Month: August 2013

Hollywood’s Fact And Fiction – Lee Daniels The Butler

Eugene Allen was an African American man who worked at the White House for 34 years under eight different Presidents. And just over a week ago, a movie entitled “Lee Daniels The Butler” was released into theaters portraying his life. Unfortunately, the movie I got to see in the theater was only loosely based upon it.

I’m not sure if I’m just becoming a tougher critic on the films that I’m watching these days in theaters or if my need for “factual movies” to be actually factual is changing my tastes. Either way, this summer has had such movies as The Conjuring and now The Butler that have really taken liberty with true-to-life information and stretched it rather thin. Don’t get me wrong, I felt the movie was done incredibly well in so many different elements. And if I were to base this movie completely on the acting alone, I’d give it five stars. Forest Whitaker, who played Cecil Gaines (the name given to the Eugene Allen character) even well deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, as does Oprah Winfrey who played his wife in the movie. But while the acting was even of that higher caliber for many of the other actors and actresses as well, it was the fictionalized parts of the plot that gave me a less than ecstatic feeling I was hoping for when the movie ended.

The premise of this film does indeed surround the 34 years Eugene Allen served under eight different Presidents. But the beginning of the film that involved a tragic childhood was not factual and neither was the whole storyline about the son named Lewis who was part of the civil rights based movement. And those were only two of the many discrepancies I discovered when I did my research surrounding the real life of Eugene Allen. Ironically, I probably would have gotten that ecstatic feeling I was hoping for if this movie had been a completely fictionalized story. In that case, I would have said it really was a well written script.

I often wonder if Hollywood over fictionalizes these real life stories of people like Eugene Allen because they feel it wouldn’t be interesting enough to make a film be completely or almost completely factual. Would that type of movie have been totally boring and uninteresting if it had been done with Eugene Allen’s life? I don’t think so. I’m sure there are many elements of his life that could have been portrayed accurately and kept the viewers captivated. But sadly, it wasn’t and The Butler was only loosely based on bits and pieces of it.

Thankfully, there are plenty of other movies that have come and gone in the theaters over the years that have been based more upon their factual events in history. _Gandhi, a film based upon parts of the life of Mahatma Gandi, was an example of that. Most of that movie was historically accurate except for a few minor Hollywood differences. And that film is in my collection of movies at home and actually does give me that ecstatic feeling every time I watch it. Even more recent was the release of Fruitvale Station this summer, which portrayed with almost complete accuracy, the last day in the life of Oscar Grant before he was innocently murdered by a transit station officer. It too moved me greatly, but in a different way, and will become one I purchase when it’s released on DVD.

While I am definitely inspired by the life that Eugene Allen lived, I only wish the movie had done a better job revealing his real life events. Regardless, the movie in itself is inspiring in the way his life is portrayed which stands to reason why the theater I saw the film at erupted in applause at the end. I can only hope that Hollywood will make factual films be more factual in the future and a lot less fiction. But if they stay on their current course, then maybe they should make a film based around my life. I’m sure the Hollywood version of my life would have a lot of good drama, and more than the type I ever was known to create…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Detaching With Love

All too often I hear people share in meetings about how one of their loved ones is actively suffering from the throngs of some type of addiction. Many of them talk about how they have tried everything to help those addicts and that it’s tearing their lives apart. Yet none of them realize that the best thing they can do to help those addicts is to stop enabling them and instead to begin the path of detaching with love…

So what does detaching with love look like? It means:

  • Holding back from the need to rescue, save or fix the addict from being sick, dysfunctional or irrational
  • Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with the addict
  • Accepting that one cannot change or control the addict
  • Developing and maintaining a safe, emotional distance from the addict whom one has previously given a lot of power to affect their emotional outlook on life
  • Establishing emotional boundaries with the addict that one has become overly enmeshed or dependent with in order to develop one’s own sense of autonomy and independence
  • Not allowing oneself to be led into guilt or feeling responsible for the addict’s failures or falterings
  • Letting the addict that one loves and cares for accept personal responsibility for their own actions and to practice tough love by not bailing them out from their troubles

As soon as a person begins the path of detaching with love, an addict often attempts to dominate, manipulate, and control them a lot more to prevent them from doing so. My mother was the first example of an addict in my life that I experienced this first hand. There were many others I brought into my life after her that repeated these same lessons. What I had to learn how to do was emotionally detach from all of them but to do so meant changing many of my own behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. For the longest time, I thought what this meant was to change the way I was acting so that I didn’t “trigger” them into doing more of their addict based behaviors. That is NOT what detachment means at all. Trying to change certain behaviors so as not to “trigger” an addict is actually enabling them further into their disease.

My path of successfully detaching with love from all those unhealthy and toxic addicts throughout my whole life began with me learning a set of principles that came from therapy, reading self-help books, and Al-Anon. They are:

  • I couldn’t fix, save, or rescue the addict
  • I was giving my power away every time I tried to fix, save, or rescue the addict
  • I was not responsible for the addict’s happiness, failures, shortcomings, or bad behaviors
  • Every time I had hope that things would change with the addict, I was living in an illusion and setting myself up for more pain
  • I was the one who was allowing the addict to convince me I was helpless, powerless, and incompetent
  • I could survive and thrive without the relationship with the addict, that life would go on, and that I wasn’t a bad person for doing so
  • There was no shame in walking away from a relationship that was destructive and toxic

The most important thing though, that I learned was critical if I wanted to detach with love, was the fact that I had to learn how to love myself a lot more so that I could see I deserved better. Once that began to happen, I began detaching with love from all of those toxic relationships with addicts by walking out of all of their lives.

If you are feeling at your wits end with someone you love who is suffering from any type of addiction, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and realize you will never be able to make that person become healthy regardless of how many acts of love you offer them. No matter what you ever do, you will never be able to save, fix, or rescue them. Detaching with love means loving yourself a lot more and reminding yourself that you deserve better. Pray to God to help you with this and know that if you end up walking out of that addict’s life, you don’t need to feel guilty. Not only is it going to be healthier for you, it will be just as healthy for them because it often become’s a great catalyst to driving them into recovery.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Cross-Talking

A few days ago a woman had raised her hand at the beginning of a big book AA meeting I was attending. For about ten minutes she shared a painful experience that dealt with her 30 year old son who was on a serious implosion with alcohol. She indicated that it was affecting her own ability to stay sane as well as clean and sober. Unfortunately, what came next that lasted for the duration of that meeting was quite a bit of cross-talking and not much in the way of loving support for this woman.

In general, cross-talking typically refers to when people speak out of turn, interrupt someone while they are speaking, or give direct advice to someone in a meeting. It’s supposed to be a cardinal rule that people don’t do this sort of thing during 12 Step recovery meetings. Sadly, that’s not always the case as it was the other day for this woman when several people gave her their own advice throughout the meeting in very direct and somewhat angry tones. Speaking about one’s own experiences that relate to what someone else has shared is quite acceptable during any meeting. But looking directly at someone and letting them know that you feel they should be handling things differently can be detrimental to that person’s recovery. In the situation with this woman, she had relapsed recently and had only a week sober so this was definitely the case. And I could tell as she left the meeting that she was worse off than when she came in.

I was extremely grateful though later in the evening when I ran into her in the plaza across the street from where the meeting was held. She was indeed quite upset from what had transpired and had felt the negative tone from many of the comments that were directed at her. I took the opportunity to tell her I was proud of her for what she shared and that I would pray for her situation. I also let her know that meetings are not supposed to be that way and provided her my phone number in case she wanted to reach out for help.

The bottom line is that cross-talking is harmful to the health of any meeting. The point of any 12 Step meeting is not to provide advice to others, to interrupt when someone else is speaking, or to speak out of turn. Doing any of this can harm the person who is sharing an intimate part of their recovery like it did for this woman. Thankfully, God put her in my path after the meeting was over which gave me the chance to help diffuse what happened.

Hopefully, she will come back and find a healthier meeting to attend…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson