pick one thing to think about. Yesterday it was cars. It’s a little embarrassing to share because I felt rapturous when I wrote it. It’s always a risk to expose a very private part of myself. But it’s pretty safe here; after all, I’m the absolute dictator of my delete button.

How amazing it is that life exists. This planet is just such an amazing place – and human beings are truly amazing animals! And I’m one, I’m here, and I know I’m here. I exist in such a wonderful manner, we all exist in an complicated social network that’s become global. And I’m here to witness that. Someone had the idea of little explosions driving a piston and now all of us can drive. I drive and I don’t have the first clue about how to extract metal from the earth and shape it into all the different parts of an engine. And then we have gas, oil, rubber –

I went on and on but I’m sure you get the idea. In a nutshell, I work the 11th step by thinking about my place in the universe and how wonderfully amazing everything is. Numinous awe strengthens my recovery.

A Moment of Clarity

Thank you to everyone who wished me well on our move. The new house is great! A few minor glitches here and there, like the hot and cold water being hooked up backwards in the shower, nothing to really worry about. I’ve gotten most of our stuff unpacked and we got a new couch and chair. My husband had a really nice birthday; given how his f*cked up family of origin treated him on his birthdays that’s pretty amazing. Yesterday the family vacated the house for a few hours and a sponsee came over to take her fifth step. A few hours after that we had some friends over to celebrate our anniversary and it went really well!

All in all, a superlative series of fortunate events. So why the hell am I sitting here, wide awake at 4:00 a.m. banging away in journalistic mode. I should be sound asleep — because I’m f*cking tired. I should be snuggled up to the husband I love with all my heart and who loves me back even though I’m far from perfect. Except I’m a sex addict who’s been under a whole bunch of stress. I’ve been in recovery over three years. I’ve been sober since I got out of treatment almost two years ago. Not only have I been sober from sexual acting out, I’ve also abstained from alcohol and tobacco. I mean, goddamn it, I’ve been like the f*cking recovery poster woman. I go to meetings, talk regularly with my sponsor, have a few sponsees, one of whom actually calls me. I say affirmations, do relapse prevention, and my three circles are impressive enough to f*cking photograph.

All that recovery stuff has not cured me. Generally that’s not something I feel angry about but right now, it sucks. I woke up sexually aroused, not my fault since I was unconscious. And then I couldn’t get back to sleep. Again, not my fault. You can’t exactly will yourself to sleep. You know that part in the Big Book where it warns that there will come a time when you have no defense against taking the first drink? Well that was me tonight. Before I know it, the f*ucking glass is in my hand and I’m getting ready to take a big ole gulp and it hits me that I’m about to lose my sobriety.

Recovery gives me a lot of things, but a moment of clarity is probably the most important of them all. In that instant, I was able to make a difficult choice to get up and take a step back from the edge of the cliff. Right now I’m cranky, horny, itchy, and pissed off beyond belief. I wish I could just lie there and fantasize. I mean after all, it does feel good to be turned on. But I can’t do that because it feeds my addiction, which sucks! And although I have a good looking naked man in my bed, using him sexually when I’m in this state is just a shitty thing to do. No human being is meant to be my personal blow-up doll. Besides, that would also feed my addiction.

I’m glad that I got that moment of clarity and then had the desire to stay sober because that desire for recovery is the very first thing to go, in my experience. In a few hours I’ll talk to my sponsor and probably hit an open AA meeting (I’m so glad they let me in the door).

I’m finally starting to get tired. Two funny things just occurred to me. First, there’s this commercial on TV for Viagra that warns that you need to see a doctor if you get an erections that last more than a day. I’m grateful my sexual arousal will pass without medical intervention. Second, I’m typing on the computer. Holy shit! I nearly lost my sobriety and did a REALLY dumb, dangerous thing. In a fraction of a second you can click to some sort of porn or another and I didn’t do that!

Perhaps this is not a good time for me to find a picture to go with this post in order to add visual interest.

Yeah. Probably not. The birds are starting to sing. My body is starting to settle down. I have an hour before I have to get up, which means I’m going to have one monster of a headache. I know from past experience that Tylenol and a big cup of strong coffee doesn’t have any effect on shame. But it’ll take care of the headache I’m going to have from not sleeping. There’s another thing to be grateful for: coffee and Tylenol. That and I’m still sober, with enough sanity to be glad I’m still sober.

