Jesus, Buddha, and Allah Walk into a Bar...

A friend who is not in recovery and not personally familiar with the 12 Steps asked me how the whole “God as we understand God” thing works. As in, Step 3: “We turned our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood [God] him.” How can a roomful of people meet regularly and discuss God (among other things) and not all be on the same page about who God even is? If one person defines God as Jesus, and the person to her left defines God as the Tao, and the person on her right isn't even yet sure he believes in God, how does that work?

It’s a good question. 

I don’t know that I have the definitive answer to the question, but I have my suspicions and my opinion as to how that works. And let me just say that I’m extremely grateful that it does indeed work as well as it does or I would have walked away many years ago… like, at the very beginning of the journey. Hey, wait, I did walk away several times - and it was largely because I thought “they” were telling me I had to believe in “their” God. I wasn’t interested in any group telling me what I had to believe about God. By the way, there truly is no “they” and no one has once told me that a) this is God and this is how you need to believe, or b) your belief in God is wrong. I find that incredibly amazing, given the fact that I’ve met thousands of recovering addicts and alcoholics in 12 Step programs, each with their own personal belief about God. Now, after the meeting, people gather with those who share similar concepts of God, I'm sure. But while in the meetings, for that hour, it doesn't matter.

There is a reading in Narcotics Anonymous called, “We Do Recover.” In the meeting I go to it is read at the end of each meeting. It goes like this: When at the end of the road we find that we can no longer function as a human being,  either with or without drugs, we all face the same dilemma:  What is there left to do? We can either go on to the bitter ends: Jails, institutions, or death, or, find a new way to live. In years gone by, very few addicts ever had this last choice. Today, we are more fortunate. For the first time in man’s entire history there is a simple way proving itself in the lives of many addicts. It is available to us all. This is a simple, spiritual – not religious – program known as Narcotics Anonymous.

That last line is the key. It is a spiritual program, not a religious program. There is a huge difference. Religions tend to dictate what you should believe, or at the very least, guide you toward a certain dogma or belief system. 12 Step programs do not do this. At all. In fact, the steps encourage every person to figure it out for themselves. That’s pretty much all the guidance you get: Figure it out. Well, and this: Step 2 says, “We came to believe in a Power Greater than ourselves who could restore us to sanity.” So one's concept of a Higher Power should be big enough for that. And there is this: Step 11 says, “We continued to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.” This reminds one of how important it is to maintain the spiritual connection that one has built. But that's it. Those are the instructions, those are the only 3 steps that mention God (or Higher Power) specifically (Steps 2, 3, and 11). The rest is up to the individual. I find that simplicity incredibly personal and altogether beautiful.

I’ve shared before that I tried using the God of my childhood, or the Higher Power of my parents, or the concept of God that someone else had formed, and it didn’t work. How could it, really? If I am going to rely on a Higher Power, on God, to keep me clean and fill the spiritual void that is left after I quit getting high – and probably the very void that I tried to fill in the first place once I started using drugs and alcohol – hadn’t I better believe in that concept of God that I'm going to be relying so heavily on? Hadn’t I better trust in that Higher Power? 

Since I kept hitting a wall as I came up on steps 2 and 3, the only thing I knew to do when I got clean this time around, since past attempts didn’t exactly work out for me, was to throw out every single thing I ever believed about God, every single thing I was ever taught about God, every single thing I thought I knew about God… and start from scratch. And that is what I did. In doing so, I discovered new concepts and theologies I had never been exposed to. I added back, slowly, over time, and with meticulous vetting, many things I was taught about God growing up, and I’ve left behind other things I once thought I believed, and I’ve left behind much of the new concepts and theologies I’ve learned along the way. It has been a long process, and it is a process that will never end. However, I am so very, very grateful that I found a safe place to do this because I don’t know that I would have had the courage or the determination to do it without the support and complete acceptance of others doing the same thing for themselves.

Most people in 12 Step meetings don’t talk in specifics when they talk about what they believe about God. What I mean by that is that most people don’t name their God when talking in meetings. They actually do share very specifically about what God means to them, what God does in their lives, how their Higher Power is evidenced in their recovery, and about the vital connection they have with God. But there is no need to give God another name, like Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, or the Holy Spirit, or the Great Spirit, or the Tao. Naming God is not the point. Figuring out what I, as an individual, believe about God, is the point. And in the end – or for that matter, at the beginning and every step along the way from beginning to end - it all comes down to me and God, anyhow. 

