Jekyll2020-05-17T22:15:56-07:00https://technobodhi.com/feed.xmlTechno BodhiA 12-Step Recovery and Buddhist Spiritualiy BlogTechno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comReturning to AA2020-05-17T13:09:00-07:002020-05-17T13:09:00-07:00https://technobodhi.com/2020/05/returning-to-aa<p>In November 2019, after some deliberation, I decided to leave AA and try my hand at moderate drinking. At first, it went great. It was an amazing feeling to be able to go to dinner and have 2 glasses of wine, then stop. I really, <em>really</em> enjoyed those glasses of wine.</p>
<p>But, alas, it would not last. Two glasses turned into three, turned into a whole bottle. In February 2020 I went on a cruise with my Mom and my best friend and definitely devolved into binge drinking on the cruise. Two days of the cruise we had drank so heavily the night before that we stayed in bed half the day sick. But I justified it as okay because everyone parties on a cruise.</p>
<p>Except it didn’t stop after the cruise. When I got home I was still drinking way too much. Some days popping like 13-14 beers. Or 2 bottles of wine. I’m lucky that I didn’t have any real consequences other than weight gain, but it could have been bad.</p>
<h2 id="back-to-aa">Back to AA</h2>
<p>After a particularly big binge on April 10, 2020 I decided to quit again and get back into AA on April 11, 2020.</p>
<p>Do I think I will never drink again? I don’t know. I feel like it would be naive to say never again, but I know that I definitely need to stay away from alcohol. In the best possible scenario it’s empty calories, but more realistically, it’s leading me toward fatty liver and diabetes.</p>
<p>Getting back into the program, I feel resentful. Angry. Mostly with myself. My walls are higher than they ever were. I am not like these people with these crazy stories of smoking meth in the bushes. I wanted to think of myself as better. Yet here I am, in the same program as them.</p>
<p>Do I think AA is the best or the only solution to deal with drinking? No. But it’s what I did before and what is familiar, so for the sake of expediency I decided to get involved again. A friend who got me involved in AA originally suggested that I go with his girlfriend as a sponsor. It’s an interesting power dynamic to have someone that is younger than me - and both of my previous sponsors were men - but so far so good.</p>
<p>One of my first assignments from the new sponsor is to write my story, so here it goes.</p>
<h2 id="my-story-before-aa">My Story Before AA</h2>
<p>Most of my life I’ve had the need to <em>escape</em>. Before I discovered alcohol in college, my way of coping was just being an overachiever that was always busy so I didn’t have time to <em>feel</em>. In high school I took a full load of classes, plus community college classes at night. I did sports. I did volunteer work. Junior and Senior years I worked as well as went to school. All of this meant that I basically just didn’t have downtime, didn’t have time to think or feel, which kept me from being aware of how crappy I felt inside.</p>
<p>I didn’t feel good about myself, felt like an oddball, an outcast, didn’t really have close friends like I do today. I was also overweight, so I wasn’t cute. But I was smart. So I used achievement, being busier than everyone else, being better as a means of feeling good about myself. (Looking back, it’s no surprise people didn’t like me, I had an air of superiority).</p>
<p>Once I graduated from high school and got into college, I was knocked down a couple pegs in terms of my big ego. I went from being the smartest kid to just average. I also had my first real opportunity to meet new friends, from a completely new pool of people, rather than the people I had known since I was a kid. And I did. This was my first opportunity to be a social butterfly.</p>
<p>Between work, school, and my new friends I finally felt pretty good about myself. I always had something fun to do. Had no real reason to escape. Looking back, these 3 years in community college were some of the best in my life to date.</p>
<p>But…then real adult life came along. I got a better job, cut back on school, worked a lot. And the real pressures of adulthood kicked in. I felt isolated, lonely, like I didn’t fit in with my coworkers. I still had friends, but we didn’t hang out constantly anymore, the pressures of real adulthood kept us all busy.</p>
<p>To cope with this, I ate a lot. Put on a lot of weight. Worked this job in overnight tech support which I absolutely hated and simultaneously lived in terror of being fired (super bad work culture). Eventually I did get laid off (this was during the great recession) which gave me a little nudge in the right direction of chilling out a little.</p>
<p>Unemployment was good for me - I was back onto a semi-regular schedule. No more working overnight, isolated from my friends. I got serious in school again, got a new job at Apple, transferred to SDSU to finish up my degree, made new friends, and then eventually left my job at Apple to study abroad.</p>
<p>Studying abroad in Vietnam brought its own challenges. And my classmates and I drank a lot. We missed home, were on an opposite time zone from home, and were in this country that was culture shock for many of us. The only taste of home that we had was each other. The alcohol helped us to cope, loosen up, and have fun. Most nights had us drinking and chilling in someone’s room until the wee hours of the morning. I wasn’t binging yet at this point and came to regard alcohol as a social crutch that made me more sociable and outgoing.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alcohol made me brave enough to <em>save</em> the girls from a flying roach. And, when sober, I have an irrational fear of flying insects.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Once I came back to the US, I was jobless again. So I cashed in my Apple stock and lived off of it a couple months while I focused on starting a business and being self-employed. This was also, coincidentally, my senior year of school. And there was a bar on campus.</p>
<p>After every midterm, exam, challenging presentation, really any excuse we could come up with, my friends and I would head to the bar after class and share a couple pitchers. Again, alcohol served as a social crutch for me. It took me from being an oddball to being a social butterfly.</p>
<p>I took the next semester off school to travel and went to Ireland with my cousin and his friend. With their influence, we basically binge drank the entire week we were there. And thus began my relationship with daily or near-daily drinking.</p>
