Manipulation

I don't believe that I've ever met, or even heard of, an alcoholic that doesn't know how to manipulate people or circumstances. The truth is that we all know how to be manipulating and most of us are very good at it. Those of us that drank enough to be in the recovery program ETA required this ability in order to reach the depths of our addiction.

When I came into recovery, I was told that I only had to change one thing: Every Thing. (This is part of why I call the program Every Thing Anonymous, or ETA.) I got a sponsor and started working the steps with her. Thus began my journey of changing everything about myself.

Before I actually changed anything (except picking up the drink or drug) I had to discover what was already there. I had lied to myself for so long that I no longer knew what was part of me and which part was a lie, so my sponsor helped me delve deep down inside of me and see what was there. I have to admit that I was terrified of what might be hidden in there, but the old HP and my sponsor went with me and we found nothing all that scary. Some of what we discovered was rather unattractive, however and these are the things I needed to change. (The old HP did most of the work, I just had to remain willing.)

One of the things that we discovered was that I am a hustler, a manipulator, a user. This is what I do; this is who I am. I was less than thrilled to see this in myself, though I knew it was true. I wanted to cut out that part of me, for at the time I thought it was completely disgusting and must be eradicated at once. Everybody knows that a hustler is to be despised! I mean, come on, get rid of it, hurry!! Yuk!

Yet this characteristic remained. I fought hard trying to evict it from me and still it remained. I resisted the impulse, I told on myself when I was tempted to manipulate, all to no avail. Dang! What was up with this? What else could I do?

"You could change it", came the thought in my mind. "You are asked to change everything about you, not remove everything." Oh. I wondered how I was to go about changing it. How can anybody change something bad and make it something okay? I was clueless.

My mom has Alzheimer's and was going through a phase where she was throwing all her stuff away. When she began throwing away her good jewelry, my dad collected it all and put it away. My mom didn't have anything to make her "pretty" anymore and she was very sad. I knew why my dad locked it all up and even agreed with that decision, but how could we still give mom her "pretties" without the jewelery? There had to be a way...

I thought it over and then I went to a craft store. I bought several thin head bands and lots of sparkly beads. Some of the beads had designs painted in gold, some were almost gaudy. I bought many different colors, shapes and sizes. Then I went home and attached the beads to the headbands using fishing twine. I gave the headbands to my mom and she loved them. So did my dad. Total cost was $2-$3 per headband. Having mom throw away 2-3 bucks was no big deal. My dad said, "That is a super idea! Where did you come up with it?"

I came up with it because of my hustler, manipulating, conniving abilities. Only then did I realize why the old HP didn't remove that characteristic. When you strip the selfishness out of it, you are left with an amazing ability to problem solve. Had I managed to remove this 'defect', I would have thrown away a very powerful tool. A very expensive tool, also. I practically sold my soul for that skill.

Today, I keep the old HP close and use this ability very carefully because I'm not always aware when selfishness sneaks in to my motives. I'm still a manipulator and, today, I'm grateful for that. I no longer believe that manipulation is a bad thing, although many people feel manipulation is always 'bad'. In my opinion it is the selfishness that needs to be removed. Selfishness is the big troublemaker in my life. You know, I always suspected that.

Have a good and sober day.