It is not every day I get to use “Vexations” as a title for anything and the very enunciation of the word causes absolute delight in my soul! However, it may not be the most suitable title for this by the end, as my hope is to turn vexation into mild musing and observation.
As usual the best place to start is wherever the hell the tape worm tells me; it is quite the undertaking these days…
I started to say that it has been difficult to write, but the truth is it has been difficult to do anything the past couple of weeks… besides working with others. That appears to be exactly as it was described early on; the best way to get out of yourself and remain on the beam.
It is also true that sometimes we can lose the sense of where we are standing while helping others find their way through the darkened pathways, hidden nooks and tricky crannies… thank God for the people in my life to remind me of the things I need to keep moving forward.
It has been a while since a mental malaise like this has set in and although it will pass and there have been flickers of wonderful beauty wrapped neatly within the fog, I do not necessarily enjoy the moment any more than someone else might.
By the grace of God it’s nowhere near as bad as I have felt through the years… progress not perfection. What a true statement, if I have ever heard one.
The past few weeks have been heavy and sad and eventually the weight and meaning caught up to me. The majority of circumstances was beyond my control and involved other people and their sufferings, but that does not mean I do not feel them creeping around in the back of my brain and heart.
I recognized when each friend began to slowly slip into their undertow and recognized as immediately how helpless I was to do anything but pray for them and offer suggestions when they asked.
Beyond that, like everyone else in their lives, I am forced to sit back and watch the difficulties unfold before them. Even knowing the potential “next steps” for each of them, should their current paths continue unchallenged by their willingness and surrender there is nothing any of us can do.
Pray and hope.
It is like watching someone drown from the shore while having your ankles shackled deep into the earth; you pull at the chains and yell as loudly as you can, trying to teach through experience how to find freedom from that particular trap.
I am painfully aware of how debilitating this disease truly is…
This funk began with the passing of a friend and simply stretched out in slow motion from that moment. However, even prior to that moment it had begun…one event interconnected to each other. The truth is, it is ceaseless and the beginning was most likely long before my recognition or awareness took place.
Regardless, I sat at his memorial prayer service wondering the usual “why him and not me” bullshit while knowing this question could not be answered in this life. I shook it loose from my brain and instead I tried to focus on prayer for his family and friends.
His death shook me like those before him, but worse somehow.
It was like the chain of deaths and relapse over the previous months and years had accumulated into a catastrophic moment causing the brain to finally catch up with what was happening all around us. It was suffocating. At first it was imperceptible but gradually the pieces of this macabre puzzle started to flutter into place and cause a complete shutdown of the system.
He was 32 and it is tragedy; before him it was a 19 year old, 20 year old, 24 year old, and a 43 year old. All taken by alcoholism and drug addiction within months of one another; these were only the ones I had known by name…
I believe in hope and cultivating faith through prayer and action. Having been in the position of sitting near, talking with, and listening to the families who have lost their loved ones to this disease; I cannot lie and say that faith and hope in those moments came from or through me. When I could feel God’s presence it was always through those family members whether they were aware or not or had faith or none at all…
From my friend’s passing I watched as one friend, then another, fell prey to the cunning nature of our powerful disease.
Some went back into the active world where the probability of survival gets closer to zero with each drink or drug they take. While others floundered and pushed the envelope of sobriety with the same reckless abandon as though they had taken mass quantities of their favorite chemical. Those of us who have found even a short amount of sober time know this can be a tenuous ledge to walk along on the best of days.
I hope and I pray for each of them and am in waiting should they seek me out at some point in the journey. This does not mean I am immune to feeling the sense of dread, as time passes and I watch them drift further and further out to sea.
And just as the others seemed to settle in to their chaos…
I watched as I drifted towards an old pattern. I had two options really; I could dig in and fight the current, which inevitably leads to more pain than is necessary or I could surrender and float my way free by doing the very logical things I have been taught to do.