That’s the difference between spirituality and religion, in my opinion. In religion, it usually matters very much what you believe and what I believe and in those similarities. In spirituality, unencumbered by any particular religion, neither the similarities nor the differences are going to influence me, demand anything of me, cause disagreement or tension, drive me away, or turn me off, because they just don’t come into the conversation during that safe, sacred hour during a 12 Step meeting. 

And for this reason, it works... it really does work.

I’m Maze and I’m an addict.

Circling Around God

“I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.”   –Ranier Maria Rilke

When I was young I went to Sunday school every week.  As I got older, I started going to church camp and various youth conventions with the church youth group. It seemed that many other children (and later, teens) didn’t have the questions about God that I did. Or perhaps they just didn’t ask them aloud, as I did. Still today, I question what others seem to accept so readily. Is it a lack of faith? Is it doubt? Is it an unquenchable thirst that nothing quite satisfies? I’ve never been able to say, “This is what I believe, without a doubt.” God has always seemed to be fluid and just out of reach, making it impossible for me to commit to any definitive, unchanging concept of God. Nothing is quite clear to me when it comes to spiritual matters. As a young adult, I studied philosophy and many various religions. Later still, once I got into recovery and began studying and applying the 12 Steps in my life, I adopted bits and pieces of all I had learned and incorporated those bits and pieces into my life: a good dose of Taoism, fragments of Buddhism, and the closest thing to a constant in my seeking: the ever-present foundation of Christianity.

For some reason, before “coming to believe that a Power greater than me could restore me to sanity” (Step 2), I believed that there was something wrong with my questioning, my uncertainty, that maybe there was something wrong with me.  I believed that unless and until I could solidly and completely, once and for all, claim something as spiritual Truth, latch on to some version or unchanging concept of God, then I was doing something wrong. I no longer believe this, though. I have come to realize, and accept, that I am a seeker. I will never stop questioning, never stop seeking, never remain stagnant, never be satisfied with what I can see on the surface. I accept that I will never, ever, ever have the answers to the questions. And that no longer feels wrong. In fact, it doesn’t even feel uncomfortable. As Rilke describes in the quote above, I know that I am destined to continue circling around God, circling around the Truth, looking at God from this angle today, and that angle tomorrow… and even if I were to circle for a thousand years, I still wouldn't know. And that is okay. That is more than okay – just ask Paul: “For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I have been known.”  –1 Corinthians 13:12

For me, the circling, the seeking God, is the one thing that is a constant, the one thing I know for sure, without a doubt, has been unchanging throughout my life.

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.

HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN

“There is a crack, a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in, that’s how the light gets in.”                – Leonard Cohen

                                                                            Statue by Paige Bradley, "Expansion"

Why is it so hard allow others to know when I’m struggling? I don’t think it is a conscious decision to hide my pain or my anger or my despondency from other people, but it is something I’m very good at, and therefore, this leads me to conclude that I’ve had a lot of practice hiding my truth. Early in recovery, I had no problem walking into a roomful of friends and strangers and laying it all out there.  I didn’t sugarcoat what I was feeling or thinking, where I was emotionally, mentally, spiritually. I shared the raw truth, unconcerned about what others thought of it, of me, knowing that in doing this I was going to have a fighting chance to make it one more day – one more day clean, one more day hopeful, one more day living.

But something changed and I don’t know when that happened. It was a subtle change. The more time I stayed clean, the further I got away from the unmanageable emotions of early recovery, and the less authentic I became when I shared in meetings. I began saving much of what I once shared freely in meetings to share privately with my closest friends or my sponsor. Eventually, I stopped doing even that and just kept the raw thoughts and feelings to myself.  Rather than share my truths in meetings, I shared what I thought I was supposed to be sharing.

What does that even mean? “What I’m supposed to be sharing?” There is no such thing as supposed to in the therapeutic value of one addict helping another. The whole concept of that therapeutic value is based in honesty and in identification. If I am not sharing my truth, how can another addict, a struggling addict, identify with me? And without that identification, the therapeutic value of one addict helping another completely breaks down. There is no value in me being less than brutally honest about where I came from, what I did, how I got here, how I felt, how I feel, what I need, what I fear, what I lack, what I’ve gained, how I got through, how I struggle to get through, how I barely manage to hang on sometimes, still, no matter how many clean days in a row I’ve managed to string together. There is no value in reciting clichés and sharing only what I’ve read or heard in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. That is sharing someone else’s truth, not my own.

