Tag Archives: Twelve Steps

Memoir Interview: A Fresh, Personal Look at Twelve Steps

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by Jerry Waxler

This is the second part of my interview with memoir author Tim Elhajj about his memoir, “Dopefiend: A Father’s Journey from Addiction to Redemption,” in which he portrays his recovery from heroin addiction in the Twelve Step program. Dopefiend provides a fresh, authentic look at this subject, which has been written about in many other books. It’s a question that arises for many memoir writers: “How do I portray my own individual perspective on a topic that has already received wide coverage?”

In the first part of the interview, we discuss shame, self-acceptance, and anonymity. In the third part, we will talk about writing and publishing. In the third part of the interview, Elhajj talks about writing the book and publishing it.

Jerry Waxler: Dope Fiend is a wonderful insight into the Twelve Steps, for several reasons. Probably at the top of my list is your relationship with your sponsor. He seems to be like a guardian angel. I am fascinated by the great relationship you developed with him. The way I read this relationship, the man himself was somewhat distant and insc`-rutable. I guess that’s a good thing, because it wasn’t about him. His main act seemed to be to ask you if your actions matched your basic principles. Perfect.

I wonder if you could comment on the way you included your sponsor, who was clearly made a crucial contribution to your journey. What decisions did you make about portraying him? Did you feel you needed to protect him, or hide him, because of his privacy and anonymity? Any light you can shed on your portrayal of his character would be interesting.

Tim Elhajj: My sponsor was a huge factor in my success. I wanted to show the reader how that relationship worked for me, but I didn’t want to lose sight of the bigger story, the story about my relationship with my son. I think in some ways my relationship with my sponsor echoes the parental relationship I was trying to build with my son. My sponsor’s willingness to express his love for me is a nice foil for those first few hesitant steps I took reaching out to my son, offering him small praise or just the time required to pass a baseball back and forth. My sponsor was an important and necessary part of the story, but I also wanted him to be somewhat anonymous, to fall out of the story after his appearance on stage. This is what twelve step fellowships are about–part of the wonder of how these programs work is that people from all different walks are thrust together in common cause, recovery. It’s transitory by nature. To protect his privacy, I changed my sponsor’s name, as I did with most everyone’s name. Only my wife and I have our real names used in the book.

Jerry Waxler:  The Higher Power often presents a big obstacle for people who first try to embrace the Twelve Steps. And yet, it is a fundamental part of the program. In her memoir, “Lit’ Mary Karr spends a lot of time worrying about whether to accept a Higher Power. “Is there really a God? Am I really praying?” In your memoir, you did not express or seem to feel any reluctance about this aspect of the Twelve Steps, and if you fretted about it at all, it was so brief and mild, I missed it. Your acceptance of these principles turned the book, into a subtle, understated ode to spirituality.

That’s my perception. Tell me about your intentions. Did you intentionally downplay your internal debate about Higher Power, or did you simply absorb and accept that part of the teaching? During the creation of the memoir, what sort of decisions did you make about how to portray this aspect?

Tim Elhajj: I have always believed in God, but I have also always been somewhat cynical about the practical value of this belief. I am especially skeptical about religion. Spirituality, though, seems a bit different to me. At least, the type of spirituality I have learned by practicing the steps. If I can develop enough faith in myself, the courage to move forward despite my own fears–concrete ways to practice these and all the spiritual values embodied in the steps–then I am capable of making great changes in the way I live my life. To me, it’s all very practical. And, I would say, very spiritual, too.

Jerry Waxler:  I saw that you offer group discussion topics. What sorts of groups have you found interested in working with these questions?

Tim Elhajj: I think you are talking about the reading guide posts I’m publishing on the blog for Dopefiend. Each month, I write a short post that explores some aspect of the spiritual value assigned to one of the chapters or a meditation on the step associated with the value. I try to tie the action of the chapter into the value used in each of the chapter headings, as well as some thoughtful questions for the reader. I try not to add any spoilers, so feel free to read them over, even if you haven’t read the book.

I plan to do reading guide for all twelve chapters. I’m about to post the one for chapter four any day now. I hope they encourage people to buy the book, or at the very least consider the questions. I’d invite everyone to check it out: http://dopefiend.telhajj.com/category/reading-guide/

Notes: Other mentors in memoirs: Father Joe by Tony Hendra. Nic Sheff’s sponsor in Tweak was also revealing, but did not have the same depth of relationship.

