Twelve-Step programs taught me that I had to give up old ideas. The old timers called alcoholism a thinking disease. My mental illness had its roots in false notions, picked up from childhood. Slowly, often painfully, I had to face, examine, then abandon each of these beliefs. I call them my demons. They drag my spirit down, and even though I may think they have gone, past experience has shown that they are just waiting to attack. My demons act like the monster in a horror movie, after you think it is destroyed, it rises up for a new assault.
I am not positive exactly how or why I acquired these false ideas. My genes may have played a major part--that is I may have inherited a sensitive nervous system: perhaps I perceive more than others or my emotions respond stronger. My brother who grew up in the same home and community was not affected because his nervous system was probably not as sensitive.
Developing a belief in these ideas is a learning process. If we think that life has been unfair, we will notice and remember all events that support this notion. Repeating this faulty thinking over and over strengthens it, just as practicing foul shots increases one's ability to make foul shots.
The following ten thoughts I had to first accept that I indulged in, and then had to give up. These ideas are not new. Some have their roots in Zen. Many counselors discuss them with their clients as a part of an approach called Cognitive Therapy, developed by psychologists Robert Ellis and Albert Beck.
All my life, I had to be better than everyone at everything because I felt like there was something wrong with me. It was like I bore a mark that alerted others of my defective character. To make up for my deficiency, I strove to be number one. First, I tried to be the funniest; later I tried to be the smartest. Once I studied ninety hours for a test. I was obsessed with getting the highest grade in the class. I even studied for dates as I studied for exams. I would memorize numbers and other trivia from interesting books I had read. Although I may have impressed some of my dates with my seemly encyclopedic knowledge, it was difficult to come up with a constant supply of new material if the relationship lasted more than a few dates.
I observed people to discover what impressed them. As a freshman in college, I remember the mob who carried a fellow on their shoulders because he set the Greek Week sit-up record by doing an unheard of 450 sit-ups. The following year, I pledged a fraternity and did 3,001 sit-ups!
My background inculcated in me many false ideas pertaining to men--I assumed all men had to know everything and to be able to fix any mechanical device. Most of all, men had to be ready, willing, and able to punch anyone in the face with only the slightest provocation. A true man was called "an animal."
One side-effect of my excessive expectations was a lack of time for myself. I excelled in order to get others to like me, but when it seemed that others liked me, no time was left for socializing. Being the best became an obsession. I had to be always working. The more I did, the more I had to do. Furthermore, good feelings from accomplishments never seemed to last long. Other mountains to climb soon appeared.
After gaining some success in athletics, I conceived of a down side of competition. A person is only number one for a certain period of time. Perhaps, she could be number one for the month or maybe number three for a year. But, sooner or later, someone will appear on the scene to beat her. How long do we remember champions? After a certain period of time, they are all forgotten. All records are eventually broken. People are fickle. Someone once said, "Today's champions are tomorrow's bums." The most popular and interesting sport may be replaced at any time, maybe due to some new toy that has been invented. Being able to win a bicycle race does not earn much attention when people switch to riding skateboards.
A depressing way of using sports for self-esteem is to achieve number one status in one sport, then to want to dominate in another sport as well. After achieving a fair amount of success as a judo competitor, I dreamed of doing well in running. Judo and running make an odd combination. Running demands a low body mass, but my best weight for fighting was about two hundred pounds. That meant that I would have had to lose 60-70 pounds to do well in road races. It seemed counter-productive to spend so many years building muscles for judo; then go about losing them, just for the ego gratification of being good in two sports instead of one. Being good in two sports, I believed would gain me admiration from the fans of both sports. I was looking for popularity. I wanted everyone to like me. I thought that people only liked you if you were good at something. I thought that the more things you are good at, the more they would like you.
In college, I believed I would get more respect if I was an athlete and a scholar. I liked being a scholar since I have always loved to read and learn. Although I did eventually achieve a great deal of success in sports, athletics was difficult for me early on because I matured a few years later than most boys of my age. Much to my dismay, I did not find people very impressed with scholarship. In over a quarter century of teaching I have observed that being smart usually does not win popularity. We call smart people odd names--eggheads, nerds, geeks. We like to laugh at them. Athletes seem to always push nerds around. In college, people admired me more for my ability to chug beer than for my high grades. Majoring in science also seems to be a turn-off. Students interested in science are seldom popular. When they ask a question, others will not even be quiet while the teacher answers. Some males feel that they have to prove that they are tough before they can indulge in activities that are not popular. After I learned to wrestle and do judo, I felt that society would finally allow me to read. Similarly, Billy Joel, the singer, had to learn to box so that he could play the piano.
For a long time I had great difficulty with everything. There was nothing I was good at, nothing I was noted for. When I finally was able to achieve a certain measure of success, I liked the feeling and wanted more and more of it. Trying to be exceptional was my way of rolling back the past to show others that I really was good at something.
My first sponsor recommended a couple of books when I asked him about gaining spirituality. One these books, Light from Many Lamps, contained passages from some of the world's greatest thinkers. The following passage by Joshua Loth Liebman helped put my life in perspective in the area of achievement.
"A man may have a home, possessions, a charming family, and yet find all these things ashy to his taste because he has been outstripped in the marathon race by some other runners to the golden tape line. It is not that he does not possess enough for his wants but that others possess more. It is the more that haunts him, makes him deprecate himself, and minimize his real achievements. This is the cancer eating away at his serenity.
The time has come when a man must say to himself: 'I am no longer going to be interested in how much power or wealth another man possesses so long as I can attain enough for the dignity and security of my family and myself. I am going to break through this vicious circle which always asks the question of life in a comparative degree: 'Who is bigger?' 'Who is richer?' 'Who has more?' I am going to set my goals for myself rather than borrow them from others. I will strive to achieve a mature attitude toward success which is ambition for growth and accomplishment, real accomplishment rather than spurious, decorative, and vanity-filled acquisition. I refuse any longer to destroy my peace of mind by striving after wind, and I will judge myself in the scale of goodness and culture as well as in the balance of silver and gold." Only when we harness our own creative energies to goals which are of our own adult choice, not imposed upon us by the compulsions of unresolved childhood competition, can we call ourselves mature and happy.1
As a child, it seemed that no one could understand my ideas; people either did not understand my speech or did not agree with me. Eventually, I devoted myself to always being right. It was a way of making up for the childhood pain of never feeling that anyone understood me.
Being right and having everyone agree with me meant a great deal. I saw life only in terms of black or white. If you did not agree with me, you rejected my entire being. For a long time I held resentments because I contended that no one would listen to my opinion. Eventually, I came to realize that I too would not listen to the ideas of others.
I had to put my values in perspective. In all relationships, there is disagreement. Arguments over trivial things are not worth the toll they exact. Many disagreements have no right answer. Some outside person might serve as a judge. But then both of the parties might still dispute this outside opinion. I have to accept that people just sometimes view things differently. Usually, no matter what the president does or doesn't do there is a group of people who reject his actions. Some were even against our going to war when Pearl Harbor was attacked. One summer, a great deal of spraying had to be done on Long Island to prevent a disease carried by mosquitoes from spreading over the entire United States. The mayor announced that the spraying campaign was successful, but that he did expect some group to start marching in protest to the government taking away the rights of mosquitoes. Wanting everyone to agree with me on all subjects is a sheer impossibility, it sets me up for frustration.
In many of my verbal and mental battles with others I lost serenity or at least time that could have been devoted to something else. I spent hours rehearsing my arguments--often in the middle of the night. As they say, I wanted to be right, not happy.
My desire to always be right is not unusual. It is common in immature young people and nervous people; however, it might reach its greatest strength in the manic phase of bipolar illness. The following passage by Will Durant is an example of my former way of thought. Will Durant is describing his search for happiness.
"For I sought it next in remaking the lives of other men. I went forth to reform the world. I denounced the ways of mankind, and bemoaned the backwardness of my time, and talked only of glories that were past, or were to come. I wanted many laws to make life easier for me, and for youth. But the world would not listen, and I grew bitter. I gathered anecdotes of human stupidity, and heralded the absurdities and injustices of men. One day, an enemy said, 'You have in yourself all the faults which you scorn in others; you, too, are capable of selfishness and greed; and the world is what it is because men are what you are.' I considered it in solitude, and found that it was true. Then it came to me that reform should begin at home; and since that day I have not had time to remake the world."2
My early upbringing conditioned me to believe that men should never experience fear. As a child my male role models showed a total lack of fear--but of course, they were usually drinking.
My high school friends discussed fighting constantly. I was scared to death of getting into a fight. Because I compared my inside fear to their outside show of bravery, I came to believe that there was something wrong with me. Looking back, I realize I actually was more afraid of someone discovering my fear than of actually fighting.
Some fear is necessary for our safety. The fear of traffic tickets forced me to become a safer driver. Fear of failing a course may motivate us to buckle down and study. Fear of saying the wrong thing, may cause us to think before we speak, so we do not put our foot in our mouth and say something we will later regret. But, we do not want to have so much fear that we are paralyzed. As with all feelings and emotions, we need a balance. We should look at our fears--there may be a good reason for some of them. I am most fearful when frantically searching for an escape, not a solution. It's OK to be afraid as long as we are willing to work through the problem at hand rather than running from it. Fear can not be denied; it has to be acknowledged and managed.
When I came into AA, they told me that no one ever died from lack of sleep. It was a relief to hear that. All my life, I thought there was something wrong with me because sometimes it took me an hour or more to fall asleep. I believed that if I did not get enough sleep, I would go insane and return to the locked ward. Dr. Low, who founded Recovery, Inc. for nervous people, explains in his book, Mental Health Through Will Training, that most who think they are awake all night actually sleep a great deal of the time.3 Patients who claimed they did not sleep a wink did not awakened when they were called by name, when water was thrown on their face, or even when they were pricked by needles.
I have noticed that some of my worst days occurred after a deep, sound sleep; conversely some of my best days took place when I felt as though I had not slept at all. A doctor who writes for a running magazine stated in his column that he enjoys being awake at night, for it gives him a chance to think. I thought not being able to sleep was just awful, yet he enjoyed being awake. Often times when I can't sleep I am planning my next day. The plans I had made while awake in the middle of the night actually solved problems the next day. Sometimes the middle of the night is good for thinking--it is quiet, and there are no distractions or responsibilities.
Having trouble sleeping when going through changes, especially those concerning our jobs or our relationships is normal and common. During periods of change, often the only time we have to get a perspective on our lives and plan our day-to-day activities is at night. In the daytime, we are too busy to think.
My panics occurred during the night not because I was not sleeping, but because I attached danger to not sleeping.
I used to think that I had to be elated all the time because you would not like me if I was down. My role as the class clown was to keep everyone laughing even if I was crying on the inside. Although I sometimes loved to hear laughter, it became a strain to always be responsible for making everyone happy. Later, my role expanded to include being responsible for entertaining everyone. In other words, if someone was bored, it was my fault. Keeping everyone around me happy and free of boredom was a totally unrealistic assignment. My belief system set me up for depression. We all have our hands full just making ourselves happy and excited. Many people are difficult to motivate. Coffee in huge quantities is the only thing that keeps many people moving through the day.
Whenever we experience a loss of something or someone important to us, we will normally experience grief. We will be sad, we will have self-doubt, we may be angry. All those feelings are normal and expected. Stuffing, hiding, and working around feelings requires a lot of energy.
Drinking covered up my feelings, especially the sad ones. A busy schedule and numerous activities also prevented me from admitting sad sensations; when constantly moving, I did not have time to feel.
I had to give up blaming God, my parents, my teachers, my neighbors, and my genes for life problems. I had to leave the past in the past. My resentments were keeping me down. At some point, I had to realize that all the people in my life did the best they could with what they had. I had to both understand and appreciate that many people did not have much to work with. My parents put all their energies into just providing the family with sheer necessities. They did not have the resources for family vacations or even for spending much time with me.
For a long time, I was convinced the nuns had caused all of my problems. I failed to see that it must have been hard to teach with almost no materials and with such large classes--one nun had to teach eighty-six students by herself all day. As a teacher, I felt put upon when my class size reached over twenty-five. Like my parents, the good sisters were doing the best they could with what they had.
Many times I have felt like, "Why me God?" Dear friends said, "Why not you? What makes you so special?" In reciting my list of problems, I was saying that I did not deserve to have car problems or to ever have appliances wear out. If I was alive, I would have problems. I was no different than anyone else on my street. At the beginning of sobriety, of course, I had more living problems--the backlog from my drinking years slapped me across the face. During my drinking years I did not take care of anything. It is amazing how well a car drives and how long it lasts when given regular maintenance. Today, my cars run way over 100,000 miles with almost no breakdowns. The money spent a little at a time on regular, routine maintenance is not even missed.
I had to accept myself and life as it was, before I could advance. I was good at blaming, good at noticing how much better someone else had it, angry at God for not making me smarter and more athletic. But when I did an honest inventory of myself, as required in the fourth step, I discovered I was well within normal, average ranges for intelligence and athletic ability. I had sought to be superior to everyone at everything. If I was smarter, I could have spent less time studying and more time drinking. Every day, I noticed how little time most college students spent on studying. I felt punished: everyone else was able to go play while I stayed in to do my homework. In truth, I aimed for high grades, my peers just went for gentlemen's "C's." Getting the highest grades always requires more effort than just earning "C's."
After many years sober, I figured out another resentment toward God: He did not give me movie-star looks. From my early teen years, I noticed that some guys got all the girls. Some guys treated the girls really nasty, yet many girls still would have crushes on them. Girls seem to tolerate rude and even violent behavior from good-looking guys.
