Seaweed: Defect Master

"Whatever a person frequently thinks and reflects on, that will become the inclination of their mind."—Buddha

Whatever we regularly think colors our experience—all day, every day. Once we start to watch these thoughts, we discover that 90% of them are reruns! Others are about problems, some are about our preferences, and many are self-evaluation.

"I've lived a life full of terrible misfortune - some of which actually happened to me."  Mark Twain or Samuel Clemens

Our life is shaped and determined by our thoughts.  Usually we are only half-conscious of the way thoughts direct our life; we are lost in thoughts as if they are reality.  We take our own mental creations quite seriously, endorsing them without reservation.

This is old stuff but I can't remember it enough.  One of my daily affirmations is to think positive thoughts.  I have from time to time kept an Anxiety List where I detail the worries of the day - then from time to time I review these worries.  To quote Mark Twain: "What a heap of horseshit."  It's very, very difficult for me to dwell on the positive.  My mind tends to the defect, to the possibility of the defect.

I think this is a defect.

Like I Have A Clue

I got a call from Willie yesterday.  He mentioned that he had a couple of things that he wanted to run by me.  I listened to what he had to say.  I like the tendency of good AAs to listen instead of pouring out minute directions so that's what I try to do - for the most part that's really all that I want friend to do for me when I'm confused about something.  Honestly, most of the actions that he had taken and the thinking that he had engaged in seemed great -  healthy, measured, and reasonable.  I probably would have acted in a similar fashion and if I would have done something differently that would have been unique to me, appropriate for me, perhaps, but not for him.  I think that all I can do is to give someone the perspective of how I would have behaved and repeat some general, common-sense AA platitudes.  Willie has a strong faith so I reminded him that a prayer to ask for guidance and good timing might help; that shit doesn't work out for me if I act when I'm angry; that disengaging from the family instead of confronting someone with something that's upsetting is not going to work well in the long run.

He'll think about this stuff but he's going to do what he wants anyway, right?

A Hundred Alibis

"No man who has ever passed from normal or hard drinking to chronic alcoholism, or who has shown persistently a disposition to act in an antisocial manner when under the influence of intoxicating beverages, can ever expect to be shown how to drink in a controlled manner, or to learn how by himself even after long periods of abstention.  The very concept of eventual drinking, however remote, seems to be fatal to satisfactory results." The Common Sense of Drinking

"We do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself.  Step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking.  Try to drink and stop abruptly.  Try it more than once." Big Book of Alcoholics

Try it a thousand times.  Try it five thousand times.  However many times you try it you can easily find someone else in AA who has tried it more.  You may be able to stop all by yourself but you won't ever be able to drink normally.  

Once you've turned a cucumber into a pickle you can't turn it back into a cucumber.

"One of the reasons that may make it difficult for an inebriate to reform permanently is an idealization of the past, which he futilely believes he can revive, a belief often unexpressed with which he fools himself over and over again. 'This time it is going to be different,' you may hear him say, but if you know him well you will smile." The Common Sense of Drinking

Euphoric Recall:  The ability to glamorize the best, to remember the good things and not the bad, or to turn the bad things into good things.  I bet part of this is human nature - we intuitively try to dwell on what's good and forget what's painful.  Emotional shock.

"If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are that he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis.  Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates.  They sound like the philosophy of a man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache."  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous