Making Phone Calls in Recovery
On the journey to recovery there are many tools that we can use to find strength, peace, and sobriety. Last week we looked at one of the most important tools: meetings. Meetings help us to connect with others and borrow their experience and strength. Alongside meetings, making phone calls is a tremendous tool for our recovery.
When I first came into Twelve Step meetings in Virginia,
there was a consistent message that making phone calls was essential to a
healthy program of recovery. The men who had successful programs made calls,
and if I wanted the same, I should do likewise. To help with this, they passed
out a list with people's names and numbers that we were free to call and
encouraged us to reach out any time.
I recognized the wisdom in this. Connecting with other
people and asking for help is important. If I was feeling triggered to act out
and was at risk of relapsing, making a phone call could make the difference
between staying sober or not. I realized all this; but making phone calls was
difficult.
I felt like I was imposing on the other men I was calling,
"I don't want to bother them."
"They don't want to hear about my problems." "I am sure they are busy and don't want
to talk to me." Practicing rigorous
honesty and vulnerability by making phone calls is a challenging thing. It
stretches us. It is a mental and emotional muscle that we are not used to
straining. In recovery circles, and I believe this goes back to Alcoholics
Anonymous, they call this "the hundred-pound phone." We know we should pick it up and reach out
for encouragement and support, but that threshold of effort is ridiculously
high.
But no matter my resistance or hesitation, I always found
that if I took the effort, made the call, pushed through the fear and anxiety,
I was glad I made that connection. I felt stronger and more grounded afterwards.
It was always worth it to pick up the hundred-pound phone.
It took a couple of years before I got into a fairly good
routine of making phone calls a few times a week. What I found many times, was
that if I was struggling and the fog of addiction was clouding my mind, it was
much more difficult to make a phone call. My mind would be spinning up with
fantasies and in that state, it was almost impossible to think about anything
else. So, if I allowed myself to get to that dissociative, limbic state, it was
too late. The thought to make a phone call might occur to me, but the
pornographic thoughts would push that out. It was better to make phone calls
long before I got stuck in that place, at least for me.
A couple major shifts happened after I moved to Arizona and
joined a new Twelve Step group. They had what they called the
"Kool-Aid," which was a simple formula: attend three meetings a week,
make three phone calls a day, and do fifteen minutes of written Step work every
day.
Having that simple rule in place, that structure, helped me
make phone calls. It became a regular discipline, like brushing my teeth
(though I think I made more phone calls than I brushed my teeth :). Having the
expectation expressed in that simple way made it more of a priority for me.
At the meetings in Arizona, they did not do a phone list, so
I had to be more proactive about asking people for their numbers. This was
uncomfortable and awkward at first, but soon it became casual. Most of the
people in those meetings were not shy about asking me for my number and they
would give me theirs as well. It just became a natural part of the culture in
those meetings. You meet someone new, and you ask him for his number.
As I got into the habit of making phone calls every day, I
began to notice that people appreciated my calls. As much as I needed support,
and you can believe that I needed a great deal of support, most people were
glad to get the call and expressed gratitude that I called. I realized that
making phone calls can be a kind of service. I am actually helping other people
by calling them. I may need encouragement, and so I need to make phone calls,
but other people need encouragement as well, and I can offer that to them. They
may be struggling to pick up the hundred-pound phone and I can alleviate that
burden by calling them pre-emptively. Making phone calls is a way I can help
other people carry the burdens that they are bearing. (Galatians 6:2)
There have only been a handful of times when I regretted
making a phone call, 99.9% of the time it is a good thing and I come away
encouraged and hopeful. Phone calls help me to break out of the cycle of
obsessive thinking that keeps me stuck in the addiction. Talking about my
challenges is always a big assistance in breaking through and finding some
freedom.
Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, offers us this wisdom,
"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labour.
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone
when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie
together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevails
against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly
broken."
It is a curious thing about body heat. One would think that
if a warm person holds a cold person, the warm person will get cold while the
cold person got warmer, but what happens is that they both get warmer. This is
how it goes with our trials and struggles in life, when we share them with
others, we both become stronger and more encouraged in the process. There is an
old saying, "When we share a burden, it is halved, and when we share a
blessing, it is doubled."
I have stumbled many times in my life, including in recovery.
It is hard to pick yourself up and keep going, it is especially difficult when
you are on your own. There is strength in numbers, they say, and this is
especially true in recovery. The more people we have backing us up, supporting
us, the stronger our recovery will be. Going to meetings and making phone calls
are important tools that help us to make those strong connections that keep us
fighting even after we fall.
Next week is Thanksgiving, and it is timely for us to look
at gratitude, which is one of the most important and powerful tools we can use.
More on that next time.
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