<p>The year was 2012, I went back to school, finished up my last semester, graduated with honors, and had a lot of fun in the process. I used every opportunity I could to go to happy hour with friends. I would only have 1 or 2 drinks at the bar because I knew I had to drive. But then when I got home, I would keep drinking. Drinking for oblivion. Everything was pretty good at this point in my life so I couldn’t really tell you <em>why</em> I was drinking. Other than the fact that I liked the effect.</p>
<p>In my adult, post-school life I fell into a routine of work, networking, gym, drinking. Pretty much every day I drank. I was paying for an expensive personal trainer at the time, and many days when I went to workout with him I would get sick and feel faint or throw up from all the booze I drank the night before.</p>
<p>I was participating in a hair loss study at the time - and they take before and after blood work - to see if the drunk affects your blood chemistry. And every time they did blood work on me, the doctor would call and talk to me about my liver enzymes. Finally, at the end of the study, she wasn’t even nice about it. She straight up told me that it looks like I have hepatitis and if I don’t stop drinking, I’m going to die.</p>
<p>I quit for a couple weeks - this was a wake up call for me - but it wasn’t enough to get me to stop altogether. I’d drink in moderation for a couple weeks and then be back to binging. Feel bad, quit for a few more weeks, drink again, binge again, in a vicious cycle.</p>
<p>Drinking was part of my identity. Especially wine. It made me feel sophisticated to know so much about it and I really <em>really</em> enjoyed drinking it. I spent many weekends in Baja wine country with my friends, binge drinking.</p>
<p>Finally the year was 2017, my 10 year high school reunion came. I kept it together at the reunion, but went to a couple more bars after the first bar. And I let myself go. I drunk text a guy I led on, come came to the bar to meet me. The parts of the night I was able to piece back together embarrassed me. So I reached out to my friend Danny who I knew was involved in AA and told him I was ready to quit.</p>
<p>I believe this was on a Sunday and I told him I was going to check out a meeting the next weekend. And he was like nope, come to this meeting tomorrow (Monday). So I did.</p>
<h2 id="my-story-in-aa">My Story in AA</h2>
<p>I will always vividly remember coming to AA the first time. I was terrified, practically shaking. I didn’t know what to expect. My first impression was walking up to this group of guys smoking (including Danny) out front of the church that hosted the meeting and having to introduce myself.</p>
<p>But… I eventually got used to it. It didn’t become awkward. I could stand up and speak at meetings. I enjoyed the first 6 months or so with the new group of acquaintances I had made in AA. I treasured the times we went out to eat after meetings, the occasional parties I got invited to, and the fact that there was always something to do.</p>
<p>I got a sponsor pretty quick, got to know him, worked through the steps and my walls began to come down a little bit. At first I was super resistant to the idea of powerlessness (not to mention a higher power) but he eventually got me on-board. Then I went to Sri Lanka and India on a 6 week backpacking trip. In Sri Lanka I ended up having one sip of alcohol, which my sponsor told me was a relapse, so when I came back I had to begin fresh with him. And he had to break down my walls again.</p>
<p>This time my walls were broken down for the next 2 years, give or take. I got over the idea of a higher power, worked through a whole bunch of baggage with my sponsor through Steps 4 and Steps 5. And then completed the steps with him - his first sponsee to complete them - and went on to sponsor my own guys.</p>
<p>At this point I felt like I had a solid group of - if not friends, at least acquaintances - who I looked forward to seeing at the two meetings I was regularly going to. But like most things in life, it was fleeting. Things changed. People moved, a whole group left one meeting and formed a new one out of a resentment, my sponsor got a girlfriend and basically dropped me. My newly found social bubble was burst.</p>
<p>But then I got invited to a party. And met a new group of people. This new group invited me to a “Step Doey” - a group of us met once a week for 12 weeks to do an accelerated version of the steps. I met new people from different cliques, who, for a while seemed like my new group. After the Step Doey ended, we formed a new group of artists, makers and creatives to work on <em>The Artists Way</em>, a 12-step recovery for artists. We spent 14 weeks together and many of us found a new sense of identity with the group. Not only alcoholics and addicts, but also artists, with a common set of shared issues that tend to come with the artist personality.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the sense of cohesion with this group didn’t last either. 6 months later, none of us even keep in touch. It was a total bummer. I think this is where I started to drift from the program. Went from two different senses of group identity and a sponsor that I pedestalized to feeling alone.</p>
<p>In approximately Spring of 2019, I parted ways with my previous sponsor after he was absent for about 6 months and got a new sponsor. Joe. Where my first sponsor was essentially the first warm body who made me feel comfortable, Joe was someone who had something that I wanted. The job, the car, the family, the white picket fence, and the Buddhist spiritual practice that I admired. As well as around 30 years of sobriety.</p>
<p>Joe and I worked together on a sort of <em>maintenance</em> basis, went up to Sacramento for an 11th Step Retreat and got together once a month to work through some step. I ultimately never achieved the spiritual practice Joe had, mostly because I didn’t work at it, but I was at least still going through the motions.</p>
<p>I started backing off meetings. I couldn’t relate to most of them people in them - frankly I still can’t - and it didn’t make sense to me to invest so much time in something that was no longer an issue. Eventually I was going to 1 or 2 a month - to see acquaintances - not for the message.</p>
<p>I was watching some news show, maybe Meet the Press, and there was a guy on there who wrote a book called <em>The Sober Truth</em> which made a really good case against AA as junk science, using a combination of meta-analysis, study, and anecdote. Meanwhile, things were going really good for me. I had lost a bunch of weight, I was working out everyday, feeling good, looking good, confidence was back. So after talking it over with several friends, my Mom, my psychiatrist and pondering it for a month, I decided to try moderate drinking. After all, most of the issues that led me to drink in the first place (except, apparently, for self-control) had been dealt with through the 12 steps. So I figured that I would be fine.</p>
