Weeds and Termites and Monsters, O My.

Here are some concepts that you may find helpful when they're after you.  You know who "they" are.  Not the concepts.  The concepts aren't after you although my clumsy sentence structure in the lead sentence might have thrown you off.  The "theys" that I'm referring to are The Ones who want to do you harm.  Often they are nowhere to be found when I wake up in the morning, off tormenting someone else, no doubt.  Some times, though, there's a whole crowd of them lurking in the shadows, mumbling with malevolent intent.

This sounds a little spooky.  Really they are more irritating than dangerous.

Monsters have always been a good characterization and pretty self-explanatory.  I also like the visualization found in out of control vegetation, weeds, brambles, climbing vines.  Sometimes I'm standing on a freshly mowed lawn and sometimes I'm chest deep in weeds.

"How ya doin' today?" Sponsor Ken will ask.
"The weeds are about chest high," I reply.
"Roger that," he says.

I use termite infestation as well.  The Book has a great sentence about fear termites ceaselessly devouring the foundation of the new life we're trying to build.  We can't see them, but we can feel the destruction. 

Satchel Paige once famously said: "Don't look back -- something might be gaining on you."

Plan:       To devise a scheme for doing, making or arranging.
Scheme:  A less definite term that plan, often connoting either an impractical, visionary plan  or an underhand intrigue.

If you want to god to laugh, make plans.

It's not the plans per se that get me in trouble; it's the outcomes that I insist on that's the problem.  I can sketch out any plan that I want as long as I stay loose on how they work out.
I spend too much time saying: "This is how it's gonna be."  I need to do a little more work on the "Let's see what happens" attitude.

I used to be depressed and miserable and then I decided to turn my life upside down.  Now I'm miserable and depressed, which would be a great name for a rock band.

Walk All Over You

More thoughts about living a life of service, a phrase that does not now roll easily off my tongue and will never roll easily off my tongue even if I live to be as old as Abraham or my sponsor, both of whom are quite old.  I'll never be able to fully grasp the concept of doing something for someone else with no expectation of getting something in return, which is my understanding of the main reason that you would do something for someone else.  Otherwise, why do it?  It's a loser's game.  It's win-win.  I want I win-you lose.  That's my game.

"What's in this for me?" I mutter.

Every day I pray that my higher power will show me how I can be of service.  I really do this.  I should add that I do it while I stick my fingers in my ears and sing AC/DCs "Walk All Over You" as loud as I can.  My motives might be a little muddled.  Nonetheless, I think HP gives me lots of opportunities, most of which I miss or ignore.  In my defense I'm keeping my eyes open for the big, splashy opportunities where I help a lot of people to great public acclaim and heavy media coverage, hopefully making a lot of money in the process.  I don't see the point of quietly talking to another drunk in a corner of a ratty clubhouse.  Who's going to see that?  What's my reward?  If nobody knows that I did something selfless did I do anything at all?

I was in my seat a Lookout Joe's, in my black pork-pie hat, which I think makes me look very cool - I'm too humble to admit that openly - when a buddy from The Program swings by.  Spandex thinks I have a great plan: just keep showing up in the same place over and over, until people know where to find you, then wait for them to stop and chat.  That's assuming they want to stop when they see you, quite a leap of faith in my case.

My buddy tells me that he is giving a lead on Saturday night.  Normally, I don't go to lead or speaker meetings to hear people qualify their membership.  I can't pay attention for more than 10 minutes or so and frankly, most people aren't nearly as interesting to others as they are to themselves.  Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here.   We exaggerate and embellish and create.  We have lived in a fantasy world for so long that we don't have a great grasp on the real world.  We don't mean to do it, it just happens.

I went anyhow.  I think my friend appreciated it.  I think he appreciated the fact that I made an effort to stop by. 

It was not the kind of service I had envisioned for myself.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity.  I have crossed that line.

Grat ... choke . . . grate ... gasp ... Grateful!

Grateful:  Feeling or expressing gratitude; thankful; appreciative.

I think that I have been drifting into the Ungrateful Zone recently.  Trust me, it's not my first time there.  I am very familiar with this Zone.  I have visited it many, many times.  Apparently, it's easier to be ungrateful than the other way around.  I can't even say the word that deals with the other side of ungrateful. 

It's not that I get furiously ungrateful anymore, or all the time, I guess I should say.  I get mildly discontented.  I start noticing what I don't have (stuff) or what I do have (ahem) or what I haven't been getting to do or . . . you get the picture.  When I'm in this zone you could give me a Porsche and I'd wonder what happened to the Ferrari.  "Sure, a shitty old German super car," I'd grouse.

Where's that narrow path again?

Gossip: Not the Bad Kind, The Good, Helpful Kind

Gossip:  A person who chatters or repeats idle talk and rumors about others.

I've been to a few meetings recently where the discussion has centered around the slow improvement we make on our defects.  At least we're supposed to make slow progress, or try to make slow progress, or pay lip service to making slow progress while actually doing nothing at all.  The idea is to get rid of some of our defects, I guess.

The 6th Step talks a lot about the fact that most of us are going to have to be content with steady progress.  We don't do "steady" very well.  We look wistfully at the 1st Step and recall how the desire to drink was lifted from us completely, as soon as we asked, with seemingly little effort on our part.  The power of god, or some such nonsense.  We wonder why this shadowy Higher Power won't lift the rest of our defects out of us, too.  One day we're impatient; the next day we have the patience of Job, boom! just like that.  Gone, bye-bye.  Perfectionism, delivered by express mail right from Olympus towering top.

Usually what we see is improvement, assuming we keep doing the work.  Gossip seems to be a popular defect that resonates with a lot of alcoholics.  We start out awash in malicious, vindictive, venomous gossip (aren't those great adjectives?); we begin to move into idle telling of tales behind another's back, and justify it by our lack of venom or our belief that the talk is more along the lines of constructive criticism, despite the fact the person is no where to be seen and can't benefit from something he is unaware of.  The people we gossip with gets smaller and smaller.  "After all," we think.  "I have to get my frustration with this dude off my chest somehow."  This way we can keep gossiping and pretend that it really isn't gossiping.

I guess Nirvana would be not even thinking poorly of others.  Yeah.  Oh, yeah.

The Future of Circumstances

I am definitely one of those guys who spends way too much time engaged in the losing proposition of imagining future happiness . . . as soon as circumstances change.  "I'll be happy when," I say to myself.  At least I'm sure I'll be happier than I am now.  And the point isn't whether I'll be happier or not, or whether I'm relatively happy right today.  The point is that I crap all over the present, which is the only time that I have available to me.  Sometimes the future ends up being worse.  "Shit," I say.  "I wasted a whole nice day trying to get into the future and it ended up being crappier."

I need to position myself in the here & now, and not in the what ifs.  Get with The Program.  Today is the day.  Tomorrow may never come.  I could get hit by a bus today.  I could get hit by a much smaller car, too, like a Toyota Yaris, which would be just as deadly as a bus given its much larger mass and velocity vis-a-vis my 180 pounds.  Why is everyone so obsessed with getting hit by buses, anyway?  Maybe they're not; maybe it's me.  Anyway, it's foolish to think that my life could be snuffed out by a bus or a falling anvil or a runaway grand piano which has gotten away from some cartoonish movers and crushes me after it rolls down a steep hill, which I do not live on.  I guess with the piano scenario I'd have to be out running some errands in a hilly area.

I get restless and bored and start imagining the circumstances of a pleasant future where everything is set up to provide me with maximum pleasure, maximum happiness, Max Power.  Meanwhile perfectly fine todays march off into an endless distance, alone and unloved.

Max Power would be a better nickname than Horseface Steve.

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

Apology Incoming.

I also believe that a very important benefit of the apology process is that we learn how to accept an apology.  We learn how to forgive someone else.  On the rare occasions that one of my drunken, drug-addled friends apologized for something the general tone of my response was "Goddam right, you're sorry."  I felt like I had won a contest.  It made no difference to me whether or not I was owed an apology in the first place.  Mostly, I wanted to feel superior.  YOU wronged ME.

I was so disarmed by the fact that many, many people were gracious and forgiving to me when I was making my amends.  For these good souls, that was the end of it.  I thought I was going to be slaughtered, especially when I was revealing an action that might have gone unnoticed.  There was never an end to it with me.  I was a master of the Eternal Grudge.  The Hatfields and the McCoys and the Horsefaces.  Maybe the Hatfields and McCoys could no longer remember what they were feuding about, but I sure could.  I never forgot a slight, real or imagined.

It feels good to forgive someone.  It takes all of the power out of the grudge.  The anger and frustration and resentment that used to rule my life has waned to a dull roar.  It's not gone but it's no longer my master.  I start to understand that sometimes people just make mistakes.  And everybody is bedeviled by a spiritual malady or two, not just me.

Finally, I believe that we owe people the opportunity to forgive us.  I think it's an important part of the process.  If they want to get mad, that's fine.  But a lot of people want to be magnanimous.  It's like not beeping your car horn when someone irritates you with their driving expertise.  Maybe someone made a mistake or is lost. 

I have started to accept compliments in my life, on the rare occasions that I receive them.  I used to wave them off, believe that the giver of the compliment was lying or being insincere.  Now I say: "Thanks."  It's not right to deny someone the pleasure of handing out a compliment.

Sheesh.

The Apology

The Apology.  Sounds like a bad movie.

What a concept.  With the exception of sharing my gut-wrenching 4th Step inventory -- with a real, live human being who was going to be shocked and disgusted and appalled -- nothing was so intimidating as the thought of making a face to face apology to another person.  And a lot of these people deserved an apology from me.  I didn't behave properly when I drank.  Hell, I don't behave properly half the time now.

It was important for me to learn how to apologize.  And to mean it.  I apologized all the time when I was drinking regardless of the fact that I was almost never sorry.  I was sorry I got caught.  I was sorry whenever I was in any physical, mental, or emotional pain.  But sorry that I had harmed someone?  Yeah, whatever.  I know that I would say anything to stop emotional discomfort.

Step 9 was my first attempt at the sincere apology.  I was a master of The False Apology, the Hollow Amend, and the Qualified Expression of Partial Sorrow.  After a searching, fearless, and thorough inventory it was time to learn how to apologize properly.  It really stuck in my craw at the start.  I didn't know how to do it.  I didn't like doing it, either.  I wanted it to be a two way street.  I wanted my overture of remorse to the wronged party to be met with a response something along the lines of: "Oh, don't worry about it.  No problem, Horseface.  No problem at all.  Forget about it."

Some people did that but a bunch of them just fixed me with an icy glare.  They were familiar with Fake Apology Horseface, not Sincere To The Best Of His Limited Ability Horseface.

That's OK.  It's my amend.  It's for me.  I'm cleaning up my side of the street, not your side.  Moreover, people are definitely suspicious.  That's what happens to someone who lies repeatedly.  People expect to see some sincerity in action.  We call that Living Amends.  We have to do both: we have to apologize directly then act better.

Yeesh.

The Big Elk Naps

I was at a meeting recently with my friend The Big Elk.  He retired from a career that involved a lot of physical labor and, while he is in relatively good health for a guy in his 70s he understandably feels some aches and pains.  Recently he put in a lot of hours on a project; far more than I could do at this point and I'm 15 years his junior.

The weekend rolls around and he plops down on the couch, which makes sense to me.   Almost immediately, he feels guilty. 

I understand this.  I fall into the "It's never good enough" syndrome all of the time.  It's one of the big reasons that I drank.  I always set myself up to fail.  I could never be satisfied with anything that I had accomplished.  I couldn't live up to the impossibly high standards that I had set for myself.

It wasn't that everybody else was judging me by these ridiculous standards.  It was all me.  It's always all about me, living between my own two ears, in a ridiculous, nightmare world.

Take a nap, Big Elk -- you deserved it.

The Numbers Guy

I'm kind of the numbers guy in my marriage.

"I almost majored in math," I told SuperK.

