Coded Communications.

I'm reading a book about codemaking and breaking during WW2. I've reached a point in the book ,where the author is convinced that the Dutch agents have been taken and turned, because they have stopped making mistakes in their Morse code transmissions. He finds this impossible to accept - it isn't "normal."

The agents have to quickly code, and even more quickly transmit their messages while exhausted, stressed, and terrified that at any moment they may be discovered by the Germans, with the inevitable result. It isn't remotely realistic that they'd make not one mistake in coding or sending, under those circumstances. (The author can predict the type of mistakes each agent is likely to make, based upon the ones they made in training.)
His superiors don't want to hear it. They're very proud of their Dutch agents, things are ticking along very smoothly, and they won't even consider the possibility that the Germans are in control.

It's an interesting book, both for the story, and for the way it gets me thinking repeatedly about the incredible power of denial.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

I've been familiar with that little gem since I was a kid, but before program, only had a vague idea of what it meant.  I'll never forget sitting in the lunchroom, at a place I worked eons ago, listening, for the zillionth time, to the lady from the front office complaining about her husband's drinking -  how it was affecting her life, and the life of her kids. Someone suggested she get counselling for herself, and her two little boys, to help them cope. She replied, "Oh, they don't know their dad drinks." When asked if he only drank after they were in bed, she laughed shortly, and replied, "No; all day, every day."
"How old are your boys?"
"Seven and nine."
"Well then, they know he drinks."
"No, no, they don't know that."

Various people tried to get through to her that this was highly unlikely, with stories of their own alcoholic parents, and how they'd known from a very young age, that something was seriously wrong. She was adamant - the boys didn't know.

At the time this discussion took place, I judged her for her denial. Today, I feel compassion for her awful struggle and unhappiness. When I recall that conversation, I wonder how her boys are doing, all these years later. I realise how many times I must have had the identical sort of conversation, with friends trying to get through to me, and me adamant about whatever it was.

I've learned in Al-Anon, that I cannot puncture someone else's denial. I've learned to respect that denial is a coping mechanism we use when the truth is just too painful to face squarely. I've used it many times myself, knowingly, and unknowingly, and will again, I have no doubt.

My part is to work my program honestly, so that I may be granted the ability to recognise and admit to my own frailties. I pray for sufficient open-mindedness,  to hear the help others may offer to me, whether deftly, or clumsily. I pray to be granted the ability to see behind the message to the person transmitting it, and not to get  lost in the "coding mistakes."

Stop Poking At Me, Already!

One foundation of the Al-Anon program, which seemed impossible when I started, yet over time, has become a deeply ingrained habit, is making amends.

I've come to believe that the Steps are written as they are, in an effort to overcome the ferocious desire to justify ourselves, present in so many of us. I know I can always find a knee-jerk reaction as to why I was perfectly in the right to say/think/do whatever it was. That kind of thinking keeps me separate from others. It creates distance, and walls of rigidity.

Getting over the first monstrous hurdle of "Made direct amends to all persons we had harmed, except when to do so would injure them or others." allowed me to realise that it wasn't so bad to admit I was in the wrong; on the contrary, it was hugely freeing. I woke up the day after each early amend, and realised  - that was one less stinking, putrid hunk of ancient guilt to lug around.

I carried so much guilt with me; it stabbed and slashed at me in quiet moments: kept me from sleep: poisoned my self-image. Even so, when first offered the chance to relieve it through the making of amends, I was doubtful. And terrified. What if someone rejected an amend? My sponsor worked me through the process of "Well, what's the absolute worst that could happen?" each step of the way, until I came to the realisation that even if that was the outcome in one or more cases, I'd survive.

Making amends clears the slate upon which we write our relationships with others. It's a powerful statement of shared humanity. I've made amends I didn't want to make, to people I didn't much like, and achieved the  same result as with the amends I was willing to make, to those I love. It's the process that matters. The humility.

I was joking to a friend recently, that now instead of being poked and prodded by guilt, it's my conscience sticking a finger into my side and saying, "Um, excuse me, can we talk?"  I've had times where I've tried to pretend I didn't hear it, but that just increases the force of the fingerpokes, until my ribs hurt and I'm completely exasperated, and whirl around to say, "All right! I hear you! I'll make the cursed amend!"

I'm not going to pretend I'm always melting with the force of my willingness, right from the start. I have times when I feel like a recalcitrant child, being pushed forward by my conscience, with mulish expression upon my face. Somehow, someway, most likely through the grace of my Higher Power, when I reach the point of speaking my amend, I will find that I am willing. I may say whatever I have to say stiffly, and with much mumbling and fumbling, but I will say it, and for that, I am truly grateful.

It's All Relative, con't.

One aspect of co-dependent personality I've noticed in myself, and in my fellow members of Al-Anon, is skewed perspective. We have a hard time seeing life clearly. (Addicts have this, too.)
Negatives assume monumental proportions, and if we don't stop to "reason things out with someone else," they can take on a life of our own, and pretty soon we're like that guy in the cartoon who sees a giant shadow along the ground and turning in the other direction, runs screaming in terror, with a very small dog lolloping along after him.

