Opinions, Facts, and Experience

I got called to task yesterday 3 different times by 3 different people, two of whom I know. When two or three unrelated people are telling me the same thing about me, I listen. 

I was violating some of my own policies and standards - I made comments on Facebook that (a) have to do with controversial issues, and (b) were based more on opinion and feeling  that actual fact. I avoid controversial issues, like religion and politics, because my purpose is to support others in learning to help themselves - so I try not to alienate anybody. There are basic principles which apply to recovery and spirituality that have nothing to do with politics or religion. Additionally, when I share something, it needs to be based not on a feeling or a wish, but on a provable fact and/or my own experience. 

Facebook is tricky ground for me. I'm on it to share myself with others, to share my employers' posts,  and to promote the MS 150, the bike ride to benefit MS. I receive a lot of good stuff from Facebook, too, but I don't need Facebook to get the information I need. There are other channels available. The challenge for me is that Facebook is fertile ground for unhealthy thinking and behavior. I am learning to live life from the inside out. For the vast majority of my life, I've lived it from the outside in. For most of my life, I've been a reactor - my actions were based on my perceptions of what was going on around me. This is actually the way the human brain is designed, and it's a safety/survival mechanism - it's an instinct. However, we are spiritual beings having this human experience, and capable of not only reacting to life, but also living from an intuitive sense. In other words, we create our own reality. If I can't help but to create my own reality, I think it's good to be conscious of what I'm doing. Facebook allows me to get back into letting others create my reality for me, which is what I'm used to doing. Creating my own reality is relatively new for me, so it's easy to slip back into old patterns. I have to be careful when I get on Facebook, because it can become my reality, and that's not healthy for my recovery. Perhaps a better way of saying it is that I used to let others do my thinking for me, because I didn't want to be responsible for my own thinking and actions, and Facebook is an excellent vehicle for that mode of living.

So, getting back to the topic at hand - Opinions, Facts, and Experience:

Opinions are simply personal preferences. I have opinions on which foods I like, which religions I prefer, the type of government I'd like to see, which girls are most attractive to me, what's fun to do and what's not fun to do. What I've learned about my opinions is that they're much like my penis - it's nice to have and be proud of, but I shouldn't expose it unless someone asks (and even then...), and I definitely should not force my opinion about anything on anyone. I laugh at the Facebook posts that ask for my opinion about whether someone should go to jail or things like that because...who cares? What does my opinion matter? It won't change anything. Don't misunderstand me - I absolutely love it when someone walks up to me face-to-face and asks me for my opinion on something. However, my opinion is really valueless to anybody else but me. It makes no difference what my opinion is, because it's only about my personal preference, and that can change quickly.

Facts are facts. This happened. That happened. It's 40 degrees Fahrenheit and rainy. That's a fact. How I feel about it, what I think about it, what I do about it - there's an infinite range of possibilities. But a fact can be backed up by evidence, and, very often, if not always, I can't change a fact, I can only change my response to it. One caution, though, is that facts aren't necessarily the absolute truth. Facts can change. The weather is going to change. The GNP of the US is going to change. Another factor is that sometimes a fact seems like one thing, but, upon closer examination, we find it's another thing. It used to be that the Sun revolved around the Earth - that was a fact given the knowledge at the time. Today, most of us agree that it's the Earth that revolves around the Sun, based on the evidence we now have. Another thing about facts is that they can be misleading. Did you know that 100% of the people that ate pickles in 1865 are dead now? True fact! But, neither the pickles nor the deaths are related (except for those very few who choked on a pickle or were shot and killed for eating someone else's pickle). So, facts have slightly more value than opinions, and may be useful as a guide.

Then we have experience. That's what I share with folks. My experience is, "This is what I did, and this is what happened." This is what I do, and it makes me sick, and this is what I do, and it makes me well. Now, experience is a really good thing, because we're all having this human experience, and a lot of things that are true for one person are not necessarily true for another. Experience is like an opinion in that I don't necessarily need to share it with someone who doesn't want to hear it. So, if you've read this far, and you're not interested in my opinion or my experience, I'd have to ask, "Why did you read this far?" Experience is like a fact in that my experience is a fact. Yes, I did this. Yes, I am sober today. Yes, I am, in a relative way, sane today. Here's the funny thing about experience - sometimes we assume a causal relationship where there is none. Yesterday I was walking down the street and a black cat crossed my path. Shortly thereafter, I bought a scratch-off ticket and won $50. Both of those experiences are facts. But can I say for certainty that they are related, that a black cat crossing my path caused me to win $50? Of course not! Everybody knows that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck!

