masquerade

Are we really happy here, in this lonely game we play,
Looking for words to say?
Searching, but not finding understanding anyway
We’re lost in this masquerade.
- Leon Russell

George Benson got the award, but Leon Russell wrote this song that captures a lot of life for addicts and codependents.

By the way, I’m not saying either of them fit the above categories.

I’ve been reading back through TrueFaced, and have just had a few experiences with running square into my own and others’ masks. We put on the masks because we don’t want others to see our reality. We think that we can influence others’ opinions if we behave a certain way, or if we do certain things.

Me, for instance. I do woodworking as a hobby. Can it be called a hobby if you only do it two or three days a year? In any case, I used to tell myself that when I would make a piece of furniture, I was doing others a favor. I made a dresser for my daughter. It is way oversized, and the paint job wasn’t done well; but I built it for about half the sticker price at the furniture stores. In the process, I didn’t spend nearly as much time with my wife and infant daughter. Our girl probably didn’t notice as much then, but it did create tension with my wife. She would probably rather have had a husband and helper with our little girl.

As I was reading back through the above-mentioned book, I had a recollection of the Thanksgiving my extended family came to our house. As I showed everyone around, I took a great deal of pride in pointing out the furniture around the house which I had built. In fact, leading the tour was all about trying to impress them with my work.

Don’t get me wrong – there is nothing wrong with taking some pride in the work of our hands. I think that is quite normal. I think the issues are who I was trying to impress, and valuing the work over the people.

Who was I hoping to impress? My oldest brother. Always it comes back to him. Since I was a kid, I’ve been trying to make him think more of me. That drive only increased when our dad died. Go ahead, psych majors and minors – doesn’t take a lot to see what’s wrong there.

Then there were the relational sacrifices of the project. This is hard to quantify, but there were times when it was clear that my wife would rather have had me nearby and involved than down in the shop.

We are still together, and I don’t think there was long-term damage to us because I took about a week total to put that monster together; but it was a very heavy withdrawal on our emotional bank account. And now, with two active kids (roughly 4 & 6 years old), those times that I would choose to spend in the shop become more costly.

At the moment, I’m working on two storage projects for their rooms – a toy chest for him and a dollhouse bookshelf for her. I spent a few hours last Friday and Saturday in the basement, and my daughter had this disappointed look when she saw that I was going “into the dungeon” rather than playing with her.

So here’s a wierd thing. I’ve come to the realization that I’m not doing what I do for them. Oh, sure, they’ll get a lot of use out of the things I build; but to try to explain what I do as being for them is dishonest. I do it for me. I do it because I want or need a little recharge, I desire to exercise my creativity, I want a place where I can solve problems that are mostly of my own making. And there is nothing wrong with that. Expressing that honestly is a bit of a breakthrough – recognizing that I’m doing the work for me.

The problem comes when I let my desire to turn perfectly good lumber into piles of sawdust become more important to me than the people I’m here to love.

So I’m trying to apply a new factor when deciding the cost of a project – the relational cost. If a project is going to take a lot of time, I either need to be prepared to do it mostly during nap times or in those early hours when I’m the only one stirring – or I need to be prepared for the emotional fallout that comes with being the stranger in the basement. I need to think in terms of involving my family in the project where I can (my kids do a decent job with a paint roller, for instance). I also need to let go of the idea that I’m going to do anything more than what is absolutely necessary in the shop.

I have my ideals of how I want to spend my time; the fact is, it isn’t mine anymore to spend. When I got married, I gave up a portion of that control in exchange for the greatest earthly relationship I could have. When we pursued having kids, I gave up more, in exchange for the joys of parenthood (a phrase often said sarcastically, but I’m earnest about it here).

I need to do what I need to do, for certain; but I must always weigh what I believe I need to do against the relational cost with those who matter the most. To be dishonest about my motivations is to wear a mask, and I doubt I fool those who know me the best.

finches, phlox, and fear

Anxiety is a sobriety-killer.

For an addict, the drug of choice often had initial appeal because it brought pleasure, or at least because it distracted us, numbed us, from the cares of life. So what do you suppose happens when the everyday stress level is ratcheted up a few notches?

• The struggler who is trying to go it alone is more likely to fall back into old, familiar, destructive patterns.
• The addict who is recovering with an occasional slip here or there feels the pull more strongly than they otherwise would.
• The person who is thought of as a model of recovery is blindsided by a desire they believed was a thing of the past.

