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I understand (even if I find it hard to practice) detachment, loving oneself, gratitude etc. But there are some questions that show for me, how I'll have to come to terms with some concepts at some point: 1. Where does ambition fit in? How can one be detached, grateful etc and still feel that drive. Isn't ambition driven by a dissatisfaction with the status quo, the desire for better? Are the successful people in life (either in terms of material gain, or accomplishment in their endeavors) people who push and work and refuse to settle for second best? I'm reminded of a baseball manager who detested having players who became born again christians: "they lose their drive, their ambition, their desire. Nothing matters to them anymore and their performance invariably tanks." 2. What about dreams, and working to make them come true. I always dreamed of living in a nice restored old house in an old fashioned town. Reality is I'll never be able to afford it (at least in the tri-state area where I live and given that I'm in a job I'd be loathe to leave, I guess I won't find a bargain out in Idaho somewhere.). While it's not all that important for my happiness, I was walking around such a town tonight and realized...."forget it man, it's never going to happen and there is nothing I can do to make it happen. I'd have to win the lotto to live here." I have other dreams that are not about "keeping up with the JOnes's" that I see I'll have to just give up on. Dreams I've had my whole adult life. I don't see how that DOESNT suck. Where do dreams fit in to recovery, or are we better off not dreaming, because it's and exercise in frustration. 3. "Religion is the opiate of the masses"...I've always been struck by that phrase. Because while religion/or spirituality may be the right idea, there's not doubt that if you had a group of people who felt disenfranchised, and deprived, you could appease them with the idea of blessings in the hereafter. Isn't recovery saying the same thing? What I mean is (and again spirituality and giving up material desires may be the best way to go anyway) wouldn't you try to sell people on the idea that you don't need money, families, relationships, etc to be happy? Especially if they were never going to be able to get those things anyway? I think you would. It's exactly what you've HAVE to sell them to keep them from being miserable. 4. What should matter in life? If I can detach from material things, relationships, dreams, desires and ambitions.....what do I have? I can see that I'd at least have the chance to pursue my interests, and things I enjoy, but is that what's it all about. 5. Why do some people have it better in certain or several areas of life than others? Again I can be sold on the idea that it shouldn't matter, and won't bring happiness, yet we don't all start on equal footing. Some are born smarter, stronger, more skilled, born into money while others are born into poverty, are handicapped etc. I know some fairly wealthy (not millionaires mind you, let's say 1/2 a mil combined income) who are kind, happy, good people. Very religious in one case. How, did they manage this? How does it alude me? Why???? What was the deciding factor? Pure luck???? I know some of my complaints in my life were due to choices I made that in hindsight were not good choices for my life. Perhaps it was the best I could do at the time given my emotional handicaps and I can be gentle with myself and not beat myself up over it. Yet it's because of those choices I am where I am today. Not in a terrible position by most standards, but not anywhere near what I wanted from my life. Why? How did that happen? Why me? What choiced did they make that brought them this good fortune?
Now I also have some answers that beg certain questions. I do know that pursuing what you love and being able to make a living out of it is a great thing. I saw a documentary about the rock band Rush (a fave of mine) where they were not having commercial success early in their career. They were told to change the way the write their songs. They refused!!! They all agreed they'd rather go back to being garbage men, hardware store clerks etc than not be able to write the music they wanted to right! I get that, if you love something so much. I'm guessing their dream was not to be rich and famous, but to write the music and play it their way! I get that, as I said. I've researched much on happiness and the research clearly shows that being wealthy, having status etc. has no correlation to happiness. Again doing what makes you happy is so important....somehow though what makes some people happy also makes them wealthy? Is this luck? I just don't know. Richard Bach in his book Illusions borrows some eastern thoughts that other than doing what you enjoy, all the rest is purely and literally an illusion. It doesn't exist. ONly the soul, it's calling and it's joy are what's real. I don't get it but I see the relevance. Any thoughts anyone?
Here's another answer....wealth and success is fleeting at times. No team is champ every year, millions are made and lost each day. Some, a minority but still, give up the stress of wealth and choose a simpler life.
