Corking the Bottle

The debate rages: Is alcoholism a matter of choice or is it a disease? Well, maybe not "rages." But the question does go "blip" in some circles. My cousin, in a phone text, referenced a blog post I wrote on May 20 about the disease question and she pointed me in the direction of a YouTube address by Dr. Kevin McCauley ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2emgrRoT2c ). It's well worth the investment of an hour, 12 minutes, and 13 seconds for an easy-to-follow analysis of addiction and our brains. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that controls conscious thought, behavior, decision making, and the like. Experiments with mice prove that's not where addiction attacks. The midbrain is the survival brain. It handles eating, killing (self protection), and sex. This is the part of the brain where alcohol and other drugs work, which means we are tricked into believing we need more and more for survival. Nothing else then matters. We drink to live and l...

I can't remember whether it was in high school or college when I stumbled through the pages of Candide , an 18th century novel by Voltaire. I only remember this haunting sentence, repeated over and over when Candide confronts any horrific event: "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." That satirical refrain stuck with me, I guess, because I didn't know if I agreed with Candide's naivete or Voltaire's mockery of that philosophy. Take alcoholism, for example. The degradation of personality and health doesn't fit into a "best of all possible worlds." I felt embarrassed among friends and family and hated myself with a hatred I thought I could never forgive. Then I found God again. I believed I had found him every time before I relapsed, but the wicked voice inside me, tempting me, was stronger than God's. This current stretch of sobriety feels much different. For the first time, I understand what A.A. people mean when t...

We store pains in our brains and issues in our tissues. Sounds to me like a good excuse to drink, huh? At least it was a good excuse for me. If you think too much, you may drink too much. Go ahead, self-medicate, that evil little voice inside me used to say. Did it work? You know the answer already. If it did, my brain right now would be fogging, not blogging. My corpuscles would be clogging. I'm going to stop this rhyme, just in time. (It sounds pretty stupid, and I don't want you to miss the point.) That is that alcohol is poison, bad medicine, addictive, and dangerous. To remove pain from your brain and issues from your tissues, try God. Pray daily. Take your higher power on vacation with you. It will fit in a carry-on. Your gray matter matters.

I haven't blogged for a while because I have been camping. This past week was our annual family getaway. This year we camped by Port Townsend along Lake Erie in Ohio. Each year, my family and inlaws, who were friends long before we joined them with our marriage, get together to camp someplace. To paraphrase a cliche, you can't choose your family but you can choose your inlaws. I scored on both counts! I couldn't ask for better. None suffer with drinking problems. So what went wrong with me? Worrying about the past, which can't be altered, gets in the way of living for the moment. This moment only! What went wrong with me doesn't matter nearly so much as the fact I had nothing to drink today. Tomorrow can worry about tomorrow. This is the day and this is the moment in which I live. If you aren't as lucky as I to have a supportive family, you need to depend on your sponsor, AA friends, workmates, church cominglers, maybe a sober neighbor or two.... Make ...

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I'm not happy all the time. No one is. When I get a flat tire, am allegedly nagged by my wife, stub my toe, get bitten by my cat, or watch the Pirates lose, I feel unhappy. Yet I feel joy pretty much all the time, even while those bad things are happening. I am about 2/3 finished reading Choose Joy Because Happiness Isn't Enough , by Kay Warren. ( http://kaywarren.com/choosejoy/ ) She doles out an overdose of scripture, in my opinion, and claims the Bible to be the unquestionable 100% word of God. That's fine for her, but I have my own set of beliefs. And you have your own, too. Nevertheless, she gets it right, in my view, much of the time throughout her book. She defines joy as "the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right, and the determined choice to praise God in all things." Happiness, she claims, is a temporary state, while joy lasts for all time becau...

Here goes the last part of this series. I asked what drives your life. Rick Warren in  The Purpose-Driven Life  ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ) suggests five drivers that often distract us from what really  should  be driving our lives. Yesterday it was materialism. Today: The Need for Approval -- This was really me. I guess it still is. I was overwhelmed with a need to please my parents. I kept my hair a certain way, wore certain clothes, listened to certain music, and, for the most part, followed the rules of the house. Same in school. I remember being a tattletale. That didn't win approval from my classmates, but I believed I was grabbing positive attention from my teachers. It all seems silly now. "Unfortunately, those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. I don't know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everyone. Being controlled by the opinions of others is a guaranteed way to miss God's purposes for your ...

I asked what drives your life. Rick Warren in  The Purpose-Driven Life  ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ) suggests four drivers that often distract us from what really  should  be driving our lives. Yesterday it was fear. Today: Materialism -- Some are led by a desire to acquire. So what? If I have many possessions won't that make me happy, feel important and more secure? Nope. "Possessions only provide temporary happiness. Because these things do not change, we eventually become bored with them and then want newer, bigger, better versions." Second, possessions don't make us more important. "Self-worth and net-worth are not the same." And third -- more secure? Material things can be lost by theft, flood, fire, or sometimes divorce. (You know if I'm talking to you .) "Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken from you -- your relationship with God." God is the way to sobriety!

