"Give Yourself To The Light Side"

I'm laughing at myself a little right now. I was going to title this post 'Give Yourself To The Program', then remembered Darth Vader standing over a wounded Luke Skywalker--barely hanging on to life--saying, "give yourself to the dark side!"

Those of us in the program know all about the dark side, don't we?

From a Recovery perspective, there's plenty in that scene to latch on to. So many of us come into the program beaten, battered, our asses kicked. We've got the evil shit (be it booze, benzos, or bongs) waiting there for us, begging us to take the easy way out. But instead we let go, and it is through the letting go and reaching out for help spiritually that we are saved. We say 'no' to the dark side and 'yes' to the light.

This is not a perfect metaphor, of course. Luke was a total goody-two-shoes who got in over his head with a majorly bad guy who kills kids. And hey, there are some of us whose journey looked like that, but not most. Fortunately, my point isn't that Recovery is like Star Wars; it's that for us to have success in the program, we need to truly let go and give ourselves over to it. Half measures avail us nothing.

What does it mean to give ourselves to the program? It means we need to learn faith. 12-step programs are spiritual. They’re not something that can be puzzled or reasoned out. If you spend your time looking for all the explanations, trying to intellectualize the how and why, you won't get anywhere. As we say, you didn't think your way into becoming an addict; you can't think your way out of it. Or there's my personal favorite: you can't be too dumb for the program, but you sure can be too smart for it. Spiritual learning is experiential. We do the action first, then we see the truth of it in our lives, not the other way around. That's why working the program is truly an act of faith--you don't know beforehand how things will turn out or what will happen to you or how your life will change. Instead, we see others who have success in the program and trust that it will be so for us, too.

For most of us, finding the willingness to work the program means we have to be beaten. Our asses have to have been kicked so hard by our disease that we are willing to do whatever it takes to find a different way to live. Some of us start the program from a different place. We aren't truly done yet. Maybe we want to get clean or think perhaps we should, but we don't have the full willingness needed to completely give ourselves to this simple program. We argue with other members of the fellowship, we argue with our sponsors. We come up with every possible excuse why not to do what it is suggested to us to do. We don't work the program to its fullest and then we wonder why we aren't getting the fullest benefits the program has to offer.

The change comes when we stop finding reasons to say 'no' and start looking for reasons to say 'yes'.

Some people, some sponsors, can be harsh. They don't want to waste their time with someone who isn't ready; they'd much rather spend their time helping someone who is. I've heard stories of sponsors who looked at a sponsee in disgust and said, "you're not ready yet; here's some cash--go get loaded." I get that perspective, truly I do, because I know the frustration of watching someone beat their head up against a brick wall over and over again, then turn around and bitch about how much their head hurts.

We find compassion within ourselves for those who don't 'get it' right away. We remember that they are sick--just like we are. We detach in love and trust in our higher power, knowing that it isn't up to us how anyone else works or doesn't work the program. We talk share our experiences, we do our part, and let go of the rest.

For me, the success in the program I have had is because I gave myself over to it completely. I follow suggestions. I work my own program and don't try to work anyone else's. I am one of the lucky ones. When I came into the rooms, my ass had been kicked and I was willing to go to any lengths for a spiritual Recovery. What I discovered is that the program really does work.

But only if you work it.