Lack or the Lack there of…

What is lack.  Lack of money.  I have plenty.  Lack of time.  Have a lot of that since I sold the business.  Food.  No lack there.  We alway have more than we can eat.  What do I lack?  Do I write all day due some sense of emptiness.  Do I lack attention, love.  No.  If I feel less than, not good enough there must be something I wish to attain.  “The belief that we are lacking something, if we believe it thoroughly, must arise out of the assumption that there is something to attain.” (Wake Up To What You Do, by Diane Rizzetto)  When and If we are awake to what is, to Just This, then we are full, full with the richness of the moment.  Our minds are full so there can be no thoughts of lack.  Full or 1/2 full, a glass of milk, a bottle of juice, is just that, just as it is.  There is no attainment, no effort to attain.

I judge myself by what I attain, what I can do, how I much I achieve in one day.  We are taught by society to place an emphasis on acquisitions.  We are impressed by people positions.  This even happens in the spiritual world.  Pema Chodron refers to it as going to the “spiritual smorgasboard.”

Listen to yoga practitioners talk about how long they meditate, how many times they went to class last week, how long they can stay in handstand, and how much calmer they feel now that they are using mantra meditation.  There is always more to learn, more knowledge to accumulate.  Spiritual materialism is real, but the truth is that what we do not know is always infinite

Many people want to achieve enlightenment.  I guess that means that we are never good enough as we are in this moment.  We must always be trying  to improve ourselves and the world we live in.  Funny thing is a mind that sees a glass half empty will never be satisfied.  There can never be enough no matter how much you learn, how much you earn, how much you have.  Satisfaction is impossible.  So sad.

What do we lack?  We lack the awareness to know the difference between being and having.  We care little for the    well-being of our own planet, mindlessly depleting it of its limited resources.  What will we do when there is no more natural gas, no more fossil fuels, no more water, no more bees, no more clean air?  Then we will know the meaning of “lack.”  Will we then attack other countries who have these resources?  Should we ever take what is not freely given to us?  And can we ever learn to give freely of what we have?

The hungry ghost mentality breeds greed and deception.  The less we think we have the more we attach to what is ours.  We have less and less to give because we believe we are  somehow lacking.  If we do give, we put a price tag on our giving and use it to manipulate others.  “The price tag says, ‘I give, but you pay back.  Now you owe me.” (Waking Up to What You Do, by Diane Rizzetto).  We want to be appreciated, to be seen by others as generous and kind when in fact we are selfish and self-serving.  Giving with conditions closes down the heart.  Paying attention to our patterns around giving and receiving, bringing as awareness to our ability to give freely can shine a bright light on how we define ourselves and others.

The act of giving, dana, as the buddhist refer to it, is a practice that opens the heart.  Giving freely, unconditionally, can heal anger, fear, resentment and jealousy.  Taking is an addiction that can rule our lives.  Giving stops this compulsion in its tracts.  Giving, letting go of what we have, teaches us that everything we own is only temporally ours.  The minute someone needs it more than we do, it is time to let it go.  The key is to cultivate the awareness, the understanding, the ability to see the need in others and give what we can to help them without any expectation of return.

“One act of generosity, no matter how small, generates yet another.  The flow of giving and receiving is endless.”  (Waking Up To What You Do,  by Diane Rizzetto).

 

Drunk Driving – Don’t Do It!

The following is a comment I received on my post about “Moderation Management.”   From the what this says, moderation did not work for Audrey.

“Well I certainly hope you do better than the lady who introduced Moderation Management to the world.  In March 2000, Audrey Kishline, founder of “Moderation Management”, a controlled-drinking oriented, self-help program alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous, drove her pickup truck the wrong way down Interstate 90 near Seattle, Washington, USA, killing Richard Davis, 38, and LaSchell, his 12-year-old daughter, in a head-on collision.

Kishline was driving drunk. She pled guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide in August 2000 and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison in Washington. The incident sparked significant controversy around the world regarding the efficacy of controlled-drinking programs.  But some people say it works.  Didn’t work for me.”

Please send me your comments.

My comment – Call a taxi.  Get a designated driver.  Save your life and the lives of others.  Do not let your friends drive drunk.

Help For Problem Drinkers

“Everything in moderation, Petty.  Everything in moderation.”  My grand mother, Momo, shrunken and twisted  by a recent stroke, clenches my hand and probes my eyes.  “I love you, Momo.  I love you so much.”  I am thinking, how can she be so kind, so loving, so thoughtful?  She must be in such pain.  She holds my gaze.