Anxiety is a constant gnawing, the slow dripping sound from that faucet that keeps you awake at night, and pervades your dreams when you do sleep.

In the last several verses of Matthew 6, Jesus spoke to the issue of anxiety (my paraphrase here):

Listen, don’t worry about stuff like your 401k, your car payment, even your job. Isn’t life about more than that stuff?

Ever seen the bluebells along the highway in Texas, or the sunflowers in Kansas? How much time do they spend worrying? They don’t spend two hours commuting and nine hours in a cubicle farm, staring at a computer and wondering about whether that job will still be there tomorrow; they just sit in the dirt and take in what God sends them.

How about the birds around you? How much do they focus on the finer things in life? They build their nests, eat worms, and maybe say, “Dude, it’s getting frosty. Let’s go south” once a year.

You are God’s special creation – princes and princesses in an eternal kingdom. How much more do you suppose he cares for you than these things?

Look, I’m not above feeling anxious. We’ve been feeling the pinch in finances lately as so many others have. My industry is considered a good one to be in, but I see things slowing down. We will have to make some lifestyle changes if we want to keep working to get out of debt. We will likely have to sacrifice a few of the comforts to which we’re accustomed in order to keep our house and feed the kids.

But I am holding on to the fact that the Creator of the Universe sees me as His child.

Oh, I know there are a lot of people who don’t buy into creation, let alone the whole God thing. If that is your belief system, I don’t know how you avoid despair.

But for those who believe, I need only look back at a few other lean years in my life to see that God cares and will provide. He won’t give me my every desire; but He will provide for my needs.

All it takes is a little trust.

let’s be honest

Honesty is critical to recovery. I know a lot of people in recovery programs don’t like absolutes. We live in a world that is not fond of absolutes.

But the power of addiction is strongest in the shadows – which leads me to the conviction that being dishonest, with myself and others, is likely to lead to a relapse (at best).

There are a few different types of discussions I believe are important for my recovery. Each has a different purpose, a different audience, and different timing; but each requires honesty or it becomes useless.

First, there is telling my story. This is usually what happens in Step 5 of the 12, confessing our faults. In the context of a 12-step program, this will often be a discussion with one’s sponsor. My sponsor and I went to a local monastery and spent a long day with me talking, crying, and walking through my full story.

When I told my story, I had to remember that the point was not to talk about what a victim I was, but to own up to where I had missed the mark. I needed to take responsibility for my own choices.

I think that confession allowed me to be honest with myself, which was at least as important as being honest with anyone else. It also gave me a chance to process some of the stuff that had happened in a more coherent view than anything I had done in private confession through prayer, and gave me a broader view. Patterns began to emerge. For the first time, I saw that there were certain events or feelings that often preceeded my acting out. I later learned these are called “triggers.”

Eventually, it was time for another conversation – a disclosure to my wife. The focus in a disclosure is different. This is not the encyclopedaic recitation of the full list of wrongs that was in my story; this was a specific disclosure of the behaviors which had impacted our relationship, whether she knew the impact or not, and regardless of whether they happened before or after the wedding. It was more general in the sense that she didn’t need (or want) to know the gory details, more pointed in terms of recognition of impact.

My wife has since said that there were two things she saw in my disclosure that were key to our continued marriage: I was broken by my errors, and I was complete in my revelation.

Wait a minute – you just wrote ‘complete in revelation’ just after writing ‘more general.’ What?

By complete, I mean that there was no general area of acting out, no range of activity, that felt incomplete. I gave her general areas or activities (“I visited adult bookstores for anonymous encounters”), and let her ask whatever details she wanted to hear. That’s not to say she liked my answers. I just decided that if there was pain involved, it would be more merciful for both of us to get it out and over with at once instead of continuing to poke and prod at it. If the marriage was going to fail, it was going to fail quickly. By her ( and God’s) grace, that was not the outcome.

I think trying to do a complete disclosure with her without the filter of the prior confession would have been disastrous. Had I gone to the level of detail my confession required, I suspect there would have been a steeper path to our climb. For example, listing specific locations and specific actions might have spurred her imagination, making our relationship that more challenging. I know a guy who bought a new mattress, then a new bed, then remodeled the bedroom, then bought a new house because he dwelt in the details of where his affairs took place.

Again, wherever my wife asked for details, I provided them. There is a world of difference between paving a path for renewal in your relationship and giving her material to question how she compares to someone else, and your words in a disclosure make all the difference.

