Quintessentially Seaweed

So I'm reflecting on the concept that an alcoholic is essentially a large collection of very deep holes that scream to be filled.  I know I spend vast amounts of time and energy shoveling stuff into each of my respective holes.  A lot of these holes make us feel good, until they don't - alcohol, drugs, food, nicotine, sex, caffeine, the endorphin release after exercise.  We work too hard and too long to gain recognition - to be important among our fellows - and to gain things that glitter and impress.  We pursue relationships until we possess what we're pursuing, whether we want it or not, and invariably we quickly tire once the conquest is made and the thrill fades.

I've made much progress over the years on many of these sweet delights but there is one monstrous foe that has stood tall, battled well, and refused to be vanquished: caffeine.

Here's the thing: there's nothing wrong with the effects of caffeine - a legal, fairly mild stimulant - on the normal mind if what you mean by "nothing" is "everything" and that you understand that the adjective  "normal" is in no way connected to the individual "Seaweed."    I am a guy who wakes up early, after sleeping well, and thrives in the morning.  I can nap should I get tired.  I can also go to bed early if I feel weary.  I do not need a mild stimulant in the morning or at any other time, irregardless of what stories I try to tell myself to justify the kick of the caffeine.

I am prone to anxiety and one of the possible bad side effects of coffee is an increase in anxiety.
 It's like being lactose intolerant and starting your day with a glass of milk.  A normal person who loves milk and is lactose intolerant would not drink the milk;.  The milk, temporarily delicious, produces hours of discomfort. "Hmmm," says the individual.  "Perhaps tomorrow I'll have tea."  You would applaud this decision but probably not be overly impressed.

Not Seaweed.  I teeter-totter away from the massive caffeine injection that coffee provides, dabbling in teas or nothing at all, before slithering back.  The stuff makes me anxious, screws with my aging and increasingly creaky digestive system, and serves me no good purpose.  But I get a nice, horse-tranquilizer kick at the start, and I crave kicks, jolts, and shocks.  No matter that they go away quickly, leaving me jittery and anxious - I have trouble thinking the thought through to its logical conclusion.  

Sounds alcoholic, doesn't it?  Compulsive.  Obsessive.  The hopeful drunk hoping against hope that he can sip on a beer and feel delightfully mellow, chasing that sense of ease and release that the first drink produced the first time.

Minuteman Dave, a green tea drinker, told me long ago about an anxiety attack he had experienced: "It was profoundly uncomfortable."  Columbus Mark doesn't drink coffee: "I liked speed too much."  Spandex gave it up: "Coffee and me don't mix."

Sheeyit.

Disease-Ridden Poverty Monkeys

Ed. Note:  This is not my title.  I do not have the imagination to come up with such a brilliant title, and I'm pretty imaginative.  Tip o' the cap to Spandex.

I spoke today to a very old and very dear friend from The Old City.  He's not an adventuresome guy.  The Old City is lovely and stable and friendly and easy but it isn't on the cutting edge of very many things, so when I mention that I'm going to go to India and Nepal I can hear eyeballs rolling up in heads from 2500 miles away.  I tense up, ready for the rhetorical punch in the stomach.  I get ready to play defense.

I get it, really.  This kind of trip isn't for everybody.  My buddy's family has a cabin in the woods and he has gone there for a couple of weeks every year for the last 50 years.  If I had to choose between that and having knitting needles inserted into both of my eyeballs, with a quick, violent, jabbing motion, I'd have to take a few days to ponder my response.  I don't share this disturbing imagery unbidden with people who are about to go on vacation.  I wouldn't even share it if I was bidden.  It just seems unnecessary to say: "Hey, that sounds really boring."

I'm excited about my trip but I'm also getting nervous.  Trepidation is a word that comes to mind.  I'm prone to anxiety over the smallest things and this is not a small thing.  So I don't need people telling me horror stories about the places I'm going to visit.  I know there's going to be some poverty and I know it can be crowded and I know there are monkeys in India.  I don't need anyone telling me that I might get sick - I'm taking typhoid and malaria medication, for chrissake.  I'm not going to be eating food prepared by gravediggers and I'm not going to be bathing in public toilets.  I know that the hygiene isn't going to be up to the standards of Vacation City.  I'm not going to inspect the hygiene.  This is an adventure, not a walk around the neighborhood.

If my buddy tells me the story of his stepdaughter's friend's cousin's uncle's terrible monkey experience one more time I'm going to scream.

Quiet Intensity

Intense: Strained; tightly drawn; extreme in degree; excessive; stressful and tiring.

I spoke with an ancient friend on the phone yesterday, one of those guys who knows me almost as well as I know myself.  During the course of our conversation the question arises, inevitably: How am I doing?  Most people who ask this question of me get a mixture of platitudes, half-truths, total fabrications, and brilliant misdirection.  I don't do this to be a dick - I really don't think I know how I'm doing.  Moreover, I don't know what kind of an answer people expect.  Do they want a glossing-over of anything unpleasant?  Are they being polite while remaining uninterested?  Do they really want to know?  That would be alien territory for a guy who is completely bored by the lives of everyone else and has trouble understanding why they would be interested in mine.  They want a lot of details?  Jesus, really?  I can't fathom this.  I'm sure that they must want something and I'm going to do my best not to give it to them.

I told him that I'm doing my best to remain engaged with the world while trying to avoid wrestling it to the ground.  Progressing but no longer as an Unstoppable Force.  I used to be like water - harmless enough in its resting state - trapped in a pressure cooker that was sitting on a blisteringly hot flame.  The whole kitchen was shaking - it was always just a matter of time before something blew up.  I was a feral human engaged in mortal combat with demons who kept coming at me, wave after wave of relentless demons.  I was always on the verge of being completely overwhelmed.  Sobriety enabled me to build a small cage so that I could keep the demons just out of reach - I could still hear them out there in the darkness, snarling and gnashing their fangs but they couldn't get their razor-sharp claws through the bars.  Today I live in a mid-sized compound with electricity and running water.  It's pleasant enough - not euphorically so, but then again the fact that I don't fear for my life every waking minute passes for euphoria.  I'm not sure I should take the risk of attempting to reclaim more jungle to make my compound bigger and cushier - I'm wary of what lies outside the compound.  I'm careful I don't take on too much while still trying to move forward.  

I try to achieve without asking too much of myself because when I fail to meet my unmeetable demands I get frustrated and afraid and look for release, and I have to be goddam careful of my outlets.  I have a history of very bad outlets, very destructive outlets.  I've got the pressure valve open and the flame turned low.

There was a movie called . . . I can't remember what it was called.  Hello, Google Search - I see it was called Beautiful Mind and I have no reason to doubt this.  Anyway, the protagonist was crazy enough that he took instruction from a few really destructive constructs of his mind, phantoms that he could see as clearly as I can see this somewhat blurry computer screen.  The movie progresses, the protagonist begins to recover, the denouement shows him seemingly healed, talking to his therapist or someone about how good it must be to have banished the evil constructs to the fires of hell.  The protagonist agrees, then looks over his shoulder where a couple of the most troublesome hallucinations are sitting quietly, smiling and nodding at him.  

That's how I feel about my recovery - the demons are still around.  I haven't gotten rid of them yet.  It's more of a detente.  They don't fuck with me as long as I don't fuck with them.

Pig Face and Loud Mouth

I clambered out of the pool today, mightily pleased with myself for having wheezed and labored through another 3/4s of a mile.  I sit in the hot tub for a few minutes before I start swimming, trying to loosen up balky muscles.  This also serves to make the first lap especially miserable, the warm water in the sauna a shocking contrast to the cold pool.  The payoff, after I'm done, is a nice, long 15 minute session back in the heat, drowsily meditating and congratulating myself on completing a modest session of exercise.

I peered into the sauna.  There sat two guys: one a big, loudmouthed man who doesn't know shit about anything, a fact that doesn't stop him from preaching to whomever he can hold hostage, and a bald, pig-faced guy whose politics offend me beyond all comprehension.  I left in place the ear plugs I wear while swimming and stepped into the warm water.  The jets in the pool make quite a racket so the these two men fairly scream at each other from opposing corners, unconcerned that their objectionable hectoring is easily overheard.  They're pissed about politics.  They're steamed.  They're hot under the collar.  They're getting fucking screwed by the government.

I just want to meditate for a couple of minutes, think pleasant thoughts, be grateful, be happy.  Instead, I get a torrent of vomit from pig-face and loud-mouth, two men who undoubtedly receive more perks and goodies from the government than your average bear.  I stuff the earplugs further into my ear-holes, jamming them in painfully deep.  I position one of my stork limbs over one of the water jets, hoping the vibrations set up by the water striking my leg help deaden the commentary.  I begun to hum loudly - I'm in the hot tub, humming a Christmas song at the top of my humming lungs, and I can still hear these idiots talking.  I probably look like an escaped mental patient.  I would edge away from someone with ear plugs in humming "Little Drummer Boy" in a hot tub.

Rum pumpum pum.

What is it about objectionable people that makes them so hard to ignore?  In meetings I can drift off into a side reverie at the drop of the hat unless the speaker is someone I detest, at which point I'm transfixed by what they say, I hang on every word, I'm dialed in.  And what exactly do I care about the politics of a couple of idiots that I don't even know?  Talk about spending emotional energy foolishly

Kissy-Face Seaweed

So my dying sponsor is 82 years old.  He seems to be getting younger based on his marvelous attitude - he doesn't act someone who is dying.  He always ends our conversations by saying that he loves me.  I have always known this to be true even though those exact words have rarely passed his lips.  We are guys, after all, and both of German heritage to boot - we're not exactly the kissy-face type.

Actually, that's not true - I am a bit of the kissy-face type.

It is a joy and a privilege to talk to him.  I always feel better, energized, more optimistic after I hang up.  Going out with a smile on your face is quite the party trick.

My father is 86 years old.  He is approaching his end submerged in bottles of cheap vodka - plastic bottles, for chrissake.  I have talked to him in the last year for approximately 17 minutes.  He does not answer the phone when I call and he does not return my phone calls.  He tells my mother to tell me that he loves me, and I know this to be a fact.

I caught up with my mom today who apparently had been in the hospital the past 3 days.  Too much of an effort for my dad to call and tell me, I guess.

How about that?  How about that, anyway?  Isn't that amazing?  What a Program we've got and what a way to learn how to deal with the stuff that life throws at us, especially with family.

Stayin' Alive

I used to a Program Absolutist - it was The Program or get the hell out of here.  I no longer think that way, sort of, when it suits my purpose.  I always ask people who are trying to figure out how to stay stopped: "Are you sober and are you happy?"  If you can answer Yes to both of these questions I say: "Rock on, dude."  I cannot improve on those results.  These are the desired results.

Some of us use religion instead of The Program.  Some of us get all book smart and use our knowledge to stay sober.  Some of us just seem to gut it out.  Not all of us are in the gutter when we come in here and some of us managed to put together stretches of sobriety before we quit drinking for good.  I never could figure out people who had jobs and families and houses.  That kind of shit seemed so adult.

I would recommend that if you're going to use The Fellowship that you should give the 12 Step technique a whirl.  We are, after all, a 12 Step Program that is based on the 12 Steps.  

I will say this about the friendships that I have made in The Fellowship: they really are based on The Fellowship.  I meet a lot of nice people with whom I develop relationships, but I find they endure when everyone is throwing a lot of time and energy into their recovery.  I'm also intrigued when I talk to someone who has quit working on their recovery - it's like talking to someone in a time warp.  I can't escape the feeling that I've gone back in time as if I'm picking up on a conversation with a person who hasn't changed a bit.  It's beyond weird.

Seaweed: Trusted Advisor

Advice:  An opinion recommended or offered, as worthy to be followed.

So my parents are selling their home.  To be helpful I spoke on their behalf with a real estate agent that I trust very much and also with a guy who buys older homes and fixes them up to resell.  Also a guy that I trust a lot.  I wasn't asked to provide these two excellent, excellent, EXCELLENT options for my parents, either one of which would be an excellent solution to their situation.

Self-satisfied, I sit back and wait.

Somewhere down the road they select their own real estate agent and take it upon themselves to have a little pre-sale work done on the house.  They did not call me.  They did not solicit my advice.  They just went ahead and did it, my sister helping a lot.

I went on-line and saw the house listed for far more money than I think that they're going to get and my initial reaction is this: "I hope they don't get what they're asking."  These are my parents whom I love, mind you, that I apparently hope will experience some kind of financial setback.  Not to mention the fact that if they get more money and don't end up spending it then at least half of it would come my way at some point and what do I care about someone else's business, anyway?  None of this makes the slightest bit of rational sense.

Sure, I've got my ego under control.  Sure, I'm a healthy, healthy, HEALTHY guy

A Thing That Really Sucked

Suck:  To be inferior or objectionable.

The chairman of my morning meeting is a guy that I don't like very much, if "by don't like very much" you mean "can't stand."  He has been sober a long time and is very knowledgeable about the history of The Fellowship - which I like - but he talks at every meeting and he talks far too long, both of which annoy the hell out of me,  probably because it deprives me of the chance to speak at every meeting and at great length.  Irregardless, I always greet him and I always try to concentrate on the good in what he says instead of getting irritated at the things about him that I don't like.

He practices a brand of spirituality that I'm going to be immersed in when I travel to India so I took a minute to tell him about our trip.  He mentioned that there are a couple of official religions there that don't see eye to eye (imagine that - groups of people associated with a religious group that don't get along) and, as a result, tend to self-segregate.

"Well, we do a pretty good job of that here, too," I mused.  I think this is an understandable human characteristic - if you like Fruity Peebles and your lodge is pouring bowls of Count Chocula every day your best bet is to find another breakfast spot.  Proclaiming loudly "I don't like Fruity Peebles" over and over isn't going to get you too far.

"You know what I mean," he said, pausing a minute before adding that we'd all be better off if a politician he didn't like would only vacate his office, using a terrible epithet to modify as horrible a racial slur as you could imagine.  It was unclear to me how he managed to segue from a discussion about religious practices to this disturbing conclusion.

I reacted as if I had been punched in the stomach.

"Don't say that," I said.

"I think I said something I shouldn't have said," he remarked.

I was walking away at that point, showing him a lot of back.

"You shouldn't have said that.  You shouldn't have said that."  I wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible.  I don't know what made me feel worse - that he said what he said or that he somehow, some way, thought I would be receptive to that kind of remark.  Why do people who can feel such hate feel so comfortable expressing it openly?  What did he see in me that made him think I'm a racist?  He's probably not thinking about me at all.

So, when he next talks, how do you think I'm going to react?  He's toast.  I won't accept a single thing he utters as worthwhile now because I got to see the filth underneath the veneer.

This Program - indeed, any spiritual program - preaches love and kindness and understanding and tolerance.  If you don't feel these things - and all of us, from time to time, aren't going to feel these things - then your spirituality is sucking, and whether that is a temporary state or a permanent one is up to you to decide.

Some Helpful Quotes

Resentment:  A feeling of anger or displeasure stemming form belief that one has been wronged by others or betrayed; indignation.

"Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means."

"The moment we ponder a twisted or broken relationship with another person, our emotions go on the defensive.  To escape looking at the wrongs we have done another, we resentfully focus on the wrongs he has done us."

"Let's remember that alcoholics are not the only ones bedeviled by sick emotions."

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us."

"Since defective relations with other human beings have nearly always been the immediate cause of our woes . . . "

"Or, if my disturbance was seemingly caused by the behavior of others, why do I lack the ability to accept conditions I cannot change? . . . . If I am unable to change the present state of affairs, am I willing to take the measure necessary to shape my life to conditions as they are?"

Remember, Seaweed

Ambition:  Desire to distinguish one's self from from other people; eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction.

Anonymity: The spiritual foundation of all of our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.  That is quite a statement.  I am constantly reminded as I study our Steps and Traditions how important it is for me to keep breaking down my ego.  That embodies a lot of what The Program means to me: Ego Destruction.  I'm reminded that personal ambitions has no place in recovery.  I personally need to keep trying to right-size my ego.  I'm not a piece of garbage but I'm not All That, either.