This is the grandmother who worked as an accountant well into her eighties.  She did people’s tax returns and kept their books.  She knit, crocheted and needle-pointed up until she had the stroke.  She came each year for a month-long visit.  Everyday at 5:00 pm she put down her needle work and said, “I think it is martini time.”  She never had more than one.  Today, I believe in and attempt to exemplify my grandmother’s dying words.

“Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.”  (St. Augustine)

When I was struggling to overcome my bulimia, I often said, “This would be so much easier if I could just quit eating.  People who smoke too much can give up cigarettes completely.  The same is true of alcohol.  I cannot give up food.  I need it to survive.  This is so f _ _ king hard.”  It was hard, but I did it.  Today I eat whatever and whenever I want.  I particularly love dark chocolate covered almonds.  Ymmm.  In treatment, the therapists told me, “You can never, ever eat almonds again.  They are a trigger food for you.  If you eat them, you will binge and that will throw you right back into your bulimia.”   I guess they were wrong.

I do believe that moderation, the ability to make wise choices, depends on the individuals willingness to look at his/her unconscious thoughts, ideas, and patterns and how these things drive behavior.  My bulimia and a ten-year abstinence from alcohol forced me into long-term therapy.  I attended a week-long inpatient program at Caron in Pennsylvania where I retrieved long-lost memories of sexual abuse.  Bulimia is a by-product of such trauma.  I learned what drove my over eating and subsequent laxative use.  I wanted to stuff painful memories and present to the world someone who was a picture of health, physically and mentally.  What a crock!

Yes moderation requires work, but the result is freedom, freedom from fear, freedom to choose, freedom from rigidity and the prison it creates.

If you have a problem with alcohol, food, cigarettes, shopping, gambling and the like, ask for help.  Tell someone about your concerns.  Ask questions.  Do research. Quit the habit for at least 40 days and see what happens.  If you cannot quit, get help immediately.  Do not be the victim of an out of control habit.

Here is a resource you might find interesting.   http://www.moderation.org/whatisMM.shtml.  The following are clips from their website.
Why is a Moderation Program needed?

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and many other independent researchers, there are four times as many problem drinkers as alcoholics in this country. Yet there are very few programs that specifically address the needs of beginning stage problem drinkers, while there are literally thousands of programs for the smaller population who are seriously alcohol dependent.

By the time people reach serious stages of alcohol dependency, changing drinking becomes more difficult, and treatment is usually costly. MM believes that this situation needs to be remedied in the interest of public health and human kindness with early intervention and harm reduction programs. Moderation programs are less costly, shorter in duration, less intensive, and have higher success rates than traditional abstinence-only approaches.

Nine out of ten problem drinkers today actively and purposefully avoid traditional treatment approaches. This is because they know that most traditional programs will label them as “alcoholic”,  probably force attendance at 12 step and abstinence based meetings, and prescribe lifetime abstinence as the only acceptable change in drinking.

They may also have real concerns about how their participation in these programs will affect their jobs and ability to attain future medical and life insurance. MM is seen as a less threatening first step, and one that problem drinkers are more likely to attempt before their problems become nearly intractable.

Not surprisingly,  approximately 30% of MM members go on to abstinence-based programs.  This is consistent with research findings from professional moderation training programs. Traditional approaches that are based on the disease model of alcohol  dependence and its reliance on the concept of powerlessness can be particularly counterproductive for women and minorities, who often already feel like victims and powerless.

Outcome studies indicate that professional programs which offer both moderation and abstinence have higher success rates than those that offer abstinence only.  Clients tend to self-select the behavior change options which will work best for them.

What is Moderation Management?

Moderation Management (MM) is a behavioral change program and national support group network for people concerned about their drinking and who desire to make positive lifestyle changes. MM empowers individuals to accept personal responsibility for choosing and maintaining their own path, whether moderation or abstinence. MM promotes early self-recognition of risky drinking behavior, when moderate drinking is a more easily achievable goal.

What are the basic premises of MM?

Behaviors can be changed. MM agrees with many professionals and researchers in the field that alcohol abuse, versus dependence, is a learned behavior (habit) for problem drinkers, and not a disease. This approach recognizes that people who drink too much can suffer from varying degrees of alcohol-related problems, ranging from mild to moderate to severe. A reasonable early option for problem drinkers is moderation. Seriously dependent drinkers will probably find a return to moderate drinking a great challenge, but the choice to accept that challenge remains theirs.

Moderation is a reasonable, practical, and attainable recovery goal for many problem drinkers. Outcome studies indicate that brief intervention programs are successful and cost effective.

The Values that guide MM:

Members take personal responsibility for their own recovery from a drinking problem.
People helping people is the strength of the organization.
People who help others to recover also help themselves.
Self-esteem and self-management are essential to recovery.
Members treat each other with respect and dignity.