The Stegosaurus Within

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The courage to change the things I can.
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Ah, serenity.
Ah ha, courage.
Yeehaw, wisdom.

Fight: To participate in a physical or verbal disagreement or to face something and struggle though it; a violent confrontation or struggle involving the exchange of physical blows or the use of weapons.

Tell me more about these weapons . . . .   I think my weapons are my tongue and my will.  I only want one thing in my life: what I want when I want it.

Should I take an action or should I wait for a bit and see how things work out?  I'm not a big fan of waiting.  

Wait:  To delay movement or action until some event or time; to remain neglected or in readiness.

I'm sure there are also plenty of women who have ants in their pants but I'm positive that men are especially cursed with this need to DO SOMETHING!  ANYTHING!!  I worked for a guy once who had T-Shirts printed up with this company motto: "Make It Happen."  Here was a guy doomed to lead a miserable life.  I nicknamed him "The Tick" after the small creature that will literally kill itself trying to bore into anything that a human has touched.  They sense the moisture or body odor and then they get to work.  If it's a rock they get to work.  They don't give a shit.  They are trying to "Make It Happen."

This is me sometimes if by "sometimes" you mean "all the time."

I've tweaked a little something in my lower back and it's causing me some discomfort.  If you surmise I don't like waiting you should surmise that I hate discomfort.  Go away, discomfort, go away!  Go somewhere else!  I get confused about whether I should completely take it easy or whether I should engage in some less than my normal strenuous activity.  Pretending like nothing's wrong or not doing anything forever pop up in my head as the two most likely options.  Clearly, these are the two stupidest options but often my wisdom suffers the same fate as the stegosaurus.  

Today

"Today I am not going to think about what I have to do.  I'm just going to do it, hoping that's what my fate is.  If I have any problems that emerge I'm going to leave them alone for now, let time work on them.  I'm not going to dwell on anything that's problematic.  I'm going to try to leave them alone and see if as time goes along they straighten out all by themselves.  I can't deal with this stuff by myself so you, god, now it's your job.  You work on it and I'll do something else.  And usually god takes care of it.

Trust.  That's what I advise to anyone who asks.  You have to trust your higher power."  Excerpt from an interview with a 92 year old man.

It's apparent that for some of us age does increase our wisdom.  I'd like to have half of what that guy has.  Maybe the next 30 years will give it to me . . . if I work at it.

Serene:  Calm, peaceful, and untroubled; tranquil.
Agitated:  Angry, annoyed, bothered, or worked up; violently or chaotically moving around.

Serene Stevie?  Or Agitated Bookman?  Which is it?  Which is it going to be?

Another one of those weird stressors we find in Alcoholics Anonymous is the conflict between taking the Long View while staying In The Moment.  When I need to have some patience I flounder around in whatever current discomfort is bedeviling me and when I need to take some action I often take approximately zero action.

That goddam Serenity Prayer.  That goddam third phrase: "The wisdom to know the difference."  Am I agitating myself when I should be patient or am I fearful of taking the action I need to take?  Huh?  Huh, dude?

Givers and Takers

Give:  To present voluntarily and without expecting compensation.  

Ouch.  WTF?  Yowser.  

Take:  To get into one's hands, possession or control, with or without force.

Seventh month so we'll be studying the Seventh Tradition at our Step meeting.  Giving money to be self-supporting assures our independence from outside organizations.  We pay our rent so no church or other group can tell us what to do because we're paying the freight.  

I like that our Steps (our personal directions) suggest that we're going to be happiest when we're giving freely of ourselves, of our experience, strength, and hope, and our Traditions (our collective directions) suggest we should open up our wallets just a little so The Program can exist.

All of this giving bullshit is still mostly counter-intuitive to me.  I still mostly don't get it intellectually.  I think: "Wait a minute - I'm going to give you something and you're not going to give me anything back?  That means you're the winner and I'm the loser."  (Ed. Note: I hate being the loser.  The whole world view of the Type A is to be the winner.)