Notes
Click here for Tim Elhajj’s home page
Click here for Dopefiend on Amazon
Click here to read eight lessons you can learn from Dopefiend

For brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

8 Lessons and Prompts from Tim Elhajj’s Recovery Memoir

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by Jerry Waxler

After reading Tim Elhajj’s memoir “Dopefiend” about recovering from addiction, I learned many lessons that could help other memoir-writers-in-training develop aspects of their own work.

Grittiness, Chaos and Order
New York City is the perfect place for getting lost in addiction. That’s where Dani Shapiro lost her way in her memoir Slow Motion. The city felt like a co-conspirator in her seduction. But Elhajj turned that expectation upside down. For him, New York City supported his recovery. By getting out of his old haunts, sticking with the recovery community, and taking advantage of New York’s educational system, Elhajj was able to climb out of chaos into competence.

Writing Prompt
Look for intricate ways that the environment shaped your journey. If you lived in a city, how did urban life affect you? If you lived in a small town, a farm, a small town, a military base, how did the particular culture of the place influence your development?

Starting at the bottom and then building up
Addicts obey the law of the street, doing whatever they must, without concern for their impact on others. In extreme situations, that means falling below minimum standards of morality, stealing and trading sex for money.

“Dope Fiend” starts with Elhajj in recovery. However, even though his addiction is in the past, it leaves powerful after-effects. He must recover not only from drugs but also from the chaotic, self-involved, impulsive code of the addict, in order to participate in the socially responsible law of the citizen.

Writing Prompt
A good book takes the reader on a ride through the protagonist’s character development. To turn your own life into a good book, visualize the chart of your moral development. Do you start at the bottom and move up, the way Elhajj did? Or like Nic Sheff in Tweak, did you at first only pretend to be giving up your faults? Or did you start out in life full of promise but then erupt with insecurities and fall into your shadow-self the way Dani Shapiro did in Slow Motion and I did in my memoir in progress? Chart your own graph.

Twelve Steps
Tim Elhajj does an excellent job of showing how the Twelve Step programs saved him from his fall. He kept the story fresh by focusing on his own unique experience, and avoided, as much as possible, the insider lingo.

Writing Prompt
Any story about a group needs to explain just enough detail about the rules and insider routines. If you explain too little, the reader could become confused, and if you explain too much the reader could feel like you are teaching or preaching. Consider the various groups you have belonged to, whether the military, a sports team, a music group, cult, religion, fire department, writing club, or anything else. Write scenes that show the unique attitudes within the group while making it fresh enough to give the reader a sense of participation.

Spirituality
The Twelve Step programs are built on trust in a higher power, which makes them, in my opinion, essentially spiritual organizations. Elhajj’s book takes us inside the experience of the Twelve Steps and explores their impact on his life.

Writing prompt
Write a scene that includes a spiritual awakening or an acceptance or insight into your relationship with a higher power.

Mentors
Some of the strongest scenes of moral awakening take place in conversations between the author and his mentor. When Elhajj presents a problem, his mentor reminds him to think about his principles. For example, when he hits on a woman who just starting recovery, his sponsor tells him she is too vulnerable and he should respect her boundaries. When Elhajj presses the point, the older man asks him if this is what he really wants. It is advice-giving at its best, forcing Elhajj to consult his own budding moral compass.

Note: Another excellent of mentoring is in Henry Louis Gates’s Colored People. When Gates is stuck in a hospital bed, a visiting minister recommends he extend his vision beyond the boundaries of his small town.

Writing prompt
Find a scene that includes you receiving some advice from a parent, friend, teacher or some other mentor. Show how the advice influenced you.

Lessons Learned: The character arc
Listening is an incredibly important skill, and one of the first and most fundamental lessons taught to therapists. Elhajj’s memoir shows how he learned this crucial topic. He lets us see his frustration when people give him clumsy advice. He also shows his admiration of those people who listen to him and then speak gently. Later he takes advantage of the bad examples and the good ones, when he speaks to his son. It is one of the best examples of learning to listen that I have seen in literature.

Writing Prompt
What life ah-ha have you learned? Write a scene that shows it.

Fathers and sons
Elhajj starts his story as a young father who was so lost in his own confusion, he barely even tried to guide his own son. Gradually, he begins to find himself, and the stronger he grows, the more he longs for the privilege of giving his son the kind of example every young man needs. Dopefiend is about Elhajj’s journey to become a complete man, and his desire to be a good father is an important part of that journey. His own son forces him to grow, giving fresh meaning to Wordsworth’s famous line, “the child is father of the man.”