I was just average-looking. However, I wanted only the most attractive and popular girls. My desire for the most popular girls set me up for rejection. Had I dropped my sights a little, my dating life would have been far less stressful. Part of my problem was trying to prove to everyone that I was OK. I was hung up on the idea that girls were the ultimate judge of a boy' s worth. If a guy had a good-looking girlfriend, then he must really be something. My friends put the best-looking girls on pedestals. Winning their love was like winning a trophy.
As I acquired more years of living experience, I found that being good-looking was not always the be all and end all to life. I saw many attractive males and females having all kinds of problems. One would think that all the movie stars and rock stars would never have any problems at all. Why did so many attempt suicide or have to use so many drugs? Most of all, why did anyone ever divorce them? I also saw that many guys who had the girls chasing them ended up with complicated lives. Many ended up in great debt because of failed marriages and numerous kids.
In AA they said that I had to get a Higher Power (HP) and that it could not be me. God knows the future and the purpose for suffering--I do not. After examining my life, I appreciated my pain because it was necessary for my total development. The worst experience in my life was being locked away in a mental ward as a young adult. However, that dreadful experience motivated me to use the Twelve Step programs. Somehow even with a foggy brain, I understood that the steps were the answer to all my mental problems. For years I hated God for putting me on a locked ward. Today I see that my HP had reasons. Movie star, Bruce Willis, said as much, "I don't play the regret game. Because how do you know the thing you're regretting isn't the thing that led you to something great?"
When I did an inventory with my second sponsor, I came face to face with my inner child from the past. As a small child, I was made to feel that if I was not good, no one would love me. My mother made me feel her love was conditional. It depended upon whether or not I was behaving well. Her love was also based upon a high level of performance--a level I never seemed to reach. When my behavior or performance did not satisfy my mother, I felt as though she did not love me. A child depends on a mother for everything. For a child the idea of losing your mother's love if you do not perform well enough is frightening. Once, to manipulate me into good behavior, my mother pretended to call an orphanage to take me away. My mother's action terrified me. After that, I figured she really would send me away if I did not act right. So it was overwhelming when I failed to meet her expectations, especially when she demanded I speak correctly despite my speech defect. No matter how hard I tried, I still failed to speak clearly, whereupon she said, "James, you are just being stubborn."
Looking back at these hurtful experiences and sharing them with others stopped me from being controlled by them. My sponsor opened the door to my understanding of these feelings. Meetings of ACOA, as described earlier, demonstrated to me that I was not alone. With the help of the people, I was able to see that this feeling of being unlovable was not rooted in reality; rather it was from my distant past. These feelings are called feelings of abandonment in the ACOA meetings.
The AA program proved to me that I never have to be alone anymore. I say that at every meeting that has newcomers. That idea is a powerful promise. A passage in the AA literature says all of us can be happy even if we do not find that one special love. Seeing living examples of this principle impressed me far more than reading about them. One of the men who helped me with this belief could not read or even match his clothes. He was just a dishwasher. Yet he had a full life. Many people, myself included, are probably alive today because of his influence. He took charge of the oldest AA club house in the area. Living a simple life, he saved his money; then used his savings to fly to AA conferences around the United States. At the conferences he set up his own hospitality room, complete with free coffee. Hundreds around the country loved him. His friendships were probably stronger and deeper than most successful executives ever experience in their board rooms or country clubs. Moreover, this humble, uneducated man had done what had always been in my heart--he made the world a better place. I wish I could have half as much happiness as that dishwasher. He led a full life, yet he was not much to look at with his mismatched clothes and bushy hair growing out of his ears and nose. Although my friend looked like a bum, I know that the world is a better place because he lived. Many of the smooth-talking guys whom I have looked up to did absolutely nothing for the world.
I spent a good part of my life making myself feel inferior by comparing my insides to the outsides of others. The attitudes of smooth-talking people convinced me they had everything together. We can not know what goes on in someone's else's head or in their homes. As time rolled along, bankruptcy, divorce, tax evasion, or child abuse appeared in some of these confident people's lives. Even some of the rich and famous have died penniless and alone. I just looked at small parts of other's lives. I lacked a total view. Some of the school's popular athletes were good in sports, but not so good in studies, so they could not get into college. The unpopular nerdy guys in high school, all ended up with college degrees and excellent careers.
I was taught a profound lesson from the Big Book's description of working the fourth step. After we are conned into listing our resentments (which is the most natural thing in the world for an alcoholic to do) the book says: "This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend."
