Same Devil, Different Demon
Dear Lord,
I admit that I am powerless over my addiction.
I admit that my life is unmanageable when I try to control it.
Help me this day to understand the true meaning of powerlessness.
Remove from me all denial of my addiction.
Alcoholics Anonymous’ first step prayer
Denial is probably the first word that I associated with Alcoholics Anonymous when I was a youth. Because of this, as I face my challenges that have arisen within myself, while in my chosen twelve step program of AA, I focus in on this first step prayer. If there is anything intense about life, we all know it is figuring out how to take the first step, sometimes. How do I begin? How do I humble myself, so that as a grown-up adult individual, I admit that I am a beginner? This feeling brings up pride. I believe that there is good pride and bad pride. As a TRANS person, learning about the positive attributes to having pride, a word that is used a lot in the GLBT+ community, I have finally come to a place in my life where I plan to embrace true pride in who I am as an individual. I did not fully realize that almost all of my tics, all of my insecurities that have their own names, rely on a lack of pride. This true pride leads to myself having pride in my disability; my schizoaffective disorder. And now I am well on the road to transforming my curse, my mental illness, into a gift. I have sought this for some time.
So, pride is good. But why then is it listed as a deadly sin? The Big Book in AA couples pride with self-will, and lack of humility. I do not relate to this, necessarily. Perhaps here, we could substitute the word shame for pride. Shame is the antithesis of pride; healthy pride. Pride in identity can include humility in the eyes of God, and it can also mean self-acceptance… it can mean willingness to love. False pride may have something to do with denial. It sounds like it has something to do with ego, and similar to pride, we cannot completely defuse the ego. We must have balanced egos, and they aren’t a bad thing. We similarly do not want to do away with pride. As I move into having a healthy pride in my identity, my shame is reworked, and so are many personality faults that are sourced from deep and paralyzing shame. These faults exhibit themselves as insecurity, and sometimes even hatred and resentment.
Denial. It is a very big and powerful word. What am I in denial about? How do I deny my true self? How do I deny love? How do I deny God? How is my self-will inadequate and God’s will the answer? In AA, I am focused on addiction as the root to my troubles. I know that when I practice yoga and meditation, and when I am praying, I cannot do so while intoxicated. I know that when uncomfortable feelings arise, I am drawn to drink. How is it I deny God when I become intoxicated? I cut the channel of my true inner being with the greater holy spirit of the universe. Perhaps my shame is weighing me down to the point that I do not want to feel. I refuse to pray. I choose not to weep, shout, or wail. I begin to worship the false god or idol of anything that will distract me from this pain. The drink turns to sex. The dieting turns to binging. The work turns to isolation. The isolation to drink. Different demon, same devil. And here we are.
I claim a healthy pride, I thus leave the denial of my true self, for I deny my fragile being that is lost in shame when I choose to drink. Both pride and shame are the curse and the blessing; the answers. My illness is my gift. It does not mean that I should continue in shame and denial. I am not denying alcohol. I am becoming free. I am not denying my self, I am embracing it. I am not denying will, I am rediscovering it. I do not run from pride, I run toward it. God has us. He/She, will show us the way. Acknowledging my addiction, and seeing this truth, holding this truth in the deafening light of acceptance and awareness, I never lose sight of my mission. To find myself through finding God. To find humility by getting to know my creator. Developing pride in my actions, and feeling true accomplishment of self. A self that is connected at all times to an invisible force that I can feel, because I am not running from my self, I am not in denial. I leave denial. I remove denial.
I am granting myself something as I take this away. Is it freedom? What is cutting me off from my individual self, is also cutting me off from the communal spirit of healing. Still, it is all the same. And I deny it. I am in denial. In some way I must remove this. Try reading this prayer today for your deeper spiritual self. You may not be an addict or alcoholic, you may not be a mental health patient, but if you deny your struggle, you also deny God. That is the essence of denial. The absence of God. We must have dark to feel the light. First we accept we are in the dark, then we know the light exists, and then we learn to let it in, connect with it, and thus it becomes a part of us forever. We are all the same in this way, and we are also all different.