Step 4 - "The truth shall make you free"

The world would have us believe that telling the truth is hard. It gets you into trouble. As a child we learn that lesson very quickly. We soon discovery our dearly friend Mr. Nobody on whom we blame all our little sins so as to avoid punishment. When I was young, I read the poem “Mr. Nobody” and thought how cute it was. Now, as an addict, I think how sadly true it is.

Mr. Nobody
I know a funny little man, As quiet as a mouse, Who does the mischief that is done In everybody's house. There's no one ever sees his face, And yet we all agree That every plate we break was cracked By Mr. Nobody.	He puts damp wood upon the fire, That kettles cannot boil; His are the feet that bring in mud, And all the carpets soil. The papers always are mislaid, Who had them last but he? There's no one tosses them about But Mr. Nobody.
'Tis he who always tears our books, Who leaves the door ajar, He pulls the buttons from our shirts, And scatters pins afar; That squeaking door will always squeak, For prithee, don't you see, We leave the oiling to be done By Mr. Nobody.	The finger marks upon the doors By none of us are made; We never leave the blinds unclosed, To let the curtains fade. The ink we never spill; the boots That lying round you see Are not our boots; – they all belong To Mr. Nobody.
Anonymous Attributed to: The Massillon Independent Wednesday, June 09, 1869 Massillon, Ohio Contributed by Ilza, February 14, 2006, http://www.emule.com/2poetry/phorum/read.php?7,153292

Somehow we learn that lying keeps us out of trouble. Unfortunately, we seem oblivious to the fact that lying is self-perpetuating. One lie requires a second to back it up and that one requires a third. Complete honesty, even when advocated, is shown to cause major problems. Jim Carrey starred in the movie Liar, Liar where he played an incorrigible liar who, because of his son’s magic wish, cannot lie for twenty-four hours. Blatant truth gets him into nothing but trouble. Somehow he learns that he needs to tell the truth but that is through the convolutions of Hollywood, because within the storyline, truth only got him into terrible trouble.

Do I admit I broke the dish or do I lie to keep from getting into trouble? Do I lie to protect someone else’s feelings? At what point does that altruism deteriorate into an excuse for “Do I lie to avoid confrontation?” The shades of gray get murkier all the time. The boss says: “Tell them I’m in a meeting.” The parent tells the child: “Tell them I’m not home.” We have become a society that worships the “white lie.” Even the “honest man” seems to think nothing of stretching the truth on his taxes or pushing the speed limit. And it goes on and on.

But the innocent white lie soon requires the more robust grey lie and eventually can’t be distinguished for the lies we tell ourselves as addicts.

So when John said “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” he may well have been talking about everything in our lives, not just the doctrines of Christ. Facing the truth of our past and our addictions is the first step to breaking the chains of the lies that have bound us. “I’m not strong enough…” “I just need one last hit…” “I’m not hurting anyone but myself…” “No one else understands…”

Break the chain of lies and we gain the hope of freedom – faith multiplied to infinity! Jesus Christ is the exemplar of truth. To recognize truth is to begin to know Him.

Step 4 - Weakness and strength

There is a scripture that I have come to believe and understand:

“I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27).

When I was young, I suffered teasing and isolation. I don’t have enough memory to know why I was the bunt of practical jokes or why I had so few friends. I know my mother says she cried often because I would come home from school and hide myself away in my room, crying. What I don’t have are any happy memories of school.

But as I look back at those painful times, I realize that the teasing and isolation that I suffered as a child made me empathetic to the suffering of others – made me desperate to avoid hurting anyone else like I had been hurt. What was a miserable time of my life forged what is probably my best trait. I think this is an example of a weakness becoming strength. If something good can come from that sadness, maybe the Lord really can take what I am going through and turn it around into something good.

When we overcome a weakness, we find the strength that the Lord has planted inside of us; we discover His hand within our lives. It is in the trial of fire that the strength of iron is forged. It is in the season of scarcity that the strength of roots grows deep. It is by facing our weakness and turning to the Lord that He can give us strength.

Step 4 - The truth

Truth is a difficult concept. Addicts see “through a glass darkly” and it isn’t just in denial. That would be too easy. I for one must be schizophrenic when it comes to truth. And from what I’ve learned over the last 18 months or so, I am not alone. One part of me obliterates the truth – that Swiss cheese memory I have. Perhaps that is the equivalent of denial that most addicts experience. If I can’t remember it, I don’t have to deal with it. While it is a protection from pain and is very necessary at times, it can get in the way of recovery.

The other part of me sees myself through distorted lenses, turning myself and everything I do into the most monstrous version possible. With both these versions of seeing “through a glass darkly” I have greatly feared Step Four. How can I create my list if I can’t even remember what I did a year ago? How can I repeat if so many of my sins are obliterated by my memory? And how can I forgive myself if the ones I do remember are distorted beyond forgiveness?

