Tell 'Em

I was taught this little catchphrase when I was starting out as a sales-guy: "Tell them what you're going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them."  The most important part of my job was the communication between me as the supplier and my customer as the end-user.  I could have the best product in the world - a miracle product that would solve his problem - but if I didn't communicate that to him and find out what his worries and objections were I was shit out of luck.  The smaller part of this equation was that sometimes I didn't explain myself well enough and I needed to clear up the confusion, but the biggest obstacle was that often the customer simply wasn't listening: he had something that he wanted to say and this need was overriding his interest in listening and, if he wasn't hearing to what I was saying, I could be speaking in ancient Aramaic.  I got very good at picking up these clues - I could see the slightly pursed lips, the 1000 yard stare, the impatience dancing in someone's eyes, and I knew that I had to pause the conversation to allow him to say what he wanted to say - and often it was superfluous bullshit that had nothing to do with the matter at hand or that I hadn't had a chance to get to yet - or I had no chance in promoting my solution.

The point here is that when I'm in an A.A. meeting I really take my time when I'm speaking so I say what I want to say; moreover, I make sure that I'm not letting any ulterior motives leak out.  It's easy to let a barely perceptible bit of snark escape my lips, convinced that I'm getting a subliminal message across without revealing whatever bias or beef that I have.  I'm really being careful right now in these hyper-polarized times.  When I was a kid growing up in the 60s and early 70s it was the liberals who had the market cornered on self-righteous indignation and smug certainty, always eager to take the offensive on any social or political issues, and today I see that the conservatives have assumed this mantle.  I'm not picking on one side or the other, either, just making the point that it's easy to try to send a message.  Sometimes it's blunt and sometimes it's all covered up as a musing or idle concern but once it's out there it's out there.  I can be as subtle as I can possibly be about my opinion on a sensitive topic but there are going to be people who pick it up and it's going to color their perception of what I say as I go on from here.

These are more musings about the political tinge that A.A. has taken on.  Really, that almost everything has taken on - alcoholics don't have the market cornered on fucking things up.  If you have political leanings on one side or the other and you attend a barbecue by a civic organization from across the aisle you're going to be uncomfortable even if the chatter is about the local baseball team or next week's weather - the political bias is assumed.  It doesn't have to be spoken directly.  I know from the little "wonderings" or "musings" I've heard from the people who broke off to start an in-person meeting that they have a strong message they're trying to get across.  And, as I've said, in other groups that now have an in-person presence, groups where I don't have the baggage of knowing anyone's political bent, I could care less that they're meeting in-person.  None of my business and good for them.

Me V Everyone Else

Love people for who they are and not who I want them to be and . . . other people's business is none of my business.

For a guy who made such a mess of his own life I sure have a lot of opinions on how other people should live their lives.

I've always liked the Hula Hoop analogy - each morning I should get up, get dressed, step inside a hula hoop, and then spend the rest of the day managing everything inside the hoop and leaving everything outside of the hoop alone.  That stuff is None. Of.  My.  Business.

The machinations of society during CoVid - and A.A., unfortunately, in many cases, as distressing as this is for me  - really makes me think about all the instance where I'm satisfying my instincts at the expense of others.  There are just too many people out there who seem to be saying: "Fuck it - this is what I want to do."  I understand that I get to do what I want sometimes, even if it's not what everyone else wants to do, but I'm not living a very spiritual life if I'm just doing whatever I want to do too much of the time.

I'm wondering if my home group is wrecked for me.  I wonder if I'll be able to take the political, social stances of some of the members and set them aside.  I'm pretty good at grousing about people's behavior behind the scenes while letting that irritation melt away when I see the person . . . but this seems awfully momentous.  It seems awfully ingrained.  I might have trouble separating the person from the message.  This is too bad and not good for me and not good for A.A.  Because I get so wrapped up in myself I can see that I might be overreacting but I do hear from a lot of other people who believe similarly.

How am I doing Versus How are you doing?  Boy, that's a slaughter too much of the time.

Anonymous Humility

The reading for this morning's meeting was from the Twelfth Tradition which emphasizes the importance of the humility that we achieve through the practice of anonymity; in fact, it says quite explicitly that anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all the Traditions.  That's quite a mandate.  It reminds me of the section of Step Twelve where we're reminded that we need to try to practice these spiritual principles in all of our affairs.  This means that all of the assholes that you're going to run into today should get the same consideration and kindness as the people you love the best.  I'm struck by how often the concept of "humility" comes up in our literature; in the Steps and the Traditions both.  We must not be very humble people by nature.

Here's a new twist on the Humility definition: "Acknowledging that I'm not always right."  Whew, that's going to stick in my craw all day.  I've had enough trouble with having a "Modest view of my own importance."  That's still sticking in my craw - it's too big for my craw and it's lodged in there sideways to boot.

The anonymity part always makes me laugh.  It reminds me that after I got sober no one - not a single person - questioned why I had decided to get sober.  They said things like "Thank God you're finally getting some help."  I guess people who walked by me passed out on a cold basement floor didn't wonder if that was healthy behavior or not.  I guess Earth People make it into bed each night or at least doze off on the couch.  Maybe a carpeted living room floor on a rare occasion, but never on concrete or cement and never on concrete or cement that was outside.

One of my little girlfriends talked about showing up at work in a good mood every day and that this was in large part because she goes to a meeting before she shows up at work.  Yesterday, I had a crown replaced.   Not the crown I wear most of the time because I think I'm King All That, but a crown on one of my molars.  The work was painless, thanks to King Novocaine, but the result was a little dicey.  I may have to have a root canal at some point to remedy the destruction; moreover, I had to slap down a credit card for $1700.  That's a shit-ton of money in my opinion but as I left the office with my grotesquely swollen upper lip I was in as good a mood as when I entered.  I'm glad for a good dentist; I'm glad for a repairable condition; and I'm glad that I have $1700 to keep my mouth healthy.  I realize that a big percentage of our population probably has to forego this work - I didn't give it a second thought.  God had given me an extra $1700 to put into my checking account and now He wants it back.  Seems fair to me.

