The concept of The Middle Ground has been on my mind lately. Specifically, the battle between changing what irks me and making the best with where I am. The topic at yesterday's meeting was dealing with resentments, always a popular topic for someone like me who doesn't like anyone. It reminded me of my first Fourth Step which included everyone currently living on earth as well as most people who have died in the last 300 to 400 years - I can't speak with any accuracy to anything before the Middle Ages. Seriously, it was a big list. I got a little carried away with my list. It took me 18 months of sporadic drinking and using and ignoring The Program before I tackled the work I needed to do, and then I went hog-wild. Remember that I have two modes: stopped or full acceleration.
A moderately new guy asked me this week to help him get to work on his 4th Step. He also asked me to do this a year or two ago. Obviously, he's procrastinating. I don't spend much time judging people on their Step work, a statement that is such a total a lie because I spend a great deal of time judging everyone on everything. It's a hobby - I'd work at a place that paid me to judge other people. Perhaps I should say that I don't restrict myself to judging how other people work The Steps, overwhelmed as I am with judging everyone on everything. Temporarily overcoming this imperious urge I suggested that he write down a small list of family members as well a few friends and work colleagues and make a start. It's not the way I would do the Step but maybe it'll get him off the dime. It's not exactly a searching and fearless inventory but it's a whole lot better than a whole lot of bupkis.
Middle Ground makes me ponder some of the more ambiguous concepts in our literature. One phrase we trot out like a show horse is the idea that we need to be free from anger, a dubious luxury of more normal men. Some of us suggest that this means we shouldn't get angry. I think if I wanted to go completely insane as quickly as possible, I would pretend that I was never angry. That's ridiculous. The point is that when I get angry - and I will get angry - I'm getting a little pissed off right now - I need to deal with it appropriately, avoiding curse words, fisticuffs and the heaving of heavy items out of second story windows.
Another overreach is all of the folklore built up around acceptance. I think the idea to take to the bank is that the solution to all of my problems is with me - I can act or I can endure but I can't change People, Places, or Things. It's not to imply that everything is fine and I should just put up with it. I walked into my early meetings with a butcher knife stuck in my forehead and tried to convince everyone that I was doing great. I took the positivity thing too far. Granted, I needed to work on being positive as I was as bitchy as you could possibly be, but I had a butcher knife in my forehead. It may have been a meat cleaver but it was in my forehead. I was trying to keep the blood from running into my eyes and dripping on my clothes while maintaining a brave, cheerful smile. The pain was excruciating The old guys who helped me took me into the bathroom and got the knife out. They didn't laugh at me but they did say something along the lines of: "Uh, there's a cleaver in your head." It wasn't OK and it wasn't a matter of acceptance. It was a matter of getting the knife removed.
Lloyd Braun: "Serenity now - insanity later."
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