Truth means not only facing the reality of our sins, not only acknowledging our weaknesses and admitting our addictions, it also means bringing the boogie-man or the monster down to size. Part of what we learn in group is that we are not so unique after all. The facilitator in our group tells us there is nothing we can tell him that he hasn’t already heard or probably done. Facing the truth means realizing that our addiction is not worse than anyone else’s – that there is no excuse, no reason, no insurmountable trial that no one else has ever faced that makes it okay for us to give in to our addictions. We face the truth and pull our addiction off the pedestal it has been living on. It is not a god that has the right to rule our lives. We simply have chosen to worship it. We gave it its power. Now we have to take its power away.

Until we strip away the lies, the mystery, and the protection that we give our addiction, we are fated to fail. I have tried to deal with my problem many times in the past. Obviously something has not worked or I wouldn’t be here today. I have sincerely mourned and repented and even talked with religious leaders. Tut this is the first time I’ve faced this as an addiction – as something I will have to face and fight for my entire life. That is an important difference and I think that truth is the key to defeating Lucifer.

The funny thing is, addicts have a problem trusting and yet we trust our addiction and therefore we are implicitly trusting Lucifer – the destroyer – the one who tells us that our addictions will make everything right. The truth is that if we would trust the Lord as much as we trusted our addictions (Lucifer), we’d be free.

Step 4 - The hope of recovery

“Recovery” has taken on a whole new meaning for me. A week ago life was normal. Then Gustav started a very steady march toward us. Our city was devastated. We haven’t experienced such devastation since Hurricane Camille – and I wasn’t around then so I’m taking that on faith. 60-70% of the area still doesn’t have power. “Recovery” means taking devastation and bringing life back to normal.

I evacuated before Gustav hit. I’ve been safe and comfortable, far from the heat and damage and lines for gas and food. I’m dreading going home and feeling guilty for being safe. And I have to go home to start recovery.

Suddenly I have gained a new insight into Recovery. As addicts, we tend to be fatalists. We feel we can never beat it. But I’ve come to believe that while there is life, there is hope. I’ve watched New Orleans crawl back from destruction to life. Now my city is beginning the recovery process. We didn’t have the death toll that New Orleans suffered three years ago. But as I’ve talked with my friends that I’ve finally been able to contact, I recognize the strained voices and the frustration and exhaustion that the situation has caused. But I also recognize that they are all alive and moving forward – hot and tired, but alive.

As addicts, we only lose when we give up. Until then, we are working toward recovery. We may stumble. We may lose our path. But unless we give up, we still have hope of recovery.

Step four is painful. Delving into the past; getting to the truth behind our addictions – it’s very much like cleaning away the debris and trees and torn roofs. But we can’t fix anything until we’ve done the clean-up.

Like my city, I am in recovery and I will continue there.

Step 4 - Replacing denial with truth

I’ve spent most of my life very conscious of the fact that my father and mother gave me a name that was clean, and my job in this life was to keep it that way. That meant not doing anything to dishonor my parent’s names or the name they gave me. Most of the outside world thinks I have succeeded. Unfortunately, contrary to popular belief, what others think of us is of very little importance and has no part in truth.

As I said once, I am a good actress. That is a trait I share with many addicts. But unlike many addicts, I’m good enough and my addiction has been so well hidden, that I’ve managed to fool the world, while secretly damning myself. The only way I was fooling myself was that I didn’t recognize my problem as an addiction, only as sin.

The apostle John said “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Perhaps that was my saving grace. I saw myself as drowning in sin. But because I saw myself as hopeless, help was beyond my reach. Had God not placed me in the room with the group a year ago, I’d be drowning still.

The denial I had to deal with was that I had an addiction. I fought that with all my heart. I clung to my sin and damnation. I at least recognized that. But an addiction would take some of my precious guilt away and I wasn’t able to give that up. It was all I had left. Giving up my guilt meant giving up my power, though it was actually pretty useless.

So I sat in the group, silent for months, waiting until I could accept that I was an addict. And I sat and wished that my addiction was alcohol or drugs or smoking – those where physical addictions that made sense. Mine was a black hole in my soul. How could I ever open up? How could I ever cleanse the festering wounds?

We are never asked to name our addiction in the group. That is left up to us. But when I finally opened my mouth, it all came pouring out: years of pain and tears and embarrassment and humiliation. John was speaking of gospel truth when he said “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8: 32) but that night I understood that scripture in a whole different way. There was a freedom that I gained that night that only truth can bring. Now, that doesn’t mean that all problems are solved. There are members of my group that have lost their families. Their children and other members still don’t trust them – are still convinced that they haven’t changed and never will. I don’t know how long it will take to prove themselves and win back that trust or if they ever will. But honesty opens the door. The lies are gone and the secrets destroyed. And even in their sorrow, they find hope.

