Psychos in Church

 I heard this story at a meeting today . . . 

Dude gets his third DUI after running over a pedestrian who was so grievously injured that he wasn't expected to survive.  The cop who arrested the dude said: "This is your third felony DUI - if that guy dies you're looking at 25 years to life."  This, in Alcoholics Anonymous, is known as An Attention Getter.  A court date is set.  Dude's lawyer calls and says he has some bad news - the runned-over guy was coming to testify at the sentencing.  Apparently this usually indicates that the offended party is looking for his pound of flesh.

The dude's sponsor accompanied him to the sentencing.  The runned-over guy shows up and sits down next to the sponsor.  When he's asked for his testimony he says this: "This dude isn't a criminal.  He's a alcoholic.  He's sick."  The judge sentences the dude to 30 days in jail, not prison.  Never drank again.

My contention has always been that most alcoholics don't respond well to being told what to do but that we are good at watching sullenly from the dark corners of our minds what other people do.  Talk is cheap.  Actions speak louder than words.  There are plenty of us in this world who talk a good game but don't back it up with good actions.  Like some pious church-goers in their Sunday best who behave badly most of the rest of the time - it doesn't matter if you're a deacon for an hour once a week but a psycho the rest of the time.

I Don't Know Shit

"Not until you have failed can you learn true humility.  Humility arises from a deep sense of gratitude to God for giving you the strength to rise above past failures.  The humble person is tolerant of others' failings, and does not have a critical attitude toward the foibles of others.  Humble people are hard on themselves and easy on others."

Ahhhh. . . . . fuck me.

"The A.A. members who sponsored me told me in the beginning that I would not only find a way to live without having a drink, but that I would find a way to live without wanting to drink.  A.A. taught me that willingness to believe was enough for a beginning.

From the story "Freedom From Bondage" from The Big Book.  I vaguely remember entering the phase where alcohol didn't appear to be under a neon spotlight - no matter where I looked I could always see that brightly lit drink or bottle sparkling in the periphery, like my retina was detaching or I had ingested LSD.  I wasn't ignoring the alcohol anymore - I just wasn't hyper-aware of its presence.  That was very freeing.  I could be in places where alcohol was served without being held captive by its presence.

Here's the writer's take on the insanity of alcoholic drinking: "Rationalization is giving a socially acceptable reason for socially unacceptable behavior, and socially unacceptable behavior is a form of insanity."  My take is "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

"If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free.  If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free.  Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free.  Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway.  Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want if for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love."

I was surprised to read this section of the book.  I even had it underlined in my personal copy but could not ever remember having read it before.

Two weeks!  That's a long time to pray for some miserable son of a bitch I'd like to throttle.

At the meeting this morning there were seven of us: Me, 30 days, 2 days (free from jail after crashing a car drunk), 4 months, 9 months, and 11 months, and a homeless woman who was too incoherent to add up her time.  I swear that the 4 month guy who led chose "I don't know shit" as the meeting topic.

Kept me sober.

More Black Sabbath Stories

The dude who lead the meeting this morning was celebrating his two year birthday (if you're from California) or two year anniversary (for us Midwesterners).  That's a long time to stay sober no matter where you're from.  He shared a story about leaving a company where he drove an over-the-road truck, explaining that he needed to stay connected in Alcoholics Anonymous and the time away from home was interfering with his recovery.  He recently rejoined this company - at their request - and was called into the owner's office on his second day back.  He walks in, a little wary, to find all of the staff gathered around a two year birthday cake.  After the off-key singing of Happy Birthday, several people came up and shared that they were also in A.A. or had a family member in A.A. or one that needed to be.  Our anonymity is important to us because not everyone gets what we're doing in here but it is amazing how many lives alcoholism and drug addiction touches  . . . .  and ruins.

On my 15 year anniversary I attended a Black Sabbath concert.  I was nervous about attending, almost cancelling at the last minute and eating the cost of the ticket.  When we showed up (I went with a friend in A.A.) it was immediately apparent that all was well.  What I saw was a ton of people my age who never managed to quit drinking/using and it was not a compelling sight.  I didn't think: "Wow, I wish I had kept drinking/using."  Base on what I saw these people weren't thriving in life.  I don't think a lot of them had early meetings the next day.  They didn't seem to be too worried about the consequences of a late night of debauchery in the middle of the week.  On the off-chance they did have a job to go to I don't think they their work required a sharp mind and a steady hand.