<p>And I was, for a time. I started drinking again in early November 2019. And although I consistently failed to keep any limits I set for myself, it didn’t become a daily, unhealthy habit until February 2020 when I took a cruise with my Mom and my best friend. I worked hard to sneak as much wine as possible on the cruise ship to avoid paying their crazy prices for alcohol, and still spent like $400 on booze.</p>
<p>After a couple nights out, having 10+ drinks (at $10 a pop) and feeling like absolute shit the next day, I realized that drinking isn’t all that much fun. I don’t know that I was drinking to escape this time, I was just drinking because I really liked it. I liked the effect alcohol has on me. But the problem with being a guy my size is that I have a super high tolerance. So I have to drink more and more and more to get the same buzz, with diminishing returns. To the point that a mild buzz caused me to be sick in bed the next day from a hangover.</p>
<p>Anyway, after the cruise this behavior didn’t stop. I kept drinking a lot. At least 3-4 days a week with 6+ plus beers each time. I put back on mot of the weight that I lost. And wasted a ton of money.</p>
<p>That’s the thing about alcohol, the fun is short lived and it’s really expensive.</p>
<h2 id="my-story-coming-back">My Story Coming Back</h2>
<p>I came back to AA, emotionally defeated. Embarrassed, resentful. I thought I was going to beat the system, that I wasn’t like these weird churchy people. And the universe has had a way of humbling me.</p>
<p>I got a new sponsor pretty quick, decided to try a female sponsor this time, two male ones didn’t work, so might as well switch it up. She’s quite a bit younger than me too, which has been an interesting power dynamic, but so far so good.</p>
<p>I took a 30 day virtual chip last week. Haven’t had a desire to drink beyond the first couple of days - and this past Friday when I was on a virtual happy hour with my friends who were all drinking. I’ve also had less mindfog and I’ve been waking up fresher.</p>
<p>I think my sponsor has broken down my barriers somewhat, I’m sure I’m a hand full, but I am back to working the steps, accepting that I am powerless over alcohol after the first drink and that I need to just keep away from it. And…soon I need to get back on the weight loss wagon again. I probably will go back on my liquid diet at Kaiser.</p>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comIn November 2019, after some deliberation, I decided to leave AA and try my hand at moderate drinking. At first, it went great. Until it didn't.How Life Became Unmanageable2020-05-05T04:00:00-07:002020-05-05T04:00:00-07:00https://technobodhi.com/2020/05/what-became-unmanageable<p>My second sponsor assignment was to discuss how life became unmanageable - both the first time I came to AA and now this most recent time. I can break that into several categories:</p>
<h2 id="social-unmanageability">Social Unmanageability</h2>
<ul>
<li>Every activity I did revolved around drinking. Even going to the movies, we’d take a couple shots in the bathroom before the movie. Going to dinner in TJ, we’d drink illegally in the car (the passengers) on the way to the restaurant.</li>
<li>Often going drinking with friends would affect my judgment and I would think I was okay to drive, when I probably wasn’t. It’s a miracle I never got a DUI.</li>
<li>Especially in uncertain social situations, I would need alcohol to be able to loosen up and be the person I wanted to be.</li>
<li>When I would drink, I would get lovey-dovey. And overly honest. And say things I wouldn’t say sober. This often translated as texting friends and feeling very awkward the next day. <strong>This was my motivation for coming to AA the first time.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="health-unmanageability">Health Unmanageability</h2>
<ul>
<li>Even after multiple warnings from doctors: fatty liver, high liver enzymes, pre-diabetes - I kept drinking.</li>
<li>When I drink, I want to eat. Like full on drunk munchies. I eat everything in sight. <strong>This most recent time returning to AA, the main motivation was from the weight gain.</strong></li>
<li>There were two situations where I had unprotected sex while drunk or stoned. Once at age 21 and once at age 27.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="emotional-unmanageability">Emotional Unmanageability</h2>
<ul>
<li>I didn’t like the person I was. So I drank to not feel. To escape.</li>
<li>After a hard day - lots of work, fight with friends, etc - alcohol would be my way to cope. Again, escapism.</li>
<li>Alcohol was what I used to mourn, to celebrate, etc. How I dealt with any emotion positive or negative.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="economic-unmanageability">Economic Unmanageability</h2>
<ul>
<li>Alcohol is expensive. At restaurants and at stores, usually at least 30% of my bill was from alcohol.</li>
<li>I always held it together during the work day and made sure my commitments were done, but as soon as I was done, I’d start drinking. This often led me to feeling like crap the next day, affecting the next day’s performance.</li>
<li>Building on the previous one, I used to hire a personal trainer and have to go workout with him in the morning. Half the time when I went, I was hung over and had a hard time performing. Yet I was paying him $70 per hour for the session.</li>
</ul>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comReflections on how life became unmanageable both the first time I came into AA and this most recent time.Things I’m Powerless Over2020-04-27T03:00:00-07:002020-04-27T03:00:00-07:00https://technobodhi.com/2020/04/things-im-powerless-over<p>My assignment from my sponsor for our 2nd meeting is to list the things I’m powerless over. Which I can sum up as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m powerless over all persons, places and things other than myself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I <em>can</em> control many things about myself, in my own life. But one thing I’m powerless over is alcohol after the first drink. As long as I stay away from that first drink, I’m not powerless over alcohol though.</p>
<p>Other things I’m powerless over, in no particular order:</p>
<ul>
<li>What people think of me</li>
<li>What people say about me</li>
<li>If people like me or not</li>
<li>If people find me attractive or not</li>
<li>Not <em>fitting in</em></li>
<li>The health of my loved ones (impermanence)</li>
<li>The economy</li>
</ul>
<p>The list could go on infinitely, but I wanted to list the things that I’ve drank over.</p>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comI'm powerless over all persons, places and things other than myself.Leaving Alcoholics Anonymous: An Introduction2019-11-28T10:00:00-08:002019-11-28T10:00:00-08:00https://technobodhi.com/2019/11/my-decision-to-leave-aa<p>2019 has been a year of a lot of changes, progress, and growth in my life. I’ve been abstinent from alcohol for over 2 years, I’ve lost 63 pounds, and I’ve significantly improved my meditation and mindfulness practice. The catalyst for all of these changes was my experience getting involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. However, through a series of events, I’ve decided that it is no longer the best way for me to continually evolve and grow.</p>
