Community in Recovery, My Friends

 “…For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” — Zephaniah 3:17

I need you. We need each other. Community is an experience designed to help each of us thrive. Look at nature if you have any doubts. As harsh as the wild can be, harmonious communities have lived in existence with one another since the start of creation. Our modern world has shifted away from the best parts of community. I’d like to take a few moments and make a little space to examine the impact.

If you’re like me, community is not always comfortable. I tend to be naturally shy and content in my own company. Contrary to this quiet side, I also love to watch people and have good days filled with gathering, connection, and laughter. I enjoy seeing those around me thrive and being there to witness it. Before my life turned inside out, I found great joy in being “a part of”, creating a balance between the quiet and peopling. Innocently, I thought this was how life would always be and found myself content with the prospect.

Raw experience in the leaderless school of hard knocks taught me something much different. To survive in a world that did not share my tender naiveté, I learned to posture a tough and rough exterior, to be doubtful of others, to exclude rather than include to be safe, and to always look out for number one because nobody else would. In the film, The Joy Luck Club (1993), one of the women announced to her daughter that she learned to shout as a means to take her power back following her mother’s death. This resonated deeply with me and my booming ferocity was born. I wielded my voice as a means to keep whatever ailed me at arms-length or to bend people to my will.

Living in such a manner came with some other side dishes I’d not expected things like foul language, crassness, and diminished virtue. The more I could shock and awe, the better. Priority #1 manifested itself in all my dealings—stay away from anything that looked too innocent or easy. There was always an angle, a catch, someone lurking to entrap, manipulate, or abuse. Life was safer when you kept a stern distance.

With these contradictory viewpoints in charge of my life, is it any wonder that I was a complete mess? War commenced internally. The quiet girl was more often than not banished to the corner. The one who longed for happy gatherings often absconded with control for just long enough to plan several outings before she would succumb to doubt, fear, and inadequacy. This, in turn, would leave the angry brute in charge. She resented the other two for their weakness and ultimately made a mess of any good that could have been salvaged from their efforts. Relationships were crippled, and fear and self-loathing grew while isolation and self-centered pseudo-preservation won take the day. The cycle was vicious.

Maybe you’re nodding your head, you know exactly what I mean. Or possibly you’re baffled, really glad you hadn’t been relegated to such experiences. Some of you might be thinking, ‘I get it, not to this degree, but I can see how community in my own life has been daunting.’ And then others might be thinking, ‘That’s just the tip of my iceberg. I’m still caught in my mess and have no idea how to break out.’ By the time I made it to the rooms of recovery, I was worn out, sick, and tired of being sick and tired, while wanting nothing to do with people, at least nothing meaningful. I simply didn’t want to feel so bad. Let me tell you, I was not a happy camper when I discovered that community was one of the very important keys to recovery. It was nearly too much to bear.

So why do we need community if it’s not the proverbial bed of roses we hope for? I could get scholarly about the answer to this question, but it would defeat the home-brewed tone of this blog, so I’ll continue with my own experience. Just know that no matter where you are, there is always a degree to which you can improve.

Irksome as this idea of community was to me, it was made quite clear that there was going to be no way around it. To be honest, I hated everything about it. I’d have to psych myself up (think rock concert prep) to get to a meeting. While sitting there trying to glean what was needed to quit the addiction cycle, I’d recoil into myself, judge those around me, bemoan my fate, and the list goes on. Then, as soon as the meeting concluded, I’d flee the scene. Gremlins ruled the space between my ears and plagued me with a negative monologue I could not escape.

Plenty awkward before the hard times hit, I now felt totally in over my head and severely misunderstood. Fake it till you make it had become a threadbare banner. Engagement on any level was exhausting. I just knew I’d never recover with all the baggage I was carrying. My sponsor was cool as a cucumber about it all, promising she understood while confirming it would ease if I kept working the program. She was encouraging, but not overbearing. Her slogan was, “I’m going to love you until you can learn to love yourself.” Suspicious but desperate, I went along with it.

Today I look back and can freely admit there was a gaping chasm inside me that longed, in all my weirdness, to be accepted. Here I was, decades past my eviction from polite society into the dark underbelly of self-will and chaotic disaster when all I wanted was to be seen, understood and loved for what I was instead of noticed for what I wasn’t. Meanwhile, this perfect stranger was offering me all those things and my only thought was could I trust it?

I’m pretty slow on the uptake, especially when it comes to math. Do not ask me to figure out a tip without a calculator. It won’t happen. In this situation, however, I did see that one plus one equals two.

Trust God + Trust the Sponsor (who God has proven His work with) = Healing.

Things couldn’t get any worse, so why not?

This decision was a turning point in my life, a precious moment where God cracked my heart open to community again. It took a long time and wasn’t easy. I fought the process and caved as well. Those gremlins were not taking their eviction lightly. We’re told to choose a sponsor we can trust. Guess what? God chose my sponsor for me. God wanted me to learn to trust Him more than anyone else. TRUST is the operative word in any relationship, it’s what makes engagement in community work. For me, my trust in others had been violated and smashed so badly that I’d even stopped trusting God.

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

 —Hebrews 10: 23-25

Everything in that verse played itself out as leaned into my sponsor and allowed her to show me how to come out of my shell. God does keep his promises. He is our ultimate community. He urges us to do for others, to love and let go, to meet together often. Our engagement in community is where we learn to love like He loves, to forgive as He forgives, and to find joy in the human condition as we walk out our time here. My sponsor functioned as God’s hands and continues to do so. Today I relish my time with her, and the way she continues to care for me and guides me. By learning to trust her, I realized I could trust Him.

Over the past nine years, a gentler Jo has emerged. I owe much of that to the communities I’m a part of and their patience and persistence in accepting me as I am. Please hear me, especially those of you who have outstanding experiences of direct engagement with my weirdness. I am progressing, not walking in perfection. Just the other day I said to some people, “If I get loud, start to swear, or speak with violent undertones, you can guarantee I’m not feeling safe. Something has the hair on my neck standing up.”

Whoa! As those words left my mouth, they shook me. To speak my truth, identify what motivates these negative behaviors, and not feel extreme shame and immense demoralization in the process is growth in the right direction. Bringing the best of me to the communities I’m a part of has become a focal point of my recovery. There’s lots of work to do and today I’m happy to do it. So let me encourage you as you leave your homes and enter the circles of community around you, remember the words of Paul,

It is my prayer that you can hate the defect and not the person while viewing others with the quality of love God has for you. If you feel this is an area where you fall short, or you struggle with community as I have, please share this with me or with someone you feel you can trust. I’d love to pray for you or with you.

As always, I pray for blessings to abound for each of you as you walk in the sunlight of God’s love.

Have a great week—jo

Affirmation: Today I will look for the opportunity to join in community. When I do, I will strive to love others for who they are as I reach outside of myself to motivate and encourage others.

—From the Fire Ring, Vol. 3, No. 5