program

“Why do I have to do service? I got clean. Isn’t that enough?”

This quote comes from an internal monologue that was rolling in my brain a couple years ago when I was first trying to straighten out my life. While I knew better than to ask it out loud, I was fortunate enough that more authentic folk in the meetings I attended didn’t. They did ask. And did get answers. While the replies were numerous, the one that stuck with me most was this one:

“We keep what we have only by giving it away”.

I think it socked me deep in the ventral viscera for a couple reasons: 1.) Because I’m selfish, and the first half of that stipulation involves the safety of my recovery. And 2.) Because deep down, I knew it was true – even though it made zero sense at the time. So, I started to serve within the program. And then – outside of the rooms.

But I feel like I’ve been losing sight lately. Meetings have been far and few between and I can’t remember the last addict I helped. In fact, I find myself even losing touch with the dark side of addiction. Failing to relate. Like when I recently asked someone I know and love – still in active addiction – how they planned to spend their Saturday. Their reply?

“Watching T.V. from 1 P.M. until sleep,” they said, casually.

Immediately I went silent (and simultaneously into judgment mode). From one until bed, I was going to work, run, paddleboard, get groceries, clean, read, run errands, and run again. I loved this person and wanted more for them. I was angry. How could you just stay in bed and watch mindless shows and drink all day? When it’s summer? And gorgeous out? How utterly disgusti-… Wait. Wait. Wait an effing second… That’s when I remembered something that made me go nauseous (and probably look like the equivalent of a computer freezing up with the blue screen of death):

This was exactly what I used to do in my downtime bordering being a functional junkie.

Granted, I had back problems. Still do. But instead of getting off my ass and handling them head on back then, I refused. I “deserved” torpor back then, I reasoned, because I didn’t ask for back pain. And, if I didn’t ask for reality’s worst, then I didn’t have to handle it (#logic). I deserved to stay sedentary, surf the net, and design a faux life online instead of living out an authentic one with flesh n’ blood folk. The matrix is a lot more appealing (and a bit more like Wonderland) once you’ve crushed and insufflated both’a Morpheus’ pills simultaneously (plus the ones he probably had hidden in his pocket which you stole off’a him). From the reality T.V. shows to a me shaped dorsal groove in the mattress – I’d done the same damned thing – except more isolated. And it was quite some time before that changed for me.

How’d that ever happen?

Because someone else was doing a service for those like me.

It started with (and was later continued by) Russell Brand – who’d done a documentary on addiction and recovery.

That film changed something in me.

Like, you know how in those thriller films, a breeze will come through the window during a séance, and some unlit candle will suddenly light up? It was kinda like that. And it was scary – the prospect of ever quitting – of ever leaving my chemical cradle. But the compassion and solution seeking mindset I saw – all coming from someone who’d gone through where I was – gave me this sort of hope. Hope not just that I could change my sitch – but that maybe it’d be worth it. He’d made it – not just through addiction – but made it, made it. It made me think of others who’d done the same. People I actually knew – like the amazing Kyle Krieger. So, maybe I needed the help of others. But I was afraid to ask. Addiction can be pretty embarrassing to share when you’re a hubristic bish like me. So, I started with something more basic: the physical pain. And, after doing water therapy and trolling for good therapists at the P.T. clinic for several months, I found this amazing shaman level doctor with mystical tentacle hands. I stuck with him. And, slowly, I noted a thoroughgoing improvement as he taught me how to play marriage counselor between my mind and body – which had gone all War of The Roses on each other many moons ago. It helped. A lot.

So much so that I actually left home one night. I left my laptop with my fake life installed on it. I left my television. I left my whole alter reality and reality shows in that dingy apartment for actual reality – to go see Mr. Brand himself perform stand up, live in D.C. And when I was told I’d get to meet him backstage, I did something totally out of character for me. I skipped my nerve-calming dose of Valium, in hopes of harnessing some clarity – so as to recall every passing moment of such a phenomenal experience later.

After we hugged, he looked in my eyes – and read me like a book.

“Are you going to meetings?” he inquired.

I wasn’t. I said so.