Then, off to the Tax Man to pick up my 2020 tax return.  Last year I faced a hefty tax bill so I walked into his office with some trepidation.  This year I got a refund!  But the bill was almost $500 - this pissed me off that our tax code is so complicated that your average genius like me can't do his own taxes - which was almost as much as the refund we're going to get!  Even Steven!  I was in a pretty good mood when I got to the office and I was in a pretty good mood when I left.  The result was like so many others in my life - better than I expected but not as good as I want.  Seems awfully fair to me.

It think God was kind of fucking around with me yesterday.

An Inside Job

Wretched: Very miserable; feeling deep affliction or distress.

Entering A.A. it was hard to visualize a goal beyond that of wretched abstinence.  A.A. offered sobriety, but there were strings attached.  It came in a spiritual package that some of us refused to accept.  That was not surprising as we had been in conflict with God’s will for many years.  Talking with older members, we were advised to stop taking ourselves too seriously and to acquaint ourselves with the program before we started rewriting it.

(I wouldn't call this book funny. It's very serious, sometimes dour and pious, rarely amusing. But I like the line "acquaint ourselves with the program before we started rewriting it. Hoo Boy, that's pretty funny. And this is something that most of us do, even after some significant sobriety. Every time I've moved I've tried to sway the attitudes of the members to do it the way we used to do in the last city, forgetting that I used to bitch a blue streak about how they used to do it there. Hoo Boy, am I an ass.

This idea that our lives are in shambles because we are directly opposed to God and his will can be a tough one to handle. Complaints about The Program from new people not interested in doing the work - in other words, all of us - often mention reliance on God or a Higher Power as a big sticking point. Fair enough. It can be tough to swallow. So if you don't like how we're doing it keep doing it your way. No one is holding a gun to your head. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here and maybe you've got a better plan, although long experience with alcoholism makes us doubt that. Frankly, the idea that things don't go well when we try to jam the world into a form of our own liking shouldn't be that radical or upsetting; the idea that service to others and to a Greater Purpose in our lives is going to help us be more contented seems like a slam dunk to me, something that is inherent in the being of most people.)

Occasionally members assume a sense of false security from sober periods, gained through group association, but without spiritual help.  We call this the free ride.  (But wait! There's more!) The combination of God’s help, plus group association, supercharges our necessary growth.

It takes no mastermind to determine the source of power we draw upon in arresting our alcoholism.  Evidence of a spiritual change in our lives can be detected in almost every thought and act.  

(From “Our Spiritual Friend” in the Big Book): “God produces harmony in those who receive His Spirit and follow Its dictates.  Today when I become more harmonized within, I become more in tune with all of God’s wonderful creation.  There are disturbances, but I have learned that if I seek patience and open-mindedness, understanding comes . . . and the joy of living that is not disturbed by circumstance or by people around me.”

It's an inside job. Let that outside stuff alone.

For Our Topic This Morning . . . How About Me?

 What would I write about this morning?  Me?  Sure.  

While I write things down all over the place - notebooks, journals, electronica - I've been concentrating on keeping a daily calendar of my bitches and grievances as we move through the CoVid shitstorm.  It has been a challenging time for most of us and I have not been excluded from the challenge.  Really, though, it hasn't been that challenging and it hasn't been as challenging for me as it has for many people.  My main challenge is dealing with the fact that I don't get to do exactly what I want to do exactly when I want to do it.  

As Monty Python would say: "And now for something completely different."  I've been doing things differently.  That's not always a bad thing.   I'm curious as to how I'm going to look back on this time.   Hopefully it won't seem as bad as I'm making it and hopefully I'll see that I've grown by having this opportunity to stretch my wings.

"Acceptance is the Answer" was the Big Book reading this morning.  Some tidbits gleaned from some of the shares . .. 

My thinking brought me here.  I need a new way of thinking.  I need to change the way I think.

Life keeps getting simpler and easier as we manage to change our way of thinking.  This was not apparent at the start.  My life was appearing to get much harder.  How little did I know.

I need to change my internal world and when I do the external world takes care of itself.  I need to leave the external world alone.  The external world is none of my business.

Not taking a drink is going to be the most important thing I do today.

One member shared this classic: "I interpreted 'sober' as meaning 'not drunk.' 

Only in A.A. 

Having Had A Spiritual Awakening . . .

Therefore, we deduce that our understanding of God’s will starts with surrender of our wills to Him and with charitable loving acts of service to others.  The answer to our prayer for such understanding comes with the least effort when we are busy on spiritual missions of help and service.  We are, to the best of our ability, gaining a knowledge of God’s will by the practice of faith, honesty, and unselfish service.

(Being naturally thick-headed and bull-necked about my recovery I tend to fight everything, to complicate everything. As a defense I've tried to boil my sobriety down to its bare essence. In a practical sense I've never improved on this four word recipe: Seek God - Serve Others. This is how I find a connection with my Higher Power - through my interaction with other people. That's how my Higher Power is revealed to me. That's where I get my direction. Not by sitting in my hidey-hole and thinking deep thoughts.)

The power (to carry out God’s will) is developed as we surrender self-centeredness, and by prayer and meditation “We improve our conscious contact with God” when we forgive and help others.

(Again with the helping others . . . .)

We mistake our own willfulness for Divine Will and by sheer will-power accomplish certain objectives.  The true source of such power soon becomes evident.  We find ourselves out of harmony with others.

(Again with the fucking other people . . . I am so sick of having to think about other people. Other means "a different one." The implication is that it's not me.)

Psychology teaches us that emotions and feelings are sources of energy.  Human energy is at its maximum and is most constructive in form when the mind and body are activated by this worthy emotion: Love.  It is reasonable to believe, therefore, that the power to carry out God’s will must come from the inspiration and energy that are to be found in the emotion of love.

(Love is mentioned in our literature 78 times - hate is mentioned 10. See the emphasis? See what's important?)

(From a member’s letter): I fully admitted my helplessness as an alcoholic and knew that it would take power outside of my own to save me from insanity or an alcoholic death.  My awakening was progressive, to which each step contributed a part.

Some members acquired a spiritual awakening quickly.  Others required weeks and months of A.A. effort and association before they were awakened to an inner feeling of God’s presence.

