Jeebus and Descartes

 "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."  Jeebus

"The chief cause of human error is to be found in prejudices picked up in childhood."  Rene Descartes

As I continue to reread through many years of old journals I'm struck with amusement mixed with consternation at how many habits that I'm trying to change or activities that I'm trying to start or moderate show up again and again and again.  I can visualize how easy it must have been for me to vow to quit drinking over and over and over and over again.  I wanted to quit; I knew it would be good for me; my intentions were pure, my willpower powerful, my self-knowledge knowledgeable, my intuition was intuiting, but I never . . . you know . . . quit.

I drink too much coffee.  I eat too much sugar.  I exercise too much and when I exercise I ignore stretching and strengthening, two things that are becoming more and more important as I get older.  Some of these notes have been on there for years.  I've taken to including supplications for help from my Higher Power in my morning Quiet Times which don't seem to be working.  My Higher Power has not yet waved a magic wand over me to change my behavior.   I admire my supplicating efforts but, in the end, we just have to do something sometimes.  I was told when I was struggling to get sober: "Sometimes you have to suck up and not drink."  There were tons of tools to help me stop drinking but none of them was a substitute for not drinking, an action I had to take all by myself and in light of my own circumstances.

And to be positive there are a ton of things on the list that I have accomplished.  And the things that I haven't gotten around to doing aren't really earth-shattering things so I can give myself a fucking break.  The coffee isn't making me delusional and the absence of an abs six-pack isn't disappointing all of my female admirers, etc. etc. etc. 

Notice how I put the negative stuff before the positive stuff?  Old habits etc. etc. etc.

Love Them For Who They Are

 As I ponder relationships I've had in my life I'm often drawn to those people who I love and who mean more than the world to me and with whom I often have a lot of juvenile conflict.  I really cherish them.  I'm drawn over and over to the reminder that "we love people for who they are and not for who we want them to be."  I cherish relationships that aren't predicated on comity.  Anybody can hang around with people who don't rub you the wrong way - what's the trick in that? - but it's the people who can afford to ruffle your feathers, secure in the knowledge that the relationship is stronger than a minor disagreement that really teach us important lessons.  Don't get me wrong - I have an easy rapport with most of my friends and these guys and gals are easier to hang around with, but there is the occasional outlier and I love them just as much.

I have one buddy I've known since high school with whom I have a long standing bickering friendship.  We aren't arguing seriously about weighty topics, rather pissing and moaning about little, trivial matters.  And we have a deep and profound relationship, one where we can talk with each other about everything, sharing deeply personal things.  I believe that one of the problems is that we're both intensely competitive.  We hate to lose.  We hate to lose any argument so we tend to get our licks in.  We don't go down in the second round - we go the full fifteen.

I tell this story about my work life.  When I would lose a sale ninety percent of the time it was because of something internal to the company: no money, no management approval, some other piece of equipment worked better.  My commissions on these failures were zero.  The other ten percent of the time I lost to a company with a competitive product, also producing a zero commission.  These losses drove me crazy.  I was obsessed with them.  I studied the circumstances over and over, determined not to make the same mistake the next time even if I hadn't made a mistake.  With the rest of the losses I was cheerful and reflective.  It wasn't my fault.

The point is that both instances produced the same result.  One drove me crazy - one didn't.  Hate. To. Lose.  I hate to lose an argument over the best singles hitter in the American League in 1984 and I hate to lose a sale that took a nice chunk of money out of my pocket.

The other half of the equation is this sense that successful people are used to applying their talents to a problem and working through it to a conclusion of their liking.  My buddy is Uber-Talented and has a ton of achievements backing this up.  Where he struggles sometimes is with the quotidian tasks that we all face and this is where The Program has really filled my armory.  Trust me - I have no innate talent in acceptance and perspective on life matters but I've got 35 years of daily practice behind me and a whole army of A.A. friends and colleagues to help me along.  I am constantly reminded that all I can do is tell people what I've done and ask questions that might help them see an issue from a different point of view.

Beyond that?  None of my fucking business.

FreudLike

 Soul: The spirit or essence of a person usually thought to consist of one's thoughts and personality; life, energy, vigor.

Psyche:  The human mind as the central force in thought, emotion, and behavior of an individual; the human soul, mind, or spirit.  (Ed. Note: This appears to be a ten dollar word for soul.  I'm not being critical here, either.  I understand psychiatrists need to justify medical school with some fancy lingo.  How much could they charge saying:"Dude, you need to put some soul into your life.")

Meaning: The value, importance, point, or significance (of something beyond the fact of that thing's existence).

So if you're into Freud here are his three basic components of the human personality:

Ego:  The most central part of the mind, which mediates with one's surrounding; the self, especially with a sense of self-importance.

Id: The unconscious impulsive component of the personality.

Superego: The part of the mind that acts as a self-critical conscience, reflecting social standards that have been learnt.

So, in my case, the Id is the size of a jumbo jet and the superego is about as big as a paper airplane.  My ego, the moderating part of the human personality usually says: "Ah, fuck it." and lets the Id run wild.  "Party!!" screams my Id.

Individuation: The distinction of the individual from the general or the universal.  

