E, S, and H. Experience, strength, and hope. In recovery, I’m told that these are the things we’re meant to bring to the table when speaking with one another. I share my experience, my strength, and my hope. I listen to others and learn, identify, grow. My individual story is meant to “disclose in a general way” how I was before and how I changed through recovery. In the Big Book and the management of AA meetings, the emphasis on E.S.H. is supposed to curtail any speech designed as directive or advisory. I can only share what I know of my own journey; I have no other role as guru, psychologist, minister, lawyer, or substance abuse counselor.
I was grateful when fellow recoverers took time to explain this aspect of the solution to me (for it is typical of almost every sane recovery program I’ve run across). At the worst parts of my addiction, I had been “told” what to do by enough people. Of course, all this (mostly well-meaning) advice did absolutely zip to help, and often made me feel worse. But, much more importantly, dispensing advice and being The Sage on the Stage were hallmarks of my addictive personality. Like an illusionist, waving my fingers in the direction of others’ problems and foibles took attention away from scaffolded fakery of my own shattered life. Taking away my ability to focus on what others should be doing and sharing onlywhat I had managed to do myself…well, that was a giant step away from old patterns and the beginning of a new focus on self-improvement.A lot of former booze-hounds will admit to being armchair-shrinks when deep in their cups. And, let’s not forget the always heady allure of melodrama. If there wasn’t any, heaven knows I’d try to stir some up! Or, as my best friend says, “Why have a small crisis when you can have an enormous one?” All this hoo-haw and falderall and much-ado-about-nothing? Mine, courtesy of a disease that needs a very big curtain behind which to hide. Advice-dispensing seems to fall squarely into this camouflage pattern: if I keep enough attention on YOU, we can all forget about ME–while, of course, acknowledging that I’ve got it all together, and YOU do not.
It’s not that we do not need to give or receive advice sometimes. For instance, AA has the much-loved and -hated, but ultimately time-honored, tradition of slogans. We even have slogans that caution against giving advice: “Clean house,” “Stick to your side of the street,” and “Keep your fork on your own plate.” Because they are designed to be cliche, the slogans can side-step vanity. I can’t take “credit” for any of them. And, as they are shared by all recoverers, they are impersonal. One doesn’t feel singled out by being told, “Take one day at a time,” because everyone has to take one day at a time. At one time or another, we’ve all also asked for advice, maybe even begged for it. If I ask for advice, that’s a pretty clear signal that my ears are wide-open for the message.
Perhaps the most famous literary advice-giver of all time is Shakespeare’s Polonius, the first murder-victim in Hamlet and one hell of a Sage on a literal Stage. It has never failed to amuse me that it’s Polonius’ line, “To thine own self be true,” that AA prints on chips marking sobriety milestones. It’s good advice, but, ironically, it’s from a guy whose advice leads on the one hand to needless and ultimately murderous pot-stirring or serves to make him look like a well-meaning but finally buffoonish patriarch. Polonius also doesn’t take his own advice, and instead of being true to himself, fishes around in his daughter’s business (and Hamlet’s, and Claudius’) …with aforementioned disastrous results. If the play does not quite suggest that all unsolicited advice is bad advice, it does not paint a happy ending for those who offer it, nor for those who follow it. Having done no research, I don’t know if the context of the quote was simply misunderstood or ignored, but I assume the latter. We take what we need and leave the rest, and it is–after all–a snappy phrase, if you can just forget who’s saying it.
Of course, it’s easy to forget when you’ve never known who said it, which is my point about the slogans…
I can only assume that the traditon of ESH was born from fertile spiritual earth of protestant evangelism, which puts a premium on the practice of “witnessing”–not merely as an exercise in prosyletization, but as part of the spiritual hygiene all good Christians should practice. In the basement of the Baptist church that was my adolescent spiritual home, I sat in a semi-circle around my grandmother who led classes for new Christians–a requirement for full membership in the church. A trusted church leader and teacher, she instructed us gently not only in the life-saving Bible passages that would ensure our eternal lives, but in the earthly mission vouchsafed to us as believers. She explained that “witnessing” to others–that is, sharing the story of our conversion–helped strengthen our own faith, even as it brought the message of Christ to others. It’s first goal, however, was always to re-confirm our own faith in the transformation that had taken place in our own lives.
Here are some things we were told from the book she gave us:
1. Use every opportunity to witness to others, but do not force anyone to listen.
2. Only share your personal story; do not preach.
3. Once you’ve shared your story, let the other person ask questions and listen to her or his story. Do not give more information unless s/he asks.
4. Be humble. In the final analysis, this story is bigger than you. Don’t try to be bigger than it.
It’s not really possible to imagine Polonius sticking to these general rules–taught to us Christian newcomers more by my grandmother’s behavior than by the book, in between the moutfuls of cookies and occasional peeps at the wall clock. Such a philosophy and way of life was also antithetical to the pushy egotism that was the recipe-for-success in my professional life as an academic. I am continuing unlearn a lot of that self-seeking in order to re-learn the sober sense I’d absorbed quite innocently in the church basement. And perhaps that’s why the concept of ESH was simultaneously refreshing and deeply familiar, comforting. Although it is a long journey from that insecure young convert to the sober, atheist alcoholic, good principles continue to make sense, however they are disclosed.
Early on, I recall asking someone for advice–actually, I asked her how she listened to others in recovery, asked her how to do it better. She told me that she only listened to ESH. If they’re saying anything else, she said, they’ve got another agenda–maybe not a bad one, but it’s not recovery. That’s advice I continue to take.
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