One cliché I’ve heard so many times is, “share the solution, not the problem.” But what if I don’t have the solution, what if I don’t know what the solution is to whatever it is I’m experiencing? Talking about what is real, what is going on in my head and in my life, is what has allowed me to develop coping skills. If I don’t put it out there, I will never hear how others got through this – whatever this is at any given moment – I will never hear the experience, strength and hope of someone who made it through this without getting high. Before I started this recovery journey, I didn’t have many natural coping skills. Mine were chemical coping skills. Whatever situation came up in life, I knew of some chemical or herbal remedy that would get me through. Stripped of my chemical coping skills, I was an emotional and spiritual wreck. By being authentic and honest in what I share with others, and then listening to their experience,  I am then able to learn all those coping skills I should have learned in my formative years, when instead, I was getting high. Learning how to cope with the big stuff and the day-to-day stuff is impossible if I don’t talk about that stuff.

In the book, Living Clean, there is a section called, “Desperation to Passion” on page 16, and there it says, “It can feel wrong or embarrassing to be struggling to keep the light on in our own recovery when we think we are supposed to be carrying the message to others. The responsibility we feel to carry the message can serve as an excuse not to share the truth about our lives. But without the truth, we have no message at all. And when we are not open, it’s hard for the light to get in.”

And for me, that brings it back to what Leonard Cohen penned in his song, Anthem:  “There is a crack, a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in, that’s how the light gets in.” Hiding my truth not only snuffs out the message of recovery that I can potentially help bring to another suffering addict, but covering up the cracks in my own interior world blocks the message of recovery from seeping in and shining its healing light on my own broken spirit. And truly, without that healing light, I have no message at all. 

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.

Burning Down The House

This morning I drove to work in the fog. I like driving in the fog. I actually just like foggy weather, in general, whether I’m driving or not. So this morning, I turned on my GoPro camera… er, actually it was my iPhone camera, but I wish I had a GoPro camera (Christmas hint/wish) … and I recorded a video of driving into the fog this morning and posted it on my facebook page with this caption:

I like fog. It’s nearly opaque at times, yet it always holds the promise of eventual transparency.

That, in turn, spurred these initial comments…

Jan  Heavy!

Maze  Too heavy for 8 AM on a weekday? Haha

Jan  Yea you crazy girl!!! I love and miss you!

LeAnne  Unless you run off into the ditch before it clears. Just sayin’. LOL

LeAnne  But that’s what rumblestrips are for right?

Maze  to take it to another level, deeper even, running off the road into a ditch has the potential to bring the ultimate transparency…”for-now-we-see-through-a glass-dimly-but-then-face-to face-now-I-know-in-part-but-then-I-will-know-even-as-I-am-known,” and all that.

Maze Yes,LeAnne, that is EXACLTY what rumblestrips are for!

Maze I feel a new blog post forming out of this morning’s fog.

…which brings us today’s blog. On fog. And fire and clarity and the decision-making process.

Most of the time, when faced with choices, things feel a bit foggy. I don’t usually have a whole lot of clarity when it comes to the initial phases of making decisions. There are times I make decisions on impulse, of course, but if the decision is going to change something significant in my life or affect others or have obvious ripple-effects in my little personal puddles, I like to have  a bit of time to process the options before making the decision. This often leads to procrastination and putting off making the decision at hand, but that’s a subject for another day.

A rather minor decision I’ve been processing the past few days is whether or not to buy a real Christmas tree or pull the artificial one down from the attic. Not a life-altering decision, necessarily… unless I opt for the real one and then forget to water it and it dries out and the lights end up sparking a fire on the dry, thirsty branches and maybe I’m not home to put out the fire and the fire ends up burning my house to the ground. That would be more than slightly life-altering. But on the surface, at this stage of the decision-making process, I’d classify the decision to go with the real tree or the artificial tree as a minor one. Obviously, though, even minor decisions could result in major consequences down the road a ways.

Another decision I had to process recently concerned my position at work. This was definitely a decision that carried more weight than the Christmas tree dilemma I am facing at the moment. The decision was to stay in my current position (regional level) or move to a supervisory position for a newly-forming unit at the state level. Even though there was a whole lot of fog and very little clarity around these choices, the deadline to apply loomed and I decided to go for the new position. I sent in my resume and was called about an interview within a few days. The interview was set up for a Monday morning. Once the interview was set up (about a five days prior to that Monday morning), I noticed I was becoming more and more irritable and my mood had taken a nose-dive. I spent the weekend prior to the interview re-accessing my decision and came to the conclusion that I made the wrong decision, that I actually had no desire to do the job that I applied for and was about to interview for. In fact, once the fog started clearing that weekend, I realized that the program that I’d be supervising, if hired for the new position, was the very program that causes me so much stress in my current position, and furthermore, the work I currently do for that program in my current position would no longer be part of my workload once this new unit was off the ground because that work would shift to the newly-formed unit that I’d potentially be supervising. The fog had lifted. Clarity, at last. I called the person I was to interview with and told him I’d changed my mind. As soon as I did that, I was flooded with relief, my mood did a 180, and I was not the least bit irritable any longer.

