This is a story I often share. I have used the illustration that my addiction is like the dual, muddy trenches I have created on a dirt road that holds my tires and keeps me from turning off. When I try to go in a different direction, the trench wrenches at the steering wheel and pulls my tires back. It seems impossible to go in a new direction other than where the trench leads.
If I had a truckload of gravel or pebbles, I could fill those trenches and steer out of being stuck. How do I fill those trenches? Do I have any pebbles?
Everything I do in recovery is a pebble:
Going to meetings
Reading recovery material
Doing check-in’s
Making phone calls
Making an action plan
Staying sober 1 more day
Each of these actions throws a pebble into those trenches. It seems like it will take forever. But after consistent and persistent effort and action in the little things, my tires will have enough traction to turn out of those trenches and head in the healthy direction I want to go.
This is a presentation I did on this subject at the Winter Fellowship 2020. I am posting that material here in case it helps you in your thinking and recovery. The tables are also found below. Click on the sections at the bottom.
These lies live more at the core and have been there a long time. They have influenced me for so long, I don’t always see them. I can detect them from my behaviors that show that they are operating underneath.
Another season has passed and the pool seemed to be pretty steady. The water was clear. I continued to keep the leaves and debris cleaned, on a daily basis, and the chemical levels checked and adjusted as needed.
But then, one day, I noticed something of great alarm. And…to be honest, a matter of personal pride. I had never had algae in my pool. And yet, there is was. Unmistakable. Some green on the sides of the pool. It popped up in several spots all at once.
In a panic, I brushed the algae and shocked the pool the kill the biological invaders. But deep down, I was worried. How did that happen? With a clean pool and chlorine levels high and phosphate levels low, it shouldn’t have happened. What was wrong?
I started watching the pool walls closely. Sure enough. A few days later after the shock had worn off, there it was again. I had to repeat my triage, but it felt like I wasn’t really addressing the cause. I was just blasting the results of something, but what?
And then another problem cropped up. It seemed unrelated at the time. The robotic cleaner that vacuums the bottom of the pool was barely moving. It seemed like it was broken or something. It wasn’t moving energetically across the bottom on the pool like it usually did.
Then, the third problem showed up. My grandchildren were visiting and wanted me to turn on the hot tub as the water was a bit chilly for them. I went to turn on the heater and it wouldn’t turn on. The error that flashed on the screen was “No Flow”. I knew that was ridiculous as there was obviously flow. I checked the main pump and filter and confirmed that there was flow and that it registered a pressure in the right range.
Now pressured by my grandchildren’s immediate need, I tried to figure out a quick solution. Maybe it was a defective flow detector. Could I bypass that? It turns out that I could. The flow detector triggered a pressure switch that would let the heater ignite. I managed to bend a piece of plastic and position it on top of the switch that would keep it down even though it “thought” there was not enough pressure. The heater kicked on and the day was saved. But still, deep down, I was worried. What was going on? All these problems. Were they related? Did one cause another?
I began researching similar issues on pool owner forums, looking for some clues as to what was happening. Why was I getting algae when my pool was clean? Why was my vacuum not moving? Why would my heater not turn on? I ran across someone who had posted something similar, but he said his issue was that his filter was clogged. Mine wasn’t clogged. The pressure gauge said it was operating at a normal pressure. AND THEN…I read a post where someone said that their pressure gauge was faulty and he described all these problems he was having from the lower water flow due to a clogged filter.
AHA! I had been trusting the reading on the pressure gauge. I had never questioned it. I never presumed that it would provide faulty information. It was an easy test. Just order another pressure gauge and replace it. Sure enough. My old pressure gauge had been steadily reporting the same pressure for 9 months. But the new one showed that the actual pressure was dangerously high.
Now that I understood the actual problem, there was some work to do, but I could see all the solutions cascading out of that. I replaced the filters. The pressure immediately dropped down to the normal operating range. The water heater stopped reporting “No Flow” and I was able to remove my piece of plastic jury-rigging the thing. The vacuum started scooting around the pool like it used to. And, the algae disappeared due to the improved water circulation and improved filtration.
