80 Degrees in the Shade

Off to someplace warm for the holidays, my friends.
Be the ball.

Hello? Hello? Anyone out there?

Phun Pfacts

I'm going to start a little list of Horseface Steve's Fun Facts of Recovery.


Today's Fun Fact is that it's my responsibility to treat people well. This is actually more of a Fun Suggestion than a Fact. Maybe if I flog the idea around for a while I can come up with a fact that has something to do with trying to improve my personal relationships. Probably not. That goat with a ukulele will start playing "Three Blind Mice" and I'll be too distracted to continue. Anyway, the point is that if you treat people well -- with respect and honesty -- your relationships will improve dramatically. Things will work out in the long run.


I remember the first time I became aware of the concept of treating someone well without any guarantee that they weren't going to take advantage of me. The idea floored me. "What if I'm nice and everything and then someone screws me and I don't get to take my just revenge?" I asked. It was bad enough that I had to treat other people well -- I didn't see what was in it for me. It was an absolute nightmare scenario to think that I could behave properly and then get hosed by some other self-seeking individual, which wasn't unlikely as I tended to surround myself with people just like me.

Take my job, for instance. I sell things to industrial customers. I don't think I ever got up in the morning and decided to take advantage of someone. I tried not to lie or misrepresent myself or my product. But, really, all I did was pay lip service to honesty. I tried to get a prospect to buy as much stuff as possible. I didn't think things through from their point of view. I didn't care if they couldn't afford it or they didn't really need the more expensive thing or my competitor had a better solution. The more they bought, the more I got paid.

Today I'm brutally honest with people. I recommend the most appropriate solution even when that may put less money in my pocket. If someone asks, I tell them about the competition, trying to point out the differences in our products without badmouthing anyone. I think what happens is that a lot of customers are so taken aback by this honesty that they don't even look at the competition. This is the exact opposite of what I expected would happen.

The result, as you may expect, is that I sell three times as much stuff as I ever did in my best year when I was drinking. People know when you are trying to bullshit them. They can feel it when someone is trying to take advantage of them. Remember when you tried to spin your first sponsor and you thought you were fooling him? You were so magnificently transparent he could barely keep a straight face.

Today I'm going to at least try not to act like an ass.

Perception Regression

Perception: Consciousness; awareness; insight or intuition, as of an abstract quality.

I went to my club today and took a swim. And by "swim" I mean "swallowing pool water while trying not to sink." Swimming in a lap pool is a great place to see how you measure up against other people. Other people are your competition. You need to beat them. In the pool the lanes are right next to each other so you can easily see who you are beating. And by "beating" I mean "getting beat by someone twenty years older than me."


I have this need to be Number One, even when I don't have anything particularly important to gain by being the best at something. There I am, swimming away, pleased with the exercise I'm getting -- not so strenuous that I'm hurting myself but strenuous enough that I'm not sinking to the bottom -- and some one starts to swim in the next lane. Today it was a kid twenty years younger than me. I'm a 98 lb. weakling who can't swim faster than a five year old in Bozo The Clown water wings, but that didn't stop me from picking up the pace, until I was gasping for air and totally miserable. Now something in my rotator cuff feels a little twingey, and I don't even know what a rotator cuff is. And he still beat the shit out of me.


It's that way in my work life, too. I've had jobs before where I have been totally happy with the amount of money I'm making and pleased with my supervisor. (Fair disclosure: I'm lying -- I've never been totally happy with anything.) Then I find that the guy next to me has a higher salary. Just like that I'm pissed. I go to my supervisor -- the one I like -- and complain about this injustice. When he doesn't do anything to help me out I develop a resentment at this bastard who doesn't know how valuable I am. In two minutes I have gone from being happy and content to being angry and resentful. What changed? Absolutely nothing but my perception of the world.


Perception is reality

$ and more $

I was talking with my friend Scrooge last night about this and that, complaining about everything, basically, postulating that the world would be a much better place if we were in charge (well, if I were in charge, anyway -- he would make a mess of things) and our dialogue drifted into the realm of money. I'm sure I was helping him more than he was helping me, which is the case with most of my friendships. I am Horseface Steve, after all.

The economy is not in great shape and it's natural for this to be a concern for a lot of us. Money is a big trigger if I want to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes: being afraid. I think I said something unusually profound that really resonated with him, even more so that my normal, run-of-the-mill profound comments. He was saying things like "wow" and "unbelievably perceptive and profound." That's how I knew he was impressed.

Anyway, he suggested that I may have found a topic for tomorrow's blog. "That's a great idea," I said, while thinking: "You arrogant twit, thinking I can't come up with my own topics." I think that's how it went. Sometimes I say what I'm thinking and sometimes I think I've said something which, in actuality, I have only thought about. Sometimes people will say to me: "Yeah, you just said that." I thought it, got distracted, and didn't remember what I did or did not say two minutes ago. Lot of LSD in college.

I got up this morning with absolutely no idea what to write about. If you could see inside my head when I'm thinking intently you would see a goat playing a ukulele, riding on a choo choo train. Money would be a great topic, I thought, certain that I came up with this all on my own, even though I had nothing to do with it. Perception is reality as far as I'm concerned.

His job is very structured and secure and he has found this frustrating from time to time. I'm self-employed so my job is totally unstructured and allows me the free time to pursue some things that I'm interested in, which has been really quite very nice. And I do whatever I can to make sure this sticks in the craw of my friends with structured jobs. Now, things have changed and Scrooge is grateful for his stability and my free time might become a liability. The hunter has become the hunted.

The point of all of this is that we have both arrived at a place in our lives where money is not the sole goal and aim. Don't get me wrong -- I like money as much as the next guy, even though it usually blows up in my face and causes more problems than it solves. It's just not worth worrying about.

All of the time.

Home Improvements Are My Life

I'm having some windows replaced in my house and luckily, I detected a problem before it got out of hand. Fair disclosure -- this is another one of my many, many problems of prosperity. It's like being upset when your normal Ferrari mechanic is on vacation. Don't bring that up as a topic at a meeting, especially if it's an institution meeting, like a half-way house or prison. In fact, don't bring up a topic that includes any of the following words: Jaguar, millionaire, mansion, or supermodel-sex.

Anyway, I inspected the workmanship on the inside of the house and found it met my rigorous standards. Never mind that I can't tell the difference between a ball peen hammer and a rip saw. I'm prohibited by law from owning any tools that require electricity or have sharp edges or teeth. When I took a stroll around the outside, however, I was horrified at what I saw. There was a lot of significant damage to the window frames, cosmetic damage that would render the home uninhabitable. I would have to just burn it down.


Blending the new confidence that I have found in sobriety with my old, established insanity and tendency to act rashly, precipitously, and with no forethought, I stormed into the house and formulated an attack plan. First, I took a couple of minutes to make sure that my fairly normal wife was upset, too. If I'm going down I'm taking out as many other people as I can. In my mind I was hiring lawyers who would sue a corrupt business for heavy damages. It would be a long, bitter fight with charges and counter charges, and threats of violence.


I did mention in passing to one of the nice installers my concerns. He informed me that this was a two day job and that tomorrow was when they would completely rebuild the outside portion of the window. Which they did. And it looks amazing. Which means I spent another nice chunk of time worrying about a problem which only existed in my mind.

I don't know why I spend so much time looking for problems. I can find fault with perfection. I can spot the slight discoloration on the side panel of a Ferrari at a hundred yards. (Fair disclosure: I couldn't afford to pay the sales tax on a Ferrari.) And when no problem exists, I go ahead and create one at some time in the future. The actual existence of a problem is no obstacle for me.

Bending Reality

I was walking around today, mumbling to myself, thinking about my absolute favorite topic: Me, Horseface Steve. It's hard to put into words the love affair that I have with myself. I overlook all of my defects -- no mean feat given their sheer volume and intensity -- and I exaggerate the extent of the few good attributes that I have managed to hang onto. I call this Bending Reality. I was the kid using a ball peen hammer to jam the little square peg through the little round hole. It looked like it would fit to me.

What good attributes, some might ask? Well, I have very good personal hygiene as long as we're not including the teeth or gums, I'm nice to animals if they're nice to me, and I always return my shopping cart to the cart corral at the grocery store. I'm sympathetic to the fact that the store can not be held liable for any damages caused by their carts. I am interested in helping them keep their costs down.


Actually, I started thinking about how much I think about myself while I was on the phone with a friend in The Program, trying hard to feign interest in what he was saying, as it was taking my attention away from myself. Suddenly, it dawned on me: this guy is thinking about himself too much! Oh, sure he was dressing it up as some unknowable character defect that was impossible to detect, but it was good old self-absorption.

I pointed out his shortcoming. My second favorite activity after thinking about myself -- Horseface Steve -- is criticizing the behavior of others. He was grateful for my keen insight. He said something along the lines of: "Why don't you go #!#!* yourself you self-righteous piece of #$!!*. Then we went and had a cup of coffee.