But I like to write and talk about the experience of applying spiritual principles and psychological methods to my recovery from a hopeless state of mind and body, and what I think I've learned from my experiences. And because I do these things fairly consistently and I get consistent results, my experience has value (in my opinion).

So I think I might have mentioned that my primary purpose is to be of service to others by growing in recovery and sharing that recovery with those who want it. Seems fairly simple, right? But, other stuff interests me as well, and I have lots of thoughts and feelings on all sorts of topics. However, the Universe has shown me that my role is not to be a social commentator, although sometimes I'd like to be. The Universe has also shown me that I am not a political pundit, although sometimes I'd like to be. That's not my schtick; it's someone else's. Also, I have an inner grammar nazi, and Facebook is extremely fertile ground for grammar nazis; alas, that's not mine to do either.

My experience has been that I am much happier, much more stable, and much more effective when I stick to what is mine to do, and leave the other stuff to other folks. It's taken a long time for me to learn that I'm not everything to everybody, and that it's not only ok, it's as it should be. I don't always understand or like what I see in the world, and today I don't need to do so. I simply need to be ok within myself with what I'm doing.

Namaste,

Ken

Moving Through Fear

Fear is creepy for me - it creeps into my life, and I don't always recognize it for what it is until I'm paralyzed by it. I'm not good at recognizing fear. I don't seem to be good yet at feeling emotions (but I am getting a little better) and I think that accounts for not recognizing fear well. I don't often feel anxiety, or have other physical symptoms of fear, so I have to guess at it. More on that in a minute.

Yesterday, I had to shit or get off the pot. Not literally - I just had that moment when I had to decide to walk (or ride) through my fear, or let it overtake me. I have allowed fear to creep back into my life, and haven't done much about it. Yesterday I was going to go on my first real bicycle ride of the season. I didn't want to. I felt 'tired'. I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep.

It didn't make sense. I love bicycle riding. Yesterday was the perfect day for a ride - sort of cool, sunny, and fairly calm. I knew I would feel good after a ride. Over the past two years I've ridden over 3000 miles on my bicycle, and I had just had my wheels trued and tuned up my bike. There wasn't a think 
(←see that Freudian slip?) thing keeping me from my ride. 

So I got up and went, and had a great ride. But, it wasn't the reasoning that got me going. It was the recognition that I was going down the slippery slope of fear, one that will only lead to my next drink, which I'm still postponing. I don't know how much living in fear I can take before I relapse. I don't know, as far as my mental emotional state goes, where the point of no return is. So, it pays to not try to find out.

I'm thinking as I write this that it might be helpful to treat fear like I treat the first drink. The basis of physical sobriety is to abstain from the first drink - then one doesn't have to be concerned with which drink is going to cause trouble (is it the 3rd? The 5th? The one I take the morning after?) Perhaps the basis of emotional sobriety might be to stay away from the first 'drink' of fear.

Emotional sobriety isn't as clearly defined as is physical sobriety. For instance, I can blow into a breathalyzer right now (I actually have one here as I write this) and be able to tell whether or not there is any alcohol in my body. However, we haven't invented a device that can test my emotional sobriety - one that would measure my level of serenity, or check for negativity, anger, fear, arrogance, lack of gratitude, etc.

I've lived my whole life with a high level of fear and dread. I used to hate waking up and getting up in the morning. In fact, I used to pray to not wake up. I've gotten much better - now I only dislike getting up, and sometimes I'm even ok with it. Anyway, every day I would have to face living, and I hated it. So I learned work-arounds - ways to escape from the fear of life without actually escaping. Drinking, drugs, food, computer games, sleeping, sex - there are a lot of things that I used to escape. And I also learned not to feel. I became emotionally dead, and a very good actor.

Over the past two years, I've made a great deal of progress in reversing my fearful nature. Two of the big ones are that I no longer fear supporting myself, and I no longer fear your disapproval (much).  But there are a lot of areas that still need work.

