Ego

Opening to New Thinking

/ Tim / 2 Comments

When I came into recovery I was told to keep an open mind. I was told that my best thinking had led me to the meeting rooms so maybe my thinking wasn’t the best at that moment. Perhaps I had better start listening instead of thinking.

At first I thought, I’m educated. Twelve steps? I can whip through those in a few weeks and be on my way. Higher Power? I’ll choose universal energy, it’s much better than the traditional ideas I grew up with. Make amends? No problem. I just won’t include a few people on the list.  I wasn’t living in my car. I didn’t drink Listerine. I wasn’t pushing a shopping cart through town. I wasn’t like ‘you people’ who really needed the program. I just needed a bit of help to get me stopped then I would be fine.

I had the idea that I was somehow ‘better’ than the other people around me. I had so many reasons why I was different from the others in the room. My situation was ‘special’. I had a set of challenges that no one else had. I heard my sponsor tell me that I was suffering from something very common in the rooms: Terminal Uniqueness. I was so special, living in conditions so different and in a world so ‘unique’ that it was slowly killing me, just like any other ‘terminal’ illness does. But I didn’t get it right away.

Slowly I learned to identify with everyone in the room and stop comparing myself to them. I learned that I had plenty in common with the woman who had lost custody of her children and the guy living at the mission. I began to see that their struggles were my struggles, and their triumphs were my triumphs. Once I pulled my head out of my, um, the sand, and I let go of the idea that I was different, things began to change. I started to feel I was a ‘part of’ and not ‘separate from’.

Throughout our literature I’ve read about how my Ego is at the root of my problem. My ego tells me I’m different, unique, separate and alone. Ego says I am far above or far below anyone else. It Ego that tells me that I ‘deserve’ this and that if you have something, I should have it too. What I didn’t realize when I arrived was that Ego was robbing me of the most important thing in life: connection.

Slowly I have reconnected with others in recovery, my family, friends, a Higher Power and myself. I am no longer alone as I walk this path of life. I thought that I was alone, but I never was. I thought I was different but I discovered many more similarities. I thought I wanted your possessions but I found that I already had abundance. Ego needed to be tamed, humbled, brought down to its right size. Slowly my thinking is turning around and it all started because I started to open my mind and listen.

I am grateful.

Seeking Approval

/ Tim / 7 Comments

I spent the better part of my whole life seeking the approval others. I liked the praise of others for the things that I had done. From an early age I wanted others to like me and so I did what I could to keep everyone happy. I did well in school and that pleased my parents and my teachers. It didn’t always win the approval of classmates but they weren’t that important in my life, they weren’t people of influence.

So I learned very early on how to people please. I also learned to be very good at certain things so that they would turn out a certain way and others would like the results and I became a perfectionist. In high school, university, work life and relationships I sought, I craved approval.

I basically stayed that way until I came into recovery. With the help of the Steps of my program I was able to dissect my perfectionist attitude and see that at its root was pleasing people: seeking approval because deep down I didn’t think I was likable enough. I had low self esteem. I didn’t feel that I was, of myself, worthy of regard, like or love. I felt I had to earn it by doing things that others wanted me to do.

As a result, I didn’t try a lot of things because someone else might not approve. If I didn’t think I could pull it off ‘perfectly’, I wouldn’t even start. I placed impossibly high standards upon myself and my abilities: anything less than perfection was a failure. I had dreams of writing the next best selling novel, but I knew that was so doubtful that I gave up before I began. I wasn’t going to be the next Faulkner or Hemingway or Steinbeck, then why bother? I damned myself before I began.

My program has taught me that life is a process. It starts with me being me. It starts with me accepting myself as I am and learning to love that self. I am learning that I am enough. I don’t need the approval of others, I only need to love me. I have nothing to prove, nothing to earn. Whether you like me or not is really none of my concern. I have to be who I am.

I’m still working on it. I still want others to like me and what I do, but it’s not so important to me. I try to impress the ‘right’ people, but now I catch myself and know that I am enough. If it pleases you, that’s very nice, but it’s not as vital to me as it used to be. I am learning to say yes to things that I wouldn’t have done in the past because it is an opportunity for personal growth and understanding regardless of how well I do it. I guess I’m learning what it means to be leave my adolescence behind and become a human adult. One step at a time, and one day at a time.

Oh, Woe is Me!

/ Tim / 2 Comments

I was pretty good at looking at my life as a sad case when I was still living in my disease.  There was always a good reason why I needed to continue to drink or use. No one knew how bad my life was. You couldn’t understand me. Everyone was against me. My problems were so deep and personal no one could help me. I had so many reasons to keep on using and very few to stop.

By the time I got to recovery I, like many others, thought that my life was over. I knew I couldn’t go on the way I was going. Somehow I was able to fast forward and see what my life would soon be like and I knew that I had to stop.  I thought the fun was over in life. All was downhill from here on in: no more celebrations and parties, no more reasons to laugh. I figured that I would live a pretty sad life compared to the rest of my friends. But the writing was on the wall: either find a way to quit or follow that road to an early grave. Poor me. Poor me! Pour me another!

Self pity kept me in my disease for many years. Every once in a while I can slip back into it. The why mes. The if onlys. The you don’t knows.  I suffer from the disease of ‘terminal uniqueness’, a shortcoming that never lacks a reason to chuck it all and go back to active addiction.

I am grateful for a sponsor who called me on my stupidity. “You’re on an Ego Trip!” I couldn’t believe him at first, but I’ve come to realize that he was right. My ego telling me I am the worst of the worst and things can’t get better is really the same as my ego telling me I am better than everyone else and things have to go my way. The result is the same: a false identity and an incomplete picture of who I really am. What I need to do is put my Ego aside and try to look at things as they really are.

I’m learning that humility isn’t lowering one’s self. It is being, owning, embracing  myself as I am, not better than or worse than anyone else. I have my strengths and my weaknesses. And I need them all to make up the person that I am today. It doesn’t make me worse or better than the next guy.  I’m just another guy.

I’d like to say that I’m over feeling sorry for myself but I’m still working on it. I am grateful that it doesn’t reveal itself as often as it used to. And I’m grateful that I have learned to apply some of the things I’ve learning in recovery: a gratitude list, a change in my focus, service work and meditation. These help to keep balance in my life and allow me to see that my life can be happy, joyous and free when I work for it.