Writing Prompt
What intense experience did you have with your father, or son, or with your mother or daughter? Search through generations, and look for patterns. For example, what resentment did you have about your parent that you then saw reflected in yourself and your children?

Denouement of a memoir
The book is a saga of the transition from a dope fiend to a responsible member of society. At the end of Dopefiend, Elhajj achieves many of the successes of a healthy life. In addition to sobriety, he has a budding relationship with his adult son, a loving partner, and a rapprochement with his mother. Through the journey, he often benefits from the kindness of people who want to help him. It is as if, despite all his efforts to destroy his life, God or some higher power, or perhaps just the goodness of people, keep showering him with forgiveness, with second chances, with alternatives. Some spark of insight allows him to take advantage of these gifts and grow to become a complete person.

Such insights into human nature are one of my favorite reasons for reading memoirs. Their message allows readers to close the book with warm feelings, hopeful about the ways of the world. As a result of these good feelings, grateful readers will recommend the book to their friends, as I do to you.

Writing Prompt
What lesson did life teach you? Write about it in scenes, or in reflection to see if it could perhaps make a good denouement for your story.

Notes
Click here for Tim Elhajj’s home page
Click here for Dopefiend on Amazon

Click here to read an essay about Dopefiend as an extended Coming of Age story.

For a fascinating example of a book that leads deep into the secret world of a group, read Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman.

For a grittier look at an active addiction, read “Tweak” by Nic Sheff. Click here for an article about Nic Sheff’s addiction and his father’s desperate attempt to save him.

For another memoir with an excellent, uplifting message, read Kate Braestrup’s “Here if you Need Me.”  Click here for an article about grieving in memoirs.

For brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Coming of Age Never Ends

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by Jerry Waxler

Some of the most popular memoirs of our time have been about the period of life called Coming of Age. In fact stories of childhood and adolescence, such as Jeanette Walls’ Glass Castle and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes arguably ignited the explosive interest in the memoir genre. However, not all Coming of Age stories proceed from childhood in an orderly fashion.

For example, Dani Shapiro started with the advantages of a wealthy upbringing, but her memoir Slow Motion is about her detour into drugs and sex. When she regained her footing, Shapiro headed back to college. Another author, Tim Elhajj, fell off the tracks much earlier in his life. During adolescence, when he should have been learning about dating and trying to keep up his grades, Elhajj was scoring his next hit of heroin. By the age most of us were trying to start a career, he was getting serious about quitting drugs, but unlike Shapiro he couldn’t go back. He needed to start over.

At the beginning of Elhajj’s memoir, Dopefiend: A Father’s Journey from Addiction to Redemption, he is morally, emotionally, and financially bankrupt. He starts adulthood from the very bottom, a moral infant, obsessed as all addicts are by the need for a fix. It’s a powerful place to start a memoir, jolting the reader into the central question: how is this man going to become a full-fledged adult, long after that ship was supposed to have sailed? His story lets me feel the frustration and courage of overcoming his own impulsive behavior.

His saving grace was a close association with the Twelve Step programs, which helped him do more than stop drugs. The program gave him the tools to build the social, ethical, and spiritual foundation he needed to climb, like ivy toward the light. Year after year, he continued to grow more mature, to learn moral values and adult responsibilities. His memoir resonates with my belief that character development is one of the most exciting things about literature and about life.

I too have been on a lifelong journey to make sense of my life. Unlike Elhajj, I did not destroy my youth with heroin. Instead I turned my intellectual prowess to thoroughly tear apart every value I was supposed to live for. By the time I finished college, I too had become a mental and moral infant, with no sense of responsibility to my society and no sense of direction. Only by finding a spiritual path was I able to climb back from chaos and start my rehabilitation.

As a result of decades of personal development, I became fascinated by the potential for adults to keep growing. In my late 40s, I went back to graduate school to became a therapist. When I started talking to therapy clients, I discovered that I’m not so unusual after all. Many people who have achieved adulthood in calendar years, still are looking to achieve maturity in other dimensions of their lives.

In the 21st century, many memoir writers are stepping forward to share the complexities of their long, slow, intricate Coming of Age. Tim Elhajj’s memoir about finding himself later in life has, more clearly than any book I’ve read so far, shared the rewards of continued searching and growing. His project of self-discovery is a perfect example of the adage, “What I am is God’s gift to me. What I become is my gift to God.”

