Dismantling the Program - Part III (or, "Leaving Las Vegas")

Wow, if you've made it this far, that's awesome! Thank you and congratulations!

I'll start by making a couple of points - first, "program" in "Dismantling the Program" is using computer jargon to describe what I'm doing. My "operating system" is outdated and no longer serves me - it's like Windows 3.1, which, at one time was useful and was a necessary step in the evolution of computer operating systems, but is now obsolete. Second, "Dismantling the Program - Part I" was actually written a couple of months ago. It was at that time that I realized something very monumental began occurring in my life - I was beginning to see not only surface results of my efforts in recovery, but actual deep down change within, which is necessary for sustained recovery. Today I am 6 months into recovery, which includes the absence of any symptoms of major depressive disorder (a miracle right there!). Which brings us to the events of today:

On November 17th, 2020, I graduated from Phase III (sober living) of the treatment program in which I was enrolled and moved into a room in the house of one of my managers from work, who rents out rooms. The arrangement was supposed to last about 2 months, as I had an arrangement with the treatment program whereby I I would move back into sober living as an employee - a house manager - and live there helping to maintain the structure of sober living. In early January, 2021, I interviewed with the person who would be my direct superior, and found out they were wanting more than I was willing to provide. After a day of consideration, I let them know that I was no longer interested in employment there for the time being. 

So, I found that I have to look for other living arrangements. Additionally, the homeowners (my manager and her husband) are selling their home. While I don't have to be out immediately, this is still a temporary place to live. My manager is a very helpful, supportive, and giving person, so she referred me and another of her tenants to a friend of hers at a property management company here in Prescott. This other boarder (who is also co-worker) and I put in applications for an apartment that will be available in February. 

Now here is where things get interesting - because of my checkered and often colorful past, putting out an application for anything risks opening Pandora's Box. And it this case, it certainly did. I got a call from the rental person today, and she mentioned that my background check came back with an open misdemeanor warrant from 2009 in Clark County, Nevada, which is better known as Las Vegas. Oops! She wanted to know more about it, and isn't sure if it will affect my application or not.

Here's the story. In 2009, my then wife (we were living in Wisconsin) asked me to leave due to my drinking. I packed up and went to Las Vegas with the intention of drinking myself to death, because that used to be my MO - when anything bad happened that I felt was overwhelming or impossible, I sought escape, because I knew there was no way I could overcome it.

So, I didn't die, but I did drink. A lot. Eventually I found myself homeless in Vegas. I was wandering around one evening (or maybe early morning) in an intoxicated state. I wanted to smoke - I had a cigarette, but no lighter. I found a person and their friend sitting outside the Belaggio, and I began to approach them to request a light. As I approached, this person began cursing me and requested I leave. I did, but before I did, I kicked this person in the head. I am very grateful that I am not trained in the martial arts and I was wearing soft shoes, because I did not kill or injure them. The person punched me, and I ran. Somewhere along the line, security saw what was going on and caught up with me, where I was given a ticket to appear for misdemeanor battery. I was not taken into custody. It is one of the more shameful moments in my history, because I've seldom been given to violence, and have never been formally charged with anything violent. Anyway, I did not appear, and shortly after, I left Las Vegas to return to Wisconsin, where I made another attempt at recovery. Over the years, I never did anything about the warrant because I didn't have to. I've had numerous police contacts since that time, and nobody has mentioned the open warrant in Clark County. I've had numerous jobs since that time, and lived in numerous places, and it never came up. Until now.

When I moved to Arizona a little over a year ago, I started looking into my record in Nevada, as Arizona borders Nevada, and I thought the warrant might need to be resolved. My investigations earlier this year told me I had nothing open. When I investigated again today, I found the warrant, and found that in order to resolve it, I or my legal representative must appear in person. Well, shit.

Ok, so here's the important stuff. The previous paragraphs described what we call in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the activating event. After the event happens, it's no longer important; what is important is what I do with it. There are my feelings about the event, my thoughts, and then my actions. My feelings were fear, guilt, and shame, the usual feelings one feels after being caught. 

The interesting thing is my thoughts were different than they would have been even 6 months ago. They were: What will I do now? What will my landlady think? What will happen with my co-worker and his housing situation? Will I have to go to Las Vegas to serve my time? I can't afford a lawyer. Wait, wrong, I don't want to pay a lawyer. 

To be honest, drinking and running briefly crossed my mind, simply because those have always been options. I ruled them out quickly, as I really don't want to ever live like that again. I would rather spend time in jail than live in the sickness of alcoholism and depression again, and, if that's what I gotta do, that's what I'll do. Over the past few months, I've maintained more money in my reserve for a longer period of time than I ever have previously, meaning that I've got enough to put on one hell of a party if I so desired. And I don't desire. That is a miracle. And while I'm not gung ho on running around clearing up my past, I am willing to do what I need to do.

So that's my miracle. I have a faith and courage in my heart and enough self-love to do something I never could have done before. The knowledge that I am loved and supported and nothing is impossible with God have been in my head a long time, but have never crossed the fear and self-reproach barrier to my heart until now. I am most grateful!

I will keep my readers apprised of what happens with this whole deal, but it really is irrelevant so long as I keep moving forward in faith.

Namasté,

Ken

Dismantling the Program - Part II

In my last post, Dismantling the Program - Part I, I wrote about discovering that perhaps my diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder is not set in granite - that perhaps by dissecting my diagnosis and analyzing its parts, that there are things behaviorally that I can learn and practice which will keep the depression in remission. I talked a bit about the downfalls of automatic thinking and about what makes a set of behaviors a mental health disorder. I also talked about the fact that humans tend to make their beliefs their reality, even in the face of contrary evidence. And, lastly, I wrote about the cognitive dissonance I experience from holding contrary beliefs about myself. In this post I'm going to write about a few things that I'm finding helpful in keeping depression in remission.

Ok, the first thing to do in order to avoid going back into depressive thinking is to stay sober. I'm going to be real here and share the idea that I've had for a long time that when I am sane and when I'm enjoying living, I have absolutely no desire or reason to alter my mood. This doesn't mean that I don't have to practice a program of recovery - I do. It simply means that my sobriety will be greatly enhanced, and my ability to live a useful life increased, if I do the work of finding true value and joy in life and in myself. That's the spiritual side of recovery, of living.

I learned something new this last time in treatment, which surprised me. It's called Attributional Styles, and I think the linked article does a good job of explaining it. Attributional style is simply how a person explains the causes of events. A person who experiences a lot of depression will explain events in their lives in a manner that reinforces their negative beliefs about themselves. Furthermore, it doesn't matter if the event is negative or positive - I am a master at using life against me. I don't know if I've written here yet about a belief that I hold that says ultimately, it doesn't matter what I do or say, because I'm going to be wrong either way. So the assignment was given me to find examples of my attributional style, and I discovered that I can make the way I'm feeling tank fairly quickly by the way I attribute events to my being useless and an overall failure. 

I began to find numerous examples of how my first inclination is to make an event negative about me. And then, what I began to practice was finding alternative explanations. The strange thing to me was that even though I've been using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques for a while, I was still blind to many ways in which I was basically pissing all over myself. And I found that the alternative explanations for things happening often don't have anything to do with me whatsoever! So, yes, a depressive or pessimistic attributional style is definitely self-centered.

Since engaging in this exercise, my self-talk has been much less nagging and condemning, and, on some days, it's loving and supportive. Imagine that.

What I've done that has been very helpful is to isolate situations in my life and deal with them on a case-by-case basis.

Previously, everything that I've done wrong in the past, everything at which I've failed, I've thrown on the pile (by now pretty huge) called, "Proof that Ken is a piece of shit loser." And, not surprisingly, everything I've done skillfully in this lifetime, everything good that I've accomplished, has never been enough to move the Mountain of Loserdom. And this is my own personal example of Attributional Style which prevents me from ever feeling good about me and my life for more than a few moments - every mistake I've ever made is attributable to me being me, and every accomplishment is a fluke. This is a recipe for giving up if I've ever seen one! 