A huge spiritual principle: a life lived in service to others is a deeply satisfying life.  A life lived in pursuit of one's own interests is hollow, shallow, meaningless.  This basic principle is found in every religion and philosophy and spiritual practice that has come into existence with any staying power at all.  Look around you - are the people with the most stuff the happiest?  I went to this really fancy high school with a lot of really rich people and they weren't any happier than the people who lived on my blue collar street.

I always have to bring out the coffee story when I think of giving . . . I was bouncing in and out of The Program, showing up late, leaving early, not talking to anyone, not staying sober, when a guy who saw what I was doing suggested I take the coffee commitment for a month.

"I don't drink coffee in the evening," I said with a straight face.  An oblivious straight face.  I wasn't trying to be witty or snide - I truly didn't understand his point.  

I was lucky that the dude was kind.

"Well, maybe you could make the coffee for the people who drink it in the evening.  So they can visit before the meeting," he said.

Oh.  So I took the commitment.  I was terrified, of course, unaware that as long as the coffee was hot and strong and present it would be OK.  And, of course, getting there early to make the coffee and staying late to clean up forced me to start . . . you know . . . talking to other people.  And the resentments I developed when I wasn't commended about how good the coffee was or thanked for swabbing out the disgusting coffee pot helped me learn about the principle of selfless giving.  I was doing something nice for someone else with no expectation of a reward.

I was Giving.

The Terrible Bills

I joke around with a few friends about what terrible people we are.  This is fun and enjoyable . . . as long as we don't take ourselves too seriously.  Mostly we don't.  Mostly this is smokescreen we use to blow off some steam and, boy, is THAT a mixed metaphor.  I have smoke and steam - maybe I should get some freezing drizzle in there.

Case in point: two ancient buddies, Suburban Bill and Farmer Bill, made an effort to say positive, encouraging things to a young guy who stayed on to chat with us after yesterday's Zoom meeting.  I've known him casually since he got sober - he's a nice guy, bright, but I suspect he may have a touch of autism or other cognitive disability so he can be tough to engage with.  There I was with an opportunity to chat face to face with two of my oldest friends - and I hadn't seen Farmer for four or five years - and I found myself slightly irritated that the kid hung around, sort of gumming up the conversation.  I wanted to trade old stories, not make an effort to include an outsider.

We joke about being terrible people haters but then our true nature, our kind nature comes out.   So when these people tell a story about how awful they are I temper it with the acts of kindness I see them commit.  Not missing the opportunity, of course, to pile on about what terrible people they are.

Love you, brothers and sisters.  Keep fighting the good fight.  It's worth it.

Serve, Redux

Redux:  Redone, restored, brought back, or revisited.

Grief:  Denial - Anger - Bargaining - Depression - Acceptance.

I think I'm back to being pissed off about the pandemic.  It seemed to me - with good leadership and a reverence for science - that we could have been past the worst of the crisis instead of on a vicious upswing.  The experience of other 1st World countries with engaged leaders and respect for scientific facts confirm this.  The things I like to do - travel on airplanes, attend theater and live music, go to art museums, scarf down ethnic dining - are severely curtailed or gone and I believe I'm blaming others for this.  Unfortunately, I'm sort of right, too, which is really fueling my resentment machine.

The vaccine is the key.

OK, that was a pissy rant I needed to get off my chest - now back to service.  I have to laugh at myself when I imagine what being of service entails.  My reveries usually end up with something grandiose - bringing a drug addict back from the brink of death, wowing a large group with a brilliant lead, guiding a group with wisdom and skill, and other things I've never done.

I start each day with a number of affirmations.  One important one is that I be shown how to be of service to someone.  I leave this deliberately vague.  I figure that god doesn't need me to tell him what I think he needs me to do, or something.  The results usually surprise me.