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Once again, my pool was teaching me lessons about recovery. I had been dutifully doing all the prescribed maintenance steps. Things should be fine. There should be no problems. But problems showed up nevertheless. I tried to address the symptoms, the problems, to make them go away. I believed what I was seeing was true. I assumed it was true, but it turned out to be a lie. I ended up doubting things that were actually doing their jobs and reporting accurately. But I didn’t doubt or test the one thing that was actually the problem. The incorrect information it was providing was causing this whole string of problems. I was focused on the end results I wanted (no algae) but I didn’t understand the role of all the operating parts and how they contributed to that result. When I finally understood how to read these symptoms and trace it back to the cause, I was able to address the problem and restore everything to a proper working order.
These thoughts were shared at the 2019 Winter Retreat as part of a session on “Surrender”.
Surrender was the most confusing, hard to get-my-head-around concept I heard in the SA fellowship. I heard it from the very beginning. Surrender chips. Step 3 prayers of surrender. White Book readings. It was everywhere. It seemed to be a fairly simple thought, but if it was the key to something, maybe I didn’t understand it and that’s why some things remained locked to me. Maybe it isn’t simple? Maybe it isn’t something I can understand or execute in my life?
So after 4 years in the program, have I figured out Surrender yet? Ha! No, but I have learned a few principles that helped me as I started my journey towards understanding surrender.
It is OK to have questions and not understand it at first. I thought maybe my brain was broken and it was something that everyone understood except me. But hearing from so many over the years that it is a process of learning, made me relax and be patient with myself.
I don’t have to understand it to begin doing it. Good thing. I can start with what I think it means and learn as I progress through the program.
It is a multi-faceted concept. Like the seven blind men that encountered an elephant, we may each start at a different point. It is OK for me and someone else to have a different perspective on surrender.
So, what is surrender? How does it work? What does surrender feel like? How do I learn it? What muscle do I clench? I don’t have all the answers. But here are a few things I have learned as I have tried to understand this key concept.
Surrender is not an action, it is an attitude. It is an attitude of the heart and mind. It is the source of the reaction or action that may look like surrender.
Surrender is relinquishing my attempt at control. Surrender is when my heart and mind acknowledge and admit that I can’t do this by myself and that I need help from my Higher Power and the fellowship. In a sense, I give up, stop trying, abandon stubbornness, cease striving, and wait patiently for my Higher Power to do what I have asked.
I can’t make myself surrender anything. But by doing the healthy steps and actions of the SA program, such as making phone calls, checking things in, attending meetings, doing the steps, praying, meditating, service work, etc. it aligns me with what my Higher Power wants to do in my heart.
I am likely already surrendering and just don’t know it. By doing all those things just mentioned and other healthy choices and actions, I am saying I am not an island and that, is surrender. I am saying I need help from my Higher Power and my brothers and that, is surrender. By making phone calls, I am surrendering. By attending meetings, I am surrendering.
Surrender is not permanent. It is not a one-time event. I may have to surrender and choose surrender-motivated actions and behaviors every 10 minutes. Or more. Yesterday’s surrender does not work today.
The opposite of surrender is me trying to meet my own needs, control my own circumstances. When I can’t, which is like always, it generates frustration, anger, and resentment in me. The presence of anger in my life is one of my best surrender leak detectors. The level of underlying, on-going, low-grade anger simmering under the surface that bursts forth with intensity from time to time, points to and is a result of the frustration that comes from trying to self-manage and not surrender. (This last thought was shared by someone discovering these truths himself for the first time.)
Surrender is the gateway to the peace and serenity my life lacks. I used to think peace and serenity is what I would have when others treated me right, my circumstances improved, my wife stopped being so annoying, when God took this addiction away. Peace and serenity are not out there being kept from me. I experience them internally as I stop trying to be God of my own universe and let God be God in mine.