Hiatus

I’m going to take the week off from blogging. We’re closing on a house today and moving tomorrow. I’m almost ready for the movers to come and plan on doing the cleaning today. Tomorrow, I’m hoping there will be enough time in the afternoon to do the floors and shampoo the carpets.

Things to be grateful for:

We have enough money to afford a nice house.
Most of our stuff has been de-cluttered.
My daughter loves playing Rock Band with me.
The dog hasn’t run off even though the doors have been left open.
Nobody is home today so the house is wonderfully silent.
I have ginger tea and vanilla seltzer water to drink today.
I am a strong woman in recovery.
There are lots of strong women in recovery!
There are lots of strong men in recovery too and I’m married to one!

Even after almost 2 years of continuous sexual sobriety, those old patterns are still there: I get stressed and my body responds by getting geared up for sex. It’s good to be self-aware. I know that the way I feel has nothing to do with my husband or with my hormone levels. It’s all about the stress of moving and writing a freaking huge check.

However, as every addict knows awareness isn’t enough. Recovery isn’t about knowing you’re an addict. You have to get through that withdrawal period but after that it’s not about gritting your teeth and white-knuckling your way through life denying yourself what you crave. It’s about having the freedom to choose.

Sure, there are times I feel like acting out. Like I said before, those old patterns are still there. But I’m grateful that today I can choose how I deal with stress:

Calling my sponsor
Writing this post
Ginger Tea
Vanilla seltzer water
Happy music
Gratitude, especially that I’m no longer ruled by my compulsive, self-destructive behavior.

I hope everyone who reads this has a wonderful week!

Thank You, “K”

You know that saying, “They loved me until I could love myself?” That’s what happens in treatment.

I just heard that someone who helped me get better is moving on to a new work opportunity. I don’t know if it’s normal (whatever that is) to have such overwhelming feelings of gratitude toward the people who have been helpful to me as I’ve been trudging this gentle path of recovery. I don’t know if I’m going to actually send the letter to this person. Every word is how I genuinely feel, but I sound fawning and stupid to myself when I reread it.

Anyway, I sought help knowing that deep down inside I was a worthless piece of shit. I thought recovery would be me coming to terms with that fact. With that mindset, it was disorienting to be treated with kindness and respect. K was one of the first people to cause that mind wobble in my head, but actually nobody there saw me as the sub-human piece of crap I knew I was.

Dear K,

I heard that you’ve decided to move on to helping a different set of people in need. I wish you all the best. When I got to treatment, I was such a mess. At that time, it was almost painful to be treated with kindness. I’ll always remember how understanding you were when I had to wait to begin the intake process. Most people look like hell when they land on the doorstep of a treatment facility and I was no exception. I had big black circles under my eyes, black nail polish, and a huge black cloud of shame. Sometimes just existing is painful.

I was jittery. The guy on the phone had said there was no smoking on the grounds, but that I didn’t have to quit smoking unless I wanted to. It had been several hours since my last cigarette and I was ready to start gnawing my fingers off. The nurse would be there soon and I could get some patches but for now, I’d been parked on a chair to wait. The underneath part of my eyelids itched. I couldn’t keep my hands and legs still. My throat felt weird and my tongue was filling up my mouth. This was looking more and more like a big fat mistake.

I asked you if I could go out and smoke – made some lame joke about it being my last cigarette. Addicts push and push and push. They hear a rule and instantly start putting their toe across the line. Somehow you knew that I wasn’t pushing, that I really was at the absolute end of my rope and you extended me some kindness.

I sat outside on the curb, technically off the grounds and smoked that cigarette. Later when another staff member thought I was lying, that I was sneaking, you immediately stepped in and said that you’d given permission.

How does that seem now, almost two years later? Well, it really was my last cigarette. So you definitely didn’t have a deleterious effect on my long term “nicotine recovery.”

You were kind to me and that made a big difference. One of the most dangerous lies I told during my active addiction was to you and the rest of the staff at the treatment facility. I was worried that if I told you the truth about how I felt and the plans I had, I’d find myself on a locked ward. So I didn’t. In hindsight, that was a big mistake. Suicidal addicts are necessarily handled a bit differently than addicts stewing themselves in a pity pot. But you treated me like a hurt human being and let me have a cigarette. In your eyes, I wasn’t some kind of disgusting slut, but someone worthy of dignity as you had.