<p>I am going to write, what I hope is a fair and objective series of 10 blogs about my experience in AA, in the hopes that anyone looking to solve their own problems with addiction and compulsive behavior can hear a perspective that you will never get in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I will update the sidebar on this page as the blogs are written.</p>
<blockquote>
<h2 id="disclaimer">Disclaimer</h2>
<p>This is one man’s opinion on Alcoholics Anonymous. If you are suffering from addiction and getting help from a 12 Step Program, continue doing what works for you. This is in no way meant to encourage anyone else to discontinue their own program if it’s working. I simply got to a point where it was no longer working for me.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="what-is-aa">What Is AA</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.</p>
<p>-AA Preamble</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All over the world there are autonomous 12 Step Recovery groups. They exist for any kind ailment you can think of, from alcohol, to drugs, to gambling, to sex addiction. But the most well known (and the original) is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). AA evolved from a fundamentalist Christian self-help group called The Oxford Group which was popular in the US in the 1920s. As such, AA is a spiritual program that draws heavily from the Judeo-Christian tradition.</p>
<h2 id="why-i-went-to-aa">Why I Went To AA</h2>
<p>I’ve struggled my whole life with compulsive behavior, most notably when it comes to eating, but this extended to alcohol toward the end of college. Despite subtle and not-so-subtle warnings, I continued to drink until it became a pretty serious problem. The catalyst for me to make a change was my 10 year high school reunion in October 2017. During the reunion proper, I held it together but then continued to drink throughout the night, ultimately embarrassing myself and deciding that I didn’t want to live like that anymore.</p>
<p>A good friend of mine (Danny) was a member of AA and invited me to a meeting. While I knew very little about it - and certainly didn’t know what I was getting myself into - I was drawn to Danny’s relationships. He seemed to have a solid core group of friends that were always doing fun stuff together, without alcohol. And that is something I had always wanted and never really had.</p>
<p>So I kept coming back. (<em>Keep coming back</em> is a popular AA slogan)</p>
<h2 id="how-it-was">How It Was</h2>
<p>I stopped drinking the day after my high school reunion and maintained 2 years and 2 months of abstinence from alcohol. In AA language, I had a relapse because I had one sip of alcohol a couple months into sobriety, but for the sake of these blogs we are going to say 2 years of abstinence (Oct 15, 2017 to Nov 16, 2019).</p>
<p>Being away from alcohol, things immediately got better. They also got awkward. Alcohol had always been a social crutch for me - it helped me loosen up and not care so much what people thought - so I had to learn how to socialize and have fun all over again, without alcohol.</p>
<p>I found a pretty solid Monday night mens AA meeting. My friend Danny was the facilitator of the meeting and most of his friends went to the meeting also. They welcomed me into their social group pretty quickly, with a few exceptions, and they were always doing fun stuff. Most notably, we usually all went to dinner together immediately after the meeting.</p>
<p>I got a sponsor, started working the 12 steps, and felt like I had the group of friends that I had always craved. Everything was good. Until it wasn’t.</p>
<p>About 9 months in, there was some kind of battle of egos between Danny’s sponsor and this <em>old timer</em> (AA talk for people with many years of sobriety) at our Monday meeting, so half of the room (around 30 people) broke off and started a new meeting out of the living room of Danny’s sponsor. Those meetings were stuffy, cramped, and ultimately not for me. So I continued going to my previous meeting, despite not knowing most of the people that remained.</p>
<p>But I slowly got to know people and felt comfortable again.</p>
<p>One of the biggest indirect benefits of AA was working Julia Cameron’s <em>The Artist’s Way</em> with a group of mostly AA people. This manifested a new business for me and helped me to deal with a lot of baggage and self-limiting beliefs, not directly related to alcohol.</p>
<p>But as life got better, I started going to fewer AA meetings, as I no longer thought about drinking or <em>not</em> drinking. Unfortunately, unless you are going to a meeting every time the door is open, most of the other AA people begin to lose interest in you. So most of the new relationships I formed dried up.</p>
<p>This, more than anything else, made it less appealing to go, because the social aspect was the main selling point for me. (And, as I will explain in future blogs, the fellowship component of AA is its most effective part.)</p>
<h2 id="what-changed">What Changed</h2>
<p>A little over a year in, my first sponsor Alex got a new girlfriend and stopped going to meetings or having any active role in my recovery. This was a let down, because he is someone I greatly admired and wanted to be in touch with. After a couple months of this, I got a new sponsor, Joe, who I had met at a meditation retreat. He was a better fit for me because we have the same spiritual philosophy, so he was able to help me in more ways than Alex.</p>
<p>Upon asking Joe to work with me, I re-committed to going to meetings and got a sponsee of my own, John. I worked with John for a couple of months and through his relapse. I felt like we were really making progress, until he started flaking on me. He also stopped replying to me. Finally, we had <em>the talk</em> and he told me that he no longer wanted to go to AA. His reasons, most of which I couldn’t argue with, were things which I had at the back of my mind about AA also. Namely -</p>
<ul>
<li>He was an atheist. He believed in self-empowerment and wasn’t able to buy into the <em>higher power</em> concept, which is the basis of the whole program.</li>
<li>He didn’t have the time or see the value in going to tons of meetings because he was a full time student, full time worker and had a marriage to dedicate time to.</li>
<li>His <em>rock bottom</em> wasn’t that far down, so he had a hard time relating to most of the other people in AA.</li>
</ul>
