-
Step One Actions, Exercise 3: Brain Change 101
By working Step One we are beginning to wake up. We wake up physically by stopping using drugs, people and addictive processes. We wake up emotionally by feeling pain and sharing it. We wake up to our unmanageability by talking about our mental suffering.
Now, none of these awakenings sound very inviting, does it?
Can anyone be blamed that they do not continue on to Step Two, when being awake means having to experience life without numbing substances and habits, with emotional pain, and with mental suffering?
I do not blame them; I simply offer the way free.
The way free is spiritual in nature. To say the 12 Steps have a spiritual aspect is like saying the ocean has a wet bit. Spiritual means inspiring, whole, functional, dynamic and creative. Spiritual means being awake!
So the solution to the mental, emotional, and physical rude awakenings of Step One must be spiritual in nature. You must figure out a way to become inspired, in-spirit, if you are to keep a dynamic living experience of Step One. If you cannot open to inspiration, you cannot keep nor pass on Step One to another.
Inspiration cannot be faked, but it can be taught. Nothing will change your brain more than becoming inspired and grateful. It is said that a grateful addict never busts but very rarely reported how to get and stay grateful and inspired. This exercise reveals the source of inspiration and gratitude.
This source is reliable and stable. It never changes. It never goes away. It is always present, all around you. This source of inspiration is not outside you, either; it is to be found in you, and it is just waiting for you to say the word and be willing to take the actions that result, in order to experience inspired living.
The beautiful man who began Narcotics Anonymous Jimmy Kinnon said the words and took the actions of inspiration each day. Many elders and wise people say and do them every day. Many of our sponsors and sages say and do them.
Because the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text (NABT) so far has lacked a chapter on twelfth step work, these words have been largely lost to the Narcotics Anonymous community of practice. But they are essential, they are crucial, they are irreplaceable to being able to live free of addiction!
I will give the simple version first. Here it is:
God, please send me someone to help today.
The exercise is: say the words and pay attention, then, when the opportunity comes, act.
For example. Today I went out with a map of the city, with the intention that I would like to explore some new part of my home city if I had the time. I didn’t have the time, but I did find a girl who was lost and needed a map today. She was too anxious at being lost to read it herself, so I read the map and gave her directions.
Now, the day that unfolded after that was just great. Coincidence?
Helping changes your brain. Helping gives pleasure. Helping benefits the helper, the helped, and any witness to the act of helping. Helping connects you to your own inner source of Power.
Let’s look at some other versions of this exercise. I mentioned Jimmy Kinnon before. Here is his version:
God, please send me someone who really wants this program, even just for a few hours.
Another wise elder said: God, please let your love flow through me and into the lives of others.
I like to say, God help me carry your holy message in all my thoughts, acts and relationships today.
But my favorite remains from James R because it is so straight and simple:
God, please send me someone to help today.
If you try this, I promise you that you will find relief from your mental, emotional and physical distress. When nothing else will work to change the brain from its self-destructive tendencies, helping will always release creative power.
This exercise has only one downside: helping others can be addictive. The Source of the joy and pleasure is within your spirit, not in the people you help.
Because we are born to care for one another, because we are social animals, because the isolation of addiction is so bitter, this prayer is the most direct, powerful and sophisticated way to change the human brain.
About 8SYTEM: A proven, creative, dynamic living system of recovery from addictions.
8YSTEM heralds a new phase of recovery. Twenty years ago when the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous was written, much had been written about addiction, but little about recovery (see the opening to Book One of the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous). Likewise, now much has been written now about recovery, but this work primary concerns itself with the all the aspects of living recovery.
Recovery is a living system.
A system is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as “a complex whole” a “set of interconnected parts”. OED also defines system as a method of organization of considered principles of procedure. Finally, OED says “system” comes from the Greek for “a set [of things or ideas]”.
Now the new word, 8YSTEM, indicates the multiple play of meaning and relationship and inquiry and experience that is recovery.
Recovery: A Map to Joy.
There is no right way to seek recovery. But there are many slow and painful ways. In accordance with our creative freedom, then, and in devotion to our Higher Power, these following suggestions are given. They have been found to greatly accelerate recovery, and bring much joy and happiness besides.
1. Work the 12 steps by turning them into actions you have taken. (Slower, more painful way: work the 12 steps by feeling, thinking, or arguing with others about them).
2. Talk about what you have done and how it worked or failed to work, and talk with others about what they have done. (Slower, more painful ways: talk about what you are going to do and what others are going to do; work the steps alone; work the steps with people who are active addicts; work with thinkers rather than doers.)
3. Treat recovery like an radical experiment, and your soul the laboratory. Test everything out for yourself. Look for solid results. (Slower, more painful way: treat recovery like an obligation, the end of your life, a social group, a support group, a self-help group. Recovery is a radical spiritual process of awakening.)
4. Define spirit in terms of how alive you feel and how functional you are in the world and in yourself. In other words, do inspired actions rather than be spiritual; live in a spirited and creative way, rather than stick to rules that keep you shut down. (Slower, more painful way: define spirit as a set of rules and restrictions to our creative freedom, stay negative and shallow, breathe from the top of your chest.)
Take these four suggestions and you have the basic traits of the 8YSTEM:
- The 8YSTEM is a living system of actions. See suggestion 1.
- The 8YSTEM is a proven system of definite practical suggestions to be taken with others. Suggestion 2.
- The 8YSTEM is a dynamic system. Dynamic means it has the power to move you. Letting yourself be so moved is Suggestion 3.
- Finally, the 8YSTEM of recovery is precise in its goal: the 8YSTEM aims to recover our creative freedom as human beings. This goal combines the inspirational and functional aspects of the spiritually awake, as per suggestion 4.
If that sounds exciting to you (it does to me!) then you are in the right place. Welcome.
