14th Anniversary Living Recover NA

My response to secular athesistic approaches to recovery.

I was sober for 5 years in AA, here in RURAL East Texas. I am working the NA program for about a year and a half. NA is much less "God-centric" here but still I cringe when I hear a very simple minded member confuse the magical thinking of religion with the  "power" NA ask you to find.  NA is much stricter when it comes to not sharing your personal god stuff at meeting level. One of the reason AA repulses me here in Small Town USA, is because they don't even try to adhere to the traditions and opening share of Jesus, church and Sunday school.  As a broken hearted, spiritually  crippled gay man, I could practically see them wink when they advised people to find a "power greater than ourselves" and the unspoken was "and eventually you will come to Sunday school where you might teach lessons one day.

I tried with all that I had to believe in Religion.  It failed me on ever level.  It's frustrating to have friends in NA who are so smart and bright and then say stupid stupid stuff regarding their magical beliefs that I feel unsafe. I'm a gay man and when I here someone claim what a Christian they are,  I tense up ready for the blow from "God hates fags" theology of the nuts that are in Texas.

At one point in the NA literature it says they are going to use the word "God" simply out of convenience, since we will understand the concept they are referring to. I think it's a complete cop out. They use God WAYYY more than "higher power" and "god of your understanding". It pisses me off to read one of the suggested literature pieces and have to say "god" when it is written.

If i had not been raised in hideous , slow thinking, bible belt Texas, I may not have been beaten by religion they way I have and I might not react like you have just offered my a drink of radiation when you mention it to me.  I have a great understanding of life and how I fit in it and I am a part of the flow of energry. It has nothing to do with praying, asking Santa in the sky for blessings, presents or miracles.  To speak of God or religion to me is to me is to show me you can't think for yourself and you need to make yourself feel better with mystical robes, communions and one horn short of  unicorn magic. I do my best to respect the few friends or people I care for's relationship to religion BUT, I never let down my deflector shields a hundred percent with any of them.

AA is still a great place to sober up if you are white, Christian, straight and Caucasian, (and a middle aged-business man). Women and minorities suffer in both AA and NA in Texas.  NA which I really like still has only a handful of minorities locally and way less than half the women compared to the men. That makes me wonder.

I don't have a choice in my circumstances to find any sort of organized approach to not using other than NA. I'm fairly vocal about my dislike for all the god-shit in the rooms. If there is a shot at me finding long term recovery and some peace/acceptance in a 12 step recovery I'm going to continue giving it a try. What choice do I have?

I really am powerless over drugs when I put the first one into my body, my life on drugs is completely unmanageable.  So I have to put my hip boots on to wave through the religion spill over at times. I"m thankfully smart enough to separate the core of the  steps from the misguided interpretations of it in Texas.  I have a believe system, in the fact that I know that the energy that can take a seed and grow it to a fruit bearing tree is the same energy taking me from cradle to grave, but that is it. I can't win favor in an imaginary after life by being good during this life. This whole thing is like independent research or study project for me. I wish there was a place to just go and hang out with like minded people but in the end that isn't necessary. I'll recover in NA until they get sick of me and chase me out with burning torches and I will share my experience strength and hope when I get a chance to. There are many many people who sick of religion and how pervasive it is in our lives even when we ourselves aren't religious.

I wouldn't advocate changing the steps for the AA or NA program at all. The steps are theirs. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.   Aside of from the way they handle the God issue, I have more in common with them than not. Ever once in a while a Hispanic man will sit in a meeting. The Hispanic meeting meets less often. He doesn't speak very much English and I don't know what he can get from the meeting but he stays. I'm that way with the god stuff. I don't understand but I wait for bits to be shared about recovery I can use.

Pay no attention to the raging bitch in the corner

Nice boys don't get angry. To be angry is to be ugly. To let someone see you angry lets them know they can get to you. Anger is close to insanity because when I am in it, i am not rational. Anger means I am out of control. So I learned to stuff it, feel bad about getting angry, punish myself for getting angry. I've never hit anyone in my entire life and I only told someone what I thought of them once face to face. I have roughly 40 years of "mad as hell" trying to come to the surface. I'm  not using anything to alter the anger, I'm trying not to eat myself into misery and more self loathing and I"m trying very hard not to take it out on someone. I've talked about it and I don't believe it is going to swallow me whole, but I do wonder about the resolution. What happens now. If I take the time to feel it all , what then?  I might could figure a way to suppress it and smash it down for a little while but I won't learn how to properly deal with anger as it comes up. The unfortunate thing for me is I have a fucking backlog of it and not much practice in feeling it and not turning on myself. I honestly feel like a giant sore thumb and I find myself bumping it in everything I do. My life as a giant bruise, chapter 1. lol  The balance of feeling it, not being an asshole to people I come in contact with and not hurting myself is the only recipe I have to live to see another day. What is appropriate and what is pure sickness?