SuperK and I have a mutual friend who has been sober a long time.  She's a bit of a disorganized hoarder and she gets flustered rather easily.  She was having trouble filling out her unemployment forms and asked me if I could give her a hand.  We connected on Zoom where I could see she was distracted and nervous, shuffling papers, looking at her phone and at her computer screen, while I asked some questions I thought might help move things along, but all I was doing was adding to her frustration.  I realized I just needed to sit there quietly while she figured things out.  This added to my frustration because my good, linear, logical German brain wanted to take solid, logical steps to a successful conclusion.  I forget that people like to figure out things on their own.  We came up with three or four things she might do in an increasing level of difficulty.  She was very, very, incredibly grateful.

I saw her on a meeting the next day.  She had done the easiest of the options and I could clearly see she was much, much more relaxed.  This was, of course, something she come have easily thought of all by herself - indeed, she had mentioned it during our talk.  She didn't need me to solve shit - she needed a patient friend to hold her virtual hand while she figured out what to do.  This step may work and may not.   She knows that if it doesn't she/we can move on to another potential solution.

That was it.  Sit patiently (or sort of patiently) and provide moral support.

Serve

Serve:  To be useful; to meet the needs of.

Boy, these definitions can be killers.  I blow most concepts out of all proportion.  What does it mean to be of service?  Apparently to be useful.

One of my morning affirmations is a simple "Show me how I can be of service to someone else."  I no longer try to be of service in a specific way (usually in a way that I think is best but almost never is) and I have long ago given up any pretense of dramatic service.

Here are some useful things: forks, door knobs, pants (with a belt), and my toothbrush.  These are not very dramatic but my day would suck without them.  I want to be of service in a Ferrari way - a red Ferrari - even though my fork-like service is what is helpful to the most people.

If I go to a meeting and try to have the Best Share of the Day I come off like a pompous asshole.  If I stand outside the meeting and welcome everyone who shows up - especially people I don't recognize - then I'm fork-like.  A friend of mine who recently died of cancer once commented on my anniversary - in front of the group - that "Seaweed was the first person who welcomed me to the meeting."  That was the best compliment he could have paid me.  He didn't say I was wise or profound or insightful - he said I shook his hand at his first meeting.

Michelangelo

I went to a meeting for a while in a Close Maximum Security prison in OH.  The inmates had been convicted for terrible crimes but weren't judged to be security risks - there weren't any gangs, for instance.  The first time I drove up to the prison I was terrified.  The meeting room was located on the other side of the prison complex so we had to make a long walk past a lot of convicts to get there, which was intimidating as hell.  The guys in the meeting looked tough and because it wasn't a Maximum Security institution there were no guards in the room - this meant I went from terrified to scared shitless.  So to make matters worse I put on my best Bad Ass act.  This was pointless and ridiculous - I was clearly a skinny wimp from the suburbs and I didn't fool anyone.  I still cringe today thinking about it.

My goal today is to be who I am.  I don't mean to suggest that I don't have any work left on the person you would see in front of you if you could see me which you can't - I mean to suggest that I have a personality - a product of my upbringing and my internal wiring - that would be really hard to change.  People who know me understand that the way I behave around them is the way I behave with strangers and with my family and with  myself, mumbling a brilliant monologue as I sit in my easy chair, talking to people I see in my mind but who aren't really there.

If I be myself then I make real friends, form real relationships.  Sometimes the areas of my personality that cause me the most emotional grief are also the areas that allow me to succeed and achieve, so I generally go with what I got.  I think that when I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous I was buried under a thick layer of cement and clay and dried bullshit.  The Program didn't go get a new block of marble and start from scratch - it carve away the gunk on top to get at what was underneath.

Michelangelo, I've heard, didn't create a statue out of a piece of marble - he released the figure that was already there.

Here, God

Meditation:  A devotional exercise of, or leading to contemplation.
Prayer:         A practice of communicating with one's God.

For many years I attended a Twelve Step men's retreat at a Catholic retreat center.  The leader was always a Jesuit priest who in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction (good proof of the fact that a strong belief in a god isn't enough for some of us).  I was resistant at first, skeptical that a solid retreat could arise in such a religious setting and led by such a religious figure.  A lot of the time I find too many "Thou Shalt Nots" and "Thou Shalt Even Though Thou Doesn't Want Tos" in organized religion.  But because I've come to believe that I no longer know everything I signed up, showed up,  and had a blast.  While the Jesuits - the bad boys of the Catholic faith - had some capital with me they really made it about alcoholism.