I think that I'm always trying to promote myself - sometimes overtly, obviously, and sometimes in ways so subtle that I manage to bullshit even myself.

Well, stop doing that, says this Tradition.

I also think that this Tradition reminds me to avoid gossip.  My sponsor never lets me run down another individual.  If someone has really gotten my goat and I need to unburden my feelings so they don't migrate into a resentment, he'll listen politely but end the conversation by saying: "Remember, Seaweed: principles before personalities."  I try not to say anything about anyone that I wouldn't say right to that individual's face.

Monks In Red Robes With Saffron Coll

Meditate:  To contemplate; to keep the mind fixed upon something; to sit or lie down and come to a deep rest while still remaining conscious.  

I'm not sure I'm ever going to fully understand how meditation works.  I make the time to do it each day and I almost always feel better when I'm done - calmer, more accepting, that kind of shit.  My mind, to my thinking, is not cooperating.  It's very, very active, bouncing all over the place, all kinds of thoughts and impulses and urges trying to make themselves known.  

Let them go.  Let them pass through, without judgement, without trying to control them.  They are just thoughts.

Dude asked me to help him work through The Steps again.  He really wants my advice, he says, but I'm dubious.  I think he knows exactly what he wants to do and he'd like me to be there when he goes through the process he wants to go through.  Sounds good to me.  Anybody doing some reading and writing about The Steps is doing something worthwhile.  What do I know, anyhow?  My friend has been sober for a while so it's not like he's going to mess something up.

Dorothy, On Acid

Hold:  To impose restraint upon; to limit in motion or action; to bind legally or morally; to confine; to restrain.

Money and power and sex, oh my - Dorothy.  As in: Wizard of Oz Dorothy, on acid.

Funny how these things that I want take charge of my life the more I want them, the more I try to hang on to them.  If I want something to limit, bind, confine, restrain, or impose upon me the surest way for me to do it is to try to grasp them tightly.  If I want to be controlled then I should try to control.  These instincts are the strangler figs of the moral world.  They slowly grow up around me, choking me, until the center rots away and the only thing left is a great, big old strangler fig.

The Dude Is Rude

Rude:  Bad-mannered.

I went to my regular Wednesday evening meeting yesterday.  Attendance was a little light, befitting the night before a major holiday.  The young woman who led the meeting was very newly sober so she simply told a little bit of her story.  I was feeling a little thick in my head - not bad thick, just Quaalude thick - and not that I had taken one or more Quaaludes, rather that I'm trying to convey the sensation of being sluggish mentally, which Quaaludes most certainly accomplished  - so I didn't have too much to share.  Plus, I do think the pain of getting sober is fresher for the newer members, making them more sympathetic to the raw emotions of sobering up.  This allowed me to listen instead of preparing my amazing, funny, profound, wise, kind, insightful remarks for public consumption, an activity that takes up most of my available brain power and does not permit me to hear anything anyone else is saying.

It was a nice meeting.  We're funny.  We're kooky.  I don't know how most of us manage to exist in the adult world based on the anecdotes I heard last night.  I loved 'em all.

SuperK spent a lot of years trying to connect with her pretty dysfunctional family.  I thought she was pissing into the wind, so to speak, nevertheless lauding her efforts.  Those of us in recovery, trying to follow a spiritual path, have a responsibility to be the bigger person: "Seek to understand, rather than to be understood."  She spent many frustrating years trying to be the bigger person, never getting anywhere, an obvious result to me as a disinterested observer, until she finally did some good recovery work that has allowed her to step back and let the crazy people alone.

My family - while not as quite as crazy - has most definitely written me out of the daily ebb and flow of their lives.  I think I'm mostly OK with this but, like SuperK, feel an obligation to be the bigger person and make an effort to stay in touch with them.  SuperK, disinterested with my family, has no doubt been rolling her eyes at me.  I sent my sister - with whom I have a distant relationship - a couple of text messages and also actually rang her up.  She has responded to neither, not surprisingly.  

I told SuperK.

"Well, she's a dick," she said, and I'm quoting directly here.

My sister doesn't work and her kids are at school so she has the time for a 5 minute phone call or to tap out a short reply.  I can be understanding, be the bigger person, but rude is rude.  Then again, who's making the calls, sending the texts?  If I keep touching a hot pot does it make sense to blame the pot for my burns?

I don't think so.

Anonymous: Of unknown name; whose name is withheld. 

The topic this morning was anonymity.  I thought the group tore it up.  Anonymity is not an easy concept and it's made even harder by the fact that the room is full of complicated, opinionated people trying to make their voices heard over the voices of everyone else, which is kind of why we have the principle of anonymity.  We discussed personal anonymity, both our own and that of other members; anonymity on social media; anonymity at the level of press, radio, films, and the Internet; anonymity as it pertains to attraction rather than promotion; and, what I believe to be the most important component: anonymity as a tool to help us lose some of our total fascination with our own selves.  The quote is this: "This tradition is a constant and practical reminder that personal ambition has no place in The Fellowship."

I had to laugh as I tried to pay attention to other people as they talked, fighting back the urge to speak myself and set the record straight for everyone else in the room while reading a Tradition that tells me not to think I'm so important.  What a beautiful, complicated, infuriating, wonderful Program we have found.  I looked around and saw a handful of folks that I love like family; a bunch more that I get along with just fine; and a couple of people that drive me to distraction.

I need 'em all.

The Fellowship to me is like one of those controlled skyscraper demolitions where the building collapses straight down through some strategically placed high explosives.  Secretly, I think, we hope that the thing will topple sideways but they always go right down, like a slinky.  There's a lot of fire and noise and smoke, and there's usually some minor damage to surrounding structures, broken windows, car alarms going off, and the like, but basically it all goes off well.  The Rooms are like that to me - controlled chaos, straining to stay together, threatening to fly apart.

Hill of Beans

I had a nice long talk with my sponsor this morning.  He talks, mostly.  It's not unpleasant at all, even though I'm talking to someone who is very clearly, most definitely, no-doubt-about-it dying. He has some lovely spiritual flights of fancy.  From time to time he veers into topics that have been a source of irritation between us in the past, but I simply don't take the bait.  The guy is terminal - I'm not going to argue politics with him.  He has earned the right to talk about whatever he wants to talk about and it makes no sense to me to ruin this time over things that don't amount to a hill of beans.

Then I relapsed with my family.   I took the bait hook, line, and sinker.  I have been trying to call them less and less because I don't think they really enjoy talking to me all that much.  They never call me, that's for sure.  I almost feel like I'm asking out a girl in high school who has told me very clearly, most definitely, no-doubt-about-it that she hates my guts.  While it is my prerogative to keep calling I can hardly express shock and outrage or profess hurt feelings if the call doesn't go well.

The same topics keep coming up, the same stories are shared, the same intractable positions are staked out.  They continue to do things that I don't agree with and they continue to do them without asking me.  I can only assume that they aren't interested in my opinion on these matters based on the fact that they do them all by themselves.  OK, then.  Today, however, I felt like explaining why the perfectly normal things they're doing without asking me aren't in their best interest, like having that ridiculous auction that brought in approximately 3000% more money than I thought they would get if the auction went miraculously well.

Funny, the relationships we have.

Dicking Around With The Program

So here comes the big Thanksgiving holiday.  Please hit me with a shovel.  

A very nice woman that SuperK and I know from a couple of different meetings asked us to join her family for the big holiday meal.  This very nice woman kind of disappeared for a number of months - she stayed sober but I can't imagine that she was doing too much in the Working a Program department.  She mentioned that she and her husband did some entertaining when she was drinking and that she wanted to start doing this again.

Here's the thing: SuperK and I are very nice people - well, we're nice-ish, anyway - so it has not been unusual for us to be invited to do things by other couples.  The problem is that often these are not the healthiest couples on the couple farm.  I think people see our very nice relationship and think: "Hey, let's practice on these people.  We're nice, too!"  They don't see the years of effort and work we've put into our relationship.  So SuperK and I have had a lot of pretty crappy evenings with people who aren't really doing too much in the spiritual growth department, if you know what I mean.  Just because we're nice and fun to be with doesn't mean you're nice and fun to be with.

