Phil Fox Rose » Sobriety

What Works: Nonnegotiables

Phil Fox Rose — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:00:35 +0000

I know where I’ll be every Monday and Tuesday evening, and on Sunday mornings. And I know what I’ll be doing first thing every day. This is in stark contrast to a half dozen years ago. Then, the only thing you could count on from me was that I’d probably be alone in my apartment, though I probably wouldn’t answer the phone. I had no regular weekly commitments. Not a one. When I was invited to social events, I didn’t RSVP; I’d just show up or not — that way I could decide at the last minute. My decision was usually no. This change happened gradually, but it is the result of two large events — renewed sobriety and a radical deepening of my spiritual life — and one simple tool that I learned along the way: making commitments nonnegotiable.

Being unwaveringly faithful to commitments is seen today as quaint, almost anachronistic. Obedience and discipline are not very popular words. I want you to consider increasing the number of commitments in your life. Having nonnegotiable appointments gives life structure, gives you comfort, reduces anxiety, raises the esteem in which you’re held, and simply makes life easier to manage. It also guarantees you do some things that are good for you that might not otherwise get done.

Our society tells us we can have, and should want to have, whatever we want whenever we want it. We’re told that “The Man” — our boss, parents, religion, government — wants to limit us, and that the true American spirit, the true “modern” spirit, is “free.” We might nominally remain members of families, companies, communities and religions, but don’t tell us we have to do something we don’t agree with or we shed those obligations in a flash.

But that rugged-individualist freedom is an illusion. It exists in denial of the fact that there are trade-offs when choices are made, that we can’t just do whatever we want whenever we want without consequences. We want no commitments and no consequences. But as Scott Peck says in The Road Less Travelled:

Balancing is a discipline precisely because the act of giving something up is painful.

We all struggle with commitments — going to the gym, our diet, meditating daily, staying sober. We did them all faithfully at first. Some we abandoned in weeks or months. Others we continue, but feel as if we’re fighting ourselves to do the right thing.

Getting started with nonnegotiables:

Sit down with a piece of paper and make a list of regular appointments that are already, or could be, nonnegotiable — such as a religious service, meditation, recovery meetings, regular cultural activity, some kind of spiritual group.
For each one, ask yourself: “Is this important enough to me that I am willing to commit to making this a nonnegotiable event in my life, to do it every time, whether I feel like it or not, to simply not consider any other events that conflict with it?”
Looking at those you’ve answered ‘yes’ to above, ask yourself if the total is a realistic goal, or just wishful thinking. Use your own discretion but I suggest committing in this way to no more than four to six items.
If you keep a paper or computer-based calendar, place these items in the calendar. (In my column on task management, I describe coding my calendar as things that are nonnegotiable commitments, and things that aren’t.)
Now, for at least the next 40 days, treat these calendar items and any daily commitments you’ve made such as morning meditation, as nonnegotiable. If something “better” comes along, simply say you’re unavailable. If you don’t feel like doing it, do it anyway.
If you find yourself struggling with this process in general or with one specific item on the list, pray to better know the fruits of the Holy Spirit of self-control and faithfulness to aid you in fulfilling your commitment. (This is not for a lifetime; you can spend 40 days getting used to the new pattern before making any decisions.)
After 40 days, reevaluate whether you may have mislabeled one or more of these commitments. The point here is not to be rigid. The point is to not treat these appointments as if they’re negotiable every time.
Enjoy being comforted and fortified by your routine. Earn esteem by being consistent. Be freed of the anxiety of deciding week after week whether to do these things, and of the guilt you would have felt if you’d skipped them. And get some good things done.

Other What Works columns referenced:

I’ve often said that in my recovery, I used to have one foot out the door in my head. I was there, but I wasn’t really a member of the club. I might have looked like I was fully committed, but on a deeper level I knew it was provisional for me. That’s why many well-meaning New Year’s resolutions fail. The commitment isn’t really that deep.