Anyway, one of the retreat masters was working through the Steps when he took a long pause at Step Eleven.  Prayer and meditation doesn't come naturally to a lot of alcoholics.  We find prayer too formulaic and objectionable, too many rules and regulations,  and nobody knows what the hell is going on with meditation.  Are we supposed to stop thinking or stop trying to control our thinking?  Aware of our surroundings or off in another world?  I have no idea most of the time.  Prayer feels like being in a car that is stuck on a short stretch of a dead end street and meditation feels like being in a car with no steering wheel going 150 MPH.

Practical:  Being likely to be effective and applicable to a real situation; able to be put to use.

Here were a few of his suggestions, none of which I find weird or indistinct or theoretical:

Spend some time in nature.  Why, he asked, do you think the monks built their monasteries on mountaintops or in the desert or on cliffs overlooking the oceans?

Go look at some art.  Do you think Michelangelo was just winging it, doing that without some help from something else?

Put on your headphones and listen to some music.  Really listen to it.  Do you think Beethoven, still composing symphonies when he was totally deaf, was on his own?

Read a book.  Read the BIG Book, for god's sake.  Do you think Bill and Bob were smart enough to write those instructions without some inspiration?

Here, God.  Heeeerrrre, Boy.

  

Steps 6 and 7: The Throwaway Steps ( :) )

"The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear - primarily fear that we would lose something 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." 12&12 P 76.

Demand: A forceful claim for something.
Request: To ask for something. 

"Until now, our lives have been largely devoted to running from pain and problems.  We fled from them as from a plague.  We never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering."  12&12 P 74.

"Else why would we consume such great amounts of time wishing for what we have not, rather than working for it, or angrily looking for attributes we shall never have, instead of adjusting to the fact, and accepting it?  12&12 P 67.

I got sober on August 16, 1987.  I almost never talk about that because I have enough trouble with my ego as it is.  I hope one thing I bring to meetings is the fact that I'm not fixed.  I'm not all better.  I have problems of money, power, and sex just like you do and I try to admit to those when I share.  There's nothing worse than an old-timer who acts like everything is just fine all the time.   I do have some experience working through these kinds of problems.  I know what to do, what kinds of action to take to get though these challenges.  I don't even like the word "problem."  My buddy tomorrow talks about AFGOs:  Another Fucking Growth Opportunity.

So my current problem is the pandemic.  It has been inconvenient for me and it is - after all - all about me.  My tendency is to dwell in the problem.  I know what the solution is so why do I hang around way too long in the problem?  Human nature?  Bookman nature?  I don't know.

So lets's talk about solving problems.  The pandemic is a boil on my ass right now.  Nobody's happy about the pandemic.  Nobody wants to hear why you're unhappy about the pandemic but we don't want to pretend that the pandemic isn't here.  

Do I live in the problem, frustrated and angry, or do I find a way to accept that I'm not getting what I want or having to do something that I don't want to do?

Damn Steps, Anyway

"Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."  Step Five.

I get too hung up on the "another human being" part of Step Five.  Funny that it's last in the unholy triumvirate of admittees.  I guess I'm vaguely aware of God being mentioned but, boy, do I gloss over the part about admitting the exact nature of our wrongs to ourselves, too.  Why would I want to know anything about my defects of character?

Exact:  Precisely agreeing with the truth.

"Relieve me of the bondage of self . . . "  Third Step Prayer, fragmented.

Self:  Self-interest or personal advantage.

I am so sick of this preoccupation with the idea that I'm preoccupied with myself.  Selfish, self-interested, self-centered, self-absorbed, self, self, self!  Quit talking about anything except for me!

"Take away my difficulties, that victory over them would bear witness to those I would help . . . "  Third Step Prayer, further fragmented.

