Sometimes, in meetings, I would share about the “amazing insights” I had, but these are all things I now see in my rear-view mirror. My motives and drivers were revealed to me after I did the work of the Steps. My insights did not lead to recovery. They are knowledge I had been given as the result of working the Steps.
While working for the radio industry as a disc jockey, I was trained to avoid dead air in my work. Pushing buttons, speaking, starting programs on time was very important. Timing, down to the second, in every hour was accounted for. Two seconds of “nothing” on the radio seemed an eternity, and was often cause for unemployment if done repeatedly.
A story out of the old West tells about a stagecoach owner interviewing applicants for driver. He stood at a dangerous curve on a winding mountain road where one side dropped hundreds of feet sharply into the canyon below. The owner asked, “Driving six horses at full speed, how close can you come to the edge of the cliff and not go over?”
As a biologist, I have studied several different types of fungi (e.g. yeast, ringworm, mushrooms, mold, athlete’s foot, etc.). Recently, I discovered an unfamiliar form of fungus: fantasy. Fantasy grows quietly in the mind. Like the other fungi, fantasy flourishes in dark, damp, undisturbed places.
As a child, I was lonely. I may have felt love-deprived or full of harbored resentment, but I needed some sort of outlet. Then I discovered a strange pet: Lust. This little creature seemed harmless as I studied it with my wide, innocent eyes. The most convenient thing about my pet was that I could keep it a secret from the rest of the world.
Before joining the Program, I didn’t realize how mean I was to my wife. It’s not that she’s perfect; after all, she married me. But something would happen, I’d get angry because something wasn’t going right, and I’d yell at her. I’d often blame her for things she had nothing to do with. Or I’d just yell at her because I was upset.
I have amends to make to some people. A few years ago, I abused four women, and I hurt two others for terribly selfish reasons. The four women were prostitutes. They were working in that abusive industry here in my own locality. Two were on the street, one was listed in the classified ads, and one worked in a “studio,” a sanitized name for a brothel.
How many sexaholics does it take to change a light bulb?
This past Christmas, as always, I dug out the extension cords I had so neatly wrapped up and put away a year ago. Within minutes, I found myself dealing with a tangled mess of wires. In frustration I asked the age-old question, “How could this happen when I was being so careful?”
My life really is changing as a result of my participation in recovery.