(It's funny to see how much of an overlap there is between the last part of Step 11 and the first part of Step 12. We end 11 by asking our Higher Power for the grace and wisdom to see what his will for us is and then to put that plan into action; then in 12 we start by acknowledging that our Step work has produced a spiritual awakening. In fact, it is THE result of working the Steps. It's the whole point. We're doing all of this crap because we need to be awakened spiritually. The primary goal isn't to get sober - although that's the ultimate payoff - but to have this spiritual awakening, at which point getting sober is a hell of a lot easier.)

Step 12 Stuff

More from The Little Red Book . . .

Since this is an interpretation of established A.A. concepts, it would be inconsistent to mince words over spiritual values or to withhold the fact that a spiritual awakening is an essential part of our recovery. Without the spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps there could be no A.A.  Our sobriety demands a personality change.  We gain this in the form of a spiritual awakening from living the A.A. program.

Is it possible that an alcoholic can arrest the physical allergy and the mental obsession of alcoholism by his own power?  We think not.  Evidently, we require spiritual aid to attain the mental stability conducive to the sobriety that we wish to enjoy.

(More from me . . . I'm aware that spirituality and religion can get mixed up in the minds of a resistant newcomer. This is why we come up with little sayings like "Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell and spirituality is for people who have already been there." I grew up in a church so I didn't have any problem with the concept of a God - it was just that my conception wasn't working for me. I needed a practical God, wearing blue jeans and a hard hat and carrying a power drill of some kind, not an effete God talking down to me from a lofty perch about arcane matters. I didn't need a theoretical explanation of lying and why it wasn't a great thing to do - I needed a boots-on-the-ground, real-life explanation. If you lie at work this is what happens - that kind of thing.

Early on I was pretty hard-ass about A.A., believing that if you were an alcoholic this was the only your choice if you wanted a productive and serene sobriety. I no longer believe that. I think it's a path, one that works for millions of alcoholics, but it's not the only path. I always say today that if you're sober and relatively happy then keep doing what you're doing - we can't improve on that outcome. But if you're going to give A.A. a shot then it's going to be helpful to grasp the fact that it's a spiritually based 12 Step Program. I fear sometimes our members may be a little too welcoming about our spiritual underpinnings, loath to say "God" or "spiritual" to newcomers. It's like wanting to get in shape and deciding to try swimming, then showing up at a yoga studio - no one's saying swimming isn't good exercise but if you're at a yoga studio give the yoga teacher a break. Don't stand in the corner of the room in your bathing suit, bitching about the yoga class. Go find a pool. It's a YOGA class!

Hunker Down and Dig In: The Long Haul Syndrome

Tooth and Nail:  To fight vigorously with all available resources.  (Ed. Note: Interestingly enough, this aphorism refers to the human fingernail and the human tooth.  I always thought the "nail" part was suggestive of the kind of nail that you pound into a board.  This phrase was first noted in the 16th century making me glad I didn't get into a fight back then when apparently there was a lot of scratching and biting and eyeball-digging.)

This is my new - or my current - slogan, courtesy of Massachusetts Dave: "Hunker Down and Dig In."  It's all about the Long Haul.  My Washington DC guy had me and had me big with "Embrace the Boredom" for a while - or "E The B!"  Such a phrase is an example of the way Earth People say things like "Easy Does It."  It's an affirmation that there are things - big things, many things, most things - that are out of our control.  I can fight them tooth and nail or I can sit back and go with the flow.  The trick, as always, is to determine when to fight and when to float.

I continue to have a lot of discussions with absent A.A. members about why I'm doing what I'm doing and why what they're doing is wrong.  I'm unsure what the payoff is for me in arguing with people who aren't there.  If they were there I wouldn't expend the energy to argue with them.  It's a weird conundrum.  Very weird and quite persistent in its ability to annoy me.  For, the fact is, I don't miss them very much.

Gossip:  Casual or unconstrained conversation about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true; idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others.

A perverse person stirs up conflict,
and a gossip separates close friends.  Proverbs 16:28  

Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips
and spreads slander is a fool.  Proverbs 10:18

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.  Ephesians 4:29

I did not verify these passages but they're pretty good and if someone takes the time to put together a web site with Bible verses grouped under a certain topic and then lies about them . . . well . . . I'm going to gossip about that person.

Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from telling lies.  Psalm 34:13

I've got a simple rule about any comments I make about another person - if I wouldn't say it with that person standing right next to me I don't say it.  I haven't had anyone come up to me in a long time and accuse me of saying this or that about them.  The things I share are a part of the relationship with that person and are thus well-known and unsurprising.  I do, from time to time, burn off some irritation with my spouse or a couple of close friends in A.A. - I'm only human and prone to the same interpersonal frustration that afflicts all of us.

 

What $10 Buys Me

Service to others . . . mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble . . . what a bunch of bullshit.   I can't even bring myself to think about other people most of the time let alone do something for them.  For free!  With no guarantee that I'm going to get anything back!  Holy shit, what kind of crazy-ass, worthless design for living is that?

Talk is cheap.  Actions speak louder than words.  I don't have a third trite saying.

The other day I was heading into my coffee hut, walking toward the door, eyeing a young woman angling in from the opposite direction, judging speed and acceleration and tack and arrival times before deciding to squeeze in before she arrived.  I could have waited a beat, held the door for her, and queued up for a slightly longer wait, but I wanted my coffee earlier rather than later.  I'm busy, you see, what with all my sitting on a park bench, slack-jawed and half-stupefied by the sun, watching the seagulls squabble around a fountain, contemplating nap first, then a sit in the hot tub?  Or vice versa?

As we stood in line I turned to her and asked what she was ordering - I had decided to buy her drink as my small act of kindness for the day but first wanted to make sure she wasn't on an office run, getting 15 Iced Double Mochaccinos with a swirl and a dollop and chocolate sprinkles and extra shots. Those kind of drinks are expensive and take forever to make.   Satisfied with her answer I bought my two coffees and told the barista to add her drink to the tab.  The young woman was happy to avail me my kindness and quite diligent in thanking me as well, and I felt like a Titan of Industry making a huge charitable contribution.

My reward for a whole $4 outlay?  More than $4.