<p>I encouraged him to do <em>something, anything</em> if he goes back to binge drinking, but wished him the best. I agreed with everything he said. I felt the same way, but because of the dogma of AA, or the fear of rejection, or something else, I wasn’t yet willing to say it out loud.</p>
<h2 id="down-the-rabbit-hole">Down The Rabbit Hole</h2>
<p>The final nail in the coffin of 12 step recovery, for me, was watching an interview with <strong>Dr. Lance Dodes</strong> on a morning news show. He wrote a book called <a href="https://amzn.to/2OPaAcE">The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry</a> which sheds light on pseudoscience of 12 step recovery. Namely, that there is no evidence that it actually works, and is even evidence that it makes people <em>worse off</em> that don’t fit into its paradigm.</p>
<p>Unusual for non-fiction, I devoured this book in a couple of days. And it blew my mind.</p>
<p>AA does a really good job of tooting its own horn and keeping you scared of ever leaving. The conventional wisdom of AA is that, if you leave, you will relapse, and probably die. You also never hear from people who left. You only hear from those who stayed. People, many of them <em>old timers</em>, who buy into the dogma. So it was refreshing to hear the accounts of many people who left and went on to live perfectly happy, normal lives. Sometimes they maintained abstinence from alcohol, other times they were even able to return to moderate drinking.</p>
<p>After finishing the book, I read blogs from people who left AA and I decided to follow course.</p>
<p>Here are some notable blogs I read:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://larafrazier.com/blog/leavingaanotdeadstillsober">3 Years After Leaving AA: Not Dead, Still Sober</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.thefreedommodel.org/leaving-the-cult-of-alcoholics-anonymous-part-1/">Leaving the Cult of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) – Part 1</a></li>
<li><a href="https://aabeyondbelief.org/2017/01/01/leaving-aa-and-finding-a-new-freedom/">Leaving AA and Finding a New Freedom</a></li>
<li><a href="https://filtermag.org/deprogramming-from-aa-when-a-fellowship-resembles-a-cult/">Deprogramming From AA—When a Fellowship Resembles a Cult</a></li>
</ul>
<p>I’m sure there are thousands more out there. What is important is telling the stories of people who have left.</p>
<h2 id="breaking-up-with-aa">Breaking Up With AA</h2>
<p>Once I made the decision to leave, I talked it over with a couple of friends, including one who struggled with alcohol, but quit on her own and never went to any kind of formal treatment. She encouraged me to try moderate drinking.</p>
<p>My Mom, who is also my best friend, and is generally very risk adverse, supported my decision to try something new.</p>
<p>And ultimately, my psychiatrist supported my decision.</p>
<p>It took me a couple of days to get up the courage to call and <em>break up</em> with my sponsor Joe, for lack of a better word. He is someone who I greatly admire and I didn’t want to let him down. But one of the things I’ve gained from the 12 step inventory process is being true to myself and not people-pleasing. He wasn’t happy about my decision, but he respected it.</p>
<p>As is the nature of any dogmatic organization (I won’t call AA a cult outright), it is very likely that I will lose the friends I made in the program by leaving. But if that happens, so be it. AA’s own motto is <em>to thy own self be true</em> and that is what I am doing.</p>
<h2 id="attempting-moderation">Attempting Moderation</h2>
<p>My goal is to attempt moderate, social drinking. I don’t want to ever go back to how I drank before, I don’t want to binge drink, and I don’t want to do things that are focused on drinking, like I used to. I have learned how to socialize and have fun without alcohol, so there is no need to have a liquid crutch in social situations anymore.</p>
<p>Initially, I am setting my limit of no more than 2 standard drinks per day and no more than 6 standard drinks total per week. I am going to limit drinking to being <em>out</em> either at a restaurant or a brewery and not do it at home.</p>
<p>It is possible that I will <em>not</em> be able to drink moderately and I may have to stick to complete abstinence from alcohol, but if that is ultimately the case, I won’t need AA to abstain. I have the tools I need, without the time commitment or cognitive dissonance associated with paying lip service to a dogma that I never truly believed.</p>
<h2 id="more-to-come">More To Come</h2>
<p>The next 9 blogs in this series will focus on specific details of what happened and what changed. This one was just meant to be a (not so) brief overview.</p>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comThe first blog in a series of 10 detailing my decision to leave the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.12 Steps to Humility2019-09-15T11:00:00-07:002019-09-15T11:00:00-07:00https://technobodhi.com/2019/09/12-steps-to-humility<p>Today, I had my monthly meeting with my sponsor to have a philosophical discussion on Step 7. We also talked about a recent resentment of mine. And spiritual growth in this process, especially concerning my confidence.</p>
<p>One quote from our reading that really stood out to me was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Humility is when your outside and inside match” <br />
-St. Theresa of Avila</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I also really liked the following <strong>12 Steps to Humility</strong> from the <strong>Rule of St. Benedict</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Be conscious of the reality of Higher Power (awe)</li>
<li>Avoid self-will</li>
<li>Follow direction</li>
<li>Accept life as it manifests (patience / present moment)</li>
<li>Be transparent (no secrets / lies)</li>
<li>Have no complaints (radical acceptance)</li>
<li>Diminish the “self” (equanimity)</li>
<li>Be one of many, do not stand out (be part of the herd)</li>
<li>Observe silence (unless spoken to)</li>
<li>Practice decorum; no unnecessary frivolity</li>
<li>Speak appropriately: gentle, brief, restrained (Right Speech)</li>
<li>Be modest of demeanor (measured response)</li>
</ol>
<p>Many of these are completely contrary to our <em>Instagram influencer</em> culture of today, but nonetheless valuable when one is striving for humility.</p>
<p>One last quote from the reading that struck me was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In humility is perfect freedom because in humility we accept the truth” <br />
-Thomas Merton</p>