After a long conversation, he left his email on one of the pages in the center of my (his, really) “Booky Wook” along with his hairstylist’s email. And, to my surprise, when I emailed him a couple days later… he replied. Aside from his encouraging words, he had something of even more value to offer: good, clear direction on where to go, who to see, and exactly how to help myself… by getting help from others going through various stages of the same thing. The amazing thing? When I got to my first meeting, I noticed something fascinating. There were far more people than not who’d had years upon years of “clean time”. That means they’d kicked their habit, gotten glittery gigs in the city, and still showed up at 7:30 on a Tuesday evening in their perfume and Prada to tell newcomers how much better it can get. If they just keep coming back. And they always came back, the old timers. Even when they probably just wanted to be home, decompressing, and recharging for tomorrow. And, to my shame, that’s where I’ve been for a bit now – doing that selfish latter thing. I think Russell said a quote about that once – “Pull the ladder up Jack, ‘cause I’m fine.” I hear it, sardonically, in my head now and then (louder than the usual miscellaneous voices we won’t discuss). I really need to show up and drop down that ladder to eff-knows-who. ‘cause there’s something kinda lonely about a self-serving lifestyle. (Plus it makes me lose my empathy superpowers that help me make people like me better. #validationseeker) Granted, I’ve gotten into a service profession – and I love it – but none of the service I’m doing now would’ve been possible without the program that laid that foundation. I owe it at least a modicum of my aid.

If nothing else than by just sharing my journey from insanity to… managed insanity.

“…Thank you for sharing…”

But, you know, if meetings aren’t your thing – maybe that’s now how you even got clean – this still applies to all of us. Service is crucial. I can’t even call any service I do “selfless”. Because – through the filter of my eyes – every old man I help with his groceries or little old lady in a motorcart reaching for pancake mix on the shelf inevitably comes with a twinkling video game karma coin atop their cranium. Each good deed is a seed that blossoms into an intrinsic winning tree. Finally, I’m relieved, briefly. Relieved from the shame flavored interrogation light I swing onto myself. Relieved from the nagging sense of purposelessness. And relieved that at least someone today seemed to like me. If only ‘cause I did something nice for them. Might sound egoic, that last thing, but when I compare all the superficial shiz I used to do to get people to like me… I feel like this thing’s maybe better. Especially since it’s a symbiotic relache – between you and whatever unfortunate bastard needs your assistance today.

Yes, service is about more than showing up early to a step group to make coffee.

(Or the second service of not finishing it before everyone arrives. Because: addict.)

As much as I personally need to work on that, I also need to remember that it’s what you do outside of any kinda support group, too. Service is the little stuff. Asking a tourist family if they’d like you to take their picture for them. Sharing a meal with that homeless lady who ironically sets up shop outside a shop called Home Depot. Showing up to your family’s home when vibes are low – to try and raise them (though you might wanna make sure you’re in a jolly enough mood to not just get sucked down yourself). Because, while we may have learned some of our bad thought-habits from our fam, we can appreciate how we collectively can rise above them. Versus, ya know, remain arseholes and point fingers for the rest of our lives. Personally, I feel like it’s my task to at least try to light the way to others still suffering in darkness. Empower them. Remind them how they can start telling themselves a better life-tale. After all, that’s what was done for me – when someone rich, famous, and all-loved descended from his pedestal to aid a polluted, pain stricken, pill popper like me. He puts service into his work. Likewise, for all of us, service is about how we are in our professional lives. It’s why I’ve opted to work in the health care field – in physical therapy – healing people. I could be earning more doing something like working in a lab. (And, honestly, in any job – you can adhere to service-mindedness by how much you’re helping others in those seemingly meaningless day-to-day kindness acts.) But the good doctor who did a spirit and spine renovation on me made me certain I have to pass that gift along to other poor suffering saps like myself.

And, finally, yes: going back to meetings – just even being there to speak – is service and a half. It’s important to be there, at least occasionally. One, because it reminds me of where I came from. The fact that I’ve started judging other addicts recently is a sign I’m forgetting what active addiction was like. And forgetting what active addiction is like means I’m but a couple steps away from sending out gold bordered, calligraphy adorned invitations for my relapse party. Contrarily, being around others like me – acknowledging addiction out loud – reminds me to relate and be humble enough to know where I might return if I’m not cautious.

(Good intent, but I say: don’t judge unless you’re using other flaws to judge yourself.
Which you don’t do with clean fingers – but ones that’re dirty from the work of service.)

And what do others get from it when you or I return to help?

We can offer a palm to someone sick and tired of being sick and tired. Someone sitting around, numbing their feels and watching D list celebrities live their lives on T.V. versus living their own. Just like it was done for me a couple years ago…. when I was doing exactly that. I may not be able to change the beautiful person I mentioned at the start of this article. (Not by dragging them to meetings, anyway.) But maybe – just maybe – if I return to meetings to help others, something will change in me all over again. ‘cause that’s what service is really about. Recalling the idols and resources that once saved you, coming back, and being that resource for someone new. We never know who we’re helping. But we’re all 100% capable of embodying that same role of a positive life-changer. So, maybe I can level up. Be a better example than I’m being now. And maybe it’ll light that wick-like switch in my loved one the way Mr. Brand (who’s never stopped attending meetings since he began) did to mine.

As mine dims, I wonder:

Maybe giving what’s left of it away is the only way to keep it at all.