This is the same coffee hut where I received a no-charge drink a couple of weeks ago.  I had walked all the way over there without my wallet and decided  - in lieu of . . . you know . . . money - to brazenly asked the employees if they'd give me a freebie that I would then pay for during my next visit.  This wasn't as outlandish as it sounds because I knew both of the baristas from my regular visits.  And the salient fact is that I take the time to talk to these kids, ask about their day or the classes they're taking, little kindnesses that show I care about them even though the big crowd of evil little Stevie Seaweeds who live in my head are saying: "Who gives a shit?"  Those guys are jerks but they can be pretty funny as long as I don't actually speak out loud the things they're suggesting I say.  No guarantee with that.

During my next visit I explained the situation to the woman manning the cash register.  She eyed me like I was a little deranged and said: "Don't worry about it."  See - my well-thought out plan to get a free drink - to steal some coffee - worked out perfectly.  Now . . . what do I do with that extra $3.30 that I have?  Hmmmm.

An action.  With a lot of words but the action part is the part I'm trying to emphasize, not the words part.

Finally, every time I go into my regular donut shop the woman running the place greets SuperK and me by name.  I've never heard her greet anyone else personally.  I know her name, of course.  Maybe it's because I always give her $5 for $2 worth of donuts but then she always sticks a dollar worth of donut holes into the bag, gratis.  I hope and believe it's because we've spent some time learning something about her so it has personalized the whole experience for all three of us.

Action!

Principles Before Personalities

Sacrifice:  To surrender or give up or permit disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.  (Ed. Note: "something else" is presumed to be a euphemism for "not you." You are not going to come out on top in this one.)

Our Tradition Twelve: "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities."  I like how the Twelfth Tradition serves as a clearing house for "all our traditions" just like Step Twelve wraps up all the work we've done in the preceding eleven steps: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps . . . "

In my not-so-humble opinion we could put the book down and stop reading after the first paragraph of Tradition Twelve: "The spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrifice.  Because A.A.'s Twelve Traditions repeatedly ask us to give up personal desires for the common good, we realize that the sacrificial spirit - well symbolized by anonymity - is the foundation of them all."

My long-serving and long-suffering sponsor would say to me all the time:"Principles before personalities, Seaweed, principles before personalities."  Eventually I had to ask him what the hell that meant, anyhow.  "You're not that important," he said.  "And you're certainly not more important than anyone else."  One of the easy affirmations I include in my Quiet Time each morning is that I be shown how I may be of service to someone else today, realizing that this will usually be presented to me as a tiny kindness shown to a single person in a private exchange and not the big, splashy, look-at-me! event that I so crave.  I figure if I can't be nice to the woman fixing my over-priced specialty coffee I don't have a prayer in my more substantive relationships.

Humility:  Modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance.

There it is again - that tension between my own personal desires and what is best for a larger group of people.  My inclination is to make sure I'm comfortable first and then - if I have any energy left - check on how other people are doing.  This Tradition suggests and not so subtly that I'll never experience the peace and ease that can be found when I practice a genuine humility.

Immense: Extremely large or great, especially in scale or degree; vast; huge.

The Long Form of Tradition Twelve includes these thoughts: ". . . the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance.  It reminds us . . . that we are actually to practice a genuine humility."

Sought Through Prayer and Medication . . . Err, Meditation . . .

Complacent:  Apathetic with regard to an apparent need or problem; uncritically satisfied with oneself; smug. 

From a discussion of the first segment of Step Eleven in The Little Red Book "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him" . . . 

They have overlooked the fact that the human mind was not constituted to remember the pain and sorrow suffered from disease.  When complacency develops . . .  In reality we are on a daily reprieve, that our reprieves are contingent upon our spiritual condition.

(I've always liked the term Euphoric Recall in describing how we often remember our drinking careers.  It's a good reminder when I slip into a brief reverie that glamorizes my past drinking or - even more likely - to ruefully acknowledge that alcohol and drugs really were an effective solution to my untreated alcoholism for a good little period of time and that - especially in the early days - it really was a lot of fun.  I had a lot of fun drinking . . . until I didn't and drinking became a slow death march into insensate oblivion.  It's important, in my way of thinking, that we don't demonize alcohol.  There's nothing inherently wrong with alcohol, a substance that millions of people use responsibly to relax a little or to socialize.

The point is that we're all going to get complacent from time to time.  Staying sober and spiritually fit isn't always a walk in the park.  When complacency develops I go back to working on my spiritual condition.)

It is more sensible to ask for a required circumstance after you have acknowledged and expressed thanks for receiving a previous one.

(So . . . say thank you more that you say gimme.  Lovely to ponder - uncomfortable to do.)

The alcoholic is apt to possess a restless disposition that tends toward over activity.  Therefore we recommend relaxation as an aid to prayer and suggest that a quiet time, aside from prayer, will be beneficial to all alcoholics.  It can be a matter of minutes if necessary.  We know, however, from experience, that even thirty seconds of a complete relaxation of mind and body will do the trick.  It is simple.  Try it.

A famous phrase in our literature brands alcoholics as "restless, irritable, and discontented" until we drink and get that sense of ease and relaxation that alcohol provides.  Today I'm not often irritable and discontented but restless?  Sorry, dude, but I'm a restless guy.  I move a lot and when I'm not moving I want to be moving and when I am moving I'm sure I should be moving more or moving somewhere else, that I'm moving in the wrong spot.  I'm better at tempering my restlessness today but I'm also aware that it is a part of my personality that I'm never going to get a handle on.  It's not all bad, either - I do a lot of stuff and see a lot of places because I'm so driven to movement, but it can be uncomfortable always being uncomfortable with my present state.

I'll tell you this - getting older solves some of this problem.  He says with a rueful smile.

Off the Beam

Grim Death: To hang on like grim death or hang on for grim death means to do something with extreme determination, to hold onto something very firmly.  The idioms hang on like grim death and hang on for grim death appear around 1850, though the term grim death was coined by Shakespeare.

 Step Ten in The Little Red Book . . . 

George A. Dorsey (A 20th Century anthropologist): "Man is something happening all the time; he is a going concern, he makes his rules, revises his formulae and recasts his mould in the act of being and while going.  It is in man's nature that he does not stay put."