Making things nonnegotiable

Don’t audit life. I want to encourage you to make a few things nonnegotiable — things that take some willingness and effort and have benefits that aren’t instant. I’ll give you a few examples:

Daily prayer and meditation — it’s so easy to check email or turn on the TV and blow right past that moment of willingness first thing.
Religious service every week — we know once we get there we’ll see friends and be inspired, but to leave the house can seem almost insurmountable.
A weekly spiritually enriching group — meditation class, yoga, Bible study: pick something you want to do, but don’t manage to fit in consistently.
A culturally enriching activity — in The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron prescribes preplanned artist dates with yourself — two hours a week for a museum, show, hike in nature, stroll and dinner in a new neighborhood. Consider buying the subscription, not just individual tickets, to a local classical concert series.
If you are in recovery, don’t just drop in at various meetings; choose a “home group,” get a commitment there, show up early every week and starting planting roots.

A friend said to me the other day, when I mentioned I’d be writing about making things nonnegotiable, “Yes, well the hard part is deciding to make something nonnegotiable.” That’s right. It should be a difficult decision. I’m not saying you should do it lightly. You don’t want to commit to something that isn’t that important to you. Or overcommit at a level that’s stressful or unsustainable.

In our age of instant gratification and rebellion against authority, our first reaction can be a childish internal whine of, “Do I have to?” The crazy thing (and I use that word advisedly) is that we know it is good for us — we know that we will be happier in the long run if we do it. So, how do we make ourselves do it now, for that future benefit?

The antidote is simple

The answer, to use Scott Peck’s word, is discipline.

I’m not talking about self-righteously living a tightly controlled life — “an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety” (Colossians 2:23) — no, I’m talking about the maturity to discern and follow our internal compass, relying on the fruits of the Holy Spirit of self-control and faithfulness (Galatians 5:22-23).

When we avoid committing ourselves to things, we end up with too much freedom . So the antidote is surprisingly simple: take away some of our own freedom. Making a few things nonnegotiable with guidance from the Holy Spirit, rooted in an authentic willingness, is totally different from begrudging obedience to an external rule. When the moment of action comes, there is no internal debate, feeling oppressed or procrastinating till it’s too late. We just do it.

That willingness can falter, of course. A few summers ago, I embraced the lax summer vibe at my parish and took the “nonnegotiable” status off morning mass. Then sometimes an event would conflict with evening mass and I’d say, well, I’ll catch a mass during the week… and forget. Next thing I knew, I realized in shock that I hadn’t been to mass in a month. Within weeks, my impulses had sidelined a key part of my spiritual life. We need structure from our faith community and support from the Holy Spirit. We can’t do this alone.

I have several nonnegotiables in my weekly routine, blocked out on my calendar. Barring a genuine and extremely important conflict, no matter what “better” offer comes along, whether I feel like it or not, whether I feel well or not — unless I’m contagious or really too sick to get out of bed — I am there. (Some people have jobs that require them to shift their schedules around, and I understand that, though I’m not sure I would accept such a job.)

This structure, this discipline, frames my week. I know where I’ll be on those days. And people can count on my being there. It creates consistency, which is an estimable trait. It’s hard to explain why the experience of consistency is so good. It’s a somewhat mystical phenomenon. The simple experiential truth for me is that the way I used to live — treating all commitments as provisional, not wanting people to count on me so I wouldn’t let them down — was disconnected, adrift. Now, being in the same places and seeing the same people each week, with a variety of commitments for which others can count on me, is comforting and fortifying. It grounds me in my faith community, my wider world, and God.

I encourage you to try the suggestions in the sidebar on the right. Have you struggled with maintaining nonnegotiables in your life? Have you experienced feeling fortified by them? Share your thoughts, opinions and experience below in a comment, or by email at phil AT bustedhalo DOT com .

