A newcomer was telling me recently about some difficulties she's having with her ex. The short of it is that he got into Recovery, started getting clean and going to 12-step meetings, and now is pointing the accusing "you're a drug addict" finger at her. When she told me this, I chuckled knowingly. We talked about the disease, how drug use is a symptom, that the real problem isn't what we're hooked on, it's that we don't know how to live, how to deal with life, with ourselves, with other people. We don't get magically better when we stop getting loaded. Recovery is a process that takes time. We don't become better people overnight. "And that," I concluded, "is why your boyfriend is still an asshole."
One of my sponsees went to a meeting once where they told him not to speak because he didn't have a year clean yet. "Zip it! You don't know nothin’. And what's worse, you don't know that you don't know nothin’! So sit down, shut up, listen and learn." I must confess, considering some of the stuff I've heard come out of the mouth of the random one-time meeting attending newbie, that almost sounds like a good way to do it.
Many of us, when we're new, suddenly find ourselves seeing the world and the people in it in terms of the disease. Everywhere we look, we see people who are drunks or addicts. We find ourselves telling other people they have a problem, that they need to sober up and start going to meetings. I remember telling my own mother she's a dry drunk. I think I even managed to phrase it politely, but that isn't the point.
Don't take others' inventory--that's the point. It takes a lot of time and a lot of personal growth through the program before we understand the best way to go about helping others into it. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. We can fall into the trap of thinking that, because we’ve found the answer for us, we know the answer for everyone. Suddenly, we can find ourselves going around and telling everyone what they need to do, how to live their lives. We’ve learned a little bit about the program, but haven’t learned the fullness of that knowledge.
The first step isn’t about just accepting the powerlessness of our addiction, it’s about accepting our powerlessness over all the things we can’t control. That includes other people, places, things. It’s not our place to tell someone else what to do with their lives or how to live. When we do, we’re just feeding the disease all over again by trying to control something we can’t.
We are like children when we’re new. Our emotional maturity isn’t there yet. So we receive an amazing gift, a powerful gift, and we can end up turning around and using it like a loaded gun on the people in our lives. Before we’ve worked our way through the steps, we’re still living as we always have, full of character defects, and without serenity.
Recovery isn't a weapon, it's a gift. We can't give it away by beating someone over the head with it. We can talk about ourselves, our own experience, what it used to be like and what working the program has done for us. But we can't force anyone to 'get' the program. Any time we do, we’re falling into one of the disease’s oldest traps—trying to control. Recovery teaches us a different way: stop trying to control. Let go. Maybe it’s our opinion that someone in our life needs the program, needs to get sober. It might even be true. But it’s not our place to force them into it. It may sound cruel, but it is far better to let someone hit their bottom. Then they’ll be ready to change. They’ll be teachable.
We help when we’re asked to help. It’s the asking that shows someone is truly ready.
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