This is a repeat performance, but I think it bears repeating! Just Follow Rudolph!

Just Follow Rudolph!


I have to give full credit for these thoughts to Reverend Leo Booth, who is a colleague, friend and inspiration in some of my more whimsical moments of healing, as well as one of those who manages to remind me that spirituality is at the heart of everything we do!

Yesterday, Pere Leo was working with our folks at the Residential Center and inspired them all with his interpretation of "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer." I am taking the liberty to share it in the Christmas Spirit. So, here is my interpretation of his interpretation one of the world's favorite Christmas myths (that he reminded me was probably a Polar version of "The Ugly Duckling" and others!)

We all went to school with Dasher (the Athlete/Cheerleader) and Dancer (the Track Star/Ballet Dancer), Prancer (the "Too Good Ones" who never talked to us) and Vixen (need I say more?) , Comet (the one we never could measure up to) and Cupid (our true "first love" -- the one we never even made eye contact with), Donder (the one who would tolerate us and talk to us in class, but never sit near us on the bus) and Blitzen (the one who tortured us with taunts and pokes that hurt more in our hearts than on our arms and legs). We WERE Rudolph. We were a little bit different. Sure, they let us INTO the Reindeer games...as the water carrier or time keeper. If we were really lucky (meaning they were desperate), we got to play right field. If we told the same joke they told, nobody laughed. If we had the right answer, they convinced us it was wrong.

Many of us grew up to be different in other ways. Maybe we had a secret life. We saw ourselves as waaay too fat or waaaay too skinny and never did understand what others saw. What we saw in the mirror never matched. We starved or had surgery after surgery. We walled ourselves up in our room or on the other side of town using drugs or on the internet or shopping.

Perhaps, we found that a few drinks made us "different" or more like them. They laughed at our jokes. They let us stumble into the parties. Yet, we were still different. We didn't stop. We gave them MORE stories at which to laugh. We heard about dancing on the tables and barfing in the fountain. We made it OK because we were AT the party and, after all, we didn't remember it any way.

As the years passed, though, we still ended up on the sidelines. They ended up calling us more and different names -- "Drunk" "Druggie." "Addict." "Annie Rexic." "Pervert." The list goes on. If we were lucky, we hid in the back of the crowd and tried to stay "like" the others, even though our hidden, painful lives became more and more hidden and painful.

Then, one Special Eve, in the midst of our fog, many times lost in the woods of our secret, painful lives, a Messenger comes to call.
"Rudolph, with your Nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Perhaps, this messenger isn't exactly Santa Clause. It may be a brick wall...literally. The one the car runs into or the back wall of the jail. It may be Homeland Security knocking on the door in SWAT gear. It may be our family circling the living room with letters written in hand for our intervention. It may be the cameras and crew of "Intervention" filming our lives without us figuring out that it is about our disease and us going to treatment. It may be THAT headache or the one time the money ran out or the one time the purging didn't work or whatever. Regardless, the Messenger is that thing, person, event in our lives that invites us to wake up, find our inner calling and move to the front of the herd.

Recovery isn't an easy journey. Embracing our very "defect" as the gift that makes us who we are and using it to bring gifts to others is the heart of why there's a "We" in the whole Recovery process. The cartoon doesn't show how very, very difficult it must have been for Rudolph to walk to the front of the line, past all those "Superstars" that had laughed at him, put him down, shamed him, and invited him to feel so worthless and useless for all those years. He looks so cute and innocent and happy in the images. Could he possibly trust that he would not be criticized, jeered, taunted and laughed at again. Shouldn't he watch to make sure there were no reindeer pellets in the midst of the confetti and ticker tape in the parade? How could he just forget all those years and all those times he looked in the mirror and ONLY saw that HUGE, RED, FLASHING nose? Isn't that all they saw? What about the huge burden of leading the very crew that had thrown him under the bus so very many times? That need to do it perfectly must have been immense! Surely, he would mess it up like he had done with every high fly to right field! Would Santa forget and hail, "On, Dasher and Dancer....(You know the rest)!" and forget to mention Rudolph. (If Santa is a parent, like I am, he'll forget at least one or mess up and call "...Blonder and Ditzen..." or something else at least once a Christmas Eve!).