Step Four provided us with an inventory that served a definite purpose.  It exposed character defects we formerly refused to recognize - defects that made our lives unmanageable.  They (our founders) knew that new character defects would appear and that many of the old ones would present themselves in disguised form.  It is not unusual to find ourselves off the beam; the idea is to get back on again.

Get off the beam?  Where is the beam?  I don't have a beam.  You guys have a beam?  Did you go to the Beam Store and get one there?  I can't get back on the beam if I don't have a beam in the first place.

My overly simplified take on my own defects is this: many of them were lifted out quickly and completely; some of them took a lot more effort and energy to eradicate; and some of them are hanging in there like Grim Death, refusing to go and coming back again after they've left.  My intolerance for a live A.A. meeting that is obliterating medical protocol, for instance, a circumstance which is absolutely none of my business and over which I have absolutely no control is a perfect example.  In cases like this I have to remember that the process is for me to be"entirely ready" to have my defects removed.  There's no guarantee that my Higher Power is going to do so.  My Higher Power apparently has a plan for me that includes allowing some of my defects to hang on and fester a bit, reminding me always that I'm a work in progress, that dealing with my defects can help me grow and change.

Came To Believe . . .

 “Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted.  We can look the world in the eye.  We can be alone in perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator.  We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience.” Big Book P. 75.

There is the famous passage in the Book called The Promises; it's so loved that it's read in many meetings as a matter of course. Many of us believe that there are tons of "promises" in the literature. The above passage, which occurs as the alcoholic is completing the Step Five inventory-sharing process, is a great example. I wasn't so taken with the "nearness of our Creator" part - this seemed nebulous and indistinct - but losing my fears and feeling perfect peace and ease? I'm in. I don't think I had a moment of crappy, half-assed peace and ease in my life while I was active. I could blot out my fears but I was never able to put them into a healthy perspective, to use them to grow and change. I cowered or I obliterated.

Decide: To come to a resolution after mental consideration.

Act: To do something.

Early on I had a sponsor - no doubt frustrated with my bitching - say something along the lines of "why don't you go home and scrub down your kitchen walls? Just do something!" Good advice even today if the choice is between action and thinking.

"We ask for spiritual and physical strength to execute his will.  Restoration of our mental and spiritual health is in direct proportion to our recognized need for help and our willingness to work for recovery." Little Red Book P.P. 88-9.

As this is the second month of the year the A.A. Daily Reflections book is focusing on Step Two. Our discussion topic today centered around the eternal struggle between comfort and contrary action. Given the choice I always choose comfort. Fuck contrary action. If I need to take action to address something that I'm uncomfortable with that means I'm uncomfortable with something that I need to take action to correct. I hate growth through adversary. I'd like growth to come while I sleep and through no expenditure of effort on my part.

Work: Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.

Effort. Grrrrrrr.

Aphorism of the Day: I'm responsible for my second thought and for my first action.

Religion V Spirituality

Religion and spirituality are two allied concepts, yet each has a different focus: 

Religion is concerned with the Person of God; spirituality is 

concerned with what God does. 

Religion has an important historical dimension; spirituality is most concerned with the present moment. 

Religion often has a speculative quality; spirituality is entirely practical. 

Religion focuses on God's relationship with humankind; spirituality focuses on a person's relationship with God. 

Religion is concerned with God's relationship with the universe; spirituality is focused on the way a person sees his own place in the universe.

When the alcoholic turns to God, he meets an old adversary. The prayers of the alcoholic, long uttered in the despair of loneliness, are unanswered—at least in a form he is prepared to accept. The resentments he has about God, and most alcoholics have many, make it very difficult for him to encounter God, even if he were free of the alcoholic haze. Whatever notions he has about God from his childhood, from his upbringing, from his adolescence, they all need to be relinquished, because—like everything else about the alcoholic—they have become part of his disease.

(So I'm with SuperK at a remote desert state park to do some hiking. One of the most obvious ways that my Higher Power reveals himself to me is through spectacular displays of nature. There are other ways, too: music, art, human kindness, but nature is hard to ignore. This park is in the no-shit desert category. Before I moved to California I thought "desert" meant sand dunes and nothing else but have since learned that there are five distinct varieties of deserts. From National Geographic: Although the word “desert” may bring to mind a sea of shifting sand, dunes cover only about 10 percent of the world’s deserts.  Some deserts are mountainous.  Others are dry expanses of rock, sand, or salt flats. We were in a rocky desert with hills and mountains, much of it populated by various cacti and bushes that thrive with little water although there are also big areas with nothing but dirt, sand, and rock.  Some of the plants appear to be dead but as soon as they get a tenth of an inch of water Boom! Blooms and new green growth.  The thing that I most notice is the quiet.  It's so quiet that my ears start to ring, searching for some familiar background clatter.  All that can be heard is wind blowing and the squinch of boots on sand and rock.  It's as if God is tamping down all noise so you can hear him mumbling.

On day four - our last day - in the middle of nowhere several miles from the small town which is also in the middle of nowhere I experience a big explosion of crap floating around inside my eyeball.  I will subsequently learn this is a condition called a Posterior Vitreous Detachment.  It sounds really awful - and in some cases it can be a signal of something really awful - but it's pretty common in people my age who are also nearsighted.  Nonetheless, it was distressing.  

My technique when I'm distressed is to walk the possibilities through to a worst case scenario (in this case blindness in my right eye) and then walk them right back through more plausible scenarios, calculating the probabilities of each case and the conditions I'd have to live with.  I know, I know - I'm an anal-retentive technical control-freak  - but you should try it sometime.  It works better than you might think.  If you can get comfortable with the most awful outcome it can be surprisingly calming.

