Oh dear.  Another morning and another blank mind.  I have now written a blog  a day for nine days, but this might be the morning when I am unable to articulate a cogent thought.  This is Thursday.  Two week ago was my last Thursday to work for a Tampa area addiction treatment center. I quit that job for reasons which do not need to be discussed here.  I am happy to have my Thursdays back, but I am also missing the satisfaction which comes from working for courageous individuals who are determined to take their lives back. For some, the internal voice of addiction will not allow them to stay in recovery at this time.  They will leave the treatment center with some additional information or some internal sense of the benefits of recovery.  If lucky, they will live long enough to pick up whatever else they need to finish the process of reclaiming themselves and the life they deserve. 

For those unable to complete the treatment program and leave with a solid base of a recovery program, friends, family and all too often treatment professionals will shake their heads and make statements such as “They just did not want it bad enough.” or “They  are too self centered and do not care  that their addiction has such adverse affects on others.”  , “They had their chance. or  They deserve whatever happens.”


It is convenient to think that we all have free will; that if we do not have Alzheimer’s, a brain tumor, a diagnosed developmental disability or a diagnosed mental illness (even that is sometimes not considered a reason for not making unhealthy decisions) we can freely decide to make what the larger community thinks are healthy, moral/ethical decisions. If we do not make such decisions it is because we are self centered, selfish, immoral, bad people.   Interesting.  Yet, the National Institute of Health estimates that 35.5 % of people in the United States are obese and 74% of men are overweight.  According to Food and Business News the snack food industry is a 374 billion dollar industry in North America.    (One can find different statistics from varying sources but all agree that the numbers are high)  Do we really want to suggest that all people who eat unhealthy food  or all overweight men (74%) are bad, mentally ill, or mentally deficient people?  Perhaps there are those who would claim that all we men are mentally deficient. Certainly most of we males have been accused of thinking with only one part of our anatomy, but obviously  the truth is that all of we humans sometimes make decisions which are not healthy, considerate of our own health or the health of others; decisions which makes us appear “stupid” no matter how high the number we achieve on the intelligence quotient scale.

Why is this?  If we have free will and we are reasonably intelligent, moral/ethical people we will always make intelligent, ethical/moral decisions. Right?   Wrong!  Many factors affect how our brain operates. We can now often document which parts of the brain are not functioning and some of the many factors which block that part of our brain from fully functioning.  We know that certain drugs decrease  the amount of certain chemicals and that if we stop using the drug it will take some time for the brain to begin producing those chemicals on their own.  We know that any frequently repeated behavior becomes a habit which then allows us to engage in a behavior without having to consciously go thorough a decision making process.  Just think what would happen if we had to relearn to hold a pencil every time we wanted to use one or if we had to relearn to drive or do the dishes or to dress every day! There is a sound evolutionary reason why habits are so difficult to break. Unfortunately our minds do not seem to distinguish between good habits and negative habits.   Thus, when we have an unhealthy habit it is very difficult to change that habit.  When we have an habit which also has a physically addictive aspect it is doubly difficult to change or break that habit.

There are those folks who can seemingly stop an unhealthy habit by sheer force of will. Sadly these are the folks who may be miserable because they have not replaced their unhealthy behavior or thinking with any healthy behavior or thinking. They are miserable and tend to make everyone with whom they have contact miserable.  Sometimes we  think that they were more tolerable when they were actively addicted or engaged in addictive behavior!

My point is three fold:  (1) We all have addictive behavior and are in no position to judge others even if their addictive behavior is more immediately dangerous or destructive.  (2) We are just beginning to be able to identify how various  factors affect how a particular brain functions  and (3) If we have any free will it is very limited and can be unavailable to all of us at any given moment.

Free will implies the ability to not only not choose one behavior but to choose another behavior.  It would be lovely if I picked up the newspaper (yes, I still read a hand held printed version although I also get it on my ipad and my computer) and discovered that all we humans are now making decisions based on what seems most logical, most considerate of the needs of everyone; that all our decisions were based on unconditional love for all people.  It would be lovely if I could promise  myself and you, the reader, that I am only going to have loving, non-judgmental, non- prejudicial thoughts and behavior the rest of today. I cannot promise that.  I can promise that within the limits of the functioning of my mind I will do my best to make decisions which are loving and to not feed my unhealthy thoughts.