Once, when I was complaining at a meeting about my wife, a friend said, "Jim you have a lot of compassion for alcoholics, why don't you give your wife some compassion?" I accepted negative qualities in my peers in the program, but I demanded far higher standards from my wife. I had different expectations for people not in Twelve Step programs. I cynically called them "Earth people." I wanted the highest level of behavior for anyone who had power over me, especially my boss. Authority figures have always brought out my worst emotions.
Henry David Thoreau once said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. These desperate people are seldom ever noticed. They muddle along and do the best that they can. In contrast, when I am hurting, I complain or pout by going into a depression. Many male alcoholics get drunk and get into fights. We are not long in suffering.
We are suffering, inferior beings. We have some good, healthy periods. But we also experience times when we need help. We all have our emotional quarks and deficiencies. Some people need a Twelve Step program, but others may need a different approach to put their lives in order.
Many get a day in the sun. However, sooner or later, nearly everyone experiences major life problems. Today, as I write this, about 50% of marriages are ending in divorce. The average family owes over $8,000 in credit card bills. Almost 40% of Americans are way overweight; hence it is just a matter of time until they start suffering from heart problems, back aches, and other health problems highly correlated with excessive weight. Nearly half of all Americans suffer from insomnia. The most widely used medicines are antidepressants. These numbers are good evidence that even today most people lead lives of quiet desperation. You and I are not the only people who are not perfect.
"And our problems were of our making. Bottles were only a symbol." I appreciate the wisdom of this statement from the Big Book more and more each year. My booze and drugs symbolized a retreat from the cares and worries of the world. For a while with the right combination and tempo of taking chemicals, I traveled to a land free of worries, problems, and responsibilities. After laying down the drugs, I picked up other addictions. During my years of competition, I thought of judo almost every minute of every day. I planned my daily life around training for judo tournaments. In the judo dojo, I had to only worry about the person I was fighting. Jogging was also great. I thought my running carried me to a higher plane, proven with a low pulse rate, low cholesterol level, and a trim belly. Jogging gave me the reserve to handle physical emergencies. However, all my physical training kept me from facing responsibilities. Today, I enter this care-free world by reading hundreds of books. I justify my extensive reading by thinking that I am not taking anything away from the family since I obtain all the books from libraries for free. Although these activities contain some virtue, they can lead me to an unbalanced life, one with no responsibilities and limited social contact.
I need to diligently search my life for diversions that seduce me to a land devoid of responsibility. The activities I use to escape for a break today are not bad in themselves. A problem develops when my life becomes unbalanced for long periods. Knowing my tendency to run away, I need to examine my life when I get too attached to my own little world or the outcome of my activities. I used to act as if the world really would stop turning on its axis if I did not finish the book I was reading.
Accepting that my problems were of my own making was hard to swallow. For many years before and after coming to AA, I rationalized that my parents, teachers, and the town I grew up in had caused all my problems. I believed that if you had walked in my shoes you would drink too.
I create almost all of my suffering with my thinking. Like most Americans, I have assumed that as soon as I get things like good cars, computers, books, clothes, and tools; then I will be OK. Great accomplishment was also an answer. I daydreamed of setting fitness records, of becoming a judo black belt, of finishing a marathon, and of graduating with honors. Every time I achieved those goals, I still was not completely happy. I merely looked for higher mountains to climb. My beliefs were illusions. Happiness is not found in things or accomplishments; it must come from within.
Much of the hurt I feel from other people arises from my expectations. I expect them to praise me, but they ignore me. Sometimes these expectations are products of my thinking. I used to admire my science teachers. They seemed to know all about everything. So I assumed that if I really studied hard in college, then everyone would respect me, just as I admired my science teachers. After achieving outstanding grades in all my college science courses, I was crushed when my middle school students did not care what I knew and could care less about the world around them. Maybe they were immature and rude, but I would not have been so upset if I had not expected them to have the same values as I did.
I often wonder why rich people have any problems. Almost every month rock stars go through unbelievable pain with break-ups, divorces, drug overdoses, arrests, or suicides. Rock stars have unlimited amounts of money. Armies of beautiful young girls are trying to get them into bed. Tens of thousands of fans cheer them. I witnessed how much they are worshipped at Woodstock 99; over two hundred thousand fans gave their total attention to the performers on stage. With all of that acclaim, how could a rock star every commit suicide? Why would they every need to take drugs? The suffering of the superrich show me that money, possessions, fame, and accomplishments do not guarantee happiness.
A further discussion of this topic is found in the section "Strive for Humility."
I can never be sad
Poor me, look what they did
God dealt me a raw deal
I am all alone and unlovable
Other people are perfect
My only problem is the booze