So, without feeling when I'm fearful, as it seems quite a natural state by now, how do I know when I am allowing fear to inform me? I've been around the block enough to know most of the signs of my fearfulness:
Procrastination - totally centered around fear. Whatever I'm procrastinating about is something I fear doing.
Hatred - if I hate something or someone, there is fear surrounding it or them.
Avoidance - (very similar to procrastination) - if I'm avoiding something or someone, I fear it.
Sleepiness - If I'm craving sleep, especially when I don't have a physical reason to be tired, I'm fearful.
Food cravings - food cravings for foods that make me feel better are an indication that I'm being fearful about something.
Computer time - surfing the web is a great way to avoid!

I wrote in an earlier post about my discovery early on that I can view life as my Higher Power, or view my Higher Power as life. So long as I go from the standpoint that Life really is good and supportive, I can take what comes my way each day as lessons and experiences that are good for me, no matter what they might seem to be. When I began to embrace that, my life becomes much richer. 

Writing is often about self-discovery for me, and as I'm writing this, I realize that I have a huge opportunity here to step up my recovery program. I've gotten several signs lately that I can go ahead and begin living with less fear, less timidity. Today, I have a lot of faith and evidence to back up that I have nothing to fear. I like the idea expressed earlier that I can treat fear like the first drink, and stay away from it. When I feel like doing any of the things listed in the previous paragraph, I can simply go ahead an do what's in front of me to do. A large part of recovery is doing what I know to be healthy despite how I feel in the moment, and I can begin to expand the areas in which I do this. 

I really have nothing to fear anymore. I only need to go ahead and prove it to myself.

If you've read this far, I really do appreciate you! I'm coming up on two years of sobriety next month, and I recognize more and more each day how much my sobriety isn't my own - it's a result of awesome people in my life and a lot of things and people of which I may not currently be aware. I used to be the boy in the bubble - forever protected from the 'germs' of life, but incredibly miserable. The bubble is gone now, and I'm one with the 'germs', and it really is ok. Thank you for being a part of my life!

Namaste,

Ken

Wants and Needs

Back in October, I think - or maybe even earlier - I posted a picture of the big Cadillac that I encountered while riding in the MS 150 last August. I've had that picture on my desktop since then. That kind of car was, and still is, to some point, desirable to me.

Two months ago I posted on Facebook a picture of the car I actually purchased (the 2nd car - a 2004 Hyundai Elantra). I had been 22 months without a vehicle because I was (am) learning to live within my means. 

During those 22 months I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I'm not lazy, like I thought I was. I learned that I can be happy and fulfilled without lots of stuff. I learned that nobody but me really gives a shit whether or not I have a car or what kind it is. I learned the value of money - what it stands for, and what it doesn't stand for. I learned (and continue to learn) that each and every day I really am very well provided for. I learned about what I truly value, and I learned how tough I really am.

A living lesson I continually get is that I don't always get what I want, but I always get what I need. I think this car thing is a good example. The second day I was driving my new car, it was raining. I really dislike driving in the rain - I can't see well, I don't think other drivers see well, and it's just a scary experience. I was glad I was driving a Hyundai rather than a Cadillac.

In my Hyundai, I can make a U-turn in most streets.  Parking is a snap. The only drawback to parking is it looks like every other silver Asian vehicle in the world, and there are lots of those.

So I backed into a tree one night to give my car a little character and individuality - nothing major, I just dented the top of the trunk lid. After I heard the crunch, I got out and looked, said "Hmph," locked the door and went to bed. I don't think I would've felt the same way if I had backed the Cadillac into a tree.

Then there's mileage - when my clutch was bad and slipping a lot, I was getting 24 mpg. I don't think I could get that coasting with the engine off in the Cadillac. I anticipate getting better mileage now that I have a new clutch assembly installed.

There's this really weird human thing where getting the stuff I want gives me some sort of immediate pleasure that usually wears off pretty quickly, while getting and appreciating the stuff I need gives me a lower, but longer lasting hum. That's for another post.

I'm just very grateful that I do recognize I have all that I need, and I'm grateful for the 1/2 ounce of wisdom that allows me to appreciate its value.

Namaste,

Ken

Getting to Know Me

I get confused sometimes. Actually, there are some days I'm in grateful awe that I make it through them ok with all the confusion I seem to experience. Some days I think the greatest thing I can do is to endure the seeming chaos and still behave in a responsible, positive manner. (That's a high-falutin' way of saying, "Fake it 'til you make it").