Once we finished the hike and made a longish drive over dirt roads back into the small, tiny town we were staying in it was time for "the courage to change the things I can" so I made some phone calls: first to the staff of my eye doctor 250 miles away who recommended that I find an ER to have the condition checked.  While I was doing this SuperK found a General Practitioner in town - the one doctor serving a big rural area - who said he didn't have the equipment to diagnose the situation and recommended - wait for it - that I find an ER to have the condition checked.  At this point I decided to be a little more forceful with my own eye clinic back home and asked for a call from the doctor himself.  I think I was pretty nice about it but I just wanted to have some reassurance from the expert that things were stable enough to wait until I got back home the following day - the thought of an hour drive and then more hours in an ER wasn't appetizing.  I was more than sympathetic with the various staff when I was doing this - it's hard to diagnose a medical condition over the phone which is why I was getting the "go to an ER" advice.  Even if the medical professional suspects the problem is not acute it's scary advising that if the wait could possibly lead to a more serious problem.  People used to do this to me all the time when I was working - describe an issue with a complicated piece of machinery over the phone and ask me to recommend a solution.  I could guess - pretty accurately in many cases - but I couldn't say for sure until I saw the equipment.  They didn't want to talk to a salesman - they wanted their equipment fixed.

After a distressing night - with all of the impending blindness and everything - we made it home in time to see my eye doc who gave me the Posterior Vitreous Detachment diagnosis.  The good news in my case is that it's pretty common and easily repaired if it gets worse - the bad news is that my detachment was not the best kind so the next 72 hours will show if a more robust medical response will be needed.  I'm looking for "worsening symptoms."  I hate it when people say things like that.  I'm always looking for things to get worse and I'm usually sure that they are.

Now . . . something about "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change."

The Lifeboat Effect

 One of the most important characteristics of A.A. for me can be called The Lifeboat Effect.  In fact, this phenomenon is described in so many words in The Big Book.  The idea is that when the ship is going down everyone gets in the lifeboat and that's that.  The captain's there, the staff is there, and the guests are there, rich or poor, important or not, smart or stupid, everyone's in the lifeboat and they damn well better get along.  

In my recovery the practical result of this is that often I'm mixing with people with whom I wouldn't ordinarily mix.  This can be extraordinarily irritating and this can be profoundly powerful.  Generally, as an active drunk, I didn't hang out with people who disagreed with me.  While this saved me a ton of irritation it also deprived me of wise counsel in those instances where the crowd I was hanging out with was way off base.

So I here I am - struggling with the politicization of Alcoholics Anonymous, at least to my way of thinking.  Not a good thing.  I better get over this.

Does It Need to Be Said?

 More musings on Tradition Ten with a little peak ahead into Tradition Eleven . . . 

One of our most debated topics as an organization concerns whether the literature should be updated from time to time to make it conform more closely to current mores and values.  The most obvious example that comes to mind personally is the fact that "he" or "him" is always used when referring to an unknown third person.  A.A. has so far resisted changing anything in the first 162 pages or in the 12&12, believing that because our literature has helped so many people that we may screw things up if we start tinkering with the formula.  I always thought using a more gender neutral word to refer to a general person would be a slam dunk and more in tune with the wishes of a lot of women today, until someone wondered how we would handle trans or bi individuals.  All of a sudden and just like that the tone of the discussion got a little sharper.  We argue for an hour about whether or not to use Kroger or Safeway coffee at the meeting and now we're going to rewrite The Big Book?

Sometimes when we're reading Tradition Eleven and the phrase ". . . we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films" the reader will add "and the Internet."  Seems pretty logical but will the wording ever be changed?  Dunno.  One of our members postulated that we all need to be careful with social media because it really is changing how we interact with each other as a society.  All of a sudden a Facebook friend will post something I really disagree with politically and all of a sudden I'm looking at him (I should probably say her) with a biased, jaundiced eye.  There are plenty of people in A.A. who hold personal views that offend me but in a meeting or post-meeting format we're able to put these aside.  And these are people who often teach me great lessons.

Willie called me yesterday about a sponsee who is on the opposite side of his political divide.   The problem is that he's vocal about his views and constantly brings them up.  Willie - long practiced in the art of minimizing controversy when it serves no good purpose - got fed up and reacted angrily along the lines of "I hate that politician and I don't want to talk about him anymore."  While that solved the immediate problem he is now disinclined to talk to his sponsee.  I think he behaved OK - the fault here is with the newer man (I can say "man" here because it really is a man) who feels he has the right to tell someone else what he believes - but the relationship is feeling some tension, and both of these guys may need something that the other guy has at some point.

I've mentioned that I believe the break away 7 AM group is making more of a political statement than anything, despite the protestations that "I just don't like Zoom meetings" or "It's too hard to get sober without meeting face to face."  These are reasonable statements but I've heard so much political posturing from some of these members that I don't really buy it at this point.  And there I am sipping from a poisoned A.A. well.  While this situation is obviously my problem I'd remind all of us that my actions - whether they're honorable, deplorable, or somewhere in between - can affect other people.  I need to remember that I can't simply say whatever I want whenever I want to if I want A.A. to stay strong.

Does it need to be said?

Does it need to be said by me?

Does it need to said by me right now?

Inventory

(Back to the Little Red Book . . . )

At this point it is advisable to face the fact that, notwithstanding our sincere effort to honestly inventory all of “the flaws in our makeup that caused our failure,” some will not be recorded.  Our mental and moral vision has too long been blinded by alcoholic reservation and rationalization.

(I'm not even sure I was blinded by anything half the time. I'm pretty sure I knew I wasn't behaving well but I either didn't give a shit or I decided the work that I would have had to put in to overcome the defect wasn't worth the pleasure I received when I indulged the defect. Restraint of tongue and pen or ripping some asshole a new asshole? Not a tough choice at the time. Not a tough choice today to be honest about it.)

Few of us realize that our own names head the list of those we have wronged and that by living this program we are first making amends to ourselves, to our outraged bodies, to our confused minds, and to our troubled spirits.  We make amends to ourselves, to the personalities we were before becoming alcoholic, by understanding our sickness, by illuminating our defects of character, by eliminating them from our lives, by intelligent physical care of our bodies, by restoration of our mental apparatus through sobriety, and by treatment of our spiritual illness through recourse to understand and practice of God’s Will. 

(This is an interesting topic. So much of The Program is geared to acknowledging how our poor behavior has impacted others that we can forget how badly we treated ourselves. This focus on others certainly isn't all bad - we definitely benefit when we quit worrying about ourselves and start worrying about others. It's always a good idea to consider God and our fellow man first. Still, we've wrecked ourselves pretty good. I know I feel a nice, innate sense of accomplishment when I eat well and get some exercise and sleep enough, all things I wasn't doing when I drank.)