The sun being low in the sky is what created such a hugely long shadow from such a small creature, and if he'd stopped to find out what was casting the shadow...

I've done that so many times in my life, it makes me tired just thinking about it. I've created hours, days, weeks of misery for myself, (and for those around me, be honest here.) And all because I saw that shadow, and rather than muster the courage to investigate, just fled shrieking.

If the sun is in the correct place in the sky, even a mini-dachshund can throw an impressive shadow. Relatively speaking, of course.

When I was new to program, I had no idea that my perspective was so skewed, I just assumed that, as in so many areas of my life, my way was the right way. Period. End of discussion. It was a long hard haul uphill to get to a place where, gripping my sponsor's hand in fear and trembling, I could un-scrinch my eyes enough to realise that there was an entire world of vantage points from which to view my life, and that I had the ability to choose whichever one I wished, upon which to stand. I didn't have to stay on it, either; I could climb down from one, and up another, to see how I liked the view from the new one.

This is one of the mysterious wonders of Al-Anon for me: a changed perspective.

Resentment Isn't The Best Operating Principle.

Once upon a time, many years ago, in another city and far, far away, I had a friend in program, who used to make pithy little comments which always seemed to land a direct hit. One day I was blathering away about my first husband, and his latest drunken rampage, and my feelings about it, him, and our marriage, and my friend broke in to remark, "Yeah, well, resentment isn't the best operating principle."

I stopped to clarify: "You mean him."

She shook her head. "I mean you."

I was puzzled. "I'm not resentful."

Her eyebrows shot up so high they disappeared into her hair, and she was, for the first time since I'd known her, struck dumb. She looked at me, with her head tilted backwards slightly, as if to get a better view through her reading glasses, which always slid to the end of her nose and perched there, precariously. She had a look on her face I couldn't read, and just sat there gazing at me, until I began to feel like a bug on a pin. I rather nervously reiterated my statement, "I'm not resentful."

My friend sighed heavily, and said, "It's a good thing you found Al-Anon, honey."

I was still very new to Al-Anon, and my defenses were powerful; her remark was quickly shoved to the back of my mind and forgotten. A few years later, the place I worked was bought out by a corporation, and we began to have to attend endless meetings.  Staff would sit, slowly becoming more and more stupefied with boredom, while someone in management from back east would give lectures on various things which seemed to have zero relation to anything we'd ever been doing in our workplace.

I was in one of those meetings one morning, on a hot and sticky sort of day, and I was as close to sleep as one can get with eyes open, when the the speaker said, "Blah blah blah is our only operating principle."

A co-worker leaned over and muttered into my ear, "The acquisition of money is our only operating principle."
Poor speaker, he'd given us a phrase which lent itself perfectly to sarcasm. When we finally escaped the meeting, for the rest of the day, and part of the next, staff would meet in the halls, or walk into the lunchroom, and give each other laughing fits with variations upon his pronouncement; everything from, "The tormenting of staff with long boring meetings..." to "Soulless acquisition and destruction of previously sucessful businesses..." always ending triumphantly, and often in unison with anyone else in earshot, "...is our only operating principle."

We were all very young.

I was out walking the dog that first evening, thinking about some of the funnier comments made that day, and suddenly remembered the conversation with my friend a few years earlier. I went to my meeting a few days later, and the topic was...."Resentment." This was one of my first introductions to the synchronicity of meeting topics to our states of mind, and it was a little eerie.

I tried honestly to decide if what my friend had said about my "operating principle" was true - was I resentful? (From this vantage point, I'm amazed at my ability to deny; I seethed with resentment like a boiling kettle.)

Accepting that piece of truth about my character was not easy; it meant I had to forego my victimhood, and allow for the fact that it wasn't the alcoholic who made my life a misery, I did that perfectly well all by myself.

Through Al-Anon, and working the Twelve Steps, I am learning to be more honest about what's happening inside my head. Before I can change anything, I must admit to it. What Al-Anon has given to me, is a safe place in which to do this. Getting this stuff out of the cave into the daylight, makes it possible for me to see that I am only human. You aren't a monster, and neither am I. We are both just people trying to make it in a sometimes painful and difficult world. Giving up blaming of others frees me to look towards the one small area of life I can change - my own patch.

Through program, and the help of my friends in program, and my Higher Power, I can work to make sure that resentment isn't, (all together now) my only operating principle.

Oh, Cry Me A River!

Every now and then, usually when I'm sick, or feeling exhausted,  I'm a whiny ball of self-pity and victimhood. I've felt like that off and on today - I'm sick. (I haven't been sick in the winter very often since I quit smoking 14 years ago - so seldom, in fact, that now when I do get sick, I feel outraged - how's that for rational thinking?)

I got up this morning, staggered out to feed the dogs, and then back to bed. Right now, I've got them on the treadmill for their daily exercise, so need to be in the room to watch over them. They both adore the treadmill, and after a short familiarisation period, have only to be invited, to hop on. We have to be careful about using the word "treadmill" in casual conversation, or we'll have two eager little dogs leaping about at our feet, wanting to go for a run.

