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I love the book “Drop the Rock.” It’s not official 12-step literature but it’s written by alcoholics and addicts, and I have found the book to be an essential part of working on character defects. It’s about 100 pages long and goes deep on the Sixth and Seventh Steps in a way that I find incredibly beneficial.
My favorite passage from the book is about cleanliness, from about page 20-25. I can’t really do it justice, but the essential point is that many of my character defects—selfishness, fear, judgmentalism—flare up when I am a mess. By mess, I mean, when I am disorganized, when I am racing around, when I am forgetting stuff, when I am doing a bad job managing my schedule, when my diet is a disaster, when my car is filled with trash, when my sink is full of dishes, and on and on. It’s so easy to sit on the couch and just wish that stuff took care of itself, or decide that “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
And here’s the thing: I am not someone who ever has a gross car but nothing else is a mess. The messiness and clutter seem to come in waves and feed off each other. I used to think that there is no relationship between a messy life and my sobriety. Why would a dusty house and sloppy backyard have anything to do with recovery?
But now I am of the opposite opinion—I think there is a direct relationship. I don’t really know anybody who I would consider a spiritual giant but also a disaster to make plans with. At the end of the day, the key to my recovery is living a spiritual life. And for me, a spiritual life has to be as serene and peaceful as possible. And for me, a serene and peaceful life doesn’t just happen because I want it to. I have to do lots and lots of things to keep myself focused on it. I roll out of bed wanting to do whatever I want, when I want to do it. I want to watch TV and eat Oreos and lie about being sick so I don’t have to go to work and skip paying bills for the month. I want to avoid all pain and instead find ways to make a good day great, and a great day into the best day that’s ever happened. I’m an addict, through and through, and that doesn’t mesh well with a spiritual, meditative life.
That’s why the cleanliness stuff in Drop the Rock always hits me so hard. I don’t know if this is true 100 percent of the time, but I bet on my toughest days, you could probably tell that I am struggling by looking at my car, my laundry pile, my sink, my room, etc. I think there is a direct link to the way that I take care of myself and the way that I take care of the other things in my life. I know that might sound silly. But think about your own life and how you feel right now, and then how you would feel if you made your bed, cleaned the sink, balanced your checkbook, cleared off your desk, mowed your grass and finally dropped off that pile of clothes you’ve been meaning to donate. I have found that there is something about feeling clean and free that connects with the spaces around me being clean and free.
So I just did the dishes and folded some laundry, and I am awaiting a lightning bolt to hit me with spirituality. It hasn’t happened yet… but fingers crossed as I go back to sitting on my couch and filling out my NCAA tournament brackets.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
OVERHEARD AT MEETINGS
AA sharing at his four-year anniversary: "I'm finally starting to like people!"
Thirty-year veteran: "Oh, you'll get over that."
(Credit: Grapevine, June 2008, by Stacy T. of Sacramento, California)
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