</blockquote>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comToday, I had my monthly meeting with my sponsor to have a philosophical discussion on Step 7. We also talked about a recent resentment of mine. And spiritual growth in this process, especially concerning my confidence."The 5 Remembrances: A Buddhist Discourse on Powerlessness and Acceptance2019-09-03T03:00:00-07:002019-09-03T03:00:00-07:00https://technobodhi.com/2019/09/the-five-remembrances<p>Last week, I had an attack of absolute rage. I was at my normal Monday night AA meeting, which is the meeting I got sober at. All was going well, the meeting was about to end. And the facilitator asked for a new backup coffee person. He mentioned that the current backup coffee person could no longer do the job. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to get my newest sponsee a commitment. So I volunteered him for the position. He is back from a recent relapse and needs something to get him more integrated into the program.</p>
<p>Being recently back from a relapse, he had to stand up and introduce himself when they ask who has less than 30 days. This is after taking a 30 day token a few weeks ago. So the poor guy is already embarrassed. So, after volunteering him for this commitment, I hear loudly from the back of the room <em>“WAIT how much time do you have?”</em> The whole room ignored him. So, again, louder this time, he says it again. Again, the room ignored him. Now the dude is getting pissed, so on the third time my poor sponsee stood up and said that he had about a week sober.</p>
<p>This man, who we shall call Shawn, went on to say that perhaps my sponsee should wait until he has 6 months sober to take this commitment, because the coffee person has a key to the church (they don’t).</p>
<p>Long story short, I have a commitment for coffee <em>with</em> my sponsee now. Which really pissed me off that Shawn, who I have never seen lift a finger in 2 years, thinks that he is the king of AA or something. So for the next few days it circled again and again in my head how awful this guy is, how much I hate him, how I’m right and he’s wrong, how he’s a manbaby with no emotional sobriety, etc.</p>
<h2 id="the-mental-obsession">The Mental Obsession</h2>
<p>I was obsessing. So bad that I called my sponsor about it. He immediately knew who I was talking about, Shawn is infamous in AA San Diego for being a prick. But my sponsor went on to say that he guarantees that I am not even on Shawn’s radar, that I making myself crazy about this, and Shawn probably hasn’t given it a second thought, so that I need to get over it and pray for him.</p>
<p>Easier said than done.</p>
<p>Even after that talk, I fixated until Wednesday. When I went to my Buddhist Recovery meeting. And the topic was Steps 1 and Steps 2: powerlessness and acceptance. And it was absolutely what I needed to hear. Sometimes we need to go back to the basics, otherwise we can miss the forest for the trees.</p>
<h2 id="the-five-remembrances">The Five Remembrances</h2>
<p>One of the things that I learned about this week from a podcast was the Buddha’s discourse of <em>The Five Remembrances</em> which all deal with acceptance and powerlessness.</p>
<ol>
<li>I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.</li>
<li>I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.</li>
<li>I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.</li>
<li>All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.</li>
<li>My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="my-takeaway">My takeaway</h2>
<p>After meditating on these (and the lesson from Wednesday night’s meeting) I’ve decided the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>I am powerless over the actions of others (Shawn).</li>
<li>What they do is not my business. My business is my actions and only my actions.</li>
<li>Shawn can be a mindfulness bell for me, to remember how <em>not</em> to behave.</li>
<li>Just because someone has 20+ years of sobriety, doesn’t mean that they have achieved anything like emotional sobriety. So I must work diligently to behave like the person I ought to be.</li>
</ul>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comLast week, I had an attack of absolute rage. It was a resentment brought on by my failure to realize my powerlessness over people, places and things.25 Minute Little Apple Talk2019-07-22T03:00:00-07:002019-07-22T03:00:00-07:00https://technobodhi.com/2019/07/little-apple<!-- Courtesy of embedresponsively.com //-->
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<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dYIGE8ph3MY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>I had the pleasure of speaking for 25 minutes at a speaker meeting that my friend facilitates. I’ve attached my audio recording. I’d love to know what you think.</p>
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<source src="/assets/audio/2019-07-22 Little Apple 25 Min_mixdown.mp3" type="audio/mp3" />
</audio>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comI had the pleasure of speaking for 25 minutes at a speaker meeting that my friend facilitates. I've attached my audio recording. I'd love to know what you think.Reflections on Acceptance2019-05-26T10:45:00-07:002019-05-26T10:45:00-07:00https://technobodhi.com/2019/05/reflections-on-acceptance<p>It might sound cliche, but in AA you’ll hear the phrase <em>god will do for you what you can’t do for yourself</em> quite often. And that has definitely been my experience where acceptance is concerned.</p>
<p>But before I talk about acceptance, let me give a little background.</p>
<h2 id="leading-the-meeting-i-didnt-want-to-be-at">Leading the meeting I didn’t want to be at</h2>
<p>Another cliche that you hear in the rooms is <em>AA will give you all of the tools to not need AA</em> and then some cautionary tale about relapse when said person stopped going to meetings. The <em>not needing AA</em> bit is where I feel like I am right now in my journey.</p>
<p>I’ve just passed 18 months of sobriety and life is super good. Business is great, my relationships are great, I’ve begun to learn how to love myself, I’ve started to develop a relationship with my higher power which I called <em>the divine within me</em>.</p>
<p>Going to meetings with a bunch of fucked up people isn’t really high on my agenda. After all, I tell myself that I went to AA to get sober and <em>live my life</em>, not make AA my new life like a lot of people seem to do.</p>
<p>My sponsor keeps getting on my ass to go to more meetings, to help others, not to be so selfish thinking about myself, which is what I am doing by not going to meetings because I deem them beneath me.</p>
<p>So, Thursday June 16 I grudgingly went to my usual Thursday meeting. It’s honestly the last place I wanted to be, but I want to do what my sponsor says. Shortly after getting there, they asked me to lead the meeting.</p>
<p>I’m very much a guy who likes to prep beforehand, not just wing it, so this stressed me out a little bit, but I decided to just go with it. Everything was okay. In fact, I think I was able to reach a couple of people and thus <em>be of service</em> rather than being so selfish.</p>