That, more than any treatment modality was therapeutic. Evidently this is borne out in more than just my anecdotal experience. Martin Seligman calls this positive therapy and asserts this is why so many different types of therapy are effective. In his words, “The deep strategies are not mysteries. Good therapists almost always use them, but they do not have names, they are not studied … one major strategy is instilling hope (Seligman, 1991, Snyder, Ilardi, Michael, & Cheavens, 2000).

My children have a mother, my husband has a wife, and I have a life, thanks to you and the other therapists who helped me in treatment. Thank you for instilling hope at a time when I was quite hopeless.

Sue Silverman’s Book Will Be A TV Movie

The lifetime television movie of Sue Silverman’s memoir, Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey Through Sexual Addiction, will premiere Saturday, April 19 (check local listings).

If you’d like to see an interview with actress Sally Pressman, you can go to the Lifetime TV site. The first clip opens with a drinking scene, then a bedroom scene. I didn’t find those triggering, but you might. The third clip where her father tells her that he want’s her to write his memoir – I found that difficult to watch. The Lifetime TV site.

I found Sue Silverman’s website after reading her book, Love Sick. I checked it out of the library back when Fr. M. the wonder therapist diagnosed me as an addict, and was shocked that I could relate to a lot of what she’d written. The only thing was she’d been through hell though and had good reasons to be sick. Since nothing that bad had happened to me, I berated myself for being disgustingly weak and melodramatic. We are so cruel to ourselves. But I thought she was brave. Not only had she written a book (she’s written several excellent books); she’d gone to treatment. On her website there was a contact link if you had questions or comments and I asked her if she thought she could have gotten better without treatment. She sent me a kind and thoughtful reply and wished me well on my journey.

when the wonder therapist had decided that it wasn’t such a good idea for us to keep on having phone sex. It was great and all that, but he was worried about me. Yeah. Right. Whatever. I was falling off the edge of the world and so miserable that I wished I was dead. I told him that and you’d think a really caring guy would, I don’t know, make a f-ing anonymous phone call and tell my husband I was suicidal. That was a clue that he really didn’t care about me at all.

When your brain isn’t working well and you’re in overwhelming pain, that’s when suicide becomes an option. I figured if I could make it look like an accident, that would be less painful for my family. Along with that insane line of thought, there was a more sane “line of hope” that led me to treatment. That’s when I remembered Ms. Silverman’s email.

Deciding to go to a residential treatment facility is a big deal. It’s extremely expensive our insurance didn’t pay a cent. That’s usually the case with process addictions as opposed to chemical addictions. But more than that, there’s a huge stigma attached to this disease.* I have children. They still get scared if I’m sad or down in the dumps, but overall, they’re doing very well. They’re no longer trying to help me feel better by being unnaturally well behaved and we seem to have gotten past the acting out phase. There’s a lot of anger, fear, and stress when your mom is as sick as I was. Obviously they know I went to treatment, and they know a little bit about why. They know my grandfather did some bad stuff to me when I was little. They know that I had a bad therapist and instead of getting better I got worse. We have tried to be sensitive to their needs and answer questions as they come up. But nothing has come up. Last night I asked my youngest, who’s twelve, why she never asked about all the recovery stuff I do, the meetings and the phone calls. It turns out, she’s embarrassed. And she’s worried that talking about it will embarrass me. For her, it’s a secret that I was so sick I had to go to treatment. She doesn’t want any of her friends to know. We talked awhile – and at least now she knows I’m not embarrassed at all.

Except that I write this blog anonymously. I have tremendous respect for people who are willing to use their names when talking about addiction. Pat Carnes, Robert Weiss, Stanton Peele, and Thomas, Lauren, and the others at G.P. have all contributed to my recovery in some way or another.

But people like Sue Silverman are a real inspiration. I am still too ashamed to put my real name on this blog, but she isn’t. The content of her book is incredible. But her name on the cover is even more incredible. Talk about guts!

*Please don’t email me and tell me addiction isn’t a disease. Using the disease model when dealing with the shame of compulsive self-destructive behavior is helpful.

The Breast Exam

My doctor quit practicing medicine over a year ago. Since I never go to the doctor’s I put off finding someone else until I absolutely had to go. It’s hard to get in to see someone half decent, it seems like the good docs aren’t taking new patients. I’m lucky enough to have a connection in the medical community and after a series of phone calls was able to make an appointment.

