Willing To Go To Any Lengths
 

The Length of a Step: 

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I’m willing to go any length 

Line breaks until I break. I will 

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stand outside in line all night for this

Lyin’ longer and longer lies with 

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too much pride - lion. King 

Addiction, my vision’s scarred 

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Might stomp a mufasa 

incite a fight 

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lose a job, rob 

start a mob 

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going any length 

Watch me 

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in feature-length edition 

The director’s cut 

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and I am hemorrhaging 

money, losing color, bleeding 

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together with you. No bandage 

on hand can relieve me from the bondage 

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of self. Credit cards maxed out 

questioning my statements 

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So withdrawn 

Now a loan 

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Stole from Bofa myself and my Ally’s

Checks bounced from too much 

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banking on self with insufficient fund

amental life strategies and

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pursuit of - the Chase of 

making her my Capital One

I’m willing to go any length any ways

staying in pain for any width of time 

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to the depths of despair. Height

ened states of depression/anxiety 

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Geometry of my confusion

 area of abyss beneath the surface where 

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I’m screaming screaming screaming

for the right angle

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but there’s no volume. Twisted

prisms and trapezoids, circumference of widening gyres

 

Lord willin’. I’m willin’ 

I’m willin’. Lord willin’ - who’s willin’ 

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I’m willing to change

you first before I change 

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I’m willing to go to therapy to fix relationships

with secret mistresses 

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I’m willing to risk it all 

even if I don’t have anything else left 

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I’m willing to willing to willing to

wheel myself to these 

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ultimate outcomes: “insanity” , “deathbed”

Funny – those 4 words are all the same length too: 8 letters

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as in: letters unsent, life unaddressed

messages that I could not deliver 

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that ate me, the guilt, consuming me after I’d gone

postal in the system from life’s UPS and downs 

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generating joules of wasted energy. But 

it’s the length of a step that converts 

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lost power into jewels of serenity. So 

quick to a sponsor like NASCAR. Tirelessly

and ceaselessly praying away my

addiction’s unceasing preying. So 

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happy, joyous, and free 

I now have a pep, boy 

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because of the drive to service

What is the length of a step 

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It’s any measures taken 

against this addiction

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- Jeremy W.

 

Willing to Take Contrary Action, One Day at a Time

Anonymous

 

“Does ‘Willing to Go to Any Lengths’ sound daunting? Then try contrary action today!”

 

Jokes aside—we are interested in upholding the twelve traditions in SLAA, so I would rather practice attraction than promotion, suggested by this piece’s title—I strongly suggest working a Program of contrary action to sponsees and others who come to me asking for help in SLAA. One of the reasons the twelve steps work for me—if I work them—is that they don’t just work on the obvious symptoms of my addiction. Instead, they work on all areas of my life. And really, that’s what I need to live a sober life, however imperfectly.

 

To me, sobriety doesn’t just mean not acting out on my bottom lines, though that is surely

critical. Sobriety means having the willingness to do things differently, however much

discomfort I worry I will feel doing contrary action, with support. That means being willing to

practice the five S’s in the SLAA Preamble: Sobriety, Sponsorship/Meetings, Steps, Service, and

Spirituality—and most importantly, not practicing them alone.

 

The way I’ve learned to work SLAA requires the use of other people, including my sponsor, and

other tools that help me get out of my own head. Like many addicts, I struggle with self-reliance

in my head and overreliance on others in different areas of my life. Both, to me, are about self-

centeredness, wanting others to serve me and my interests, rather than me serving others and

my Higher Power.

 

When I was working step five, my sponsor said, “Step six is going to be hard for you.” Step six is

where we become “entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character,” and my

issues and shortcomings were practically engrained in everything I did. Self-righteousness?

Good God, did I have that. Always needing validation for my accomplishments? Every meeting

was a testament to that. Arrogance? Oh, wow, my tendencies of egomania-with-an-inferiority-

complex were out of control.

 

In step six, my sponsor introduced two related ideas that altered my concept of what I was

capable of: “acting as if” and contrary action. My sponsor made it clear that we become willing

to have God remove our defects of character through acting like we are embodying our defects’

opposites. So, I worked on listening instead of correcting people all the time, right sizing my

expectations to lessen resentments, mentioning accomplishments once instead of hitting

people over the head with them at every opportunity, and other measures that took a lot of

Practice.

 

These practices were a big reason why I’ve called step six in this Program the first “game-

changer” step for me. I knew I was powerless, and I knew I had issues that needed help—doing

something about them was another matter entirely, as the AA “Big Book” reminds us that self-

knowledge alone avails us nothing. I had boatloads of self-knowledge, but no knowledge of how

to change them. Working with my sponsor and being willing to go to any lengths to live a

a different life enabled those changes.

 

Today, I would like to think I am still willing to go to any lengths to further my recovery, but my

challenges are different—sometimes. My defects can still pop up, but I’m able to correct

myself, make amends, and check in with others about how I’m feeling. I am still really hard on

myself for the recovery I would like to have made perfect by now. However, I know that I have

made a lot of progress already, and I can keep making progress if I keep up the willingness to go to any lengths.

 

These days, I would like to work on cutting back on “gray area” behavior that has intensified

lately with different issues I don’t always feel willing to deal with. In other words, I still want to

numb and get high in ways that may not make my life unmanageable but can still cause

problems.

 

So, today, for contrary action, I will make at least one phone call to someone in SLAA to talk

about the struggles I’m having, as well as doing an inventory on resentments and maybe some

more writing for self-care. I am still willing to go to any lengths and put my recovery into

practice. Progress, not perfection.

 

The Metric System 

 

A gram, a, a, a hectare, a country mile, a New York minute

A length of rope, a length of shoelace tied to get to the meeting

An electrocellulength connecting me by phone, length of hope.

I see measuring tape overlaid on every landscape, ruling

distances between. Seem sometimes st- st- static, insoluble

From bed, or screen-glued, in hours imprisoned. But zoom: each increment,

each quarter- or eighth- or sixteenth-inch contains

a rectangle to fill through will with love. The risk: shade in cracks with

acts of giving: to listen, or do a chore, is to approach shore

Right now the crevices I’m working hardest to

fill are filling my partner in on what’s going on

in my brain, little things I never mention,

preferences like “I don’t like that furniture” or

even good things like “I’m bookending my

internet now” because I don’t want to rock the

boat or worry her

But each silence is a length

And I’m working to fill the crevice of critique of others

Hating and judging like I’m still at war, outmoded technique

And the toughest fill: toss “expert” badge in the lake of HP

Over and over again, practice the dance of surrender