Can Watching Football Teach Me About Recovery?
There is an addiction treatment method for recovering alcoholics and addicts called Recovery Dynamics. It was created by a practical, wise old alcoholic, with some of the best professionals in the field of recovery. Recovery Dynamics uses the Twelve Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous as a modality for treatment, not just as an afterthought. There are many excellent exercises in the manual; this is one of my favorites for working with groups of addicts and alcoholics.
Can Watching Football Really Teach Me About Recovery?
The exercise, Watching A Football Game, begins with the group describing a running back carrying the football and being tackled behind the line of scrimmage. The description is reported in precise detail, including the angle of the player’s fall and which knee hit the ground first. The group is asked what happened? Everybody in the group typically looks at each other confused, staring at the group leader as if he or she a complete idiot. The group leader asks the same question again, going around the room asking each participant what happened. Invariably, they all describe the process somewhat differently.
The next step in the exercise the group leader asks the group, “If there were 77,000 people at the stadium that day, how many people saw it the same way?” Again come the looks of confusing and irritation from the group members at the leader. Again each group member is asked individually, sharing how many people at the stadium that day saw play exactly the same. Typically, they all say angrily, “All 77,000!” as if the leader is wasting their time.
Recovery Teaches Us Different Perspectives
This is followed with an in-depth discussion facilitated by the leader on all the different variables involved with the 77,000 people in attendance at the game, including how many views and possible interpretations of what took place when the player was tackled.
Examples: Somebody sitting in the first row on the fifty yard-line on the other side of the field would see the play much differently, than somebody sitting way up top on the side where the play took place. Or, a mother with two little children crying because they are cold and wet, may have only been able to glance at the play from the corner of her eye. Still another person, the father of the strong safety on the defensive team may have watched his son and didn’t even see the play at all! The examples are endless.
What does this have to do with recovery?
Everything!
We go through life believing the way we see things is the only way that it can be seen. More importantly, we often are not aware there is another way possible to see life or our circumstances, probably many alternative perspectives we are not aware of.
Example: A husband and wife have an argument, both interpreting the event completely different. They walk away with these incorrect or possibly skewed interpretations holding them as “facts”. Based on these “facts”, they act or think a certain way about the other person, which affects their relationship.
How many times have you seen a situation where someone told a story one way and you heard it a completely different way?
Recovery is about seeing life and ourselves through a new lens
We need to look at who we are and why we do what we do, to affect real and lasting change. This is one of the reasons honesty is so critical to long-term recovery. We have to be able to see the truth, not just our version of it to make ourselves feel better, the truth is worth the effort to discern.
Search for Truth in Recovery
Finding the truth takes focus and open-mindedness, along with the courage to allow others to offer other perspectives. When listening to alternative ideas, we need to do so with humility. We may find out we are wrong or misinterpreted words, expressions or actions. If we are wrong, we need to make amends and work towards correcting the behaviors and attitudes that keep us from the truth. My experience demonstrates meditation and good meditation training go a long way towards helping us see the truth, without our needs and attachments clouding the picture. Understanding others clearer is a gift that we all benefit from, preventing the number of misunderstandings in communication that cause anger, isolation, fear and distance from those that matter most to us.
What would your life be like if you understood your friends, family and co-workers clearer?
Other posts you may enjoy:
Why You Don’t Need To Be Right All The Time
25 Signs You’re Succeeding At Life (Even if it doesn’t feel like it)
Things Your Couples Counselor Already Knows About Your Relationship
Do Something Good For Someone Else, and Don’t Get Caught – Kindness
Michael Swerdloff
Providence Life Coaching and Reiki Counseling
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