Wait a minute . . . take away my difficulties so that I can help someone?  What the fuck?  I want my difficulties taken away so that I don't have any difficulties.

Difficulty:  An obstacle that hinders achievement of a goal.

Change

Change:    To become something different.

Man, is that a great definition.  Simple, powerful, unambiguous.  You were one thing and now you're something else.

I have never liked to hear the oft-repeated platitude that "alcoholics hate change."  Change makes me uncomfortable a lot of the time.  Change frightens me.  It's intimidating but I've spent a big part of life embracing change, going out to find it and see what the hell happens.  Life is about experiences, not things.  Spend your time and money and energy on doing things, not buying things, having things.

An alcoholic is an individual who furnishes the rut he's stuck in.

Trapped in a Maze of Circular Logic

"The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased.  In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living.  (In some cultures) the goal of ancestor veneration is to ensure the ancestors' continued well-being and positive disposition towards the living, and sometimes to ask for special favors or assistance."  Wikipedia

"A whole family, harmonious and devout.  Aware of debts to our parents and ancestors.  Revering Nature, grateful for society."  Excerpt from "A Song of Gratitude" by the Japanese Buddhist Monk Soen Ozeki

Ozeki capitalizes the word Nature.  The implication here is that nature is more important than society or that, at least, it occupies a higher plane.

There is an emphasis on being grateful for those who have come before us.  In my morning Quiet Time I try to reflect for a moment on my grandparents, my parents, and an aunt and uncle who were so influential in my early life.  These good people weren't perfect, of course, just flawed humans doing the best they could at the time with the tools they had.  Whenever I get mad at something I think they should have done but didn't or something they did that they shouldn't have I try to come back to this fact: that I'm a pretty decent person.  Based on the long-term results even though they made some mistakes they did a good job overall.

My religion assures me that all of them are in a good place so I don't labor under the illusion that my actions can improve their situation but I do like to remember what they did for me.  This keeps them alive in my heart and this fills my heart, not always with joy but always with gratitude.

I continue to investigate the concept of Regret, the tension between the belief that I needed to go through everything I went through to become the good man I believe I am and the supposition that if I had known the future when I was growing up would I have changed things to make them "better?"

A maze of circular logic, semantically speaking.

Serenity Now!

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . . . 

Serenity:  The state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled; a lack of agitation or disturbance.

When I recite The Serenity Prayer I fall into the trap of thinking the first sentence is primarily about acceptance.  (Ed. Note: What a great name for a prayer.  If I came up with one it would be called something like The Agitation Prayer.)  As you can clearly see - by reading the words - the emphasis is on serenity.  If I'm agitated or disturbed then I'm simply not accepting life as it is.  I have a tendency to try to solve my dissatisfaction with objectionable topics (politics, personalities, how my wife and family and friends and society are treating me, etc. etc.) by trying to become more accepting, cleverly skating past the being serene part, with predictable results on the state of my acceptance.  

Here's a party trick: stoke up a big resentment against a person, place, or thing, get all agitated and disturbed and self-righteous, then try to practice an attitude of acceptance.

Yeah, it doesn't work for me, either.

Instincts In Collision While Also Rampaging And Balking At Investigation

Calm:  Peaceful, quiet, especially free from anger and anxiety.

"The most subtle of all temptations is the seeming success of the wicked.  It requires moral courage to see, without flinching, material prosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to see politicians rise into prominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see virtue in rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and knowledge at a discount.  To the man who is really calm these puzzles of life do not appeal.  He is living his life as best he can; he is not worrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be left to Omniscience to solve."  William George Jordan "The Majesty of Calmness

Boy, I'd like to be a billionaire.  THAT would be really great.

Boy, if I were a billionaire I would do a lot of really great things.  Like kill myself with illegal substances.  I would be a train wreck with a lot of money.  I'm doing fine.  Who wears a $1000 shirt, anyhow?  I'd spill coffee on it.

It is not always easy to understand that a calm life well-lived, in service to man and my higher power, not seeking attention or to be in the spotlight, demonstrating love and kindness that usually isn't recognized . . .  it's not always easy doing this.

