Self-Deception.

From the ODAT, page 78:

"There is no advantage, no profit, no growth, in deceiving myself merely to escape the consequences of my own mistakes."

Our culture as a whole supports self-deception, we are in fact, encouraged in it - exhorted by advertising, to purchase that which we cannot afford, to impress those who we do not like. We learn to deny, repress, sidestep, defend, justify, and rationalise. We see this behavior modelled by those in government, industry, the entertainment field, everywhere we look. Our justice system allows for "the abuse excuse" and our family members are mowed down like wheat before the blade, with guns wielded by those who may face only the slightest of penalties before being let back out to prey upon us once more.

Honesty is a commodity not much valued, it seems. In this culture, it can feel a bit like "lost and alone in a world full of aliens" to work an honest program, to do our best to keep self-deception to a minimum, to own up to our mistakes, and to accept the consequences. We can be seen as wierdo weaklings engaged in "cult activity."

I've owned up to mistakes only to have the person to whom I'm speaking stare at me in flabbergasted astonishment, as though I'd suddenly sprouted a second head from the side of my neck, and it was talking to them. I've had people not have the slighest idea of how to respond, because they came loaded for bear, expecting me to defend myself, and instead, I've admitted my mistake, and offered an amend.

I've had people who, after I've owned up to a mistake, have forever afterwards viewed me with suspicion, because they "couldn't figure out what I wanted."

Sometimes, working the program can feel a tad lonely out there in the rest of the world, but it becomes a habit, if done long enough, and then one cannot bear to return to the previous crazed misery of "the way we were." I still have a hard time with those looks, though; find myself tempted to glance back over my shoulder, to see if there's an apparition behind me, which is the real cause of their amazement.

What's My Part?

That was the topic of the meeting I attended last night. It was fascinating to hear just how many of us in Al-Anon have tolerated behavior that would have sent your average non-co-dependent person down the road in short order.

I tolerated sustained verbal and emotional abuse from my first husband, and the reason for this could be ascribed to my childhood, to a stubborn desire to make it work, to any number of factors; it's irrelevent, really - I did, and it caused the both of us years of wretchedness.

This is diametrically opposed to the way I viewed that relationship before program - back then, it was all his fault, end of discussion. He drank - we suffered; I was an innocent bystander.

It was a long, hard haul uphill, to get my mind open far enough to even begin to consider that perhaps my own behavior left something to be desired. Blaming him for my torment might be satisfying in a nasty way, but didn't help either of us.

I was resistant to Step 5, with a mulish disregard for any suggestion that it could be an admission to a different way of life - a life which offered more than survival and my ever-present longing to be anywhere else but where I was.

"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

Admitting it to myself was the most exacting skirmish - my ego was a small quivering thing cowering behind impressive defenses. I had years of rationalisations and justifications to fight my way through - I'm reminded of the time my husband was out behind our house cutting down a blackberry thicket with a machete, hacking and clearing for hours, just to get down to bare earth. At that point,  I thought he was finished, but he laughed, and said he was just getting started, and the worst work lay ahead - digging up and discarding the foundations of the plant, those impressive roots which spread in every direction, and colonise all gardens they reach.

Just so did my character defects contaminate all areas of my life - resentment and self-pity, rigidity of thought, impatience; the list of my wrongs seems endless some days. I once had a shared laughing fit with my sponsor, when I called looking for some commiseration, and she asked, "Self-pity not doing it for you, then?" in her crisp English accent. (She had a very clear grasp of the difference between giving comfort, and helping me to wallow.)

Once I could admit my failings to myself, admitting them to God came easily, but it was another titanic struggle to admit them to "another human being."

I didn't want to admit to my faults, they were mine, and I was deeply ashamed of them. My sponsor asked, did I think I could list off some of her character defects? I wriggled and squirmed, but was finally pinned down to an embarassed "Perhaps."  She went on to ask if that were the case, did the opposite apply, could she perhaps list some of mine?

That simple question left me speechless. Of course she could, she knew me better than I knew myself, at that point. I wanted to know what the point of all this was, in that case; why was I having to tell her what she already knew?

Why? Because it forces me to be honest, and it keeps me humble. Step 5 permits me to see myself without shame, and without grandiosity - as a perfectly acceptable human being with all the usual attendant human frailties. It allows me to feel comfortable within my skin, Al-Anon, and the world at large. I'm no longer possessed of the sneaking feeling that I'm trying to hide some horrific personality trait, and could be discovered at any moment. I can laugh at myself, and that is a blessing of glorious proportions.

Step Five.

"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

This Step requires serious, sustained effort. Most of us are not brought up to do this: rather, we learn by example to justify, to defend, and to argue for our own position. Admitting our wrongs can feel like a capitulation.

When I was trying to do this Step for the first time, my shame and self-loathing hindered and obstructed me at every turn. I found myself coming up with the most fascinatingly convoluted reasonings to justify past wrongs on my part, and at the urgings of my sponsor, wrote these down. I didn't try to do any editing, I just banged down on paper, the thoughts going through my head while I worked Step 5.