This is an interesting concept.  It teaches me that the sooner I get a handle on my self as distinct from all of the other influences of the world the happier I'll be.  It's not them - it's me.  Quit trying to base my happiness or my sense of self on outside stuff.  It's none of my business, all of that stuff.  It's the stuff's business.

"Rather than ask, what does my tribe demand of me, what will win me collective approval, what will please my parents, we ask, what do the gods intend through me?"  Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life   James Hollis

"Enter the dark wood where there was no path, for it is a shameful thing to take a path that someone has trod before."  Text from The Holy Grail

The question I have to ask myself is does this path diminish me or does it enlarge me?

Aeschylus, Jung, and Malraux

"He who learns must suffer.  And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, and against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."  Aeschylus.

I wonder if the Aeschylus family still has copyright protection?  Maybe they'll sue me for using this quote.  

First of all, I'm not reading any Aeschylus at the moment.  Fifth Century BC Greek tragedians are not at the top of my reading list.  I should post this quote on my FB account so I come across as even more of a pompous asshole than I already am.  I'm reading a book by a dude who is a lot more learned than me and HE read Aeschylus, saving me the trudge.  The point is if you are still interested in the point is that this idea that "pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress" has been around for a long time.  We learn most efficiently through our struggles.

"Meaninglessness inhibit fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness.  Meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything."  Jung.

I am also not reading anything by Jung and he is nowhere to be found on my reading list.  I'm open-minded but I'm not an idiot.

The point here is that by seeking a tighter relationship with our Higher Power and striving to be of service to other people our lives take on greater meaning.

"The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness."  Andre Malraux

Again, Andre Malraux not on my reading list primarily because I've never fucking heard of him, but this book does sound good.

The point here - and I'm stretching to make this relevant to my recovery - is that when I feel lost and abandoned and confused by life I can grasp hold of the idea that I'm not alone, that life is a big, weird roller coaster ride that requires me to apply myself so I don't get sucked into a whirlpool of nothingness.

Goddam, that was pompous.

 

Big and Small and Good and Plenty

 Small:  Insignificant.

Big: Of great size; large.

THIS is my specialty: taking little matters and making them large, monstrously large.  My journal review has led me past many, many instances and circumstances and syndromes and other wraiths and phantasms that never came to fruition and - if they did materialize in the flesh - amounted to much less than I imagined.  And the things that were weighty?  They were handled with much more grace and aplomb than I would have imagined.

The conclusion is that I worry too much and to no good purpose.

"They sound like the philosophy of a man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so he can't feel the ache."  P. 23 Big Book

"I just really liked to party.  I liked to have fun."  Me, circa 1988.

"Seaweed, you weren't partying.  You were drinking," Sponsor, circa 1988 plus one minute.

An elephant is a mouse built to an alcoholic's specification.

Are you telling yourself scary stories again?

To Thine Own Self Be True.

What the Hell Can You Do About It?

 As you know I find writing cathartic.  I really, really believe that the Written Inventory in our Fourth Step is important because it's a written inventory.  There's something about writing . . .  Our pens seem to know the way to carry the sleigh to Grandmother's house we go, Hey!  And it was important for me to quit trying to organize things in my head, in my thoughts.  That was the Daily Jumble.

I've been rattled the last few days about the state of our world.  This is something that is not really under my control.  Writing and some phone calls got me back on track, helping me to come to terms that the state of the world is not really under my control, that my personal circumstances are what IS under my control, and that my personal circumstances are really quite good.  It's a weird dichotomy - trying to think in ways that wish the best for everyone with the knowledge that I don't necessarily know what's best for everyone.  This leads me back to being grateful for my wonderful personal circumstances, those circumstances that aren't too bad.  Still . . . I feel guilty when I say: "Ah, whatever - I've got it good."  I would like to be grateful for the fact that I've got it good while doing what I can to make the circumstances good for everyone else, too.

I try to keep politics out of my recovery writing but here's some of the stuff I barfed out the last couple of days, scrubbed as clean as I can manage.

The year is shot to hell.  It is almost impossible to travel anywhere.  The chaos of our domestic political scene and the uncertainty of the upcoming election is weighing on me.  I'm beginning to get my mind around the idea that next year may be problematic as far as travel is concerned.  I don't see us coming out of this tailspin even if (insert politician name) loses, even if we have a vaccine because half of us won't take it.  We're pretty comfortable with violence and death given our acceptance with gun deaths and opioid deaths and drunk driving deaths and virus deaths.  Our collective consciousness takes it in stride.  Maybe it's just part of our makeup.  

A few days later:

I am feeling like our society, our whole world, is collapsing.  Consider (Insert politician name), (Insert important branch of our federal government), (Insert powerful judicial figure), (Insert dude at morning meeting who bugs the shit out of me) and (Insert another dude at morning meeting who bugs the shit out of me), more acreage has already burned in CA than in all of last year, Derecho destroys crops in IA, running completely through the alphabet for named hurricanes,  the terrifying totalitarian society in (insert popular drama) which we are now watching, the not implausible scenario of (insert another popular drama, not the same implausible one already mentioned, but they all start to blend together with their implausibility which doesn't seem so implausible anymore)  . . . 

