Zen and the 12 Steps

On Monday nights I often go to the SF Zen Center for the Discussion Group for People in Recovery. It's funny how I started going there --- about five years ago I lived by the Zen Center and I went to a beginners zazen session. It started at oh-god-thirty on a Saturday morning, and I felt I needed an evening alternative.

While at the Zen Center I picked up a flyer that said "Monday Night Discussion Group: 7:30pm," and I thought ah yes, that's for me. It wasn't until half way through the 1.5 hour session that the teacher said "now is the time we introduce ourselves and I'll go first...my name is ........ and I'm an alcoholic." All 30 or 40 people around the room introduced themselves with their affiliations and I realized I was in some kind of Buddhist 12 step meeting. But you know what? I love it.

We talk about spirituality, compassion, patience, atonement, and the four noble truths. Alcoholics and addicts talk about their alternating egomania and feelings of inferiority, the drama they seem to create or hold on to, their appreciation of the little things in life that give them joy, and their stories and mine have so many parallels. I attended for about six or eight months and stopped, but I started going again last March.

Tonight I talked. I shared a story about me. I tried talking two other times over the years but my stage fright is terribly debillitating and I couldn't get through my words. Tonight, however, I started out by saying that I was really afraid of talking in this big group, so I would just talk to my socks. I just kept looking at my socks using cupped-hands blinders and I got all the way through what I wanted to say without crying or stuttering, and that's a big deal. A huge deal!

I often keep things to myself when I have something I need to say to someone, but I am afraid their feelings will be hurt or they will get angry and tell me I'm wrong to feel the way I do -- or they will make fun of me. With friends I'm a lot more confident. With a lover, however, I have the stage fright and I cry and I stutter and I'm embarrassed by my immaturity, so I keep things to myself more often.

I will get better and healthier by going to groups like this and finding my voice, sharing parts of myself that aren't perfect. I will stop stuttering and crying and I will have more confidence when I need to talk to a lover.

I did a good thing tonight, talking. And I actually made people laugh with what I said, and they laughed with me not at me. So I'm feeling pretty zen right now. Deep breaths feel pretty good.