“Now with the pandemic, everyone is having to live like an alcoholic in recovery: one day at a time,” said a wise woman at a meeting last week.

So what does it mean, to live one day at a time? It means not getting too hepped up about what might happen or what should happen or even what has happened. It means stopping and breathing, looking around, and saying, “Oh, okay, my Higher Power and I can handle this.”

I want to be perfectly clear that I do not always remember that.

I found myself two weeks ago not getting anything completed, not remembering what I had started, not remembering what came next. I was busy-busy-busy all the time, but I was frenzied. I had stacks of things to read, reports to write, laundry to fold, letters to answer. No stack ever reduced in size. And other stacks were born. And multiplied.

I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I was sober. I was grateful. I read my morning pages. I wrote in my journal. I attended one or two Zoom meetings a day. I chatted with my partner and FaceTimed with my children and grandchildren. I said my prayers and offered to help.

But I was running around in circles and I knew it. I was chasing my tail.

And then a friend said, “That’s anxiety, Chris. You’re anxious.”

I gasped. I caught my breath and I stopped. It all made sense. I was anxious.

I thought I was just disorganized.

I had been refusing to admit that this pandemic, this COVID, this social distancing, this uncertainty—on top of dealing with my beloved’s serious illness—had really really been stressing me out.

I had thought that I was protected by my (many) years of sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous--my working the steps with sponsees, my calling my own sponsor, my Twelve Step life, the Promises--and my Episcopalianism--attending virtual services at the National Cathedral and in my own parish and diocese, my prayers and supplications and creeds and spiritual communions.

But I am human. And I can be sober and stressed. I can be a faithful communicant and anxious. I can have faith and fear at the same time.

So what does that mean? Our rector said in a sermon recently that the opposite of faith is not doubt—the opposite is certainty. Faith means believing in something you can’t quite define, you can’t quite label, you can’t quite grasp. Faith is a deep knowing, an ineffable relationship. And like all knowing, it comes with unknowing. With all relationships, there are times of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Nothing—no amount of faith, churchiness, sobriety or 12-stepping—can stop me from being human. From forgetting that I am connected and held and cherished.

I would be out of touch with reality if I didn’t admit that uncertainty and global change is scary. I was out of touch with reality when I was convinced that my frenetic busy-ness was just an attempt to get myself organized and not a desperate shield to keep my worries buried.

Fear: Face Everything and Recover.

By labeling what I was feeling—anxiety—I could then look it in the eye and say, “Oh, you! I know you. We have been together before. You better come out in the open and get some light on you so I can see you clearly. Here, let’s invite our friend Faith in and the three of us can chat.”

Christine H.