Could our democracy collapse?  Could our financial system fall apart?  The flu is raging while a third of our population believes it's a political hoax.  Truth is debatable, facts are not necessarily facts, the media is the enemy, if you don't like something then it's simply not true.

I'm actually to the point where leaving the country for an extended period of time seems like a reasonable thing to do although no one wants us to visit at the moment.

I'd say 2020 is under assault as far as theater and museums are concerned.  I'd say foreign travel is no certainty.  That would be a two year flush.  Hard to stomach at 64.

What the hell can you do about it?

The Vibe

Truth:  Conformity to fact or reality; correctness, accuracy.

Opinion:  A subjective (Ed. Note: The italics are mine.) belief, judgement, or perspective that a person has formed about a topic, issue, person, or thing.

I am - or I try to be, anyhow - rigorous with my honesty.  I fall short but I strive mightily.  I have been distressed the last few days from what I perceive as a blatant disregard for the truth from our political class, a disregard that has been astoundingly effective in molding the opinions of an astoundingly large group of people, a real detriment to the healthy functioning of our entire society.  This tendency has become so blatant that facts are being subsumed by the ferocity and intensity of the lying.  Facts, when inconvenient to a preset narrative, are glossed over.  They are disregarded.  People are holding to be true the most ridiculous suppositions that can be easily researched and debunked.

If I feel self-righteous I call this stupidity.  With some balance and perspective I see that it's willful ignorance.  Calling someone stupid doesn't help anything.  In fact, in often hardens their resolve.

Boy, talk about stuff not under my control.

One of the topic facets at the morning meeting was Service.  Dammit.  I guess, instead of bitching, I have to help someone today.

My Higher Power, who has fiendishly clever sense of humor, compelled one of the ant-truthers (pro-liars?) who attends this meeting to call me when I was talking to my sponsor, a call I made because I was agitated and consequently prone to stupidity.  The anti-pro guy wanted to call himself out for a burst of intolerance he displayed at the meeting.  Service - whether I'm interested or not.

Energy: An intangible, modifiable force (often characterized as either positive or negative) believed to emanate from a person, place,or thing and which is (or can be) preserved and transferred in human interactions; shared mood or group habit; a vibe, a feeling, an impression.

Can't you just feel the energy that comes off of people, good or bad?  Half the time I don't even have to listen to what the person is saying because their vibe is so strong.  You can tell me all day about how good you're doing but if I feel that negative, judgmental energy wafting off of you I'm not going to believe it.

The Vibe, baby.  The juju.

Bitch, As A Verb

Bitch:  To criticize spitefully, often for the sake of complaining rather than to have the problem corrected. 

We're in the middle of a pandemic that has killed a whole lot of people; here in California churches are closed as are many public buildings; because these are the main sites for in-person AA meetings there obviously aren't very many in-person AA meetings; if I hear one more person, in a Zoom AA meeting, complain about Zoom AA meetings I'm going to throw my computer monitor right out the . . . well, I'm not actually going to throw my computer monitor anywhere . .  . but you have a sense of my irritated frustration at people complaining about things they cannot change.

Hmmm.  Where have I heard the phrase about the serenity to accept "things I cannot change?"

The other minor irritant is the group of people who want things "to go back to the way they used to be" managing to work little comments into their shares about how there is stuff happening right now that they don't like or they don't agree with.  I'm not sure I understand what was so great about things the way they used to be.  I'm not sure why anyone thinks that they're going to get their way.  What are we - five year olds looking for a candy breakfast?  I'm not sure why the people who are bitching about no in-person meetings don't go out and start an in-person meeting?  The weather's still very nice; we have tons of parks where folks could bring chairs and masks and see each other while socially distancing; how about shutting your trap and go out and starting a meeting?  I don't go to meetings to hear people complain about the meeting I'm in.

I think people like bitching.

OK, now that I'm done bitching I'd like to mention that a friend of mine in AA who spent almost 25 years in prison is celebrating 14 years of sobriety today.  He's been out for maybe 5 years so he obviously got sober while he was locked up.  So I'm going to have a lot of sympathy for people who don't prefer Zoom AA meetings?  Jesus Christ on a stick, give me a break.  When I was getting sober in the Upper Midwest I had to haul my ass out into the sleet and snow and freezing cold to drive in the dark to a frigid church basement to go to meetings, so I'm going to complain about sitting in front of computer monitor, in my pajamas, drinking a cup of coffee?  

Not me, dude.

Pasta SuperK

Honest:  Scrupulous with regard to telling the truth; not given to swindling, lying, or fraud.

So here's a marriage story for all of you in long term relationships or hoping to be in a long term relationship or avoiding a long term relationship like it's grim death . . . 

In all marriages there are tons of complicated dynamics playing out, the result of behavior and upbringing and constitution.  One of the dynamics that SuperK and I have to deal with is my tendency to want to control everything and the fact that I absolutely refuse to believe that I have this tendency to want to control everything.  Her childhood was a perfect example of shit flowing downhill: the youngest girl child in a family with a domineering drunk father and an emotionally absent drunk mother.  Plus, she doesn't take any shit from me.