The concert was great, by the way.  The nice thing about not spending all of your money on alcohol and drugs and lawyers and car repairs is that you can buy really, really nice seats.  We had a blast although we couldn't find our car after it was over.  We were so flustered by all the drinking and smoking and drug-selling going on in the parking lot as we made our way to the venue we totally forgot where we parked.

I went to a meeting in Mexico City where I met the man who ran the cafeteria where I ate lunch every day when I was going to college in Philadelphia.

I met a woman at a meeting in Munich who lived a couple of miles from my childhood home in Cincinnati.

I went to a meeting in Huntsville, Alabama - after telling an elaborate series of lies to a coworker who accompanied me to this technical training so that I could sneak off with the car we had rented - and met the wife of the man who was running the training session.

I ran into a guy on the street in Stockholm that I had seen the previous day in an English speaking A.A. meeting.  I thought: "Here I am, 5000 miles away from home, in a foreign country, in a city I've never visited before, and I just spent some time talking to a guy I met yesterday."

I don't think we realize how many people are affected by these diseases, either directly or indirectly.  And I'm glad that some of the stigma attached to them has ebbed away over the years.  "I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous" doesn't shock people like it used to.

You're Looking At The Problem

 Generalized Anxiety Disorder (or GAD) is marked by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events for no obvious reason. People with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder tend to always expect disaster and can't stop worrying about health, money, family, work, or school.  It is especially true that the level of worry is out of all proportion to the events or circumstances.  It is especially insidious that often there is no obvious reason for the anxiety.

It's amazing to me to watch the expression on the faces of people when I try to explain this mild mental illness that plagues me.  It is a real thing.  I am not making it up.  It is an official medical/psychological condition.  It's hard to try make people understand how miserable it is to know that what you're thinking and feeling is illogical and illusory but still be powerless - or at least unable - to stop it.  I say:"It's like trying to reason with your two-year old about the plausibility of a monster being in the closet or to explain to your dog that she should just relax - it's only thunder."

I wonder what an anxiety-free life would feel like?  It must be incredible to not feel a nagging sense of dread about everything.  I can't imagine what this might feel like.

The woman who led the meeting this morning talked about sponsorship and what a weird concept it can sound like to a newcomer.  "What's my copay?" she wanted to ask the woman she asked.  "Where's the instruction sheet and my obligations list?"  I think my copay is too high.  That's why I'm not getting too many new sponsees.  When someone asks I usually say: "You can't afford me.  But there are some lower priced sponsors.  Let me introduce you around."  Relax.  Just pick someone.  You're not getting married.  You're not signing a legal contract.  Sponsors lose sponsees and sponsees drift away all the time, for all kinds of reasons.  I've never been offended in the least when a sponsee quits calling me.  I wish them the best of luck and I thank them for putting some faith in me because it's an honor to be asked.

What are you going to do about it?  That's a great response when someone is bitching about something.

A bumper sticker I saw recently: "You're Looking At The Problem."

Nature V Nurture

Some quotes from our Big Book study today:

"The mental twists that led up to my drinking began many years before I ever took a drink."

"A.A. taught me that it wasn't so much the events that happened to me as a child but rather the way I reacted to what happened to me as a child."

"As I entered my teenage years I became aware of emotions that I hadn't counted on such as restlessness, anxiety, fear, and insensitivity."

Nature: The innate characteristics of a thing; what something will tend by its own constitution, to be or do; distinct from what is intended or encouraged.

Nurture:  To encourage, especially the growth or development of something.

The story reinforced my belief that why the alcoholism began isn't as important as making sure I understand that the solution lies within.  There's a line somewhere in the literature that suggests that the reasons we had for drinking were manipulated to fit conditions that we found ourselves in.  We became alcoholics whether we're smothered with love or receive none at all.  The salient point is that we find alcohol tamps down these emotions that we hadn't counted on and didn't enjoy.

When we want to overanalyze things we get into the theoretical discussion as to whether we were born alcoholic or we became alcoholic as the result of our upbringing or circumstances.  I think both factors must be considered.  I know that when I describe how alcohol makes me feel that the effect is much different from what a non-alcoholic will report.  Similarly, I'm sure that some people get started because of the headwinds they encounter from their families or material circumstances.  We do point out, however, that alcoholism is no respecter of class or education and that these cannot be given as excuses as to why we can't stop drinking.

It's always amusing listening to people bitch about their parents.  Jesus, what a thankless job to try to raise a neurotic, childish, grandiose, overly sensitive human being.  Talk about a no win situation.