When I was driving in the fog this morning, I thought about that decision and about how clear the right choice was for me as I drew closer and closer to experiencing the consequences of the decision. While on the road this morning, as I was viewing the fog before me, it was beautiful, somewhat opaque, with a hint of transparency. I could see the fuzzy outlines of the trees and signs and buildings ahead, but until I got right up on those trees and signs and buildings, these things were not at all clear. They weren’t formless, but they were entirely without detail. At one point, I noticed the form of a farm house ahead, framed by tall trees with a barn set several hundred feet behind it – and it was a beautiful scene. Once I was right up on the house, without the haze of the fog distorting my vision, I saw that the house was actually nothing but a shell of a house. Once I was close enough, I could see that the farm house had suffered a fire and was blackened and gutted. There was yellow tape wrapped across the porch of the house, warning of the danger of collapse. Quite a different view than the one I had seconds before. And nothing except my perspective changed. Nothing was different except the fog was no longer masking the truth of the situation.

Sometimes, if I talk (or write) enough, I come up with the clarity I need to make whatever decision I’m weighing at the moment.

Like right now, about the Christmas tree.

My unintentional segue from the dilemma about whether to get a real tree this year into the decision about the recent job opportunity into my metaphor of the burned-up house in the fog makes me think I should go with the artificial tree, thereby reducing the possibility of adding another burned-out house to the landscape.

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.

Hold On

I once heard a Pueblo blessing:

Hold onto what is good, even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold onto what you believe, even if it is a tree which stands by itself.
Hold onto what you must do, even if it is a long way from here.
Hold onto life, even when it is easier letting go.
Hold onto my hand, even when I have gone away from you.


It has been many years since I first heard it, but I've never forgotten it. When I heard it that first time, and every time since, it spoke my soul. If you have ever heard or read words that speak your soul, you know just what I'm talking about. Sometimes it happens with a song lyric or a poem or a scripture or a story. It can even happen with a score of music or a painted canvas. The language of the soul does not need words, or even sound. You hear something, or read something, or see something, and it feels as if someone has taken a crowbar and pried you open to steal what is inside of you.

Hold onto what is good, even it it is a handful of earth.
There are times when it is hard to see the good all around you. Tragedy and chaos can come down hard and so suddenly that you're left reeling and disoriented. Things look bleak, you feel bleak, you wonder how everything got so bad, so quickly. The saving grace in such times is hope, no matter how small that hope may be. Hope can spring from the tiniest bit of gratefulness, from the least amount of good... the horse in the pasture, a child's giggle, a puppy chasing his tail, the scent of a fresh cut lawn, the smile of a stranger, or the handful of earth between your fingers.

Hold onto what you believe, even if it is a tree which stands by itself.
There are times when you may feel lost and without purpose. Where there once was certainty, now you feel only confusion. Something might happen, something that shakes the foundation of everything you thought you knew. Somebody you love dies. Somebody you thought you'd have forever walks out of your life. Or maybe you just look around at all the chaos of the world and begin to question your long-held belief in a god you've never doubted. There seems to be no purpose and no meaning. Where you once felt faith, you now feel empty. Faith is still there, only eclipsed for the moment, awaiting your return...observe the cycle of the sun and the moon, dig out that poem your child wrote to you when he was 7, walk into a church of unfamiliar creed or denomination and sit quietly in the back with your eyes closed, or look out the window and up the hill to the tree that stands by itself, where it stands every time you look out that window and up that hill.

Hold onto what you must do, even if it is a long way from here.
The natural cylce of human development takes you from total dependence on others to total independence. Your life begins connected, quite literally by an umbilical cord, to another human being. You are born, the cord is cut, but still you are totally dependent on others for your very survival. For many years, you struggle to break free, while at the same time running back to the comfort and safety of others. Eventually you do break free, you must. You become self-sufficient, independent, enough. You could move to a desert island and survive on your own, forever, until your death. You are enough for yourself. Don't hold onto what you no longer need, even if that means you must travel a long way from here, from where you have always been.

Hold onto life, even when it is easier letting go.
Our days are filled with joy and pain, not always in equal measure. When the pain overshadows any joy you may feel, when grief is stacked upon grief for days or weeks or even months on end, you may feel like giving up, checking out, letting go. And why not? How can you know if things will improve, if joy will return, if your grief will ever subside? Hold on and joy will return. All of life is a cycle. Grief subsides as joy returns. Without darkness, there'd be no light. Hold on for the return of joy, for it is certain to emerge again. Hold on for the light that comes around as the cycle of darkness fades. Hold on, even when it feels easier letting go.