Me!  Me!  Look at me!!

Those pesky instincts - sex, money, and power - are not easy to control and impossible to completely eliminate.  

In Step Four in the 12&12 they're termed "God-given" and later on we're reminded that they can ". . . exceed their proper function."

"Instincts on rampage balk at investigation."  (Ed. Note: "Instincts on Rampage" would be an EXCELLENT name for a heavy metal band.)

"Instincts restored to true purpose."

"Whenever a human being becomes a battleground for the instincts, there can be no peace."

"We have learned that the satisfaction of instincts cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives.  If we place instincts first, we have got the cart before the horse; we shall be pulled backward into disillusionment.  When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses."

Pride:  A high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.

Boy, I'm not comfortable with that "as cherished in the mind" part.  Apparently my walking around obsessing about what a giant on the earth I am qualifies as pride even though I try not to display this smug knowledge to all of the life forms swirling around my being.  I do like that "opinion" is in there.  It doesn't say "Knowledge of my own high dignity, importance, merit, and superiority."

"By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions: that his character defects, representing instincts gone astray (Ed. Note: "Instincts Gone Astray" would be another EXCELLENT name for a heavy metal band), have been the primary cause of his drinking and his failure at life; that unless he is now willing to work hard at the elimination of the worst of these defects, both sobriety and peace of mind will still elude him; that all the faulty foundation of his life will have to be torn out and built anew on bedrock."

Sum that bastard up.  I should note that almost all of these quotes are from Step Four in the 12&12, leading me to believe that the inventory process is going to be crucial in determining why I have been such a dick.

I'll conclude with this: "Instincts in Collision" would be one more EXCELLENT name for a heavy metal band.

One Day At A Time

Some more early theories on alcoholism that have held up beautifully over the years, courtesy of Richard Peabody . . . 

"The intellectual idea of abstinence is not of itself adequate to carry on the cure conscientiously over a sufficient period of time.  It takes sustained effort to unite the intellectual concept which led the alcoholic to seek help with that consistent form of action which is an expression of an automatic attitude rather than a monument to will power."

"Whatever may be the theoretical desire and intention, the old habits do not die as quickly or as easily as one could wish, nor are they dead and buried as soon as the patient considers them to be.  The habits of five, ten, and perhaps twenty years' standing are not going to pass out of the picture in as many days or even weeks, no matter how intelligent or conscientious a man may be in his application to the work.  He has got to keep on directing his mental processes in a formal and definite manner for at least a year after his last debauch."

I share the following personal timelines for my recovery process.

It took me two years before I had a clue as to what was going on in Alcoholics Anonymous.
It took me five years to come to some kind of understanding of a Higher Power.
It took me ten years to really, truly internalize what it meant to live a spiritual way of life.

I'm careful to point out that these time frames are very loose and approximate and to emphasize that my life was steadily improving.  The thrust of the comments here are that my recovery was slow and steady, sometimes slooooooow and steady.  Often I was slogging through the day in a manner that can be best characterized as a purposeful trudge.  There was very little joyful skipping and mincing and prancing.  It was hard work getting rid of the thoughts and urges that compelled me to drink.

One Day At A Time.

Dream Life

I rarely remember my dreams but when I do they're incredibly literal.  There aren't any weird fantasies or implausible scenarios.  Maybe I get my weirdness out during the day.  SuperK snorts when I tell her a dream: "That's not a dream - that's something that happened to you yesterday."  The only snippet of last night's dream that I can recall had me opening my wallet to pay for something, only to discover half my credit cards weren't there.  I vaguely remembered doing something with them - I wasn't floored they were gone - but only indistinctly.  And I have to tell you that every time I open the drawer where I keep my wallet I do so with a little catch in my throat.  I'm always relieved when it's where it's supposed to be because that's no certain thing.

The Bankrupt Idealists

Bankrupt:  Destitute of, or wholly lacking (something once possessed, or something which one should possess).

We are not saints!