<h2 id="4-things-ive-learned-to-accept-in-recovery">4 Things I’ve Learned to Accept in Recovery</h2>
<h3 id="1-leading-meetings-without-prep">1. Leading meetings without prep</h3>
<p>I’m a prepper. I care about my image. I want everything to go smooth. So, being asked to lead a meeting with no prep stressed me out. But I did good. I even reached a couple of people.</p>
<p>Most of the time in recovery, when you’re talking to someone one-on-one, you won’t have a chance to prep beforehand. To this is good practice for carrying the message in the moment.</p>
<h3 id="2-the-inevitability-of-death">2. The inevitability of death</h3>
<p>Death is something I’ve struggled with my whole life. I remember precisely where I was sitting and who I was with (my Dad) when I became aware of the reality that my parents would someday die.</p>
<p>I hated the idea of death. It’s something that is inevitable, that I have absolutely no control over. And being an alcoholic with control issues, I’ve struggled with accepting the inevitability of death.</p>
<p>The past few months, my Dad has been super sick with complications with prostate cancer. We’ve never been particularly close, but I still love my Dad and want him to have a good quality of life. When he almost died, it really messed me up emotionally.</p>
<p>Fortunately my Mom was able to fly to Ohio and nurse him back to health. In a few weeks he will have his prostate taken out, and again my Mom is going to help him.</p>
<p>I’m still not happy about death, but I’ve accepted the inevitability of it. And I was able to do so - including process what was going on with my Dad - without needing to drink. That is a blessing from the program.</p>
<h3 id="3-being-okay-not-being-liked-by-everyone-in-the-room">3. Being okay not being liked by everyone in the room</h3>
<p>When I was going through the steps the first time, and doing a 5th step with my sponsor, one character defect that kept coming up was co-dependence. I needed people to behave in the very <em>black and white</em> way that I was raised to believe that people ought to behave. And worst of all, I needed to be liked to be okay.</p>
<p>I wasn’t happy about who I am or know how to love myself, so I was looking externally for validation. The thing about people is that they are human and imperfect. And will always let you down. So I’ve learned how important self-love and self-care are.</p>
<p>For example, if I was in a room of 100 people, 99 who told me I was awesome and 1 who hated me, I would have fixated on the one who didn’t praise me. I <em>needed</em> them to like me.</p>
<p>But I don’t need that anymore. In fact, the divine within me has given me the tools I need to get through life without drinking. If someone doesn’t like me, or is rude to me, that says a lot more about them than it does about me.</p>
<p>It would be a lie to say I 100% don’t care, but I don’t lose sleep over what other people think anymore.</p>
<h3 id="4-accepting-peoples-flaws-and-lifes-annoyances">4. Accepting people’s flaws and life’s annoyances</h3>
<p>Two of the things that annoy me the most are: tardiness and flakyness. And in AA, most of the people I’ve met are one or both of those things. In the beginning it used to rub me the wrong way.</p>
<p>But now I don’t let it bother me.</p>
<p>The <strong>Life Coach</strong> in my networking group said it better than I ever could.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you’re late, it’s either <em>fuck you</em> or <em>fuck me</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since we’re talking 12 step recovery and a lot of people are total wrecks, even sober, it’s more likely <em>fuck me</em>. And that’s their problem to worry about, not mine.</p>
<h2 id="things-i-still-need-to-learn-to-accept">Things I still need to learn to accept</h2>
<h3 id="1-traffic">1. Traffic</h3>
<p>I still haven’t accepted that traffic in my city is going to suck. And probably only get worse as the population increases. I still get really frustrated in traffic. Perhaps the <em>divine within me</em> can help me address that next.</p>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comIt might sound cliche, but in AA you'll hear the phrase *god will do for you what you can't do for yourself* quite often. And that has definitely been my experience where acceptance is concerned.Reflections on Co-Dependence2019-01-06T07:15:00-08:002019-01-06T07:15:00-08:00https://technobodhi.com/2019/01/reflections-on-co-dependence<p>The Thursday meeting that I attend has a unique structure: each week’s leader chooses a topic and 6 readings out of the book <em>As Bill Sees It</em>. This week I led and I choose the topic of Co-Dependence.</p>
<h2 id="my-experience-with-co-dependence">My Experience with Co-Dependence</h2>
<p>This topic is super important to me because when I came into AA, I clung to people to feel safe. Through a combination of daddy issues, longing for validation, insecurity and needing everyone to like me, people had become my higher power.</p>
<p>On the one hand I’m a small business owner and only child, who is extremely independent in most ways; on the other hand, I couldn’t make most decisions without asking other people for validation.</p>
<p>Slightly older straight males, in particular, are people I clung to. However, the issue with clinging to people as your higher power, is that people are human. Humans are flawed. Therefore, people will always ultimately let you down. And like clockwork, each person I put on a pedestal eventually devastated me by being human and letting me down.</p>
<p>I’m also a recovering perfectionist - so I would hold myself to impossibly high standards. And as a result would also hold others to my same impossibly high standards.</p>
<p>Another type of co-dependent behavior I suffered from was the need to control situations. Which got me in trouble with work. Rather than delegating tasks - or training someone else to do them - I generally lived by the philosophy <em>if you want it done right, do it yourself</em>.</p>
<p>I needed to be liked by everyone in the room - even people I didn’t know, even people I didn’t particularly like - or I would be devastated. If I did something, say gave a presentation, and 99 people told me it was great, but one person told me it sucked, I would have concluded that I sucked.</p>
<h2 id="the-readings">The Readings</h2>
<p>The topic of co-dependence or <strong>Dependence on People</strong> as the book <em>As Bill Sees It</em> refers to it, focuses on pages: 63, 72, 176, 239, 252, 265.</p>
<h3 id="page-63-free-of-dependence">Page 63: Free of Dependence</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>“I asked myself, ‘Why can’t the Twelve Steps work to release me from this unbearable depression?’ By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer: ‘It is better to comfort than to be comforted.’”</p>