Again, if I approach life with the attitude that I'm going to fail, and I'm a bad person, I'm going to fail and continue to be a bad person. 

I've been given evidence to the contrary that I'm born to lose; however, I have readily dismissed the contrary evidence in favor of the belief that I can't win. 

If my dis-eases don't kill me, they beat me into a state of reasonableness, where I'm able to consider alternative theories of life. 

So what would happen if I begin to believe that I've been wrong all of these years, and that I'm actually a very valuable Child of a Loving and Good Creator, and that this Creator supports me in living the best life possible, and that I can give myself permission to love myself and live as if this were true? Well, even if I'm wrong about this, at this point I've got nothing to lose by believing it; and if I'm right, then I can stop going back to the misery that I've called home for the past 1/2 century. 

So when situations arise, and they do, in which I want to invoke the old paradigm, I'm giving myself permission and an opportunity to look at things in a new way. I'm able to say to myself, "Even good people make mistakes. A mistake isn't an indicator of who I Am; it's a mistake. Now what am I going to do to rectify the mistake?"

I'm going to interject a couple of ideas here that help with this whole "I'm an imperfect human being and that's ok idea." I've heard it said that since my Creator is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, that there is nothing large nor small in the Universe. All my Creator knows is that it is, because my Creator is Creation and has nothing within Creation with which to compare things. We as human beings place different values on things - we say if you commit this crime, it's worth 30 days in jail, but if you commit that crime, it's worth 20 years in prison. And some things today, like possession of a plant, aren't crimes at all anymore (in certain places), whereas they were a crime 20 years ago. Likewise, if one were to go out and buy some gold today, one would probably pay a lot more for the element gold than they would for the element oxygen; however, if one were having a heart attack and couldn't breathe, which would be of more value to that person in that moment, gold or oxygen? I'm guessing oxygen. My point is that on the material plane, everything is relative, while on the spiritual plane, it's all the same. To human beings, a billionaire is a very wealthy person; however, compared to God, how wealthy are they? 

It's stuff to think about, and it really helps in understanding that none of us are all good or all bad, but that God knows us as Its own and can't help but know us as good.

So the challenge here is when I put this theory of living into practical application. It takes effort and commitment and vulnerability and probably a few other things to take a look at something I've done that was unskillful and endeavor to make it better. I will say from experience that it's a lot easier to chuck something I've done on top of Mount Loser than it is to take what I've done, examine it, admit to someone that it is less than my best work, and attempt to make amends. I risk pissing people off; worse, I risk deepening and strengthening a relationship if I bring up a problem and work with another toward it's resolution. 

I've mentioned before that I've led a very shallow life, and this is what it's about - instead of working with others to improve, and to move close to my True Self in this lifetime, I've tried to escape conflict. Relationship problems? Get a new relationship. Job difficulties? Find a different job. Or, better yet, find a way to not have to work at all. Because to do otherwise risks being hurt. I was going to put more words there, but I think that's really the bottom line - I have a huge aversion to feeling hurt (dismissed, disliked, rejected, fired, run out of town, disowned, whatever). So applying this theory to situations that come up in life requires effort and risk on my part, but as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. In order to feel good about myself and life and living, I have to put myself out there, and have the faith that it is good and right that I should do so.

Stay tuned - Dismantling the Program - Part III explores a real-life application of these ideas! I hope you stay along for the ride!

Namasté,

Ken

Gratitude and Money

First off, I apologize for not yet writing and publishing the second part to my last post. It wasn't posted to Facebook yet, but it is published here (Blogger). I'm still wrapping my head around that whole topic.

So, anyway, gratitude and money. Or money and gratitude. I've recently started a book called "The Magic" by Rhonda Byrne. It's about acquiring a real working attitude of gratitude in my life. Gratitude is a powerful tool not only for recovering people but for everybody. To be really, really grateful for life and all that comes with it is, to me, success. "The Magic" gives exercises to supercharge gratitude and create almost immediate change in one's life. 