The truth hurts.

Expectations, Incorporated

Expect: Implies a considerable degree of confidence that an event will happen.


Normally I expect that whatever is going to happen will be very, very bad. So bad -you don't know how bad. Don't get me started on how bad. This despite the fact that very bad things almost never happen to me and when they do, they're not as bad as I think they're going to be, and even then I've been given the tools to handle whatever comes my way. But I'm sure this time it's going to be different. This time it's going to be bad.


Ironically, the rest of the time I expect that the outcome is going to be very, very good. Implausibly good. Scoring the winning points as time expires to win The Championship of the World good. Super model in a Ferrari good. People are a little wary about planning things with me or giving me anything because my expectations are so blown out of proportion. "You bought me a little gift? Is it a Ferrari? A red Ferrari?"


I'm going to die today in a horrible, painful accident or I'm going to live forever in the penthouse suite at the Shangri La Hotel. I haven't decided which yet. Could be both. I'm not sure how that would work but I bet it'd be cool.

Tomorrow: Expectations

I'm going to quit complaining about the holidays for a while. Not for long, I suspect, because they provide such a great opportunity for self-righteous individuals such as myself to rant incoherently. Really, Santa Claus is a easy target: big, fat guy dressed in red covered in tinkling bells and revealing his location with a booming laugh. What's the sport in flogging Santa Claus? I'm no athlete but I think I can run down that guy, although the magic sleigh may be a problem. That's his ace in the hole, those flying reindeer. I don't have an easy answer to that one.

The religious stuff is a little touchier. People get defensive if you start picking on their gods. I can understand that. Still, it has its attraction for me. It's funny how the original idea behind Christmas -- celebrating the birth of the saviour -- got buried under an avalanche of crass materialism. Those kooky marketing guys sure know what they're doing. Somehow they managed to translate gold, frankincense, and myrrh into Baby Burps-A-Lot. Frankincense and myrrh are shrubs that can be dried to create incense. Why would an infant want incense? I can just see Mary and Joseph muttering about that. "We're freezing to death in this stable and we get myrrh? How about a blanket so we can get rid of these swaddling clothes?"

Sidetracked again.

Holiday -- From "Holy Day"

The holidays can be a little tricky. Expectations are high. This is generally problematic with alcoholics who have made disappointment when high expectations are not met an art form. It's as if we have to be wondrously joyous because the time of the year calls for it. Does this mean we get to act poorly the rest of the year? I don't have the ability to turn my joyiosity on and off like a light. Personally I think it would be a lot easier to behave pretty well most of the time than to be really, really good for a couple of weeks at the end of the year. I don't like being really good. It doesn't come to me naturally.

I attended my wife's holiday party last weekend. It was the worst holiday party that I have ever attended for a whole variety of reasons. Mostly it was the tension between people who don't normally get along all that well but were forced to socialize at an event where being wondrously joyous was required. There was a lot of uncomfortable conversation over the bad beef and creme brulee. The president showed up an hour late and made his "Go get 'em" speech at the end of the dinner, when the drinkers were drunk and half the crowd had left. The manager told me that he was being sued for sexual harassment. He didn't invite the employees he didn't like to the company Christmas party.

At one job I held the owner made his employees exchange names and buy each other a gift. In an ironic twist of fate (remember: God has a great sense of humor) he got my name. "What do you want?" he asked me. "How about you don't act like such a jerk?" I wanted to say. He bought me the kind of shirt that he liked to wear in his favorite color. "Gee, thanks," I said. I'm still polishing the car with it.

I'm not trying to poop all over the holidays. I enjoy them as much as the next person, as long as I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do.

Santa is hip to my bullshit.

Ho! Ho! Ack!

So the holidays are upon us. This time of the year always presents me with a wonderful opportunity to be venomous, self-righteous, and openly critical. And I'm not sure why, either. The holidays are a perfectly fine concept, when they are executed properly, which they usually are not. It seems to me that a lot of people try to jam a whole year's worth of good cheer into a couple of weeks. This is not only impossible, it usually makes everything worse as harried shoppers try to live up to an impossible ideal that exists in some holiday fable written long ago, in a simpler time, by a delusional opium addict.

I try not to buy into this madness. For a while, I raged against the machine. I was vociferously anti-holiday. I behaved like an enraged, psychotic elf. All this did no good. The holidays marched on inexorably. I stopped nothing. Nobody is interested in some horse-faced dude trying to rain on their parade.

The last few years I have tried experimenting with my own personal holiday spirit. This year I reflected on some people who made my life better by just being nice to me. There are a lot of people like that, believe it or not. I know, I know, it's a weird subset of the human race,but there are people out there who are pleasant by nature. When I'm pleasant people wonder what I'm trying to get out of them.

I thought about the coffee shop manager who has my drink ready every morning; the woman at the membership desk of my swim club who took the time to remember my name; the mailman who rings the doorbell when a letter doesn't fit in the box , instead of tossing it on the ground, which is what I would have done. I stuck a few bucks in envelopes and started passing them out. It's not the amount of money which is important. Well, it's a little important. Don't try this with $1 bills and expect a big smile, but don't bankrupt yourself, either.

I was surprised at the reactions. Apparently a lot of people don't do this.

My friend Shorty was quick to point out that if I was truly humble -- which I am not -- I would have done this anonymously. He spends a lot of time pointing out my defects. He is also very generous with my money. He has offered to deliver the envelopes himself, promising to give me the credit.

There will be no envelope under Shorty's Christmas tree this year.

Serenity Stan, We Hardly Knew Ye

I got a note the other day from Serenity Stan relating an incident in his family that placed him squarely between two people who weren't behaving all that well. Not that Stan behaves all that well himself but that's a topic for another discussion. I probably shouldn't be sharing this story without first checking with Serenity Stan (heretofore to be referred to as S.S. or "the plaintiff") but that's the beauty of semi-anonymous blogging. You can behave in a semi-principled manner, which would be a big upgrade from the barely-principled manner that is my normal method of operation. Not that Stan is his real name or that he has any serenity at all or that anyone outside of his very small group of friends cares anything about him, it's just that it's the principle of the thing.

One of the best reasons for talking regularly with people who haven't been sober as long as I have is that I get to pretend that I know what I'm talking about. And I can give advice that isn't very good to people who don't believe what I'm saying and wouldn't do what I suggest even if they did. It makes me feel older and wiser, even though I'm basically older and not that much wiser. Getting old means that you've done almost every stupid thing at least twice and can explain how painful the consequences were to the person who is not listening to you and probably isn't savvy enough to pick up on the moral of the story. Not that he would act on the moral of the story anyway, which is how it should be. We all have earned the right to behave stupidly and learn hard lessons from severe consequences. It's what separates us from the animals, after all. Except for cats who apparently have a propensity for sitting on hot stoves from time to time.

S.S. was a champ, by the way. He wrote down all of the things that he wanted to say to the misbehavers, then burned the note, ate the ashes, and buried his scat in the backyard, thus saving himself a lot of additional pain. We got to console and irritate each other with the phrase: "You're the one with the Program." We got to remind each other that, as sick people ourselves, we do well to remember that there are a lot of other sick people in the world. Alcoholics don't have the market cornered on sick, although we do a good job of merchandising it.

"When a person offended we said to ourselves: 'This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.' "

Conundrum: Any puzzling question or problem.


I used to think that questions such as: "Where the hell is my car?" or "Where the hell is my wallet?" or "Who the hell are you?" were examples of conundrums. I've grown older and wiser. Well, older anyway; wiser is a matter of opinion. Where my stash ended up is not a conundrum. Why I no longer have a front bumper is not a conundrum. These are factual events whose details have been obscured by the fog of alcohol and drugs. Big difference.


I do admit to being confused at times by the matter of personal responsibility. I have a friend in The Program whose sponsor used to answer his phone calls with: "It's not them -- it's you." The Program suggests that if I want to see the person responsible I should look in the mirror. So I figure it's all about me.


Then The Program tells me that if I try to do this alone that my goose is cooked. To drive home the point the First Step begins with the word "We." Then all of the other Steps use the third person plural freely and with no regrets. Everything is we this or us that. So I figure that I'm not supposed to do this by myself.

Hmm.

Most Excellent

Perfection: The quality or condition of being perfect; extreme degree of excellence according to a given standard.

Today I am going to do everything perfectly. I am not going to make any mistakes. Not one. Moreover, I'm going to hold everyone else that I come into contact with to this highest of standards. In fact, I'm going to devote most of my time to evaluating the relative perfection of the rest of the world. Why spend time on myself since I make very few mistakes? And, since I'm sacrificing my own very, very valuable time to this pursuit -- staring into space and watching TV and the like -- it only makes sense that I point out your mistakes.

