A Fork In The Road

By Gus O.

“Is everything alright?”
 

     Her voice is sweet and caring, like honey to a sore throat. Her hopes are as alluring as a bed is to a weary man – and weary I am, but only because I find myself here yet again. My free hand rests calmly next to my drink save for one finger, tapping fast. The text message I hold in the other hand is from a guy I hastily saved as “J.” John? Jack? Jerry? I can’t recall, though I remember how he liked my shoes. He had given me a call that I ignored. His message follows up with something about how he appreciated my share from the meeting last night. I had shared about how I needed to reach out to others in the program more, and I can’t help but wonder how many people think I wasn’t working this program as dedicatedly as I should. I know that judgment is all in my head but they wouldn’t be wrong if they did think that. It’s difficult to reach out to people in a program when they’re all strangers and I have my own friends to confide in. I haven’t read the literature yet but only because I don’t have the time right now. I attend the meeting every week, and though I haven’t worked the steps, it’s simply because I haven’t vibed with a potentially perfect sponsor yet.

      I glance back up at my company. She stares back at me with curiosity, unable to read me, expecting an answer. I just met her today and she doesn’t know much about me, yet I’ve known her all my life. I’ve made love to her a thousand times and kissed her face a thousand more. I’ve navigated this conversation that led up to those moments more times than I could count. I’ve been here so often that they all blur together. I thought that being in the program for so long would’ve fixed how I view women, would’ve made me feel less like a hypocrite to my morals or to just being a decent human being. I sigh. One reaps what they sow, and I’m done not reaping what I need.

     “I’m sorry,” I say sincerely, “I wish I could, but I need to call someone.”

She’s surprised, disappointed, maybe even upset. She wasn’t expecting to be going home alone but I’m done ruining two lives in one night. Unlike our first encounter, I give her a smile that she rightly doesn’t return this time. I get up from my untouched drink and trade the sticky linoleum floors for solid asphalt. I take a deep breath, inhaling all the courage this city can offer, and dial the number.

“Hey man,” he says casually as if he knew me all my life. In a way, he does.

“Is everything alright

 

How has jumping in with both feet in my recovery helped me change my life?

I came into this program in a state of crisis - marriage on life support, finances strained from spending 10’s of thousands of dollars on acting out, “hapless victim” of love addiction to an adult entertainer, attempts at going homeless… I had “no choice” but to jump into my recovery with both feet. 

In practical terms this looked like: getting a sponsor at my 2nd meeting and working the steps immediately; doing service at all my meetings; multiple calls per day to fellows for experience, strength, and hope; and withdrawal that led to skin-tingling anxiety. Spiritually, this looked like prayer, meditation, church, music, and top lines while addressing the “manageability tasks” I often ignored in my addiction like chores and self-care. By the grace of God, I maintained bottom-line sobriety.  

Because of this program, several of my immediate crises have passed, prompting me to reassess how to sustain a similar sense of willingness moving forward. I had to revisit my step 1, seeing my addictive pattern as my true crisis rather than the specific incidents that brought me into SLAA. So today, I willingly jump into recovery with both feet by chasing the spiritual solution for remedying the “spiritual malady” in my experience: the self-centeredness, resentments, fears, restlessness, irritability, discontentments, defects, old ideas, etc. It means looking at the part of me that says, “I am not enough” or “I can not be happy” until I offset my internal sufferings with some external source (wife, sex, relationships, validation, etc.) or “managing well” (my to-do lists, career prospects, my image, etc.). I see that my bottom lines were just my “solutions” to this spiritual unrest. Jumping in with both feet means simplifying my daily recovery into voluntary surrender, love, and service.

My finances have changed: I was paying almost $3,000 a month for the fantasy of being a “father” to an adult entertainer and her kids. Today, I pay $2-3 a meeting in voluntary contributions instead. I have a new idea from working step 6 with my sponsor: “I invest in my financial wellbeing and the wellbeing of my family without making money my god. I am a responsible steward of funds.” I’ve paid down debts, got the ball rolling on retirement, and balanced taxes – all things forsaken in my addiction. Also, being the treasurer at a few meetings and other fiduciary responsibilities for SLAA has helped reinforce all of this.

My internal state’s changing: I can be a walking vortex of anxiety, depression, random mania, unhealthy ambitions, and delusions. As I surrender the desire to “run the show”, I am grateful that my prescribed dosages for sertraline have decreased. I find more serenity in being an imperfect human who follows God and plays his assigned part while God runs the show. I find serenity in God’s love and care - as a spiritual entity, and through the physical manifestation of my fellows.  

My relationship to my wife, mom, and brother changed: Instead of seeing them as sources of my crises and people to emotionally avoid or fix/manage/control, I surrender to program ideas of usefulness and service. “What does a responsible, useful, loving husband/brother/son look like?” Moreover, sponsoring others has helped practice loving detachment so that I can translate those actions to my family and all other areas of life.

I can work on my outside issues through cooperative help. This looks like sitting with my pastor to pray for committing to daily humility and surrendering to God’s will rather than specific outcomes, as I would conflate God’s voice with my love addiction often. This looks like sitting with my professional therapist to discuss acceptance, labeling my emotions, and using non-violent communication, as I have character defects of shutting down, ignoring my emotional state, and escaping into fantasy. Prior to recovery, the strippers were my therapists, porn was my sedative, and I pastored the “solo church of Jeremy.” Now I pray to God for the strength to communicate and take responsibility for my unmet needs rather than leaving this responsibility to someone else – another new idea from working step 6.

To quote a life coach (I secretly and recklessly spent money on stuff like this too): “Jeremy, you can spend life actively avoiding downsides, or you can actively chase upsides.” 

There’s a lot of upside to this program as it helps me chase God’s will for my life; new ideals; new ways of thinking and living; new ways of being of service/useful; new ways of relating to fellows, self, and others; new fellows to meet and help (newcomers); new things to surrender; new experiences in sobriety; renewed friendships and partnerships. Yet there is so much more to be revealed from the common solution!

Same action, different perspective: I can jump into a pool cheerfully because it’s a relaxing, summer day, or I can jump into a pool for safety because the addiction is burning everything down in my life.

Jeremy W.