Step One: Unmanageable Managers
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable."
The concepts of IFS make the language of “unmanageability” especially literal. We cannot manage our way out of the problematic attachments we have to drinking. [p. 60] The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run by blended Managers can hardly be a success. On that basis our Managers are almost always in collision with other parts, even though our Managers’ motives are good. Without 🔵Self🌼-leadership, Managers are trying to solve the problems of drinking without the integration and cooperation of all our parts. And it is the war among our parts that drives us to drink in the first place.
Most people try to live by Manager-propulsion. Instead of allowing our Innermost 🔵Self🌼 to lead our Manager parts in coordinating the work of all our parts, we try to force the practice of sobriety. 🔵Self🌼-leadership vs. Manager-propulsion. Each Manager part is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. Our 🔵Self🌼 is the director of the play. Imagine what happens when an actor tries to be the director. If [p. 61] his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. And now imagine that each of the actors in the play wants to be the director. The play will fall apart because each actor will have his own idea of how the play should run.
In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish, and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have various traits. The reason why it’s a problem for Managers to try to direct the play is not that Managers can’t be good directors. They can actually make very good assistant directors. The problem is that they are parts just like all our other parts, and so they don’t belong in the director role. That belongs to 🔵Self🌼.
What usually happens? The other parts are going to feel variously jealous, resentful, ignored, trampled on, etc. No part can blend and take over the role of 🔵Self🌼 permanently. If one actor tries to play director, eventually other actors are going to muscle their way in and take over. This is what the Big Book means by the actor having various traits. We are not seeing various traits of the actor trying to take over as director; rather, we are seeing different actors/parts taking over the role of director by blending with 🔵Self🌼.
When this happens, the show doesn’t come off very well. He begins to think life doesn’t treat him right. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other parts are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Does he not have an agenda rather than loving the other parts as they are? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if only he manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony? Our parts will only be happy when they can have the Confidence and security that they are being directed by our Innermost 🔵Self🌼, who has their best interests at heart and sees the whole good of a rightly ordered, cooperative system of parts.
Our actor is self-centered—ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. Oh that we could truly be 🔵Self🌼-centered! That is the definition of sobriety. If only all of our parts could be centered in 🔵Self🌼! Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But first we have to love our 🔵Self🌼. This is the opposite of ego-centrism. Ego-centrism is when any part—but especially a Manager—tries to take over the proper seat of 🔵Self🌼. When a part blends and pushes 🔵Self🌼 out of its proper place at the center of our being, the ego-centrism can take many shapes depending on the part and its agenda.
The Big Book gives us this deliciously biting catalogue of agendas: He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; the politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia [p. 62] if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. Whatever their protestations, are not most of our parts concerned with themselves, their resentments, or their self-pity?
Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. In IFS terms, this refers to the selfishness of individual parts. The selfishness of a part can present in a number of ways. The primary way is blending, when it tries to take over the proper roles of 🔵Self🌼. Even when not blending, a part can relate to other parts with an agenda rather than relating to them on their own terms. One part can deny the existence of another part. One part can reduce its relationship to other parts as their victim. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the foes of our fellow parts and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation . . .
The selfish part has no interest in other parts (it is not Curious). The selfish part tells other parts to get over it (it has no Compassion). It sees the world through the gauze of its own agendas (it has no Clarity). It does not ask questions of other parts or make eye contact (it is not Connected). It is sure this is the only way things can ever be (failure of Creativity). It is afraid to exercise these Cs because of how they might threaten its attachment and integrity needs (it lacks Courage). Despite its desire to control the system, it doesn’t have Confidence that it can actually play a role in the system that will make the system better. For all of these reasons, Calm eludes the selfish part. The opposite of a part being selfish is for it to be led by 🔵Self🌼 and relate to all of the other parts with the 8 Cs.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must rid ourselves of this selfishness. But selfishness is not a thing. It is not a quality of character. It is the disharmony and confusion of our parts. And so “getting rid of selfishness” is not the most helpful way to think about recovery. Instead, we must seek 🔵Self🌼-leadership and the integration of all our parts so that we can flourish as a whole person. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely integrating our whole person without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our selfishness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God’s help. We had to be led by 🔵Self🌼, the image of God in us.