One of the weird things that can cause tension in our family is my tendency to eat anything that is edible, non-toxic, and not tied down and locked up.  I'm a grazer.  The other night I was dishing up some pasta for dinner and put an amount in each of our bowls that I thought was appropriate.  SuperK thought I was a bit stingy with the pasta and that I was trying to control how much she was going to get to eat.  Believe it or not there was real tension earlier in our marriage over such instances but we've largely moved past it, partly because she understands that I'm not thinking about her when I eat something and partly because I offer to make the 5 minute drive to our grocery store to replace whatever it was that I've eaten and partly because she doesn't even want to eat the item that has been eaten, she just doesn't want me to take something that is rightly hers.  This can be particularly flammable if are splitting something, like a donut.

So she dished up a bunch more pasta and finished every bite.  The next morning she confessed that she was sick to her stomach all night because she ate way too much pasta.

"I was not going to give you the pleasure of being right," she confessed, to great hilarity from both of us.  "I was going to eat every goddamn bite of that pasta, if it killed me."

Y'all think 31 years under the same roof is always a piece of cake?  Or a bowl of pasta?

The Poet

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

I'd like to write some more stuff about being of service but I can't keep using the word "service."  Thus, "serve" makes an appearance.  A good word, too, fortunately.

I'm dialed into this idea of being of service.  Transforming myself so that I can be of "maximum" service.

Maximum:  The highest limit.  (Implied is that one cannot go higher.  This is it.  The pinnacle.  We're not shooting for a half-assed response here.)

Not to get too Bibley but there's a great story about Jeebus sitting down to a meal with his disciples after traveling through a dusty desert, hauling in a basin of water, and washing each of their feet before they ate (12 disciples = 24 feet).  An example of service delivered without the sermon or lecture.  People watch what we do a lot more closely than they listen to what we say.  Talk is cheap and frequently empty.

"We shouldn't be so concerned about what other people are thinking of us because they're doing it a lot less than we think."  Albert Einstein

I have a friend who is a poet.  No shit - a real, live poet who has published several volumes of poetry.  Last week he joined three other writers on a Zoom poetry reading with the idea, of course, of selling some books.  I'm a voracious reader but poetry?  Meh.  Not my favorite art form.  Still, this guy is a friend so I sat in on the reading.  I enjoyed it a great deal, of course, despite all of my preconceived notions.  The poet noted my presence for which he was grateful.  We chatted via email for a while afterwards and I shared a story about his brother who had committed suicide a few years back.   I knew his brother not at all but I shared a couple of memories with the poet that showed what a kind, gentle soul his brother was.  These were received with great gratitude.

So I ask each day that my higher power help me be of service to my fellows.  I never know what form this is going to take but the form invariably ends up being a lot less dramatic and a lot more satisfying than I would have imagined.

Oozing and Wallowing

"Before we begin we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives."  P 86 Big Book.

"Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and to those around us."  P 77 Big Book.

"When I begin my day I ask God to give me everything I want, real fast, and to help me avoid all pain and discomfort and irritating encounters with irritating people so that I may be really, really happy."  P. XXVI Making Stevie Seaweed Happy - An Introductory Guide To A Life Spent in Service To Stevie.

Really, really amazing how futile my efforts have been to find in the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous any references to how to make myself happy.  It just isn't in there.  "Service" is mentioned 84 times while "happy" comes up only 33, and most of these relate to how being of service to others makes one happy.  It's clear that a spiritual life is not predicated on me doing things in pursuit of my own happiness.  

Grow my faith in the God I envision and be of service to other people.

I love the fact that "self-pity" is mentioned 20 times in the literature.  Feeling sorry for oneself is the highest form of bullshit there is.

"That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear."  P 84 Big Book.

"What happens when we wallow in depression, self-pity oozing from every pore . . . ?"  P 81 12&12.

Wallow: To roll oneself about in something dirty, for example mud.

That's a great image: wallowing in mud, oozing secretions.  You go, Bill Wilson.

Ancestors

I have been pondering gratitude for my ancestors in my morning Quiet Time.  The people that came before me.  The people who made me who I am . . . or the people who had a lot of influence - an incredible amount of influence - on the man I have become.

I know that my traveling in Asia has been a shower of gasoline firing some of this awareness.  In the Eastern/Buddhist way of life veneration for one's ancestors is very important, so important that it's not unusual for family members in rural areas to set up small shrines that they pass by every morning on their way to work in the fields and for city dwellers to swing by the local temple or shrine to light a stick of incense and say a few prayers.  There are all kinds of explanations as to why this is done - to make things easier for the ancestors wherever they are, to ask the ancestors to use their otherworldly influence to make things easier for the people still here, as a sign of simple gratitude, it goes on and on, varying from religion to philosophy and back again.

I spent a lot of time bitching about how my forebears didn't do me any favors.  I focused on their shortcomings and defects.  Imagine that - a Problem Person focusing on The Problem.  It's also a lot easier and a lot more fun to blame someone else for any shortcomings and defects that I see in myself.  It's easier to throw my hands up and shout: "It's not my fault!" and point that cursed index finger at someone or something else.  This is why we are relentless in our inventories.  We need to be relentless in trying to see our part in things, the only part that we can control.