I would then put that paper away for a day or two or three, until I felt I had the energy to deal with it again. I'd take it out, read it, and because I'd had a space of time in which to forget some of what I'd written, the insanity of my thinking, and the obvious rationalisations and justifications would leap off the page at me - glaringly, blindingly, dazzlingly obvious.

I still use this technique, because it's still effective, to illuminate areas of my thinking not visible to me by any other means.

Step 5 doesn't ask us to do anything about our wrongs, it only asks us to admit them. As I've been in Al-Anon over the years, and gained in self-respect and self-love, I find this easier than it was at first, but there are still periods in which I feel as if the only way I can winkle out my true motives, is a morsel at a time, and only then with the help of my sponsor, or another program friend. I have a couple of excruciatingly honest program friends with whom I will "reason things out." I know that they will do it as gently as they are able, but they will not sacrifice honesty to my ego.

When I'm talking to one of them, and feel myself becoming defensive, I know we are getting somewhere, because I have learned that I only get defensive when there is a personal truth in what's being said to me. If it doesn't apply to me, it doesn't bother me to hear it. That's one of my touchstones in Step 5.

I thought I'd do Step 5 once, and be done with it. That's not how it works for me; seems like every new level of self-awareness I attain brings with it new realisations of wrongs I've done, and been unaware of as wrongs, before that moment. I'm comfortable with this knowledge. I'm even able to find this exciting - new vistas of possibility are revealed, with each of these new levels.

When I can detach from my ego, and just see myself as a regular person with the usual human faults and frailties, I can be more accepting of others - that's a bonus I hadn't expected, when I began working this Step.

The Exact Nature of Our Wrongs.

Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

When I was new to Al-Anon, I believed this step was about admitting my wrongs to another person, and to a degree, this is true. But this step also addresses one of my foibles - self-deception.

In my perceptions of others, I am usually close to the mark. Never have I been as astounded by the discovery of someone else's true nature, as I have been by my own self-deceptions.

For all our adroitness, we humans can be almost transparent in our manoeuverings. We've all been in the position of listening to a friend or colleague tell us something patently untrue about their nature: been dumbfounded at their ability to fool themselves into believing that nonsense. How many of us have been willing to face our own ability to dissimulate?

If I adhere to my old convictions, I am standing in my own way. If I cannot admit to myself the exact nature of my wrongs, I am the only one who isn't aware of them. Those closest to me would easily be able to list my faults.

When I did my first step 5, I was terrified that admitting my faults to another human being would bring shame upon me. I was taken aback to discover that my sponsor already knew all about my character defects, could, in fact, discuss them at some length. She may not have been aware of my wrongs as far as what I did, but she absolutely knew how I thought, and even how I might be feeling as a result of that thinking.

This was a hugely freeing lesson - that I needn't try to disguise myself. It's an exercise in futility, takes up far too much of my energy, and wastes time I could spend upon my recovery. I still use humour when I'm nervous or uncomfortable, but I use it for a different reason - to share joy in life, rather than to hide behind. Shared laughter brings us closer to others. Program keeps us safe, even in that proximity.

Who Really Knows Me?

Before Al-Anon, I was one of those people with whom it is impossible to get any closer than surface level, because below the surface is a seething rage.  When I'm stressed. I am absolutely masterful at diversion through humour. I had to be in 12-Step for a long time before I realised how I have always used humour to keep people away from my inner self. I also discovered early in life that most people love to talk about themselves, so if I asked specific questions: "How's work going with that problem you mentioned last time we talked?" I could usually get them so focused on their own life, that they wouldn't notice I wasn't giving them any information about me.

This was a very efficient way to keep myself feeling so alone, it was like living life with a glass wall between me and other people.
I was so afraid of being thought "less than" - less than perfect, less than capable, less than efficient, less than in control, that I was willing to live my life in a freezing isolation rather than admit to not being perfect in all areas.

Since I've been in program, I have learned the hard lesson that if I want to feel better, not only do I have to work my program, but I have to speak up. It may cause me to wiggle and squirm with discomfort to admit to what is going on with me, but once I do speak up, I receive comfort. The initial comfort is just the enormous one of having said it to another person.

"Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs."

When I was new to Al-Anon, I had quite the speed-bump of resentment over the wording of this step; that last word just stuck in my craw - wrongs? wrongs? As far as I was concerned, it was the alcoholic who was doing all the wrongs, and I was the innocent victim of said evils. I had to learn to admit that I was equally at fault in my own way, and that this did not make me a bad person, it made me a misguided one. I had to be willing to speak to another human being about my own frailties and character defects, as that was the only way to release my immense shame about not being perfect, and receive that warm soothing balm of comfort from my Higher Power, and my meeting group. Once I could speak with my head up, looking around the table, rather than staring at my hands clasped in my lap, I began to see heads nodding in acknowledgment, recognition, agreement, and that helped me to learn that I wasn't a terrrible human being. I was a confused and lonely and distressed (and furious) one.