In my next blog posting, I will share a number of writing prompts and lessons I derived from Tim Elhajj’s Dopefiend.

Notes

Click here for Tim Elhajj’s home page
Click here for Dopefiend on Amazon

Click here to read an article about the relationship between Young Adult fiction and Coming of Age memoirs.
Click here for an article about why Coming of Age memoirs deserves its own genre

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Matched pair of memoirs show both sides of addiction

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by Jerry Waxler

Addicts often think of their affliction as a victimless crime, but these two memoirs show both sides of the story. “Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff  is written from the father’s point of view, while “Tweak” by Nic Sheff tells the son’s tragic journey through meth addiction. The dual vantage point provides a stunning insight into the corrosive effect drugs have on users and their families.

In the father’s memoir, David watches his son start out full of joy and creativity. Sneaking into a liquor cabinet, the son’s first experiment with substances started when he was 11 years-old, and keeps getting worse, accelerating out of control when he tries crystal meth. As his focus narrows to one thing only, he gives up everything he values, every morsel of sanity and pride. Neglecting responsibility to his parents, siblings, and his own value system, he steals, prostitutes, and deals. With each bad decision he falls deeper into the hole and drags down everyone who loves him.

Details vary from one substance to another. Some make you numb, or buzzed, or make you feel in communion with the cosmos. Others break social inhibitions. Whatever the particular effect, they all share one thing. They make you feel like you’ve wrested control away from adults. Now you can shift your state of mind at will. At first it feels like you have become the ruler of your own destiny.

It takes time for the harm to emerge from behind its glittering mask, by which time the damage is done. Broken relationships. Lost opportunities. And the risks intensify. Car crashes, loss of mental functioning, the quick death of overdosing or the slow death of disease. Nic’s dad pleaded and threatened his son. Nic retorted, “You did it and you turned out okay.” Then he slipped out of reach. Swearing he wasn’t using or would never do it again, he continued tripping and scheming, lost inside himself.

The wildcard in these youthful experiments is addiction, a neurological response that the user never anticipates. Once the brain becomes dependent, the drug that started out like glorious freedom reveals its cruel intentions. Hijacking the brain’s pleasure center, drugs and alcohol shift the user’s attention from the will to live towards a single-minded goal of getting high.

Finally, after sinking close to death, Nic tried to get clean. He succeeded for a while, built his life back, and then kept relapsing. Critics argue that relapse proves rehabs are a sham, a con, a waste of money. On the other hand, there are so few things society can do for addicts, and rehab seems like one of the best. My experience is that people come out of these programs knowing so much more about themselves and their addiction than they knew when they went in. It takes time to put the knowledge into practice.

Nic’s memoir “Tweak” begins in the midst of a horrific relapse. Despite all his effort, he was right back at the bottom. And even in this degrading state, Dad kept trying to raise his son out of hell. Their combined effort provided them both a deeper, stronger foundation on which to build permanent sobriety and mutual understanding. The two books propose we take another look at rehab. Instead of seeing relapse as defeat, look at it as a series of stumbles from which the addict can arise, and eventually look back on these terrible valleys as stages along the road to victory.

How can you preach if you really did try drugs and alcohol?
When I was a college student in the sixties, my peers and I believed drugs gave us a front row seat to Truth. From our stoned vantage point, we knew beyond doubt we could see straight to the heart of Reality, and that we were far more insightful than the poor fools who were not under the influence. It took me years to realize the smoke was merely creating the illusion of wisdom, leading me to believe I was smart, while step by step I abandoned my beliefs and ambitions. Following a direction that makes no sense to my sober mind today, I made a series of impractical and self-destructive decisions, harming myself gladly, stranding myself on the precipice of oblivion.

I can’t imagine what pain my parents must have suffered as I pushed away from them. Now, as I draft my memoir, I gain a new appreciation for this whole story, seeing who I was before I was smoking and then who I became after. The overview shows me that “harmless” marijuana damaged my life by letting me profoundly alter my belief system without bothering to check with people who had lived longer and seen more. After I cleared away the clouds and saw where I had gone wrong, I could never regain what I had thrown away, so like all fallen addicts, I started from where I had fallen and continued marching forward.

