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.

Break

Please forgive a short break. I had to be taken to the hospital for unrelated health issue. I am home but need to take a couple of stress-free days off. I will get back to the blog within the next couple of days. Right now the computer screen is a little difficult to deal with.

Step 4 - Reviewing your life

Have you ever had the experience of someone telling you to “empty your mind” and “think of nothing”? No matter how hard I try, it is impossible. The second someone tells me to relax and empty your mind (I went to a hypnotist for weight loss), the task becomes virtually impossible.

Now, I know I have a bad memory. But not that bad! Yet as soon as I sat down to try and review my life, I became an absolute blank slate. It was as if someone had wiped the hard drive. I stared at the computer wondering what my name was.

It’s strange, because Step Four has never frightened me as much as some people. Step Three scared me senseless, but Step Four – not so much. Yet here I am – at a loss for words. And those of you who have gone back to the beginning with me know that is saying quite a bit.

My entries here are separate from my list itself. This is about the process. There is a difference.

Some people choose to avoid the process. They continue in their addiction blissfully thinking that there has to be a way around it, without going through the pain. But you have to remember, it was a lot of pain that got us here. Though we are imagining wracking pain, I think it will actually be relief once we take the step. I know when I went and talked with my bishop, the pain was so intense, but it was amazing how exquisite the relief was afterward. But addicts are so averse to the pain that we self-medicate ourselves with more pain. It’s like the dentist’s office. He jabs that huge hypodermic needle in six times causing me to cry each time until it is numb. But what if I had him do that just to take x-rays? It may sound stupid but that is pretty much what we do.

Other people have the process thrust on them. It’s called intervention or outside pressure. Sometimes it works but only if the person wants it to. Otherwise, they will end up back in their addiction. That’s why addicts end up in and out of rehab clinics.

Once in a while, life-altering occurrence life others out and force them to really take stock of their lives. These end of changing the lives of others because they can’t bear to see others suffer like they did. My uncle hurt my aunt. It changed his life. He spent the rest of his life getting clean and then helping others get clean. He became a light for the lost. I think of Saul of Tarsus who was struck down by the Lord, blinded so that he could finally see. Once he had reviewed his life and humbled himself, he was healed and taught and became one of the greatest missionaries the world has ever known, eventually giving his life as a testimony. Once changed, he changed others. But then, that is Step Twelve.

And then there are the rest of us, who hopefully will gather up our strength, humble ourselves, get over ourselves, and review our lives in brutal honesty, opening up all of our wounds so that they can be cleansed and healed.

Step 4 - Truth

Wow. Suddenly I find myself back at the beginning. This was where I was when I first started my blog. You see, the first action step that was suggested was to write in a personal journal. Well, I’ve spent much of my life refusing to commit anything to paper. If it wasn’t on paper, it wasn’t real. It took me nearly a year just to start working the program and more time to get to Step 4. My original answers to questions were short and obscure – using something like “I don’t know.” So I wasn’t prepared for the dam breaking loose like it did when I started the blog. I guess it was the result of half a century of pent-up emotion.

But as I mentioned in one of my posts, in the process, I discovered a second addiction that I had to go back and work on, and in THAT process, I realized that I had never really resolved my trust issues. This time I’m aware that I’m still not 100% but I am trying.

And that is the beginning of truth.

KEY PRINCIPLE:
"Make a searching and fearless
written moral inventory of yourself."

Alcoholics Anonymous version:
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

Step Four is one of the most frightening for most people. We had one person in our group who adamantly swore he was going to skip Steps Four and Five. The facilitator kept telling him it wouldn’t work but he said he was going to check out every group in town until he found someone who had succeeded in beating their addiction without doing Steps Four and Five. He kept at it for a long time but finally reported back that he hadn’t been able to find a single person who had been able to overcome their addiction without these two painful steps.

The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions state that “without a searching and fearless moral inventory… the faith which really works in daily living is still out of reach.”

What frightens me the most about this step is the element of the unknown. My memory really is bad. I joke about it a lot, but the reality is that I have run into people who seem to know me and I pretend to know them, desperately trying to find something in the conversation that will cue me in to who they are and where I am supposed to know them from. I’m never been to a class reunion because when I got the invitation to my 10 year reunion, I pulled out my year book and looking at the pictures of people – who looked just like they did when I knew them, obviously – I didn’t recognize anyone. I decided not to go and be embarrassed by the fact that I had no memories of them.