Delusions

I heard this in the meeting today from a man with a long, long sobriety: "I'm comfortable with my delusions."  I had to laugh out loud.  I get it - I'm comfortable with my delusions, too.  I believe his point was that he had gotten to a place where he was comfortable with who he was.  One of my oft repeated memes is that I had to go through everything I went through to become the person I am today - a person that I like.

I led the meeting and referenced this phrase from Step Two of the 12&12: "We had not even prayed rightly.  We had always said, 'Grant me my wishes' instead of 'Thy will be done.' The love of God and man we understood not at all.  Therefore we remained self-deceived, and incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity."  Last time I led I read from Appendix II which discusses the Spiritual Experience.  I almost always read out of one of our books - the stuff therein is better than anything I can come up with.  Obviously, this is something I'm struggling with and getting feedback from so many different people helps.  My atheist friend spoke first and said this was the second time in 10 days he was so uncomfortable that he almost left the meeting.  I laughed out loud again.  My work is done here, I told him after the meeting.

Clearly, I'm bombarding the group with my difficulty in turning my body over to the care of my Higher Power.  Clearly, what I'm doing is working my ass off trying to get the result I want vis-a-vis any physical discomfort I'm feeling.  Clearly, I'm in charge.  There is nothing worse than me in charge.  One of the members said that true acceptance occurs when I quit trying to mold the world to my own liking and get comfortable with things as they are.  My tendency is to concentrate on the "courage to change the things I can" instead of the"serenity to accept the things I cannot change."  I find myself trying more and more and more things to bend God's will to mine.  God has a pretty tough will.  I've yet to win one of these bending contests.  Someone in Indianapolis once told me: "Quit boxing with God - he has longer arms than you do."

One member shared this technique for finding out God's will: Just be a nice person.  Just be nice today.  You don't have to do anything amazing or earth shattering.  Be nice to everyone.  That's an easy definition of God's will.

I try to share what I'm feeling and going through with my brothers and sisters.  No matter what it is it's a lot healthier for me when it's out than when it's in.  My thinking - kept to myself - is a pile of shit.  I need to bounce it off other people.  When I had my first extended bout of anxiety after the death of my parents I kept everything inside until I was a high pressure cooker ready to detonate.  I finally told SuperK, who had no idea.  We are so good massaging our public face that we get good at fooling those people who are closest to us and most capable of helping us out.  Sometimes my wife doesn't want to tell me what she's thinking because she's afraid it'll sound harsh and judgmental and this - of course - is when I hear the things that are most helpful.

Seaweed: Grinder

Sometimes you just have to grind it out.  Sweat and grit.  This is a term used for football players: "He's a grinder."  It can be a good quality and it can be a bad quality.  I'm trying to quit coffee at the moment and it's hard.  I don't drink it because I need to wake up - I drink it because it gives me a charge, a buzz, I feel different after I drink it and for me different is the attraction.  I've needed to quit for the longest time.  I make plans and then I fuck around with the system to try to get around the fact that I need to quit - I mix in decaf or I try black tea or I wait until later in the day before I have my first cup.  Some of these provide a temporary solution but the Creep inevitably returns.  Part of the reason is when I greatly reduce my consumption of a psychoactive substance my tolerance goes down so the next time I use it an outsized reaction occurs, which I like, and the substance begins drawing me further down the rabbit hole.

There was a woman on the Zoom meeting today who was having trouble with her internet connection.  It was pretty trippy.  Her voice would slow way down, get real deep and low, as her computer buffered, and then the lagging audio would squirt out in a high, fast Chipmunk voice.  It was cool.  Very psychedelic.

"For we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic."  Step 10, P. 91.  

Whew.  The word "automatic" indicates that we have to do a lot of failing and a lot of practice until this happens.

Good phrase: I have lots of excuses and no reasons.

I'm not going to be comfortable in this life until I develop the willingness to admit when I'm wrong AND to forgive when the fault lies with another. 

Whew.  My friends were killing me with wisdom this morning.

God Talk

"We only fail when we trust too much on our own strength.  Do not feel bad about your weakness.  When you are weak, that is when God is strong to help you.  Trust God enough, and your weakness will not matter.  God is always strong to save."

In thinking of God, doubts and fears leave us.  Instead of those doubts and fears, there will flow into our hearts such faith and love as is beyond the power of material things to give, and such peace as the world can neither give or take away.  And with God, we can have the tolerance to live and let live."

I realize this is all fodder for those who think A.A. is too religious.  Too much God-Talk.  I get it.  But for those of us who have come to rely on a Higher Power there is much comfort to be found in the idea that our weakness can draw the greatest strength out of that Power, that an awareness of his presence can banish all of the negative thoughts and fears that stalk our serenity. 