I turned out pretty good, in my humble opinion.  Part of this, no doubt, is because I've worked pretty hard at being pretty good, but obviously all of these terrible fuck-ups who came before me were doing something right because they had a big part in making me who I am.  I like to visualize them, happy, healthy, whole, looking down on me or out on me from whatever good place that they're inhabiting.  I like to imagine them lurking in the places and animals and spaces around me right now, in my physical world.  I smile back and thank them for everything.  It's a hell of a lot easier recognizing that they were flawed human beings - just like me - who were doing the best they could with the tools they were given.  There isn't any manual passed out to show us how to make our way in a world that can be harsh and confusing and challenging.

I also like to imagine all of my friends in this light.  I have a lot of friends.  Sometimes I think I have too many friends and I'm not talking about those people who I'm friendly with - I'm talking about people who love me and care about me.  Some of these people are constant presences in my life and some of them swirl in and out at different times.  Some of them were great presences in my world for long periods of time but with whom I've lost touch - the kind of friends that if you ran into them on the street you'd continue a conversation as easily as if you had lunch with them yesterday.  I can feel the love and caring raining down on my head like hail.

Amazing.  

Aha!

My life was unpleasant before I got sober.  I don't recall very much happiness unless I was using something.  Perhaps "happiness" is the wrong word - I certainly don't remember very much peace of mind or calm relaxation.  I was always climbing the next mountain or picturing the next mountain to climb, guilty that I wasn't climbing it fast enough or well enough, wondering why I didn't pick the highest, steepest, rockiest mountain in the Himalayas.

My life can be strained today, too.  I still don't relax very well.  I'm still cursed with the Type-A perfectionism that keeps me on the lookout for dragons to slay.  I know this sounds funny for a guy without a job but I can get to the end of the day wondering why I didn't read more, for chrissake.

Someone once called me a Walking Bullshit Machine.  The topic at the meeting this morning was along the lines of remembering what finally got us into A.A.: our Aha! moment.  I don't know if I had an Aha! moment.  I had a lot of Uh-Oh! moments.  Uh-Oh! where did that cop come from?  Uh-Oh! I just got fired  . . . again.

If I had gone to treatment I would have tried to graduate first in my class.  A guy today talked about being demoted from Out Patient back to In Patient.  I got kicked out of school, my house, and many bars, but never out of a recovery program.

When I was lucky enough to work I had a variety of routes home so that I could patronize different alcohol-selling establishments (this was before you could buy booze at a fucking grocery store for god's sake, and now you can buy alcohol at gas stations.  Man, talk about a disconnect.) because I didn't want the proprietors to know I had a drinking problem.

Most of us try to figure out why we drank alcoholically.  No more, buddy.  I DO NOT care why.  I don't have to figure out anything.  I don't have to think about anything.  I was a mess and now I'm not.  End of discussion.

Gratitude List

Grateful:  Warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received; showing or expressing thanks, especially to another person.  (Ed. Note: I've looked this word up so many times.  I find that I'm usually disappointed in the oomph behind the meaning.  Don't get me wrong - it's a good meaning, it's just not very dramatic.  Thankful.  Appreciative.  Ho Hum.)

Gratitude: The state of being grateful.  (Ed. Note: Hmm.  Makes sense.  Also not dramatic. Very functional and utilitarian.)

Grace:  The free and unmerited favor of God.  (Ed. Note: OK, this is getting too subjective for me, a being who has attained some kind of minor god-status.  I'm going to look elsewhere to see if another definition fits my preconceived notion of grace.)

Grace:  The influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.  (I knew if I hung in there I could find a definition more to my own liking.)

Now we get to the point of all of this word research: Digging into the concept behind the Gratitude List.  I'm a big fan of the idea that it should be an ever-changing thing, growing and metamorphosing with a will of its own.  I have a stock Gratitude List that I dutifully review each morning in my Quiet Time, a list with all of the big things I'm grateful for.  What I've slacked on over the years is the serendipitous Gratitude List.  Each day I find that I'm moved by a number of transient little things and I believe that I would be well-served to note these in a little notebook.  A flower, a bird, a piece of music, something someone says in passing.

For instance, there's a dude at my morning meeting who is in the two to three year range and he has that oh-so-satisfying alcoholic glow that boils off of someone who is working hard and getting it, getting a real sense of what it means to be a spiritual being.  We get along well and I believe he looks up to me as an Elder Statesman but we're running in different circles, we have different interests,  so I don't see a close personal relationship evolving, but that's OK.  I'm making sure that I tell him how I feel often.  I'm grateful for his presence in my life.  Not continuously and not every day, but his face on our Zoom meetings brightens my day.

Instincts On Rampage

"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 velvet; 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."  

This idea of Right and Wrong is best left to other people in my case.  I don't know why some people are rewarded for poor behavior and others can't seem to catch a break despite living admirable lives.  Not my purview.  

Some more repetitive thoughts from my journal review.  This section comes from 6 or 8 years ago and these reflections are as pertinent today as they were then: I am restless.
I am prone to anxiety.
Quit trying to be "productive."