Pay no attention to the raging bitch in the corner

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Getting past the fact your a Jesus person.

I've wondered all week, how long it took the Jews to over come their distrust of anyone German. I find myself with so much animosity towards the majority of Christians I come in contact with that I am just sort of tired of it. For me friends who find strength in the religion , I understand that they haven't had the experience of being completely beaten up with religion for over 35 years. I'm tired of thinking I have to justify my reasons for not believing in the dominant religion in America. I'm thankful that Christians aren't slitting the throat of those who refused to be "Saved" like they were doing just a couple hundred years ago. Am I tired of carrying this around? Yes. I'm I willing to feel differently? Yes. Do changes happen over night when dealing with life long issues. Hell to the NO. I hate being in Texas and in the south in general, because southern people of religious notions are way more demonstrative and loud and judgmental and condescending and condemning. I envy people who are called on to come up with their own higher power don't have to drudge their way through christian shit that gets muddled in the mix from others and their own past history. I just don't have it in me to believe in magical thinking where animals ride in archs and a man named Jonah hangs out in the belly of a whale. Last week I found out a close member of my recovery team was one of the magic believers of "him".  I felt like I had betrayed myself. I had slept with the enemy. I have been able to speak honestly with them since.  I fall in the cracks betweent, atheist, agnostic and believer. I am not 60 percent of any of those.  I'm only 15 months into a recovery program and one day, I might be able to be at ease with members of the religion that beat me up, but for now I just tense up around them waiting for the glancing blow whether it comes or not.

 If the Jews can get past the Nazi's , I can get past the christian fundamentalist that seep in now and then. I hope someday this isn't an issue for me. I"m not Christian, don't want anything to do with their messiah and resent people trying to infer it into my life.

We are getting further off course.

Love has not changed in thousands and thousands. As long as there has been humans on earth, compassion and empathy have existed. Yet we live in a time more than ever where one group wants to legislate who  is valid and who is or isn't worthy of compassion and who's love matters  and who's does not.. How after all these years have we let it be ok for law makers and talking religious heads to fuck things up so badly.

Religious leaders and politicians who wave the religion banner have completely gotten away from the message of love, service and tolerance and instead use fear, and treachery to give themselves a base of power so that they will be taken more seriously in world affairs. Affairs they need not be in. I combat this ignorance every time I smile instead of sneer, extend my hand instead of my fist and choose to care for you regardless of the fear I am engulfed in. I don't need anyone leading me. Put your microphone down and stop telling me how wrong we all are and embody the core principles of most of the major religions. Non of them include your right to judge or condemn others. Check yourself before you wreck us all.

Slow my ass down.....

All day long I have had to consciously choose to slow down. One situation after another where my first instinct was to grumble out have to wait at the ATM, the store and in traffic.  It started this morning when my senior neighbors were walking past our drive just as I was ready to pull out. I felt the chemical urge to get impatient but I instead watched the near 80 year olds walk together like it was their first walk ever together. One would point , the other would look and then they would discuss it. She is eaten up with cancer and I wondered how many more walks for them would their be. I went to use the ATM at my bank and they had it dismantled in pieces. I went to another bank where an old hand stuck out the window pushed buttons for what seemed like 10 minutes. I wanted if he had figured out how to write a word document on the damn thing.  I finally got through the ATM line, pulled out on the the residential street and the same old man had parked on the side of the rode I guess to count his money and decided to pull into the street just as I approached. Had I not seen him and basically stopped, he would have ran right into me because he was oblivious to my presence. Repeatedly I had to not rush and be present the whole day long. Some days I do in naturally, other days like today, it takes effort not to be in such a rush that I make myself miserable trying to get somewhere in a hurry. I'm happy I had the presence of mine to choose to slow down, and somewhat be present for my own moments.

Another friend crosses the finish line.