The reader will notice that I have not, in this brief blog, broached the subject which has so occupied manyt philosophers; to wit, “How do we determine what is fair, just, moral or ethical?”

In my previous blog I talked about the H of the HOW of the 12 step program– the honesty.   Today I want to address my understanding of the O of the HOW of the program – the open mindedness.

    In The Big Book Sponsorship Guide it suggests that the sponsor put the following question to the person he/she is sponsoring:  “Open mindedness:  Will you lay aside any prejudices, experience the program and access the results for yourself (yes-no)?”

This is basically the same question which I “hear” Jesus asking the disciples; which my Buddhist teacher guides me to ask; which every philosopher and other teacher I have studied has suggested.  They are all asking whether I have the courage to identify and begin the process of  temporarily suspending all the “truths” I have learned about myself, others and the world.   I know that at an early age, I had already internalized truths based on size, race, gender, age, nationality and many other artificial differences.  I did not learn that I was supposed to question what others were telling me, but some of the time I did question what others were telling me.  Actually, another, less active part of me, wanted to openly question much of what I was being told, particularly about other people. Thus, I know for a fact that by age 5 I had already amassed a host of “labels” which I could apply to people and situations.  At a very young age, I knew that these labels were limited at best and often hurtful at their worst.   Knowing that there was something “wrong” did not stop me from using them on myself or others in a very negative manner.  I “knew” that being attracted to people of the same sex was wrong. I knew that being part Native American was not something I wanted to share.  I knew that when my mother said that “those people were just as good as we were as long as they stayed on their side of the tracks,” that it was very strange that the tracks divided the good people or worthwhile people from the less worthwhile people.

 I learned many “facts/truths” about women; about very specific people, about my own lack of worth; about “those people!”  “Those people” were always “not us.” They were a different color, had more or less money, drank and fell down in public, were not “American. …”  The list was and is endless.  In the midst of this I remember being told that I was to “think for myself” but every time I did, I was told that I was bad or wrong.

 Much later, I found out that others were also filled with fear and anxiety because of the prejudices they had learned about themselves and others.  It made sense to me that we humans would try to find ways to avoid thinking about issues which provoked such anxiety and fear.  I learned to lose myself in books. I also believed that if I got enough education people would begin to love and respect me (at least respect me). Education became my addictive behavior. It was also what I enjoyed and it did not seem to hurt others unless I got so immersed in studying that I ignored the humans’ cries all around me.

 When I began to study philosophy in college, for the first time I was rewarded for questioning all the previously learned “truths.”    I did not, however, question the “truths” I had learned about myself even though my world view did expand.

I did not have a sponsor, but I had wonderful mentors and teachers who constantly challenged me to “lay aside any prejudices, experience the program, and access the results for yourself.”  In my case, the program was not the 12-step program, although I was introduced to it by one of my mentors.  The program was the graduate course which did nothing except question the definition of justice; it was the time I spent with the Tlingit Chief, David, questioning what it meant to be a man; it was the time I spent in therapy questioning how much of myself I was running from; it was the time I spent writing papers as part of the racial justice committee asking how I learned to be racist (not whether I had, but how ….).

 My Buddhist teachers have invited me to just notice, without judging myself, how often I label myself and others and to practice being present without the use of those labels or without justifying the use of those labels.

When I began to more seriously study the 12-step program because I was referring others to it, I was told about the “O” in the HOW of the program.  I would attend meetings in which someone would read something which started that the only requirements for membership was a desire to stop using or to find a new way of life; that they did not care what or how much one had used, who one’s connections were, what color or race or age or gender or sexual orientation one was; just whether one wanted to explore a new way to live.    To me that meant letting go of the ego; letting go of the labels I use to limit myself and others.  

 In my mind, the invitation to be open minded is an invitation to open oneself to exploring another way of taking care of oneself; another way of being present (or just being present).  For me learning is only possible when I have the courage to be open to new ways of looking at myself and the world.   Whether it is the steps of the 12-step program or some other system of beliefs, I have the opportunity and the freedom of just being present as me.    The danger is, of course, that we let go of one set of beliefs only to allow ourselves to be imprisoned by another set of beliefs.   That is why the sponsor suggests that one “access the results for yourself” and not just accept someone’s word.

 In the next blog I will explore my understanding of the third part of this trinity – the W or willingness of the HOW of the 12 step program.