I’ve had a lot of good ideas over the course of my life. I’ve had grand visions. I’ve had big dreams. But when I started to do the things I had to do to make my dreams come true, I often found that I was short of power.
I noticed in high school that I kept taking courses that were expressly named for the year below me (as a Junior, for example, I would take Sophomore Literature). I just wasn’t planning and executing right and I kept feeling behind. I think that started when I first entered school — second grade, at age eight. The other kids had been in school for years and were better socialized than me.
As I stumbled along, I found things that gave me fleeting power. I loved reading books. I loved dreaming dreams. I loved blissing out. I loved checking out into my fantasy world.
I took up jogging, eventually completing five marathons at age 12. Occasionally, I’d get an endorphin high and the miles would rush by and I’d feel strong and powerful. I knew I could conquer the world.
At times, I’ve been attractive to women, and my power came from my hold over them. At times, I’ve been on TV and in newspapers and on magazine covers, and that gave me a temporary boost.
When I fell in love with Judaism at age 23, that powered me, on and off, for decades. I was joining God’s Chosen People! Finally, I had made it.
I moved to Los Angeles in March of 1994 and I loved my new city. I had dreamed for at least 15 years of living here and the beauty of the women and the beauty of the climate gave me inklings of power. I told myself that the whole world wanted to live in LA but I had pulled it off.
I’ve had a gift for making and maintaining friendships and these connections gave me power. I knew I often lacked commonsense and so when I could take guidance from the wise, my life ran smoother. At times, families would adopt me and I’d feel connected and whole.
I spent ten years in psycho-therapy and the clarity I gained and the tools I was given empowered me. yet my life didn’t substantially improve. I kept finding intermittent hits of power, but nothing worked for long. I came to age 44 and my life wasn’t working and so I started going to 12-Step programs and I tapped into the power that comes from a genuine relationship with one’s Creator, the power that comes from taking a fearless moral inventory and taking responsibility for the harms I’ve done others and taking steps to right my wrongs and as I faced up to who I was, ‘fessed up to what I had done, stepped up to clean my side of the street, then my life started motoring.
In addition to working the 12 Steps, going to meetings, making and receiving outreach calls, and being of service to others, I found tremendous power from this one 5:30 a.m. phone meeting that for 18 months I let sponsor me (as real sponsors were hard to come by in this program). Every meeting I’d come away with one or two insights to put into practice that day, or to journal on that night, but it wasn’t primarily the information conveyed in the meeting that powered me, it was the vibration that came from listening to strong clear people share their individual messages of recovery. They’d allude to a little bit of the mess but their focus was on the message. It wasn’t the words they said that primarily moved me, it was the power behind their words that pushed me along. It was a power greater than them, greater than the group, it was the Power and by listening on the phone, I got a charge that would often last all day.
Here are things that give me power:
* Specificity
* Accuracy
* Planning
* Goals
* Race, blood and soil
* Religion
* Community
* Friends
* Accountability
* Exercise
* Meditation
* Alexander Technique
* Knowledge
* Mastery
* Family
* God
* Cleanliness
* Organization
* Inspiration
* Music
* Literature
* Art
* Service
Here are things that drain my power:
* Fuzziness
* Losers
* Ignorance
* Numbing out
Plenty of people who want into my life are downers. The more I interact with them, the worse I feel, and it doesn’t really matter how many limits I set or how honest I am about what they’re doing to bring me down. Plenty of people will just suck the life out of me if I let them, so I have to build walls to keep them away. At times, I have to be cold and brusque. I’ve tried to be of service countless times to these lost souls and it has always been useless. It’s apparently done them no good and me great harm.
As I progress in my recovery, people are less mysterious. I find that if I am doing my 12-Step work and other people confuse me, it is because they are trying to con me (consciously or unconsciously) and so I need to keep my distance from them. As I recover from my emotional addictions, I find it easier to speak up when other people invade my boundaries. As I grow up, I take steps to preserve my sanity and my power and I stop letting sickos drain me. I have to have power, man, and now I know where I can get it. Information can be powerful, but power isn’t purely informational. It’s not purely rational. It comes from the great beyond.