The final conversation I think is critical is my testimony. OK, technically that’s a monologue, not a conversation. There is healing power in sharing my story. There is a renewed reminder of where I was, and why I would not want to be there again. There is the hope that someone who hears the story might see something of himself, and get some help.  There is hope, in spite of that part of me that sought fulfillment in so many wrong ways.

I share that testimony when I can. Not every setting is appropriate, but I have found very few cases where the story shared creates discomfort or disconnecton with others. Maybe I’m more cautious in sharing than some. I certainly don’t get on the train in the afternoon and say, “MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE?”

I’m not a masochist.

I am a human, flawed, fallen, devious in many ways; but I am also being healed, and I am a child of the King. If I am honest, that’s my identity: a prince, so named by the King whom I didn’t want to serve. That’s a far cry from where I was, not that long ago.

belief

I was listening to a conversation last night that has stirred some thoughts about belief. To some this may not seem connected to the primary topic of my blog, but I think it has everything to do with it.

The two primary participants were discussing the existence of God. Both of these guys are very intelligent (both by my estimation and their IQ scores), and I know them both well enough to say that neither of them is flippant about their viewpoints on important issues. One is a devout Christian and leader in his local church (henceforth referred to as J); the other is a devout agnostic (B).

I was reminded in their discussion how much a worldview is changed when God is added or subtracted from the equation.

B believes that, if God exists, He set things in motion and sits back watching with curiosity, wondering what we’ll do next, hoping someday we’ll get it right and straighten the world out.

J responds that, no, we won’t get it right. We aren’t really capable of getting it right, not without divine intervention.

B thinks that is a very pessimistic viewpoint. I didn’t understand why at first, but then I thought about his worldview. If God does not exist, or is a disinterested third party, it would be distressing to think that we are limited and incapable.

But from a viewpoint of belief, I recognize that I am a child of a loving God who wants what is best for me. It makes more sense to me now as a father than it ever did when I was childless. I don’t want to give my children everything; I want them to grow and learn, which doesn’t happen if they just sit on their rear all day and never live. I am very careful to make sure they have what they need, but that is a far cry from just handing over everything they want.

Then there’s the issue of our place in the unverse. J mentioned that his brother had just sent him some pictures from the Hubbel telescope, including captions estimating the distances of the objects from earth in terms of light years. My brain isn’t capable of keeping track of the number of zeroes involved, but it is, as we say in the South, “a fur piece.”

B says that makes him feel all the less significant, that he is a fortunate accident among millions of other fortunate accidents, spinning around on another unfortunate accident, feeling feelings that are an amazingly fortunate accident, looking out at galaxies upon galaxies of similarly fortunate accidents…and that increases his feeling that he is insignificant. That decreases the odds, in his view, that he is especially designed for a purpose. I should mention that he didn’t keep inserting “fortunate accident” in that dialog. J was doing that, and it was really beginning to annoy B.

J didn’t have a chance to respond; B took the conversation in a different direction.

I’m not a mathmatician, nor am I an odds-maker. But I really do wonder about those numbers. If no design, and therefor no Designer, what are the odds of planetary placement in favor of life? What are the odds in favor of a planet stable enough to support ongoing life for hundreds, thousands of years? What are the odds of life developing at all, and what evolutionary purpose do emotions serve? For that matter, why conscious thought? Why not simple instinct? Why would we ever place ourselves under the burden of organized society, and why would we ever have such altruistic ideals as love, honor, patience, kindness, hope?

I know none of those things prove a loving Creator, or even a creator at all; but there is so much that makes no sense if we are indeed fortunate accidents existing strictly for the propogation and survival of the species.

What has this to do with addiction?

If we are not an incredible series of fortunate accidents, if there is some plan, if there is a Planner, than I believe the plan would not be for me to be enslaved by my behaviors. Oh, I know, that requires the assumption that the Planner is interested – a step of faith B finds quite troubling – and even compassionate. I suppose my predisposition toward that is based in the idea that God is a father.

I don’t want evil to happen to my kids. I want them to grow to their greatest potential, and I’m smart enough to recognize that this sometimes requires some bumps and bruises (not at my hand; only those that result from their unwise choices). I believe the best parental instincts I have are a reflection of how my Father sees (and treats) me.

I want good for my kids. I don’t want them to suffer the consequences of slavery to alcohol, drugs, sex, food, whatever substance gets between them and really relating to others and to me.I hope they will allow me to give them guidance, to suggest how they can avoid some of the traps that lie ahead on a perilous road.

I know my connection to God was the first victim of my addiction, and meaningful relationships with those around me soon followed. As I have found some respite from my addictions, I am discovering those connections again.