I realize this may sound a little arrogant.  I don't mean it to be that way.  Trust me - we've had plenty of stops and starts on our couple road to recovery.  But we can see past the flush of the nice invitation to what may lie ahead.  We've got a woman dicking around with The Program; her husband who we've never met, who probably has a whole attic of codependent baggage; a few teen-aged children; that we've never met;  all sitting around a dinner table on a holiday that can be loaded with booby-traps for the healthiest of families.

Uh, no thanks.  We're not holiday test-dummies.

We politely declined, suggesting that perhaps a cup of coffee and a muffin or a lunch might be a more appropriate place to start.

This, of course, pissed off the apparently somewhat less nice woman, not a surprising response by someone dicking around with recovery.  This made our decision easier.  We're not trying to be rude - we do things as a couple all the time - but we don't want to be held hostage by someone trying to regain a semblance of a normal life without being bothered by the work part of the reconstruction.

We're going to go to a meeting and take a hike instead.  I'm going to pack a picnic lunch of turkey sandwiched (turkey), Craisins (cranberries), potato chips (mashed potatoes), sweet potato potato chips (sweet potatoes), and pumpkin cookies (you can figure this one out).  I don't know what to do about the stuffing yet.

Listerine Man II

I've been pondering the dilemma of Listerine Man.  It's so difficult to get sober, isn't it?  I'm glad I'm on this side of drinking, to be honest with you.  But if I find myself in a situation where the solution appears to be drinking anything with alcohol in it, let alone mouthwash, I'm in a situation that is intolerable, a situation that must be changed.  I know this for myself but how do we convey that to someone who thinks that he has a lot to lose?  I feel sorry for the guy - he has a nice house that he doesn't want to leave and he has two small children that he loves a lot who live in the house and he works out of a home office in the house, all nice stuff, important stuff.  I struggle somewhat on how to tell a guy that this is all stuff that he may have to lose.  The Book is very specific about this - never let someone tell you that they have to restore family, finances, career, anything before they can get sober because it ain't true.

I think part of the problem for those of us with some sobriety is that our lives are usually pretty stable.  We're not losing big things anymore.  Not very often.  I can imagine that having someone with a nice house and a stable marriage and some money in the bank tell you that you have to Let Go might be irritating.

It made me reflect on my own life a bit.  Like a lot of alcoholics I was a very promising young man - like a lot of male alcoholics I should point out as the women among us, to a large degree, were not promising young men.  I digress.  I did well enough in high school to get a full scholarship to a good college, where I excelled.  In fact, I did so well that I was accepted early into optometry college - most of my classmates had degrees but I slipped in early by taking summer school and loading up on extra classes during the school year.  One time I had 7 final exams - 7!  So here I am, cruising along, drinking more and more, struggling more and more to complete my coursework - it's hard to remember in the morning what you've read the night before when you're drinking 3 quarts of Colt 45 and smoking a couple of joints every night - until my 5th year of college, when the drinking took me down.  I just couldn't keep up with the coursework and still drink as much as I wanted, so I did what a good drunk does - I chose to drink.

Yeah, they kicked me out.  4 1/2 years of college down the spit sink.  4 1/2 years of working toward a very specific goal and I didn't care enough to right the ship.

I drank uncontrollably for about 5 years until I somehow managed to pull it together enough to get a decent job managing a small office for a home health company.  Hard-working, bright, and charismatic like most drunks, I excelled again and was promoted 2 times in quick succession, ending up running a much larger office with more employees.  Again, the drinking became more important than the job and I was demoted in a very public and humiliating fashion.

When I came into The Fellowship I had no illusions that I could hang onto anything and still get sober.  Mostly because I didn't have anything left to hang onto.  I think the point is that I've earned my chair and I can tell someone that sobriety is more important to me than anything else I've got.

Various Departments

I received an update this morning - early this morning - from the Visa application center from hell.  They seem to enjoy sending distressing notes out at times when a response is impossible.  It almost seems willfully cruel.  Our documents remain unaccounted for so the employee from hell has forwarded our inquiry to something called the Concerns Department.  Our stuff was being pondered by the Escalation Department before.  It's hard to tell if this new department is a better department to be in.  At one point the responses came from the Incomplete Documents Department.  They seem to have a lot of departments devoted to correcting mistakes.  I bit my tongue and didn't suggest that they get the Find My Fucking Passport Department involved. It would seem to be the most appropriate department to engage at this point.

So we wait.

I called my sponsor this morning.  He is in pain until he takes some pain medication at which point he drifts away.  I feel like I'm sitting in his room holding his hand.  He talked a little today but mostly he wandered around lost, throwing out comments about whatever was on The TV or offering general expressions of discomfort - this from a guy who never complains about anything except the government, a very popular thing to complain about.  I told him a few stories - mundane stuff that he seemed to enjoy, maybe because it takes his mind off of the pain he's feeling.  He has been trying to meditate and pray but it's hard because of the pain.  He said that yesterday he was thinking about god's love and was struck by the enormity of this love and our almost total inability to grasp even a tiny part of it.

One of my favorite meditations involves a visualization of a scene that includes both a night sky full of stars and a large, well-lit city, full of people.  My attention is directed back and forth between the two conflicting images - the idea is to wonder at the beauty and power of limitless nature while imagining how connected one is with all of the life here on earth.  I was struck by how similar my sponsor's images were to mine.

And here's the bad thing - the conversation took longer than I thought is was going to take.  I had something that I wanted to do - some stupid, crap thing - and my brain was urging me to finish up with my friend and move into my day.  I knew how selfish this was even as I was fighting off the distraction.

I did not move into my day.  I sat down, with my earplugs in, closed my eyes, and sat with my friend until he asked to be excused.

Listerine

A friend of mine has been struggling with his marriage.  He has two small children and a wife who does a little alcoholic drinking on the side as well as in the front with the side yard not being out of the question.  He has been trying to hold his family together but it isn't going very well.  I applaud his efforts - seeing a counselor on his own and also with his wife in addition to the usual Program outreach.  As a man who generally can't find his ass with both hands I try to stay out of the advice business.  My track record as a low-grade idiot doesn't qualify me to tell people where to get a good hamburger let alone pass out marriage counseling or career advice.  He's doing the right legwork and he has a sponsor that the talks to on a regular basis.  Our conversations are much more infrequent so I tell him to listen to people that are getting the frequent updates.

A few days ago he told me that he had been having the occasional nip on the Listerine bottle. Drinking mouthwash is dicey business for just about anyone but this dude is a diabetic so god in his heaven only knows what kind of risks he's taking.

This time I gave out some advice with a Capital A, along the lines of: "If there is something going on in my personal life: marriage or child-rearing issues, problems with my parents or financial difficulties or anything at work - I don't give a shit what it is - that's leading me to a plastic mouthwash bottle on a regular basis I'm going to take a long, hard look at the situation."

There is nothing worth dying for.

Additional Particulars

SuperK and I are trying to take a vacation to India.  This morning the operative word is "trying."  We will go as long as the Indians permit us access to their country which is dubious at the moment.  We sent in our laughably long application a couple of weeks ago - faithfully, to the best of our honest ability, completing everything required: the application itself along with many, many forms, copies of forms, a lengthy check list, and two copies of the fucking checklist.  I thought the checklist was for the sender, not the receiver - are they telling me they don't know what forms they're supposed to get?  They also required our passports and copies of our passports - which they were getting - and FedEx pre-paid return envelopes and copies of the pre-paid return envelopes.  There was something called an Additional Particulars form.   I didn't see a Particulars form anywhere so I don't know what the "additional" referred to - why didn't they just put everything on the Particulars form and be done with it?

I'm guessing these people don't have a copy machine.  I'm surprised we didn't have to send in an entire copy machine with the application.

My In Box contained a message from the Visa people - I opened this email which detailed our shortcomings right after I got up.  As you might imagine, this information wrecked my Quiet Time.  It was 6 in the morning, long before the office opened, and a Monday as well, usually the worst time to try to call some totally screwed up contracted company servicing a foreign country in a city far, far from mine.