Anyway, the deal is this - when I was pretty certain I knew who I was and what I was about, I was also suicidal. Then people came into my life, from different avenues, to let me know that my thinking was wrong. And so I got into the habit of continually questioning my thoughts and my perceptions, to see how well they really fit and worked, and I began to understand that my thinking led me to want to escape life. Being somewhat logical (I think so, anyway), it did not make sense to me that a loving Higher Power would give us a life that we would want to escape - that just doesn't make sense to me.  My point here is that the confusion I experience each day is a step up from the straight-line thinking that leads only to my destruction.

Here is my challenge to myself, and what this blog is about: I know I have a human side, and I know I have a spiritual side, and, while they often seem at odds, I also know that they can live happily together, so my challenge, my goal, my purpose is to find out how.  I was raised in one of the branches of Christianity, so understanding the teachings of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the teachings of Jesus is and His followers is one of the ways I go about understanding how best to be a spiritual being having this human experience. In my opinion, Jesus mastered this - Jesus knew his Oneness with God (that was the Christ in Him), yet He also knew His humanness. And He didn't hate. He didn't hate Himself, and He didn't hate those around Him. Some folks He knew were harder to love than others, and I  totally get that. But He knew what He was about, and it didn't make Him better nor worse than anyone else, because essentially, we're all connected, and we're all on the same path of discovering our Oneness. I also study other sacred writings, and I follow contemporaries who are on the path to discovering and expressing their Divine nature.

One of the recovery programs with which I'm involved suggests, as part of its program, that it's a good idea to take some sort of personal inventory - to find out those parts of us that make living good, and those parts of us which make living difficult. I remember hearing a priest years ago speaking about doing this inventory, and he said that basically, when we truly know ourselves, we know God. (I always love to see priests and ministers and such in recovery - it reminds me that being close to God doesn't make one any less human. It'd be nice if a few more doctors would show up, too). That statement stuck with me. I have a knack for recognizing Truth when I hear it, even if I don't believe it at the time. At the time that I heard it, nothing, I thought, could be further from the truth. If you've read any other posts in my blog, you know this is how I felt about myself: "What's the difference between Ken and a carp? One is a bottom-dwelling, scum-eating parasite, and the other is a fish." How could any part of me be comparable to God, especially the parts I loathed?

Let's start with this: First, remember that I, we, are spiritual beings having a human experience. It's like going on a trip to a foreign land - we're going to see what it's like to live in another part of the world - we're going to experience something different that what we already know. Then, because we're having this experience, we need an Ego - the ego is our own will. If we didn't have a desire to experience something different than what we already are, we wouldn't need the ego or self-will to propel us toward that. The ego's role is essentially to keep us grounded in this plane of existence. Oh, by the way, part of this whole scheme is the idea that the only devil that really exists is called Fear, and that resides only between our two ears. You see, even though the ego is something God made, the ego can take on a life of its own. It wants to! Often, though, the ego finds out that life is really much too vast to handle all on its own, so it becomes fearful. The ego forgets whence it came, and thinks that its survival is entirely up to its own devices - the ego believes it must be self-sufficient, that all of life must come from it. This is where self-centeredness comes from - I'm out here all alone, and, in order to survive, I have to protect everything I think is mine. From that one single idea comes all sorts of aberrations of the Truth, which is that God, or Source, or the Universe has us covered, and we've really nothing to worry about. So we do things that are ultimately hurtful to others and ourselves in an effort to protect something we don't really need to protect.

So here's how coming to know ourselves is the same as coming to know God: When I take a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, I begin to see those parts of me that are not-God. I begin to see where the ego, fearful of its own survival, has created beliefs and ideas that try to separate me from God and from the rest of humanity. And when I'm able to take a look at these things - these false beliefs and ideas, and the harmful actions they created - I don't like them very much. And that's how I come to know God - by recognizing the very things that I have thought, felt, and done that aren't God, I begin to recognize the God at the core of my being, for, if God weren't there, I would be ok with all the things that I've engaged in that aren't God-like. And from there begins my journey back home.

Mixed in with all of this is all of the good the Universe has given me. All of my talents, my capacity to love, my capacity to create and to give, are in there. The fact is that I have misused or abused the gifts I have had in my life because I thought I was going it alone, and I thought that my survival was entirely dependent upon me. 

To quote another person in recovery, "there is some good in the worst of us and some bad in the best of us." We are all children of a loving creator, and when I recognize that in me, it makes it easier to recognize it in you. 