I had a notice on Facebook that a friend of mine had died. His made found him and they suspect heart attack. I suspect he finally took to many pills.  I have not spoken with him in a while. He got pissed at me for not paying enough attention to him as he told me a tale that was hindered by too much Klonipin. He blocked my number. He was a huge huge fan of disco. When I got home I pulled up Donna Summer singling "McArthur Park" and cried. It was the first time I ever cried over the death of someone. Not being on Paxil left me free enough to feel and have an honest emotion.  I cried for the laughter he brought to me, and his fierce allegiance. He was a real Yankee pain in the ass but he was so easy to love. I had a great history of friendship with him and I think I grieved some of my on history along with his, those beautiful boys we were are just a part of the history in my heart..  He never could get clean. He kept believing if he could just get everything together house wise, money wise he would be happy. As far as I know he died funny but not fulfilled. He was a poet, and when he forced me to recieve his book of poetry I told him I wasn't a fan of poems. He really wanted me to have a copy of his book and I told him, OK, but I am not reading it and I don't want you to ask what I thought. I don't have the component to enjoy poetry.  I did read a couple of them and it was so intimate I felt like I was peeking in his private journal. Which pleased him much.  So to my funny friend Michael Tague of Fort Dodge Iowa, I will see you on the other side of the finish line. You were a true kindred spirit and every time I hear the driving beat of a disco song, I'll look for you. Thank you for being my favorite pain in the ass. Elvis has indeed, left the building.

love

I caught the last 5 minutes of the update "Unsolved Mysteries today. There was a jewish man who was 14 when the concentration camp was liberated. He ran into a young soldier who gave him food. Overcome the kid dropped to his Knees and held onto the young soldiers leg. The soldier stroked his shaved head and kept telling him over and over that it would be ok.

The grown up man recalls the story and broke down in tears when the soldier touched him, hugged him. He smelled, he was covered in lice but the soldier didn't care. He just had this moment with this kid. He got rations for the boy and the others and he was never seen again.

I want to be the soldier. I want to touch, to hug and to love people that think they are too dirty for such human touch. It is like a magnetic pull in the core of my chest to love like this. I don't know how it's going to happen but I feel like it is. Not only was I born this way, my life of not feeling love is my greatest teacher on what people need and how to give love to them in a way they can feel.

In '82 when I went to the dentist, it was the first time Universal Health Precautions had started and I remember feeling like I was to dirty for the dentist to touch. The rubber gloves freaked me out. I knew exactly what he meant when he was taken by surprised someone was willing to touch him. It's a struggle for me to feel worthy of touch, but I have no problem at all giving love. My problem is receiving it without becoming nauseous.

At over 40 I am still figuring out how I feel.

I've had three days in a row where I have been completely unable to articulate what I am feeling. No sadness or depression just rather flat and tired. I feel the way I always thought mononucleosis would make me feel. So what have I done, I've meditated, read, talked with recovery buds, went to meetings, talked with my sponsor and just waited for me to feel my way past whatever is going on. Even if I felt this way forever it is still miles better than what pre-recovery Clinton felt like.  I like the the fireworks and bells+whistles, so the lower end of the spectrum of feelings kind of freak me out. I finally weight today and was very happy with 17 pounds lost,, plus I had on my big earth sandals that weight over 3 pounds. I just didn't want to seem desperate by taking my shoes off to see the scale go down three more pounds. It's still a very long way to go but I feel like i have made a good start. Don't forget I gained 40 pounds in my first year of recovery. I want my relationship with food normalized and I am using my recovery program to get to where I want to be. Food nor drugs have power over me today and I find I am learning stuff in the food area that directly relates to my drug addiction. I told the story of the mini-Hershey bar story today at noon. If I didn't eat the one mini-bar, I wouldn't eat the whole bag then hate myself for doing it.

I realized this is simplistic, so it would never work today. The United States doesn't make anything. No TV's , no clothes, no anything. Why should it be a surprise we  have no jobs for people. We need a product besides badly behaved movie stars and wanna be reality people. FDR put people to work by building roads, and damns and fixing land and soil  problems that  partly caused the dust bowl. The documentary of the Dallas family that removed everything from their home that wasn't made in the U.S.A nearly completely gave up it was such a task. Did you know not a single tv on the planet is made in the U.S.? Even Film makers film out of the country because it's so much cheaper. American movies are technically, foreign films.