The whole book is premised on Matthew 13:12, in which Jesus states, "Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." (NIV) Now, at first glance, this seems very unfair! But remember that Jesus was about teaching how the Universe works, and much of His teachings concerned human attitudes. When read in the context of gratitude, this verse makes perfect sense - Whoever is grateful for what they have will find even more to be grateful for, and whoever is ungrateful will lose even what they have. Remember that what we focus on grows and grows, so if I begin to focus on what I do have, with an attitude of gratitude, I will find more about which to be grateful. On the other hand, if I focus my attention on what I lack, I will find even more lack. I've lived in both situations.

Even a person who has seemingly nothing can find, when they look, something for which to be grateful. If you are reading this, you have something for which to be grateful - you are alive, you can read, and you're reading something I wrote, which is really special! There's 3 things right there.

Today's lesson or exercise from "The Magic" is on money. Lately I've been doing really well in the money area, and I've known for a long time that my attitude regarding money and life itself affects my finances. But today's lesson showed me something I hadn't really considered much lately, and it showed me that I was raised with a lot more than I thought I had. In other words, today's lesson shifted my focus a bit on growing up. Here is what Ms. Byrne asked:

• Did you always have food to eat?
• Did you live in a home?
• How did you travel to school each day? Did you have schoolbooks, school lunches, and all the things you needed for school?
• Did you go on any vacations when you were a child?
• What were the most exciting birthday gifts you received when you were a child?
• Did you have a bike, toys, or a pet?
• Did you have clothes as you grew so quickly from one size to the next?
• Did you go to the movies, play sports, learn a musical instrument, or pursue a hobby?
• Did you go to the doctor and take medicine when you were not well?
• Did you go to the dentist?
• Did you have essential items that you used every day, like your toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, and shampoo?
• Did you travel in a car?
• Did you watch television, make phone calls, use lights, electricity, and water? (R. Byrne, The Magic, 2012, pp. 62-63)

So, as I read this list this morning, I was amazed. I answered 'yes' to each one! That's over 13 things for which I can be grateful! And Ms. Byrne points out that all of those things I had growing up took money.

I was not a grateful child growing up - statement of fact, no judgement either way. I grew up in a nice small non-integrated community, with both my middle-class parents who both worked, and I didn't know anything about material lack. I didn't experience it, and 99% of the people with whom I grew up did not experience it. My experience growing up was normal to me, and I really didn't know any differently. Nowadays, I know people who grew up in the chaos of poverty and instability; back then, I really didn't. Because I was unaware that a lot of people spent their childhoods in situations that were much, much different than mine, I came to adulthood with an attitude of entitlement, which did not help me lead a good life - I had no real appreciation of what I actually had.

In my adult life I've learned, firsthand, about poverty, both material and spiritual. If I were to apply those questions to my life today, I could not answer 'yes' to all of them. And that's ok - abundance is creeping back into my life as I'm learning to change my attitudes and approach to life.

The main spiritual attitude to which I aspire is that life is all good. The spiritual groups that I follow teach this, and it makes more sense to me than the idea of a deity that hands out random blessings and random punishments, that loves some of his creation and hates the rest. With this attitude, the responsibility for whether or not I lead a blessed life rests on my shoulders, not God's. Am I avoiding and escaping what comes to me in this lifetime, or am I embracing it? Am I looking for what I hate about Life, or am I looking for things and people to love? Did God create a miserable, useless, waste of oxygen, or did It create a wonderful copy of Itself that is currently coming into his own? These are questions which I encounter every day, and my answer is determined in and by my actions and attitudes. I work every day toward living more in the reality of who I really am, rather than the illusion that was given me and that I've fostered over the years.

But anyway, it is not necessary to believe as I believe in order to harness the power of gratitude. All it takes is to be willing and open to see life differently, and to focus on the abundance in my life rather than the lack, and to develop the feeling of gratitude. When my vision is wide, I feel abundantly blessed; when it is narrow, I can feel cursed. I learn each day ways to improve my vision, and I do feel grateful to be alive today and to be experiencing life as I am today. I am filled with hope and optimism. 

Namasté,

Ken