And, no matter what I manage to accomplish, it's not going to be enough. I'm going to feel bad about it. I'm going to beat myself up for not doing more. Then I'm going to take out my frustrations with myself on you, by pointing out what you've done wrong, even if you haven't done anything wrong. I don't let facts get in the way of my justified anger. Facts can be an inconvenient roadblock when I'm trying to make myself feel better by making you feel worse.

Time to give myself a break. Time to give everyone else a break.

Are We There Yet?

Happy: Having, showing, or causing a feeling of great pleasure, contentment, joy, etc.; joyous; glad; pleased.

Now we're talking: "great pleasure." I like the sound of that. Contentment really doesn't have the kick that I like. Great pleasure sounds like a double shot of whiskey; contentment sounds like half a glass of wine once in a while on a special occasion. Joy is something you do in church or at a high school pep rally: sing joyous songs, rejoice joyfully, spread glad tidings of great joy, etc. I'm not into gladness or being pleased, either. I don't know what those words mean and I'm not looking them up. They sound like they should be in a Robert Frost poem, not a hard rock bar at 2AM. People aren't pleased when they are screaming for an encore. They are pumped, stoked, revved up.

I like to complicate things. I like big emotions. I like to be on top of the world, riding a monster wave. I like to move at high speed. I don't want to do the little things so that everything works out in the long run. I don't like to do the work. I want everything to come easily and have a big payoff.

These are not the ramblings emanating from a sane, mature state of mind. Most people learn these things as they age normally. I got stuck as a 17 year old. I didn't learn how to move past my own self interest. I couldn't grasp the idea that happiness comes when I lose myself in service to others and in pursuit of spiritual growth.

It's Not as Complicated as I Make It

Happy: Favored by circumstances; lucky; fortunate.

I spend a lot of time trying to get happy, wondering if I'm happy right now, and planning for future happiness. It is my second favorite pursuit. Nothing gets anywhere near my interest in avoiding pain. That's the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. Pain beats the shit out of happy. I would much rather escape the clutches of pain than be cradled in the soft blanket of happiness. Little kids are happy. Puppies are happy. They just are -- they don't have to spend every waking minute trying to be happy, like I do, except when I'm not running like hell from pain.

Every now and then I'm grateful for The Program. It doesn't come easily but I do get there from time to time. The Program has provided me with quite a good road map for achieving some of that reasonable happiness. And, to my great surprise, it's not the accumulation of sex, money, and power, despite the strong urges that I have to get a lot of that stuff.

People that are happy have a logical sense of what the world is all about. They have a concept of a power greater than themselves. They are part of a community of people that think life is made up of more than the pursuit of self-interest. They have some regard for their mental, emotional, and physical health. They try to do things for the common good, to think of others, to help others.

Where in the world can I find some people like that?

More Bad News

Hardship: Hard circumstances of life; a thing hard to bear; specific cause of discomfort or suffering, as poverty, pain, etc.

"Accepting hardship as a pathway to Peace."


I personally would rather be infused with peace while I sleep. I want to be struck peaceful. I want peace to hit me like a Mack truck. I want to find myself in a bright beam of white light, and then feel an overwhelming sense of peace. This seems to be the simplest and least painful way to get some peace. I don't want to suffer to gain some peace of mind. Who comes up with this stuff? Hardship? Discomfort? Pain? Let's string that guy up by his ankles and watch him turn blue.


This Reinhold Niebuhr guy really wants to lodge a chicken bone in my craw. I'm all about the not suffering. That's my whole philosophy of life: avoiding pain. This is why a lot of us move from beer to hard liquor, or from weed to crack. We want to feel better -- a LOT better -- RIGHT NOW. We don't want to suffer so that we can be reasonably happy. We don't want to suffer at all. Ever. For any reason. We don't want suffering to interfere with euphoria. We prefer euphoria. When given a choice, we always pick euphoria.

I think if I write the word euphoria once more, it'll be a little over the top.

Euphoria.

Reasonably Happy

Reasonable: Not extreme; sensible; sane.


Let's take a bit of time to really criticize the shit out of some of the most frustrating parts of the prayer. One of the lines that grabbed me by the throat was the one containing the phrase "reasonably happy." I only have a passing acquaintance with reason. The concepts of sensibility, sanity, and moderation are alien to me. I don't want reasonable happiness. I want to be extremely happy. I want to be euphorically happy. I want life to be a shot of heroin, not a nice cup of herbal tea.


Coded somewhere deep in my alcoholic DNA is the belief that I can always be very, very happy and that pain is strictly optional. This is not normal programming. This is programming performed by a rogue hacker who is trying to crash the whole system. This is a computer infected with a virus and a worm, then set on fire and thrown out a second story window into heavy truck traffic. Even if this was normal programming -- which I will emphasize again that it is not -- life on life's terms will do some reprogramming.

Not extreme. Sensible! Sane. It's funny how often the concepts of sanity and insanity come up when we are discussing the behavior of alcoholics.

The Serenity Prayer Unabridged

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
Courage to change the things that I can.
And wisdom to know the difference.



OK, fair enough. The Serenity Prayer as we know it, which was called The Acceptance Prayer when Reinhold Niebuhr wrote it in the early 30s. Sorry, Program-oids, but Bill Wilson didn't have anything to do with this one. Pretty irritating but most of us have coughed it out once or twice, even though praying for serenity, courage, and wisdom to be more accepting seems to be a waste of good prayer time.

Did you know there is more? The long version. Kind of like Inna Gadda Da Vida.

Living one day at a time.
Accepting hardship as a pathway to Peace.
Taking this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it.
Trusting
that You will make all things right
If I surrender to your will,
So that I may be
Reasonably happy

In this life and
Supremely happy with You forever in the next.

I did perform a couple of minor edits, removing an overtly religious word or two, even though Reverend Niebuhr was an ordained Protestant evangelical, who could reasonably be expected to talk about religious matters. Like most people in the world, in my humble opinion, he is not "doing it right."

I'm going to eyeball this train wreck a little more closely.

I Can't Hear You If I'm Talking

Hear: To listen to and consider; specifically, to take notice of; pay attention to.

Being a judgemental, self-righteous, know-it-all spiritual giant, it's awfully difficult for me to find anyone who can help me in any manner whatsoever. And I'm comfortable including any God, Higher Power, or Supreme Being of the Universe in this rather broad statement. I'm pretty much OK on my own.

That being said I do try to pay attention at meetings long enough to pick up at least one or two things that I can put to practical use in my life. It's not easy. I don't have too many questions. I have a lot of answers, mainly. Good answers, too, not just stuff that I've made up. There's not too much that I don't know and even less that I'll seek advice for.

Acceptance can be as simple as showing unconditional love by listening to others speak. I can't listen when I'm talking. I can't listen when I'm preparing my speech. I can learn new things when I listen to what others say, and this includes people that annoy or irritate me from time to time, which is pretty much everybody, especially people who remind me of myself. These people are poisonous.

On To Christmas

I think that what I am most grateful for during this time of forced and artificial thanksgiving is myself: Horseface Steve. I'm grateful for all of the things that have been given to me, especially material blessings. For, as we all know, the path to true happiness passes down the electronics aisle at your local bankrupt retailer, skirts the Auto Mall, and ends at a big house in a nice suburb with good schools and attractive streetscaping. If you don't have all of these things, or at least a clear path to purchase or steal them, you are in a world of hurt.

I'm also grateful for those members of my family and friends that can do things for me: Horseface Steve. I'm not quite as grateful for people that don't make my material world more comfortable, and everyone else pisses me off. I'm not going to touch the topic of doing something for someone else with a ten foot pole. That's right off the table.

Finally, I'm grateful that I have been able to live a successful and gratifying life with no need to connect to a God, Higher Power, or Great Spirit of the Universe. Praying and meditating are joy-killers and unproductive. Spiritual principals take the focus off of me: Horseface Steve; and are consequently not worth my time.

On to Christmas.

What If Grandmother is a Mean Drunk?

Over the causeway and through the red light,
To Grandmother's condo we go;
The car is old,
My wife has a cold,
The kids are a pain in the ass, oh!

(Editor's note -- I'm not in the mode to try to come up with rhymes today -- I have to spend the day with my in-laws).

Over the causeway and through a stop sign,
To Grandmother's trailer we go;
She's a drunken hag,
My mother's a nag,
My sister's another no-show, oh!

Over the causeway and off of the road,
To Grandmother's nursing home;
She's throwing a fit,
My daughter's a bitch,
The turkey's under-cooked, oh!

Over the causeway and into a tree,
To Grandmother's funeral home;
It couldn't be worse,
Unless I get drunk,
On this Thanksgiving Day.