Hold onto my hand, even when I have gone away from you.
People come in and out of your life. Some you may be glad to see go, but more often, you'll long for those who have come and gone from your life. If you accept that everyone - every single person - who passes through your life is your teacher, you'll better understand their departure. If you remember that those you've loved, then lost, have left a piece of their essence with you, you'll know they have not really left you at all. If you can hear their words in your memory, see their face in your mind, feel their touch in your soul, then they will eternally hold your hand.

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.

Step 11: Conscious Contact

Step Eleven
“We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.”
(Spiritual principle associated with this step: Awareness, Connectivity)

On the surface, this step seems to be the most "religious." When I first read it I thought, "I'm never doing that one; I've had enough religion in my lifetime." By the time I worked steps one through ten, I had a different understanding of step eleven.

For me, this step has been about deepening my awareness to that which makes me feel most connected. By connected, I mean 'spiritually connected.' It is that thing you feel when you drive in the mountains or stand on the shore at the ocean, when you don't think about what you're seeing, but you experience it. When you're standing there in front of the ocean or in the valley surrounded by mountains, it is that knowing you experience, that absolute and all-encompassing knowledge that you are nothing in comparison to the universe, and at the same time, you are very much an integral part of it.

'Spiritually connected' means knowing I have a place in the universe even if I can't find that place. It means knowing there is purpose and meaning even when I have no idea what that purpose or meaning is.

'Spiritually connected' means conscious contact with a god of my own understanding. Everyone has their own way to improve their conscious contact, their spiritual connectivity. The longer I live, the more ways I discover to deepen my conscious contact. I find it in music and art. I find it when I walk alone along the river or through the woods. I find it in conversations with children. I find it in what I read and what I write. I find it when I paint. I find it in conversation and in silence. I find it in intimate relationships, some sexually intimate relationships and all emotionally intimate relationships. I find it in recovery meetings and sometimes in churches. A couple months ago I discovered I find it ten feet under the water at the pool where I'm engulfed in silence and very connected to my non-breathing self. Now when I go to the pool, I can't stop going under water. I love discovering new ways of improving and deepening my conscious contact, my spiritual connectivity.

The rest of the step falls into place when I can deepen that conscious contact. The praying for the knowledge of God's will and the power to carry that outpart of this step occurs naturally for me if I'm developing that awareness and deepening that conscious contact. See, when I'm doing that, when I am connected to the moment, in the now and nowhere else, that in itself is my prayer for knowledge and power. Just being, that in itself is the only true way I know to pray.

Many Narcotics Anonymous groups use a 'reading' (as part of their meeting format) called, We Do Recover. It is one of my favorite readings: When at the end of the road we find we can no longer function, either with or without drugs, we all face the same dilemma. What is there left to do? There seems to be this alternative: either go on as best we can to the bitter ends - jails, institutions, or death - or find a new way to live. In years gone by, very few addicts ever had this last choice. Those who are addicted today are more fortunate. For the first time in man's entire history, a simple way has been proving itself in the lives of many addicts. It is available to us all. This is a simple, spiritual - not religious - program known as Narcotics Anonymous.

I especially like the last line. I am put off by organized religion, but I crave spirituality. I confused the two - religion and spirituality - for most of my life. I think I got a glimpse of the difference when I watched my mother lose her fight to cancer. I always thought of her as religious - and perhaps she was - but in her final years of life, and especially in the the final months of her life, I saw her spirit as I never had before. I saw her spirtuality beyond her religion. Dogma and doctrine took a backseat to love and connecting with the people she loved and the beauty of the world around her that she so loved. The closer she came to death, more and more of her spirit-in-the-raw came through. It was an amazing thing to see, one I will never forget, and the pivotal point for me in my own spiritual journey...

... which brings me to a spiritual truth (for me) that has, in essence, become my Higher Power, my Truth with a capital T: Everything that happens, every, single, individual thing that happens has a purpose within it. I often miss the lesson, don't find a purpose, even deny that there is reason within the things that happen in my life, but nevertheless, deep down, at the center of my spirit, in my core... I know there is purpose in and around all things. Using my mother's death as an example of purpose: My mother didn't die so that I could learn a spiritual lesson, but because she died I had the opportunity to learn a spiritual lesson - probably several. There is a difference there and that difference is the foundation of my concept of spirituality.

And within this concept I nurture my spiritual conscious contact, thereby carrying out what some deem as "God's will," but what I prefer to call "living the Tao."

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.