So, to get back to the first paragraph, there are some days when I feel like a brilliant star, shining my way through life, and there are other days, well...not so much. But every day I keep this in mind: I am not alone, I am supported, loved, and protected, and I'm always in a much better place than I think I am. And, when I can get past the worry and fear that comes from my ego still thinking that it has to go this thing alone, I can begin to express my true self, and know that it is good.

Namaste,

Ken 

Courage to Be Who I Am

For so many years - over 1/2 a century, really - I lived from the deep seated, but very incorrect, belief that I am not good enough. A better way to put it is that this belief informed my life - my thoughts, my feelings, my actions. If I wasn't trying to prove to everybody that I was good enough, then I was wallowing in self-pity, depression, and active alcoholism.

I began learning a 'new' way to look at myself, others, and life about 23 years ago. I'm a slow learner. I'm a slow applicator. I catch on fairly quickly, but the great wall of inferiority, reinforced by addiction and mental illness, made applying these principles very difficult. (Fortunately, if one lives long enough, alcoholism/addiction defeats itself - the 'host' becomes so desperately sick and bankrupt that s/he must break free or die). Anyway, the basics of New Thought remind me of who I am and my place in the Universe - I am a spiritual being having a human experience. As a spiritual being, or, child of God, I have all of the attributes of my Creator. I am connected to all life everywhere. There is One Power that creates and flows through the Universe, and that Power is Love. All else is false, not real. Because I am a child of the Universe, a part of, I can never be anything else. The Universe lives through me (and everyone else) no matter what the appearances are, so I cannot 'fail'. I cannot be a failure, substandard, less than.

There is a lot more to all of this, of which I'm constantly learning and growing to a deeper understanding. This New Thought prompts me to question my 'reality'. Most of my life, my reality has been, "I suck, life sucks," and I made the best of it by finding ways to escape life, or to escape the consequences of life. I'm working on doing a 180, to the point where I can love life and love myself (and, it goes to follow, love everybody else). That 180 degree turn does not happen overnight. I liken it to turning an aircraft carrier around to go in the opposite direction. Anybody who has ever driven a boat knows that it's nearly impossible to turn a boat on a dime, and the bigger the boat, the more time it takes and the more room one needs.

So changing me at my core involves finding every thought and correcting every action that is not in line with the way I now want to be going. I expect it to take a lifetime!

What has to come first? For me, I had to challenge the assertion that I was a piece of shit. Seeing a cutesie poster hanging that says, "God made me and God don't make junk" didn't do it for me. I had to prove to myself that I am a valuable human being (as opposed to trying to con everyone around me into believing I'm a valuable human being). The way I began to do this was (and still is) to throw caution to the wind and present to the real world the real me, cracks and all.  And the result of this practice is this - the more authentically I show up in the world, it seems the more good people come into my life and the more good I'm able to do. Go figure! This goes exactly against everything I've ever believed about me. So, every time I practice authenticity, every time I face life rather than trying to escape it, I chip away at that belief that I'm not good enough.

This is not easy. It is still a challenge, mainly because I still have a belief that I must have everybody's approval. This is definitely an impossible belief - as I grow in understanding of Who I Am, and as I live from that understanding, there will be people who do not approve. My understanding of myself and life will threaten some people who have a different understanding, even when my understanding will make no negative impact on their lives. My understanding actually threatens a comfortable (but mediocre) belief system that many others prefer to cling to. So, I have to throw the need for approval from others out the window and move towards self-approval. Not an easy task!

This is why I do this: I've seen a quote somewhere that goes something like this - "Someone asked my why I've chosen this path, and I asked, "What makes you think I see another?" I do see other paths to take, but none of them are acceptable to me today. I see the path of suicide - I don't want to do that today. I see the path of substance use in order to live without really living - doesn't work for me anymore. I see the path of material acquisition - kinda been there, done that - doesn't work for me anymore either. So what I'm left with is becoming more of me. 

I hope that my living the way I do gives others courage to be real. Underneath all of our very human, fear-based beliefs is a bright shining light that is beautiful and good. Each day I'm able to perceive it and feel it a little bit more, both in me, you, and life.

Namaste,

Ken

Why Recover?