"Why didn't you? she asked.
"I wasn't very good at it," I replied. "And I didn't like it very much."

Before we bought the house that we live in now -- the one we are trying to sell for no understandable reason -- I crunched The Numbers and assured my wife that it was a transaction that made sense, in a numbers kind of way.

Later, when I was asking myself what the hell I could have been thinking when I came up with this ill-conceived, hare-brained scheme, giving up a perfectly good house to buy another one -- and I apologize to any hares reading this; some of my best friends are hares -- I spoke to SuperK about it.

"How could you let me do that?" I asked.

"You were so confident," she said. "You really seemed to know what you were doing. I just went along with it."

She just went along with it.

I'm not sure this is going to work out in the long run.

Control The Process!

Control: To exercise authority over; direct; command.

I'm not even sure that I want to sell the house anyway. I think that I want somebody else to say that they want it bad enough to pay me what I'm asking for it, which is probably too much. I'm kind of afraid of somebody will, now that I think about it. I'm not sure what I'd do if they did want to buy it. I'd probably freak out and run away.

"How much for that house?" they'd say.
"$100," I'd say.
"OK, here's $100,"they'd say.
"What? Huh? Really? What's this for?" I'd say.
"Hey, just kidding," I'd say. "Changed my mind."

"Buh-bye," I'd add.

It's all about control. I want to be In Control of The Process.

"What are you talking about?" they'd say. "What process?"
"Are you still here?" I'd say. "Beat it. Get out of here."

Someone is Out to Get Me

"The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear -- primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded."

My 7AM meeting today concentrated on a most irritating concept: that I don't always know what's best for me. In fact, I rarely know what's best for me. OK, OK, I never know what's best for me.

"Fear somehow touched every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it."

I like the phrase "evil and corroding thread."

"When our failings generate fear, we then have soul-sickness. This sickness, in turn, generates still more character defects. Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us . . .



I also like the phrase "soul sickness." That would be a great name for a rock band. At least a great name of a song.


"Every time he tries to look within himself, Pride says, 'You need not pass this way,' and Fear says, 'You dare not look!'"

I think it's pretty cool that the original writers of this material -- which I definitely did not lift verbatim out of established texts no doubt covered with iron-clad copyright protection -- like to capitalize fear and pride. FEAR! PRIDE!! See how effective it gets when I punch it up a little bit?

Anyway, my Higher Power knows what's best for me. My HP is quite firm about this. Personally, I don't always care for this arrangement. I'd prefer to be in charge of my trials and tribulations, which would vanish like smoke in the wind. I'd scratch the phrase "trials and tribulations" from the dictionary.

Skipping down the flat, broad, well-landscaped path of destiny.

Huh?

I'm not even sure why I want to sell my house. I don't have anywhere particular to go. I think I'm bored. I think some chaos will fix what ails me. Trust me, you could put together all of the best medical minds in the world and they couldn't fix what ails me. They wouldn't even try.

"Nurse, would you please disconnect the life support system there?" one of them would say.

Willie called me today and left a message. It was a pretty long one which is a losing proposition with me. I can get through the first couple of sentences -- maybe the third sentence on a good day -- then I quit paying attention. Apparently he was calling to apologize for missing a coffee date that I had forgotten all about three minutes after we talked about it. Maybe we didn't even have a time scheduled. Maybe he was just fucking with me. Like when my "friends" used to dress me up with make-up and the like as I snoozed peacefully on the floor of a crowded party, passed out.

"Dude," I exclaimed. "What did I tell you about the long messages? Didn't I tell you no long messages?"
"Huh?" he said. "Sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

Anyway, the house thing. I'm a little embarrassed to talk about it without the flimsy veneer of anonymity I'm using here, on the World Wide Web. It's one of those "my Ferrari's in the shop" kind of problems, especially for a guy who was living with his parents when he was 30.

It made for great pick up lines: "Hi, I'm Horseface. I'm 30. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents. Your place or your place?"

Just Kidding, Just Kidding

Concerning the whole sordid coffee shop experience, it has crossed my mind that I left out some crucial background material.

