Control, Humility and a Hotel Elevator

A few weeks before I got sober, George, the main character from my first ever blog post, moved down to Madison, Wisconsin to live with me. The goal in him coming to live there was to make sure I survived long enough to make it to the end of school and go to treatment. Those weeks were a misery for him. He was tasked with limiting my consumption and access to money because I refused to go abstinent. I told him and my family that if I lost access to my drug of choice, cocaine, then I wouldn't go to treatment when the time came.

Yes, news flash, I was a manipulative drug addict.

Many things over those weeks have stuck with me throughout my recovery, but there was one thing that stood out the most. One day, it was morning time and we were in the elevator in his hotel. I asked him what we were going to do for dinner tonight. He looked at me and said, "Jay, I don't even know what I'm having for lunch, let alone dinner." I looked at him like he was absolutely insane. This concept of letting the day unfold without having every variable down to a T was very foreign to me. Actually, it still is very foreign to me.

Something that I still hold onto, 2 years into my recovery, is the structure of my days. Everything that I do goes into my calendar, no matter what it is. My days are always booked out days in advance. And no, it is not because I'm popular, it is just because that's how I operate. I feel the need to control variables in my life that are able to be controlled.

Yes, two years later, I still have control issues. I still look back at that time in the elevator and think to myself, what the fuck, how does someone live their life not knowing what they're doing later that day.

While I do still have control issues, they are nowhere near what they were when I first got started on this journey. I am able to see the way other people live their life and am able to recognize that continuing to practice letting go of control may one day lead me to where George is.

One of the biggest things that I consider a super power in my recovery is my ability to look at other people's perspectives and adopt the ones that fit as my own too. Life is all about perspectives and being open to change.

My perspective on life before I started to help myself was hugely flawed. I used to view life as this miserable thing. I always remember what one of my high school teachers once told me, "life sucks and then you die." I know, what type of high school teacher says that to a bunch of teenagers? I resonated so much with that though.

I thought this was the truth though. The truth of life.

I used to think that I knew everything. I used to think the way I did things was the right way. I needed things to happen a certain way in order for me to feel safe, for me to feel okay. When this story in the elevator happened, it was the first time I realized that maybe there was a different way of living. I wanted what George had. I wanted his nonchalance about his day. I wanted his freedom. I wanted his way of living and his ability to be okay with not knowing what happens next.

When somebody lives differently than me, my first thought is no longer that this person is insane. My first reaction is a form of curiosity rather than judgement.

The real shift though is the open-mindedness that I've developed.

This is humility. I actually love this word. I used to think humility meant that I didn't think I was the best person in the room. I thought I was so humble because I viewed myself as lower than everyone else. I have since heard a definition of humility that really opened my eyes; humility is the idea that we have a lot to learn, but that we also have a lot to teach. We're not the worst person in the room, and we're also not the best person in the room.

That was a perspective shift I never saw coming. So you're telling me I can be egotistical even though I hate myself? Yup, that's exactly what I'm telling you. And that doesn't come from me, that comes from something I learned from someone else.

Most things that I talk about are things I've learned from other people. These aren't original ideas. These aren't new, groundbreaking philosophies. They're things I've picked up from other people because I became open to learning new ways of living.

I had so much to learn and still have so much to learn.

Still, I try to control things in my life. Granted, these control issues show up more so in things that I'm actually able to control rather than things I can't control. The control issues, though, are still very much there. The lesson in the elevator that day was not that I need to be like George. The lesson was that my way is not the only way. The lesson was that I don't need to be so rigid in my beliefs. The lesson was that I can continue to learn and to adapt to the new lessons that I am learning on a day to day basis.

With all this being said, I still think George is crazy for not knowing what he was having for dinner that night.