Here are some phrases from Step Four in the 12 & 12:
Powerfully, blindly, many times subtly, they (our instincts) drive us, dominate us, and insist on ruling our lives.
When thus out of joint, man's natural desires (our instincts) cause him great trouble, practically all the trouble there is. (Ed. Note: practically all the trouble there is.  Yowser.  There is no subtlety there.  That's one hell of a powerful statement.)
Collision of Instincts.
Instinct Run Wild.
Instincts on Rampage (balk at investigation).
Instincts gone astray.

Instinct:  A natural or inherent impulse or behavior; an intuitive reaction not based on rational conscious thought.

More journal repetition:
Money, money, money.  Pages of figures as I try to calculate the best way to go about something and the worst things to avoid.  It's exhausting looking at them.  I don't know what half of them mean.  I don't know what equation I was trying to solve.  Apparently I solved them, I guess, because I have a house to live in but what was so compelling about them at the time I have no idea.

Coffee and why I drink too much coffee and what games I can play to reduce my coffee consumption and the ill effects I suffer because of my coffee consumption and how much I love the coffee buzz, when it's working, that first kick of caffeine in the morning.  Same thing with sugar which I consume in amounts bordering on unhealthy.

Lead Topics

I have been asked over the years, for reasons that are opaque to me, to give a Lead where we Tell Our Story, What It Was Like, What Happened, and What It's Like Now.  Mostly people drone on and on about their drinking history.  Many times the What It Was Like consumes the majority of the talk, leaving the speaker to quickly rush through the getting sober and staying sober part of the process which is, as we would all agree, the most important part.  That being said - while this Drunk-A-Log can be boring and while it can be boring as shit I agree that it's salutary to get this crap out of the darkness and into the light of day.  Maybe leave an anecdote or two out of the talk.  

Anyway, over the years I've jotted down some notes to jog my memory when I'm talking.  I find it intensely amusing that these notes vary little.  There is a progression to my recovery that has remained steadfast.  There are some concepts and ideas and things that resonated with me immediately and have stayed continuously important and for a long, long time.

Here's kind of a Greatest Hits compilation . . . 

Craving:  An intense, urgent, or abnormal desire or longing.

A physical allergy and a mental obsession - we have a much different reaction to alcohol -  some say it's an allergy - than non-alcoholics and this generates an obsession to keep drinking, consequences be damned.  "All these (problem drinkers) have one symptom in common: they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving.  This phenomenon may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity."  P XXVIII Big Book.

Self-knowledge and Will-Power (avail us nothing!).  We're all smart and we're all full of a fierce desire to succeed yet we find that we're  ". . .  absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge."  P 39 Big Book.

Anger and Depression.  Everything is fear based - fear turned outward or fear turned inward.  "Fear - this short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives.  It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it.  It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve.  But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling?"  P 67 Big Book.

Resentments are infinitely fatal.  Resentments kill alcoholics.  "Resentment is the 'number one' offender.  It destroys more alcoholics than anything else."  P 64  Big Book.  It's OK to feel a sense of grievance from time to time.  We'd hardly be human if nothing anyone did ever annoyed us.  It's what we do with the aggravation that's important.  Hopefully, we can use the tools to understand it, to the best of our ability, and then process through it.

Isolation - we feel alone even if we're in a crowd.  This is a disease that wants to keep us isolated, thinking terrible thoughts, telling ourselves scary stories.  "For one thing, we shall get rid of that terrible sense of isolation we've always had."  P 57 12&12 (this passage is found in Step Five, assuring us that once we start sharing about ourselves we won't feel so alone.)

Perfectionism - keep raising that bar higher so we're never good enough.  "We are all perfectionists who, failing perfection, have gone to the other extreme and settled for the bottle and the blackout."  P 156 12&12.  If I can't do it perfectly I'm not even gonna try.

Intolerance - all y'all are irritating the shit out of me.  "We talked of intolerance while we were intolerant ourselves."  P 50 Big Book.

Selfish - "If you want to be happy today spend all of your time thinking about me."  This is such good advice that I parcel it out constantly.  I don't have enough time in the day to think about myself properly so I need to recruit helpers.  "Selfishness - self-centeredness!  That, we think , is the root of our troubles."  P 62 Big Book.

Pride and Egotism.

Fear - Future Events Appearing Real or Fuck Everything And Run!!

Working The Steps is the key.

Control - I. Am. In. Total. Control.  No doubt about it.
"As we redouble our attempts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant."  P 53 12&12.
"All of us felt that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization."  P 30 Big Book.

Recovery Program  -  This is where I detail the daily work I do to stay sober and advance spiritually: meetings; phone calls; reading; writing; service work; and the critical Quiet Time to start my day.  I'm proud of the work I do.  I fail from time to time and fall short often but I'm always putting in the work.

Slogans: Easy Does It
One Day At A Time
Let Go And Let God
Live And Let Live

The Seven (Seven! Count 'em!) Deadly Sins

Deadly: Causing death; lethal; aiming or willing to destroy.

