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I heard someone share recently that “Willingness without action is fantasy,” and I nodded along right away. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to unpack that phrase because I think it might be one of the keys to the sober kingdom.
So, start with willingness. That’s an easy one—you have to have willingness to get sober! You have to be willing to stop. Willing to seek treatment, either at a facility or with some kind of recovery program. Willing to grow along spiritual lines, as sober literature says. Willing to take suggestions. Willing to do so, so many things to overcome an insidious disease.
I actually like how a lot of stepwork is devoted to first helping you develop willingness before going full-on into the stepwork. In the steps that involve a higher power, there’s a lot of preheating of the oven to get you ready. And with Step Nine—that’s the amends one!—I always find a thorough Step Eight to be essential. Step Eight is about making a list of people you’ve harmed, and becoming willing to make amends. You don’t actually do the amends yet.
Now, the action part of that phrase. That felt profound to me. How many times have I gotten myself to a place of willingness and then… just not really done anything else? I am thinking specifically about Steps Six and Seven over the past few years. I’ve gotten really good at identifying character defects that still cause pain for me and others, and I have talked about them quite a bit with respected sober friends, and I have decided I want them to go away. And—that’s all I’ve done. No real hardcore action.
I’ll give you two examples. One is food. Man, I need to lose about 25 pounds, and the food I eat is pretty shitty, and I eat like an addict. I’ve been saying it for a good two years or so now, and I make half-hearted attempts. But I never really put the medal to the pedal and actually do anything. I have the willingness but I won’t take real action, so my diet is a fantasy, and therefore, my ass remains the size of a barrel.
The second example is being argumentative. I will argue about anything. Obviously a part of me likes it. I think I am pretty good at it. It helps me get what I want sometimes. But, seriously, I’m not sure what the point of doing sports talk radio b******t on my front lawn is. I had a neighbor say one time he thought an NBA trade was a bad trade, and I thought it was a good trade, and we stood there and bickered about it for 20 minutes. Neither one of us was angry. No real harm was done. But neither one of us changed our minds. Neither one of us even seemed like we had any interest in changing our minds. So we just blabbed back and forth about it, and then I walked inside wondering what the point of that argument was.
So those are two examples that occasionally are a waste of time, and sometimes create some tension in my life or those around me. I know about them. I have talked about them. But the action I have taken is minimal.
You might be saying to yourself, “What action is there to actually take?” Fair question. It’s not like there is a Step 13 about freeing yourself of being a sports talk idiot all the time. But there are things I could do if I ever really set my mind to it. For instance, I could connect with my sponsor and set up some accountability standards. I could seek counseling to work on myself with a professional. I could pray three times a day to relieve me of those character defects. I could do all sorts of things to at least be pushing myself hard and staying focused on getting better with those problem areas. I’m doing zero of those things right now.
But that’s the point of the original sentence, I think: Willingness without action is fantasy. Right now, those two things I mentioned are fantasies. They are things that I kinda, sorta, maybe wish I could snap my fingers and have them be gone. Do I REALLY want them gone? Do I REALLY want to grind and grind and grind to work through them? No, not yet.
Hope that is helpful or at least thought-provoking.
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:
TRUE STORY: My young sponsee, Bobby, not quite twenty-one but with two-and-a-half years' sobriety, called to ask me: "Do you think it will be all right for me to skip the Sunday night meeting for mindless self-indulgence?"
"Doesn't sound like a very good idea to me," I said.
"Aw, c'mon," he said. "It was really hard to get the tickets and it's my girlfriend's favorite band!"
After a web search revealed Mindless Self-Indulgence as a real band, scheduled to play the next Sunday night, I gave Bobby my blessing to go enjoy the show.
(Credit: AA Grapevine, August 2008, from Quin M. of Henderson, Nevada)
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