Hmmm. Those are interesting questions. 1. For me, gratitude and ambition are not mutually exclusive. Certainly, ambition could be dissatisfaction with the status quo. It was for me when I was living with active alcoholism. I went to get more education so that I could take care of my child on my own. These days, though, dissatisfaction is not what drives ambition. I think that I HAVE to have ambition - if I don't, I feel dead in the water. I feel though, that my ambitions have changed in recovery. My non-recovery self was so single-minded that when I wanted something, I put 300% into getting it. I did not consider anything other than what I wanted. I did not consider the effect my actions might have on anyone else, or the consequences. In recovery, I certainly still have ambition. For instance, there was a job that I interviewed for not too long ago that would've paid a bunch more than I make now. In the past, the money would've been THE motivating factor to do whatever I needed to do to get that job. I would've just jumped off into the deep end without checking to see if there was even water in the pool. I lived impulsively. I don't do that as much anymore. Instead, I interviewed for the job, thinking that if something fell in my lap even though I have a job and wasn't really looking, I would certainly consider it. I prayed about it, and let my HP know that I would be willing to either take the job or not take it. I sought my HP's will for me, because following my own will just gets me into trouble. Turns out that the job was not my HP's will for me. And I was completely at peace with that. I feel like, though I certainly want to provide for my family the best that I can, I have to have my focus on the bigger picture ... which, for me, is how I can best be of service to other people. 2. Why do you say that have to give up on your dreams? I believe that my HP is full of miracles. I'm never going to stop dreaming. I realize, though, that when I don't get something I think I want, I get something so much better. If I got everything I wanted when I started recovery, I would've sold myself far short. I think it's good to dream. 3. I don't usually know how to answer religious questions. The God of my parents' understanding was a fire and brimstone, mean, judgmental God that hated me. The HP of my own understanding is nothing like what I grew up believing in. I didn't find my HP in any organized religious group. I found mine in my own recovery. I would never presume to tell anyone that my HP is THE HP and the only way to happiness. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest differences in recovery and organized religion. Nobody tells anybody else in recovery what their HP should look like. There are people in recovery that are agnostic or athiest - some on this board. They still have recovery. And the blessings are not in the hereafter - they are right this very second. They've been there the whole time, in fact - I just had to learn to look at them in their proper perspective. I was not able to do that before because I was raised in an abusive, alcoholic family where there was only negativity and stress. I didn't know how to be happy - I wouldn't have known happy if it knocked me down. 4. What should matter in life? Being happy, joyous, and free. For me, I find these things in helping other people - not the "help" I tried to give the alcoholics in my life, but helping other family members of alcoholics in recovery. Helping other people solidifies my recovery. It allows me to be a conduit for my HP's work. It may help plant the seed of recovery in someone else. When I focus on doing something for other people, it gets me out of myself, out of my own negative thoughts and obsession with my problems, and teaches me the meaning of fellowship. I was raised feeling isolated and like I was the only one with my particular set of problems. It is a relief to know that I am not unique. If I am able, I would like to share that relief with someone else. I believe that I cannot keep my recovery if I don't give it away. 5. I don't believe anyone has it better. I know a girl who was raised in a family with a ton of money. Her first car was a Benz, and her dad owns a really upscale hotel here in Dallas where it costs $1300 a night to stay. Hard not to feel envious. I talked to her one day, though, and she said, "Well, everyone has problems. Some people have money problems. That's not a problem I've ever had to deal with. However, my parents did cocaine off the kitchen table right in front of me." What she said helped me to realize that nobody has it EASY. I made a lot of assumptions that, because she could afford a closet full of designer shoes and handbags, she had no idea what it was like to suffer. This wasn't at all the case. She'd suffered through addiction just as I had. It's very easy to compare what we feel like on the inside to what other people appear to be on the outside - and convince ourselves that so-and-so has it made. It's not the case, though - it's only an illusion. Sure, the material stuff is nice. I like purses and handbags just as much as the next woman. :) But in recovery, I've discovered that there are just more important things.
In a word, I think the answer to these questions is "balance." It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Just my .02.
I was having a bit of a 12th step with a fellow who just recently relapsed and including two other members of my sunday home meeting; after the meeting. The one who has just recently relapsed spent much of the time "thinking" which has held him in confusion which results in depression, self inflicted negativity, and pain. He is still "under the influence" meaning that the chances are great that he will drink and use over it because that is his habit. He is continuing to use tools and behaviors which don't work, trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results or one of the programs definition of insanity. He "gets it" but doesn't it's in his head and not in his behaviors as taught by this spiritual program of recovery. He is out of trust and faith (act as if) and stuck in control (fear of change). He left in the same condition that he arrived into the 12th step with. His mind was closed, he was afraid and would not trust that he could have what the others had if only he would do what others were doing. I did the same thing until my early sponsor told me to get out of my head and drop down a foot and act from my heart. After this fellow left one of the other people in the discussion who also has had a history of relapse and recovery several times and has grown beyond it said, "I learned that my first response to fear and confusion was to Don't think and... Don't drink." That is one AA version of basic recovery behavior. My head held no solutions and yet I continued to try to find solutions there which resulted in my deep insanity. I had to learn how to detach from my own thinking and fear of not trusting others. I needed to listen and do. That was so hard for many reasons.
At the closing of our face to face meetings we read what was the first promise I ever heard and which became true for me in recovery...in part it reads, "If you keep and open mind you will find help." Miracle solution...distrust my own thinking and listen openly to the fellowship remembering to take what I liked and leaving the rest for later. I cannot arrive at recovery using the same brain I got crazy with. For me that was (is) fact.
Happiness for me, thanks to Alateen and Al-Anon is an emotion...a spiritual condition and an asset of character. Happiness for me is not an accident or a random event beyond my wants and needs...Happiness is in fact a choice. Regardless to what is going on around me in my life and how former culture use to say I should feel or react to it...I can choose to be happy and I do. Who would choose other wise?