By the grace of God, surrender feels much easier today. It was a quick trip to be sure and although it lasted days instead of weeks, that does not mean I made it out unscathed. It simply means I was able to avoid the old collection of calamity and disaster until I found myself in a teachable position once again.
But for the grace of God I go.
Under no circumstances do I imagine or profess myself a perfect character of recovery or sobriety; I fight for control over my world regularly.
The saving grace has been the amazing teachers around me and God making me willing to listen, as they patiently show me how effective and practical prayer and surrender can be. If not for these amazing people, perhaps my foray into an old pattern would have lasted longer and potentially brought me back into the drink and drug.
Thank You God; in Your grace I go…
On a completely different note and one that is more along the lines of a humorous observation. The last few weeks have reintroduced me to the modern atheist and their condemnation and judgment of the spiritual path. I say this is somewhat humorous, but I recognize the potentially dubious nature of any stance containing bitterness and contempt in an attempt to remain sober and also find that ever elusive serenity as we do.
I have to be honest here of course, as I said to the individuals along the way; I did not sober up and immediately believe in anything other than man’s power to control his or her environment. What I had to endure in those early years of struggle because of lingering bitterness, intellectual contempt, and unwillingness to move beyond my old ideas of God was in no way pleasant.
In fact I had been able to control certain and specific behaviors and thoughts for short periods of time, which only served to convince me that in fact I could do it all on my own…until the bottom fell out and it did for me, each and every time. Once again I found myself sitting in those dark bedrooms holding my head in shaky hands and wondering where it all went so wrong when my resolve was so strong but hours before…and this was in sobriety even though it sounds bloody familiar to life with drinking and using.
The repeated frustration over these continuous self-induced catastrophes found me teetering on the brink of relapse on more than one occasion. And beyond the risk of relapse, it found my normal daily state of mind, body and soul in a state of hostility and agitation.
God, I needed no God and I did not know peace despite the chemicals being long since passed through my system…
To make matters worse and contrary to what I tried to believe; I was not unique in my brilliant arguments against or my anger towards this brand new idea of spiritual awakening, connection, and reliance.
I was simply one in a long line of individuals trying desperately to hold on to the world I once believed was real. As painful and difficult as my old beliefs and ideas made my life, I remained obstinate in my refusals and rejections of this God idea. To say I was skeptical would be less than a mild understatement…
I was that person who judged and scorned God based on what I had seen in religion and from that place of judgment and scorn I looked upon the people in the world with those same eyes. It took me years to accept the realities I have today. My intellect was such and the ancient pains were so deep within my system I did not even recognize that I was defiant of something which would inevitably save my life.
Looking back, and the well intentioned souls of recent weeks have helped with that enormously, I can see that my contempt directly related to my already monumental struggles and pain that are perfectly normal in early sobriety.
When I limped in to sobriety; I was judgmental, condemning, and terminally unique in every way. I had absolutely no faith or love for anything and the only belief I had was the loathing and deep contempt for self.
I found it difficult to put faith in the meetings I attended because they were full of people I had pre-judged and condemned in the way I normally did without understanding fully what I was doing. You could look me in the face and say how judgmental I was being and I would deny it because of how intricately my Ego had woven the lies.
The self, centered in my Ego, caused each and every character defect I carried with me to blossom and flourish within the ignorance I lived… we cannot know what we do not know. And we cannot learn if we believe we already know. It is by God’s grace that I remain sober and have been given the opportunities to continue to learn.
I wondered, listening to these men and women talk, how a smart guy like me could have been so blind to not see that all of my judgment and condemnation of things I did not like simply continued to keep me blind and sick. Not to mention how I had acted exactly like the church and its people I was condemning.
Thank You God for every new day You give; to learn and relearn what I may have missed in previous days. Thank You God for every person You put in the path…
May you all stay long enough to know what it is you are destined to know and to become who you are destined to become, whatever that may be. May your hearts be filled with love and your minds be filled with peace and understanding.