<p>AA World Services Inc. As Bill Sees It (Kindle Locations 806-808). A.A. World Services, Inc.. Kindle Edition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of us were depressed, unhappy and otherwise miserable when we came into AA. After all, if things were peachy, we wouldn’t be here. But you won’t find much sympathy in AA. After all, everyone else has dealt with similar problems. And overcome them.</p>
<p>Newcomers learn quickly that the best way to feel better is to <em>get out of one’s head</em> and by reaching out and helping other alcoholics.</p>
<p>When you are focused on others, you don’t have time to focus on yourself. And gradually, as your life starts to have meaning, the depression solves itself.</p>
<h3 id="page-72-dependence---unhealthy-or-healthy">Page 72: Dependence - Unhealthy or Healthy</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>“If we really depended upon God, we couldn’t very well play God to our fellows, nor would we feel the urge to rely wholly on human protection and care.”</p>
<p>AA World Services Inc. As Bill Sees It (Kindle Locations 884-885). A.A. World Services, Inc.. Kindle Edition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When I came into AA, I got a sponsor within a couple of weeks. I picked my sponsor not because he necessarily had something I wanted - I didn’t even know the guy - but because he made me feel safe.</p>
<p>Plus, along the lines of the whole <em>daddy issues</em> character defect - he was an attractive, slightly older straight man.</p>
<p>As such, I reached out to him a lot in the beginning. About all my problems, big and small. I wanted him to fix me. To be there for me, to validate me, and to tell me what to do. He didn’t do any of those things. Whenever I reached out - if he replied to me at all - it was usually to tell me to pray and meditate on it.</p>
<p>As frustrating as it was in the beginning, I now see that he set me up for success. He taught me to rely on my higher power - and my own inner voice - rather than him as a <strong>“Guru”</strong> - in fact he is currently on a campaign against Sponsor Guru-ism.</p>
<h3 id="page-176-domination-and-demand">Page 176: Domination and Demand</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>“The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist upon dominating the people we know, or we depend upon them far too much.”</p>
<p>AA World Services Inc. As Bill Sees It (Kindle Locations 1717-1719). A.A. World Services, Inc.. Kindle Edition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This page, in particular, resonates with me. My life was a combination of clinging to people I deemed stronger on the one hand, and taking on people I deemed weaker as projects, to help “fix” them.</p>
<p>By trying to fix someone else, I didn’t have to deal with my own issues. And it also gave me a bit of power over them, to make it less likely that they would leave, because they needed me.</p>
<h3 id="page-239-when-and-how-to-give">Page 239: When and How to Give</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>“that, job or no job, wife or no wife, we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place material dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.”</p>
<p>AA World Services Inc. As Bill Sees It (Kindle Locations 2249-2250). A.A. World Services, Inc.. Kindle Edition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I’ve never been particularly motivated by money or material things, but a lot of alcoholics are. They think that they cannot achieve sobriety - or live a fulfilling life - until they achieve <em>x</em> material goal.</p>
<p>When the reality is that you can’t achieve <em>x</em> material goal until you are sober. Anything you put ahead of your sobriety, you will ultimately lose.</p>
<h3 id="page-252-alone-no-more">Page 252: Alone No More</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>Alcoholism was a lonely business, even though we were surrounded by people who loved us. But when our self-will had driven everybody away and our isolation became complete,</p>
<p>AA World Services Inc. As Bill Sees It (Kindle Locations 2352-2353). A.A. World Services, Inc.. Kindle Edition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s not until one has fully turned over their will and life to their higher power, that they realize how lonely and miserable their old existence was.</p>
<p>Every Friday I was with <em>friends</em> drinking. But the reality is that they weren’t really my friends. We were drinking buddies - nothing more, nothing less - and now that I don’t drink, I don’t hear from any of them.</p>
<p>Frequently, I was surrounded by people, yet lonely and lost. It was a miserable existence. And fortunately one that I no longer have to live.</p>
<p>In AA there is always something to do, always someone to hang out with. Like in life - many of them are acquaintances and not friends - but the difference is that we are sober. We do more meaningful activities. We are aware of what we are doing when we do it.</p>
<p>A lot of my social circle now revolves around people I’ve met in AA. And I’m a lot more fulfilled than I was previously.</p>
<h3 id="page-265-neither-dependence-nor-self-sufficiency">Page 265: Neither Dependence nor Self-Sufficiency</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>We refused to learn that overdependence upon people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible, and even the best of them will sometimes let us down, especially when our demands for attention become unreasonable.</p>
<p>AA World Services Inc. As Bill Sees It (Kindle Locations 2459-2461). A.A. World Services, Inc.. Kindle Edition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>People will always let you down. Every time. They are human and flawed.</p>
<p>You, too, likely let people down. It is important to own your fears, be honest about your flaws and, like my sponsor did with me, refuse to be someone’s Guru.</p>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comThe Thursday meeting that I attend has a unique structure: each week's leader chooses a topic and 6 readings out of the book *As Bill Sees It*. This week I led and I choose the topic of Co-Dependence.10 Minute New Year Talk2019-01-01T17:20:00-08:002019-01-01T17:20:00-08:00https://technobodhi.com/2019/01/ten-minute-presentation<p>I had the pleasure of speaking for 10 minutes at a speaker meeting that my friend facilitates. I’ve attached my audio recording. I’d love to know what you think.</p>
<audio controls="">
<source src="/assets/audio/2019-01-01 SD Speakers 10 Min_mixdown.mp3" type="audio/mp3" />
</audio>Techno Bodhisayhi@technobodhi.comhttps://technobodhi.comI had the pleasure of speaking for 10 minutes at a speaker meeting that my friend facilitates. I've attached my audio recording. I'd love to know what you think.