This is a Big Book phrase: "Bankrupt Idealists."  That would be an EXCELLENT name for a heavy metal band.

Self-righteous:  Piously self-assured and smugly moralistic.

Ouch.

Here's another good one: "Self-Righteous indignation."  That would be a little clumsy for a band name but a good choice for a hit single.  "Here's a video of The Bankrupt Idealists playing their new song 'Self-Righteous Indignation."

"Having been granted a perfect release from alcoholism, why they shouldn't we be able to achieve by the same means a perfect release from every other difficulty or defect?  This is a riddle of our existence, the full answer to which may be only in the mind of God."  12&12 P 64.

Yeah, fuckin' tell me about it.

Have you ever noticed how god seems to have a lot of hidden cards?  That dude can play poker, man.  That dude never shows you what he's holding if you throw in your hand.

Fear V Unity

Fear:  An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.  (Ed. Note: I italicized the word belief.  It's interesting to me that the unpleasant emotion isn't caused by the scary things but rather by my mental state).

Belief:  Mental acceptance of a claim as true.  (Ed. Note: Same thing with the word claim.  Nothing factual.  A mental construct.  I claim that I'm the best looking guy in the world.  See how that goes?).

Heard this anecdote:  Sponsor to sponsee who is struggling with fear: "So, you're telling yourself scary stories again, aren't you?"

Fear is mentioned 66 times in The Big Book.  Whenever I see that kind of repetition I interpret it as emphasis.

Unity:  The state or fact of being united or combined into one; the state of being joined as a whole.  

Tradition One (the first Tradition, the Tradition at the top of the list): "Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on A.A. unity."

How much more evidence of the importance of our concept of unity is needed than to look at the fracturing of our society today?  We're not going in the same direction any more.  I like my independence just fine but it's not always the most important thing.

Go it alone at your own risk.

Moops

Politics:  One's political stands and opinion.

I've never felt quite as uneasy about Tradition Ten as I've been during the pandemic.  As a reminder: "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy."  I've learned too much about the political beliefs of too many members recently and it has begun to color my opinion of them as recovering alcoholics.  This is no good and Tradition Ten attempts to explain why this is so.

I've enjoyed the friendships I've made over the years with people who have vastly different opinions than me on matters political, religious, moral, ethical, etc, etc, ad infinitum.  These relationships have been very important to me - they show me that good people can see the same things differently and that if I try to see what they're seeing at worst I can learn tolerance of others and - surprisingly - that there may be a better way of viewing the world.  Like when I came into AA and found out that you clueless idiots actually knew what you were talking about.  I listened to people who were going at life differently and I'm sure as hell glad I did.

There are people who think a sanitary face mask is a political statement.  Frankly, as a scientist I see it as a preventative health precaution to ward off a highly infectious virus - I'm trying to stay healthy and, just as importantly, to respect the health of others.  But there it is - right on my face.  If someone sees it through a political kaleidoscope there isn't much I can do to hide that.

I'm tempted to ask these folks what their reaction would be if they were wheeled into an operating room for open-heart surgery and saw that none of the doctors and nurses were wearing masks.

There's a guy in my morning meeting who wore a hoodie this winter which stated that he supported guns.  Frankly, this dude can stock his basement up to the rafters with weaponry - I don't give a shit and it's none of my business.  That being said I've never spoken a word to him, a loss for both him and me.  I'M not going to approach a big, angry looking guy and tell him to take off his gun sweatshirt and I don't think you should, either.

I have a friend speaking for me this Friday on Step Six.  He's a man who has openly contradicted me over the years when he thought I was straying off the path.  He wasn't self-righteous about it and he delivered these bon mots in a relaxed fashion, always with a smile or a laugh.  He disagreed with me and - more importantly - knew our friendship was strong enough to weather that disagreement.  He wasn't trying to prove that he was right, that he was better than me - he was just stating his opinion.

Tolerance:  An acceptance of or patience with the beliefs, opinions, or practices of others; a lack of bigotry.
Bigotry:  Fanatical intolerance.

