When Prayers Are Just Words

Why is it so difficult to pray for those who have hurt us when they are often the ones who need it the most?

Sure, I had heard the notion of “praying for your enemy” when I was a kid in Sunday School, but like most of my spiritual life, I walked away from prayer for a really long time. I turned my back, shut the door, and went about my way. To me, God was something that existed within the four walls of a sanctuary on Sunday morning for the good people. 

My brother’s death gave me every reason to hate God even more than I already did. Those 49 days from the time Will died to the time I got to rehab, I only cussed God. 

So, you can imagine how receptive I was when I arrived to rehab and my counselor told me I needed to pray for the people I resented most.  

I’m sorry, what? She wanted me to pray for other people, not even myself?  Did she not understand that I was the one in rehab for being an alcoholic? I had just lost my brother? Did she not get the memo this was about me? I couldn’t wrap my head around why on earth I would pray for my resentments. Screw them. I knew they weren’t praying for me. Why should I pray for them?

She directed me page 66 in the Big Book and asked me to read it:

 “It is plain that a life which included deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.”

Well, that seemed a little dramatic at the time. She told me that resentments were the number one offender and that it destroys more alcoholics than anything else and if I wanted to stay sober, be happy and not drink again, then I had to rid myself of these resentments.

Whoa. That’s a tall order, I thought. I mean, she was asking me to pray to a God that I had not been very pleasant to for years. But I had made an agreement to be willing to do what they asked of me and to keep an open mind. Obviously, my way of thinking and doing wasn’t working out so great for me. 

So, I started praying for the people I hated more than myself. Luckily that list was very small.

She asked me to read a story in the back of the Big Book titled, “Freedom from Bondage.” This story was my first introduction to the Big Book and I was hooked. I could relate to so much of this woman’s story. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I was the only person who felt the way I did. There was hope in her story and there were answers:

"If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for that person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love."

First step was simply praying for the willingness to pray for these resentments. It was difficult at first and my prayers were most definitely  just words. I tried every way to be an exception to the rule and  not pray for the people I hated. “But, I’m lying to God,” I would argue. That can’t be good. “Do it anyway,” she would say, so I did.

I didn’t mean what I was saying but I prayed anyway. I don’t know when my heart started to change but it did, and realizing that was a spiritual experience in itself.

One hundred and twenty six weeks later, and I am still working on one of those resentments. I can say I don’t hate this person today. And I don’t pray for this person everyday like I should. Some days are harder than others but today, my prayers aren’t just empty words and I know they aren’t falling on deaf ears.  

I do want this person to be happy because it’s their own hurt, anger and resentment that causes this person to treat others the way they do. Today, I see this person as someone who is spiritually sick, because otherwise they wouldn’t act the way they do.

When your heart is consumed with anger, bitterness and hurt that’s the way you treat others. When your heart is overwhelmed with happiness, gratitude and compassion, that’s the way you treat others. I don’t know if this person has changed because of my prayers or if my prayers have just changed me. All I can really say for certainty is that prayer has the power to change, whatever that may be.   

“But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” Matthew 5:44

Holiday Drinking: Starts Classy, Ends Trashy

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Right? “Eat, drink and be merry” may be a popular theme for the holiday season, but not so much if you are a recovering alcoholic—at least not the drink part. There seems to be a new invitation to a holiday cocktail party every time I sign onto Facebook or log in to my email. It’s an established fact that people drink more this time of year. The opportunity is there and let’s face it: the holidays are stressful and the invites make drinking look so damn sexy: pictures of martini glasses rimmed with red and green sugar crystals and women in fancy dresses sipping on a candy cane cocktail with blurbs like “Drink Responsibly” tagged at the end of the commercials. Please join us for Very Merry Cocktails, Sips & Dips, Cocktails & Coworkers, Martinis & Merriment, Martinis & Mistletoe, Cookies & Cocktails! And the list goes on.

I Would Go From Classy to Trashy In No Time

I used to love this time of year, when there was a cocktail party every night of the week that I could totally justify drinking at because it was the holidays. I could dress up in my favorite party dress, look like a lady and sip on a glass of expensive champagne. Well, that would last all of a couple drinks until I was chugging Perrier-Jouet from the bottle before being asked to leave the restaurant, where I would make my way to some bar called the Thirsty Beaver, lose my shoes in the process, find some guy’s cowboy hat to don and wake up in some unfamiliar place wondering where I left my car.

That night really happened. No, seriously. Actually, that night seemed to happen often. Some details are missing, along with some dignity and self-respect, but you get the point. I will never be that girl. You know the one: the one in the designer red dress with all the right accessories, makeup and hair perfect with everything in place. She is manicured from head to toe and probably has on matching bra and panties. You know her, right? She sips on one glass of champagne or festive cocktail the entire evening and exits the party before last call. Man, I so desperately wanted to be her. I tried. I tried at every cocktail party from Thanksgiving to New Year’s year after year and it was always an epic fail. Every single party, I set out to drink responsibly like the commercials asked of me. Turns out that’s not an option for me because I’m an alcoholic. But I didn’t know that at the time, so I tried like hell to control my drinking and to be responsible.