Surrender requires trusting in my Higher Power and relying on others. This might be why the batteries on your surrender aren’t working. It is not something you can generate.
A few years ago, I had the responsibility of managing a neighborhood pool. I had to study for and pass a DHEC test to become a Certified Pool Operator. But that didn’t teach me how to take care of a pool every day. Plus, this is what I had to work with. How do you bring a pool back from that? I needed a guide. A seasoned veteran that had done this before. I needed to ask a lot of questions. So I met Sue down at the green pond which was supposed to be a pool.
Fresh from my DHEC training, I asked “Should we dump in a bunch of chlorine?”
She said, “No, that would just waste the chlorine. You have to get all the debris – leaves, sticks, old shoes, and sticks, off the bottom of the pool.”
“But I can’t even see the bottom of the pool!”
“You have to use the right tool.” And she brought out the leaf rake hose. “You have to hook it up and then slowly move it back and forth across the bottom.”
“But I won’t know if it is working.”
“You have to learn to trust that the tool is doing its job. You will learn to feel that in the pole. You will feel when the bag is full and it is time to bring it up and empty it.”
“But this is going to take forever! There might be a ton of leaves down there.”
“Do you want a clean pool? It won’t take forever, but you might have to do this several hours every day for a week.”
So I ran the leaf rake slowly, back and forth through the green soup, emptied the bag, and did it again. Over and over. Until the leaf rake was not picking up any more leaves.
I happily told Sue, “It’s done. No more leaves. Now can we dump in the chlorine?”
“No, that would waste the chlorine. Now we turn on the pump. The pump will circulate the water through the sand filter and remove the algae. But it will need to do it in stages. If you let it run too long, you will burn out the pump as the sand filter will get clogged.”
“How do I fix that?”
“You have to backwash the filter.”
“How do I do that?”
“You have to change the flow of water to run backwards through the pipes to flush the sediment it caught out into the drain. You will need to do this 4 times a day for the next week. It will take 30 min of filtering and 15 min of backwashing. Four times a day. Every day for a week.”
So I started filtering and backwashing. It made a horrible racket. The first few days were nothing but green spewing out of the drain. And then, one day, I noticed that the pool water looked a little lighter, more translucent. By the end of the week, the water was still a light green, but I could see a foot or more down into the murky water. I was excited to tell Sue that the filtering and backwashing were working.
“Now can we dump in the chlorine?”
“No, that would waste the chlorine. Now you have to brush the walls of the pool. There is algae on the walls that needs to get into the water so that it can be removed. Take this long pole and brush and brush the walls and floor of the pool.”
“That will take forever!”
“Do you want a clean pool? Brush the walls each day for a week. Run the filter after your brush, then backwash.”
At first, the water got worse as I brushed the green walls. But the filter and backwash made it better. Finally after a week, the green stains were gone and the water was looking better, but still a murky, light green.
“Now do we dump in the chlorine?”
“No, that would waste the chlorine. Now we need to use another tool. We need to vacuum the algae that you knocked off the walls. But you need to let it settle. Do not turn on the filter for 24 hours. Come back tomorrow, hook up the vacuum, and slowly vacuum the entire floor of the pool. Then let it sit for 24 hours and then vacuum it again.”
“I know, I know. Until the end of the week.”
I have to admit that the water was looking a good deal better than the first day. It was still quite hazy and had a light green tint, but I could see the bottom drain now. I was sure that we would now dump in the chlorine that I had learned about at the DHEC test.
“Now we do we dump in the chlorine?”
“No, that would waste the chlorine. The water needs to be balanced chemically for the chlorine to be effective. We have to add calcium to protect the pool plaster and metal ladder from chemical reactions, baking soda for alkalinity, dry acid for ph balance, and cyanuric acid to protect the chlorine from being broken down by sunlight too quickly. Chlorine is expensive, so we want it to do its job for as long as it can.”
So we added chemicals and took water samples down to the pool store. And they wrote down the numbers and sent me back to add more of this and more of that. Finally the water was ready.
“Now,” said Sue, “we are ready to add the chlorine.”
I dumped in 120 pounds of chlorine which had been prescribed.
“How does the chlorine does its job,” I asked Sue.
“It burns off or oxidizes the smallest organic particles that you weren’t able to get up with the leaf rake, or the filter, or the vacuum. It also kills bacteria of almost every kind so that it is safe to swim in.”
And it worked! Wow! The next day the pool water was totally clean, no green at all. But it was a bit cloudy. I couldn’t really see the drain anymore. I was really disappointed. I thought the chlorine would fix all the problems.
“Sue, the water is clean, but it is all cloudy!”
“You have bleached the algae, but it is still there. You have to use the same technique you used after brushing the walls. Let it settle and then vacuum it up. It won’t take quite as long this time.”
Sure enough, it settled like a white dust onto the floor of the pool and I vacuumed it up. Now the water was sparkling clean. It reflected the blue sky perfectly and looked so beautiful in the bright sunshine. It had taken a ton of work, but I was proud of the results. And I knew what it took to fix a green pool.
“So, is that it, Sue? We just let the kids in for the summer?”
“Oh no. You must do daily maintenance or the pool will have to be shut down if it gets an algae bloom.”
“Oh no! Not all over again.”
“Well, no, it isn’t the same amount of work. You have to check the pool chemical levels every day, backwash the filter, add any chemical that is low, empty the skimmer baskets, use the net to remove any leaves floating on the surface, and wash off any debris on the deck surrounding the pool. When you get good at it, that should only take an hour. Then once a week, you shock the pool.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“You put about 10 pounds of chlorine in at the end of the day and raise the chlorine level of the water to an unsafe level for people. But overnight, it will superclean the pool. And then in the morning, the filter and the sun will bring the chlorine level back down to the normal level by the time you open the pool.”
“If you had dumped in the chlorine on the first day, you might have seen a small improvement, but the effort and expense would have been wasted. The quantity of contaminants in the pool would have overwhelmed the ability of the chlorine to purify the water. You have to systematically remove the contaminants from the pool, patiently and consistently, so that when you are ready, it will do the job it is supposed to.”
“Sue, why did they leave the pool like this all winter? This is so much work.”
“Well, nobody is willing to come out in the cold and clean off the leaves that are floating on the surface. If they did that, the pool cleanup would have been a lot less work.”
“Sue, how did you learn all this?”
“By doing it every day for a very long time. I learned what worked and what didn’t work. I learned what steps to do first and which ones to do next. I’m going to be moving out of the neighborhood soon, but you can call me if you ever have any question about the pool.”
“So, why did you do it, Sue? Did you want a clean pool?”
“Oh no. A clean pool only has one purpose. To be full of happy children, playing, laughing, yelling, diving, playing Marco Polo. You see, I live just up the street in my house by myself. And I love to hear the children laughing and playing in the pool all summertime long.”
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An allegory is a made-up story in which we can see life lessons. A parable is a true-to-life story in which we can see valuable life lessons. This was a true story that I not only lived, but I actually keep living as I go down to my pool every day, summer or winter, and use the net to remove the leaves, empty the skimmer basket, and check the chemical levels. What is interesting that even though I was living in a parable, I had not seen the parallel to my recovery.
I was so ready to dump in the magical chlorine, to find the fix, the cure, to find the shortcut. But it took patient, consistent, and multiple stages of hard work to find the results that I was looking for. I found great value in listening to the advice of those that have gone before and taught me how things worked. I learned the value of daily maintenance which can prevent the huge cleanup problems that seem insurmountable. But the thing I think I appreciate most, is that I really don’t just want a clean pool, or a sober life, just to have it. I want it to be the vehicle in which I can enjoy and experience all that life has to offer and that God has blessed me with. This is why I keep my pool clean.
