Connection

I am personally convinced that the basic search of every human being, from the cradle to the grave, is to find at least one other human being before whom he can stand completely naked, stripped of all pretense or defense, and trust that person not to hurt him, because that other person has stripped himself naked, too. This lifelong search can begin to end with the first A. A. encounter. (pamphlet: A Member's Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous)

I visited last night with a woman I sponsor. The loss of her beloved cat has cast her into the depths of depression, even to entertaining suicidal thoughts. We spoke of the blessing, mixed though it may be, of actually having loved to that depth.

I had the privilege of meeting John K at the Region III Assembly/Convention this weekend in Albuquerque. His message is a powerful one, and one I will absorb again and again from the tape of that keynote address as well as from others I've found of him at the www.oalaig.org site. I liked him first as a geek willing -- no, eager -- to work with others to carry the message as addressed by the Information and Technology Committee there at Assembly, that before I knew he was the speaker that evening.

I heard him "stripped naked" and exposing my own nakedness in statements like

• I managed to fall in every pitfall imaginable in this program and screw it up in every possible way.
• Every diet works. For the first time. Then I've learned the way to manipulate it.
• You're going through the hardest part over and over again when you slip and slide. It's like moving a stalled car a few feet, letting it stop, then starting to push again, then doing that again.
  
• We have a weight we know we'll never let ourselves become, one that if we approach, surely we'll get control and stop. But we get a few pounds higher at a time and incrementally get to that point we would never consider reaching.
  
• He talked about really seeing overeating as a disease, long after "calling" it that. We don't have to feel guilty about this any more than we would about having cancer.
  
• I don't want a donut, the disease wants a donut. It just sounds like me because the disease is a good mimic.
  
• Do you really believe you're powerless? We know we're powerless over a bullet in a gun. We don't flirt with that one. We don't really acknowledge that we're powerless over food. We assume we can come back and get abstinence.
  
• In the small version, I am powerful, because I know I can pull myself back. But that sets me up for the next one, slip or relapse one at a time, again and again forever.
  
• If you think that food might ever be an option again, when you get to a crisis and it's food or pain, food's always going to be the only option.
  
• My disease is good at not only mimicking me but in doing a god impression.
  
• Maybe it's time you start beating yourself up. Cut the crap.
  
• Turning it over is not so much that as just getting my own will out of the way, keeping it from being an impediment. 
  
• Skin in, you can change. Skin out, you can't change.
  
• The steps are in order, the steps are discrete, and you do them one at a time. Eight/Nine, for instance, is not a step.
  
• if I choose the easier softer way of recovery, I'm going to get the easier, softer recovery.

Connection can be tough when it's somebody who knows you from the inside out. But connection can be wonderful when it's somebody who knows you from the inside out.