Sometimes you must love somebody enough to let them go.

I remember my mother saying this to me in the kitchen at my home in England. I was talking about a friend who for many years had been troubled with alcoholism, and how the fun that used to exist in our friendship, had in recent years been transformed into anger, pain, em-barrassment and apathy. I had reached the point in every codependent’s journey when I simply didn’t care anymore. He was making me feel sick. As the church hymn so aptly says, “We learn that love grows cold!”

I was telling my mother the friendship had given way to not caring; there was nothing more I could do for him, he had hurt me so much in recent years. I wanted out!

My mother said, “I know how you feel. That is how I used to feel about you!” She went on to share what it was like living with me, as a mother, when I was drinking. Then she stated powerfully: “This love requires distance.”

There is a point in “tragic love” when we need to pull back, separate the dysfunctional behavior from the individual we love, and create a powerful moment of distance. In this sense we “let go”. And we do this not because we do not love, but because we love.

Nobody can change another person, or get another person to be-have in the way we want them to behave. When these relationships become really–I mean really–painful, we must pull away and let go. Sometimes nothing positive happens, and the person simply gets worse.

But there are times, creative moments, when the separateness produces a miracle; we have given them the space to change–the donkey is drinking the water!

PRAYER

Great Spirit: You Who have given us the freedom to walk away from the pain that keeps on giving, may we see your creative power at work in the separateness.

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Music happens between the notes – Stravinsky

This has always been a powerful message for me because it makes me realize that recovery is something that truly happens between each of the Twelve Steps.  No artist would ever use numbers to paint a picture; in a similar way recovery is happening in the background of the Twelve Steps.

When I am lecturing at the various treatment centers where I consult this is my constant message.  In this sense, spiritual healing and recovery are discovered in the story be-hind the words. We are called to be poets.

Let me explain.

1.  We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

Now this is what the step says.  However what does it mean?  I be-lieve that this step only becomes meaningful when we see the story behind each word.  Indeed it may take us to a story beyond these words.

Notice the step incorporates the concept of a fellowship – i.e. “We”.  Recovery is not an isolated event.  It involves a community, a group, dare I say it, a tribe.

I will never be alone again.  AA cannot exist for an individual. It is one alcoholic seeking out another alcoholic, at minimum. This was the miracle that Bill Wilson discovered when he was struggling with the desire to take a drink in Akron, Ohio.  He needed to find another drunk…in this case Dr. Bob.

There is a process – story behind the word “admitted”.  Nobody wakes up one morning and says: I’m an alcoholic.  Always there is a journey to this awareness.  And if we miss out on the story, the events, then I believe we will miss the disease.

When Bill and Bob sat together on their first meeting they inevitably were led into the words “powerless” and “unmanageable”.  The Twelve Steps had not yet been created and yet they were there; they existed before they were ever written down because they exist in the story of every alcoholic.  The words we use are only bridges to reality!

Recovery is the story, the events, the feelings that happen behind the powerful words of each step.

Powerless: The cravings.  The need to drink alcohol in order to feel good.  The trials and tribulations of failure.  That sense of helplessness that only an addict truly understands.

Unmanageable: The loss of jobs.  A marriage on the rocks.  Children in tears.  That look of disgust on the faces of people that we love.  A million aspects of the same story that every alcoholic lives.

And it is all happening be-tween the lines.  The lines of the Twelve Steps.  The lines of the Twelve Traditions.  The Promises.  The Big Book.

Unlike the Bible, nobody is suggesting that the Big Book was written by God.  Rather it is a book of suggestions.  Helpful hints that have saved a million lives.  Inspirational insights. Poetry for the wounded-soul.   And this is how it continues to feed us.  Each time we read or listen there is always more…more to understand.  Between the lines.

Dynamic, challenging, insightful and witty, Reverend Leo Booth is a minister cut from a very different cloth. He says you don’t have to be religious to be spiritual. He’s as likely to quote from the Beatles, The Velveteen Rabbit, or Oscar Wilde, as he is from the Bible. His passion is to help people discover that God and spirituality are not “out there” somewhere, but are found within ourselves and our world.

We often forget that it is that little tiny bit of grit that is needed to create a pearl.  And I’m suggesting that recovery, healing, surrender is that essential piece of grit that will eventually affirm sobriety or “the good life”.

Maybe you’ve never thought of yourself as that little bit of grit or more precisely having within you that spot of grit that truly makes all the difference.

It is always a challenge to talk about spirituality because it usually takes us into the ‘poetic’ aspects of life.  It’s a little like talking about God, words can never do justice to what we want to say, our feelings concerning the divine often become restricted when we attempt to put them into words.  Spirituality faces a similar challenge.

A definition of spirituality includes words like energy, breath, life and we are forced to explain these words by giving examples:

A spiritual person exudes a positive energy that radiates love and generosity

It is said in scripture that God breathed into the first humans and gave something of himself in the creation of life.

A recovering person experiences a spiritual awakening that affirms life

For years I’ve known that the spiritual life necessarily involves the poetic and the challenge for any writer is to use examples that clearly explain what they are intending to say.

This brings me back to a spot of grit.  The example of a pearl is opposite because it is considered a gem of beauty and I’m suggesting that this is what recovery, healing, sobriety looks like. Our lives are slowly changed into being something wonderful, wholesome, and good in every sense, indeed some would say a miracle, and it comes from what I’m calling a spot of grit.

What is the grit?  Well, again this is poetic-speak, a metaphor for the moment we accept that we need to change a behavior that is killing us.  It is that point of surrender when we give up fighting, we give up denying, we give up  the pretense of suggesting that everything is okay.  All this is what I’m calling a spot of grit; it is the beginning of the process of healing.

I believe in nurturing our spirituality and conferences are wonderful ways we can feed our spirituality, not only to teach, but to learn.  As many of you know, I speak at Conferences throughout the United States, always seeking to explain spirituality in the process of healing.  In January I spoke at the NOVA Conference in Dallas and at the US Journal Conference in Clearwater, Florida discussing how, for me, addiction becomes a part of the grit that, when confronted, can lead to happiness and peace.

When I think about my life today in recovery, I’m so aware that I’m living a charmed existence; a pearl.  And I know I’m not the only one.  I hear from people who, because of recovery, are able to live the good life.  They are falling in love, getting married, enjoying financial security, going back to school, planning trips, exploring other countries, spending more time with their loved ones and taking care of their health.  Many have returned to church, found a God or Higher Power that accepts and loves them, more importantly, they are enjoying an adventure into spirituality.

It must be interesting for you to consider that a part of our make-up involves a spot of grit but I want you to hold the vision of the emerging pearl.  The message is clear: you are exquisite