What Works: My “aughts” weren’t awful, they were awesome

Phil Fox Rose — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:00:33 +0000

Fra Angelico's The Conversion of St. Augustine (my patron saint)

I’ve been taken aback these last few weeks by all the retrospectives and their universal declaration that the “aughts” were an awful decade. Objectively, it’s hard to argue as they trot out disaster after disaster, setback after setback. And when pressed, I recall that as the decade began I had a six-figure salary at a high-flying dot-com, millions to come with the genuinely likely public offering, and a beautiful girlfriend. I had none of those things within a few years. But I need to be reminded of the losses and setbacks and derailed career, because my perception of the story line of the decade is entirely different. For me the aughts weren’t awful; they were awesome.

You see, for me the key events of the decade are: reclaiming my sobriety, my conversion and baptism, and feeling and answering the call to return to writing, with a new focus on spiritual work. The past decade has in many ways been the most joyous of my life. It has been a period of spiritual growth, of expanding community, and of a radically increased sense of usefulness and purpose.

There’s an obvious connection here. As I said in my column, “Losing your footing and finding the ground“, losing the material things that define our lives can shake us into adjusting our focus, our priorities.

But mine is not a neat and tidy conversion story of: “My life was pointless and painful, then I found God, and now everything is rosy.” For me, the life stripped away by the dot-com bubble burst and 9/11 did matter and, in many ways, was good. I looked forward to going to work every morning and figuring out how to bring more music into people’s lives. My work was both creative and challenging. I lost a good thing. And the same was certainly true of my relationship.

Once was lost but now am found

There is a different conversion story arc that does apply: the one found in the Luke 15 parables of the Prodigal Son — “this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” — and the lost sheep — “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost” — and in Psalm 119, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep.” Or as it’s rendered in “Amazing Grace”:

I once was lost but now am found.
Was blind, but now I see.

A frequent metaphor in both Christian and Hebrew scripture is the path or way, straying from the path, losing one’s way. The Hebrew word “shub,” often translated as repent, literally means to return. “Convert” comes from the Latin, meaning to turn around. Our internal compass knows which direction leads home; we need to decide to follow it.

Or clear our vision so we can see it. Throughout the mystical literature of many different traditions, you find the metaphors of being asleep or dead or blind, and the potential of awakening or being reborn or seeing. I have spent much of my life sleepwalking, not fully alive, lost, so to speak. Wonderful gifts have come and gone, and I’ve enjoyed them, and I’ve mostly been good to others. But it was all through a haze of disconnection. In the 00′s, I woke up; I reconnected; I found God and myself; and through this I became a new person; I was reborn.

It’s not that I never sensed the divine before that. As I’ve recounted before in bits and pieces, I have been practicing Centering Prayer since the early 90s; I’ve been a regular member of a Christian church since before that, a lay leader even; I’ve stood in awe of the divine in nature — the fragile warbler and the overwhelming redwood, the otherworldly octopus and the common housecat. But these were glimpses.

What I lacked then was a regular sense of connection, communion, a sense of groundedness. I feel alive now, and I experience the connectedness as love — the sense that no matter what happens, the world is ultimately driven by Love and that we’re all connected through this love, to one another and to God.

Choosing what matters

Now this is where it gets tricky. Because in a sense, what I’m saying is that if you choose to see the world as good, it will be good for you, and if you choose to see it as bad, it will be bad for you. I’ve encouraged you here before to turn off the news. This is not denial. It’s choosing what to focus on. Watching the news is letting someone else tell you what matters.

This is what matters to me: friends and loved ones; people I am helping stay sober and others to whom I’m giving spiritual counsel one-on-one or through writing; cultivating love and beauty in my life through connections with people and nature and quiet contemplation; the Centering Prayer group I lead; you, dear readers; and all the myriad ups and downs of daily life — mine and my friends’ — what Ani DiFranco once described as “the quaint tragedies we invent and then undo, the stupid circumstances we slalom through.”

My New Year’s challenges to you

So, here’s my first New Year’s challenge to you: Make your own day, week, year and decade — and, ultimately, life. Don’t let other people tell you that you should be unhappy. To hell with them, because that’s where they already are. Milton said in Paradise Lost:

“The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”

We are surrounded by people who are choosing to be miserable. And who will tell you why you should be too. Ignore them.