"There is such a thing as being too loyal to any one group.  Do I feel put out when another group starts and some members of my group leave it and branch out into new territory?  Or do I send them out with my blessing?  Do I visit that new offshoot group and help it along?  Or do I sulk in my own tent?  A.A. grows by the starting of new groups all the time.  I must realize that it's a good thing for a large group to split up into smaller ones, even if it means that the large group - my own group - becomes smaller."

And I realize that this reminder will serve as fodder for anyone who thinks I've bitched too much about the trials and tribulations of the Keep It Complicated group sundering.  It's always good for me to remember that the more different groups we have the better chance we have of connecting with new people.  We don't want to have one big group.  We want to have thousands of them, spread all over, meeting at different times and places.

Nobody is Thinking About You!

From the Big Book: "As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.  We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy will be done.' "

From the 12&12:  " Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen."

When I keep my mouth shut I have a lot of trouble putting my foot in there.  I can't remember the last time I got into hot water for not talking.  I can remember thousands of times I got into trouble after I did some talking.  I've gotten in trouble three or four times already today and it's 8 in the morning.

Stress:  Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.

There you have it.  I'm merely an animal.  A big, fancy animal but an animal nonetheless.  Sex, food and water, status in my community - shit, gerbils have those characteristics.

Feelings aren't facts. This dovetails nicely with the idea that No One Is Thinking About You.  The leader shared an anecdote today where he felt he was treated rudely by a fellow A.A.  It was quite an amusing story - he had clearly blown something minor into something major.  He was still steamed about it two days later.  It was pointed out that the person who had given offense had not thought of him once in that two days.  Nobody is thinking about you!  They're not doing anything to you!  They're thinking about themselves.

I had a much beloved T-shirt once that said "Whatever . . . ."  I should have paid more attention to that T-shirt.  The writing should have been backwards so every time I looked in a mirror it clearly told me what to do.

When I was working I had a home office.  Every now and then I'd get frosted about something at which point I'd type a cleverly worded, justifiably outraged email to someone.  I'd walk next door and get SuperK so she could put her stamp of approval on it. We're a team, after all.  This was inevitably her response: "You're not saying that . . . or that.  You can say half of that.  And you're taking that out.  You can keep these two lines (the greeting and my signature)."  It was all very deflating.  It also keep me out of a lot of scalding hot water.

Seaweed Sucks!

 I was sitting by the pool yesterday when a woman from the community that I'm friends with responded to my greeting by saying that she was pretty upset.  I inquired as to the cause - she said that one of the women in the tight circle she's part of refuses to get vaccinated and this is alienating her from all the other women in this clique who are all in their 70s and 80s and worried that she's potentially exposing them to the virus.   She added she was healthy and wasn't going to do it.  The consequences for her is that she is slowly being iced out of the group, the icing being accelerated by her refusal to wear a mask when the group activities are inside (contravening both a county mask mandate and one that our community has put in place - it is a 55+ community after all).  My friend knows I have a science background so she asked: "What can I say to her?  What advice do you have?"

I could just look at her for a couple of beats and say: "Not really.  I don't think you can say anything to her.  I could explain the science but she wouldn't listen to a word of it.  Her mind is made up."

It's very frustrating.  I try not to think of people who behave in ways that I don't agree as idiots but it's getting harder and harder.  And then - because our Fellowship stresses rigorous self-examination - it brought to mind what people who tried to get me to stop drinking and using during my run must have thought when I offered my flimsy and irrational excuses.

There was an incident at college one year where a large group was in the Quad of the complex where I lived, milling about on a Saturday night, cheerfully drunk and high, after live music ended.  Someone grabbed a mike, hooked it up to a stereo, and blasted the famous Network line: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"  The crowd got worked-up in a very good natured way and decided to go to one of the other dorm complexes called Hill House.  We poured out of the Quad and made our way down the streets shouting: "Hill House sucks!  Hill House sucks!"  Again, it was all very light-hearted as we stormed into the lobby of Hill House and continued to chant.  Security was there and didn't let us past reception but it never occured to me that this could get out of hand, if only by accident.  This is one of the few times (maybe the only time) in my life where I got swept up into that kind of group mentality.  I wondered what I would have done if the group had tried to force their way past security and into the building?  It never crossed my mind that a fight could have started or an edgy security guard could have felt threatened and started whaling on kids with a nightstick.  

