Defining our Higher Power

First, some pretty cool comments on the previous posts. Somebody must have clicked in from MySobrietySpace.com. I set up a profile there. My first sponsor also sent me an email about Job, and I took the liberty of posting it here as a comment on that post.

Had lunch with a sponsee today, and he's been on the 3rd Step. My sponsor had told me that it's important at this point to have some workable image of a Higher Power, no matter how small, so we can have some idea of what we're turning things over to. Something you can wrap your head around, as he said. Lots of folks use the group, or a more classic notion of God, whatever.

My first take on this, about eight years ago, was that God was the little voice in my head trying to get me to do the right thing. I heard it very clearly in the later years of smoking pot, when even as I lifted the pipe to my face, I'd hear "Don't do it! You don't like it! You'll regret it!" And that voice was always right. Sometimes after I smoked I would immediately hate the feeling and wish I had listened to that voice.

My notion of a Higher Power has changed over the years, but at first my notion of the Third Step was simply following that voice, wherever it came from ("tuning in God's station" was another way I thought of it).

So today this sponsee came up with another one: He knows there's electricity, even though you can't see it or really understand how it works, but stuff works with electricity, which is omnipresent, even in our bodies. So, for him, if God is like electricity, then the program is like the plug you stick in the wall. That action (willingness, faith) allows God to go to work in your life. I thought that was pretty good.

Then we went off into a long, rambling conversation about religion and particle physics and Buddhism -- just the kind of massively intellectual conversation we both enjoy and which adds up to absolutely nothing. But it sure was fun.

Dealing with Cravings

The topic for this week is dealing with cravings.

I guess it happens to all of us, especially if we happen to be around people getting high. I was at a concert recently in a small, crowded venue, and there were a lot of people getting high. Now, I've been sober for more than 7 years, but I won't lie to you: It occurred to me for a moment how nice it would be to have one little hit, just to add a little something to how the music sounds.

So here's what I did: I had a little conversation with myself that went like this: "Paul, it makes perfect send you'd want to get high. You had some good times doing that, and live music was one of your favorite things to mix with weed. No doubt, one little hit might be fun for a moment, BUT -- what happens after that? What happen when you have a hit? Or a sip of that tasty beer they're all having? Are you a guy who can have just one? No? Well, that's okay, at least you know that. You smoked your share of pot, and then some, and now you have made up your mind not to do it anymore. Not even one little hit, because for you, there's no such thing. What we're really talking about here is not one little hit, but a whole bag, all the time, all by yourself. I know you don't want that! So enjoy the music, wish these folks the best, and be grateful these little cravings don't come along too often, and that you have a better way of dealing with them than before."

In this case, in addition to that little voice, I also had a lot of examples around me of what I look like when I use: people stumbling around, acting the fool, making stupid noises, and generally being pathetic. Doesn't look like fun to me anymore. Looks kind of sad, actually.

So how do you deal with cravings?

God and those "tests"

The topic for this week is: Does God give is more than we can handle?

Thanks

This is one of those recovery phrases that I never really identified with -- not that I have a problem with it, but that I never had a sense of a Higher Power that was doling things out, giving tests, checking results, and so on.

I always felt like, for me, this would lead to some kind of confrontational notion of me and God, like Job had. I only recently learned the end of that story; after God had destroyed Job's life, Job went to God and said "What the hell?" (Needless to say, I'm paraphrasing). God's response (paraphrasing again) was "Who the hell are you to ask?"

At first I thought, man, who wants a God like that? But then I thought, maybe what God was saying was, "Why waste your time with thoughts like that? Why put yourself through all this misery wondering why or what, or getting into self-pity?"

I'm a long way from a Biblical scholar, but it's an interesting story to consider. Maybe one lesson from that story is "Life simply is. Don't fight it." I mean, when Moses asked God who he was, didn't God say only "I am." Dude.

I have this weird, non-formed, semi-unified, combo Buddhist-Tao-Mystic notion that all these concepts like "me" and "you" and "God" are just constructs of our mind, created for purposes I don't understand, and that all suffering comes from our attachment to these ideas, when what really works is going with it, not putting labels on it, not trying to intellectualize it, etc.

Success, suffering, failure, happiness -- all ideas we came up with to understand things. Acceptance and peace -- that's what I'm after!

I don't know if that makes any sense at all, and I hope I haven't offended anybody (especially any Biblical scholars who might be reading). Just random, spiritual thoughts in a coffee shop on a rainy Oregon morning.

Paul