Truth brings healing and hope. It doesn’t make everything miraculously right. Sometimes there is too much pain. Sometimes people won’t forgive you. But God will. And with that hope, we can overcome anything – with His help.

Step 4 - Acknowledging the past

Humanity has a fascination with the past. We sift through dirt to find fragments of the past that can be reconstructed into a living memory of eons ago. We spend money we can’t afford on memorabilia of personalities, living or dead, that we have never met, but who we imagine have impacted our lives. Maybe a few of them even have. We spend thousands of hours meticulously cleaning away the filth of millennia to discover the tedium of daily life of ancient Pompeii. We won’t even clean our own walls. I wonder if, a thousand years from now, someone will spend those hours carefully cleaning our walls, trying to discover our tedium.

We cannot let the dead lie in peace. I am writing a dissertation about a personality that I have come to admire greatly. But my advisors don’t want to see a great man who overcame so much. They want me to dig deeper: find the dirt, find the scandal, find what makes him interesting! We don’t need no stinkin’ heroes!

But when the person is us, it is an entirely different matter, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, an addict has two choices, deal with the past or remain an addict. Sorry, there is no third choice. Until you acknowledge the past, it WILL keep coming back to bite you. And you want to know something amazing? The way you take power away from someone else is with truth. Now that doesn’t mean you walk around and pour your life out to everyone you meet. But it does mean that you have to face the past, and take its power away.

Side-stepping may seem to work for some. Clinton still got elected even after side-stepping with his famous “I didn’t inhale.” He got re-elected with his “Define sex.” But he will always be remembered as the joke on the late night talk show for those. Regardless of what else he may have done, I doubt that many people will ever mistake him for a loving, faithful husband, no matter how hard he tried to get his wife elected.

No, truth in its raw form is needed because until we face the truth, we can’t fix it. It’s like trying to treat a disease. If you have the wrong medical records, you can do everything right and still kill the patient.

There is an interesting thing I have discovered. It is one thing to be honest with yourself in your mind. It is entirely different to be honest on paper. Somehow, your mind can say, “Yep, yep, yep. I did that…” and be on to something else before the reality sinks in enough to make a difference. But once I’ve put it on paper, it becomes REAL. Now I have to deal with it.

Honesty begins with me. If I can’t be honest with myself, there isn’t a prayer that I can be honest with anyone else, not even God. So I start here: no audience to perform for – just me. And once I’ve finally seen myself in the mirror, I can talk to God about fixing the flaws.

Trial of Faith

Have you ever noticed that when you make a decision, sometimes that decision gets put to the test?

Well, I had just finished off Step Three, deciding that I was going to Trust in God. Now, that wasn't easy for me to decide. If you've read all my entries, you know that. Yet I made that decision in good faith, knowing it was necessary to my life. So I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised that this last week was a bit of a trial.

It started last Tuesday when I suddenly found myself in a restroom I didn't recognize and I couldn't remember where I was or how I got there. Luckily, the confusion only lasted a couple of minutes before I realized where I was and why I was there. Still, it was freaky. Assuming I was now fine, I rejected the suggestion that I should call an ambulance and promptly drove myself home. Of course, after driving what felt like a considerable period of time, I realized I didn't recognize quite where I was and was guessing how far I had driven. When I got to the traffic light, it turned out I had only driven a couple of blocks. This freaked me out even a little more.

I managed to get home without any more problems and, at my sister's insistence, arranged to have someone with me continually until I could get to the doctor the next day. The doctor's office called an ambulance and sent me to the emergency room (along with a good scolding). After a considerable battery of tests the ER doctor said I had experienced a TIA (mini stroke) but all the tests were clear so they released me. On Friday I saw my doctor who said she was certain it wasn't a TIA but rather a hypoglycemic episode. So now I get to wait and see a neurologist to, hopefully, find out for sure.

Through this week I've had to do so very deep thought, prayer, and decision making about things I don't want to deal with. My family is concerned about my living so far away and wants me to move in with them or close to them. I've always wanted to live near family but not this way. I'm working on a PhD and want to teach. But I have to be able to go wherever the job is. Now I may have to worry about the medical facilities as well. And what college will hire me with this problem???? Why am I even bothering to finish the dissertation?

As the stress of all these thoughts came crashing down, I realized that I really only have one decision I have to make at the moment: do I Trust in God? I decided I would, but do I? So I've taken a deep calming breath and said, "Yes."

This is my test. For now, I need to monitor my blood sugar and my blood pressure. If it turns out my doctor is right, then I need to carry my monitor and some candy. No problem. If the ER doctor was right, then I need to accept my limitations and believe that the Lord will open the doors I need opened. I will finish my dissertation because that is the path I am on. Hopefully, I will find a college near family that will realize my abilities. But no matter what, I will trust in God to open the door.

This is one test I cannot afford to fail.