That just makes more sense to me than a series of fortunate accidents.

sex and marriage – the two great myths

Peggy: No TV, Al, we’re talking.
Al: You’re my wife. I will not talk to you while I have a TV.
– From Married With Children

I think our culture perpetuates two major myths about sex and marriage. The first is that getting married means you’ll be able to have sex as often as you want it; the other is that marriage is sexless.

I have a theory that a guy who enters marriage believing myth #1 will find himself living in myth #2. But one myth at a time.

Time after time I have heard guys in my group talk about the belief they held that getting married meant they would be able to have sex whenever they wanted it, and that would take care of the little porn problem (or whatever their acting out included). The belief is that she exists largely for the man’s sexual fulfillment. In reality, that paints a picture of the wife as a glorified call-girl.

I know there are still some guys around who will drop their clubs, scratch their ear-hair, and grunt in disapproval of that last sentence; but one need only to look to the Song of Solomon to see that the Cromagnon approach is not Biblically supported.

Truth is, you can have sex in marriage any time you want it; the problem is that you is plural, not singular. Based on my history, you might guess that I would generally be the one with a stronger drive in my marriage; you’d be guessing correctly there. But even so, there have been times when I have been the one to say no. Rare, but it has happened.

So what sometimes happens (as most of the guys I know who have admitted to sexual addiction would testify) is that expectations about sexual activity go uncommunicated because the him thinks the her has the same desires and drives as him. It is somewhere within the first weeks after the honeymoon that the truth is revealed.

By the way, I’m well aware of the dangers of writing in generalities on this topic. Some people get through a few years before the wife starts to feel like a geisha, others not even through the night after the wedding.

In any case, sex in marriage should primarily be about honoring each other, and focused on meeting each other’s needs and desires rather than on our own interests. Sexual intimacy is at its best when it is an outgrowth of spiritual/emotional intimacy.

As to the second myth, which implies that sex and marriage are incompatible…

This is, sadly, becoming a partial truth in our society. The myth is that this is a normal state of things. When it does happen, it is normally a warning sign that emotional intimacy is lacking or even dying.

It is no accident that the most common picture the Bible uses to describe the relationship between God and the church is that of a good husband. God desires intimacy with us. That is a little uncomfortable for many, but it is the truth. Bill Hybels of Willow Creek said it this way:

“For a marriage relationship to flourish, there must be intimacy. It takes an enormous amount of courage to say to your spouse, “This is me. I’m not proud of it — in fact, I’m a little embarrassed by it — but this is who I am.””

Intimacy in marriage is to know and be known, to walk with your partner naked and unashamed as Adam and Eve. And no, I’m not encouraging a “naturalist” lifestyle; I’m talking about having a comfort level where you can tell your spouse what is on your heart without fearing rejection, and creating an environment where she feels free to do the same.

As with all myths, there is truth behind each of these; but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily accurate.

if you only knew…

The movie Sneakers featured a decryption device which could break any code. One needed only the secret passphrase to gain access to the secrets of the world, and the phrase was “Too Many Secrets.“

Secrets can be a good thing, when it comes to birthday parties or roses ordered but not yet delivered; but secrets in a relationship are often deadly.

A phrase my wife used when we first became more serious in our relationship was, “if you really knew me, you wouldn’t love me.” Of course, if she had known more about me back then, who knows how things would have developed…but the point is, we kept each other in the dark. We feared each others’ rejection and alienation.

I know that, as I became more aware of her issues, I felt that those issues were of little importance relative to the relationship we were building. They would certainly affect us, sometimes dramatically, but none were “deal-breakers.”

I wonder if she has felt the same way about my issues.

What I find now is that the more I am honest about my struggles, the more she respects me. Oh, true enough, it might be different if I was still cruising and acting out…but my honesty about the difficulty of remaining ’sober’ has only drawn us closer.

It is also important to say that I would not expect a person of lower caliber than my wife to be able to accept the darkness in my story. Since those things were/are a part of me (though not the definition of who I really am) , I would be stupid to pursue a relationship with her if she couldn’t handle my past.

I know several men who are ’single again’ because their spouses were not able to see through the history into the present tense of the person before them. I also know a lot of men who continued to act out, regularly,  after divulging the truth; that doesn’t usually work out so well either.

Secrets make it easier to keep secrets. New secrets. Dark secrets.

Honesty begets honesty. Harsh, brutal honesty.

I believe pain is always easier with a clear conscience.