May God bless you all,
David Lewry
As usual the best place to start is wherever the hell the tape worm tells me; it is quite the undertaking these days…
I started to say that it has been difficult to write, but the truth is it has been difficult to do anything the past couple of weeks… besides working with others. That appears to be exactly as it was described early on; the best way to get out of yourself and remain on the beam.
It is also true that sometimes we can lose the sense of where we are standing while helping others find their way through the darkened pathways, hidden nooks and tricky crannies… thank God for the people in my life to remind me of the things I need to keep moving forward.
It has been a while since a mental malaise like this has set in and although it will pass and there have been flickers of wonderful beauty wrapped neatly within the fog, I do not necessarily enjoy the moment any more than someone else might.
By the grace of God it’s nowhere near as bad as I have felt through the years… progress not perfection. What a true statement, if I have ever heard one.
The past few weeks have been heavy and sad and eventually the weight and meaning caught up to me. The majority of circumstances was beyond my control and involved other people and their sufferings, but that does not mean I do not feel them creeping around in the back of my brain and heart.
I recognized when each friend began to slowly slip into their undertow and recognized as immediately how helpless I was to do anything but pray for them and offer suggestions when they asked.
Beyond that, like everyone else in their lives, I am forced to sit back and watch the difficulties unfold before them. Even knowing the potential “next steps” for each of them, should their current paths continue unchallenged by their willingness and surrender there is nothing any of us can do.
Pray and hope.
It is like watching someone drown from the shore while having your ankles shackled deep into the earth; you pull at the chains and yell as loudly as you can, trying to teach through experience how to find freedom from that particular trap.
I am painfully aware of how debilitating this disease truly is…
This funk began with the passing of a friend and simply stretched out in slow motion from that moment. However, even prior to that moment it had begun…one event interconnected to each other. The truth is, it is ceaseless and the beginning was most likely long before my recognition or awareness took place.
Regardless, I sat at his memorial prayer service wondering the usual “why him and not me” bullshit while knowing this question could not be answered in this life. I shook it loose from my brain and instead I tried to focus on prayer for his family and friends.
His death shook me like those before him, but worse somehow.
It was like the chain of deaths and relapse over the previous months and years had accumulated into a catastrophic moment causing the brain to finally catch up with what was happening all around us. It was suffocating. At first it was imperceptible but gradually the pieces of this macabre puzzle started to flutter into place and cause a complete shutdown of the system.
He was 32 and it is tragedy; before him it was a 19 year old, 20 year old, 24 year old, and a 43 year old. All taken by alcoholism and drug addiction within months of one another; these were only the ones I had known by name…
I believe in hope and cultivating faith through prayer and action. Having been in the position of sitting near, talking with, and listening to the families who have lost their loved ones to this disease; I cannot lie and say that faith and hope in those moments came from or through me. When I could feel God’s presence it was always through those family members whether they were aware or not or had faith or none at all…
From my friend’s passing I watched as one friend, then another, fell prey to the cunning nature of our powerful disease.
Some went back into the active world where the probability of survival gets closer to zero with each drink or drug they take. While others floundered and pushed the envelope of sobriety with the same reckless abandon as though they had taken mass quantities of their favorite chemical. Those of us who have found even a short amount of sober time know this can be a tenuous ledge to walk along on the best of days.
I hope and I pray for each of them and am in waiting should they seek me out at some point in the journey. This does not mean I am immune to feeling the sense of dread, as time passes and I watch them drift further and further out to sea.
And just as the others seemed to settle in to their chaos…
I watched as I drifted towards an old pattern. I had two options really; I could dig in and fight the current, which inevitably leads to more pain than is necessary or I could surrender and float my way free by doing the very logical things I have been taught to do.