This is sort of how I see people who get caught up in the whirlwind of group thinking.  A lot of these people are smart enough to see the bullshit but they're too busy shouting: "Something sucks!  Something sucks!"  What is it anyway?  Willful ignorance?  Intellectual incuriosity?  Feeling alienated and being accepted into a clique?  What was I doing in the college crowd, behaving in a way that was foreign to me?

Seaweed sucks!  Seaweed sucks!

Ceased Fighting

"And we have ceased fighting anyone or anything - even alcohol.  For by this time sanity will have returned.  It is easy to let up on our spiritual program and rest on our laurels.  We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.  We are not cured of alcoholism.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."

I've always liked this section of the Big Book.  Sometimes these few paragraphs that we read after finishing our discussion of Step Nine are termed the Tenth Step Promises.  It's explained to us that alcohol has lost most of its power over us.  We don't avoid it and we aren't drawn to it.  We are placed in a position of neutrality.  

I spent most of my first two years of sobriety hyper-aware of alcohol.  I knew who was drinking it and how much they had consumed.  I couldn't go to bars to listen to music or to rock concerts and even sporting events were painful at times.  These were all excuses to drink.  I went to the baseball stadium to get drunk.  The fact that there was a diverting game simultaneously happening was so much background hiss.  If they didn't serve beer I would have stayed home and watched it on TV.

Fit: Suitable; proper; in good shape; physically well.

"This is how we react as long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

Tolerance:  An acceptance of or patience with the beliefs, opinions, or practices of others.

"Love and tolerance of others is our code."

Show Time

"There is always a temptation to speak beyond your own experience, in order to make a good impression.  This is never effective.  What does not come from the heart does not reach the heart.  What comes from personal experience and a sincere desire to help the other person reaches the heart."

I love the feeling of giving a good speech at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  You know what I'm talking about - people are nodding or laughing and I'm thinking: "Awwwwwright - Show Time!"  This is why I spend half of the meeting preparing my remarks.  I want to sound good and wise and insightful.  I don't care what you're sharing - I care about the impression I'm making.  This is bad enough but what makes it worse is that I got a schtick for most topics.  I got a little speech I can recite that sounds good but may not be what I'm currently feeling.  I love pitch meetings or those where the leader calls on people.  I can listen better when I'm not sure I'm going to get to talk.

I went to a jail meeting when I lived in Cincinnati.  This was a bad jail, a big time prison for men who had committed violent felonies and where going to be locked up for a long, long time.  I was scared shitless the first few times I went and scared almost shitless every other time so to compensate I tried to act like a bad-ass.  For the record - I am the least bad-ass person you'll ever meet.  My wife - who weighs like 100 pounds - can beat me up so I'm sure I fooled precisely no one who was incarcerated.  The lesson I learned was to be authentic.  It's not hard to get a feel for who I am.  I'm pretty transparent.

My part.  My part.  What is my part?  Your part is none of my business.  But I don't want to look at my part!  Your part is more delicious to dissect.

Isolate: To set apart or cut off from others.

Solitude:  The state of being by oneself.

Solitude versus isolation.  One is okay and one is not.  You can figure it out on your own.

Living sober means being uncomfortable sometimes.  Or: The good thing about being sober is that you get to feel things again but the bad thing about being sober is you have to feel things again.

I have a good complicator.

Regret nothing.

A.A. is a little play world where we can practice being adults.  I did not know what I was doing when I got sober so I practiced on some patient A.A.s.

Our Sole Purpose :)

I really like this idea that suffering makes us human.  Going through difficulties and transcending them, either by taking the action to change the situation or learning to accept the circumstances as they are, to the best of our ability, fits us to be of service to other people.  My first sponsor in Indianapolis - a kind, generous, spiritual man who helped me immensely - drove a big, white Cadillac.  I found myself discounting his advice on the sole basis of this car.  This was unreasonable but understandable - I couldn't always see how he could identify with my much more ordinary life.  I had other ne'er-do-wells to commiserate with and leaned on him as a man who had worked through The Steps and could give me advice on the best way to do that.  He wasn't my Go To guy when it came to thriving while enduring the trials and travails of a more hard-scrabble existence.

We all remember that sense of belonging that came when talking to someone who had lived through similar life circumstances.  Sometimes my sponsor seemed to be passing along book knowledge and not lived knowledge.  I find I need both.  When I'm talking with an A.A., sharing my problems or listening to theirs, I might suggest different courses of action and I might relate how I behaved in a similar situation and I often refer to specific passages in the books that seem applicable before throwing up my hands, metaphorically, and saying: "Wow, you're taking a lot of good action - you're really going to be able to help someone some day."

I say again: Your sole purpose in life may be to serve as a warning for others.