I work with people who desire recovery - from either addiction/alcoholism and/or mental illness. Sometimes I run across folks who are on the fence - they desire a better way of living, but aren't yet ready to give up their present way of living. I know how to guide people in recovery. I know the actions to take and the things to avoid. If a person is open, honest, and willing, I can show them the way, because I have been shown the way and walked the path myself. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do that.

I don't know how to get anyone to quit drinking or using drugs. Well, maybe I do, but I wouldn't suggest my path. It involves multiple arrests, multiple incarcerations, multiple marriages, multiple failed attempts at education and jobs, multiple health scares, lots of loss, and, finally, the loss of self.  It's been a really, really long path to get to where I am today, and I can't recommend it to anybody because they might not survive what I have survived.

So, my question to me has been lately, "How much, if any, energy and time do I spend on someone who isn't ready to give up their illness in order to get well?"  Before I was in the human services field, the answer was, "Not much. They'll come when they're ready, if they don't die first." Now that I'm getting paid to do it, the answer is different. And as I wrote that, that brings a bothersome question to mind - do I have to get paid in order to not turn my back on someone? That sucks. I'll deal with that later.

How do I let someone know that if they've had problems with alcohol in the past that changing their environment or changing what they drink or switching to a better drug or finding a better girlfriend/job/church/car probably will not be all that helpful in the long run?

I think right now all I can do is state why I am in recovery (or 
discovery, as I like to think of it): I have been tired of me for a long time. I didn't start drinking and using drugs and searching for things that might make me happy because I was totally happy with myself and with life. I drank and sought other ways to be OK because I wasn't OK. As I have stated innumerable times before, and I'll state again, if any of that stuff I tried to use to make myself happy actually worked, I would not be sitting here right now. I'd be a rich, fat happy drunk living in Utah with 17 wives. Now, one can examine that sentence and see that those words don't even go together. Not gonna happen.

I believe that humans, at least this human, are made up of two things - our soul, which to me is the individuation of Source expressing, and our ego, which is the very limited version of our soul in human form. In other words, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. This is not a new idea, by the way. The challenge with this is that in our human experience we've forgotten who we really are.  It's as if we went to acting school, graduated, and landed the role of Hamlet, and gotten so into the role that we've forgotten that we're not really Hamlet. And long after the play is over, we're still acting like Hamlet, and that causes problems in life. Because it was a play. It wasn't real.

So the challenge I have is that there is a Real Me, and an Earth me, and the Real Me is a much better deal than the Earth me, but the Earth me is much louder and seems more real to me than the Real Me really is. (And now you know just a little bit of what it's like to live in my head!)

Real Me is tucked up inside Earth me somewhere, and my job is to find Real Me. One of the big differences between Earth me and Real Me is that Earth me lives from the outside in, and Real Me lives from the inside out. Earth me needs things like approval and sex and good looks and money and things to be happy. Real Me doesn't need anything. Earth me lives in a fear-based world of scarcity; Real Me is Love and lives in abundance. Earth me doesn't always believe Real Me exists - in fact, it took a really long time for me to even get a glimpse of Real Me, so enmeshed in Earth me that I was. But Real Me is real, and each day I set about re-discovering Real Me and letting him It out on Earth.

The reason drinking, drugging, chasing money, approval, physical love, etc., doesn't work for Earth me is because Earth me can't get enough of anything, and Real Me taps Earth me lightly on the shoulder and lets him know. Bit by bit, day by day, I let Real Me out to play as Earth me fades away.

So why recover? Because the drunk in me is not the Real Me, and it's become really painfully apparent to me. Why get mentally healthy? Because every thought I have about living in lack and limitation is not Real(ly) Me, and having a consciousness that lives in lack and limitation is a really miserable place to live. So, recovery is about discovery of who Real Me is, and in order to allow Real Me to shine, I need to let go of my old actions and my old thinking. It does not happen overnight, and it is very challenging. But the more I continue down the path of discovery, the more rewarding it becomes.

So I suppose what I would say to someone on the fence is that if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten, and if that makes you happy, keep it up. If it doesn't, try a different path, and I'll be happy to walk with you.

Namaste,

Ken

Why Suicide?

Recently a person who had been in recovery from major depressive disorder suicided. Their recovery journey had led them to help and inspire many, many, others who experience living wih mental health conditions to hang in there and recover. So what happened? Why did this person end their life, especially after being in recovery? This is the great question surrounding both mental health conditions and alcoholism/addiction - why, after a period of recovery, does a person often relapse, especially when the results of relapse can be fatal?