He knew some of the back story – that I’d had the misfortune to have trouble in therapy – which I thought was adequate for him to provide appropriate medical care. After all the family history questions he asked about current concerns. When he asked about suicide, I froze for a moment. It’s hard to talk about it – he said that it must be hard to reveal that, which was true. I said that I didn’t think about it much and when I did, it was in terms of how much better I am. That seemed to surprise him a bit, in a good way. But I’ve been feeling a bit more sad and depressed than usual. My guess is that I need more exercise and more sunshine, but still. Feeling depressed scares the living shit out of me, so I asked him to consider bumping up my anti-depressant. That seemed an okay idea to him and we proceeded to the exam.

And here’s where my incredible recovery is most evident. I’m almost 10 years past the age when a woman should have her first mammogram. Most of my friends have been getting them every year for quite sometime. I’ve never had one. So part of this doctor’s visit included a breast exam.

About two hours before I was having my breasts palpated, I got a phone call from a beauty salon where the guy who cut my hair has a paraphilia that involves a combination of voyeurism and frotteurism. My guess is that he’s been looking down women’s shirts and rubbing up against them for years – getting progressively worse. I thought when I went in that there was an awfully high level of sexual tension in the shop, but put it off to paranoia. I hate, absolutely hate having my head touched. And all that stupid small talk; trying to push the latest perm or dye. Ugh. But there was no mistaking this man’s behavior and the charge he got from it. For such a “small” invasion, it had a profound effect on me. I felt so dirty and ashamed. I was worried that I’d some how projected some vibe that this guy had picked up on, but my current therapist thought not. I decided not to beat myself up because I didn’t make a fuss in the salon and that I’d never return. But then the idiot called, probably to offer me some deal on a perm or something. I immediately hung up the phone, self preservation rather than cowardice, I think. But boy was that a nasty trigger.

So I was definitely primed to have a melt-down over the breast exam. And it was pretty awful, not the exam itself, but all the thoughts swirling around my head during the exam. There is a particular vulnerability when you’re sitting on an exam table wearing a paper shirt. But amazingly, I was able to deal with the present reality rather than all the related psychodrama, particularly my pathologic fear of being vulnerable. That counts a victory in my book!

Interestingly, when I’m in a vulnerable position and another human being treats me with kindness, I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude that it’s difficult not to cry. Hmm. Somewhere along the way, I must have developed a world view where vulnerability goes with danger and abuse, not love and compassion. Gee. Maybe this might lead to difficulties with intimacy.

Deeper questions about intimacy not withstanding, that’s a pretty stressful day, and I flew through with flying colors, if I do say so myself. Well, as long as you don’t count having nightmares and being up most of the night. Two years ago I’d have been completely zoned in front of some sort of Internet porn after raiding the fridge. Tonight, I had a nice little cup of peppermint tea and read a sci-fi novel for awhile before deciding to write about the day.

I’m a Strong Woman in Recovery

I don’t buy that whole spiel that everything happens to us for a reason; it certainly doesn’t fit with an atheist world view. Yeah, there are reasons for what happens but they’re not part of some larger plan directed by a deity. Growing up in a rigid, authoritative family, being molested, having my particular personality and genetic make-up along with a myriad of other factors are why I’m here typing away on this blog.

But I am trying to reinterpret some of my experiences. Instead of feeling misunderstood and victimized by my mother, my step-father, his father, my sister, my therapist, my real father, on and on, I’m trying to feel proud that I did more than just survive. I sought help and struggled to trust therapists even after having a disastrous 2 years with Fr. M, the leather loving wonder priest. (Here’s a happy side effect of atheism: no more worries that “Baphomet” is stalking me.)

When I’m trying to help others, that’s when it’s easiest for me to feel proud of myself. It’s one of the promises: No matter how far down we have gone, we will see how our experiences can help others. And whether I’m any help to them or not, every time I talk to a fellow suffering addict, it helps me.