I was taught in early program the definition of being humble was "being teachable". Let others offer me their experiences, strengths and hope because my own thinking does't work. Maybe a solution is patience and open mindedness so that you can sit and listen to others before you arrive at their solutions.
IT IS ALL IN THE STATE OF THE MIND...that is how I have managed to come to grips with dissatisfaction, discontentment, unfulfilled dreams, envy., and "...but everyone seems to be better off than me, WHY?"
My mind, my thought process, my sense of unfairness, my discontent, my poor-me I don't have what he/she has - why - it's not fair. My this is WHAT I WANT and I am not going to be happy until I GET WHAT I WANT...and much much more was a result of my not understanding that I was SICK!
I lost EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) because of my AH. My thinking process, my wants, my needs, my future, my self worth were utterly screwed up UNTIL I acknowledged the reason WHY this was happening and nothing seemed to be working for me.
Once I started to get real and work towards the basic NEEDS in my life I began to find gratitude for what I did have AND my WANTS became less materialistic and more healthy. I stopped whining that I did NOT HAVE and began giving thanks for what I DID HAVE.
Jerry's sponsor gave Jerry a huge treasure chest full of what is the real treasure that is healthy. He said, "..get out of [your] head and drop down a foot and act from [your] heart.
That is infact what I was doing when I changed my thinking...I listened to the gratitude of my heart and found my heartfelt dreams of NEEDS in reality...not the self-centred materialistic self pitying WANTS of my dreams. And I found a way of being able to dream and be satisfied with what I had and not COMPARING myself to what other had.
Your point 5 I can identify with at age 14 when this unhealthy comparison and wishing and thinking was really hammered home.
I learnt then NEVER TO COVET or envy or compare others and their situation when my best friend, who appeared to have a life of wonder and abundancy; she had everything that a child could have, beautiful clothes, beautiful home, fabulous life style, amazing holidays jetting off all over the world, her own pony and a swimming pool, all the latest things a girl could ask for, more pocket money in one week than I got for the whole year...and she was intelligent, and beautiful and stunning and kind and gentle and ALL the boys wanted her to be their girlfriend; what else could anyone ask for at that age? BUT I was soon to be shocked out of my stinking thinking when she suddenly DIED that same year.
She was 14, the same age as me - and was MY best friend at school. I began to feel very humbled...she had been given so much in your life and NONE of it could I envy when she died, because the real gift was LIFE itself, which she no longer had. The NEEDS/WANTS all dropped into perspective. The reality of envying someone else for what they had and what I do not have all turned topsy turvy...no no no, I never have envied anyone again for one never knows the whole story.
I repeat, never have I had trouble with that since, except when my thinking became stinking because of the rub off living with a violent AH. And that, thank GOD did not last too long, because I remembered Maria (my best friend at school) and I got out of my head and into my heart.
So, STOP today and realise, you can still have dreams, ambitions, and wants but these NEED to be tempered and healthy.
White rabbit wrote:
"...I feel though, that my ambitions have changed in recovery. My non-recovery self was so single-minded that when I wanted something, I put 300% into getting it. I did not consider anything other than what I wanted. I did not consider the effect my actions might have on anyone else, or the consequences..."
I was struck by this one point White Rabbit made quite forceable. This is STINKING thinking because they were so driven by their WANT and not their NEED that they did not consider the effect of their actions on others or the consequences. Now that is truly UNHEALTHY.
AND, 300%! WOW, not good.
The most anyone can do is believe and do 100% of their best...300% is what loan sharks do to their interest rates and that is NOT good, or healthy.
Just for today, if I were you, I would look at the difference between WANT and NEED and that might help you begin thinking healthily. White Rabbit identified the stinking thinking and I got a lesson very early on in my life that enabled me to recognise stinking thinking from thereon in my life.
Perhaps by understanding the difference between WANT and NEED you too will identify your stinking thinking and open up the way to recovery through a healthier thinking process.
Dreams are what keep us going as long as these dreams do not take us DOWN.
Ambition is great as long as it does not become self-destructive by producing a negative effect. REALITY is the best way forward.
Keep everything real and achievable, and realise that you may have to lower your sights a little and be satisfied with a little less if you are striving beyond what is attainable.
Just my opinion and observations, I hope this helps. Disregard any of it that does not help you work through your present situation.
With love
Suzannah
__________________
Out of the ruin of my past I have found the fortress of myself and I know how to defend it.
Strive for WISDOM; Seek SERENITY; NEVER compromise your INTEGRITY.
Detachment is a tool it isn't a way of life. I have certainly had to detach from alcoholics around who I have to live/exist/work and more. I detach in order to be far more objective and less triggered by their actions and attitudes. I don't detach to be a martyr. I detach as a tool to take care of myself.
I'm not sure if you are aware of the al anon tools. One of them is to get very very busy taking care of yourself. So I wouldn't say that it is about giving up at all. When we do start taking care of ourselves, we can focus on goals and meet them.
