Two Big Books

Whenever I'm asked to be the speaker at a speaker meeting I do a little prep work: reading through some of my favorite passages, jotting down reminders of some of my most cherished jokes, deciding on the relative appropriateness of personal anecdotes.  These notes are often in my journal but I also use slips of paper, old envelopes, and the like.  It's interesting to me to see how some themes come up over and over - it makes clear the fact that there are some behaviors wedged inside me but good, and I'm not very successfully in my attempts to purge them from my being.  They go in okay - it's the getting them out that causes problems.

Anyway . . . . 

"We shall claim that our serious character defects, if we think we have any at all (got to love that qualifier - we're in Step Four at this point and the author is suggesting we may not even be at the point where we admit to ANY defects), have been caused chiefly by excessive drinking.  Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people - people who really need a moral inventory (in other words - it's not me: it's you).

Let's expound, shall we, on the idea that the best defense is a big offense . . . 

"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 wrong he has done us."

Oh, yeah, baby.  To recap: I DO ... NOT ... LIKE ... LOOKING AT MYSELF.

I have been rereading the Big Book of my childhood religion, a tome I made it through several times when I was still drinking and one I have avoided since I've been sober for reasons that are unclear even to me.

Here are my thoughts . . . 
It's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  There is a good chunk of solid spirituality in there.  Not stuff I would associate specifically with this religion, either, but would attribute to any religion or philosophy that is striving to promote a spiritual way of life.

There's a lot of history in there, too, much of which I find pretty dubious factually.  Not lying dubious but convenient dubious.  I suspect that most religions try to lure in people by slipping in some stuff from their religion.  Selling out, compromising, negotiating, call it what you will.

A lot of time is spent talking and talking and re-talking about how important it is to believe a certain way if one wants The Ultimate Heavenly Reward upon one's death.  If you've already bought into the specific concept of your chosen religion it gets boring hearing over and over and re-over how important that concept is.

And there is, of course, some shit that I find deeply offensive.  So be it.  It's not like I swoon over every share at every meeting I go to.

I'm digging the re-read.  I'm also going to shelve the book when I'm done.  I get it.  I'm going to read something else.  You're preaching to the choir, you know?  One of the things I learned in sales was that once you got the order then just get the fuck out of there.  Don't give the buyer a chance to rethink his excellent decision to buy your shit.