Lean on each other
During the descent, Dad leans on his professional journalism experience for support, interviewing experts and clutching to their information and advice, desperate to regain control. The news was never good. According to the experts whom David Sheff consults, crystal meth is the most destructive, most addictive drug, with the most relapses and the worst statistics of early death. What happens to someone like Nic, so full of promise and so deeply invested in getting high that his addiction pushed away all sense and advice? Nic kept hearing that the only escape was through the Twelve Step Programs, and even though he didn’t want to, he was finally desperate enough to try. The Twelve Steps gradually seeped in.

Nic’s sponsor said, “Call me whenever you need me” and when Nic was able to bust through the hypnotic spell of temptation, the phone call worked. Spence talked him through to the next minute and the next day. Mentoring made a huge difference in Nic’s life, and is one of the reasons the Twelve Steps are so powerful. As the grand finale of their own journey out of addiction, Twelve Steppers learn to pass on what they’ve learned. As a writer, Nic has a way to spread the message farther than he could one-on-one. Through his book and his blog, he tells his story to thousands.

Addicts are not the only ones who have a valuable perspective about life. And therein lies the crux of memoir writing. By sharing our experience, all memoir writers have the possibility of offering some wisdom to the world, helping other people learn from our experience, hopefully saving them from the necessity of making the same mistakes themselves.

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Click here to visit the Amazon page for “Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff

Click here to visit the Amazon page for “Tweak” by Nic Sheff

Click here to visit Nic Sheff’s Blog

Click here to read my essay about the relationship between The Twelve Steps and Memoir Writing

Note
This healing power of service pervades many thought systems. In particular, is Frankl’s idea that all of human suffering can be helped by living a life with a higher purpose. For more, read Frankl’s landmark memoir, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

To listen to the podcast version click the player control below.
You can also download the podcast from iTunes: [display_podcast]

Let Your Memoir Take You to the Fourth Step

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by Jerry Waxler

The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I attended was held in the basement of a church. I sat in my car until the meeting was about to start and then slipped in, hoping no one would notice. It wasn’t my idea to be there. The professor of my addictions counseling class at Villanova had assigned us the task of attending.

The speaker told her story of descending into the pit of alcoholism, losing her marriage, home, and children, and finally selling her body. Thanks to the Twelve Steps, she had been able to pull herself together. When I left the meeting that night, in addition to a renewed appreciation for the havoc that can be wreaked by substances, I also had witnessed one of our culture’s great institutions, dedicated to helping people in desperate situations build up their self-esteem and life-skills.

While I am not addicted to substances, there have been many times in my life when I felt out of control, like my years struggling with loneliness and depression, or coming to terms with the barrage of news about war, divisive politics, poverty, and disease. While I have a variety of tools to help me cope, occasionally I wish there was a Twelve Step meeting to overcome everyday feelings of being out of control.

Although I have not found an actual Twelve Step program for ordinary situations, I do see analogs that could serve some of the same purposes. The method of self-help pervading all civilizations since the beginning of history is the quest for support from a Higher Power. There are lots of meetings that can help us seek that transcending connecction. Another powerful offering of the Twelve Step programs are slogans, such as “give me the courage to change what I can and accept what I can’t” and “one day at a time.” All of us could benefit from uplifting phrases, because the things you say to yourself affect how you feel.

Now, as I study memoir writing, I believe I have stumbled upon another connection with the Twelve Steps. The Fourth Step says, “We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” The goal of taking this inventory is to replace vague sorrows of “having messed up,” with more detailed information. It’s an important exercise for addicts who, in their pressure to obtain the next buzz, overrode their conscience more often than they would like to remember.

However, addicts do not hold a monopoly on regrets. Everyone bumps against things they wish they hadn’t done. As long as unpleasant memories remain tucked away, there is no way to learn from them. The Fourth Step suggests you pry them out of hiding. Once they’re in the open, you can work with them consciously, discover the details, find the implications, and then integrate the past into the complete picture of who you are and how you got here. This self-knowledge strengthens your ability to move more confidently into the present and future, and opens channels of compassion and connection with the people in your life.

The Twelve Step Programs started from inspired revelation, a seed planted by people desperate to find something more powerful than their addiction. In the following half a century, tens of thousands of people harvested the results of that inspiration. And as each generation learns, they arm themselves to help the next. To rescue their fallen comrades from the cauldron of addiction, perhaps one of the most selfish tendencies of human nature, these people have discovered within themselves one of the generous tendencies of human nature – the desire to help each other overcome challenges.