Actually, my day will be just fine. I hope that yours will be, too. But if it isn't that's OK. Don't get drunk. You'll get through it. It's just another day. Maybe if you're a Pilgrim or an Indian living in Massachusetts it would be different. Probably not. I bet there were Pilgrims sneaking off to have some moonshine.

What if Grandmother Lives in an Apartment?

Thanks: An expression of gratitude; grateful acknowledgement of something received by or done for one.

Thanksgiving is a time when loving families get together in a spirit of peace and unbelievable love for a great big Lovefest. Everything is wonderful because everybody loves each other so much. There is so much love in the air that the Love Boat spontaneously blows up. Those people only wish they could love as much as families on Thanksgiving, especially alcoholic families, who almost have the market cornered on wonderful family reunions, where everything is sure to go well. Relatives travel from far and near for joyous reunions and intimate sharing of all of our deepest, most profoundly personal affairs.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Unless you come from a family where nobody likes anybody else. Sometimes the distaste is right out in the open and leads to arguments and fistfights and cutting comments dripping with bitter sarcasm. Or a family that isn't that close, where nice people sit around uncomfortably pretending to have strong feelings for people who they would rather not be around. Forced love is almost worse than open warfare. Not everybody is close. That's OK. It's not a character flaw if you aren't crazy about your brother in law that you see once a year, on some day of Mandatory Cheer.

You're not alone during the holidays. Don't believe all of that happy go lucky horseshit that you see on TV. Better yet, turn off the TV and go take a walk. Burn off some calories and some edgy, angsty fear.

Take it easy. It isn't going to be that bad

Chronic. Progressive. Fatal.

Chronic: Suggests long duration or frequent recurrence and is used especially of diseases or habits that resist all effort to eradicate them (chronic sinusitis).

I think when I start up my heavy metal band -- the one that's going to be cheered by tens of thousands at Wembley Stadium -- I'm going to call it The Chronic Progressive Fatal Quartet. If I'm going to make my living playing death metal I better let everyone know what's coming.

While I'm sipping coffee at a meeting, my disease is out in the parking lot doing push ups. One handed push ups, with a pile of bricks on its back, while suspended over a pit of Indian spitting vipers. My alcoholism keeps on coming. It's very macho. It can take a lot of punishment. It does not discourage easily.

It's not easy watching the end game. All active alcoholics take a tremendous emotional beating. We all know fear, what it's like to be irritable, restless, and discontented. Most of us take a lot of physical punishment: hangovers and cirrhosis and drug overdoses and the like. Some of us take it all the way. We just give up and let ourselves die. No one can help us.

Slow Motion Suicide. Which would also be a really cool band name.

Routine: A regular, more of less unvarying procedure, customary, prescribed, or habitual, as of business or daily life.

Luckily for me, I'm a routine guy by nature. In fact, capitalization would not be inappropriate in this case. Call me The Routine Guy. I have been known to floss in the jungle, take ice cold showers if the hot water is out, and eat a yogurt every day. Would it kill me to not floss today? It might. Under duress, I would consider using a different brand of floss or flossing right before bed instead of right after dinner or trying a different flossing technique, but I will, I must floss. Do not get between me and my floss.

Fortunately, I have been able to translate these almost dangerously compulsive habits into a strength of sorts. There are no stray pieces of spinach stuck between my back molars, for instance. This is a good thing, particularly if you have to look at me for any length of time, which many people consider unpleasant even when they don't have to ignore the occasional piece of vegetation. My nickname is Horseface, after all.

I'm totally off track this morning. See what the topic of flossing does to me? The only idea was to talk about how important it was for me to develop a healthy routine in my recovery program, and I picked up the thread of flossing, so to speak, and I was off and running.

This will all make sense tomorrow.

I Need More Stuff

Stuff: Worthless objects; refuse; junk.

My skepticism with The Promises is burning with a white hot heat today. I'm choking on the idea that I can be happy by dedicating my life to the happiness and well-being of others and by continuing to foster a deeper, more profound relationship with my concept of a Higher Power. It feels like I have a big chicken bone stuck in my craw. Not a little stuck, either, but wedged in there sideways and caught on my epiglottis. I'm horking and hacking and it's not going anywhere.

Surely I can be happy by pursuing my own wants. Things. That's the key. If I just keep accumulating more things then I will discover the meaning of life. I will break through and experience nirvana. You don't have to do all of that yoga crap or experiment with transcendental meditation to discover where happiness resides. It's stuff.

I can see that in our society that the happiest people have the best possessions. A good indicator of satisfaction is the size and cost of one's automobile. You are very happy if you have an expensive car. You will become more miserable with a small car and the pain will increase as the thing ages. If you take the bus, you might as well give up and resign yourself to a life of misery.

Get more stuff!

Laser Beams of Ire

OK, I've established the fact that I don't like anybody but I want them to love me. In my opinion I've made a compelling case, with airtight logic and a simplicity born of an almost otherworldly intelligence, common sense, and insight. The general population is highly flawed and patently offensive, justifying my distaste. Other than that, they're OK. They just need to make some improvements.

Unfortunately, the vigor with which I pursue my vendetta against my fellow man almost always slops over into my own personal space, which is where it becomes a real problem. It is, as I hope I have made clear, all about me. The emotional energy that I expend shooting laser beams of ire against mankind ends up bouncing off some kind of force field and hitting me right in the eye.

I can't dislike people. It isn't right and it isn't fair. Everybody is fine, doing the best they can to maneuver through the minefield that's life. Just because I manage to get through a couple of days without stumbling onto a buried explosive -- despite my best efforts to detonate every bomb within a hundred miles of my current location -- doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing.

Clearly, I don't know what I'm doing.

People! People Who Need People!

Like: To have a taste or fondness for; be pleased with; have a preference for; enjoy.


Generally speaking, I don't like other people. While this may sound like a character defect, it is important to note that when I was drinking I didn't like any people. I wasn't speaking generally at that point. I was speaking specifically. It actually made my interpersonal relationships pretty easy. You didn't have to wonder whether or not I liked you. I didn't even have to know you. I could work up a great distaste by the car that you drove or the restaurants that you frequented.


In one of the great ironies of life, it was very important that you liked me. I'm a people pleaser with a tremendous need to be loved who can't stand anyone. I wanted you to draw close and show your love so that I could work up a bad taste in my life and push you away. I would immediately seek out someone else that I didn't like and rip you a new pie hole behind your back. I saw no contradiction in this kind of behavior.

Today I'm proud to announce that I only dislike about 85% of the human race.

I'm Sorry. Really, I Am.

Apology: An acknowledging and expressing regret for a fault, injury, insult, etc.; asking a person's pardon.

I'm not real big on the whole apologizing thing. The main obstacle is that I don't think that I do anything wrong, which would preclude apologizing for anything that I have done, which by definition would not require that I admit fault. If you have been harmed in some way, well, so be it. It's unlikely that I'm the cause of that injury. You can't prove a thing. Sue me if you think you can win in a court of law. Then try to find me. Try to collect. Lots of people have, few with any success.

I have to admit that my least favorite step would be the one that asks that I make direct amends to people that I have harmed. Can't I send a proxy to apologize for anything that I might have done? Can't I assume that you'll get over it on your own? One of my favorite slogans is: "Maybe if I pull my drapes and turn off the phone, it'll go away."

I think that the main reason that I try to act well is that I hate making amends. I don't like admitting that I'm wrong, even when I am. I harbor a sneaking suspicion that you are the real cause of any problems that exist. And to add insult to injury, sometimes people don't accept my apology. That's a crime against humanity. Off to the Hague you go.

Good behavior doesn't have any inherent attraction for me.

An Elaborate Scam

Promise: An oral or written agreement to do or not to do something; vow.


I was very excited when I first heard about The Promises. If I was going to give up my long standing relationship with my true love -- alcohol -- and quit cheating with my hot mistress -- drugs -- I had high expectations of a pretty dramatic payoff. Promises to me meant that I was going to get what I had always wanted to get. I was looking for big houses and powerful jobs, willing sex partners, and exotic Italian sports cars. I graciously agreed to accept a German model if it was absolutely necessary.


I couldn't believe the crap that showed up in the book. I had to read the text a couple of times. My jaw dropped. I groaned. I even drooled a little bit. I paged forward, scanning the book for the real promises. No more drugs and alcohol, and the reckoning is a sense of purpose? Lack of self-interest? Relationships with God and my fellow man?

Holy shit, what a scam. These people must be the greatest salesmen in the world. They think they can get me to give up drinking just so God can start doing for me what I can't do for myself. I didn't need God to do anything except start delivering the goods.

No Rest for this Wicked Drunk

Insidious: Characterized by treachery or slyness; crafty; wily; more dangerous than seems evident.