The Seven Deadly Sins, famous in Christian theology, are found no where in the Bible, amusingly enough.  I'm going to speculate that this is more stuff that some 4th Century Religious Control Freak came up with to keep the rabble in check.  But, that being said, I must admit that I like that there are seven of them.  That's a lot of Deadly Sins.  I can't even remember all of them let alone practice all of them.  I would personally have had two or three Deadly ones and maybe a handful of Very Bad Sins, the kind that would mess you up but not kill you.  Major Injury Sins or Double Amputee Sins.  You could, all by yourself and in the light of your own circumstances, decide whether the consequences of a major, debilitating injury would be worth the cost of engaging in the sin that led to those injuries.  You might say: "Ah, fuck it, I'm really, really hungry" or horny or greedy, etc. etc. without worrying about burning in the Lake of Fire.  Frankly, I find it hard to imagine that my higher power would toss me into that Lake if I got angry at some asshole sharing past the timer at my morning meeting.  Seems unduly harsh to me.  I would think a God with infinite patience and compassion that knows no bounds would let that kind of Deadly Sin pass.

Pride
Greed 
Envy
Wrath 
Lust
Gluttony
Sloth

Quite the list.

Pride: An unreasonable overestimation of one's own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, rank, etc.; proud or disdainful behavior or treatment; insolence or arrogance of demeanor.

I like that pride is an "overestimation" which is particularly potent when it's paired with "unreasonable."  It's not simply that I'm off it's that I'm way off.

Greed:  A selfish or excessive desire for more than is needed or deserved, especially of money, wealth, food, or other possessions.

"Selfish" and "Excessive" are bad enough but when they're mated with the idea that this desire isn't even needed . . . well, come on, people.

Envy:  Resentful desire of something possessed by another.

Resentful!  Got to love that.  I want what you have and I'm pissed that you have it.  Wanting what someone else has and resenting them for having it.  It's not just that I want it -it's that I want it because you have it.  This is outstanding!  It's understandable behavior for a three year old to say: "I don't like my toys and I don't want to play with them but get your fucking hands off my toys!"  

Wrath:  Extreme anger; strong vengeful anger or indignation.

Now we're talking.  That's what I'm talking about.  When my strong anger becomes vengeful it means I'm out for revenge.  It means I'm out for revenge even when I haven't actually been harmed, slighted, or injured.  I'm fine with imagining a harm, slight, or injury when I'm in the mood for some old-fashioned Wrath.

On a side note . . . Wrath would be an excellent name for a heavy metal band.  It would also be an excellent, edgy nickname for a college sports team.  Who would you expect to win in a contest between the Capital City Crusaders and the Middletown Wrath?  And what would be the logo for The Wrath?  What would the cheerleaders wear?  What would be their signature chant?

"I'm Angry,
I'm Hateful,
And I'm out for Revenge!"



I also think that The Jackdaws would be a good band name.

Lust:  A desire to satisfy the senses especially as seeking unrestrained gratification.

I think Lust gets the short stick in the Deadly Sins department.  Too many people restrict Lust to sexual desire when it could rightly be applied to anything that I want to overstimulate.  Lust for money; Lust for power; Lust for prestige.

Gluttony:  The vice of eating to excess.

Again, a Deadly Sin that has wide-ranging applications.  To do something to excess.  A Glutton for punishment.

Sloth: Laziness; disinclination to action or labor.

Ah, fuck it - I'm tired of all of this thinking about Deadly Sins.

More From The Buddha

This “I,” or self, naturally and innately wants happiness and does not want suffering, and this desire is valid - it is true and reasonable. Consequently, all of us have the right to achieve happiness and banish suffering.

Buddhist scriptures recommend that you hide your good qualities and achievements like a lamp inside a vessel. You should not advertise them unless there is a great purpose in doing so.

As long as hatred dwells in the human mind, real peace is impossible.

Practicing the morality of individual liberation requires the self-awareness needed to refrain from physical and verbal actions that bring harm to others. This means abandoning what Buddhists call the ten non-virtues.

These are organized into three categories: 
The physical non-virtues: killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct.
The verbal non-virtues: lying, divisive talk, harsh speech, and senseless chatter.
The mental non-virtues: covetousness, harmful intent, and wrong views.

Summary for Daily Practice.
1. Examine your motivation as often as you can. Establish a nonviolent, non-abusive outlook for your day. At night examine what you did during the day.
2. Notice how much suffering there is in your own life.

Usually my advice for beginners is to be patient; have fewer expectations of yourself.  It is most important to be an honest citizen, a good member of the human community.  Whether or not you understand profound ideas, it is important to be a good person wherever you are right now.

There is physical and mental pain from sickness, aging, and death, which you naturally seek to avoid.

There are temporary experiences, like eating good food, that seem to be pleasurable in and of themselves but, if indulged continuously, turn into pain. This is the suffering of change. When a situation switches from pleasure to pain, reflect on the fact that the deeper nature of the original pleasure reveals itself. Attachment to such superficial pleasures will only bring more pain.

Gradually develop a deeper, more realistic view of the body by considering its constituents - skin, blood, flesh, bone, and so forth.

Analyze your life closely. If you do, you will eventually find it difficult to misuse your life by becoming an automaton or by seeking money as the path to happiness.

Adopt a positive attitude in the face of difficulty. Imagine that by undergoing a difficult situation with grace you are also preventing worse consequences from karmas that you would otherwise have to experience in the future. Take upon yourself the burden of everyone’s suffering of that type.

