CHAPTER VI

God, Me, My Brother and The World

When I first came into 12 Step recovery I recoiled at the very word "God". From the foregoing chapter it is easy to see why. The word itself was not the problem, but rather all of the emotional connotations, the emotionally charged baggage that went along with it. Whenever anyone mentioned God to me I immediately thought of shouting and babbling, condemnation and abusive punishment. All of my unresolved father issues were instantly projected onto the idea of God. God became a screen for my projections. One of the most wonderfully brilliant things about the 12 Steps is that they allowed me to understand God in any way I liked. I didn't even have to use the word God. I quickly gravitated toward using the suggested name Higher Power. That was safe. There was no emotional baggage to fight.

Soon I found another growth step taking place. I discovered the personal value for me in devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. While I did not feel comfortable praying to a masculine image of God, I felt perfectly at home with the feminine Mother of God. Praying to a feminine image short circuited all of the emotional baggage that went along with God and daddy. I could trust the feminine, whereas I had never been able to trust the masculine. The notion that I could call God whatever I liked and image God in whatever manner I wished was incredibly freeing for me. Gradually, as my healing through the 12 Steps continued, I began to feel more and more comfortable with masculine imagery for God. As my relationship of trust and love developed with my Big Brother, I found myself more capable of taking the risk of placing my trust in a Higher Power who could be called God. My knee jerk reaction to the word God began to cease and turn into quiet, peaceful acceptance, and then trust. That was a process which took years, but it was certainly worth it.

As my ability to trust in anybody or anything began to grow, my beliefs about myself began to change also. I began to question the horribly low evaluation I had given to myself. I still find there are times when I experience bad feelings about myself, but even on those not-so-good days I at least question the truth of the low personal judgment. And that, dear reader, is a major step toward healing. I would not be honest if I tried to tell you, or to imply in any way, that every day I have a wonderful attitude about myself. I don't. It is no longer taken as proof positive that I am a morally degenerated sub-humanoid species. After all, I can't be nearly as bad as I had believed since there is someone in the world for whom I am special, who honestly does care about me--my Big Brother. He is proof positive that I cannot be the person that I spent most of my adult life thinking that I was.

Relationships with others are the most difficult part of the process. It always has been and still is. While I know that I can trust in John, I am not so sure about others. Where I have been able to trust in others beside John, it has been by acknowledging that since John is family, that relationship is a unique one, and other relationships in no way compete, nor can they compete, with it. I have a lot more work to do here, but at least the process has been begun.

The world around me is a different matter, however, when I first came into the healing process I experienced tremendous, paralyzing fear. I was terrified that "something" was going to happen--I didn't know what, but "something" bad would happen. My paranoia was so intense that at times I would lock myself in my house, call in sick, and stay in bed all day for fear of going out. Somewhere about my second year into recovery I discovered some works in the field of metaphysical healing, and decided to explore them despite the fact that my church claimed them to be heretical. I was willing to risk anything--even heresy--if it would relieve my fear. Fortunately it did. Another thing it did for me was that it set me free to explore areas of healing spiritualities that had theretofore been off limits to me as a good, dutiful, obedient, orthodox Christian. The freedom was a new feeling for me. The metaphysical principles I discovered not only freed me from my paralyzing fear, but shaped my whole understanding of the recovery process. The world was no longer a hostile place with danger lurking around every bend and behind every tree. Big Brother was a great help here too, for when I did not have courage, he shared with me his courage. He gave me the strength to walk right into my fear and proved to myself that it was not real.

One other experience of this period was formative for me. Early in the '90s I woke up one morning to discover I was blind in my right eye. After the initial fear began to subside, I called the doctor for an emergency visit. He examined me and referred me to a neurologist. I immediately remembered that my mother had had MS for nearly thirty years. Only a couple of years prior to this my sister had informed me that she had also been diagnosed with MS. Also, my father's brother had had MS for several years prior to his death, so I had MS on both sides of my family tree. The neurologist confirmed that my condition probably was early-stage, late-onset MS, but that it was particularly difficult to diagnose. I also discovered that in about one month's time most of my vision in the right eye returned. But something irrevocable had happened--I knew that it was unlikely that I would remain symptom-free forever, and I assumed that I would eventually have to make my living by doing something other than playing keyboard instruments. I then did the best I could to forget about it.

Recovery is in the process of changing my whole sense of spirituality. I can now clearly see why I believed as I did, and why I don't believe that way any more. Finally, God makes sense to me, other people in my life make sense to me, the world makes sense to me and most of all, I make sense to me. The way to end the war is by stopping fighting. The way to dispel an illusion is by withdrawing belief in it. The way to healing is by ceasing to create disease. The way to trust and love is by letting go of fear and hate. And so be it. Amen.