It is not a difficult thing to list the people who suffered because we drank.  Our real problem is to arrive at a state of mind that concedes the damage we have done and embraces a sincere willingness to amend it.  We often are inclined to clutter up our list with petty wrongs long forgotten and of no great importance.  Amends of this sort would never end; they should be forgotten.

(I was definitely guilty of this somewhat self-indulgent self-flagellation. I'm a jerk but I'm not a total jerk.)

Tradition Ten

 Tradition Ten:  "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy."

We had a spirited discussion on this Tradition today.  There was a general consensus that alcoholics have an objectionable need to find objectionable qualities in other people so that we can be properly pissed off about something.  We're looking for objectionable qualities so that we can be disagreeable.  We do this a lot more readily than attempting to find comity.  I've always said that if you put me in a room with 19 people I like and 1 I do not I'll spend 80% of my mental attention focusing on the asshole (Ed. Note: Technically I'm the asshole but for the purposes of discussion . . . .).

There must be some evolutionary reason for what I see as a very human tendency to look for fault and devalue agreement.  I see this as a very human quality and not one unique to alcoholics . . . although we take it to an art form . . . like we do with everything, good or bad.  But with A.A., an organization that is saving my life, I have to be very wary about dipping into outside issues.  There are people with whom I disagree about every social, moral, and political issue imaginable who have also said and done things that helped me tremendously in my recovery and in my spiritual growth.  I have to make sure I don't let the outside issues crowd out the recovery issue.  I always bring up Kenner, my A.A. sponsor of 25 years.  This man was more important to me than my own blood father and this after a very contentious couple of years where we got into a heated argument every time we spoke on the phone.  I'm glad I didn't let his opinions on religion and politics get in the way of his experience in recovery or I would have missed out on what ended up being one the five most important relationships in my entire life.

I've also shared the story about flicking on the TV after a long business trip and seeing all the chaos and explosions marking the start of the first Gulf War.  I was fairly new in sobriety and very upset by the images.  It was dark and cold and my wife was out of town so there I was, in my dirty work clothes, tired, holding the TV remote looking at War.  I skipped dinner and took off for a favorite A.A. meeting where I was sure we'd hash the whole issue out.  Instead, we had an A.A. meeting.  I was flabbergasted.  It was one of the most grounding experiences I've ever had.

I also believe that the lessons I learn in pursuing peace and serenity in A.A. have helped me a lot in The Real World.  I can keep controversy out of my life in many cases if I so choose.  I don't have to go looking for an argument or a fight.  I can concentrate on areas of agreement, on what I see as favorable qualities, instead focusing on what I don't like

You love someone for who they are and not who you want them to be.

Bloody Noses and Bruised Egos

Unity:  Agreement; harmony; a single undivided thing, seen as complete in itself.

Individual:  A person considered alone, rather than as belonging to a group of people.

Some thoughts from the First Tradition which reads "Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on A.A. unity."  

(Referring to the individual) "The A.A. member has to conform to the principles of recovery.  His life actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles.  If he deviates too far, the penalty is sure and swift; he sickens and dies.  

(Referring to the group) Most individuals cannot recover unless there is a group.  Realization dawns that he is but a small part of a great whole.  He learns that the clamor of desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group.  It becomes plain that the group must survive or the individual will not."

When I left sincity I . . . well . . . left sincity.  For a time I really tried to stay in contact with all of my friends; often friends of many years standing.  What happened, of course, is that it didn't work out as smoothly as I had hoped.  I forgot that I was the one who had left the group.  The group was fine.  I was a tiny cog in the great machine and - while I was missed - I wasn't critical to the operation of the system.  I was important but not that important and certainly not as important as I thought I was.  

This, as you can imagine, pissed me the fuck off.  I was resentful that some people didn't make as great an effort to stay in touch with me as I spent to stay in touch with them.  This is perfectly logical - my life had changed completely and the change in their lives barely caused the needle on the Geiger counter to flicker.  All of this irritation distressed me.  These were my friends and I loved them dearly and the last thing I wanted was to plant, water, fertilize, and nurture these negative feelings.  The necessary sea change in attitude took a long time to evolve.

A buddy here in SoCal says this: "I need A.A. a lot more than A.A. needs me."  When an individual in The Program annoys me; when the behavior of a particular group annoys me (ahem, ahem, cough, cough, I'm looking at you Live 7 A.M. meeting) I do well to step back and try to balance my personal wants and needs with the those of a group or a district or an area or A.A. as a whole.  I find that I'm happier when I'm more concerned with all of us than I am with one of us.  I'm damned important and I need be true to myself but it's the organization that needs to thrive.

Like almost everyone I'm manuevering through a much altered world as we endure the pandemic.  Like almost everyone my initial reaction is to push back on changes that I don't like and complain about the changes that are affecting me in ways I don't want to be affected.  Me! Me! Me! in other words.  Like most good A.A.s I'm working my ass off trying to see the good, to be grateful, and to see that the bad is actually good even if I can't see how at the moment.

I had to laugh at this story percolating through our news media right now: there's a petition going around to censure a political official with the main bone of contention being anger at the distribution of the CoVid vaccine.  One particular political group is especially pissed about this.  Like 80% disapproval. This is the particular political group that is also very suspicious about the vaccine, so suspicious that many of them aren't going to take the vaccine.  Like 80% won't do it.  The disconnect is hilarious - I'm pissed I can't get the vaccine which I refuse to take.  This is bitching for the pure pleasure of bitching.  Most people think they are great drivers while also thinking that most other people are terrible drivers.  What's the old joke about a fictionalized ideal community: Everyone who lives there is above average?

Anvil:  A heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and shaped. 

Last quote from Traditions One and Four: "On anvils of experience, the structure of our Society was hammered out.  Children of chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser."  None of this came easily, that's for sure.  There were a lot of bloody noses and bruised egos before the Traditions came into play.

Looking Up Change Once Again

Change:  To become something different; to replace; to make something into something else.