Our 11th Step suggests that a logically interlinked program of prayer, meditation, and self-examination is going to produce more powerful results than any of the three taken alone.  Being Too Cool For Prayer I had neglected this leg of the stool for most of my sobriety.  Then, because I try to stay teachable, I started to hear some people in Vacation City talk about prayer changing the person doing the praying, not the thing or person or whatever being prayed to.  I liked this approach so I started some very tentative praying, trying to be careful not to tell my Higher Power what to do or to pray for specific results or to ask that other people be cured of any maladies or defects they might have that are annoying me.

The Step includes this phrase: "Just saying (a favorite prayer) over and over will often enable us to clear a channel choked up with anger, fear, frustration, or misunderstanding, and permit us to return to the surest help of all - our search for god's will, not our own, in the moment of stress."

I used my own little mantra to great effect on my current Problem of Prosperity.  Every time a negative, bothersome, worrying thought entered my head I spoke the series of words I use to try to calm myself.  Remember when you were 3 years old or maybe a cable news commentator and you'd try to win an argument by simply shouting louder than your opponent?  That's kind of the idea here - talk over the negative thoughts with some positive ones.  It's not especially deep or creative but it works, and some times the simplest ideas are the best.

When All Else Fails - Pool Story!

How about a pool story?  I usually get a good pool story every couple of months.  I'll probably tell my sponsor about it later on, probably more than once - he's a little forgetful at this point.  He'll get to say "Principles before personalities" which is one of the things he tells me all the time, a strong indicator that I suck at it.   

There's this little old man that shows up at the pool from time to time.  He does some walking and he also does a hilarious imitation of a back stroke - he looks like a baby bird trying to peck its way out of an egg - where he takes up both sides of whatever lane he's hogging.  I almost ran headlong into him a few weeks back when he jumped into the lane I was using without giving me a heads up.  I could be more aware of my surroundings, I guess, but I have on befogged goggles and mostly I'm trying not to drown or strangle for lack of oxygen.  I don't mind sharing a lane in the least but please alert me so that we don't conk heads.  I was a little pissed.  Two men swimming in opposite directions running into each other is not in my exercise routine, and I've done it a couple of times.  It's no fun.

Yesterday, as I was enjoying a post-swim soak in the hot tub, I watched a friend have a confusing conversation with the bird back-stroke guy about who owned which towel.  The towels were close shades of pewter or beige or something.  Eventually, they got it sorted out. Always the funny man I suggested to my friend that he needed an interior decorator if he wanted to be sure that he got the right towel.  He leaned over the hot tub and said that bird guy likes to use the end hook so he just moves anything that may already be there - towels, gym bags, goggles - and hangs up his own stuff.  My buddy didn't exactly remember what color towel he brought.  He seemed a little pissed - there are like 45 hooks in the pool, most of them empty.

Here's where I come in. . . 

There are 8 showers in the locker room and 8 hooks, leading one to believe that each shower user gets one hook and one hook only.  Nobody gets 2 hooks and 3 hooks is right out.  However, if one should find no hooks available one would be within one's rights to bitch up a blue streak unless maybe someone left something by mistake on one of the hooks, and that stuff could just be dumped on the floor or pitched into a garbage pail - if you can't remember to take your shit with you then maybe you should stay out of my shower room.  When I got into the showers the room was completely empty so I took two hooks, an extravagance that seemed reasonable given the lack of shower-ers.  A few minutes later, shampoo running into my eyes, I see bird man holding my gym bag through the translucent curtain, asking: "Is this yours?"  I just looked at him, debating whether or not to point out that there wasn't anyone else in the fucking room and could he please replace my fucking gym bag?

"Yes?" he pressed, busily rearranging my towel and my gym bag on one hook so he could use the shower right next door and claim the extra hook that I piggishly had taken, a hook which in fact belonged to the shower he was preparing to use.  I had to hold my tongue.  I was trampling on my own shower room rules and had no right to complain, even though the guy reminded me of someone coming into a completely empty movie theater and taking the seat right next to yours.  Yeah, the seat IS empty but really?

I have no idea what the message is here.  Send me a note if it makes sense to you, unless you happen to be the bird back-stroke guy.

More Cancer Stuff

I'm trying to talk to my dying sponsor every day, and I'm getting close.  He spends a fair amount of time on the phone with me.  He's always attended a lot of meetings and is a pretty social guy so I'm guessing it's pretty boring lying in a hospital bed, trying to fight off the disease that's going to kill you.  That was a topic of discussion today - exactly how the cancer kills a person.  Amazing some of the things that two guys can talk about.  It's wasn't about how the cancer kills just anyone, either - it was about how the cancer is going to kill him.

He mentioned recently that the doctors decided to prescribe the pill form of medical marijuana to try to stimulate an appetite that has been compromised by the cancer and the treatment for the cancer - sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.  You don't eat you lose your ability to fight off the attackers, but when food tastes like metal and it makes you nauseous you don't want to eat, and ya gotta eat.  We had a giggle over the pot pill.

"Man, I think you lost your sobriety," I offered.  He giggled.  He's been giggling a lot lately.  He wonders if it's the pot pill - I suspect that the hydrocodone he's taking to combat the cancer pain is probably overwhelming whatever effect the THC is having and he needs both of them, by the way.

He tells me that story every time I call.  I don't care - it's a good story.  I tell him what chores I'm running and what I had for lunch.  I think he enjoys the stories.  I enjoy talking about myself, anyway.

Girly Guy Vs. Guy Guy

Tolerant:  Tending to permit, allow, understand, or accept something.

My sponsor continues his downward slide.  If you ask me I'll tell you that this is NOT what I signed up for.  I think more along the lines of good things - sunny mornings and fresh-baked cookies and kitty cats, that kind of stuff.  Death?  Not so much.  I still labor under the illusion that pain and suffering should be optional and No . . . I am NOT 5 years old.

I would not say that tolerance for others is one of my strong suits.  Honestly, I don't know what any of my strong suits are.  I may not have any strong suits.  It may all be weak suits.  In fact, I laughed out loud when I read the definition of the word "tolerant."  Guffaw comes to mind as a qualifier.  If I had been drinking a glass of milk some would have come out of my nose.

There's a Program guy back in The Old City who was never one of my favorite people.  I wouldn't say that I actively dislike him just that he has certain attitudes about life that rub me the wrong way.  He's not a bad guy - he has plenty of friends but I don't really consider myself one of them.  More of a fellow traveler, a comrade-in-arms, someone I'd help but not hang out with.

Anyway, the dude is stopping by every day to visit my sponsor.  I wouldn't have expected this but isn't there something about expectations in our literature?  To wit: as my expectations increase so does my tendency to act like an ass-wipe?  I'm seeing the dude differently - he's making a hell of an effort.

There's Program guy here in Vacation City that I know casually but don't consider a close friend.  He's kind of a Guy Guy and I'm more of a Girly Guy so we don't meet in the middle too often - he's the kind of Guy who was always beating me up.  I was talking to my Vacation City sponsor yesterday about the death watch and he mentioned that this Guy Guy had also recently lost a long term sponsor to cancer.  At my meeting last night I had a nice talk with Guy Guy about this stuff.  It was a good talk.  Turns out he's OK.  I have learned some patience in my life, letting things come to me and evolve and clear up - I feel better about Guy Guy and I think it was a relationship that didn't have a chance to establish itself without such a common experience.

Could I maybe look for the good in someone instead of the bad?

Dammit anyway.

I am talking to my Old City sponsor every day at this point.  His cancer has a lot of momentum and is romping forward gleefully.  He's a hospice patient which means that his care now revolves around pain management and end of life quality issues.  Our conversations have been on the topic of death and dying, being prepared for what's next, spiritual certainty, and other threads that are  grim on the surface but end up being strangely uplifting, and this despite his attempts to steer the conversation back to me and my circumstances.  Alcoholics make a big deal out of standing tall and facing our problems instead of running away in fear.  It isn't pleasant doing this.  I feel weirdly disconnected as I do it.  I can't believe it's me in the middle of these talks, and I'm not the guy who's sick.