I asked what drives your life. Rick Warren in The Purpose-Driven Life  ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ) suggests five drivers that often distract us from what really  should be driving our lives. Yesterday it was anger and resentment. Today: Fear -- "Fears may be a result of a traumatic experience, unrealistic expectations, growing up in a high-control home, or even genetic predisposition." In my case as an adolescent, the fear that drove me was a fear of rejection. That's what kept me from asking girls to go out with me. I was afraid my life would be ruined if a girl told me "No." So I stood back and watched my friends be brave. While they were in the game, I was on the sidelines feeling alone. Whatever fear may drive you, it causes you to miss out on opportunities. You decide not to take risks and hope everything will turn out all right. "Fear is a self-imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be."

I asked yesterday what drives your life. Rick Warren in The Purpose-Driven Life ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ) suggests  four drivers that often distract us from what really should be driving our lives: The past  has passed. Resentment and Anger -- Some of us would rather get even than get healthy. We bottle up our hurts and never get over them. Instead, we react poorly. "Some resentment-driven people " clam up " and internalize their anger, while others " blow up " and explode it onto others. Both responses are unhealthy and unhelpful." The past is gone. The person we think wronged us probably has forgotten about whatever it is that keeps you resentful. No one who hurt you in the past can continue to hurt you unless you allow it, "For your own sake, learn from it and then let it go."

Take a minute. What guides your life? The correct answer here is God. But all of us -- some of the time, all of the time, or part of the time -- are driven by painful, bad stuff. If you are reading this, maybe you are being driven by alcohol or other drugs. The Self-Driven Life gives us four common things that take the wheel as we drop God off at at a bus stop in Kalamazoo. This is a wonderful book, written by Rick Warren ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ), that gives me lots of oh-yea moments. Here are his top drivers. For the next five blog posts, I will write a little about each. They are: Many people are driven by guilt. Many people are driven by resentment and anger. Many people are driven by fear. Many people are driven by materialism. Many people are driven by the need for approval. I will dissect each like a frog in a high school biology class.

Someone at my home group meeting today said something I really liked. We were discussing the AA Daily Reflection, which said in part, "The 12 Steps have helped to change my life in many ways, but none is more effective than the acquisition of a Higher Power." A man at the meeting said he used to worship a lower power -- alcohol -- and he was his own higher power. I can relate. Another shared that he can't define God, but you can feel him inside you if you are open. From the Big Book , page 60: "...God could and would if he were sought ."

I was about to lose my job in 2004. My friend, confidant, and sister-in-law (rolled into one) must have sensed a high-pressure system and impending rainstorm. She told me I should go sit on a beach until I find the real Dan again. Of course I didn't take her advice."We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not ( Big Book , page 58)." At that point, I hadn't hit bottom yet and so was still frantically digging my hole. Today, I find the old Dan is no more. It turns out the hole he was digging was his own grave. But from all the depression, DUIs, fender benders, and blackouts arose a new Dan. I seriously have never felt like this my entire life. I feel no stress. I am empowered. I am in control of my life. I discovered true joy. I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to "the care of God as we understood him." Further, I made a moral inventory of myself and "was entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of chara...

I used to be a marathon runner. If you could see me you would be laughing now. My knees creak, my belly sags, and I moan going down stairs. But it's true. In the springtime of my life, I ran 29 marathons, a 50 miler, and lots of races from 5-18 miles. And thousands of miles to remain fit. But after knee surgery and a prolonged bout of laziness, I am reduced to walk/jog about 30-40 minutes a day. Once healthy and fit, I now find I am tired after mowing the lawn or vacuuming the house or flicking through channels with the remote. Lesson: To retain one's physical fitness requires regular effort, through rain or snow or sleet or (recently) heat. Likewise, I once let go of my spiritual fitness. I stopped praying, stopped caring, and started drinking to excess. I was a lost cause. Thankfully, God didn't let me stay lost among the tall weeds in the rough. He lifted me onto the fairway, drove me to the green, and led me to the hole. Lesson: To retain one's spiritual fitness...

Quite by accident, I stumbled upon (a sober stumble, not one of my inebriated falls) a website that dishes out some interesting perspectives on the success of A.A. and the so-called Big Book that steers that organization: "Today, A.A. is serving more than 2 million recovering alcoholics in more than 180 countries. Moreover, the 12 Step program that Bill W. laid out in the Big Book has helped millions of people with a host of other addictions. 'These include Narcotics Anonymous, the more specific Marijuana Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Workaholics Anonymous, and Sexaholics Anonymous,' reports the BBC. 'Clutterers Anonymous deals with those with hoarding problems. Underearners Anonymous offers support for those suffering an inability to provide for one's needs.' Support for loved ones of those going through addiction is on offer at Families Anonymous [more common around here is Al-Anon]. In 2011, the Big Book was named one of the most influential books writt...