I was taken aback when I heard the news about this person. Not necessarily surprised, because I've seen people die from both depression and alcoholism - death is one of the outcomes from these disorders. I was taken aback because much of my recovery from both of these disorders involves helping others who are in similar boats - sharing my experience, strength, and hope with others so that they, too, gain some hope and begin their own recovery journey. So I began to question myself, and my own recovery, because today, I don't want to die. Today I want to live.

I haven't been suicidal in probably over a year-and-a-half. It's not that the thought hasn't entered my mind, or that some days have felt so hopeless to me that it became an option for a time. It is that it's been that long since I've experienced the daily thoughts and feelings of despair and hopelessness. It's been that long since I've had to search really hard for reasons to keep going. I am grateful that today that I can focus on thriving, instead of merely surviving.

The person who has never experienced major depressive disorder may not know what it feels like to want to die. S/he may not know that, for some people, just being alive is often unbearably painful. If you are one of the people who, through thick and thin, calamity and peace, chaos and order, have never considered offing yourself as an option, send a quick 'Thank you' to the Universe. There are many for whom 'To be or not to be?' is a daily question.

When someone in the depths of suffering from addiction and or depression is given and accepts the gift of recovery, a lot of hope is generated in that person. Life seems new and fresh again. There are new possibilities, new dreams. It's a great experience. Life really does take on new meaning. There is often much joy and happiness where previously there was only despair and anguish. Life used to be a struggle just to get through each day, and now things seem to be coming together with much less trouble.

Relapse occurs when the person in recovery, for whatever reason, stops taking the actions that they took initially to begin recovery. Recovery from substance abuse disorder or major psychiatric issues involves much, much more than just putting down the substance or taking medication for the cessation of symptoms. It really does involve a change in lifestyle and thinking, and these changes rarely come easily. Often, when a person has implemented these changes and gotten used to the new way of life, the person will look back and say, "Whew! Glad that's over!" Additionally, for mental health conditions, sometimes medications begin to become less effective. In either case, if relapse occurs (relapse being the return of the major symptoms of the disorders) the person returns in consciousness to where they were before. This is a huge, huge letdown.

I have experienced relapse many times, mainly because I was not treating one of my disorders. I was doing what I needed to do to maintain sobriety, but I was not doing what was necessary for me to stay away from depression and suicidal ideations. So my relapses looked like this: after a period of feeling pretty good and hopeful, I would begin to get depressed again. I would wonder what I was doing wrong, and often apply myself harder to my alcoholism recovery program. Eventually I would become despondent, because I really was a failure, and I just couldn't get this whole 'life' thing, and I needed to die. So I would return to drinking, because it gave me oblivion and because I might be able to die from it. The upshot is that each time I relapsed, I felt more hopeless than the time before, and life again became unbearable. Sometimes I think that's worse than having no recovery at all. It is really, really hard to live this life never getting out of the gate while I watch people around me thrive. It's impossible for me to not think that I'll never be good enough to have a real life. So let's end it now. Let's stop the pain permanently.

That was the majority of my life while I practiced what I now call 'half-measures' recovery, and it was miserable. Getting back to the person who suicided recently, I understand the pain they were feeling. Symptoms returned, and everything they were doing before must have seemed false. Hope vanished; despair and despondency returned.

I understand and accept a few things better today than I've ever understood before:

• I have two chronic potentially fatal disorders;
• My recovery is not static, it is dynamic. A life in recovery is ever-changing, ever-improving;
• Much of my recovery depends upon me being in the right place at the right time. For me, I am daily surrounded by people who will call me out if they recognize that something with me isn't right. I cannot stop 'suiting up and showing up' for my life and expect to stay in recovery. I do not recover alone.

Recovery from addiction and mental health conditions is both an art and a science. I no longer have an expectation that one day I won't have to concern myself with whether or not I'm going to drink again or whether or not symptoms of depression may show up again. Recovery must stay at the center of my life, or I will have no life. The good news for me is that this is not impossible, and the life I've found in recovery so far has been surprisingly pleasant (I'm not yet to the point where I'm 110% thrilled to be alive, but it is getting much, much better). 

One last point: No matter what I die from, the good that I've done and the help that I've been to others will never be eradicated. Recovery and hope are very, very real.

Namaste,

Ken