Estimated read time: 12 min
In A.A. there is a common saying, a quote from the Big Book actually, that states, “love and tolerance [of others] is our code” (p. 84); however, on page 417 of that very same book, it asserts that “… acceptance is the answer to all [our] problems…”. So, which principle are we encouraged to practice, tolerance or acceptance? For me, it brings into question, whether tolerance and acceptance are the same thing? If not, what is the difference? I’ve given this very quandary quite a bit of thought over the years, so I thought I’d share my thoughts with you all.
Let me take a pause here– and say that I am grateful. I am grateful for the home I have, the bed I sleep in, and the wonderful human I have the privilege to share both of those things with. As an animal lover, I am also especially grateful for all of our four-legged friends we have, and the love and laughter they bring to our lives. Let’s not get it twisted; I am abundantly grateful. Now that we’ve cleared that up… allow me to recount a little incident that happened recently (well this morning for me, on the day I am writing this anyway).
It’s not often these days that Stan or I get to sleep in. It’s not often that we even get to wake up together for that matter. There are many nights that I am away at work, or in class late into the evening. As a teacher, Stan is away most of the day in the rare event that I am able to be at home. Due to the fact that I am in school and we both work two jobs, it sometimes begins to feel as though we’re two ships passing in the night. We are blessed, and I’m not complaining, just giving a little context to the situation at hand here.
I mentioned all of that to say that, today, we both had the opportunity to sleep in. No alarms, no patient rounds to make, no assignments to finish, no students to teach, and no clients to counsel. The whole day, to ourselves; the whole morning to sleep. That was the expectation at least. See that’s the funny thing about expectations…. we forgot we had a Bulleit.
For those of you who have been around for a minute, or checked out the “Our Story” page on our website, you know that we have 3 dogs: Duck (the longhaired Shepherd), Molly-Frog (the floppy faced bloodhound), and our most recent addition, Bulleit (the rescue).
Our Bulleit, he’s a funny boy. At two years old, he’s more hyper, and at times, more rambunctious than our dearest Molly-Frog who is quite a bit younger than him. Unlike any of our other shepherds, (current or former), Bulleit is quite the vocalist. He screeches, barks, squalls, whines, groans, and screams. Yes. I mean he actually, screams. He’s not in pain or anything. He’s not scared, hurt, or traumatized from any past abuse or neglect. He’s just bored is all. He’s bored, he wants to play, and Molly and Duck are not feeling it so… he screams.
Remember the part when I said Stan and I don’t get the opportunity to sleep in very often? You might see where this is going, but I promise if you stick around, there’s more to the story than you might think.
Imagine if you will (but don’t be weird about it) it’s 6:30 am, and there I am, lying in bed next to my loving, wonderful, snoring husband. There is early morning light sneaking through the white sheer curtains. “I’m not supposed to be awake right now,” is the second or third thought that comes to my mind. The first thought probably being bladder-related and the second thought, well there’s honestly no telling.
“Why am I awake?” I think to myself. My half-asleep, groggy brain is trying to make sense of what is going on: if I’m running late to something, if Turtle (the cat) has thumped to the floor for her morning walkabout, or if I’m safe to roll over and return to my slumber. I roll over, catch a glimpse of my wonderful, but loudly snoring husband, and smile to myself as I let my eyes flutter to a close. No sooner than I close my eyes and begin to doze off, I hear it. The most obnoxious, screechiest, startling sound, right outside the bedroom window. The scream came from, you guessed it, Bulleit.
My eyes snap open. Instantly annoyed, I lay there, tense, still in the bed as though Bulleit will somehow sense my frustration. He did not. I know this because he proceeds to continue screaming, occasionally mixing in a bark, or playful growl, but mostly just screaming. Although he has only been with us a little over a month at the time of this writing, I have already learned how to determine what is going on by the pitch and cadence of his vocals. As the resident Bulleit expert, I determine that this is a classic case of “Molly won’t play with me,” to which, of course, standard procedure then dictates that “the more I yell, the more enticed she will be to play.”
Because (a) I am lazy and (b) I would very much like to avoid waking Stan up (once he is awake he absolutely refuses to stay in the bed for any length of time.), I continue to lay in the bed, Bulleit continues to scream outside, and I grow more and more frustrated with the entire situation at hand. Like a good alcoholic, I tend to swing to the extreme end of a situation, to which extreme I swing, is entirely dependent on my mood and the situation. This situation, apparently, called for me to begin building a resentment…towards a dog.
In my frustration, I begin thinking about how: “We never should have gotten this dog! Why did we need another dog? How could we have possibly thought this was a good plan? I’m not even sure I like him all that much anyway!” so on and so forth. Which I might add, is absolutely ridiculous because, while it did take a bit for Bulleit to feel like our dog, my animal-loving nature is that I was almost instantly attached to him. I love that boy, he’s annoying at times, he can be a bit much on occasion, but he’s also sweet; an excellent cuddle buddy, and the perfect playmate for Molly. He’s a great dog, and I love him. I just wasn’t feeling the love at 6:30 am this morning.
At this point in my sobriety I would love to say that I’ve moved past being restless, irritable, and discontent at such trivial day-to-day events, but let’s face it–I’m really just not. I’m still human, and only a moderately reformed alcoholic at best. However, this little incident did allow me to reflect on the principles of the program, and the lessons I have learned over the past few years since joining this new way of life.
