Step One

We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable

I mentioned in a previous post that I remember days when it felt as though my life had fallen apart and there was little to nothing left. Those days came at the end of five years of increasingly severe alcohol abuse. I had a life that I sometimes describe as “one-dimensional.” I had no friends, I had no hobbies, and I had no partner—the things we typically understand as important (perhaps essential, even) for a meaningful life. What I had was a career and a love-hate relationship with bottles of whiskey. The two went glass-in-hand. And the latter love-hate because whiskey both enabled my forgetting of what my life was and left me feeling miserable if I went without it for too long. Whiskey also did nothing to improve my circumstances—in fact, it just made things worse.

I could see two or three years into that five year period that things were trending downhill. At first the descent was slow, then quite quick. It would be another two-to-three years before I would admit with sincerity that I was powerless over alcohol, that my life had become unmanageable. When that happened I sought help at a local treatment facility. Afterwards, I went to claim my seat in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I approach the Twelve Steps from what might be called a “Buddhist perspective.” What does that mean? For me, it means that the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha and his followers, along with how those teachings manifest themselves in my everyday life, form together the metaphorical lens through which I interpret potentially head-turning or eyebrow-raising words, phrases, and concepts or ideas in the Steps. For instance, in Step One we read “We admitted that … .” Yet what does it mean to “admit” something? We can all recall situations in which we mouthed certain words, but did not thereby really admit to something or, as I wrote above, admit with sincerity that such-and-such is the case.

I had read books with well-reasoned chapters about the science of substance abuse, lengthy and non-lengthy studies that detailed the effects of excessive alcohol consumption on the body—especially the brain—and completed worksheets that helped calculate my monthly spending. These sorts of activities do result in breakthroughs for some people. I have heard it and, more importantly, I have seen it. For me, though, admission with sincerity could not happen through rational means. Harnessing the powers of the mind was not a route to recovery. Rather, the rational mind and its activities were a significant (but not the only) obstacle to it.

There is a scene in the Dhammapada that I find helpful here. It appears in the chapter Old Age, verses 153 - 154:

Through many births
     I have wandered on and on,
Searching for, but never finding,
     The builder of this house.
To be born again and again is suffering.

House-builder, you are seen!
     You will not build a house again!
The rafters are broken,
     The ridgepole destroyed;
The mind, gone to the Unconstructed,
     Has reached the end of craving!

I wrote above that my life, especially at the end of active addiction, had one thing: a career and a bottle, glass-in-hand. At the very end, though, when I reached out for help, I had half of one thing—I had a bottle, I had a glass. I was put on medical leave but, honestly, on my way out from an appointment (and likely any future appointment) in my chosen career. It was then that the rafters and ridgepole broke.

How so? I had nothing left with which to build a house and hide from the reality of my present condition. My career was the last source of material from which any delusory state could manifest itself. Sometimes I describe those final weeks as ones where I frantically and with clear desperation tried to hold the house together with string. Other times I marvel at the delicate dance that I was able to perform. I could acknowledge that things were very, very bad, but not enough to force action. I could see just enough that I felt shame and disappointment, but not so much that it prevented me from standing in-line at a liquor store. But then the house fell apart; there was no way for me to rebuild it.

Dogen Zenji writes in the Genjo Koan (“Actualizing the Fundamental Point”):

To carry the self forward and illuminate myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and illuminate the self is awakening.

I had spent years carrying my self, my ego, forward in an effort to control the world, to bend and otherwise shape things to serve my expectations and preferences. The rational mind was a staunch ally in these efforts. When the house fell apart, though, the ego and its ally were short-circuited; I could feel with my whole body that the struggle was over.

The mind, gone to the Unconstructed,
     Has reached the end of craving!

And the seemingly endless cycle of suffering has come to an end too.

It was then that the world rushed forward to help me wake up. With no more clever tricks at my disposal, with nothing left to assist in averting my gaze, broken and bare, I saw completely all that had happened. It was then that I was able to admit with sincerity that I was powerless over alcohol, that my life had become unmanageable.

House-builder, you are seen!
     You will not build a house again!