Today my alcoholism is looking for a foothold. It doesn't care that much about a big victory right away. It wants to start the process. I'm a big piece of granite and my alcoholism is a tiny patch of green moss hiding in a cold, dark, damp crevice, out of sight. I'm a pretty tough rock and I laugh at the insignificant moss. Each day, imperceptible to me, it grows just a little bit bigger. Then it catches a drifting seed which takes root. The seed grows into a tree, which one day splits me in two. "How the hell did that happen?" I think. "I sure didn't see that coming."

When I got to AA the fog machine was at full capacity. I couldn't see two inches in front of my face. I got sober and blew all the fog away with some big turbo recovery exhaust fans. But my alcoholism keeps blowing little puffs of fog back into the room, hoping I won't notice. It puffs at night or when I'm distracted. It never stops puffing. Every day I fan the fog away. Every day my alcoholism tries again. It never quits. It is inexhaustible.

Not today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today.

Alone Again, Naturally

Isolate: To set apart from others; place alone; in medicine, to place (a patient with a contagious disease) apart from others to prevent the spread of infection.

I'm going to assume that Webster's is talking about minor conditions like the Black Death or bubonic plague when it mentions contagious diseases. Alcoholism laughs at the Black Death. It eats the Black Death for a bedtime snack. It cleans its teeth with the bones of those who have died from typhoid fever. Alcoholism thinks leprosy is a board game. The Four Hideous Horsemen won't hang out with alcoholism. They don't want to catch it. They know a disease when they see one.

Alcoholism is populated with people who are inexorably drawn to aloneness. We like to steal away and think. We like to turn things over in our minds. We figure stuff out. We come up with solutions. Unfortunately, the most egregious shit starts to make sense if we can just dedicate enough time alone to figuring it out.

This isolation can take many forms. The best kind, of course, is when we are actually all alone, but many of us have developed the ability to feel apart no matter what the circumstances are. We can be in a crowd of people and feel alone. Alone is a state of mind for an alcoholic. It's who we are.

This is why we have meetings. This is why the telephone exists.

So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star?

Dream: A fanciful vision or fancy of the conscious mind; daydream; reverie.


I am a dreamer. I live in a dream world. Fanciful images flit through my mind, coming and going like a thief in the night. I wish I could say I have no control over this process, which would make me conventionally insane, but I actually encourage these thoughts, which means I'm trying to make myself insaner. Reality is a drag and a bummer. I have no use for reality


People see me sitting quietly, my brow furrowed in concentration, staring into the distance, and assume that I am deciphering arcane problems or pondering the great mysteries of abstract philosophical theories. Actually, I'm imagining myself prancing back onto the stage at Wembley Stadium for my ninth or tenth encore -- a wold record -- as lead guitarist, singer, and songwriter of the Incredible Horseface Steve Rock and Roll Revue.

I bask in the glory that is Horseface Steve.

Worker Among Workers

Special: Unusual; uncommon; exceptional; extraordinary.


Today I feel special. I don't think that I should have to do all of the stuff that ordinary people do. I want to retire rich today, on my private island in some tropical paradise. It never rains there. The grass doesn't have to be cut and I can eat whatever I want without getting fat or waking up at 3AM, regretting my use of Dave's Insanity Sauce on my huevos rancheros. I am certainly not going to exercise, which is time consuming and boring and frequently painful. And I can assume everyone has a good idea what I think about work.

I still find myself frustrated from time to time about the general pace and tenor of life. I start adding up all the time I spend doing things that I have to do or should do, and it comes up to a hell of a lot of time. Almost all of the hours in an ordinary day, to be honest with you. This seems patently unfair. If I have to decide between lying in a hammock on my tropical island or cleaning out the cat litter box -- which I make my wife do, by the way, so I'm not sure what I'm complaining about in this particular instance -- the choice is clear.


It has never occurred to me that for most of us life is mostly fulfilling obligations. The trick is developing my spiritual being, my care and love for others, so that I actually take some pleasure in being one of the masses. Our literature suggests that we have never tried to be an ordinary person.


I'm so extraordinary.

I'm Not Sure This is Going to Work Out . . .

Optimism: The tendency to take the most hopeful view of matters or to expect the best outcome in any circumstance; practice of looking on the bright side of things.

The first few days after an election are usually marked by an incredible surge of pessimism in the folks on the losing end of any campaign. It's like Dawn of the Dead for politicos. People who normally behave pretty well rise from their graves, all glassy eyed and dyspeptic, dripping blood and brains, and start predicting gloom and doom. They dissect every comment. They analyze every phrase. They look for the Downside.


When I first walked into The Rooms I was sure that this wasn't going to work for me. Nobody could say anything to change my mind. I argued about everything. I debunked every possibility. I didn't listen to anything anyone said because my mind was fully engaged preparing my defense. I was terrified of change. I was sitting in my own poop but didn't think much of the suggestion that I get up and move. The poop might be deeper somewhere else, and stinkier.


Most of us find, of course, that we aren't very good at predicting the future. It's not part of our skill set. We find that things work out well in the long run as long as we try to do the next right thing. Sometimes we get unexpectedly good results. Sometimes we get what we want and wish that we hadn't.

Be careful what you pray for.

Winners and Losers

Election Day has come and gone. Time for the winners to sneer in the faces of the losers. Time for the losers to plot venomous acts of revenge. Time to put a human face on the concepts of Poor Loser and Arrogant Victor. Dance on the graves of the vanquished. Sabotage the plans of the triumphant. How could those idiots have voted for the other guy? How could they be so stupid?

I don't care which political party that anyone supports. The last twenty years of presidential elections have provided both sides plenty of opportunity to moan in despair and shriek in triumph. There hasn't been a lot of middle ground to occupy. It has been Them versus Us. I don't think, in my essence, that I'm any better or worse than the average partisan. I don't think I would behave any differently without the tools of my Twelve Step Program. I'm competitive. I hate to lose.

I came into Recovery awfully certain that your pathetic plan wasn't going to work. I argued until I was red in the face and steam was coming out of my ears and I fell to the ground, frothing at the mouth. You were simply wrong and I felt compelled to prove it. I wasn't interested in listening to the opinions or experience of anyone else. This was the place that I learned that if I listened to people that I disagreed with that I could learn some good stuff.

It's all going to be OK.

I'm Pretty Sure I'm Right

Compromise: A settlement in which each side gives up some demands or makes concessions.

Today I'm going to go ahead and assume that I'm right. I'm going to ignore any nagging little misgivings or concerns that someone else might have a better idea. It's just too implausible. It would be a waste of my valuable time. I might have to listen to someone else talk. Not pretend to listen, either. Actually listen. I think I did this once long ago in a blackout; but this might be euphoric recall or an LSD flashback. I seem to recall that Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were there, which isn't a good sign.


Naturally I won't have to seek the counsel or advice of anyone else in the world. I can keep my thoughts to myself, unless I need to correct the mistakes of others, which I will have to do often and with confidence, aggression, and barely concealed disdain. If I'm right, they must be wrong. Middle ground is a myth. Compromise is for losers, people without the confidence to destroy the competition.

This tendency of mine becomes especially pronounced around election time, when I must suffer the opinions of the tragically misinformed.

I'm Better Than You

Today I'm going to allow my annoyance at life run wild.

I'm going to devote all of my energy to finding faults with everyone I come into contact with. You have faults. You know you do, and I'm going to uncover them. I don't care how good you are at hiding these faults behind a sunny smile and pleasant disposition. Deep down inside, you are a mass of writhing snakes and evil intentions. I can tell. You will be unable to resist the power of my X-ray vision.

I do this, of course, because I have no faults of my own. I can devote all of my thinking time to deconstruct where you have gone wrong. It really isn't that hard. I'm very good at it. Hard is looking inside myself to see what is rotten in there. That's scary. I would be happy if all I saw was a bunch of snakes. I have some serious monsters on the prowl in my neighborhood. They eat snakes like they're Pringles.

I Don't Need No Doctor

Overdose: Too large a dose; to dose to excess.

Sometimes I have a tendency to throw Meetings at my problems. The Program has been such a powerful force for good in my life that it's easy to assume that if I don't feel quite right that a Meeting will make me feel better. Luckily for me, this is true a lot of the time. It was especially true when I was starting my recovery and had a lot of free time. Drinking is very time consuming. I was drinking, getting something to drink, recovering from drinking too much, sleeping it off, staring insensate at a TV while I was drunk, etc. etc. It was important for me to go to a lot of Meetings. I have a very active mind. I need to keep it busy.


However, I have been known to overdo it. Imagine that. Sometimes things aren't going to go my way. Sometimes I'm just not going to feel very good. I can get depressed or bitchy. I have stuff happen in my life that is naturally upsetting. I don't get to avoid being a human being. If I break my leg, I don't need to go to a Meeting. I need to go see a doctor. Acceptance is not the answer to this particular problem. The emergency room is a better answer.

Let's be reasonable here.

Relate! Don't Obfuscate.

