Repetition

Building the basics is a matter of repetition straight across the board. It’s been there in most every stage of my life and whether or not it has been pleasant, it has served me well.

I’m not the only one.

In the North Head elementary school, the multiplication tables still come to mind. We were drilled daily until thought was no longer required.  The answer was automatic.  In sports there were drills.  We gave attention to very basic skills and once they were muscle memory, we could learn the more technical aspects of our sport.

Stop and think about how much of your life is built on repetition.  

I worked with Harold Tatton years ago, running cement with hand mixers and wheelbarrows.  There was a rhythm (which also is repetition, music is built on repetition) to the mix. He taught us his way of cutting the bag, flopping it on the mouth of the rotating mixer, water and then sand.  Two or three of us taking turns at just the right time so that we did not get in each other’s way.  Sometimes we would get sloppy and careless and right away, Harold would notice.  He would shut the operation down and give us a “shoveling seminar’ right there on the sand pile.

One of the most basic aspects of the 12 Step recovery program is repetition. Every meeting begins with the reading of the same preamble followed by the 12 Steps and Traditions.  I never fail to gain some fresh perspective through this repetitive practice.  Something comes to mind that is relevant because of my current circumstance.  I am reminded of a perspective that I have neglected and its importance to my well-being.

Occasionally I meet someone who tells me that they have been there and done that. They no longer attend meetings because they find it to be much of the same.  And no joke, … they are often people still laboring under addiction of some sort.  The substance may be gone but the thinking hasn’t changed. 

My childhood friend, Dr. Van Worthen has a practice on the island.  He goes to his office every day and repeats the same things over and over.  The more he does this the better he gets at his practice.  I wouldn’t want to go to a dentist (to be honest, I am a chicken when it comes to dentists) who opened his doors one day a month.  That would hardly be called a practice.  This would not inspire me to relax and let him do his work.

Recovery is a practice.  Repetition is required.  Without it we forget.  When we think we are above the need to repeat and practice, we are in great peril.  It is part of the insanity of addiction to fantasize that we can learn and then live free without giving attention to the most basic elements of sobriety.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle