Weekly Blog

Tips, Tricks, Skills, Spirituality and Wisdom

Teresa McBean 11/16/19 Teresa McBean 11/16/19

Finding the root of our shortcomings

I have enduring vulnerabilities and so do you. Enduring vulnerabilities are predispositions and patterns of behaving that are not in our best interest, do not reflect our core values, hide our best selves, and harm others. These patterns are longstanding. They resist removal.

Enduring vulnerabilities deserve our compassion because they once served a purpose that may have been helpful. My feisty (defensive) self served me at times when my father was going ballistic. I could shock him with my aggression and occasionally he would back down. I appreciate how this helped me survive. But this coping strategy is also a shortcoming when overused or mis-applied. I have created a mostly peaceful life for myself free of bullies and the self-serving. When I get defensive with my husband, children, work team, or the local barista who makes a small mistake, I am creating distance and disengagement from folks - which goes against all I hold dear. Letting go of my enduring, although understandable, vulnerabilities requires that I courageously release three common needs:

1. The need to be in control

2. The need to succeed

3. The need to be right

We are all “attached” to this primal need to survive which often involves control, success, and the capacity to out-maneuver our enemy. In active addiction, we need control of our using so we can use when we need to. Our success depends on our capacity to get access to our substance(s) of choice, and our very survival means that we HAVE to be right. We are compelled to convince anyone who pays attention that we do NOT have a problem.

These same issues apply to our enduring vulnerabilities. In fact, this applies even more so because our shortcomings have been around for as long as we can remember. Think about this: our shortcomings have been around since BEFORE we started having consequences. It is easy to make excuses about our character flaws and blame them on our circumstances. But that is not completely true. Although our shortcomings may become more obvious or more extreme in their expression over time, the seeds of our deficiencies have been germinating since we were young. This is not unique to SUD sufferers. This is true for everyone. How has your need to control, succeed and be right fueled your own bad behaviors?

Teresa McBean 11/15/19 Teresa McBean 11/15/19

Naming our responsibility with our shortcomings

My dreams started out bigger than hitting 80 pounds on a scale. My whole life I wanted to grow up to be the kind of woman who made a difference. I feared that my own mother, born in a different time and place, had wasted her potential by denying and ignoring her dreams. She was tied down to my dad who roamed from city-to-city in search of the perfect job. My mother was like one of those houseplants that can thrive anywhere but would probably do best if you didn’t uproot her every 18 months.

I observed how she coped with each move, ordering her life around her soap operas - “The Young and the Restless”, “As The World Turns”, and “The Guiding Light”. Whatever state she lived in she could always count on tuning in to see what nefarious deed Victor was up to while she waited with baited breath to see if Nicky would take the scoundrel back. I wanted more than TV buddies.

When I went to the University of Virginia in 1974 I was part of the second class of female admissions in what had traditionally been an all male school. It was brutal. The men were not happy. Fraternities assigned pledges to sit on the hill overlooking the Emmet Street Bridge - a crossing point for anyone headed to the cafeteria. Armed with cardboard signs, these recruits would rate each of us on a scale of 1 - 10 every single night when we headed to dinner. It did something to me. Already self-conscious about my appearance this public shaming paired with the ability to stop eating without anyone noticing was a killer combination. My eating disorder took off.

Notice the following:
● Not all women subjected to this developed an eating disorder.
● I have a genetic predisposition for addiction. Some in my family use drugs, others alcohol. I developed what is called a “process addiction”, which pretty much means a compulsive behavior that is not related to alcohol or drugs.
● I needed opportunity. At home I would have been fussed at for wasting food. I would have been called out for weird eating behavior. At college, no one noticed.
● My body responded to the experience with delight. It felt good to starve. I felt powerful. For whatever reason, my body fed me positive cues for restrictive eating. Each of us respond in distinctive ways to self-destructive behavior. This was mine.

Underneath these issues were my enduring vulnerabilities: insecurity, pride, defensiveness and self-pity. These are the issues the Sixth Step is asking us to acknowledge and prepare to let go and let God remove. You do not need to have a process addiction in order to have shortcomings; you have them because you are human.

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.
~ Exodus 14:14, NIV

Teresa McBean 11/14/19 Teresa McBean 11/14/19

A Meditation Moment

“COME TO THE EDGE.”

“We can’t, we’re afraid!”

“COME TO THE EDGE.”