As I have shared in previous posts, I entered treatment in December of 2018. For those of you who have ever been to treatment, inpatient or otherwise, you’re probably familiar with all of the different personalities, emotions, pettiness, and restlessness that settles over the patient community.
It’s natural, really; a common phenomenon in confined settings and similar to the experiences of those in incarceration. When a group of people, from all different backgrounds and walks of life, are put together in a controlled setting, things can get… interesting. Then, add in the fact that it’s 50+ women, freshly detoxed, restricted from caffeine, with nothing but cigarettes and time, and you’re in for a real treat. During my time in treatment, I bonded with a small group of older women. I was the youngest patient there by a good 20 years, which was okay because I was pretty much used to that from the rooms of A.A.
Anyhow, this little group of women I found, bonded and provided me with some sort of sanity and comfort to the whirlwind of fear, discomfort, and anxiety I had felt thus far in treatment. We ate our meals together, went on our smoke breaks together between group sessions, and when in “big group” we all sat together on the same row. This row, the back row, or “relapse row” as we jokingly called it was not a name that was not well received by chronic relapsers, but it was where you could always find our little family.
During one particular “big group” session, the counselor had a small basket. This basket was filled with small slips of paper with a single word written on each one. Mostly, they were recovery terms like honesty, serenity, amends, etc. As the sole occupants of relapse row, our little group of misfits was the last one to pick out our slips of paper.
I can remember that the first several rows of women to pick their paper and share their thoughts or interpretations of the terms were just boring to be quite honest. Then, as I’m sure some of you are familiar with, there are always the people who commandeer the whole group to air out all their dirty laundry and make the whole group about them; this went on for what felt like an eternity. I, of course, was bitching and complaining the entire time. What can I say? I was arrogant, selfish, and intolerant.
Finally, it was my turn. I looked to my right and said, “If this says acceptance, I’ll flip my shit.” Well, friends, it did indeed say acceptance. How fitting, I know. So, I fumbled about, trying my best to figure out something to share on the topic. Page 417 from the big book came to mind, a few other stories, and some A.A. slogans I could remember from my three months of drunken attendance before treatment. Looking back, I’m sure it was all mushed together as I searched for words that would make sense as I strung them together in a sentence.
Then, something amazing happened. Another fellow patient, one who didn’t normally speak up much, asked a question that would forever change my perspective on the topic of acceptance. She asked, what is the difference between tolerance and acceptance?” The lead counselor smirked a little bit and glanced back at me as if I was supposed to formulate some concrete answer to this question.
I hesitated for a moment, and then I began to really think about the quiet lady’s question. Now by no means do I think myself a genius, intelligent maybe, but not particularly any type of mastermind with any sort of enlightened brilliance. I started thinking about what it means to tolerate or be tolerated; similarly, I tried to conceptualize what it means to accept or be accepted. What I was able to come up with may not be all that special to anyone else, maybe it will be helpful or maybe it won’t, but surely, we all can relate to the grand “epiphanies” we have in early sobriety right?
When discussing tolerance, I like to use the scenario of a dog barking outside (or a screaming Bulleit if you have one of those). Now let’s just say this dog is barking incessantly. You can’t make it stop no matter what you try to do. You quit trying and go back inside. You’re pissed off, irritable, restless, and discontent with this situation. You acknowledge that there’s nothing you can do, but you’re still pretty upset about it.
Maybe you even plan a scheme to confront the owners about the situation, post a rant on Facebook about it, or call the animal control hotline out of spite to have them remove the dog, whether you go through with it or not, all these possibilities are swirling in your head, right? THAT, is tolerance.
Hang on, we’re almost there! If the above scenario is tolerance, what is acceptance? Great question. So take that same scenario, a dog barking relentlessly. Maybe you still try to get the dog to stop barking, or even shoo it out of the yard. When that doesn’t work, you go back inside, just like in the last scenario, but something is different this time. You’re not pissed off, irritable, resentful or bitter.
You might turn the TV up a little bit louder to drown out the noise, go to a different room in the house where the barking isn’t as loud. Perhaps you even invest in some earplugs, if it’s disturbing your sleep, or maybe you do nothing at all about the situation, but you’re at peace, undisturbed. Why, do you ask? Because you have reached a point of acceptance, you accept that a dog, by nature, is going to bark. It’s their instinct. You accept this fact, this reality, and you don’t feel the need to get angry, bitter, or riled up by this event, because dogs bark, it’s what they do and that’s okay.
This is the realization I had, on relapse row, that day in rehab. Dogs are going to bark. If I can accept a person, place, or situation exactly how it is at that moment, I don’t have to tolerate it. I don’t have to get frustrated, pissed off, bitter, or angry about that person, place, or situation. I can find acceptance, be at peace and find comfort in that sentiment. This doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it, enjoy it, or even be “okay” with it, but I can accept it, and that my friends is progress in lieu of unattainable perfection.
So, whether you have a screaming banshee outside your window at 6:30 am, some jerk cuts you off in traffic, or your redneck cousin wants to argue with you about politics, just remember; dogs are going to bark. And, when dogs bark, practice acceptance.
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