A few days ago a woman called me looking for support and we had the strangest conversation. She told me she was an addict as well as a co-addict. Almost immediately she started in on how awful her husband is, what a liar, what a pervert, and so forth. I generally don’t listen to drunk-a-logs but this lady didn’t want to stop. She seemed to be frustrated that she wasn’t communicating just what a bad person her husband was. As the conversation progressed, I thought she probably needed support from sa-anon. When I mentioned this, it came out that she’d assumed that I was a fellow wronged wife. I could almost hear the gears in her brain grinding as she tried to process the idea that I was like her husband. I was kind, understanding, helpful yet I’m like her husband. That’s discordant. Either her preconceived notions have to go, or I do.

My guess is that she’s not ready to let go of her illness yet. Right now she’s the poor wife who has been so betrayed by this bad man. That buys a lot of sympathy from her church, her family, and her friends. It’ll be easier for her to imagine that the reason I wouldn’t play along with her vilification of him because I’m a pervert too.

I felt drawn down into that old shame spiral after I spoke with her. Usually I feel energized and hopeful after trying to help someone, this time I felt awful. I was going to blog about how this was the first time helping others didn’t help me. But spin and recovery don’t really go together so here’s the truth: I felt like a piece of shit after that call. But I’ve got a whole new set of tools that I’m in the habit of using to fight shame, like affirmations. My favorite is “I’m a strong woman in recovery.” After saying that a few times, it’s easier to remember who I am.

I’m a strong woman in recovery (not a piece of shit).

Meetings and the Pale Blue Dot

For the most part, I like going to meetings. There is something good about being in a room full of people who are willing to admit that they don’t have all the answers. Not all 12 step groups are like that, granted. I’ve been to my fair share of meetings where the Big Book thumpers are preaching their version of The Answer. That’s about as appealing to me as watching a televangelist.

At the meetings I attend regularly, I get to see a set of friends who know me without my public mask. They care enough about me to call me on my bullshit, even if I act like a jerk when they do. Back when I was a newly converted Catholic trying to find my way to a god that I now know doesn’t exist, they put up with me cussing and pounding the table telling them how full of shit they all were. I’d show up angry and sex-drunk, so ashamed of myself I couldn’t lift my head from the table. They loved me until I could love myself and sent me cards and letters when I was in treatment.

Now that I’m doing well, they’re genuinely happy for me, even though I’m an atheist. I don’t participate in the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the meeting, and I leave off all the “Dear Gods” and “Amens.” I’m not searching for God – the “god of my understanding” is an loose mental picture of my place in the natural universe. Thinking like that gives me a feeling of gratitude and awe, similar to what Ann Druyan describes: Why do we separate the scientific, which is just a way of searching for truth, from what we hold sacred, which are those truths that inspire love and awe? Science is nothing more than a never-ending search for truth. What could be more profoundly sacred than that? I’m sure most of what we all hold dearest and cherish most, believing at this very moment, will be revealed at some future time to be merely a product of our age and our history and our understanding of reality. So here’s this process, this way, this mechanism for finding bits of reality. No single bit is sacred. But the search is.

Think, Think, Think

The best part of recovery is that my brain is functioning again.

You know that saying, “don’t think, don’t drink?” It should be, “think, don’t drink.” Not thinking goes right along with compulsive addictive behaviors of all types.

A New Book!

Augusten Burroughs has a new book out. I can’t wait till it comes in the mail. How did we survive before amazon.com?I read Running With Scissors toward the end of my stay in treatment. It was funny, kind of. Actually it’s not funny at all. I borrowed the book from one of the therapists and read it sitting on the floor in my room, crying and laughing my way through the pages. I was a little concerned that all that emoting meant I was falling off the deep end (again) but I wasn’t. That feeling your feelings shit is tough.

I went into therapy honestly believing I had never been abused or molested. It’s not that I’d forgotten what happened to me, it’s just that I didn’t name it. When I was going over my timeline, my therapist said when she heard me minimize my abuse, she felt sad. Hearing that, I felt angry. I despised weak people who blamed all their problems on their pasts. In the grand scheme of things, what happened to me didn’t seem that bad. And that’s enough of that sad story for today, boys and girls.

I’m an avid reader, but Burroughs is the first author I’ve ever contacted. I was embarrassed to say how much his book affected me so I made a joke about sex with priests. (His gave good head, mine gave good phone.) It wasn’t that funny but some friend who reads his email wrote back, which embarrassed but secretly pleased me. I was worthy of a reply. That felt really good!

clipped from www.amazon.com A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father (Hardcover) by Augusten Burroughs (Author)