Last night I listened to a lead given by a man who took a more -- ahem -- colorful route to recovery than I did. My tendency is to concentrate on the differences that I have with other alcoholics. My disease encourages me to feel special. I'm not like that guy; he's an alcoholic; ergo, I'm not. Tricky dude, my alcoholism. Skilled at Wedge Politics. Skilled at getting me alone. My alcoholism is like a pack of wolves trying to separate the sick, elderly, blind, crippled moose from the pack. I'm the sick moose.


One of the things that I can always identify with is the sense of not caring what happens to me or anyone else when I'm drinking. The guy last night talked about sitting in a bar, broke, and deciding to go rob a bank. He didn't want to rob a bank but he needed money to drink. He didn't consider the consequences. To the best of my knowledge I never did that. But I did things all of the time with potentially severe consequences to me, to my loved ones, and to the general public, and I just didn't care as long as I got to drink and take drugs. Most of us can remember sitting in a car, too drunk to walk, and turning the ignition key. We didn't care.


I can also relate to the sense of purpose that comes when I try to pass along the message of recovery. Our founders were really on to something when they foisted that Twelfth Step on us. They perceived that we would stay sober if we tried to help other people stay sober. My friend from last night had spent a number of years in jail. He had just given a talk to a group of law students at a local university, and the professor asked him to come back. I bet he didn't imagine on his last day drinking that he would one day be an instructor at a law school.

Blue is a Color, Too

Depression: in psychology, an emotional condition, either normal or pathological, characterized by discouragement, a feeling of inadequacy, etc.


Boy, does that sound like someone I know. There was a picture of me, in color, with 3-D animation and links to a variety of personal web sites, posted next to the definition. You could push a little virtual button and hear short audio clips of me talking about some of my more memorable episodes of angst and fear. It's all about me. It's definitely all about me.


Depression is my best friend. We're like an old married couple that should have never gotten married. We stay together for the sake of the kids, who wish that we would go ahead and get divorced already, for God's sake. All we do is bitch at each other and bicker about the stupidest things, but we've been together for so long that we don't know how to end it. In fact, we kind of like the fact that we make each other so thoroughly miserable. We're so afraid of the unknown that we endure an incredible amount of misery.


Depression occurs when I want to feel sorry for myself. It happens when I beat myself with the club of anger that I'm too timid to use on my fellow man.

I See A Bad Moon Risin'

Pessimism: The doctrine or belief that the existing world is the worst possible; that the evil in life outweighs the good.



I don't think that things are going to work out very well today. I can feel it in my bones. It's like the arthritis my grandma had -- she could predict rain better than a TV weatherman. I can tell that it's going to be a tough day for me. I don't like the looks of things. I don't have a sunny disposition. Storm cl0uds are gathering on the horizon. Trouble is a-brewin'. A bad wind starts to blow.



I used to believe that I was a born pessimist. As if God decides to just screw some people up right out of the chute. Horseface, you are going to be negative. You have no say in the matter and there is nothing that you can do to change. You are going to look on the dark side of things. You will see how things can go wrong. You won't be able to see the upside, so you will have to bury your dark vision of life under oceans of alcohol and mountains of dope.



Yeah, well, if you line up everyone in the world according to the privileges and blessings they have received, I'd be pretty close to the front of the line. Then if you changed the order so that the most grateful people came first, I'd be about 7 and a half billion people down.



It's all in the attitude, my son.

Writing About Thinking

I: The person speaking or writing: I is the nominative case form, me the objective, my and mine the possessive, and myself the intensive and reflexive, of the first person singular pronoun.


I don't know what any of that definition means but I do love the concept of everything being about me. Starting out with "I," moving quickly to "me," sloshing over into "my" and "mine," and finishing with a big rhetorical flourish: Myself! These are all good topics. I can't find fault with any of them. I would be hard pressed to discover a more powerful definition in my beloved Websters.


I walk around all day thinking about myself. I don't think about anybody else unless I'm mad at someone, which is most of the time, at which point my thoughts turn decidedly malevolent. As if this embarrassing lack of concern for my fellow man isn't bad enough, I am constantly stunned to find out that you aren't thinking about me, too. Not only am I'm obsessed with myself, I think that you should be obsessed with me as well.


I Think, therefore I Am.

I'm a Pinball Wizard

Pinball: A game of chance played on an inclined board, typically containing a number of holes surrounded by numerous pins, springs, etc.

My mind is like a pinball machine. Each thought is a small metal ball. I have an inexhaustible supply of these little balls, which are indestructible. I think I have some control over these balls. This is a laughable mistake on my part. It never bodes well for me when I think I have control over anything.

I pull a lever and one of these thoughts drops into place. So far, so good. No big problems. Everything is nice and calm. I'm a little worried about all of the blinking lights and pictures of half-naked, heavily armed women warriors and hellish motorcycle demons staring at me from the front of the machine, which is blaring frenetic hard rock music, but I try to stay optimistic. I slowly pull back a lever and fire off the first thought of the day. This insignificant thought goes shooting off into space, and all hell breaks loose.


Bells are clanging and sirens are going off. The thought snaps this way and that way. It gets caught in traps and holes. It stops and starts. It's all over the place, moving at high speed, changing direction with violent energy. More thoughts enter the game. The machine starts to smoke and shudder violently.

This is on a good day.

Doing What is in Front of Me

Do the next right thing.

The Fellowship has distilled some of our more difficult challenges in life into simple three or four word slogans. It can be very annoying. One of our slogans encourages us to move through life slowly while also suggesting that we make an attempt to move. It's the gray area between completely stopped and full acceleration. This is not a familiar area for alcoholics.

Some of the time I'm in awe of the breathtaking simplicity of these thoughts. On the days that I am feeling very complicated, however, these trite sayings irritate the shit out of me. It can go either way. It's too early to tell today. I either don't get out of bed or I sprint out the front door in my underwear, right into traffic. The Program suggests a plan of action somewhere in the middle. For instance, my friends recommend a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, at least, and a slight pause before crossing the street.


Sometimes there are rocks in my path. Sometimes there are exciting and delectable treats. I never know what I'm going to find. When I was drinking I didn't stop to consider the somewhat obvious differences between rocks and treats. If I encountered a rock, I tried to walk through it, or I would stop and glare at it menacingly, hoping it would dissolve under my withering disapproval. Or I blew it up with dynamite, frequently destroying a large cache of treats hidden in the bushes, which were also blown up.


I'm a small stream meandering pleasantly through the woods. If I encounter a obstacle I stop and make a pool. Sometimes I go over the obstacle. Sometimes I flow around it. Sometimes it's a big obstacle and I have to hang out for a while to see what is going to happen. For a big, rushing, raging, whitewater river like me, this can be frustrating. I want to skip to the ending of the book.

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

I don't know what it is about the things that I think are important that makes them so irresistible. My judgement is terrible. Why would I think these things are going to make me happy? I'm never happy when I get what I want. I throw everything away: stuff, jobs, relationships, wives -- well, not wives, anyway, not yet -- and chase after the next empty promise.

I want to live in a big chocolate house where everything is made of chocolate. All the furniture and the dishes, everything. Even the toilet would be made of chocolate. Not crappy Nestles, either, but real Swiss or Belgian chocolate. The kind that makes your knees buckle and your nether regions tingle. I imagine myself eating all of this delicious chocolate whenever I wanted. I'd start with chocolate chip pancakes and Count Chocula and hot cocoa for breakfast, and I'd go from there.

Today I see the irony of such a diet. My teeth hurt just thinking about it. Today I see the things that really matter. I don't appreciate these things, of course, but at least I think about them now. It's not the stuff that's important. It's my relationships and my sense of spiritual purpose. It's the intangibles.

Let Me Tell You About Hard

Difficult: hard to do, make, understand, etc.; involving trouble, effort, or skill.

I don't like to do anything that's difficult. I don't even like reading the definition of the word difficult. It contains terribly upsetting words like trouble and effort. I like things to be easy. I want things to be given to me while I take a nap. God should be like Santa Claus. Comes in the night, doesn't ask for anything in return, leaves nice stuff. Although my parents warned me that if I was bad Santa wouldn't stop by our house, I always got a lot of presents. I was suspicious of the flying reindeer and sliding down a filthy chimney hole story, but I wasn't about to look a gifts-with-no-work gift horse in the mouth.

I figure life should be like that. I want sobriety to be a walk in the park. I want all of the benefits without any of the unpleasantness: amends and right behavior and crap like that. I don't want to work the Steps or pray or call anyone on the phone.

Here's hard. Spending all of my money at a bar, in a blackout so I can't remember any of the "fun" I had, and getting up the next morning remorseful, sick to my stomach, and suffering a blistering headache. Enduring an entire day of physical sickness; suffering the emotional disapproval of my family, friends, and coworkers; worried sick about my finances and precarious legal standing. That's hard.