Regardless, like Santa, Recovery is a call for us to step to the front, be ourselves and let the gifts that are within us shine. The pain of our past, the struggle of Recovery, and the reality that life is neither fair, nor easy, are all part of the Message. Rudolph didn't have to make the toys, check the list, pack the sleigh, feed the other reindeer, map out the route and figure out the weather. He just had to let that silly red nose shine and be the littlest reindeer at the front of the team, leading the way. (He also did not get to look over his shoulder and make sure that the other reindeer were eating his dust and their "crow." That was the job of the Messenger!)

It's hard work keeping our red noses polished, our eyes on the road ahead, staying balanced in our brief landings on rooftops and mountaintops, and just getting through the nights. On top of that, like Rudolph, we never know if all the gifts go where we think they should. We just let our light shine, do our job and move on. We never really know if all the joy we hope for comes to fruition. However, the reality is that the Messenger knows the List, having checked it twice without our ever seeing it, and just calls us to do our job with our silly red noses.

If we are painstaking in keeping our noses clean, we get to play in ALL the reindeer games and more. Life becomes a joy-filled journey, free of the burdens and baggage that we collected in all those years, when we believed our own fairy tales about how defective we were. The fear that pierced us when the Messenger called us no longer plagues us and sends us running. We are called upon over and over to just be ourselves. Things we never imagined can become real!

Whether the Messenger is one of painful reality or one that would have angels sing in the night or little oil lamps burn for eight days or any of the other wonderful traditions that carry us through this time of year into the light, may the light of a little red nose burn brightly in your mirror and challenge you to move to the front of the Team and be precisely what you were created for!

Just Follow Rudolph!

Thanks, Father Leo and Happy Holidays!

PS - There is no Gravity -- Life just sucks!

Now, that doesn't sound like a very good start for the first blogging in 3 months, but please bear with me, it really might not turn out that way! Just for the record, in the last 2 months, I've been through preparing for Board Re-Certification, Winter, Mardi Gras in my hometown, Studying for the first time in 10 years, a 7 day whirlwind tour of marketing and education through the northeast, along with my first stroll down Broadway (BTW, you MUST see "Wicked: The Musical") the birth of my 5th grandchild and life in general. So, if I'm remiss and behind, to quote Steve Martin on SNL, "EXCUUUUUUUUUUUSE me!"

This week, I appeared on Facebook at the urging of several colleagues and family members. To my pleasure and surprise, I heard from many, many friends and a couple of very old special memories. One in particular taught me a new lesson: The definition of serenity. I got a hit on Facebook from a name I recommended. Let's call him Matt, for convenience. I recognized the name immediately, since his last name was NOT a typical Cajun name and one that stood out. What jarred my memory even more was the memory of a very gentle, kind giant of a man who came into treatment hurting and longing for some way of stopping the pain. He took everything his counselors and the rest of the treatment team had to heart and ran with it. I look back and think that this was just 3 years into my career in Addiction Medicine and less than 5 years in my own journey in healing. If I had been my supervisor today, I probably would have told one of my peers after a supervision session that I still had not a clue what I was doing, I was just trying to stay between the guardrails! Anyway, once I acknowledged Matt on Facebook, he filled me in on the last 19.98 years. Yes, almost 20 years. He talked of how grateful he was and how much he appreciated the meetings he'd been directed to and the wisdom he'd been given and all that jazz. He mentioned the peace he'd found, many of the losses he had and how much he knew he still had to work on his Recovery every time he turned around. He mentioned the gifts of the Program and Dr. Bob and Bill W. and all those who had guided him along the way. He spoke with deep gratefulness of how supportive his family was and how, when all else failed, his Beagles listened and never thought about using, drinking or acting out in any way! He seemed to laugh at some of the irony of my "ranch" in Texas and how I had a herd of struggling addicts to move along, admonishing them to pay attention. Then, he did the most amazing thing. Without knowing it, he plastered a bumper sticker right there on the page:

PS -- There is no Gravity -- Life Just Sucks! (and it's all Good!)