I was lying on the couch earlier today, feeling victimised by my body - how dare it do this to me, I just had food poisoning not that long ago, and now I'm sick?

I was contemplating crawling back to bed, when a show came on featuring a guy with serious physical challenges - he was amazing; cheerful, and dismissive of his physical problems, saying, "I've got a job, a wife, and a son, what have I got to complain about?"

That put my little bout with the flu into sharp perspective. I love these little whaps upside the head - they make me laugh out loud, because they are so unsubtle. Feeling sorry for myself because I'm sick? How would I like to have only one leg?

Making A List, And Why A Sponsor Is A Good Thing.

Step 8 reads:

"Made a list of all people we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."

With reference to some of the people on my list, that willingness was absent. I put them on the list, but that's where it ended; willingness to make an amend to them was in the category of "Not bleeding likely."

This unwillingness distressed me, and I began the old dance of bashing myself for not feeling the way I thought I should. And/or the way I imagined other people thought I should. Being the head case I am was, I slowly became more and more obsessed with this perceived lack in my character, until it was blown completely out of proportion in my life, and began to block the light. That lack was all I could see, when my sponsor and I sat down to work the Steps together.

Wise woman that she was, she wondered aloud if it were possible that this new and crazed obsession of mine was a way to concentrate upon something which would keep me hung up on Step 8, so I didn't have to take the next inevitable step in the process - working Step 9 -  "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

I was gobsmacked. (She did that to me a lot - reached in and picked out what was keeping me stuck, and said "Hmm, what's this, I wonder?"  Maddening woman.) I went home convinced that she was mistaken, but woke up the next morning, thought about it, and began to laugh; it was so perfectly an avoidance mechanism, and I had been so completely oblivious. When next we spoke, I explained that I'd decided to put that aside, and just get on with it, praying to be granted willingness, rather than trying to make it up out of whole cloth myself.

Letting go of that allowed me to proceed, with the inevitable positive result.

For me, a sponsor does for me what I occasionally cannot do for myself, and that is: see me with enough clarity to figure out just what little game I'm playing here, while loudly protesting my innocence. Self-deception can keep me stuck in old ways of thought and behavior. It can allow me to justify, and rationalise.

There are aspects of our own characters, which hide as behind a curtain, opaque only to our own gaze; anyone else can see through it perfectly well. That just seems to be how we are made.

I am reminded of a cat we once had, who was a holy terror for leaping out from concealed places to scare the living daylights out of us. In the laundry room, we kept a towel hanging over the sink next to the dryer. This cat would stand on the dryer, and stick his head behind the towel. He believed that because he then couldn't see us, we also couldn't see him. He'd stand there, head concealed, big black fluffy body on the gleaming white of the dryer, then pop his head out with an air of "Gotcha!"

If we didn't pretend to have been startled, he'd do that cat thing of immediately beginning to groom a paw, stopping to look at us with disdain as if to say "Oh, are you in here? I hadn't noticed."

After a while of working the Steps with my sponsor, I began to see similarities between our thinking, me and the cat. We were both under the impression that we were hiding successfully.

When willingness is beyond my ability to produce, I can pray to be granted some. But first, I have to truly want it, and not being playing one of those games of claiming I want it, while doing everything in my power to put obstacles in my own way.

Laughter, And Negativity.

 MrSponsortpants is always an excellent read; I think he must have been feeling giddy this morning - his entire post is limericks of his own invention. (I suggest we all compose one of our own, and send it to him via his comments form; I did - a form of verse in which the more of a groaner it is, the better.)

Laughter has helped to open my mind to Al-Anon ideas which, initially, I couldn't grasp with any clarity. Sitting in meetings, listening to members speak about their struggles with control, laughing as they described their thinking, made it possible for me to realise that my own thinking had some of the same elements of  lunacy. Once I'd truly seen and accepted the ridiculousness of some of my reasoning, I've never been able to go back to taking myself with the same seriousness as before. It's just not possible.

I took myself very seriously when I came into program. I had a huge chip on my shoulder, and I seethed with resentment, anger, and frustration. I think I must have almost given off sparks, I was so full of hostility towards the world. I was unable to understand how my negativity pushed people away from me, partly because I had no concept of how deeply my negativity was rooted.

When I'm around someone who is relentlessly negative, I'm offered a reminder of who I was, before this program helped me to change, by offering me the loving, supportive environment which made change feel safe.

When I was negative, I was trying to save myself from disappointment, by never allowing myself to hope. If I didn't allow myself to want, I couldn't be hurt if I didn't receive what I wanted. It sounds quite reasonable when one has that as an operating life philosophy.

But life without hope is a measly offering, a matter of plodding along, head down, just "getting through the day." I went for years like that, just getting through. I had no joy in living. I looked forward to nothing, and I scoffed at those who bubbled with enthusiasm. My unhappiness revealed itself in sarcastic commentary, although I wasn't aware of it at the time.

Working this program has turned me into the sort of person at which I used to raise an eyebrow - cheerful, enthusiastic, and positive. Someone who loves silliness, and meets it in kind, limerick to limerick. God bless you, MrSponsorPants, and everyone else in recovery, for the joy you've given to me.