So, trying to remember things worries me, although not near as much as Step 8, which terrifies me because of my memory.

At least, I can make a current moral inventory and try to work from there. Here is where my new commitment to trust has to come in I guess. I have to trust that the Lord will help me remember everything that I need to deal with.

There was a very short-lived series called New Amsterdam that ran all of eight episodes this year (2008). The main character, John Amsterdam, was immortal (at least temporarily) and had been an alcoholic that went into AA and had been sober since 1965. When he got to this step in the program, he ended up writing notebooks full of his moral inventory. But then, when you’ve lived 400 years, I guess you’ve got a lot to say.

So now it’s time to go to work, really get busy. The most important thing is to be Honest. I’ve come to the point that I know I’ll still be alive afterward. That may sound a little melodramatic but really, why is this step so frightening other than our fear that it may destroy our lives? So, if we realize that, yeah, there may be fallout, but we will survive; what is stopping us?

Write in a personal journal;
seek guidance from the Holy Ghost

This is what started everything in earnest for me, so I guess you could say, I’m convinced that this step does have an impact. My life has changed radically since I started writing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not cured. I’m an addict. That means what? I’ll always be an addict. But my addictions are under control right now and I’ve living with less guilt than I have felt in years. And if I stumble, well, I’ll know to get up again, won’t I. But right now, my sobriety is more intact than I could have believed. I have other areas I have to work on still. Sobriety doesn’t mean life is perfect. It just gives me a little more ability to deal with the other problems.

Make an accounting of your life,
past and present

So here is where I am now. It will be interesting when I sit down with the person I’ve chosen to share my list with. He already knows it is coming. He says he’s heard it all. In fact he says he’s done it all. I don’t know. But the most important part of this, is making the accounting to myself.

Remember your sins no more

Now this may be more difficult for me, but hopefully, I can trust God enough to let this happen. I’ve always been my worst critic. I can be forgiving with everyone but myself. Now I have to learn to forgive myself as well. Otherwise, what is this all for?

Step 3 - Communing with God

I was struck with one particular word in my title. No, it wasn’t “God” or even “Communing.” It was “with.” Okay, maybe I’m with only person on earth that can get hung up on a preposition, but hear me out.

Society has screwed us up. Yep. For once I am going to blame society. Usually I blame myself, so don’t anyone freak out when I shift the blame here.

But let’s be honest, of those of you who believe in God, how many were taught memorized prayers? Go ahead, raise your hands, nobody is looking. Okay. Now of the remainder, how many of you forward emails with set prayers in them because you would feel guilty if you didn’t? Okay. Now of the remaining “believers” how many of you say your prayers and then get up, thinking that the communication is over, because after all, it is one-sided?

Do you get my drift?

Most of us, who do believe in God, still think of prayer (communication) as a one-way street with our words going up into a giant receiver. But how many actually take the time to sit and listen and expect some form of communication back?

I heard a talk in church once that should have touched me then, but it affects me more now. The speaker compared prayer to a phone conversation and asked how we would feel if we had a child who called each day with the following type of conversation:

Hi, Dad. Hey I’m having some problems today and could really use a little extra money so if you could send $500 I’d really appreciate it. I’m going to the doctor next week. He thinks I may need to have my gall bladder removed. It really sucks. It would be great if you could convince him that it wasn’t necessary. The kids are doing good. No problems there. But we are a little worried that Jimmy isn’t talking yet. Well, I’ll call tomorrow. Love you, bye.

…and hung up, never giving you a chance to say anything, not even that you love her or that you’ll send the money, or that you’ll pray for her. Just “click.”

And yet that is how we usually communicate with God. And sometimes we do it with the same identical words every day. I catch myself doing it, in such a rut that my mind is on auto-pilot. Sometimes, I have to ask myself if I even finished my prayer.

So how can we call that communication?

Wow. I’m so out of practice communicating that I’m a little intimidated, but I figure I have to start somewhere. I’ve been praying all my life, but I’ve been talking “to” God not “with” God. And my trust issues suddenly make a lot of sense.

How can you know someone you’ve never communicated with? How can you trust someone you don’t know?

Step 3 is a decision – our first real decision. I guess for me, this is the key. My decision comes down to this: I need to get to know God because I’ve decided to trust Him.