The Lie: One Glass Won’t Hurt Anyone

I had such good intentions for the night I described above. I always had good intentions. You see, some friends and I were going to have a nice holiday get together at Del Frisco’s. I had on a red party dress and everything was manicured and matching. I had gotten a DUI the week before, so I had sworn off alcohol forever. But I thought, “I’ll just make a toast with my friends and stop there. It’s the holidays…a glass of champagne won’t hurt anyone.” Plus, it was like a $200 bottle. “There’s no way I could get drunk off something that expensive,” I thought, as if the alcohol content was any less. Not to mention my brain doesn’t know the difference between Two-Buck Chuck and Perrier-Jouet. And, well, I should have known better. It’s never been just a glass of anything for me.  And that night was no exception.

It didn’t matter that we were at an upscale restaurant. It didn’t matter that I had a designer dress on. It didn’t matter that we were drinking $200 bottles of champagne. It didn’t matter that I had limited myself to just one drink. None of that mattered because my addiction is stronger than all of that.

I Love Being the Sober Girl at the Party

Last weekend was my first holiday party of the season and it was great! I didn’t make out with anyone’s boyfriend or husband. I didn’t wake up in a car, or jail for that matter. I didn’t put anyone’s life in danger by driving drunk. I didn’t verbally assault any random strangers. I didn’t do one single thing that, when I woke up the next morning, I either couldn’t remember or had regrets about.

Instead, I showed up, sipped on sparkling water, mingled a bit, totally indulged in the tater tot and candy bar and left the party looking like I had when I arrived. I had my purse, my phone, my wallet, my bra, my shoes and my dignity intact (one, if not all, were usually missing by the end of any given night back in drinking days). I got home, let my dog out, washed my face, brushed my teeth, probably watched a little Dateline and woke up on Sunday morning feeling fresh and ready for yoga. I didn’t have to look through my phone and text messages to recall the events from the night before. I didn’t have to run outside to check to see if my car was in the driveway. I didn’t have to immediately start drinking to stop the shakes. I simply woke up with another 24 hours ahead of me to do with as I please.

And what I realized was the only thing standing between me and being that girl I tried so hard to be for so long was the cocktail(s). In fact, I can be anyone I want to be as long as I’m sober, but I don’t have to try and pretend to be anyone. I’m just the girl with the sparkling water who smiles and laughs and really loves knowing how her night is going to end: happily.

This post originally appeared on AfterPartyChat.  

Also featured on The Huffington Post. 

Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason and Stop Misusing 'God willing'

No, I do not think everything happens for a reason.  I mean…not in the sense that we like throw that phrase around when something bad happens as a way to make peace with the situation--like it’s some part of God’s grand plan for your life.

And stop misusing the phrase “God willing.”

Okay, there, I said it.  Now, let’s continue.

My brother dying. Yeah…that happened for a really unfortunate reason. He was addicted to opiates and he overdosed one night and died. That wasn’t God’s will for my brother.

I blamed God for a long time for my brother’s death. Everyone who thought they were giving some faith based condolence that would draw me closer to God in my time of grief, only took me farther away  by telling me it was God’s plan, God’s will, just trust God, or God is in control.

I really did believe that it must have been God’s plan for my brother. So, why on heaven, hell or earth would I trust God if He was the one responsible for taking my brother away. That was the most absurd thing I had ever heard.

So, I didn’t. I would have told you I hated God. Come to find out, I didn’t know God.  Not even a little bit. I blamed God for a lot of things that I know today were not His doing, His plan, or His will.

God is for us. He wants the best for us. I have no doubt his heart broke everytime my brother turned to drugs and everytime I tried to find the meaning of life in a bottle of booze. Which is why I cringe when people misuse the phrase “God willing”

I hear it all the time. “I’ll be sober for 2 years in August, God willing.” “I won’t go back out, God willing.” “My son will decide to go to rehab, God willing.”

Friends…all of this would be God’s will. I mean, seriously! You think God doesn’t want you to stay sober, wants to see you go back out, or wants your son to not choose a life free from drugs & alcohol. No, no and no.

Stop blaming God. Stop saying things that you think sound good, but really have no idea what it means. Everything doesn’t happen for a reason.

What I have learned through recovery is to find gratitude in everything…good and bad that has brought me where I am today. I have made a lot of mistakes…none of which were God’s will for my life. It was my self will run riot that got me into a lot of trouble. I have realized that God can certainly use our pain for purpose.

Step three of the 12 steps is turning your life and your will over to the care of God. This is something that baffled the hell out of me when I got to step 3 early in recovery.

What does that even mean?  I don’t know what God’s will for my life is, but I know what it isn’t. I know one thing…God’s will is for me to stay sober, and any person, place or thing that is going to bring me closer to a drink probably isn’t God’s will for my life. I keep it simple. I don’t blame God for all the mistakes in this world.

After reciting the Lord’s prayer since the age of 5, now 30 years later, I finally understand what it means. “your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” It means, God’s will is played out perfectly in Heaven, but rarely is that the case on earth.

I am far from perfect and I don’t always align my will with God’s. But I pray and I give God all the glory for my life  today.  I pray for the knowledge to know His will for my life and I pray for the ability to carry it out. I used to hate the phrase, Let Go & Let God, but today, it’s something I practice daily…you know, now that I actually know what it means!