too weak, two week

I’m trying something new in the endless battle of the bulge. I’m doing the RPM class at the gym (a.k.a. “Spin,” or “really painful bike riding, set to music“  in most other gyms). I’d say it’s as easy as riding a bike, but that might give one the impression this is not a difficult effort.

I have never sweat so much in my life.

I almost blacked out the first morning.

My legs were sore for almost a week.

Sounds like fun, huh?

As I began this new brand of torture, I also started looking at changing my approach to food. I’ve been watching very carefully what I do during the day, keeping fat content and other stuff at bay, while trying to kick in the protein and other good stuff.

As I was thinking this morning about what to get to take me through the week at work, I had a troubling thought:

I will put a tremendous amount of thought and effort into what I eat, how food is prepared, portion size, etc., and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. But why is it so much harder for me to bring that same intensity to bear on what is my biggest problem? Why is it that I can focus for a year and a half on busting my gut, but I have trouble maintaining my focus on holiness and righteous living for more than two weeks at a time?

Don’t misuderstand – I’m not going back to old patterns of behavior every two weeks; instead, I find that I am intently focused on taking all the right steps, calling people, being highly involved in others’ lives…all for brief periods. Then I retreat again, back into my coccoon, back to the safety of not having to deal with real people.

It perplexes me. I see what I need to do, and I can talk a good game – but there are times when my heart just isn’t really in it.

I know that a muscle builds endurance through being torn and rebuilt. Strength doesn’t come from light work. As Benjamin Disreali said, “No pain, no gain. No gain, no brain.” Most people leave off the last half of that quote. I’ve been able to retrain my brain regarding exercise. I know what will likely happen if I don’t work out, and I know that losing the weight of a sack of concrete has made my days much less painful.

I also know that there are similar benefits and risks in not getting “fit” spiritually. The obvious problem is that the risks are less tangible.

So what do I do to make the risks more real? How do I reach a point where I take to heart what my head already knows, that I don’t want to cross the finish line in the back of the pack?  I really want to hear, “Well done – good job” at the finish line, not “Well, I guess you made it.“

Perhaps I’ve forgotten one of the mantras of recovery – one day at a time. Thinking ahead is not a bad thing – but maybe I need to establish a pattern of single days – one that lasts longer than two weeks – before I start getting concerned about the long term.

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.

confession – good for the soul, hard on the fingernails

I slipped this week.

I was researching a blog topic, and followed a link that came back from a search…and I was reading some material that is outside the lines. This dovetails neatly into a discussion we were having at my group a couple of weeks back; the issue was how we should avoid sin and where sin starts.

When I first clicked to the page, it took a minute for me to realize where I was. No, really, stop laughing. There are places in my blog that sound very similar to what I was reading there, at first. Then I realized, this guy isn’t confessing for the sake of illustration or as an apology – he was quite proud of his stories.

That’s the point where I needed to steer away. But I didn’t. I bookmarked the page. And I returned to it, a couple of times.

Here comes the comic relief. We were up late Friday night, and I stayed on the couch after my wife went upstairs. I clicked on the link, and decided I was thirsty, so I went to get a drink from the kitchen.

I heard my wife’s footsteps on the stairs as I turned off the faucet. Too late, she was downstairs. Maybe she’d come to the kitchen.

No such luck. She was warm, so she went to the living room to adjust the thermostat.

My laptop was about three feet away, facing the thermostat.

I walked in briskly, and tried to position myself between her and the computer. She was fairly tired, so I don’t know if she sensed my panic. The air wasn’t kicking in; would I take a look? I leaned over her shoulder, she stepped to the side, and the next thing I knew she was standing there staring at the computer.

My bride is not blessed with tremendous eyesight, and that may be the only reason I have unbroken fingers and a laptop today.

I’m not sure what she saw. She said nothing, and didn’t react visibly. We were both so tired, I decided to see if she said anything about it. She didn’t. I had to get out early Saturday morning, and we didn’t have any time to talk until that afternoon. It was a very long morning, and I gave a lot of thought to just waiting to see if she would bring anything up – but I know better. It was my slip, my transgression; the ball was in my court, whether she even realized what had happened or not.

I chose the better option. When we had some time with the kids out of earshot, I told her what had happened and asked her forgiveness.

I didn’t enjoy the talk that followed.

But my heart is lighter, and I was able to worship this morning, not weighed down by the guilt of a sin covered in secrecy.

There are several directions I could go with this. For now, I’ll just say that I am still convinced that being real with my spouse is much more important than us having “peace” (peace being defined as blissful ignorance, in this case). I am reminded that I’m still a struggler, and that I am still vulnerable (and probably always will be). Finally, I am relieved that I can look at what I did with a touch of disgust and shame, but mostly with a sense of remorse; in the past, it probably would have been more a sense of resignation and defeat.

a half-hearted man

His arm would twitch every once in a while. We never really thought that much about it; it wasn’t that noticeable, at first. But then it became a tic, a repetitive movement which he could not control. That was when he decided to go to the hospital.

It was Tax Day, April 15th, 1991. I was working at my office when my parents’ neighbor called me.

I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but your dad is at the Emergency Room.

I left work and went to join my mom. We waited for a few hours, not hearing anything, not seeing anyone. Finally they called us back to his bedside. He told us about a battery of tests, where they seemed to be focusing their attention, what little anyone had said thus far. About then the attending physician stepped in.