I've been swimming against the tide of some low-level anxiety the last couple of weeks.  A lot of the time I can put my finger on what idiotic, unimportant problem of prosperity is bothering me, but this spell has been of the free-floating variety.  I'm not an overly emotional guy - I'm pretty steady-as-she goes in my approach to life, never too up and never too down.  Still, I think this is affecting me in a way that I can't really appreciate right now.  I don't feel Upset!! but I think I'm upset, and I think it's the impending death of this man.

Little Westside Jonny helped a posse of guys from one of my sponsor's regular groups take a meeting into his care facility last night.  He said it was a powerful meeting, listing the same reasons that I've just finished detailing when I asked him to clarify his remarks.  Men and women on a true spiritual path inspire in so many ways.

Retreat!

I went to a men's recovery retreat over the weekend.  I thought it was a little clique-ey. - clearly a lot of the attendees knew each other pretty well from a large men's meeting in the area.  I didn't like the food, either, and the room was beat to shit.  

Other than that, it was great!

Retreat:  A period of retirement, seclusion, or solitude.

I attended a lot of retreats at a very nice retreat center in The Old City, with a lot of guys that I've known for a long time.  Obviously, this new retreat was at a big disadvantage going in.  I wasn't knocking myself out talking to people I didn't know at the old retreats when I had the option of sitting down and catching up with someone I've known for many years but didn't get to see on a regular basis.  Still, I don't think most of the guys I saw this weekend could tell you shit about me.  That's not the best way to be grow your attendance.  I'm pretty outgoing, too, so it's kind of weird when I don't fit in somewhere quickly.   

Maybe they didn't care for me.  Maybe the couldn't stand me.  Maybe some of them hated my guts.  Maybe they're not thinking about me at all.

It was a new thing I tried.  That's the thing about new things - sometimes they suck a little bit.

Eh, what can you do?  I can not go back, I'll tell you that.

Mold Condos with a Toilet View

SuperK and I are taking a long drive today with a friend of hers from The Program - a very nice lady - to see a lawyer.  This poor woman has some serious problems with mold in her condominium, a result of water infiltration that the seller didn't disclose when she bought the place.  As you might expect, there is a hell of a lot of buck-passing and finger-pointing and side-stepping when it comes to assuming responsibility for the moisture, and this is some serious moisture.  There is no need to access a moisture expert to see whether or not the condo has a mold problem - the mold has begun building skyscrapers because all available real estate is currently occupied.  Mold spores are getting serious money for studios that have a partial toilet view.

Her friend is single, a somewhat tentative woman who has been battling to get the problem fixed for several months and has, as a last resort, decided to consult a lawyer.  As you can imagine, I don't want to do this, fearing the loss of all my valuable free time, what with all of the . . .  well, I'm not that busy.  The first thing I did was request all of her correspondence under the guise of being helpful when I suspect that what I was really doing was trying to find a reason to postpone or cancel the appointment, claiming lack of due diligence.  The friend has put a lot of work into this and I was stymied in my attempts to Not Be Of Service, which I think is one of our most important Steps.  Step 87, I think: "Sought to hide instead of helping others."

I have this image of me Being of Service in a very dramatic fashion.  You know, donating a million dollars anonymously to the Hospital for Blind, Orphaned Victims of a Terrorist Attack and Some Such.  But take a few hours for moral support?  Pfffffttttt.

Usually I do the right thing, after first exhausting all other possibilities.

One Potential Defect

Obsession:  A compulsive or irrational preoccupation; an unhealthy fixation; influence or control by evil spirits without possession.

We had some work done on our home a short time ago and it went very well, no doubt helped by the fact that I was banned from the immediate premises most of the time.  Men - real men - using tools - power tools - to do construction work on my stuff is nerve racking.  I would trust a brain surgeon to do microsurgery on my brain sooner than I'd trust a guy with an electric power tool to cut up some wood - I can visualize microsurgery easier than I can visualize someone fucking around with a dowel or a shim, especially if a soffit is involved.

The job went well.  There was one defect - one potential defect - that I have, of course, honed in on as if I'm some kind of powerful, military-grade homing device.  It is something that I have a great deal of skill doing - finding defects, shortcomings, and problems.  I tried to ignore the potential defect, knowing intellectually that it was a bad emotional reaction to a very good situation, like fretting over the dent in the fender on my cherry-red Ferrari, if by "cherry-red" you mean "tarnished silver" and if by "Ferrari" you mean "Subaru."  It really stuck with me, though.  I've been in a bit of a funk the last week or so.  I get into funks sometimes that it takes a while to get out of.  Sometimes I know the raison d'etre of my funks and they can be justified, but most of the time I'm wigged out about some little thing that doesn't add up to a hill of beans.

I did my best to make the stupid obsession go somewhere else.  I've learned some little tricks in The Program that they often work well so that the stupid obsession sticks out its thumb and hitches out to LA, leaving me in peace.  But sometimes the stupid obsession gets the best of me and I can't get it to go.  This was such a case.  There may be some other things going on that I'm not acknowledging but I may just be in a down biorhythm or a funky astrological phase.  How do I know?

Finally, I broached the subject with my wife.  She was aware of the minor defect, although it didn't bother her like it did me, befitting the normal member of our hobbled duo.  Still, she agreed that it was something that at least could be addressed.  I suggested calling the guys that did the work at some point, then I called right away, wondering what was going to be different a few hours or days later besides a few more hours of pointless fretting.  The guys agreed to come out and look at the defect, even suggesting a couple of potential fixes on the phone.

I'm telling you what - stuff in my head is stuff misplaced.  GET IT OUT of my head.  This should be my motto.  My head can fashion a diamond into a turd.

Instincts on Rampage

Rampage:  To move about wildly or violently.

I think that "Instincts On Rampage" would be a great name for a movie.

I attend literature meetings regularly as part of my recovery regimen.  Here's a few quotes that have struck my funny bone recently:

"Instincts on rampage balk at investigation."  I enjoy the concept that I need to learn how to live with my instincts.  I can't get rid of 'em and I can't let 'em run the show, but there has to be some balance in there.

The chapter we read was discussing the 4th Step.  It suggests that we do indeed have plenty of defects, our vigorous denials notwithstanding.

"We shall claim that our serious character defects, if we think we have any at all, have been caused chiefly by excessive drinking."  Yeah, this is always a popular excuse for the drunk - if I could just slow down my drinking then I'd be a fine chap, and because I'm such a fine chap then there's no need to do any of these bothersome inventories.

"Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people - people who really need a moral inventory."  Nothing better than blaming someone else for my bad behavior.  

"We thought 'conditions' drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand . . . "  It's everybody!  It's everything!  It isn't me!

Oh, brother.

A Firestorm of Dropping Hats

I took a call from a good friend of mine from The Program the other day.  He was mildly agitated.  I can relate - I'm mildly agitated at the drop of a hat and most days it's a veritable shitstorm of dropping hats, pork pies, fedoras, and berets in the Seaweed household.

My friend is going to be returning from a tour to Cuba in a couple of months.  Unfortunately, the plane arrives at the huge Vacation City airport close to midnight - but luckily for him the package also includes a limo ride home, the only caveat being that the receiving address must be within 50 miles of the airport.  His home, unfortunately, is 55 miles from the airport.  And there you have it - the Unfortunatelys have it over the Luckilys,  two to one.

Normally what I try to do is to help agitated people go over options - usually when I'm agitated I'm not thinking clearly and I overlook obvious solutions to my problems.  My friend is smart and wise, two qualities with which I have only a passing knowledge, and I was not able to uncover a solution that he hadn't already considered.

I flashed back to Shorty picking me up at The Old City airport at 2 AM, on short notice, in a driving rainstorm, providing me with a bag of healthy snacks, before delivering me to my sister's house, far, far out of his way.  He offered to do this, graciously, under no obligation and no duress, and I thankfully accepted.  I didn't beg and he didn't offer anything that he wasn't comfortable offering.  I would have bore him no ill will if he hadn't picked up the phone.  It was ridiculously kind, but kind in a way I've come to expect from my Program friends.

"I'll pick you up if you can't figure out a solution," I said to my Cuba friend.

He laughed.  "I didn't call to ask for a ride," he protested.

"You didn't ask for a ride," I pointed out.  "I offered one.  Look - keep trying to find a simpler solution but if nothing works out I've got your back."