I've looked up this definition many times and I'm always impressed with the beautiful simplicity of the meaning.  For a thing to become a new, different thing.  It can be applied to anything: a behavior or an attitude or a belief.  I believed this thing and now I believe something different - how in the world can you improve that sentiment?  I believed I had to drink or God was a joke or I couldn't do this or I had to do that and I found out - after I embraced some change - that a lot of it was bullshit.  I was wrong, mistaken, fooled, uninformed, so I replaced what I was and now I'm different.  Whether the new, different me is better is open to interpretation, of course.  The trick is to become something better but even that's not so important because sometimes a step backwards leads to a big jump forward.

 I need to remind myself that change doesn't have to be a constant.  It doesn't have to be relentless and pointless, change for the sake of change, restless movement away from something whenever I feel some momentary discomfort or boredom.  I don't want to overwhelm myself with change because I toss out some good stuff from time to time.  I'm not talking about chaotic change which would be an excellent name for a hard rock band.

The CoVid pandemic has forced a lot of change on everyone and a lot of the change has been inconvenient at best, destructive at worst.  People have sickened and died, jobs have been lost, bank accounts drained.  I get it that a lot of us want things to "go back to where they used to be,"  whatever that means, exactly.  I'd like for my gray hair to be black and my belly to be taut, too, but I've adapted.  I think that living in 7 different states and traveling all over the place has made me pretty adaptable to change and not everybody has had these experiences or possesses the means to make them happen.  I'm fortunate.   Not all of these changes worked out wonderfully, either.  Some of them were stressful or painful or blew up in my face, but they sure compelled me to adapt, to find the positive instead of focusing on the negative, which has made me very flexible.   When my tendency is to bitch and moan I can usually step back and work on my perspective.  Go with the flow.

As an extremist with a poor sense of the middle ground, a balance-denier, I tend to use words like never and always and forever.  This funny Program bounces me back and forth between One Day At A Time - staying in the moment - and The Long View - trying to get a feel for the Big Picture instead of focusing on my momentary discomfort or irritation.

Lies of Omission

 Our meeting leader this morning was a woman who had a couple of years sobriety before drinking again.  Luckily, it was a one day binge and she immediately told the group and started over.  Her topic was dishonesty - lying in the more common vernacular.  I share too much at this meeting but I can't hold my tongue when we're discussing lying.  This is a much beloved topic for me - I was a dedicated, committed, highly practiced, and innately skilled liar.  Trying to transform myself into one of those disgusting people who tell the truth is like telling LeBron James not to play basketball.  It was incomprehensible for a while.  I didn't see the point.  So my transition from from lying to . . . well, not lying . . . was long and slow, sluggish and labored.  It is, in fact, on-going.  I'm amazed at how often my brain suggests a little lie to get out of a tight spot.  I don't often succumb but the fact that the suggestions are so insistent shows me I have a lot of work still to do.

This woman is one of the kindest, gentlest souls in our local A.A. community so her share prodded some other women to talk about their relapses.  I loved the honesty.  One of the most difficult things I ever did was to admit to an on-going drug relapse six months into my alcohol sobriety.  I was so dishonest I took sobriety chips of 30 days and 3 months while I was smoking weed.  I wasn't smoking it everyday so my brain told me it wasn't that bad while adding - for good measure - the lie that the compulsion to drink was real while the weed-smoking was not compulsive at all.  This is the logic of a compulsive liar, by the way.

The oomph of the discussion centered around lies of omission, how this woman reached out to her sponsor immediately and followed up immediately on the suggestion to share the new sobriety date with her home group, immediately.  I used to believe that a lie was when you deliberately used false words or actions to deceive someone.  I was quite annoyed to find out that a lie is misleading someone whether or not I actually used lying words.  I thought I had a loophole but rigorous honesty centers around what the listener ends up believing and not whether some cleverly manipulated words were used to sidestep the truth and aid in the deception.  

Come to think of it that would be a good nickname for me: Loophole Seaweed.  Maybe LoopHole SeaWeed if I decide to start up a career as a rapper.

It made me ponder a recent spat with SuperK, a spat so small as to be almost inconsequential.  Sometimes these small relationship spats really aren't very clear cut - it's often not the case where one party behaves terribly and the other one bears no blame at all.  With this one I wasn't sure whether my small, glancing amends at the time was enough or whether I owed another, bigger one or whether I had done my part and I should leave the situation alone to give my wife time to work stuff out on her own.  

Men - the Fixers of the Universe.  Our motto is: "Don't tell me anything unless you want me to fix it for you."  We're not at all slowed down if we don't know how to fix it or if there's nothing to be fixed.

I was conflicted so I called Willie.  He had no helpful advice - he never does - but that's not the point.  I took something inside me and I shared it.  I showed it the light of day.  I didn't know if I was behaving honestly, semi-honestly, quasi-honestly, or dishonestly.  So I laid the facts on the table to see what someone else thought.  My time in The Program has given me many friends that kind of co-sponsor me as I co-sponsor them.  He regurgitated some barely digested pablum about intuitively knowing how to handle situations that used to baffle me and pausing when agitated and you get the point.

All is well . . . along as I stay honest.

Maximum Service

 “In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure.”

We have no knowledge of how or when the urge to drink will come.  We know that it will, however, and that we cannot wait until it is upon us.  We must prepare ourselves with faith and prayer for our hour of need. (Ed. Note: Faith and Prayer would be a terrible name for a hard rock band.)

(Reasonable advice to a newcomer is that situations that involve a kind of drinking that may be overly tempting should be avoided. There are some, of course, that can't. But if the choice is a situation or a drink the decision should be an easy one - the drink is going to do more damage than the situation. I love live music but I couldn't go to a heavy metal concert for many years - the connection between the event and drug/alcohol use was hardwired into my brain. I couldn't imagine staying clean if I went so I stayed away. The bad part is that I missed some kick-ass shows - the good thing is that I'm alive today. On the other hand I had an occasional obligation to attend business meetings that involved socializing with people who were drinking. The funny thing in these cases was that almost no one was drinking like I would have been drinking and the few that were could easily be avoided. Turns out my drinking was the exception, not the rule, and whatever damage I believed my career would suffer by not drinking was far, far outweighed by the damage I did by drinking. Funny stuff. Not at the time, but in retrospect.)

We cannot hate and make amends at the same time.

“We are trying to put our lives in order.   We do this through maximum service to God and the people about us.”