This is a little exercise I learned in my program of AA. Whenever I'm up against one of life's obstacles I re-word the steps to fit the obstacle. Then I work the steps just like I do for my addiction.
1- Admited I am powerless over pain, that my life has become unmanageable.
What does "unmanageable" mean to me? It means that I cannot control and direct my life to reach the goals I have chosen.
How is my life unmanageable? I cannot control how my body is going to feel from one day to the next. Last Sunday I had some friends come visit from out of town, but I'd been feeling like ***** for days. I _realy_ like this couple, and I'm not about to let a stupid disease rob me of the pleasure of good company, so I boosted my meds a little and I felt great. Okay, so maybe not great, but certainly good enough to go out for a wonderful lunch and chat. After that I got caught up on some paperwork at home, fixed my transmission, went to a meeting and then out for a date with my girlfriend. What a _great_ Sunday.
Monday I came back to my regular life. No boosting meds. Still had enough in me to make it thru the work day, went out to dinner with my sponsor, picked up a few groceries, and then crashed. Crashed hard. Had to take extra blood pressure meds, pain meds. No more boosting, I can only take those boosters for a little while before the side effects catch up with me. Now it's Tuesday and I left work early, poked around the web a little and slept for 2 hours. Still feel like ******, blood pressure is all over the place.
Manageable would be a life that is _not_ centered around medications. A life where I don't have to figure out every single day how many pills I'm going to need for what level of activity, where having _one_ good day doesn't require booster meds to feel normal, followed by a nasty crash afterwards.
Manageable would be the kind of life healthy people have.
A life I clearly don't have.
So yes, my life is unmanageable by me. Thank God I have all these wonderful meds so at least my life is manageable by my docs.
What about "powerless", what's that all about? Powerless means that I can't force my will to overcome the pain. I can't force it to the ground and beat it out of my life. The pain wins every time. Oh I can do the heavy duty Tai Chi / Yoga thing and focus my mind into an overwhelming display of will power and just tunnel thru the pain like some crazed animal. But that doesn't make the pain go away, it's just a bit of endorphins getting kicked up by force of will. I still hurt like ******, I just overwhelm my mind with my own endorphins and turn into some kind of animal. That's not defeating the pain, it's just moving over to the "dark side" with it. It doesn't last very long either.
I simply don't have the physical power to make the pain go away. I am not stronger than the chemicals flowing thru my body and causing my disease, and pain. If I stick my hand in a fire, my flesh will burn. What I have inside of me is just as much a chemical reaction as a fire, and there's no way I can use my will power against the laws of chemistry.
I am unable to control the chemistry inside my body, and that has made my life unmanageable. As long as I continue to try and control my internal chemistry with nothing more than will power I will continue to have an unmanagable life. If I stay in this condition of unmanageability I will slowly go insane.
Now that I've written all of the above I realize that being powerless over pain is not all that different than being powerless over booze or drugs. The booze wins every time, no matter what I do. The pain wins every time, no matter what I do.
Maybe I should move on to Step 2, this is getting depressing.
Mike