So now I'm faced with the prospect of people ranting about wearing a mask in the middle of a meeting.  How interested am I in getting to know their opinion on anything else?

Not too fucking interested.

Flabbergastededly Astonished

Astonish:  To surprise greatly; astound; flabbergast.

"These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve."

Once you transform a cucumber into a pickle you have a pickle and that's what you have.  You will not have a cucumber to put on your salad tonight.  It's over, if you're alcoholic.  Play all the games you want, explore all the different avenues of drinking, self-justify, self-justify, self-justify, just know that it's over as far as the drinking being an appropriate solution is concerned.

"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.

Uh, yeah, no shit?

These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control."

It's important that I'm often reminded that alcohol is a fixative for me and not a source of pleasure.  This is astonishingly hard for normal people to understand, that the idea isn't to have fun but to escape discomfort, to go somewhere else, to be someone different.  "I liked to party," I told a guy once.  "Brother, you weren't partying - you were drinking," he said.  I didn't necessarily want to feel good - I wanted to feel different.

Courage:  The ability to do something that frightens one.

The frequent inability to give up minor habits by those who have given up alcohol is an excellent point.  By contrast the temptation is insignificant but because these habits are deemed to be insignificant, relatively so, no genuine sustained effort is put forth to suppress them.

The intellectual idea of abstinence is not of itself sufficient.  It takes sustained effort to unite the intellectual concept with that consistent form of action which is an expression of automatic attitude rather than a monument to will power.

Whatever may be the theoretical desire and intention, the old habits do not die as quickly or as easily as one might wish, nor are they dead and buried when one wishes them to be so.

The habits of year's standing are not going to quickly pass out of the picture no matter how diligent a man may be in his application  of the work.  He has to keep directing his mental processes in a formal and definitive manner for at least a year.

Pre-AA Musings

I enjoy reading AA history from time to time.  I also enjoy dipping into auxiliary books that are not conference approved but can shed some light on the history and origins of AA, and to learn more about the people, places, and things that influenced our founding members.  I've mentioned Richard Peabody a few times.  Here are a few more quotes from his seminal book that obviously made a big impression on Bill W.

"It does little good for a man to endeavor to eliminate his habit until he considers it a sound, sensible, and desirable thing to do; something he would like to accomplish for his own sake, however difficult it may seem.  The minute a man seeks to reform for somebody else, no matter how deeply he may care for the other person, he is headed for failure in the long run."

Yeah, well, no one in AA has ever heard it mentioned that successful recovery is dependent on the person who is getting sober doing it for him- or herself and not for someone else.  If you try to get sober to please or placate another person you are often looking at a big, honking resentment.

Incidentally, for a man who is willing to buckle down to work the 'difficulty' is always exaggerated in the beginning . . ."

I think I remember my first sponsor saying something along the lines of "quit bitching all the time and write your fucking Fourth Step."  Something like that.  I'm cleaning it up a bit in case there are any children present.  

"But, whatever the final results may be, the initial effects are so satisfactory that the individual is tempted to seek this method over and over again for want of a better one, with full realization of the eventual suffering that he must endure."

I was always encouraged to think the drink through.  Initially, I couldn't shake the desire to make any discomfort I was feeling go away immediately, something that drugs and alcohol would do.  I understood on an organic level that I was going to suffer in the long run but I drank anyhow.  Future comfort after enduring some suffering never appealed to me as much as making the suffering go away immediately and then dealing with collateral damage down the road.

"Writing incidentally will disclose how many of the ideas have been thoroughly understood and retained in the patient's mind, how many have gone in one ear and out the other, and how many have been twisted so that they are more in line with emotional wish fulfillment than with an intellectual disposition of the problem under consideration."

Ibid:  "Write your fucking Fourth Step already."  Bill and Bob understood how important writing is, how one's pen, once unleashed, will wander all over the place and lead the writer to astonishing places. 

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Ask:  To request permission to do something.
Tell: To order; to direct.

"We consider our plans for the day.  Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives."

"Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or decision."

"We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only.  We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped."

"As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action."