I hope what this does is take the stress and the pressure off of the problem.  Maybe this is one of those cases where a solution to the problem is going to present itself eventually, with a little time and patience, and I hope it does, frankly, because I don't want to drive somewhere in the middle of the night to pick this SOB up.  But if not, he's got a solution.

Seek god - serve others.

Huge, Bleeding Wounds

I've had a few more conversations with my Old City sponsor.  It has been a weird experience talking with someone so frankly about death and dying.  I have no experience with this whatsoever.  I had no experience with talking about any problems when I was drinking.   In fact, I was awfully offended when people suggested that some of my problems were . . . you know . . . real.   Don't tell me things aren't going to work out.  You think I want to hear that things aren't going to work out?

I used to pretend that:
Problems didn't exist - "Steve!  You seem to be bleeding from a huge wound on your forehead!" "Naw, I'm good." 

Problems would go away, maybe by praying to god to remove said problems right goddam now - "God, o god, fix this huge bleeding wound on my forehead and I'll never do this ever again."

I was being picked on because I had problems that were usually of my own making - "Why me?  O, god, why me? Why doesn't someone else have a huge bleeding wound on their forehead?"

It's always the man in the mirror looking back at me.  That dude always seems to be around when things aren't going my way.

I hope these talks are helpful for my sponsor.  My experience is that Earth People aren't great in talking about problems.  It does make me feel very grown up, kind of looking the tiger in the mouth.  I still don't like problems.  I still wish they'd go away, maybe infect someone else.

Paranoid Is a Great Song by Black Sabbath

I'm sitting at the coffee shop today - drinking coffee that I bought from that coffee shop . . . and you know what bugs the crap out of me?  There are a bunch of restaurants right around the corner from this multi-national, fantastically wealthy coffee company, and sometimes when it's really busy some of the overflow people come with their restaurant lunches and sit at the coffee shop tables and DON'T BUY A COFFEE!  Really annoys me.  It doesn't seem to annoy any of the coffee shop employees which is kind of annoying.

Paranoid:  Exhibiting extreme and irrational fear or distrust of others.

The point I started to make  - should you care to know the point what that point may be  - is that this scraggly looking kid blows by the table and asks for a buck so he can take the bus.  I fish out four quarters and fork 'em over.   "Thanks, man, you're a lifesaver," says the kid.   Kid disappears, leaving me to wonder did he mean six-bag of cheap beer bus or couple of joints of cheap pot bus?  I'm kind of paranoid that way and kind of not grateful for any of the good things that I have so I immediately assume I'm being taken advantage of and for a buck!  A buck!!  Nearly 1/3 of the cost of my coffee.

I read my paper.  I drink my coffee.  I turn around and look across the street and see scraggly looking kid sitting at the bus stop.  

D'oh!

This is SO Vexing

Frustrate:  To disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired.

I have a dear old friend that I've kept in touch with over the years, often having philosophical talks about life and The Big Picture.  I've tried to pass along the tenor of the stuff I've learned in The Program without getting too preachy or self-righteous.  This dude is often frustrated by life - aren't we all? - but doesn't have the spiritual tools to deal with these frustrations like we Program People do.  He's a very disciplined man in most aspects but still, I can't adequately convey the message that spiritual development is all about the practice. There are so many things that don't display progress when I look at them short-term - the very same things I don't want to practice because I can't see the easy progress.  "This is a waste of time," I mutter.

Here is our latest exchange:

Friend: Money is about keeping score, at this point, in the lives of big-time business people, isn't it?  And the more the money, the more the focus.  Like the difference between a penny-ante poker game and the World Series of Poker.  The same with power.  In my career, I got somewhat proximate to Big Power... never to Big Money.  I was very cautious around it.  It seemed to me that it could burn you to a crisp if you miscalculated or misunderstood it.  But there was no denying its fascination.  And, I also learned, that there is nothing easier than appearing modest if you have power or are riding in the sidecar with power.  What is harder is to show dignity and generosity when you are in a lesser position, a position of supplicant, a position of underling.   

I don't think there was anything in the way of my spiritual development when I was working full-tilt.  I have found that retirement offers no opportunity for spiritual development that wasn't available to me when I was working full-tilt.  The one thing that retirement has definitely offered to me, in terms of spiritual development, is unsought, unasked-for, unwanted challenges of trauma, disappointment and confusion.  I am well read enough, of course, to know that many philosophers and Bodhisattvas would respond to that by saying: "Oh, how excellent!  Exactly the signs that your retirement is going to bear fruit."

Me: Ah, yes, the frustration of life.  As I'm sure I mentioned many times before I think The Program has taken the simple, ancient spiritual principles of "Seek god - Serve others" and made them applicable to drunks.  It's certainly not new stuff.  So I ask myself at the end of each day: "Have I attempted to grow spiritually - in a way that makes sense to me - and have I sought to be someone who is thinking about others instead of obsessing about myself?"  I set the bar low - a crappy session of meditation is a good effort.  Did I smile at the clerk at the gas station?  Did I say something welcoming to someone at a meeting that I may or may not like?  Did I make dinner for my wife even though I didn't want to?  Am I putting myself in a position to make life better for others rather than thinking about how they, the world, the cosmos, could make life better for ME?  It's hard, of course - we're all self-centered by nature and looking to satisfy our own instinctual demands.  Each minute that I spend trying to get what I want and trying to avoid what I don't want is a minute that I'm overlooking all the good in my life and failing to appreciate how my difficulties are leading me to someplace I need to be, even though I may not want to be there.  The guys I hung with when I was getting sober would counter my never-ending stream of bitching about the unfairness of life by saying: "You've been running the show for 30 years - how's that been working out for you?"

I probably have shared this section from one of our main books, one that really resonated with me, that put a practical bent on the ancient spiritual principles: "The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear - primarily fear that we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded.  Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration.  Therefore, no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing these demands.  The difference between a demand and a simple request is plain to anyone."

I do love these books.

Sullen Seaweed

Sullen:  Having a brooding, ill temper; sulky; gloomy; dismal; foreboding.

So my Vacation City relative - a lovely person - who drives me bonkers about 50% of the time is back in The Old City visiting my family - a group of delightful folks - who drive me absolutely bat-shit about 78% of the time and every one is getting along like they're family.  These folks are all kind of chatty, sentimental, up-beatish folks except when they're telling me I'm going to die from Ebola or a mountain lion is going to eat me or someone got mugged and died in the city I'm going to visit soon.  But they like to do the same things so they get along very well.  Instead, they get me some of the time - an introverted, mildly depressed, somewhat sullen outlier.  Is anyone surprised that the visits don't go that well when I'm involved.

Funny, that.  This is why I don't pretend, ever, that the problems exists anywhere but with me?

Damn Steps, Anyway

Principles: Fundamental assumptions.

SuperK pointed out one of my many shortcomings yesterday, and it's a particularly glaring shortcoming.  As a general rule I keep my mouth clamped shut during these episodes, rare as they are.  A good rule of thumb for me is this: "If someone thinks that you're a fool, open your mouth and remove all doubt."  As another general rule I find that when someone that knows me well and loves me a lot and has my best interests at heart finds something in me lacking that there's usually an element of truth in it, often a big, honking element.  But because I don't like to be criticized and I don't like it when someone ferrets out one of my shortcomings I tend to want to react, and the problem with that is I overreact.  Thus: speaketh not until one has digested the message.

I was asked to lead my 7AM meeting today.  Ain't it amazing that we're asked to share an optimistic message of hope and redemption just when we need to think of things in a hopeful and redemptive fashion?  My early days of sobriety were spent in a city that offered Step meetings, an occasional Big Book meeting, and not one goddam discussion meeting.  I'll tell you what - it made me figure out how to interpret the dreadful minutiae of my sorry existence in a new light.  Nothing like having a self-centered money, sex, and/or power crisis and showing up some place where people are talking about The Steps.

When I lead a meeting I almost always pull out one of our two main texts.  I read from the 8th Step - the section where it talks about my tendency, when confronted on bad behavior, to try to turn the tables around and point out the bad behavior, real or imagined, of my confronter or, just as slimy, to protest that I haven't behaved badly at all, despite shiploads of evidence to the contrary.