By the grace of God, surrender feels much easier today. It was a quick trip to be sure and although it lasted days instead of weeks, that does not mean I made it out unscathed. It simply means I was able to avoid the old collection of calamity and disaster until I found myself in a teachable position once again.
But for the grace of God I go.
Under no circumstances do I imagine or profess myself a perfect character of recovery or sobriety; I fight for control over my world regularly.
The saving grace has been the amazing teachers around me and God making me willing to listen, as they patiently show me how effective and practical prayer and surrender can be. If not for these amazing people, perhaps my foray into an old pattern would have lasted longer and potentially brought me back into the drink and drug.
Thank You God; in Your grace I go…
On a completely different note and one that is more along the lines of a humorous observation. The last few weeks have reintroduced me to the modern atheist and their condemnation and judgment of the spiritual path. I say this is somewhat humorous, but I recognize the potentially dubious nature of any stance containing bitterness and contempt in an attempt to remain sober and also find that ever elusive serenity as we do.
I have to be honest here of course, as I said to the individuals along the way; I did not sober up and immediately believe in anything other than man’s power to control his or her environment. What I had to endure in those early years of struggle because of lingering bitterness, intellectual contempt, and unwillingness to move beyond my old ideas of God was in no way pleasant.
In fact I had been able to control certain and specific behaviors and thoughts for short periods of time, which only served to convince me that in fact I could do it all on my own…until the bottom fell out and it did for me, each and every time. Once again I found myself sitting in those dark bedrooms holding my head in shaky hands and wondering where it all went so wrong when my resolve was so strong but hours before…and this was in sobriety even though it sounds bloody familiar to life with drinking and using.
The repeated frustration over these continuous self-induced catastrophes found me teetering on the brink of relapse on more than one occasion. And beyond the risk of relapse, it found my normal daily state of mind, body and soul in a state of hostility and agitation.
God, I needed no God and I did not know peace despite the chemicals being long since passed through my system…
To make matters worse and contrary to what I tried to believe; I was not unique in my brilliant arguments against or my anger towards this brand new idea of spiritual awakening, connection, and reliance.
I was simply one in a long line of individuals trying desperately to hold on to the world I once believed was real. As painful and difficult as my old beliefs and ideas made my life, I remained obstinate in my refusals and rejections of this God idea. To say I was skeptical would be less than a mild understatement…
I was that person who judged and scorned God based on what I had seen in religion and from that place of judgment and scorn I looked upon the people in the world with those same eyes. It took me years to accept the realities I have today. My intellect was such and the ancient pains were so deep within my system I did not even recognize that I was defiant of something which would inevitably save my life.
Looking back, and the well intentioned souls of recent weeks have helped with that enormously, I can see that my contempt directly related to my already monumental struggles and pain that are perfectly normal in early sobriety.
When I limped in to sobriety; I was judgmental, condemning, and terminally unique in every way. I had absolutely no faith or love for anything and the only belief I had was the loathing and deep contempt for self.
I found it difficult to put faith in the meetings I attended because they were full of people I had pre-judged and condemned in the way I normally did without understanding fully what I was doing. You could look me in the face and say how judgmental I was being and I would deny it because of how intricately my Ego had woven the lies.
The self, centered in my Ego, caused each and every character defect I carried with me to blossom and flourish within the ignorance I lived… we cannot know what we do not know. And we cannot learn if we believe we already know. It is by God’s grace that I remain sober and have been given the opportunities to continue to learn.
I wondered, listening to these men and women talk, how a smart guy like me could have been so blind to not see that all of my judgment and condemnation of things I did not like simply continued to keep me blind and sick. Not to mention how I had acted exactly like the church and its people I was condemning.
Thank You God for every new day You give; to learn and relearn what I may have missed in previous days. Thank You God for every person You put in the path…
May you all stay long enough to know what it is you are destined to know and to become who you are destined to become, whatever that may be. May your hearts be filled with love and your minds be filled with peace and understanding.
May God bless you all,
David Lewry