“No, we will fall.”

They came to the edge.

He pushed them, and they flew.

~ Apollinaire

Take a few moments and think about where your “edge” is. What are you afraid to change and terrified NOT to change? Sit quietly and breathe. Ask God, “What if you have a plan for me to fly?” See what happens as you invite God to show you a new perspective.

Teresa McBean 11/13/19 Teresa McBean 11/13/19

Letting go is about embracing reality

Before I could, “…let go and let God,” I had to let in reality. This was back in the day when I was early in recovery from an eating disorder. I did not have a lot of resources or support, I don’t think much existed back then. I was relying as best as I could on the wisdom of God and my exposure to the 12-steps. I had become attached to my identity as a “thin” person. This obsession tied my identity to numbers - the scale, the size of my jeans, the diameter of my waist. Early in recovery I was giving my complete and entire readiness to figuring out how to eat enough to satisfy my heart specialist without losing my svelte figure.

One day I confessed this to a friend, who replied, “Calling yourself thin is like describing concentration camp survivors as ‘all muscle’ instead of telling the truth. When they got released from those death camps they were a bag of bones, one breath away from death.” Well, that was rude. But it also let in a bit more reality. I was not thin, I was emaciated. I did not look good, I looked like what I was - dying.

There is a pernicious myth that continues to circulate among families in need of recovery that says that a person suffering from a substance use disorder must “hit bottom” before they are ready to recover. Often referred to as a moment of clarity, this magical bottom is supposed to be the eureka moment when, finally, the person with the SUD agrees that they have a problem and decide they want help.

“That’s why it may be tempting to take a hands-off approach to the problem, hoping that your relative or friend’s drug or alcohol problem will just go away - that he or she is just going through a phase and will get better with time. Or you may decide that treatment won’t help because your addicted friend or relative doesn’t want to make a change. But both of these beliefs are myths that can lead to more severe addiction and to greater family disruption. Addiction is a progressive disorder - it gets worse over time.” *

At Step Six, those days of resistance to treatment may feel like they are only visible through our rearview mirror. But resistance is a stubborn booger and we battle it at every stage of recovery. When we rigidly cling to our obsessions and compulsions, it is usually necessary to “let in” more reality before we are willing to surrender to the process of transformation.

Teresa McBean 11/12/19 Teresa McBean 11/12/19

Sometimes, trust requires letting go

“Clifford was leaning against the fence, enjoying a beautiful view from the top of the Grand Canyon, when the wooden posts suddenly ripped from their cement moorings. Seconds later, Clifford was plunging down into the abyss.

Halfway to the bottom his desperate arm-waving helped Clifford catch and clutch the branch of a scrubby tree that grew from the canyon wall. Grasping, gasping, he looked both up and down. No way could he climb that sheer cliff, even if he could swing his body toward the wall. But below yawned the chasm, unbroken by any other tree or holding place. To fall would be to die, horribly crushed on the rocks below. No one had seen him fall, and he hung there out of sight, knowing that the wind would scatter his weak voice no matter how loudly he shouted.

Desperate, Clifford cried out to the heavens: “God help me!” Hearing his own trembling voice, he wailed again, “Please, God, help me.”

To Clifford’s amazement, he heard an immediate answer. “All right,” came the voice. The initial warmth Clifford felt turned to a chill wind gripping his body as the voice continued: “Let go.”

Looking down, Clifford saw the huge boulders waiting below, and he knew again that if he let go he would surely die. Let go? He thought. “But God, you don’t understand!” he yelled up. “I’m too far up, I’ll …”

“Let go,” the voice repeated.

Silence filled the canyon. Then, in a weak, terrified voice Clifford called out, “Is there anyone else up there?”

The story is corny, except that it is true; true of every one of us in the sense that it conveys a powerful spiritual truth: So long as we cling, we are bound.” *

I read in a book on recovery that in his opinion, Step Six was only possible when we got tired enough to give up. Maybe so. That was not my experience. On the occasions when I have been willing to let go of my way of being in the world, it was because I understood that release would not only be a relief, it would be a big win. Maybe I’m a lot like Clifford. Maybe I cannot surrender my shortcomings to God on blind faith. I guess that’s why I feel lucky that my faith does not need to be blind. I can learn that God is trustworthy and he will catch me. How about you? What makes it possible for you to let go? What branch are you still clinging to?