This is another one of the coffee places I go to regularly. I believe that I have mentioned that I'm quite outgoing, and that the part of the brain that normally gets between what one thinks and what one says was pretty well burned up by all the alcohol and marijuana. When we go out together, SuperK grabs my arm and holds on tight.

"I'm sorry," she'll say to some clerk or waiter, cutting me off, "but I'm here to shield normal people from my husband.

Anyway, the crew at the coffee shop know me. We exchange pleasantries, follow up on brief conversations. They give me a grande at the price of a venti from time to time - I'm not sure whether this is a kindness or they're screwing me -- and we go our separate ways. One of the nice men always asks what my plans for the weekend are. A lot of the time I'll go to a meeting, visit with friends at my main coffee shop, read a little and take a nap, go for a swim, stuff like that. It doesn't sound too impressive to me.

I want to say: "I'm flying my extreme ultralight out to the Rockies so that I can do some extreme skiing or extreme white water rafting, I haven't decided which."

Prior to Farmer Bill's arrival I said: "I just bought some heroin and I'm going to stay high for the next couple of days."

The conversation experienced a lag.

"Good luck with your heroin," my barista said.

3 Shots and A Massage

So I'm sitting at my coffee shop, talking to SuperK, who is out of town, and Farmer Bill strolls by. He obviously tried to avoid me, but I caught his eye so he had no choice but to sit down for a minute, just to be polite. While I finished up the call, he went inside to get a drink. I walked in, catching him finishing off something in a paper cup. He was standing at the fixins' bar. He didn't even sit down. The whole transaction took a minute.

"I guess a triple shot of espresso right before I get a massage isn't such a great idea," he remarked.

I laughed pretty hard.


"You looked like you were knocking back a shot of cheap whiskey," I said. "When's your massage, anyway?"

He looked at his watch. "Five minutes," he replied.

This makes sense to me. I was the guy who drank a pint of whiskey every time I did too much coke. It never occurred to me to not do the coke. That was crazy talk.

Anyway, to be honest about it, I was having my cup of coffee right after a long swim. I know that when the endorphins are pumping after a work out, then the coffee is a real booster shot. I'm going to assume that the calm sense of well-being after exercise is the point for most people. I'm an alcoholic. I never pass up an opportunity to accentuate good feelings or mask bad ones.

Bartender! A shot for me and three for my horse!

More People Ignoring Me

Ignore: To disregard deliberately; pay no attention to; refuse to consider.

I went to visit my parents this week. They had a meeting with a financial guy who helps them manage part of their savings. I have offered countless times to take a look at how they have their savings invested. I think my advice would be brilliant even though I have no training in finance and have never taken classes on anything relating to finance and do not work in the financial field. My advice on everything else is brilliant so I'm going to assume it would be brilliant in this area as well. I never, ever let a lack of training or expertise or experience stop me from providing my opinion.

It was a major coup to get my parents to even allow me to look at the numbers. In my family we didn't talk about money or sex or religion or politics or anything else even remotely personal. We didn't have too much to talk about most of the time. These restrictions pretty much limited our conversations to sports and when was I going to get a fucking haircut. I think my mother believes I'm going to seize control of their assets and force them into THE NURSING HOME! and use the money to live an extravagant life, buying up dozens of pork pie hats and bargain bin vegetables.

While I like money as much as the next guy, I'm no longer in its murderous clutches. I have learned that it's a fleeting and illusory pleasure most of the time, assuming my basic needs are met, with all of my pork pie hats and the like. Damn those Program People for helping me get my priorities straight. I could be living a shallow and deeply dissatisfying life amassing money that wouldn't make me happy if they hadn't stuck their big noses into my business.

Honestly, I wouldn't take $20 from my parents if I thought it would interfere with my zen-like ability to sleep the peaceful slumber of the dead, or at least the heavily medicated. Anyway, I thought the financial guy was reasonable and fair and honest. I left comforted and waited to hear from my parents before they made any rash financial decisions.

I am still waiting for the call.

MORE people who don't value my advice.