Acutally, here's his quote (with some confidentiality modifications!): "Oh, and a post script: [My medicall illness] has attacked ...and moved me up to a Stage 6. I'm on the Transplant list @ ... Low platelet count prevents me from [the next level of medical treatment], but other things are coming along. Can't dwell on it, life goes on. Besides, I got a bonus of 20 years that I would have had (let alone, remember)! It's all good." My only thought was, "Holy Crap! He just gave me all this wonderful stuff and put the 'reality' in the PS!"

As I reflected, I've seen this before. In particular, I think of a man I'll call Buck. He wrote from a county prison where he was being warehoused. He told me of how he was taking advantage of the time to read, write, take long walks around a gym track, listen to music on his CD player, and visit the library in the County Jail. He spoke of how reading the "Classics" had helped him with his loneliness and how sharing the Big Book of AA with others had helped keep him grounded in staying sober in spirit. He included articles about the brain he'd copied from Time Magazine. He went on for 3 pages before he wrote something like this: "Oh, yeah, they've had to increase the Vitamin C to 10,ooo mg a day to counter the chemotherapy. My colon cancer was Stage IV, but they think they were able to get it all. I have to wait another two weeks before they can start the radiation treatment. Once that is done, I can go back to the Prison." He went back to some more statements of gratitude and encouragement for those of us who were still working with those who were "in denial."

These kind of things remind me that peace comes from deep within. Both of these men reminded me that they had something I forget to seek many days. They did not look for what was painful, lacking or in short supply in their lives. Heaven knows they had enough to worry, complain, or fret about. However, something in their spiritual anchor allowed them to move that to the Post Script and to be clear that they were focused on what was true about themselves, about life and about Recovery. If you read the body of their letters, you heard about a life that was full, content and wonderful. In both cases (as with other times I've been given this kind of gift), I smiled as I was moved to tears of gratitude. In both cases, no, in all cases, I am stunned when the reality of their lives hits me, taking my breath away. I am left in awe, not particularly because they deal with life threatening illnesses, but because they face life threatening illnesses in the post-script!

That is the harsh reality - Life sucks. I can't minimize that. One of the lessons they did NOT teach me in medical school was that every single one of my patients will eventually die. With any luck, very few will be on my watch! With really good luck, most will outlive me, since I treat a population that is, by and large, much younger than I am! Regardless, every single human being will expire, transition, or go kaput! Every single day, each and every one of us will face some sort of disappointment! With luck, it will be that Starbucks is out of Carmel Cinnamon Dulce Fat-free Sugar-Free Peroxide-Free Three Squirt for our Venti Triple Soy Extra Hot Latte!!! On most days, it will be far more than that. On some days, the disappointment will feel too much to bear and the next day will be worse. THAT SUCKS! I can't change that. If I'm really, really lucky, though, I can be in a serene enough place to surrender to the trust that this Universe is loving, creating and generous enough to guide me through it to the other side. I can hold on to the notion that it is the fact of the frost that MAKES the peaches make fruit, but only if there are at least 29 days of frost every winter. I don't have to try to feel peachy warm when I'm at risk of frostbite. I just have to stay warm, get out of the cold when I can and remember that Spring will come, if I don't march northward!

Woody Allen said some variation of this: "Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon." I think there's some wisdom here. It's just the truth. Life has all those things. We can choose to focus on them, or we can see the sunrise, hear the laughter, find the joy and notice that some sucky force keeps our feet on the ground and allows us not to float aimlessly into the ethers!


PS -- There is no Gravity -- Life Just Sucks! (and it's all Good!)