Then I read from the 10th Step - the part where it . . . well, here it is: "Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint.  This carries a top priority rating.  (Ed. Note: our founder has a tendency to say the same thing over and over because that's the only way to get anything through our thick skulls.  To wit: the first objective by definition carries a top priority rating - that's why it's first.  It would be 10th if it wasn't a top priority).  When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot.  Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen.  We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious power-driven argument.  The same goes for sulking or silent scorn."

I'll tell you what again - having to work these Steps and practice these Principles can be one huge pain in the ass.

This isn't a huge conflict and it isn't an especially novel one so we'll get through it fine.  Te lesson I've learned is to stay low and tread lightly until the irritation I feel has ebbed and waned somewhat.  I'm an idiot most of the time but I'm an absolute psycho when I'm pissed. 

Point - Counter Point

Potential:  Existing in possibility, not in actuality.

My friend Little Westside Jonny bought a new car recently.  He researched it to death and drove a couple of salespeople right up to the brink of insanity if what he's telling me is true, no sure thing.  However, this is not the point.  The point is not what he may or may not have done to innocent car salespeople or how accurate, truth-wise, his accounting of the events may be but rather that he bought a car that he had thoroughly researched, driven more than once, and sought expert counsel on, and still experienced buyer's remorse for a couple of days.

"That sounds about right," I remarked, an expert in buyer's remorse myself.

As I may have mentioned we have been doing some work on our home.  The guys doing the work are good friends from The Program, guys who are working away on The Steps and the principles of recovery, guys I trust.

I ask myself this: why, then, do I suspect that they are lying, cheating pieces of #$!!?

I answer this-a-way: Because money is involved, a lot of money in my little world.  There are a couple of things that have really stuck in my craw consistently over the years, and one of them has been money.  I can't explain why.  I have enough money to be comfortable.  I've been hosed out of my money almost never.  I don't begrudge the wages I'm paying these men.  I can afford the work that they're doing, and doing very well.  My Higher Power put me in jobs that I never, ever would have thrived in had I continued to drink and drug.

Still . . . . something HAS to be amiss.

As the job was nearing completion a couple of complications came up that definitely cost me some money and had the potential to cost me more money.  I paid the definite money - it seemed reasonable - I balked at the potential money - it did not.  Now mind you the potential money was just that - potential.  In the future, maybe.  Not yet fact except in my twisted and diseased mind.

What I do is what I always do: begin a series of hypothetical discussions, arguments, and conflicts in my mind.  No one is there but me - me, talking to someone who is not there, over and over and over I go, rehashing facts and theories, parrying thrusts, developing counterpoints, coming to a reasonable conclusion sometimes and sometimes ruining a friendship over a few dollars.  All in my mind.  All upstairs, a tempest in a teapot.

What happened is what usually happens: nothing.  My friend asked for no extra money.  I am trying not to lie when I say that I spent 3 or 4 hours having this discussions with myself, preparing for something that never happened.

Good use of my time, yes?

Not Not Stealing

Steal:  To appropriate without giving credit or acknowledgement.

And then there's Astya: Non-stealing.  Not taking that which is not given.

I know that I spent a great deal of time patting myself on the back because I wasn't a bank robber or shoplifter.  I spent a lot of time congratulating myself for not being an absolute scumbag.  That's why a lot of us keep looking for new places to hang out and new people to hang out with.  There was a lot of "if I ever get as bad as THAT guy, then I'll quit drinking" talk going around."

But I did a tremendous amount of low level stuff.  I took office supplies, I didn't pay all the taxes I should have paid (9th Step rectified) or repay all of the money I borrowed (since corrected), I made long distance phone calls on company phones, that kind of stuff.  Little stuff that doesn't really count as stealing as long as you have the moral rectitude of Charles Manson.  And I stole thousands of hours of time from employers, doing non-work during working hours.  How about peace of mind?  Do you think I stole any peace of mind from my family and friends and bosses?

Shit.

I'ma  great justifier.  I can take acts that are clearly illegal or immoral or unjust and convince myself that I'm justified in my behavior.  The "well, they're not paying me enough" or the "well, everybody gets away with a little tax fraud, and mine is so small compared to the guys who are really cheating."  While it may be marginally better to steal a little than to steal a lot, it's still stealing.  It's like lying that way - you're telling the truth or you're not.

Take Care of Your Esophagus

Stuff:  (Slang; informal) Substitution for trivial details.

I was talking to Willie today about his original sponsor, a man who passed away in peace and with dignity, sober for many years.  I shared about a in-law who came to the end of his life in a total panic, trying to right many years of selfish behavior at the last minute, begging friends and family to give to him the affection and care that he withheld from them.  It isn't hard to figure out who puts a lot of energy into a spiritual way of life and who doesn't.

A few years ago I wasn't feeling very productive so I put together a list of what I considered my most memorable accomplishments.  I revisited this list recently after reading the obituary of a high school classmate who died recently of esophageal cancer (Ed. note: never a good sign when someone you partied heartily with in high school dies and Ed. note redux: always suspicious when someone I partied heartily with dies of an esophageal affliction - alcohol seems to have an affinity for afflicting the esophagus).  This guy had a lot of "stuff" to put in his obituary - president of this society and member of that foundation and so forth.  Always make me wonder if I've done enough. and I've NEVER done enough.  I'm a guy looking for reasons to feel bad.

I'm impressed with the general tenor of the dreaded gratitude meetings in our Fellowship. There's a lot of gratitude for things that don't rank very high on society's Gotta Have list - no Corvettes or ocean-side villas or stuff like that.  My list was all about people and my relationship with a higher power who helps the world make sense.  Don't get me wrong - I've a lot of nice stuff and I thank my higher power for it every morning, before I get out of my easy chair, but it's the people that make life worth it, and the experiences, and the fact that the world really does kinda make sense.

who da thunk it?

In an Instant

A lot of time I take my life for granted.  It's a fragile thing, really, being alive.  Our bodies are amazingly resilient but that spark can be snuffed in an instant.  Pondering the rogue cells running amok in my sponsor's body or my Amazing Unicycle Trick the other day has made me stop and think, appreciate how easily it can all go away.

I was cruising down an empty, flat, straight, dry highway several years back, early in the morning, heading to a factory in some small town.  There was a pick-up truck ahead of me.  I watched as the truck drifted just onto the grass in the highway medium, the driver perhaps distracted by a phone or the radio, or maybe he dozed off.  He over-corrected to get the vehicle back on the pavement and doing so at a fairly high rate of speed caused the truck to start fishtailing.  As I put on my brakes I watched in horrified fascination as the leading edge of the right side of the truck started to lift off the ground.  It was odd seeing something that heavy start to fly - my brain didn't have an experience to compare it to.  And it was another slow-motion brain event - I clearly remember everything in great detail. 

The truck got just about high enough, started to pirouette,  and then it went over on its side and started to roll over and over and over.  It made a noise I couldn't calculate - a big metal-on-cement boom, boom, boom, shit and glass flying up into the air.  The truck crossed the two lanes, luckily free of traffic, and disappeared over a small grade on the side of the road, big clumps of grass and mud flying up into the air, coming to rest against a metal retaining fence.

I pulled off the road and waded through thigh-high grass until I got close to the truck, pointing away from me.  I could see a young man - a kid, really - sitting in the driver's seat.  I'll tell you I didn't go too close - if there was a mess in there, and that was a real possibility given the violence of the crash, I didn't want to be any part of it.  I'm no EMT.  Luckily, he was banged up but not seriously hurt.  I got him to turn the engine off and get out of the truck, afraid that it might burst into flames.  By that time another few cars had stopped so I climbed back into my car and continued my commute.

I don't know what I was doing when the great fish-tail started.  I'm pretty rigorous about not using a phone when I drive and if I'm falling asleep I pull off the road and close my eyes for 10 minutes.  I've seen the aftermath of too many car accidents to take any dumb chances.  Still, I was shook up for a day or two.  I paid REAL close attention to my driving, I'll tell you that, until I began to drift back into my typical lazy habits.  That could have gone another way.

Glad to be alive and in one piece this fine Saturday morning.