The Price of Admission
I hit rock bottom when I decided to stop digging.
A frequent phase I hear from my sponsor's sponsor is "the price of admission". There is a lot of talk among addicts in recovery about being "qualified to be here." That is, qualified to be present in a meeting. In AA, the only qualification of membership is a desire to stop drinking (or to stop your addictive behavior).
Now, why would that be a qualification? Well, it's pretty hard to stop something that you don't want to stop.
In the "How it Works" section of the Big Book, we read the following:
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
What I get from that is that if I develop/maintain "a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty", then I have a chance at success in the program. If I choose not to have a lifestyle that demands rigorous honesty or if I slack in that regard, my chance will be "less than average", to none.
There is a phrase my sponsor shared with me that has been passed down. I remember my first meeting with him a few years ago. Sitting across from him at a sushi place, he told me his heart-wrenching and inspiring story of addiction and the path of recovery he now enjoys. I wanted what he had. I was hurting, and destitute of joy. My soul was starved.
He said (and I have since made this my own): "I have a series of actions that I take daily, regardless of how I feel, that helps me stay spiritually fit and metabolize my emotions of stress, trauma, shame and grief."
What does it take to seriously develop this series of actions and commit to it? What does it take to follow it? That is an individual battle, but one that need not be fought alone. The series of actions changes over time, but it is "what it takes" to be spiritually fit. It is what it takes to feed my soul. My soul must be wowed every day, to the point that my addiction looks like a joke. I have to live that way if I want to stay free from my addiction to lust and porn.
My sponsor said that one day I'd be able to say I'm grateful for my addiction. Well, today I am grateful for it. I am grateful for the realization, the admission that I need to live in such a way of self-awareness, and self-care. That, for me, is life or death.
There is such thing as "the drinking that got me sober". Relapse is part of recovery. The pain is part and parcel. If someone is not ready now, they will get there, because addiction is a progressive dis-ease, that worsens over time. One day the pain of the problem will be greater than the pain of the solution.
As my sponsor's sponsor says to one not quite there yet, "I hope it hurts. Come back to me when it hurts bad enough." This is not to say that fellowship or accountability has no place for one who is not quite there yet, by any means. But, some need a push. Some need more "field research" before they are ready. "Yup, the addiction still sucks...yup it's still painful." That is the price of admission.
The following story introduces that painful price of what it might take for one addict to begin the road to recovery. Previously published, it is inspired by a true account of a dear friend of mine.
Before I share it, I want to point out that it quotes some lines from Shakespeare's Macbeth. I would like to share the entire soliloquy, because for me, it demonstrates that practically lifeless state that I need a reminder of, in order to continue to seek recovery. My greatest fear is to be indifferent and to not know that I am indifferent. As long as I'm caring, as long as I'm trying, as long as I'm aware, I'm in the game.
Macbeth's soliloquy really captures the despair of being “checked-out” of life:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
By Elias Orrego
There was too much pink in the sky for the anniversary of a death. At least there were clouds, and at least there was fog. And it had started to snow.
“There should have been a time for such a word as this. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow...” echoed in her memory.
Tomorrow would be the day, they swore, under the influence of maniacal means. Tomorrow would be the day they’d give up this paralyzing life.
“Seriously, we’re like adults now,” Agatha said. “Meghan is like a young girl now. What is she, like five?”
Meghan was sleeping upstairs. Hopefully. Probably. Not. Who knew? The two drunk, drugged adults in the house didn’t. Out of sight, almost out of mind.
“Six, nearly seven,” Erinne responded in half-intoxicated laughter, giving a playful push to her older sister. “You’re a good auntie, but you forget birthdays and stuff,” she slurred. They both laughed.
Their husbands had both left them around the same time the year before, and they moved in together and reverted. High school all over, except one of them had a daughter, and they both had money and real things to actually complain about. Real feelings to actually repress. Pity party. Emphasis on the party. It was pitiful, Erinne remembered in painful, nostalgic disgust. She bent over and brushed off the fluffy, wet snow that had collected on the top of the tombstone in the 10 minutes or so she’d been standing at her sister’s grave. The pink was gone from the sky now. The sun was going twilight behind the tall dark trees that always surround a cemetery.
“No! Sleep! Till Brooklyn!” As piercing and annoying as the Beastie Boys themselves, the two party animals shout-sang. Evenings with a sleeping child, after a long day of feeling sorry for themselves, frequently turned their living room into a cheap karaoke bar of their very own.
Into the night, and sometimes the rising sun, that apartment was a place where the forgotten of the earth could come in and forget their own woes. Like the racoons Meghan and Agatha left dog food out for, men and women looking for more, but wanting the handout, came in for a drink or a smoke, or a kick.
Marijuana didn’t really count as a drug problem. Seriously, it was practically a spiritual incense they burned through while huddled around Nirvana, playing out the boom box. But with those kicks—powderkeg candy for the adventurous adult—they knew they were crossing some sort of line. The deep river, the neighbor’s backyard, acting class and asking out guys. For better or for worse, sisters had always pushed each other past limits; it was like part of their job.
Erinne reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a tiny pink paper crane, placed it on the grave, and rested her hand beside it. As she stood up a tear dropped and disappeared into the snow, now piling up around her feet.
“So I was reading—” She remembered her sister say one night, she’ll never forget.
“Wait, what? You? Reading?” Erinne teased.
“Shhh. Stop!” She clumsily pressed a finger to Erinne’s disbelieving lips. “Hey, I read! So, I was reading that origami book that Meg brought home from school.” Her eyes widened and glistened with that contagious enthusiasm she would get while onstage, as a teenager. “It says the paper cranes are a symbol of hope in Japan or something like that.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that. I thought it was a thousand or something.”
“No, if you make a thousand, you get a miracle. But they are all good luck. I mean, hope.” Agatha stretched her arm across her sister’s lap to the small bookshelf that sat beside the couch. She picked up the large book and shook it, as she pulled it toward herself. It made that flapping sound that soft-cover books make when you shake them. She held it up in the air, breathing in and beaming a hopeful grin, and then she smacked it down on the glass coffee table in front of the couch.
“Whoa!” Erinne laughed.
“We’re gonna figure out... how to make these, tonight!” And she grabbed the little pink paper wrapping from their party favor drugs.
It became their new tradition. Their special treat. They would drug as usual, but then, they would fold, and they would hope. With each careful crease, each wing and head and tail they formed from those wretched wrappers, they had a little bit more hope.
“Tomorrow…”
Erinne stared down at the tiny paper bird on the stone, till she could see nothing but white.
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