Regularly evaluate the possible negative and positive effects of feelings such as lust, anger, jealousy, and hatred.

When it becomes obvious that their effects are very harmful, continue your analysis. Gradually your conviction will strengthen. Repeated reflection on the disadvantages of anger, for example, will cause you to realize that anger is senseless.

This decision will cause your anger to diminish gradually.

More From Bill

"He has become convinced that he has more problems than alcohol, and that some of these refuse to be solved by all the sheer personal determination and courage he can muster.  They have become persuaded, and rightly so, that many problems besides alcohol will not yield to a headlong assault powered by the individual alone."

"How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act!  (Ed. Note: I added the exclamation point.)  We are certain that our intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee us success in the world we live in.  This, of course, if the process by which instinct and logic seek to bolster egotism, and so frustrate spiritual development."

And the Big Kahuna of Step Three: "So it is by circumstance rather than by any virtue that we have been driven to A.A."  Yeah, you didn't show up because you thought some spiritual development would be helpful.  You showed up because your ass was on fire and your pants were made of gunpowder and you were holding buckets of jet fuel in each hand.  

You.  Were.  Out.  Of options.

And the Big Reminder of Step Three: "All of the Twelve Steps require sustained and personal exertion to conform to their principles and so, we trust, to God's will."

Sustained: Held continuously at a certain level
Exertion: Vigorous action or effort.

True Beliefs

"But his unconscious influence, the silent, subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, the trifles he never considers, - is tremendous.  Every moment of life he is changing to a degree the life of the whole world.  Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other.  There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer and optimism.  You feel calmed and rested and restored in a comment to a new and stronger faith in humanity.  There are others who focus in an instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against life.  Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence  You lose your bearings on life and its problems."

So you don't believe in God?  What God don't you believe in?

Life: never take this gift for granted.  There is a power in each of us individually that has never existed on this earth before and if we do anything to extinguish or mar this power then it will never exist again.

Most of us underestimate the effect we have on this world.  It's hard to be conscious of the effect we have on others around us.  People really absorb your aura.  We are all familiar with those folks who leave us agitated and disturbed, often for reasons that we can't put into words.

I characterize myself as a hyperactive, competitive, Type A striver, always pushing myself to achieve more, rarely happy with what I've achieved.  When I mention this to people in casual conversation they often say: "Huh.  I don't see that."  

Huh.  Got them fooled.

Willie called the other day to compliment me on my demeanor, my bearing and presence.   This is big because a lot of the time we're ragging on each other about how intolerant and petty we both are.  It's clear that on the one hand we're joking but on the other hand we're being careful to call each other out on some tendencies that we both have that can get out of control if we're not careful.  I had been sharing some of my thoughts with him about a work situation he's currently enduring which is very similar to something I went through, almost exactly, several years ago.  I commented about this fact.

"Yeah, that's not really what I'm talking about here," he said.  "Although I do appreciate the feedback I'm just talking about your aura generally."

So, see?  We affect people when we don't know we're doing it.

Pious Seaweed or Something Else

Faith:  complete trust or confidence in something; strong belief based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
Doubt: A feeling of not being certain about something, especially about how good or true it is.

I was meandering about this morning, in my mind, thinking about the human tendency to seek for, to hope for, something bigger than we are, to gain some assurance that What Comes Next is going to be awfully sweet.  When I travel I can most quickly get a feel for the essence of a people by finding out what they eat and how they express their faith.  These two things are omnipresent.  They are ubiquitous to every country I've visited.  There's something about the human mind that seems to feel that we're smaller and less insignificant than something else.  And I love learning about what has to happen to get to this place What Comes Next.  Some practices are full of Rules and Regulations and "you gotta do this" and "if you aren't doing what we say then you're going to burn in a Lake of Fire."  Others are like: "Whatever.  Be nice, think of others, grow your faith, and you'll be fine."

I have one short prayerful affirmation to the God of my childhood that I repeat every morning (Ed. Note: I repeat the prayer every morning, not my childhood).  This religion requires the completion of some very specific things if you want to get the 800 virgins or the endless seafood buffet or the nice, private cloud where you can relax and play the lute, draped in velvet and white silk, and if you don't do these very specific things . . . it's the Lake of Fire for you, dude.  I'm not huge on Rules and Regulations.  I resist authority and don't like being told what to do but I am vaguely uneasy about the Lake of Fire.  For All Eternity.  Sounds unpleasant so I hedge my bets and "believe" in the things that are required to avoid this fate.  

This morning the prayer made me think about the tension between faith and doubt, and how doubt is another emotion that is particular to humans.  In my childhood religion, for chrissake, the son of god figure was facing a lousy couple of days so he actually prayed to the major head god figure to have the trial and tribulation taken away.  If HE can feel doubt I doubt I'm going to avoid it myself.

That being said I do have a sense that I'm doing God's will.  I feel like I'm on the right path.  I don't believe that God gives a shit if I feel doubtful or if my prayers are empty of the "true" belief that delivers an expected result.  I heard this once: "God has big shoulders - he can handle whatever you toss his way."  I think God is happy that I'm making the effort.  Half-assed effort, full-assed effort, whatever.  Pious, I am not.