September 5, 2010
The Levels in Action
Young Man “Floored” By Four Levels Brings Spitzer’s Message to Others on the Road to Recovery
Though still just 20 years old, Edward J. Shehwen III has already faced one of life’s toughest challenges. Shehwen became addicted to drugs and alcohol in high school but has been in recovery now for more than two years. He has gone from being a stranger walking into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous to someone who greets other strangers just starting their own journey to sobriety. And part of the help that Shehwen offers begins with a question: “Have you ever heard of Fr. Spitzer and the Four Levels of Happiness?”
Shehwen (pronounced Shoe-win) became aware of the Four Levels this past December through Catherine Shiel, an attorney working with Fr. Spitzer on a new online version of his ethics curriculum. Shiel has a son, Daniel, who’s a friend of Shehwen and a fellow student at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.
“Catherine was telling me about her project with Fr. Spitzer,” Shehwen recalls. “She sent me an article that mentioned the Four Levels, and I went to the Spitzer Center website to read more about them. … I was floored.”
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| Ed Shehwen in his dorm room at Augsburg College |
“One thing we try to do in recovery is to analyze our thinking to improve our actions. The Four Levels just seemed to delineate how I organize my thinking and attempt to carry out my actions. It reflected my life almost perfectly.”
Fr. Spitzer’s term “the Comparison Game” really resonates with Shehwen. “I come from a family with a single parent, and my mother worked very hard so that my sister and I could have more than we ever needed. But I never appreciated that because I always looked at the things I didn’t have. … I always looked at people in terms of whether they had more money than I did, or whether they were nicer looking, had nicer clothes or cars, or whatever. And based on what I saw, I would think of myself as better or less than they were. This way of thinking led to misery.”
Shehwen says his reliance on Level 1 outlets persisted even after he started his road to recovery. “When I first got sober, I thought that incessant shopping and buying things would make me feel better. At the end of the day, I had all these new things, but I was still left with myself. I realized over time that the problem was within.”
Shehwen says a light bulb went off when he read an article about Tiger Woods on the Spitzer Center website. “In my past way of thinking, I looked at someone like Tiger and thought, ‘He has so much money, he’s great at his sport, and he’s famous. He’s the happiest man in the world. I’ll never feel that way.’ Considering his past actions, I was able to see that all that money and all those nice things did not lead to happiness. I had this paradigm shift. I realized that material-driven happiness was not all that it’s made out to be.”
“When I first got sober and walked into an AA meeting, people were shaking my hand and greeting me. They were complete strangers, but they took such an interest in me. Now I need to extend myself as that stranger who’s there for that person who first walks in. … It feels good to score high on a test or get an A in a class, but it’s nothing like the feeling you get when you help someone else and make their life better.” |
"An amazing feeling"
While Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t use the terminology of the Four Levels, the group’s philosophy puts a tremendous emphasis on Levels 3 and 4.
“One thing we say in recovery is that self-knowledge alone will not keep us sober,” Shehwen says. “We know all these character defects are wrong but yet we still act on them. So in order to keep improving, we work with others to better ourselves, and we keep moving toward spiritual progress. Service is a necessary part of being in recovery and making spiritual progress.
“I can still get caught up in the Comparison Game, but today it’s more about putting pressure on myself to do well academically. If someone performs better than you on a test or gets a higher grade, you can feel unduly upset if you invest too fully in your Level 2-ness.”
In a similar vein, Shehwen acknowledges it’s not always easy to make Level 3 your priority. “Sometimes when I get asked for a favor like giving a person a ride, I almost get upset. I’ll think, ‘But I have homework to do! This is the last thing I need!’ But if I don’t reach out to that person, what’s the purpose of my existence? Is it just my own selfish needs and ego-centricity? So I force myself to help someone in need, and I never regret it. The feeling I get afterwards is amazing.”
Shehwen’s continued involvement in AA has become a reliable source of Level 3 happiness. “When I first got sober and walked into an AA meeting, people were shaking my hand and greeting me. They were complete strangers, but they took such an interest in me. Now I need to extend myself as that stranger who’s there for that person who first walks in. … It feels good to score high on a test or get an A in a class, but it’s nothing like the feeling you get when you help someone else and make their life better.”
Shehwen says he was greatly helped by the StepUP program at Augsburg, which is tailored to the needs of students in recovery. The program helped him build his confidence and apply himself academically. “I started doing school for the first time in my life, studying and doing the best I could. I was very passionate about it. It was a lot of fun. I realized that great things could come from it.”
He has enough confidence now that he’s considering a transfer to an even more academically challenging university. One university he applied to requested that applicants submit an essay about someone they admired. Shehwen chose Fr. Spitzer.
He ended his essay with these words: “I am and will be forever grateful for Fr. Spitzer’s The Four Levels of Happiness, as its unique and prevailing message brings organization and reason to my daily occurrences.”
– John Keenan, Editor
john@spitzercenter.org
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Last changed: Mar 24 2010 at 12:27 PM