What is my excuse again for not picking up the phone and making a call?

Genghis and Me

Capitulate: To give up (to an enemy) on prearranged conditions; surrender conditionally; stop resisting.


At the start most of us are able to put up some defense against our alcoholism. We are able to live a marginally normal life, at least on the surface. But it's not a fair fight and it always ends the same way for a real alcoholic. We always go under, swallowing water, gasping for air, dying inside.


I was a starving peasant with a pitchfork, all alone in my battle with Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde. Genghis blew up and swept across Asia and burned and destroyed on a level unparalleled in human history. I got a few Mongols with my pitchfork but they just kept coming and coming. Eventually, my pitchfork broke. The last image you see is me flailing at a sea of heavily armed warriors with part of a stick. And I'm overstating my abilities. My defense wasn't even that good.

The final outcome is predictable for most alcoholics. We fight and fight, and then we throw in the towel. At the end, we don't care any more. We don't care if we get arrested or lose our family or get fired from our jobs. We don't care if we die. We think it would be better if we died. We wish that we would pass out and not wake up ever again.


I was in a tug of war with my alcoholism. I had one end of the rope and my alcoholism had the other. In between was a pit of demon snakes and burning lava and broken glass. Obviously, I didn't want to end up in the pit so I fought back. But I started to get weaker and my opponent never seemed to tire. He just pulled and pulled and never took a fucking break. Eventually I stopped resisting, but I never let go of the rope.

I'm not going back into that pit again.

Give It Up

Give: To turn over the possession or control of to someone without cost or exchange; hand over as a gift.


Giving is not a concept that I am intimately familiar with. Uh oh -- I think I'm lying right out of the chute. I couldn't even make it through my first sentence without lying. I don't mean to do it. My intentions are good. I don't like to be a liar. It's just that it's a wonderful talent of mine. I'm a natural. I'm a prodigy. Tiger Woods was a golf prodigy -- Horseface Steve is a lying prodigy. I was lying at an eighth grade level before I started kindergarten. There is a some very, very powerful piece of my brain that takes over the controls as soon as it sees the slightest opening to advance my agenda of: More Power! More Money!! More Sex!!!


Where was I before I started lying? I was thinking of admitting privately, in a very quiet voice, when no one was around, in an uninhabited corner of the world, that I don't have a passing acquaintance with the concept of giving. First of all, I don't like turning over the possession of any of my stuff to anyone. Even the stuff I have stolen or acquired using questionable tactics. And then to give it up without getting anything in return? I actively seek out people who do this. They are what I call an "easy mark." I get something and don't have to give anything.


I call this Winning at Life.

I Know What You Need to Hear

My goal today is to find someone to save. It doesn't even have to be someone who needs to be saved or someone that is having any problems whatsoever. I feel the need to tell someone -- anyone -- what to do. It isn't important to me whether or not these individuals want to hear my advice. I don't care about that. I'm OK with the fact that they may start running as fast as they can the other way to escape my advice giving. I'm in pretty good shape and very determined in my ability to chase down people whose lives I can change for the better with my uncanny insights and wise counsel. I have, after all, made quite the success with my own life. This is clear to everyone.

I think one of the great linchpins of The Program revolves around the fact that we don't tell people what they have to do, short of advising against armed robbery, pedophilia, and crimes against humanity. I'm the guy who you want running your life? I don't think so. Maybe I can pick up your laundry if you tell me exactly where to go and give me exact change, but I wouldn't put too much stake in my advice about relationships or career changes.

My mentors tell me what they do and allow me to apply this information to my own life, or not, as I see fit. They play the Devil's Advocate and help me think through different scenarios and try to imagine a variety of outcomes. Sometimes they just play the Devil and seem to relish in my discomfort as I sit around and think about myself, totally consumed with what is happening to me to the total exclusion of everyone else in the world.

The Dark Side

Negative: A word, term, or phrase that denies, rejects, or refuses (e.g., no, not, by no means).


Let's go ahead and see if that word applies to me at all, in any area of my life, by any stretch of the imagination. I have a negative attitude. I refuse to look on the bright side of things. I don't want to try anything new. I project disaster into the future. I don't like anybody or anything. My back hurts and I think I'm coming down with something. The whole world is fucked up and things are getting worse.

That sounds like me. I think I qualify.


The guy I visited in the hospital -- the one who had a major surgical procedure -- is an irrepressible optimist. People like that should be wiped off the face of the earth. They are abominations of nature. I made the trip with another old high school friend who is the polar opposite: a natural pessimist. A true soul mate and also someone who should be eliminated from our world. Pessimists are too way depressing to be around. No wonder I didn't have any friends when I was drinking.


It was a weird out of body experience for me. I was torn between my natural state -- the projection of doom, gloom, and utter disaster to every part of the world -- and my fake new persona as someone who trusts in a higher power to keep taking me to a better and better place. Man, is it comfortable to slip back into decay. It's work to be happy.

There Are So Many Things That I Want

Will: The act or process of volition; specifically, wish, desire, longing.


I spend way too much time trying to understand how The Program works, especially the God stuff. I get nervous when I try to figure out what God looks like or how to turn my life and my will over to his care. I don't think I know what the will is. Unfortunately, my modus operandi is that I won't touch a concept with a ten foot pole unless I thoroughly understand it. I want a schematic of how to surrender my will. If I can't visualize it, I'm not going to do it.

God is like the sun. You can't stare right into God. God will burn out your retinas.


The Program is big on action. Do the next right thing and see what happens. Quit thinking about what to do. Just do something. Quit sitting around and thinking about doing something. If something blows up in my face, I don't do it again. It's not that difficult.


Take meetings for instance. While I enjoy most of the meetings I attend and usually hear something that is helpful to me as I clumsily navigate through my little world -- clearly I'm not too big on bringing anything to the meeting befitting my overall status as a Taker -- I'm not often enthusiastic about the whole getting ready and going to the meeting. My attitude is poor but my actions are sound. Thinking is free. I can think all of the murderous thoughts that I want as long as my actions are sound.


Yesterday I visited a friend who was just out of surgery. I didn't want to go to the hospital. There are a lot of sick people in hospitals, which are dismal and depressing places. Spooky, gloomy places. But I went, and I felt better about myself. I'm not sure this was a pleasant experience for my friend, seeing Mr. Antsy dance around his hospital room but he was hooked up to an IV and not able to flee my presence.

There is way too much thinking going on around here.

The Zen of Toast

Right: In accordance with fact, reason, some set standard, etc.; correct in thought, statement, or action.

There are three ways of doing things: the right way; the wrong way; and Horseface Right. Many times the difference between right and wrong is apparent. For instance, when I am operating a motor car and I arrive at a busy intersection, I now obey the traffic signals. Most of the time. Now that I'm sober, at least. If the light is red, the "right" answer is to stop; the "wrong" answer is to ignore the red light and proceed through the intersection without stopping, slowing, hesitating, or looking both left and right. Blowing the horn doesn't make this action "right," although it does make me feel better to give some idiot a piece of my mind. I have learned -- through bitter experience, I can assure you -- that there may be consequences to this action: tickets, accidents, bloodletting and loss of consciousness, and the like. The fact that sometimes I get away with this move does not make this action "right" although it does encourage me to continue acting how I have always acted.

There is some significant ambiguity in other areas. Take buttering a piece of toast, for instance. This is a case where "Horseface Right" becomes much more important. I toast the bread to a perfect shade of brown; I handle the cutlery flawlessly; I put the right amount of butter on the toast. On and on it goes. My wife -- quite a good toast maker in her own right, a woman with many years of successful toast making under her small belt -- isn't quite as talented. She is good, very, very good, but still in need of my advice. I'm pleased to be married to such a skilled toast maker but would like to see a few small improvements.

Maybe I shouldn't have toast today.

Into Thinking

Think: To use the mind for arriving at conclusions, making decisions, drawing inferences, etc.

When I first entered The Program, I was dismayed to see a series of short, almost idiotic slogans that were apparently meant to solve my astonishingly difficult problems. Staying in the moment, keeping my nose out of other people's business, allowing God to run the universe all by himself, without my constant input -- this advice might work for my simple minded colleagues but not for someone with my massive intellect and uncanny insight.

I was overjoyed to see one placard reading "Think, Think, Think." Finally, something I was good at. There was nothing quite as productive as sitting down in front of a TV, with plenty of alcohol and drugs, and thinking. I had the solutions. I solved the problems. I fell asleep with a lit cigarette. I couldn't remember anything that I came up with the night before.

I'm not sure what the fascination with thinking is. Maybe it's my way of demonstrating my superiority to the beasts of the earth, the fowl of the sky, and all of the fishes and things that slither on the ground. Who, by the way, seem to make it through the day without the aid of a case of beer. I'm so engrossed in thought that I'm lucky I don't get walk out into the street and get hit by a truck.

I am still looking for the chapters entitled "Into Thinking" and "How It Works -- By Thinking!"

Horseface -- Superhero!

In my role as Horseface Steve, I exhibit two distinct personalities. My favorite identity is Meeting Horseface. He's a great guy. He says funny things and has profound insights on very serious matters. He listens well. He cares about people, or at least he pretends to. He manages to conceal the fact that he doesn't like anyone and that the world is a great big pain in the ass under a thick veneer of sympathetic caring. While all of his irritability and seething resentments lurk just under the surface, he keeps a smile on his face and a song in his heart. At least he's trying.

Meeting Horseface waves goodbye to all of his friends, wishes everyone a happy and sober week, and walks to his car, where he becomes, in a flash of smoke and light, Real World Horseface. This fellow is a little more problematic. He doesn't attempt to filter his contempt for life and all of mankind. He treats the world like a violent video game. He wants what he wants when he wants it, which is now. Nobody thinks he's funny. They think he's annoying and arrogant.

They're both me, these Horsefaces. They're locked in a Struggle of Death.

Come on, Meeting Horseface!

We All Have Something To Say

Diverse: Different; dissimilar; varied.

One of the real strengths of The Fellowship is that a tremendously diverse group of people is thrown together to try to solve a common problem which is killing us dead -- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but with a ruthless efficiency. we are people with every imaginable opinion and belief. We are people who would not ordinarily mix. Recovering alcoholics are like survivors of a shipwreck, drifting in a lifeboat in the Sargasso Sea -- no one is worried about making sure that the Democrats outnumber the Republicans. We're just trying to keep the sharks out of the boat.

As a Drunk, I used to sit in bars surrounded by people who thought and acted like I did, which was clearly not one of my better ideas, and this from someone with a long and storied history of making really lousy decisions. We solved the world's problems. We couldn't believe the stupidity of anyone who didn't share our views. We would occasionally break bones patting ourselves on the back for our brilliance and insight. Then I would go outside and fall asleep in my car, in January, with the windows open. That's the guy I want to have making decisions that affect all of the people in the free world -- the guy passed out in the back booth of a crummy bar.

The Program has taught me to listen.

Go Ahead -- Try to Stump Me

Answer: A solution to a problem.

I have finally reached a stage in my Advanced Sobriety where I have all of the answers. There is no situation, occurrence, happenstance, or conundrum that I do not have the ability to solve, all by myself, with no help from anyone. Moreover, my solutions are now invariably correct. I answer quickly and with assurance. I never waver in my judgment. I walk into my future boldly, with a strong gait, a steady purpose, and a spine of steel. I ask myself: Who knows better than me?

I trip immediately and fall on my face, dropping my cup of coffee and breaking my nose. In a flash of insight, which I am doomed to repeat every day, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, it comes to me: Oh, yeah, everyone knows better than me.

My basic instincts have gone awry. My decision making machinery is infested with rats and termites and has picked up a nasty computer virus called The Evil Hand of Doom, which originated somewhere in the former Czech Republic. I now try to base my decision making on this simple bit of advice: if I want to do something, then I probably shouldn't do it, and if I don't want to do something, then it's probably something that I should do.

I have found it most helpful to check out my thinking with other people.

I'd Advise Against It

Advise: Implies the making of recommendations as to a course of action by someone with actual or supposed knowledge, experience, etc.

It has come to my attention that people are not interested in my advice, despite the fact that I am a Senior Advisor. As one who knows everything there is to know, who is never wrong and always right, who can immediately find the solution to the most difficult problem, who can divine the correct course of action for every man, woman and child -- I find this vexing.

I'm the Answer Man. Just ask me - I'll tell you. I can answer any question as long as you aren't interested in the truth or concerned with wisdom and sound judgement. Actually, I'm the Wrong Answer Man. I don't have a clue. I can't go from A to B. I can't find the on switch. But that has never stopped me from trying to run the world.

In sobriety I have learned never to give advice to someone who doesn't ask for it. Each of us is free to live our lives how we choose. When someone tells me what they have already done, I figure they aren't looking for my advice. I figure they would have called before they did what they have already done if they wanted to hear what I had to say. Even then I don't think they want to know.

That's alright. We're nothing more than children trying to grow up. My early mentors tried to keep me in the vicinity of the right path and then let me wander off on my own. I learned a lot of lessons by sticking a metal fork into a live electrical outlet.

ZZZTTT.

You Have No Idea

Winston Churchill once said: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I have no personal knowledge that he said this, of course. Someone else might have said it. Who would take this comment seriously if, say, Alice Cooper had said it? Maybe he didn't say anything like this at all. Maybe he said: "If one more thing goes wrong, I am going to FREAK OUT!" No way his political handlers would have let that comment circulate among the liberal, elite media. And I may be misquoting him. Years of drugs and alcohol did a number on my short term memory and also on my long term memory. And on my ability to perform simple arithmetic at times.

The point I started out trying to make is that such a sentiment would be fine for someone facing the kinds of problems that he was facing. What did Churchill have to worry about? An evil Nazi regime bent on a global hegemony, the aerial blitz on London, thousands and thousands of his countrymen dying in a brutal war?

To that I say: Pshaw. To that I say: Open up my closet of Fears and feast your eyes on the menagerie of horror living there. Winston Churchill would have run screaming into the night. He would have wished for the good old days when the German Luftwaffe was raining down death and destruction on his city. Our final memories of Winston would have been a doddering old man peering out of a security window in the local sanitarium.

"If you had the problems that I have, you would drink, too."
Horseface Steve -- circa late summer 1986

Next: On the first subsequent occasion: as, when we next meet.

I have had a hankerin' lately to question some of the core beliefs and founding principles of Twelve Step recovery. While your average non-professional shouldn't attempt this, it is quite reasonable for some one of my massive intellect, profound insights, and uncanny ability to cut through all of the flak and fog of life. I see life as it is. The mystery of existence is no mystery to me. I can reveal the wonders of the universe with a wave of my hand.

Which leads me to cast a skeptical eye on the concept of "doing the next right thing." I would prefer to do the next ten - the next fifty - right things all at once and get them out of the way. Then I can concentrate on doing what I want to do, whether or not these are right things or not. I want to see in the future. I don't want to waste my time doing little, unimportant things that may not get me what I want as quickly as I want it, which is quickly indeed. It would be more efficient for me to be able to skip any small actions that don't lead to the desired outcome.

I want to do the "final right thing." That way I can behave as atrociously as possible and still end up smelling like a rose.

Are You Quaking in Your Boots?

One of our beloved promises alleges that "fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us." This seems highly improbable to most of us. This is a big matzoh ball to swallow. Lack of fear? No more fear? I'm all about the fear. If you take the fear out of my life I'd deflate like a helium balloon. I'd disintegrate into a dry, powdery dust that would blow away in the wind.



I have spent years and years nurturing and feeding every possible kind of fear, anxiety, and unease and am actually uncomfortable with the idea of giving it up. Alcoholics don't like change. I prefer sitting in boiling hot sewage to getting up and going somewhere else. I'm kind of used to the sewage smell and the toxic vapors. My skin has toughened up and the wounds have scabbed over. I'm worried that I may be a little chilly if I get up. I've convinced myself that I like the sewage life. Anybody can sit in a warm tub of clean water -- it takes a tough son of a bitch to handle hot sewage.


While I have never been able to eliminate all of the fear in my life, I have amped down the volume. I am not overwhelmed with fear. I'm underwhelmed with it, maybe, but it isn't the master of my reality any more. Sure, I have to do battle with the occasional wave of apprehension or agitation. I have qualms. I sink into a blue funk of dismay, dread, and panic. I get the creeps and the cold shivers.

But it's a lot, lot better than it used to be.

Mob Rule

Meditation: Solemn reflection on sacred matters as a devotional act; deep, continued thought; reflection.

My mind is like a huge gymnasium filled with insane people screaming at the top of their lungs, barely in control of their faculties. They are screaming for revenge, murder, justice. They want more sex. They are hungry and thirsty and tired. They have been treated poorly and they know who is to blame and they are out to exact payment for these slights and insults. They don't think. They never think. They wake up screaming and they scream all day until they fall asleep, exhausted, and have terrible, awful nightmares. This is why they wake up screaming.

Meditation is like trying to get everyone to settle down. I have a comfortable chair in a quiet room. I sit down and close my eyes and try to silence the fury of this murderous mob. It's almost never a fair fight. Maybe once or twice have I gotten the entire gym to play nice. Most of the time the mob is in control. Sometimes I get a section or two to calm down. But it's a big crowd and they're pretty worked up.

My Higher Power hands out a lot of gold stars and smiley faces for any effort whatsoever. God knows this is hard. A lot of good things come from the effort.