Tonight saw me storm out of an AA meeting for the first time in 12 years. I got tired of the bullshit and Angry Nick reared his raging head.
Usually one leaves a meeting with the serenity prayer peace in their head, not the words, "this is bullshit. Fuck you." Not much serenity there Nick!!
I can't tell you how angry I was in my early days (first 5 years). I was in people's phones as Angry Nick. I got barred from Bikram Yoga and M&S Balham for fucks sake. Proper angry.
It has calmed down over the years, however sometimes it appears and the white hot rage emerges. Usually it's around romance or finance but today it happened in a meeting.
To qualify I always get emotionally edgy around the anniversary of my father's death. I really listen hard about alcoholism and tend to get angry when I don't hear it in meetings or if I detect soft bullshit being spoken.
If I add the fact I am facing up to some really deep uncomfortable truths about myself. Abandonment, adult child of an alcoholic, family of origin, Alanon, commitment, fear, honesty, acting out, low self esteem. There is a lot of shit being whirled around the cracker factory.
Then on top of all that I've being undergoing relationship issues (who doesn't?) and suffering from a really heavy cold and candida. The conditions are not exactly conducive to feeling at ease, peaceful, happy, content and calm.
In short, a force 9 hurricane is on a near constant state of red alert in my head. Anger is never far away from. It's a comfortable uncomfortable emotion. It fits like a glove.
I know underneath it's fear. I know it's because I'm not comfortable with myself. I know I'm the problem and it's so easy to get angry at other things than face up to your own stuff.
But what if it's hard too? If it was so twee and easy then nobody would be angry. We'd all be so serene and peaceful if the answers I'm being given were so easy. Why the fuck are people so reluctant to share open and honestly about the pain of the journey and the difficulty to change?
I went to the meeting not wanting to be there, in a bad mood, feeling ill, edgy and tired. I got there late, I was not in a good place. So when people started piping up about God and Higher power and saying the usual cliché shit about how amazing their lives are, how wonderful it is to have a higher power I immediately started polishing the machine guns in my head.
The leg started twitching, the ears began burning, the head started racing, the hatred began to rise to intolerable levels. The bullshit detector beeped loudly. I l loaded the bullets and off I went.
I couldn't hold it in anymore. I should have kept my trap shut but my mouth seemed to open and out it all came. Tumbling into the open like a torrent of bile. Some of it was well meaning. All of it aimed at myself. But some of it around the God lot.
All I hear sometimes are sanctimonious self serving, back slapping bullshitters sharing what they think spirituality should sound like. They share how amazing it is to have climbed the mountain. They try and say it's so amazing you should try climbing it too. They share how incredible the view is, how happy they are with it, how wonderful life is from up the mountain. But they NEVER share about the pain of getting up there. They NEVER share how many attempts it took. They NEVER seem to openly say when they didn't want to climb, when they wanted to give up, how much help they had or indeed offer many clues in HOW they climbed it.
They may well be happy and if they are, good luck to them. I don't begrudge people that. All I want is the truth. it's as vulnerable to share the pain as it is the good stuff. Sometimes it's even harder to share when we're feeling good for fear of it turning bad. But if you've climbed the mountain, tell me about the view but offer me a hand to get up there too.
Don't spend all the time congratulating yourself and staying up there alone. That's called ego but you just cannot see it.
That is what I was talking about. I cannot identify with those people. I haven't climbed it. I'm on the journey. Its debatable if I've reached base camp, but just because I'm not sharing about how amazing it all is doesn't mean to say I'm not on the same mountain as them.
I know for a fact some people I hear share who are saying it's all wonderful either hate their wives, lives, jobs or have problems. That's OK. I haven't got a problem with any of that. It;'s called life and we're all working through our own shit. But for fucks sake please can we have a bit of honesty about it all so I don't feel like I'm going insane here?!!!!
As I was sharing someone butted in, which pissed me off. Like some kind of game show for a laugh. When I annihilated them and finshed, someone else piped up they were feeling happy, "sorry Nick".
At this point I snapped. What those dozy cunts didn't appreciate is that I don't begrudge anyone if they are happy. That's their business. In a meeting we share for ourselves. We never cross share in a meeting. I only ever mention my own name never anyone elses. So when someone directly name checked me based on my sharing, as far as I was concerned the meeting had crossed any kind of boundary., was sick and I was having no more part in it.
Fuck it, if people cannot take brutal honesty then they should go back to their spiritual mountain and go and break their own back from patting themselves on it. They're so busy pushing their agenda they miss the people crying in pain. What the fuck do you think my share was?
It was a man saying I'm in pain. And what did I get? I put down and people laughing at me. Fuck them I thought, which is when I got up, stormed out (nearly falling over which would have been a huge blow to my ego -you know when your angry and taking yourself so seriously, falling over is the last thing you want to do) said, 'that's out of line and bullshit and fuck this' and off I went.
At this point, no doubt people in the programme, the sanctimonious cunts who have little or no empathy or even understanding of alcoholism or emotional trauma will quote the book,
"acceptance is the answer to all my problems. It is not their problem it is mine." of course they would be quite right. It is my problem. My life, my decision. But it's HOW it is applied is the real issue. Don't just judge someone, who approach them with a throw away comment or quote.
Spend time with them, understand their pain, then you maybe able to offer suggestions. That's called love and care.
Someone came up to me after the meeting and effectively said that. They may have meant well, but it was not delivered with any feeling. It was empty words. Automatic. Someone who is in the state I was in is clearly in pain. Surely you would spend time and ask that person. Cut through the fucking made up cliché words you hear time and again in AA and actually listen to someone.
Luckily I had a pal who followed me out, took me for a tea, we talked, I calmed down. I realised it's not the meeting, or the people or anyone other than me. Finally
Yes they may have been talking bullshit, or cliches but am I going to take it out on everyone?
In the end we went to the alanon meeting and I heard lots of courage and what I needed to hear.
I heard about the courage of facing up to the fear of yourself inside. Facing up to the pain and the deep rooted deep insecurity and inadequacy I have buried behind ego and camouflaged all my life that when challenged makes me go directly into Rage.
That's what's at play here but half of the people in AA who walk around quoting the book have absolutely no idea the depth and extent of the alcoholic condition and if they think a few platitudes and prayers will automatically change a juggernaut of a disease they are either deluded or not alcoholics.
Oh and another thing. Whilst im owning up to my side of this and looking at causes rooted in my own life for such behaviour. I didn't look after myself . I ate chocolate until late. I got home from work, I ate shit cheap processed food, pork scratchings and made the worlds filthiest sandwich. I actually replaced bread with corned beef to make a pate, pickle sandwich between corned beef.
Fuck me do I actually disrespect myself that much I put that junk in my body and expect to feel OK. see what I'm up against here folks? There's more nutrition in
Oh and PS, a friend of mine sold their house today for £700k. Another reason in my low self esteem misaligned head space to beat myself up that I'm not A proper man because I haven't owned my own home or made money on the property trail. It was another example of the chronically negative beat oneself up head telling me I'm not a man.
This limiting inner belief goes deeper than I thought and man did it come to the surface today. Still, that is what The Inside Job is all about. Confronting these limiting beliefs and coming through them. and you know what I really will. Interesting stuff.
Sort it out Evans
Together We Are Stonger
Nicholas E Evans
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