And don’t listen when people tell you that you should be happy either. If there’s a tragedy in your life, by all means mourn; let go at your own speed. If there’s an injustice in your world, work to right it. If you experience a dark night of the soul, don’t cover it up with platitudes, work through it to deepen your faith. Just don’t let these things define you. Honor them, and then turn your attention to ways you can be useful and enhance your connection to God.

And that’s the underlying challenge that will inform the first, and make it easy: Enhance your connection with God. Instead of chasing after symptoms, go to the root. In the year ahead, explore new ways to bring yourself into closer union with God — whether it be through contemplation or working with others; in your faith community, at your workplace, with friends, within your family or in solitude. Whatever and wherever, look for new ways to quiet the clamors of the material world and focus on what really matters: Love.

Happy New Year, readers. Let’s make the decade to come awesome, for each of us individually and for the world!

What Works: Spiritual Recovery

Phil Fox Rose — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:30:06 +0000

If you are an alcoholic or addict, being spiritually unfit can be fatal. If not literally fatal then, as in my case, a living death — one definition of Hell is being alive and active in this world, feeling separated from God. And I spent years there. But today I live — and have for some time now — free, awake, fully alive, vital.

My earlier What Works column on alcoholism and addiction focused on self-diagnosis, and I could easily explain my own alcoholism by pointing to genetics and circumstances; but the root cause is spiritual — that God-shaped hole, that feeling of brokenness and alienation I was trying to assuage. I’ve met other alcoholics who had no obvious “causes” but I think we all share a spiritual longing.

Carl Jung wrote, to Alcoholics Anonymous cofounder Bill Wilson, that “craving for alcohol” is “the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness,” famously concluding the letter “spiritus contra spiritum” — the Spirit against alcohol.

As I said about not getting enough sleep, when you don’t feel connected to God, it’s easy to slip into irritability. A more accurate word is probably “sullenness.” And, if you’ll forgive a moment of word-nerdiness, “sullen” comes from the same root as “solo” and originally meant “alone.” How fitting, because that’s really what’s going on — you feel alone in the universe.

Recovery is not self-help

Let me be as clear as possible here: Recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction is not about self-help. The solution is not to gain knowledge and strength and willpower so you can beat it. As I’ve said before, it’s not even to admit you have a problem. Recovery is about recognizing that, alone, you are powerless to solve the problem. To receive the grace you need to recover, you must admit you need help from something greater than yourself.

Maintenance of your spiritual condition

Here are some spiritual tools you can use to stay connected to God day to day. Next to each of the six items, I suggest specific practices. But of course, you should find what works for you. By having these six areas covered, you can devote far less energy to struggling to maintain your spiritual condition. Of course, you will slip up. It’s just like exercise: You know it’s good for you. You know you’ll feel better. But you don’t always do it. I hope you find something useful here.

Daily morning prayers — some fixed prayers to frame the day: the Serenity Prayer; the Lord’s Prayer; “Lord, I pray that I be of maximum usefulness to you and my fellows throughout this day, and that I find it easy to take the next right actions” — and a free-form period: briefly recall yesterdays achievements and events and thank God; briefly consider today’s events and ask for guidance and wisdom to make the best of what lies ahead; pray for spiritual guides, past and present, for those to whom you give guidance or support, and for anyone in your life facing a challenge.
Daily meditation — See my earlier column on meditation.
Daily spiritual reading — Daily readers, Scripture, or other spiritual books. The practice of following prayer and meditation with some careful spiritual reading is powerful. It grounds your day. And sometimes it triggers contemplation that leads to breakthroughs and insights that are life-changing. Be a student in our spiritual journey.
Throughout the day — Use various tools and techniques to maintain or restore serenity — meditation; the Welcoming Prayer; counting to ten; praying the Rosary — there are dozens of useful tools for this.
Regular recovery-focused group work — Opinions vary on frequency, but regular and frequent is the rule, not the exception. It is the experience of millions that A.A. is the most effective approach and A.A. meetings are available nearly everywhere. Other options include Rick Warren’s Celebrate Recovery and the Jewish organization, JACS.
Before bed — Review the day, letting go of any residue of bad feelings. Two methods for this are the 11th Step of 12 Step programs and the Ignatian Examen of Consciousness — which are strikingly similar.

