Work the steps

I have been stuck on Step 3 — Made a decision to turn my will and life over to the care of God as we understood Him — for some time now. Surrendering one’s will is hard. Surrendering to a Higher Power you can’t see is very hard.

I had been meaning to go back to church, to read spiritual texts, to pray, but I had been dragging my feet. I identified as a Unitarian for several years now, but there was something about the UUs that kept me from returning, even though I knew people at both local UU churches.

As the shit has been hitting the fan a little harder of late, I found myself praying last week, and I oddly found myself doing in a Christian mode. Made a sign of the cross, said the Lord’s Prayer, spoke directly to “God.”

Then, this morning, it hit me like a linebacker blitzing from the blind side. I was listening to song I knew well, although in an arrangement I had never heard before. Before long, I was weeping openly and having an epiphany.

The song?

<embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/TUZwdbeS2mM&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425” height=”344”>

Yes. I was crying to “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

Unsure where this came from or what caused it, I stopped and thought about the song in general and this arrangement in particular. I had the “well, duh!” moment when I realized that it made me happy, and happy is not something I have been lately.

But there was a second, deeper layer to it. I was forced to confront that I had become so wrapped up in cynicism and mock superiority that I stopped believing in many things. All the choices I felt I had to make, all the things I gave up because my former partners wanted me to, including my spirituality.

I was raised Catholic, and like any smart, thoughtful Catholic boy, I always found great comfort in the ritual of the Mass, far more so than in the dogma that seems inextricably linked to it. There is mystery and magic in the ritual itself, as well as a certain comfort in knowing that on any given Sunday millions of other Catholics are experiencing the same thing. Unity and solidarity.

Of course, Catholicism comes with… baggage. Like the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the fact that the current Pope is a fascist. I have attended various Protestant churches, but only one came close to offering that kind of rite, and that also has a tradition of contemplative worship — the Episcopalian Church, part of the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican church Mass is slightly different, but close enough to give me what I need — without the Catholic baggage. Okay, there is some baggage, a few beheaded queens and whatnot.

I started looking at the web sites of local parishes when something wonderful happened. A wave of calm spread out over me, and I realized that I should have been doing this all along.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.

This step has two components – the admission of powerlessness, and the unmanageability of our lives. To admit that one is powerless is a more complete and thorough admission than simply to admit that one has a problem. I could freely admit that I had a problem, as evidenced by the numerous attempts to quit, even as I was sitting at a bar, lonely and ashamed.

No, to admit that one is powerless is something bigger than admitting one has a problem. It means a complete surrender to the power of the bottle.

In hindsight, it is obvious that I am powerless over alcohol, because I am powerless over most things – why have one donut when you can have the dozen? Booze, food, sex, gambling, anything that releases the fleeting rush of dopamine fueled happiness is likely to be a problem for me.

So after trying to quit numerous times, only to resume drinking, I finally came to see that it was not something I could control, and I surrendered completely.

But there is a second component – that our lives be unmanageable. As I write this the wreckage is still piling up around me, in the form of money problems, lost friends, a badly mismanaged career, and more things I can’t even begin to comprehend yet.

In short, I can readily say that my life is unmanageable, but I can’t say precisely how yet. As the chips continue to fall, all I can do is hunker down, taking care of those things that have reached emergency stage – phone shut off? Pay that one next!

I have made some decisions about my life and career that my shrink said were “rational.” Considering how much drunk-think has cost me, it was high compliment. Those decisions, however, won’t reap benefits for some time, certainly not enough to get out in front of some of these issues.

So for now, I will do the only thing I can, and react to the crises. Constantly putting fires out takes a tremendous emotional toll on me, but I’m not yet in a position to be proactive.