Memoir writers don’t belong to an elaborate step-by-step system of guidance and mutual support. When we take our moral inventory, we do it hunkered down alone at our desk. It sounds isolated. However, memoir writers turn towards another powerful resource. Our mentors are those writers who have gone before us, placing their lives on paper and leaving it for us in books. Reading memoir after memoir we witness the story, discovering lessons not just about the author’s lifetime but about their willingness to write it. Following their lead, we arrange and rearrange our own conglomeration of memories, until we too arrive at that system known as Story, a system as old as civilization itself.

When we tell about our history, when we hurt people or they hurt us, or resented, or misunderstood, or all the thousands of interactions we have with people, storytelling goes beyond initial emotions. We expand our thinking, and more clearly see all the characters in our lives, who they are and what the world looks like from their point of view.

Memoir writing is a powerful Step for anyone who wants to grow more resilient to face those things over which they have no control. As you write, you transform the past from a collection of memories into a path that goes from sin to redemption, from tragedy to grieving, from one step to the next step and the next. Stories are large enough to contain great mistakes and even evil, and their power goes beyond the individual. Through reading and writing, our stories intertwine, healing ourselves and our relationships, and leaving behind a map that can help others find their own way through the journey of life.

To listen to the podcast version click the player control below.
You can also download the podcast from iTunes: [display_podcast]

5 Memoir Starters for Beginners

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by Jerry Waxler

To learn more about the cultural passion for memoirs, and reasons you should write your own, read my book Memoir Revolution: A Social Shift that Uses Your Story to Heal, Connect, and Inspire, available on Amazon. Click here for the eBook or paperback.

When you face a daunting task, the only way to start is to take the first step. But what if even the first step seems daunting? Like the Gumption Trap in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, you can’t start your journey until you make peace with that first step. Memoir classes are one excellent way to coach you onto the road. And in fact there may be even gentler ways to start. Use techniques for self-reporting that you can find within ordinary life. If you’re already doing some of these, use them as the starting point from which to extend your writing and turn it into a more complete story of your life.

Letters and newsletters
For at least two thousand years, letters were an important way for people to keep in touch at a distance. The telephone made it so much easier to connect that it looked like personal letter writing was fading into oblivion. Now, with the development of blogs, email, and online family newsletters, writing is making a comeback. By writing letters to your relatives and friends, or articles for your family or group newsletter you can keep in touch while you develop parts of your memoir.

Job and school applications
A more structured method of organizing your past comes when you apply for a job or school. On the application you list previous employment, education, and related achievements. While it doesn’t include much narrative, it’s an ordered sequence of major events in your life, and as such demonstrates a fundamental technique of memoir writing. Expand the list by adding more events, including births and deaths, relationships, moves, and other critical changes in your life. Your list will help you frame out your memoir.

Online profiles
LinkedIn and Facebook want me to explain to strangers who I am. Online dating services want even more information. These profiles convey a glimpse of who we are through tiny fragments like favorite books, pets, and sports. At first I hated trying to tell about myself this way. When I approached it more playfully, I realized it’s not a bad exercise for creating the persona of the protagonist of my memoir.

Twelve Steps Moral Inventory
The fourth step of the Twelve Steps program is designed to help people climb out of the traps of the past by conducting a “fearless moral inventory.” If you have ever been through this process, you have already engaged in a courageous detailed self-examination. If you have never been through this process, look around for books about facing difficult memories, such as, John Bradshaw’s books, “Homecoming” and “Healing the shame that binds you.” While originally intended for addicts, these resources offer advice for anyone who wants to face regrets, embarrassment, and shame. By unraveling the knots of the past, you can set yourself free from backward pulls. And as you develop your story, you’ll find the strength, hope, and other emotions to help you move forward.

Keep a journal or diary
Journaling is a fantastic habit that can help you deal with emotions, get you in touch with your writing voice, and gather your memories. Journaling means writing just for you with no concern about a potential audience. By setting aside readers, you soothe the inner critic, allowing you to put words on paper, without worrying about what anyone thinks. (Stephen King in On Writing says to write your first draft with the door closed.) The goal is simply to find a safe place to transfer words from mind to paper. As you write in your journal, you sort out emotions of the day, as well as sorting out events that took place decades ago. Experiment. Brainstorm. Sketch. For example, snoop around your high school homeroom for a few journal sessions. Who sat next to you? What did you have for lunch? What set the class tittering? Get creative about asking yourself questions. You’ll be amazed at what turns up on paper, and with practice, you’ll develop an easier relationship with converting mental images into a written narrative.

Notes

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

To order my how-to-get-started guide to write your memoir, click here.