The problem is spiritual, and so is the answer. This is why sobriety, or at least a happy sober life, depends on looking after your spiritual health. You don’t drink because you’re irritable; you drink because you’re an alcoholic. But without the serenity that awareness and connectedness bring, alcohol or drugs can start looking like a good answer again.

I’ve seen countless souls struggle to stay sober with just their own willpower. Some fight through until grace comes. Some relapse again and again. Some give up and never make it back.

So, to stay sober you stay connected to God and other people. As much as possible, that is. Because we all slip back into disconnectedness and the illusion of control. Addiction is a stark example of self-will, but all people struggle with self-will and attachment, with expectations and resentments. That’s why addiction is often used as a metaphor for the struggle of life.

Many people lead lives of quiet desperation, trying to fill the God-shaped hole and cover the pain with shopping, eating, and a million distractions. But addicts and alcoholics are physically predisposed to escape or numb themselves in ways that go directly into a downward spiral of self-destruction. My last few years before sobriety, life was little more than an isolated routine of coming to, muddling around in the apartment, watching TV, and mixing alcohol, Vicodin and Ambien to make things fuzzy until I passed out. Talk about sleepwalking through life.

Let go and let God

Jesus said: “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38) He was quoting Hebrew Scripture, Deuteronomy 6:5. In even simpler terms, “Trust God.”

But, of course, we resist depending on God, don’t we? The serpent said to Eve: “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God”. (Genesis 3:5) Pride. We try, again and again, to play God; we try to manage the world, our own destiny, other people.

The thing is, once you dedicate yourself to figuring out life without God, you find yourself smack dab in self-centered fear. Suddenly, managing the universe is your problem, and you know you’re not up to the task. My biggest trigger used to be trying to control what everyone thought of me. (I can still go there sometimes.)

Notice whenever life feels unmanageable. You’ll probably find it’s when you think you have to solve something on your own. How often we cause suffering by not accepting the way things are.

Spiritual tools

“Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today,” is the opening line of one of the most popular passages in recovery literature. What a challenge! To simply accept that things are the way they are. Could they be changed? Perhaps. Improved? It’s possible. But right in this moment, things are the way they are. To find acceptance of this is tremendous freedom and tremendous relief. This is why I am such a strong advocate of meditation. Meditation created the opening that began my journey toward greater authenticity. It continues to be a guide along the way, daily practice in detachment and acceptance.

The therapeutic and medical communities dissect the psychological and physiological aspects of addiction but often neglect or even deny the spiritual component. Self-help gurus say you can beat this addiction or that by learning their secrets. But the most helpful resource on the spiritual dimension of recovery remains A.A.’s foundational book, Alcoholics Anonymous (usually called the Big Book.) When it was written in the 1930s, A.A. was more single-minded in its view that recovery was a spiritual project. That approach is outlined in the book and still practiced by many in A.A.

The sidebar at right lists some spiritual tools to support sobriety. I hope you find something useful there.

Caveat addictus

I want to make something absolutely clear before I close. A spiritual practice alone, without work specifically for addiction, is problematic. Worse, it’s all too easy for addicts and alcoholics to convince themselves they’re covered through meditation or church attendance. Not likely. After years of sobriety, as lay leader of my congregation, I started drinking wine at potlucks before Bible study! I’d forgotten I was an alcoholic and simply cannot drink safely — no matter how spiritual I may think I am.

What are your experiences at the crossroads of recovery and spirituality? How has your spiritual practice informed your understanding of, or struggles with, alcoholism and addiction? Email me at phil at bustedhalo.com or comment below.