Of The Written Transcript

Insanity:  Exhibiting unsoundness or disorder of mind.

". . . could restore me to sanity."  I always resented the fact that Bill snuck that part about insanity right in at the very end of Step Two.  In fact, that last paragraph is the only mention of insanity in the entire Step.  There is a robust, detailed discussion of all of the ways that people can lose faith or reject faith or criticize people of faith and then . . . boom . . . oh, yeah, you're crazy.  I think I was a couple of years sober before I realized that I was being termed a lunatic despite all of the evidence of lunatic behavior.  He really slipped that in there at the last minute when we're all tired of reading and not paying close attention.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

I laugh when I recall the first time I took one of those twenty-five question surveys that help you decide whether or not you have a drinking problem.  I had like fourteen positives (and this was with some robust lying) and thought: "Hey, that's not too bad" only to find out if you answered yes to two or three of them you probably had a problem.

If you want to suppress attendance at a meeting read out of one the books.  If a sponsee is annoying you give them some work to do.  Preferably a writing assignment or some annoying service work.  That will focus the calls on what matters.

D'oh!

There's a guy I met when he came back into The Program after tossing ten years of sobriety down the spit sink to work on his lead.  I like the guy but I was talking to someone who was lurking around the outer ridges of sanity.  He wasn't a lock-me-up-now lunatic but his thinking - and then his actions - were not symptomatic of an ordered mind.

I listened politely for a while and then I wasn't so polite.  Eventually, I became downright rude.  I like this guy and he knows this so he understood that my blunt comments came from a good place.  But . . . I mean . . . if you would read a written transcript (Ed. Note:  A transcript is by definition "written" so I'm trying to sound smarter than I am by adding an extra word.) you'd wonder why this guy hasn't popped me in the nose.

I think you can start to tell when someone is ready to get sober.  They quit arguing.  They start listening and they start pondering all kinds of advice instead of rejecting it outright.  In my case if it isn't my idea I'm not going to do it.  My friend - who talks to lots of people - is really rolling right now.  He was willing to give something new a shot.