Advice

So, I have this intense desire to fix other people. I wish I could blame alcohol for this destructive pattern of behavior, but it was there long before I took my first drink. The alcohol only intensified it and made it easier to bypass the throbbing need to attempt working on myself and all the problems that came with being me. I found that drinking was the cure-all for many problems such as these, and it became a great solution to honing in all of my energies and ambitions to working on other people's problems. 

When life is devoid of meaning, there's nothing I'd rather do than get a thirty pack of Lone Star, turn off the phone, start mapping out the strategies I'm gonna use on my next victim, and get to work. Needless to say, I've had more than enough amends to make with people who I've tried to control and instruct on how to live the "right" way. 

These days, while the desire to change other people still looms deep in the recesses of my self-centered heart, I've been pretty successful at shutting it off and not letting the desire turn into tangible actions. At least, I think it has. I've definitely been accused more times than not of slipping in little "life lessons" with unsuspecting subjects of my mad world. 

One of my most thorough patients of my self-seeking methods was named Ashley. This isn't her real name, but due to anonymity purposes I'll leave it there. In my mind (but not reality), Ashley needed a real fix. She was on the streets, running around with a dude who didn't deserve her, and got herself deep into some drug problems. Despite my own drinking problems (an understatement), I decided that Ashlely needed to "straighten up." She needed to get her life together. She needed a little Jon Tucker therapy. So, I made my own list of what I thought Ashley should do with her life. It included getting into recovery (which I had never attempted myself). And so, as the little servant that I was at the time, I did some pretty heroic things for poor Ashley.

I helped her get a car (which I would eventually take back), I got her into a church group (which she would eventually run away from for good reason), I would bring her groceries (as long as she scratched my back), and even showed up to her baby's baptism (the baby of which I would try to get taken away by CPS). Needless to say, Ashley was a very valuable person in my life, not because I thought she contributed alot to my needs, but because I found life's deep purpose in fixing all of her problems.

I wish I could say that my maddening journey of fixing others stopped with Ashley, but really it was a continuing pattern that oozed through my grand self images of being a wonderful helper in the world. There were many Ashleys in my world, and God knows I still have some back in the corners of my mind that I owe amends to. 

And like I said earlier, the desire to change people didn't start when I started drinking, but the drink intensified it and blinded me from my own defects of character.

The worst thing I ever did "for" Ashley (at the time I surely didn't think it was wrong) was suspect she and her loser husband were doing drugs while she was pregnant, and call the CPS about it. Well, the CPS eventually went knocking on her door, and they searched the whole house. Not a drug was found on her. She was sober and doing everything a pregnant woman should've been doing to prepare for a child. And the last thing I remember is receiving a phone call from Ashley, crying, feeling betrayed, and asking me, How could you do this to me?

That was 2007, give or take a year. In 2009, on Christmas Eve, I had my last drink. Alcohol had finally become my master, and I saw it. I felt it. I knew deep inside that alcohol had me and I couldn't do anything about it. I went to my first recovery meeting, and for a year struggled with trying to accept that someone other than myself had a solution for my drinking. Day after day, I white knuckled not only the desires to drink, but also the anger, fear, and dishonesty that comes with untreated alcoholism. 

Finally, after a year or so of living in misery, I found a sponsor. And this sponsor saved my life. Although I hadn't drank, I was ready to die. I was ready to take some measures of my own to escape for good this impending disaster called life. It was hell not being able to fix myself or anybody else, and death sounded real good. 

But luckily, the man I ran into knew what he was talking about. He put me to work on the twelve steps, and soon I was seeing everything through a different lens. I was seeing my flaws. The memories of my shaky past started shooting through my mind like comets. And after about three months of intense stepwork, I finally saw what I needed to see. All of my problems weren't caused by other people, but they existed inside me. I just couldn't see them because I was always trying to focus on something else instead, namely alcohol. 

One of the many truths that I saw had to do with Ashley. I finally saw what I'd never seen before, which was my insane desire to "help" other people, even when they didn't want my help. I wondered how many people I'd done this same thing to. I wondered how in the world I would resolve this dilemma. But, most importantly, I had a spiritual awakening. 

I realized that no human power could fix me, and that I surely wasn't powerful enough to fix myself or anybody else. God became my fixer. That was 2010. 

I made most of my amends, and started going about relationships much differently. I stopped giving advice (yeah right!), or at least started catching myself giving advice. I never found Ashley though. I couldn't find her on Facebook, I couldn't find her in the directory, I couldn't find an email address or phone number. I didn't know if she was dead or alive. But, I knew I had to apologize for my wrongdoings. I needed her forgiveness. I needed her to free me from what I thought I was in bondage with - the remorse and shame of calling the CPS on her. 

And in 2014 I got that chance. I was checking my Facebook messages one day, and a random girl sent me a message. I didn't recognize the name, but after scanning through her pictures I realized it was her. My heart immediately felt excited that she was alive. I wanted to cry I was so happy. 

She gave me her number, I gave her mine, and immediately my phone rang. I heard her voice for the first time in seven years. After so much turmoil we'd both gone through, she told me she'd been sober about the same length of time I was. She'd managed to lose her loser husband (without my help!), and was successfully raising her kid (without my help!). She was completely self-sufficient and had a spiritual awakening of her own (again, without my help!). 

The first thing I told her was how sorry I was for calling the CPS, and before I could even finish the sentence, she said, Tucker! That was the best thing anybody's ever done for me! Thank you! When that happened, I woke up and I realized that I had to change!

I'll never forget what she told me on the phone that day. Today, she's sharing her story with countless numbers of people who are going down the same road as she was, and she's got a message to carry about how God transformed her into a beautiful, caring, compassionate, and sober mother. 

When life is devoid of meaning, I find meaning in fixing other people's problems and telling them how to live. While it looks to me like it's helpful, it's actually damaging and destructive. It produces resentment in other people, and destroys relationships. But thanks to God, I don't have to live that way anymore, and when the tendency flares up, I can see it, catch it, and get rid of it before it turns into hurtful action.