Intensity

Aware of strong feelings, I sit down for a while

Most of my first year of sobriety was spent in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). I frequent those rooms less these days—you can read about that transition here—yet I remain grateful for all that the program and those who practice its principles in all their affairs shared with me. I continue to benefit; I suspect that I always will.

Lately, another saying common to the rooms of AA has been on my mind—and it does not mention God.

It is called alcoholism, not alcoholwasm!

Whether I am twenty-four hours sober, twenty-four days, or 936 days (my current count as I write this), I am, in AA’s eyes, still an alcoholic. I always will be, too, for the condition, disease, mental illness, or (in less loaded language) the tendency toward a particular behavior in response to certain stimuli never vanishes. Since this is the case, I must be on guard for how it tries to creep further into my life, gain ground, or secure some foothold. If I am not, then I am not far from old behaviors of escape, isolation, and self-destruction. And I dare not let that happen, no matter what.

There are a few parts of this picture that I find abrasive: the label “alcoholic,” for one; the classification of alcoholism as a “disease” or “mental illness,” for another; but most of all, I squint and shake my head at how it sets me at odds with myself. That I need to be defensive or, worse, at war with this behavioral tendency rubs me the wrong way. It hurts and does not align with my aspiration to be peace.

Still, there is something about the me-through-AA’s-eyes that feels correct: whatever I care to call that urge to escape, isolate, and self-destruct, it is an -ism and not a -wasm. Shades of that former way of relating to the world have appeared in the last several weeks. That is humbling, for I am a couple of years removed and hundreds of miles from when and where severe abuse of alcohol reigned in my life. Yet, its traces remain. They serve as a testament to the truth that wherever I go, there I am.

These days, much of my recovery work finds its home in the Recovery Dharma (RD) program. One difference from AA, in my experience anyway, is the central place RD gives to trauma. The RD literature describes trauma as:

[…] the psychological damage that occurs after living through an extremely frightening or distressing event or situation. For some of us, this trauma can be a long-term experience. It’s caused by an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds our ability to cope, and may make it hard to function even long after the event. Trauma can come from childhood experiences or from events that occur in our adulthood. It can be sudden, or it can develop over time from a series of events that changed how we perceive ourselves and the world. […] any situation that leaves one feeling emotionally or physically in danger can be traumatic. It’s not the objective facts of the event that define the trauma: distress is relative and what might be considered traumatic for one may not be for others. Generally, the more terror and helplessness we feel, the more likely it is we’ll be traumatized.

From the beginning of my first serious effort to live a sober life, I was adamant that alcohol was not the problem. It was a problem, certainly, but not the root of my suffering. Severe alcohol abuse was a symptom of something else, and exploring what that something else might be by investigating previous frightening and distressing events and situations that exceeded my capacity to handle them skillfully seems wise—or at least not harmful.

This brings me to the present day and the last few weeks.

I titled this reflection “Intensity” because my behavior has been intense. There has been a strong—at times unrelenting—pushing forward. Perhaps “plowing” or “bulldozing” would be more appropriate, as each word implies disregard or insensitivity to what or who is being plowed through or ‘dozed over. And, lest I forget, disregard and insensitivity toward myself, too, the person pushing forward with determination, as though my life were in danger.

From a certain point of view, my behavior is this way a lot of the time. But from another point of view, not to this degree. Where did the intensity come from? What is happening within and around this heart-mind such that I respond this way?

I have been spending time with William Bronk’s poetry. In the poem “The Arts and Death: A Fugue for Sidney Cox,” there are several lines about how we “always miss.” Bronk writes at the poem’s outset:

I think always how we always miss it. Not anything is ever entirely true.

Then, a third of the way in, we find:

I think always, how we always miss the aim.

Just before the poem closes:

I think always how we always miss the real.

The final line of the poem reads:

Our lives end nothing. Oh there is never an end.

The last is not an “always miss,” but that does not diminish its significance.

I always miss the true, and I always miss the real because I always aim at them—by which I mean that I always aim at some intellectual representation of what I suppose the true and the real are. Oriented towards a representation—better: a phantasm—of what is, I always miss what is, I always miss it. (I also always miss the phantasm, for the phantasm is just that.) Why? All my representations (or phantasms) are definite. There are boundaries, some marked by clear lines and others suggested by lines that appear blurry or fuzzy. But there are always boundaries, and boundaries indicate an end to something, a terminus of activity or presence, and that somehow there can be completion. But there is no end. “Oh there is never an end,” writes Bronk.

With fewer words, Dogen Zenji observed that we attach to something that is not real and forget all about what is real. I was heartened to read that Shunryu Suzuki laughed after mentioning this in a Dharma talk. The laugh suggests how amusing my tendency to always miss it is by always aiming at it and that it is understandable why this tendency manifests as behavior from time to time in my life. Because there is pain and there is suffering, because I want safety and security. I believe, too, that I can attain the latter and avoid the former if I could just hold onto something. But that something needs to end somewhere so that I can possess it. It needs to be not real.

And precisely because I believe that what is not real is real, my pursuit can become dogged. ‘Dozing over others and plowing through what is before me, I create suffering for others. Disregarding my own well-being, I create suffering for myself. In the past, I could not stop. So, I reached for something to help slow down the pursuit, though it would bring me no closer to the true and the real. Instead, I was left motionless and in a haze on the couch. But that did not end the suffering I created for others or myself, either. “Oh there is never an end,” writes Bronk.

Artwork and Calligraphy by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

We can come down from up high now, a little closer to solid ground. Sometimes, I introduce myself as someone without a home. In thirty-seven years, there have been eighteen addresses across eight states. There have been eleven moves across state lines, too. For some, that is a lot of movement. It is also for me, even if I did spend five years in one location for middle and high school and six years in another for doctoral studies. At some point—I think I was sitting on a bar stool in Atlanta, GA—I wanted it to stop, to come to an end. That was six addresses, three (new) states, and four moves across state lines ago. When will it end?!

“Our lives end nothing. Oh there is never an end,” writes Bronk.

I can tell a story in which the frequent uprooting, leaving behind a community, financial stability, and familiar surroundings, has been traumatic. Not all at once, mind you, but slowly. There is a deep desire to feel settled and call someplace “home” and a concomitant and enduring feeling of frustration because that desire remains unsatisfied. I notice, too, that with every move, the rush to “get settled” intensifies.

Usually, I move with a job secured—I always moved for a job—but the recent move was without that. Moreover, it was without a place to live, for the living space lined up proved uninhabitable. No job, no place to lay my head. Without the support of my partner and immediate and extended family, I wonder how I would have handled the situation. No need to wonder too much, however, for they were there to help me stay upright: upright and disappointed; upright and frustrated; upright and unsettled; and upright and still grieving a recent loss, too.

It is no surprise, then, that there has been such intensity, such strong pushing forward, from this point of view. I am plowing through all obstacles, real and imagined, to feel that I am home, that I am safe, that I am secure. It has been exhausting, and I am tired.

Yet, stories are just that; they are intellectual representations and phantasms constructed from assumptions. Stories “always miss the real,” for “not anything is ever entirely true”—not the assumptions, constructions, or stories, including this story about stories.

That last captures well where I find myself at the end of this offering: simultaneously holding on and letting go; simultaneously undermining the foundation as I build it; simultaneously missing it while being in the middle of it, while being it itself.

Perhaps that is why “our lives end nothing,” as Bronk writes. Perhaps I should heed Kobun Chino’s advice and sit down for a while.

Previous recovery-themed posts include:

Replete With Enlightenment

Looking Back And Bowing

The Moon And The Water