I’m afraid I have some bad news. It’s a tumor…

…somewhere about an inch and a half in and behind his right ear. They would schedule surgery immediately. There could be no prognosis until they did a biopsy of the tumor, but it was not encouraging to note that a scan they had done on New Year’s Eve hadn’t shown anything, and there was now something this large, this soon.

He had seen his regular doctor somewhere between New Year’s and Tax Day about the spasms or tics. The doctor had told him to take an over-the-counter medication and let him know if the spasms got worse.

As it turns out, had his doctor pursued the cause a little more deeply, it probably wouldn’t have made a bit of difference for my father – he had a gliablastoma multiformae. The thing that killed my dad is now in the news because it is the same animal that is stalking Teddy Kennedy.

My dad would find some irony in the idea that he and Teddy Kennedy had anything in common.

My father had a tumor that is 100% fatal, thus far. He was one of the lucky ones – the tumor was relentless, and he only had a short time of suffering. He was gone before the next March came around. Others live for a couple of years as this beast eats away at their faculties, robbing them of their personality and dignity before taking away their cognitive ability and eventually their control centers. My father died, officially, of a massive organ failure. But like the tics or spasms, the organ failure was just the final symptom of a terrible disease.

I, on the other hand, have a heart disease; but not the kind that a doctor would be interested in. My symptoms have included acting out sexually and eating nearly everything in sight. It is tempting to think that I could use some over-the-counter approach to those issues. There are pills you can buy that will expand like styrofoam in your stomach, convincing your body that it is full. There are medications that warn of ’sexual side effects,’ which can mean either an effect on desire or performance. Yep, we could stop those symptoms pretty darn quickly.

But I’d still be left with my heart condition. There would still be a hole in me, something that is incomplete, something that goes a lot deeper than the symptoms.

I’d still be a half-hearted man.

The first serious attempt I made at dealing with my addictions was a behavior-based program.

Follow these steps, and keep your zipper closed, and you’ll be cured.

So it was all about my performance. As an American and a man, I liked the sound of that. I could make it happen, I was in control.

But the reality was, and is, that if I continue to focus on behavior, I’ll just develop a different set of symptoms.

If you find yourself trying to stop some behavior, and failing time after time, it isn’t because you are weak. A compulsion that overcomes your rational mind repeatedly is not going to go away that easily. The good news is, there are qualified people nearby ready to help you with your treatment. You just have to get past yourself, and be willing to admit that you can’t beat it alone.

Your sickness need not be fatal.

entropy

Though it is oft stated differently, entropy is seen in physics as the amount of energy no longer available in a usable form to do work. Once an ice cube melts, the energy that was in the atoms of the ice cubes has been dispersed throughout the warmer air surrounding. And unless you have some device capable of trapping the energy used in that process, that energy is essentially lost.

One of the byproducts of addiction is a kind of entropy.

There is within us a great deal of potential energy, just waiting to be applied to the world around us. Each episode of acting out reduces that by some measure. And without some kind of intervention from some outside force, that energy is lost.

The laws of physics apply to addiction – who knew?

Think about this one, Newton’s First Law:

A body in motion tends to stay in motion

Having a little trouble breaking the cycle of your addiction? Newton tells us why. And with each cycle, we have less energy available to affect a change.

That’s why I find it difficult to understand those who try to break out of addiction without some serious Higher Power.

Consider this; if you had it within you to make the change, to break the cycles, on your own – wouldn’t you have already done it?

Or do you like living with the constant threat of losing the people you hold dear?

Or of hurting those who love you?

But you don’t have it within you to change yourself.

I go back to the man who sought healing from Christ – “You have the power; I know it. All that is required is that You would be willing.”

A body in motion tends to stay in motion … unless acted on by an outside force.

You need a force greater than your own to provide the energy you lack. You aren’t getting free of that repetitive motion otherwise.

It has been said that gravity is not just a good idea – it’s the Law!

Don’t think yourself to be the exception. You need a Higher Power. One with limitless energy. One that is above the Law.

a step in the right direction

In the bible of 12-step programs, chapter 1, verse 1:

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable

This is why people think it is funny to hear someone say, “I can stop {insert behavior here} anytime I want.” The implied ending to that sentence is “I just don’t want to now.” If someone says something like that, it’s a pretty good sign they couldn’t stop if they wanted. An addiction has taken root when you are not in control of it. And one of the ways it maintains control is by leaving you, initially, with the feeling that you do have some level of control.

I used to live within easy walking distance of a convenience store in Cincinnati that served incredible ice cream. When I would pull into my apartment after work, I would walk across to the store and get a snack. One afternoon I went in and just got something to make for dinner that night.

What? No milkshake tonight?
No, not very hungry.

{short pause}

Is the large shake still on sale?
Yep.
Let me have the mint chocolate chip.

It felt wrong to not have a shake. As my waistline increased, my willpower decreased.

Any muscle left unexercised will eventually atrophy. Willpower is a muscle.

Now I have protein shakes most evenings. I’ve lost six inches around my waist and fifty pounds.

But between then and now, I reached a point where I realized that my eating was in control of me. And I realized that I did not have the willpower to stop this coming train wreck, the heart attack or stroke that were bound to come, eventually.

In an excellent series called “Destinations,” Andy Stanley at NorthPoint Community Church frequently repeated this gem:

Direction, not intention, determines destination.

I had walked so long in a self-destructive direction that I had no idea how to change paths.

So what happened?

Step 2. I’ll post about it soon.